wrong kind of doughnut

[mrissa]

Tomorrow is One Year Closer to Balance. One year anniversary of the first PT consult.

You guys, I'm trying to do well with this. I'm trying to be positive and make it a fun thing with other people and not wallow.

It is hard. It is really, really hard. There are things we aren't doing that we might do if this was permanent, but it's not permanent. So it's been a whole year of limbo, with more limbo ahead. I am putting the effort into being upbeat and diligent and all of those things. It is exhausting. Someone recently suggested that coping mechanisms are like the doughnut in your car: you're supposed to drive on it the few miles to the station to get the tire replaced. You're not supposed to take it on a road trip.

I have driven several thousand metaphorical miles on this doughnut, and I am tired, and the metaphorical scenery looks remarkably like Iowa in soggy cold March when you forgot to pack any Paul Simon albums and the gas stations are all out of Toffifays.

I don't want you to think I'm not going to put the effort into being positive about this, because I am. It's just...a lot of work right now.

E-mails welcome.

Comments

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

it is a lot of work. a lot a lot. you're doing it very well. it doesn't mean it's not hard, though, because it is.

perhaps you could have some of the right kind of doughnuts. would that be helpful?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I was thinking more of Toffifays, actually.

[rosefox]

Clearly balance requires a second donut on the opposite wheel!

...Maybe not.

[redbird]

Hmm. Rereading this reminds me of something I was considering doing and then dropped as the wrong kind of sentimental, but may be worth it in part for balance. Now, how do I fit the time in?

[p-j-cleary.livejournal.com]

I think your entries this past year have been remarkably upbeat for what you're going through. I think my entries, were I in your shoes, would be nothing but this: >:-(

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Maybe allowing yourself to have an occasional wallow in negativity is ok? Maybe going ahead and feeling everything you are trying not to feel would be a kind of balance?

I say maybe because it's different for different people; despair can kill people, or kill their spirits, but then for other people it can be cleansing and healing. I'm sort of in the latter category.

It's not a similar situation, but in the 8th year of my baby quest, it helped me tremendously to go ahead and decide that I was giving up hope, just in my heart. Because I can keep moving forward even without hoping, and it's the moving forward that makes the difference. So I continued acting like everything would work out, and continuing to work hard to make it happen, but I stopped thinking about it that way, and I started making mental plans for alternative lives I could live, and that was very freeing.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

I have been giving a lot of thought to my thingy for tomorrow, and I hope I will manage to get it drawn today - diagrams of what my life would look like with balance, and what it actually looks like, which is very much not. Even if I don't get it drawn, because of said imbalances, I will be thinking of you and your quest, WITH hope as well as admiration. And in case it's not apparent, I'm not advocating anything like giving up, just letting that tired part of yourself have her own way for a little bit, before soldiering onward.

[prettymuchpeggy.livejournal.com]

No Toffifays! No Paul Simon! How outrageous or egregious or just plain not nice!

Sometimes it is not the first step of the journey that is the hardest, but the hardest is when you can no longer see the beginning and the end seems no where in sight. You've come a long way and with a stellar grace that I would not have had. Know that you have a part of cheering section from me.

[aedifica]

I was having a thought, but I realized that I couldn't act on my thought because I don't have a working car right now. So here is the thought, so that you may have a chance of taking pleasure in it: I thought of finding some Toffifay and leaving it in your mailbox tonight so you'd find it on the holiday, along with something different enough to balance it (I was thinking maybe something Asian to balance the German-I-think item, because it's roughly across the globe). So that it would be both Toffifay-ey and balance-y.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That's often the hardest thing to balance.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I know you aren't advocating anything like giving up. We haven't been best friends for years or anything like that, but I do know you that well.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That's a very sweet thought anyway, and I hope your car works again soon and for a minimal cash outlay.

[aedifica]

Thank you! I'll be buying it four new tires either later this pay period, or next.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

PS I would worry a bit about doing this, though, because our mailbeing might think that for some reason we had left him Toffifay and something else night, even though he totally doesn't deserve it.

[aedifica]

Ah. Then if I'm ever struck again with the desire to leave you Toffifay, I'll make sure not to put it in the mailbox. :-)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

He acts like bringing packages to the door is the WORST IMPOSITION EVER rather than, y'know, part of his job.

No Toffifay for him!

[aedifica]

No Toffifay for him!

Unless maybe he's got bad teeth? Then he'd have to just look mournfully at the Toffifay and not eat any.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

I figured...just making sure. :)

[sraun]

If you ever need (or just want!) a ride on a Thursday or Friday, we're probably available. And half of the Wednesdays.

[redbird]

In the end, I concluded that balancing work, exercise, rest, and other necessities meant that the nicely balanced bit of sentimentality would, in fact, unbalance things.

I did my yoga.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I don't know what to say, and saying something seems indicated. I admire you for soldiering on, but I don't suppose even knowing that makes it any easier. But I think of you whenever I read Tiffany Aching stories.

I'm not good about being upbeat on long slogs, myself. The Nike slogan has been more useful for me than any commercial ought to be; sometimes all I can manage is just to do it: not to do it enthusiastically, not to think about it, just do it (whatever has to be done) without stopping to think. Sometimes that's what I can muster.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yay yoga and yay more abstract balance!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

But I think of you whenever I read Tiffany Aching stories.

I'm so glad he wrote those. Not only are they some of his best, but I get compared to Granny Weatherwax and Lord Vetinari a lot less now that there's Tiffany Aching.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the offer. Mostly when it's something necessary we've got rides covered, but it's good to know about backup.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Lord Vetinari? Really? Granny Weatherwax I can see; she and Tiffany are mostly only separated by years.

sympathies

[amylynnhines.livejournal.com]

Having only endured about 6 months of vertigo several years ago(though the pregnancy that started a few months into it complicated things), I have great sympathy for your ordeal. I really hope the end is near, and you achieve balance in the very near future! I really admire how strong you have been and how hard you have been working...others may have given up by now. Hang in there!

[sraun]

I wasn't necessarily thinking of "necessary" - if you just want to get out and do something because / on the spur of the moment / whatever, keep us in mind.

Re: sympathies

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Six months is way too much vertigo! I'm glad you're through it now and out the other side. Thanks for writing!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The message I took from this is that people in general are not eager to get in my way.

Which is not so bad in some ways.