coffeebarconfessions

Last weekend I ran into a former coworker at the mall. She relocated from San Francisco to the L.A. area and is working for our previous employer again. It was so wonderful to see a friendly face from my past! Memories of a time when I had a paycheck, friends, and somewhere to be haunted me for the next few days. I realized a large part of me missed my life as a department store makeup girl. I didn't miss working weekends and holidays, standing on my feet for eight hours, or dealing with an often difficult general public. But I do miss having a professional identity and a way to make friends. After not getting a paycheck, of course.  In the four years since I've worked I've become a recluse. For a long time after my two strokes my brain was fried. Darn near every public encounter left me either confused or in tears. I took a couple classes at the community college. That really helped pull me out of my shell. Engaging with the world, working on a deadline and cultivating rel...

On Friday I skipped the gym for absolutely no reason whatsoever, other than I didn't feel like going. It's the first time I've done that since I started working out six months ago. Naturally, I proceeded to flog myself over my own lack of discipline. Within an hour I became convinced I was going to gain all the weight back I worked so hard to lose. When Shingles pain started throbbing in my face a few hours later, I realized I was actually in a pretty bad flare. That made me remember I've been in a horrible suppressed immune system flare for months now. In fact, I've pretty much been rolling from one flare to another with a mere couple days in between. My weakened state easily overexerts when I'm exercising, and I've taken to injuring some random tendon or ligament or another every time I workout. No wonder I didn't want to go to the gym! Moving to California knocked the management of my Fibro back to pre-juicing days. A place in time where I couldn'...

Hindsight is so golden. I'm sitting here desperately trying to regain the quality of life I worked so hard to achieve in Arizona. It's not working. I'm back to falling asleep after 2 AM and getting up at 11, keep injuring myself at the gym, and am so damn bitchy I'd do anything to get away from me! My discipline is sorely lacking and anger is back to defining the way I spend my days. Sigh. I've already danced this tango, and almost didn't survive it once! It was so much work, but I actually got to a place of ownership in my life, and felt like I had a modicum of control over my circumstances. And then I had to go and move back to California. Despite the raging heatwave scorching the Southland, and my broken air conditioner, I don't regret the choice to relocate. I just don't know why everything had to go so seriously wrong for months on end. When I start recanting the litany of ills we've endured; movers not showing up, car accidents, broken applianc...

My interpersonal relationships have been struggling tremendously since I moved back to my hometown. For two and a half months I've been vacillating between fulfilling expectations and stewing in resentment. The more expectations I meet, the more demands seem to come my way. I knew full well I couldn't keep going at that pace, but didn't know how to relieve myself of the normal, everyday, healthy-human burden of reciprocal relationships. Ahhhh, this is why I don't have friends. I'm not capable of reciprocal relationships! I barely have enough to take care of myself and my husband. Being there for other people isn't even in my lexicon.  I suppose I should sit everyone down and deliver a dissertation on how my life is different than theirs. Explain that while they are merrily pursuing that inalienable American right called The Pursuit of Happiness, I'm barely hanging on to mere survival. It seems more like seeking approval, though. Laying out my trials and trib...

August 2014 I got sick in 2005, when I was in the best shape of my life. The previous Thanksgiving I suffered from a near-fatal pancreas attack. My inner party-girl took a backseat as I started exercising and learning about nutrition. It was a short-lived effort. Over the course of the next six years medications, inactivity, pain, fatigue, panic and anguish took a terrible tole on my physical appearance. But it was nothing compared to what I felt like on the inside. Now I know the inner workings of health are written all over a person's exterior. But back then I was quickly descending into a prison I couldn't escape, the endless nightmare of constant and pervasive sickness. My doctors called it Viral Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia. I called it sheer, unadulterated hell. March 2011 In 2011 I was 34 years-old, and could hardly hobble down a flight of stairs. I was in so much pain gravity felt like it was crushing my organs. I struggled around with limbs so heavy, it fe...