Hello friends,
Today is a strange old day. We are having, maybe not record-breaking cold temperatures here in northeast Ohio, but certainly dangerously cold temperatures. It is a Monday but I technically have the day off, although I plan to work all day anyway. I have 6 weeks left at my job and there will be an enormous amount of work to plow through up until the very last day. I prefer to not be working more than 8 hours a day when Chris arrives here on February 14th, so I am front-loading my efforts.
Today is also both Martin Luther King Jr. Day here in the States, and Inauguration Day. And the less I say about the sheer irony of that juxtaposition the better. For me and for you. You don’t come here for rants, and a rant honestly has never made anyone feel any better. Especially not me, who prefers calm waters and everyone getting along.
I am in a weird in-between space right now – facing my home stretch at work, but it’s an incredibly busy and demanding home stretch. Dreading saying goodbye to my dearest work friends, but so very eager to be freed from the otherwise absolute lunacy of that workplace. Missing Chris and knowing that this next move won’t bring us together forever, but loving that we will be one step closer. Wanting so much to be with my sisters, taking care of my mother, RIGHT NOW. Hating the cold and messiness of a particularly snowy January in Ohio, but realizing also that this may possibly be my last experience of snow and real cold, on a regular basis at least. I’m trying ever so hard to appreciate the beauty of this season, but it’s a challenge. The dark of winter affects me very strongly – I don’t know if I would go so far as to say I have seasonal affective disorder, but it certainly approaches that.
January specifically is a tough month for me, although it has gotten slightly better these last couple of years. My brother’s death from depression happened at the very end of January, 2009. My diagnosis of Stage 3 breast cancer came at the very end of January, 2014. Since that time January has always felt like waiting for the other shoe to drop. This week I will meet with my oncology nurse practitioner, Marla, who has become like family to me. It will be our last visit due to my upcoming move, and she will likely take me off of the anti-estrogen medication I’ve been on for the last 10 years. Which sort of terrifies me, to be honest, although my bones will thank me, and I do know that pretty much all cancer medications become ineffective over time. So, does my body really need this med? Probably not. Probably.
I went to my favorite local park yesterday – it is a 7-minute drive from my apartment and has become a refuge of sorts for me. It is an educational center and an arboretum, and they encourage feeding the birds. During these winter months I have ventured into the park several times a week with my baggie of seeds and peanuts. I place little piles of this food on trail markers and just watch the birds feed, taking photos of the ones waiting in the wings (Ha! Pun!) for their turn. The tufted titmice, chickadees, and nuthatches quickly grab a seed and leave to eat it elsewhere. Blue jays prefer peanuts and also don’t hang around long. The cardinals and woodpeckers, though, hog the feeding station until they’ve eaten their fill. Many people hand feed the birds, which I have only done once – I prefer to observe – but that one time was magical. I had to force myself to go out into the cold yesterday, but I’m so glad I did. Often self-care is doing the thing you don’t want to do because you know you will be better off for having done it.
I’m thinking of you today, friends. Take good care of yourselves. Seek the light. Eat the veggies. Be gentle yet firm with yourselves. We are our own parents now, most of us. We still need parenting because deep inside we’re all still children, aren’t we? Needing that hug, that guidance, that reassurance that everything will be ok.
Love,
Michelle xoxo