The birds are out in full force lately – have seen alot of uncommon ones with beautiful colors. One of the redbird families has decided to build a nest in my hanging marigold plant – go figure – I water this thing every day fully and the bird is like “we good”

As we drive to my appts a couple times a week, its pretty common for us to see 1-2 of the regular hawks. The bluebirds frequent the place where I go for injections.

Even though its Texas hot already this early in June – the birds are finding the ways to be happy and live their lives.

I’m finding ways to do that too. Been doing journals back and forth with a few family members, and its always a thing I look forward to of writing back to them in the journal. Got the one for D and I’ve been slowly trying to work thru it to get it back to her.

A few bad days, that I have to say are FOR THE BIRDS! – I blame the recent chemo treatment, or rather, the being so tired before the treatment, and mostly not being able to get enough sleep to help my body be strong enough to endure.

I suppose its pretty common for most people to have a “thing” that they have less tolerance for dealing with no matter how strong, or how able to withstand pain they are… I’ve been struggling with one of my “buttons” coming to the forefront and saying “Hey you want this, you work for it” = As if I weren’t already….

Its pretty hard sometimes to stay strongly motivated when things are pushing you against the wall. I feel like that one Farside comic, where there is a kid pushing against a pull door – the sign above the door says “gifted school” – It just feels like there is something small I’m forgetting that is making these things much harder.

These dreams by Heart – These dreams go on when I close my eyes….

I finally did the exercise I committed to a few weeks back of drawing myself a picture to remind myself I can do this through the bad things, and its in a prominent enough place that it is a perpetual reminder when I am wanting to scream and fight the dragons that are turning parts of my back into a firey rage of pinched nerves. Go to sleep dragons, and ideally in a less painful place please, kkthx.

Got a chance of the past few days to talk to alot of the folks I love dearly that are so far away from me. Not getting hugs from local folks is bad, but realizing how long its been since I had a hug from these far away folks is somewhat even worse. Days/Weeks vs Years – not really alot of comparison.

It is pretty funny the radical remission program did teach me a really cool meditation type of tool for basically getting into your head about a memory of the “most” powerful memorable hug with a someone, and basically calling that memory up vividly – the sights, the smells, the feels, the emotions, all of the things that make up that hug – and its kinda pretty powerful how much it heals your heart when you do this – its like calling up the memory makes it feel to your body how much good it did for you. I have been doing this with some memories for my grandparents recently. I have so many sensory things with all of those.

My grandfather A always had this very earthy smell to him – he wasn’t really a huggy man, but there are a few hugs I remember in my life that were long and heartfelt with him and the feelings of those hugs are pretty powerful. His hugs were about personal strength and stamina, and the ability to accomplish things beyond what seemed possible, solely for the purpose that it needed to be done.

My grandfather L also not really a huggy man, very different smells and feelings, and there are a few hugs I remember clearly where he held me and would somehow make the world seem smaller and safer. His hugs always felt light, always felt like the world was a smaller place, and somehow completely within my power to thrive and climb mountains because adapting the world to meet my needs was always possible.

I’m not at all saying that the hugs of others were less powerful, but these two men are a rock for me right now, because their hugs were a take over the world type of hug combination, and right now, I need to take over my world, and I need my body and cells to be the anheuser bush clydesdales and just keep swimming and get me to stronger parts of my life. Ready to be done with the mountain, and ready to come back down to the next challenge.

A friend last night told me that this is just a brief period of my life, and that when its done the rollercoaster of health will be just that, it was an inspiring thing and it made me realize she is not only right, but I got this. Just have to remember to keep swimming.