The swimmer was out just a little bit from the beach – halfway from here to the horizon.
Everyday, the swimmer ventured to this same spot – far enough to be a challenge, but not so far to be in danger.
The swimmer taught themselves how to swim. No one had ever shown them – the swimmer had to observe. Practice. Learn the hard way.
The swimmer started in the shallow water, alone, while all those around them played, running in or out at will. The swimmer had a goal.
Occasionally the swimmer would look longingly at those around them, laughing, grouping, eating, playing. The swimmer knew they had to learn to survive,though…so they went out a little deeper.
No one paid attention to the swimmer – not really. They might wave. Nod a head. Say “how are you”, while their head was already turning away.
The swimmer moved further into the deep. It was inevitable.
Eventually, the beachgoers might glance up from their frolic and watch the fumbling strokes of the swimmer. They would shake their head – make comments on how poor a swimmer they were.
No one came out to show the swimmer how to correctly swim.
On rough days, the beachgoers were no where to be seen. The walkers would see the swimmer in that same spot, and shake their head. “Fool! Don’t they know how dangerous it is?”
No one yelled to the swimmer to come in.
No one warned the swimmer of the potential danger.
No one went to save them.
The swimmer kept trying. Kept going out to that spot. Kept swimming.
One day, the swimmer was not on that spot midway to the horizon.
I am home between travel nursing shifts, so I treated myself to a pedicure.
I settled into the massage chair, and emptied my mind if the stresses of travel, Covid, weather…etc.
I spent some time watching the nature scenes in the screen on the wall across from my chair.
The scenes were seasonal, rotating from spring, summer, autumn, and winter.
Over the course of less than half an hour, a year’s worth of seasons flashed by.
I glanced to my right. A little girl had come in with her grandmother, and was getting her nails painted. She was probably 5 or 6, flipping her ponytail around exuberantly. Her shirt had a unicorn, in contrast to her camouflage leggings. I smiled as she prattled on about anything that crossed her mind. She reminded me that I, too, was once a little girl who would talk constantly- to anyone, about anything.
To my left, a woman in her 80’s. She, like me, was getting a pedicure. Her legs were pale, and spider webs of purple veins traced near the surface, where age spots dotted her calves. Her skin was paper thin, and her toe began to bleed as they clipped her nail. “I take blood thinners”, she explained.
I looked down into my lap at my own hands…fingers still long and slender as they were when I was younger. Now, though, the skin on the back of my hands is getting the tell-tale pattern of fine lines that increase as I age, no matter how much hand lotion I slather on regularly.
My hair, long and well kept, no longer has the youthful fullness and rich natural color of little miss camo unicorn.
I’m sitting between the extremes, watching the seasons flash by, and for a minute, vertigo overtakes me, causing me to close my eyes to steady myself.
Time relentlessly moves forward.
With a sigh, I close my eyes and relax in the massage chair.
I have friends. A very small circle, and most of them live in other states, far away from me. If I ever need anything, they are just a phone call away.
I’m alone most of the time, as I’ve written about in a previous blog. Many things factor into this, but one of the reasons is betrayal.
It’s very difficult to think someone cares about you, only to find out they have been stabbing you in the back.
Today on my Time Hop, I reviewed some pictures from several years ago. The pictures show me happy, smiling, enjoying myself. At the time, I was.
Now, as I look at the pictures, it causes me pain. While was participating in those fun adventures with so-called friends, the majority of them would soon be talking about me in official documents, saying horrible things.
The most painful regarded a miscarriage I had just experienced, a very traumatic physical and emotional ordeal.
These women, who should have had sympathy for their alleged friend and fellow female, instead insinuated or outright declared that I had not had a loss – that I was lying about it.
It added insult to deep psychological injury.
Everyone heals in different ways. For me, getting up and moving forward, running as exercise with tears running down my face, was one way I dealt with the pain.
Instead of comfort, I was given skepticism and accusations.
I try to take people at face value. Unfortunately, sometimes that leads to genuine, long lasting pain.
This Time Hop is one that has caused me fresh pain. My smiling face belies the betrayal that was to come.
Two years ago, a similar insult came from a family member. I overheard a phone call that the caller did not know was on speaker. As they cut me to shreds to their family member, I stood in the kitchen, my heart dropping. I thought this person truly cared about me. For several minutes I was hearing things that I couldn’t believe were being said, in a tone of sheer contempt.
While I know now that all the alleged care for me was probably an act, it doesn’t make it feel better to know it.
The truth always comes out, though….and taints all the memories that came before the revelation.
I don’t know how he came to be in possession of the wedding ring set he gave his ex wife.
The divorce gave her the entire contents of the house except for the kids rooms, and a sigh of relief for my husband after years of turmoil.
Considering the circumstances that led to the demise of that marriage, it was fitting that she hand him back the rings he had given her in good faith.
What to do with them, though?
They had a daughter. I certainly didn’t want that ring set in my house, so I suggested he repurpose it – make it into a pendant. The one good thing in his eyes that came out of those long years was their children.
I suggested he give it to his daughter for her high school graduation gift. What brought him pain could bring her happiness.
The plan was made – he followed my advice, and made the wedding set into a pendant with a chain. He presented it to his daughter, along with the story behind it.
She cried. She was touched.
It didn’t last long – the necklace, that is. Shortly after going to college, in a story which is blurry around the edges, the necklace was lost.
Cue dramatic music as she ran through the rain in the early morning hours on campus, looking for the lost, beloved necklace that had slipped from her grasp.
It was never to be found again.
Everything happens for a reason.
It was the final loss after years of catastrophic losses, encapsulated in a piece of jewelry.
When I started working as a labor and delivery nurse, the waiting room was where the families awaited news on new life.
Usually, it was the husband and wife in the room, along with the RN, and once the baby or babies were born, the excited father would run to the waiting room and tell the new grandparents or aunts and uncles, and other extended family, about the newest member of the family.
The waiting room was filled with flowers and balloons for the new parents, and a great expectation filled the air. The TV in the wall was muffled as the families talked excitedly, in a gleeful conspiracy of impending joy. Bright light poured in from windows that faced open spaces. It was a cheerful place, for the most part.
The surgical wards and ICU’s also had waiting rooms, but these were different spaces.
The family members there sat in tense silence, or they would speak in hushed tones, glancing over their shoulders or towards closed doors, waiting for them to open, and a doctor to bring them news of their loved ones.
Coffee flowed freely, and magazines were strewn about haphazardly, picked up and glanced through, to be tossed down again. There were usually no windows here – this was the heart of the hospital, where the business of medicine was happening, night and day.
When a physician came through the doors from the surgical suites, every conversation stopped, and every eye cut over toward the door.
The surgeon would search for the waiting family, and he would approach as they would huddle in a quiet conspiracy of privacy. Everyone held their breath.
Sometimes, the surgeon smiled, and the shoulders of everyone in the waiting room relaxed as a unified exhale echoed through the room. Tears of joy were spilled, hugs given, intermittent laughter from relief was heard. The rest of the families smiled, hoping that their news, too, would be good.
Other times, the surgeon entered the dim room with a stoic face, their shoulders set. The families gathered around the surgeon slowly, cautiously, at the same time not wanting to know…and needing to know.
This news came with outbursts of shock, quiet crying, or wails of despair. The surgeon would try and calm the family, who were already comforting each other. The other families in the room would look away, ashamed to be inadvertently present during such an intimate moment. Those who prayed, did so. No eye contact was made with these families, as if in fear that the bad outcome would rub off on their loved one, too.
Last year, waiting rooms stood empty.
Families that heard of a loved ones trauma raced to emergency rooms, only to be turned away.
They gathered off in the distance on hospital grounds, or huddled in cars in the parking lot. Often, they went to their separate homes, knowing their wait may take hours.
The worst news ever was given over a phone call, or a video chat. Loved ones never got to say goodbye.
Even the waiting rooms in the delivery wards stood empty. Families waited at home, while their daughters and sisters labored alone, or eventually with a partner. No newborn met a family member until they had gotten to their own home.
The waiting room was a safe place, a cushion between life changing experiences, whether good or bad.
Christmas is over, everything is packed away, and up into the attic it goes.
While we were there, my husband decided to start going through the boxes and containers, with the goal of getting rid of things we no longer used.
I’m fully in support of this – we have been minimizing around the house for at least a year.
Now that we have been empty nesters for several years, we’ve undertaken transforming the family house into the grandparents home – a place where the kids and our grandchildren can visit. Inside and out, this is our goal as we purge the house of clutter, and redecorate the kids former rooms into guest rooms.
Exploring the depths of the attic is like opening a Pandora’s box – you don’t know where it will lead you.
Tonight, my husband summoned me to help him go though some large plastic tubs.
Three were filled with the decorations I’ve used over the past decade for a breast cancer luncheon a close friend organized annually.
This dear friend passed away from the cruel curse of ALS a year ago yesterday.
Going through these tubs took me back to weekends spent making the decorations, laughing with friends. It reminded me of lunches and teas spent trying to figure out what next years theme would be – and planning how to make it work.
For ten years, every fall we had a women’s luncheon. We did all the planning, decorating, organizing, fundraising. We raised tens of thousands of dollars for breast cancer research.
Peering into the tubs filled with pink decor, hand made boxing gloves, feather boas, centerpieces…it is literally the end of an era.
What I can donate to charity, I will. The rest goes away, never to re-emerge. A heaviness fell upon me.
We did a lot of good, and this will be part of my dear friends legacy.
I have hundreds of digital pics that remind me of the fun and memorable times.
The great memories will bring me smiles for years to come.
I was the middle child of a middle child. We were both the only girls in our families.
I grew up freckled, bespectacled, and fang toothed. Oh, and I had stick straight, strawberry blonde hair.
Based on my memories of these years, I told my own children during their awkward years that it’s a good thing not to peak in high school. Or earlier!!
In high school I was 5’7” and felt like a giant. I was a whopping 120 pounds.
The early goon years deeply affected me. I skulked down the halls of my high school, feeling awkward and ugly.
I was neither.
When I met my first love, I was drawn to his amazing good looks…and felt I’d never have a chance with him because I was such a homely girl.
Now, looking back, I can see that at 16 I was quite lovely. I had clear skin, and bright green eyes. I had perfect teeth once the braces came off, and I was slender, with the natural grace that came from a lifetime of dancing. Looking at the pictures now, I see that I was in fact a very pretty girl.
I’d never been told that then, and I never would have believed it if I had been.
This total lack of self esteem wrought the usual havoc in the life of a teenaged girl…or young woman.
The constant self doubt. The clamoring for male attention. The hunched shoulders as one tries to disappear in crowds.
That gorgeous young man and I were together three years before I broke it off after a fractious and threatening fight.
By then, I had his baby boy.
Two years later, the young Adonis was killed in a car accident – and now I was a single mom, with a hard work ethic, and no self esteem…and a broken heart.
Eventually my relationship with God pulled me off of the treadmill of abusive men that followed. I learned to love the person God made me to be – and it had nothing at all to do with my looks.
I am comfortable in my skin, and I spend the majority of my time improving my character and my health. Although I can frankly say I’m a very attractive woman, I spend most days in ponytails and sweats, bent over a computer as I write or blog.
My focus has been on healing that young girl, so that I can teach other women what’s important. It’s not about looks. Or sex. Or loving your body. All these things change and morph…and leave.
Character stays.
I look back at the pretty girl in her prom dress, and I know that her humiliation made her into the God seeking servant she is now.
I was the poster girl for middle aged, mildly overweight, sedentary, and not giving much thought to my health Americans.
Immediately, I determined to walk 5k a day, and eat better. And so I did.
Six years later and I was 30lbs lighter, had run 22 half marathons, and countless other races. I read nutrition labels, And I ate better.
Then 2017 hit. Along with two new diagnoses – asthma, and a correct diagnosis of type 1 diabetes.
Boom.
That combo threw me for a loop.
It’s hard to run when your blood sugar is tanking and you can’t breathe.
I tried to do a modified diabetic diet – I don’t follow ADA recommendations because, frankly, I don’t eat that much, or that many carbs. My goal was less insulin, better health.
I took 18 months off from work to make my health a priority.
And I did.
Covid be damned, I returned to working as an RN this summer.
I had been training slowly and surely to get back up to speed. I began a whole food, plant based, no oil diet with great results to my blood sugars, and much improvement to the inflammatory pain that had plagued me most of my life.
With the advent of constant mask wearing, though, my asthma roared back – the inhalers I was able to stop in April were resumed.
Hurricanes. Burning debris. Worsening breathing. The snowball of declining respiratory function continued.
Today was supposed to be my first real, in person half marathon.
At work yesterday, I tried to talk myself into running it. Even as I struggled to breathe.
I’m frustrated.
I didn’t run. I went down to the starting line to get my swag as the sun came up today, and it broke me a little to see the finish line banner rise up, to watch the cones being set up on the course, and to know I was physically unable to run.
I came home.
Determined.
There’s another half marathon in January. Tomorrow, I am starting a new training plan.
I will not quit.
If I had to narrow myself down to a one word description, it would be this – persistent.
I will not quit. I will not give in. I will always try to be the person I am capable of being. Spiritually, emotionally, physically, relationally.
0515 comes early. I’ll be up eating a healthy vegan breakfast while I do my devotions.
(DISCLAIMER: do not make any changes to your medical treatments or diet without consulting your health care provider! This is my story, for general informational purposes. )
I’ve been doing a lot of self improvement lately.
First and foremost is my inductive Bible study – this is the only area of my life that is exempt from the topic of the blog.
My major transformations have been in the area of my health – both mental and physical.
I have been purging the excess in my home. I am trying to downsize – my house is large, and we will be living here for a while. I am throwing out anything that is unused, expired, etc. I want the minimal of “stuff” inside the house, so it can be a place of peace, calm, and contentment.
This is difficult for me when I am in a depressive fugue. I don’t want to move. I don’t want to clean. As the funk continues in my mind, my immediate surroundings become more cluttered. Which leads to anxiety and depression. Which leads to paralysis. The cycle continues, ad infinitum.
I would love to go the easy route and hire someone to come in and clean this house, but I want a deep clean that is maintainable by me. I am making small, daily attainable goals, and as I successfully reach them, I feel a sense of accomplishment, which in turn helps me feel better emotionally.
The solution is hard to start, but it is helping me feel better and better.
As I cleaned the bathroom today, I threw out all expired medications in linen closet. This was revelatory, as I threw out bottle after bottle of anti-inflammatory medications and potions for my chronic back and arthritis pain.
Contrary to what I feel like, moving and exercising is helping me feel much better. I have had back pain so debilitating, I had to use a cane to get out of bed and up and down from furniture. I had the steroid shots, the radio frequency ablation, and every pill that declared itself a muscle relaxer. I also have osteoarthritis, and fibromyalgia symptoms for decades.
I had a decades long battle on and off with heel spurs and plantar fasciitis. Contrary to current and lucrative treatment protocols, I didn’t get the shots. Buy the boot. Get the surgery.
Instead, I walked barefoot inside, and used minimalist shoes outdoors, with the goal of retraining my gait. My chronic heel striking had caused the issues, so I retrained myself to walk as nature intended me. The wear pattern on the running shoes my local running store fitted me in to correct the final deviation, pronation, tells the story of how I’ve moved to a better gait. So does the lack of heel and foot pain, as well as my better posture, head to toe.
Since I started my health journey and have become a regular exerciser, I don’t need any of those medications or treatments. I don’t have nearly as much nerve pain, and my range of motion is normal.
I still have stiffness when I get up, but I attribute that to my age.
Yoga three times a week, regular walking and running, and core strengthening exercises – these are the ways I have obtained tangible results. What I felt like felt like not moving. I did not feel like exercising- it was not easy at first. It’s contrary to what seems logical – you hurt, you stay still. This seems logical, but contrary to that, it’s the moving that got me better.
My dietary changes have been the most radical. Over the course of my shifting diagnosis from type 2 (wrong) to type 1 diabetes, I’ve gone from low carb, to keto, to paleo, and finally – since June 1 – a whole food, plant based diet.
Being insulin dependent, it doesn’t make sense to me to eat hundreds of carbs a day. Eating a whole food, plant based, no oil diet has been nothing less than transformative. (“Mastering Diabetes” is my reference book).
Instead of using more insulin, I’m using 50% less. Instead of the blood sugar roller coaster, my blood sugar is much more stable.
Due to the superfoods and natural anti-inflammatory foods and herbs I am now regularly consuming, my systemic pain is a mere fraction of what it used to be. My chronic headaches have disappeared. My debilitating exhaustion has been held at bay for the vast majority of the time.
I work in medicine, and I have seen much good come out of modern medicine – I’m grateful for it.
For me, though, the move away from medicine and a move toward healthy, whole food and seeing exercise as a treatment instead of a punishment has been a journey that has taken me to a healthier state of being – both physically and emotionally.
I may have insulin dependent diabetes, but it doesn’t have me.
I fully intend on living as healthy as I can – regardless of how contrary the “treatments” seem to lead me down a path to true and sustained health.
WriteRN Ramblings 
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