old dog with new tricks

performance art at its best

interpretive dance.

When your mother in law is 88, you see some interesting things on facebook.  For Valentine's people were posting their couple pictures with the valentine's banners.  My mother in law, not with someone (she's outlived two husbands), also does this - only she posts pictures of couples she knows, valentine's banners, and goes through about 4 profiles in an hour.  One stuck, a photo of a couple in a golf cart that I do not know.  There's nothing wrong with this, of course.  Just a strange interpretation of what others are doing.

Isn't that what we all do?

I was wearing my snowmobile boots the other day, with my winter coat and toque as I stepped into a market for a few things.  I assumed I looked like this, and we all know I did not.  As I caught my reflection in a store window, I was disappointed that my assumption was not the reality.  Such is life.

Having said that, the possibility thinking is going well.

regret, tastes bitter
but rolls around on my tongue
sweetened by the truth.


Three weeks since the dog died.  Since Bob's been off work.  Since we broke down and re-assembled things here.  Everything has changed - nothing has changed.

I'm sleeping better.  Without PSWs coming at 6 a.m. every morning, and without my very needy dog missing me by 5:45 a.m., I'm sleeping.  I'm up at 5 a.m. on the mornings I drive into the office, but they are 2 or 3 a week and the rest of the time I'm sleeping until my body feels rested and without the aid of an alarm.  This has taken away my extreme exhaustion, lifting the fog I was under, and making all the difference.  I'm meeting my goal of 7 hours of sleep per night about half the time now, instead of almost never, or only when I travel.

I'm more patient.  Since doing some counselling and the work they prescribe - writing letters, breathing, examining my responses to stimuli and triggers - I'm finding I have more patience for Bob.  I understand what he's going through, and why.  I empathize with how challenging this is, instead of being angry about how it's affecting me.  I set boundaries and don't move them - but I'm patient when things happen.

I feel more loved.  My husband is trying.  He's reading, he's communicating, and he's listening to me.  He knows that the behaviour we've seen through December and January cannot continue, and he's also doing the work to get mentally and physically healthy again.  Am I worried?  yes.  I dream of bombs and no one to help me get them out of the house and no one willing to step in - and it's probably my brain working out how fragile this life is - but I'm also confident we're doing everything we can to make this work.

I'm exercising and eating better.  My dietician is happy with my progress.  We talk weekly, as part of my self care.  I'm adding interval training into my walks and jogs, I've moved my exercising from "fat burning" to "cardio" and I feel better.  I'm training for a 5K in May.  I'm enjoying food - I thought my dietician would cause me to become weird about food again but she's encouraging me to enjoy, try new things, and make small tweaks.

cold, winter cat tails
a reminder that change comes
always with a price



These days, our lives are full of doctor's appointments and stretching.  The stretching, both literal and figurative.

We were at a counselling appointment last night, and we were talking about "possibility thinking".  Mostly for Bob, but there's absolutely things I can use.  The idea that you might say, "i'm not good at cooking" or something and you can rearrange that with a Yet, or until now.

So what are my pervasive negative thoughts? 

I have always been overweight.  Up until now?

I can't stop swearing - up until now?

So these are my two possibility thoughts.  My motivators.  I will say, "until now, I've always been overweight" and "until now, i had a problem with potty mouth".. the theory being that if you reframe and keep thinking that way, that "the body acts" - either through actions you initate or it does.

We'll start here.