Monthly Archives: December 2022

And So This is Christmas

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I will have a full house this year, to celebrate another milestone birthday. And I’m grateful for that. I truly am. I wonder how it is I got to be this old. I still feel twenty! But I have survived a year since the slipped disc diagnosis. Slight, I keep reminding myself, as if that alleviates things. But, hey, the pain is more controllable. For that I am grateful.

I tell myself how lucky I am to have illnesses that hurt worst in the morning. I have never been, and will never be, a morning person, so how apropos is that? I can linger in bed, read, write, play on my iPad. My responsibilities have lessened with age. One perk, I suppose. Or maybe, I have downsized them by instinct. Self-preservation.

Whatever it is, I give thanks to have all my kids and grandkids with me this year in what may be the very last Christmas spent in this house. I may have to change my header from palm trees to mountains. Palm trees or the sight of palm trees has always been soothing to me. They represent home, home in south Texas that is, but they have also been representative of home here in south Florida for over thirty years, though I’ve never felt of this place. Have just been passing through for three decades!

I look forward to making plans for next year. I am making mental lists of what goes with me, what gets sold, what gets given away. Something else to think about, occupy my mind. But for now, I will enjoy my family and give eternal thanks for all that I have been given in this life.

All.

I wish everyone the merriest Christmas, happiest holidays, and the very best 2023!

I’ll Take That, Life

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Education has always been a high priority for me. I don’t think I’ve ever stopped going to “school,” stopped taking classes, stopped learning. Stopped wanting to learn.

My environment growing up did not cultivate that in me. Nor in my siblings. I wondered what was wrong with me, at times. To always have my head stuck in a book, when no one else in my family picked up a book willingly.

I picked up book after book, even at risk to my well-being (more on that someday). But I persevered, and picked up a lot of books in nursing school, and afterwards. And although I did not achieve all that I wanted to academically, kids, job, life, etc., I’ve had the unparalleled joy of watching my daughters reach higher than I did.

I’ll take that, Life, I’ll take that.

My daughter, graduating with a master’s degree in English Literature a few days ago.

Contortions

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I do these match-three games in bed on my iPad in the mornings. I usually lose so my five lives end quickly, but I’ve downloaded three of them, so there! I do them while I run through my exercises and stretches. A slipped disc has joined the party, slight they say, but boy, does it make itself felt sometimes.

So, I tap on the screen looking for things that look like each other while doing my knee-to-chest contortions, and double and single leg lifts. Letting my brain mull over the next chapter I’m working on. I like to write and revise in my head, which I later transcribe onto the screen.

I typically zone out while the ads come on, but this game promo caught my eye. I wasn’t sure I’d read it right, so I paid attention when it came on again. It said: I never knew anxiety till I played this game.

Whaaaa???

Is that reverse psychology or something? Isn’t the object of the game to relax and enjoy it? Are they playing with our minds or do they just think we’re dumb? Or maybe, maybe they just need an editor, in which case I suggest: I never knew (the end of) anxiety till I played this game.

Enjoy some John Lennon, with a touch of French. (Sorry England, Go France!)