darkemeralds (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
darkemeralds) wrote2013-12-05 06:23 pm
darkemeralds) wrote2013-12-05 06:23 pm
Entry tags:
Happy birthday to me
Hi everyone. It's my birthday! Which, after 57 previous ones, isn't all that big a deal. But I took the day off work, had acupuncture, went out to breakfast-for-lunch, got my nails done, and came home in the very cold December evening to eat really rather a lot of French chocolate.
I was dreadfully sick last week--like bedridden-and-housebound for six days, miss-Thanksgiving-dinner level sick. It was mostly just the worst cold in the world, I think. At the nadir of it I ruptured an eardrum and had conjunctivitis in both eyes, so I was half-deaf and half-blind and it was generally awful. (Bragg's raw apple cider vinegar, diluted on a cotton pad and wiped along the lower lid, stings like hell but makes short work of the pinkeye, by the way.)
Long story short, I'm a million percent better now, though still a bit hearing impaired in the one ear. Back to breathing, sleeping, and riding my bike.
Birthday nails
Hardly any job left in my life now:
Retirement countdown
I was dreadfully sick last week--like bedridden-and-housebound for six days, miss-Thanksgiving-dinner level sick. It was mostly just the worst cold in the world, I think. At the nadir of it I ruptured an eardrum and had conjunctivitis in both eyes, so I was half-deaf and half-blind and it was generally awful. (Bragg's raw apple cider vinegar, diluted on a cotton pad and wiped along the lower lid, stings like hell but makes short work of the pinkeye, by the way.)
Long story short, I'm a million percent better now, though still a bit hearing impaired in the one ear. Back to breathing, sleeping, and riding my bike.
Birthday nails
Hardly any job left in my life now:
Retirement countdown
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I'm very happy for you that you'll shortly be leaving your work life behind (or at least, changing the form of your work life). What an exciting new chapter! We're not far off in age, but I'm nowhere near retirement. I confess to feeling somewhat envious.
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It would be so awesome for my ego if I could claim to have worked hard to earn this slot in life, but I can't. I've just been lucky. Discounting the baseline good fortune of middle-class white privilege, I was also lucky to have wandered into a pretty good job that was also relatively recession-proof. The last six years or so since the big crash have been when I was personally able to save the most money.
The backhanded compliment my family members pay me is, "God, I don't see how you stuck with that [stupid, boring, bureaucratic, uncreative] job all those years. I [exciting, restless, bold, nonconforming interesting person] couldn't have done it!"
As Xander famously said, "I like the quiet." But I really have been lucky.
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I hope they're not consciously passive aggressive. That would be irksome.
We have had some bad luck, certainly, and made some bad choices. We've also made expensive choices we wouldn't change if we could (having children, going back to school at fairly "advanced" ages). But, bed made. Lying in it.
Honestly, I believe good luck is also to be celebrated. You don't have to "deserve" what you have by dint of "hard work." You don't have to deserve happiness. At least, that's what I keep telling myself.
Yes. I am feeling brighter. I'm still not answering my phone or picking up voice mail messages (do other people do that? I feel really guilty about it), but I have been developing a really good self care morning routine. I'm doing better. Still not "there," but I'm starting to wonder if anyone ever gets "there."
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We have had some bad luck, certainly, and made some bad choices. We've also made expensive choices we wouldn't change if we could (having children, going back to school at fairly "advanced" ages). But, bed made. Lying in it.
Honestly, I believe good luck is also to be celebrated. You don't have to "deserve" what you have by dint of "hard work." You don't have to deserve happiness. At least, that's what I keep telling myself.
Yes. I am feeling brighter. I'm still not answering my phone or picking up voice mail messages (do other people do that? I feel really guilty about it), but I have been developing a really good self care morning routine. I'm doing better. Still not "there," but I'm starting to wonder if anyone ever gets "there."
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Personally, I'm so bad at phone that basically nobody calls me anymore. Well, between my unwillingness to make and take phone calls and the absolutely abysmal sound quality of cellular service, I should say, talking on the phone has practically gone extinct in my life. As to voicemail...pffft! I can see that you called, and it would be quicker if you'd leave me a text.
I'm pretty bad that way. My poor mother has had to adapt at a very late time of life.
I don't think there's any there there, frankly, when it comes to self-care and self-help. Sometimes I'm fully alive to the joys of the journey, and when I'm not--when I fall into dejection over how far I think I should have gotten by now, or over those last few backward steps--I have a hell of time reminding myself to "be here now" and just live in the moment.
I hope the Christmas season is treating you kindly.