Birthday Anticipation

Today is...

...my last blog at the age of 51. My birthday is tomorrow.

I've been anticipating this birthday much like New Year's, having missed a standard New Year at home this year. (come back for what I intend to be '52 Weeks @ 52') Feeling my whole life was on 'hold' January 1st for an unknown amount of time, I never bothered to hone in on intentions/aspirations, plans, dreams, hopes, etc. Maybe that's actually part of the unappreciated beauty of a Spring birthday too - even IF I had done all of those introspective things - now is a good time (before too much of the year has slipped away) to re-assess and tweak the best of intentions. Normally all of that is way beyond me - believing it all too much of an attempt to control too much. Even when I was quite young I latched onto the lyric by John Lennon where he states 'LIFE is what happens while you're making OTHER plans.' I've lived long enough now to have learned that while it sounded wise and profound when I first stumbled upon it - it's way too often way too true for most of us. I live in constant amazement at folks I know who can plan vacations/events even as much as a month in advance - never mind a year or so.

Having seen so very up close and personal how much of my mother's life she's lost recently it becomes even more essential for me to squeeze the absolute most I can from each and every moment of my own!

Part of what motivates me is in November of 2005 I was told by a harsh and very unkind cardiologist that without a particular kind of pacemaker he wanted to insert the next morning he didn't give me 5 years to survive. IF he was correct, this birthday could very likely be my last. But, then - isn't that potentially true of any of us? We just don't get told so quite so bluntly. I'll admit to a tendency to gloat and say 'toldja so' on occassion - I do soooooooo enjoy being 'right' sometimes. But there's no 'right' mixed up in this. What I want - deeply, earnestly - is for him to just be WRONG! I have a daughter in college expected to graduate NEXT year. By the Sunday following my Saturday ER visit - that doc had mailed me a letter saying that he declined to ever see me again as a patient (due to my declining his recommended treatment? I know they can choose to treat patients inelligible for insurance/aid...). Call me petty...but I really, REALLY just want him to have been WRONG!

On Well Being

OK!
She's back! I may or may not have even been missed the past 2+ months, but I'm back. Back to MY life: to blogging, writing, sewing, creative living, gardening, searching and discovering, learning, stretching and anything else MY life encompasses and produces.

For the past 4 or 5 days I'd been meditating and mulling how and when to 're-emerge' here in Studio Lakeside and hadn't found the 'right' flicker of inspiration until this morning when checking out Jamie Ridler Studios where Jamie issued her weekly prompt for
Wishcasting Wednesday for Wednesday, March 17, 2010 "What Do You Wish To Pay Attention To? Ohhhhh...what a goodie this is!

I knew immediately what I wanted to share in regard to what I wish to pay attention to. I wish with alllllll my heart to pay attention to what does and what does not infuse me with a sense of well being or being well.

While in Ohio my soul was in absolute agony observing my mother and numerous practices that I knew could not and were not contributing to well being for her. Speaking of some of them with her did NOT go well at all and were countered with irate hostility. And speaking of or trying to address conditions that were unsuitable for anyone at all, least of all myself, coming to her aid whether day to day or in a possible emergency situation were, sadly, even LESS well received. Her oft repeated response that she was 'surviving' made me so very sad. I want, wanted, for her to 'thrive', not just survive. And I want it for me too.

Upon my return I have come to realize I thrive on sleeping in my bed with memory foam pad. My body needs LOTS of water, green tea and lemonade - not even an ocassional pop/soda. I can less afford recovery time from just pushing through than time for rest breaks to avert fatigue and/or pain. And I'm still thinking and listing...