Happy Holidays

 Happy Holidays, everyone. I hope you are safe & warm. What a pos year for most of the world. I've never felt more fortunate than I do right now.

Getting old is weird. What your body does is weird, what happens with friends & acquaintances is weird, & even how family changes is weird. I am running head on into 50 & the changes happen in & with my body...yeah, was not prepared for any of this. It happens so fast. I can already tell I am not going to be a really old person. That in itself is weird. Hell, just being alive starts to feel really weird. 

I have been going to therapy. Not ashamed at all. I have friends & family that def should go, but that's a personal choice. I've learned quite a bit about myself. Not all good, but knowing it helps me try & change some things. That is good. I am proud of the good things I have learned. I'm also proud of how much I've learned at work. The confidence I have gained. I freaking love my job as a museum tech. It's the most rewarding job I have ever had. Therapy is there to help me not self-destruct or self-sabotage.  Something else I had mastered in my life. It's also there to help me with the weirdest & biggest personal issue I have ever had (besides the years of trauma & abuse...lol) and that is my inability to create once I am happy. 

Weird, right? 

No, seriously, that tortured artist bs always bothered me & here I am, happy, content, and completely unable to express that through art. Pain, torment, abandonment, loneliness, need, desire, utter despair, yeah, I got those down pat. I'm a master, but happiness, joy, warmth, love, freedom, confidence, calmness, hope...nope. So, the therapist & I are working on that. She's an art therapist. And a yoga instructor. It's nice. I get to draw in therapy.

Body pain. It's a constant that I am dealing with. It's excruciating. I'm getting a ton of blood work done soon. My therapist wants to see all my hormone levels, etc. Most days I'm above a 5. Right now, I'm hovering around seven or eight. It's difficult to walk. Everything hurts. Doctors just ignore me. I mean, I'm a woman. A post-childbearing aged woman. I have no purpose as far as this country is concerned. I might as well die & help deplete the surplus population. The good ol' USA healthcare system.

Speaking of difficult to walk...my sweet, sweet dog is sixteen. Sixteen! She is also suffering from some sort of back/hip pain. I know this is my last year with her & that is not going to be easy for me. I've always had such love for my sweet animals & Leela really is like my best friend. She was everything I needed & helped me from unaliving myself more than once. I hope I have been what she needed. Seeing her decline is heartbreaking. She was diagnosed with doggy dementia & the days she doesn't recognize me are pretty rough. I try to make her feel as safe & warm as possible. It's going to be a rough year. I can already feel it. Still, with all the impending doom, gloom & sadness, as well as the inevitable fall of democracy here in the US, I have learned more than ever to live each day as it comes. 

I am grateful that I was alive. That I lived. That I loved. I hope that everything doesn't end the way I am sure it will but I am proud that I was my authentic self. I am proud that I loved who I loved & I loved fiercely. I am happy to have existed. No matter what the future holds, what the past tried to kill, what the present hands me today, I lived & laughed & cried & loved honestly & truthfully. And although I never got enough time with most of you, I am thankful for those of you who shared laughter & love with me. Those of you who shared & cared enough to stick around. I hope we get to go around again, but if not, cheers mates. 

I hope your days are filled with hot showers, warm blankets, nurturing hugs, & passionate kisses, or whatever things mean the most to you. 

Happy Holidays & good luck.