Naps*.  I still take them.  A lot.

It’s disconcerting being a napper after all these years.  Previously I only napped if I were sick, really sick.  Now I nap every weekend, often twice a weekend, and it makes me feel old.

I guess it could be residual from the celiac disease.  I might still be in recovery.  I have read, and being told by the naturopath, that some people can take a few years, up to five, to truly feel better while others notice the difference in less than a month.

I wanted the month.  I wanted the big ‘Wow I feel so much better; this is amazing’ moment.

Instead I nap.

(*actual sleep not the parental euphemism for nap)

[Where is the positive in this….I guess naps mean healing and health and future wellness…]

I am slowly getting back to everyday life.

After the aunt went in to the hospital the family spent a lot of time there with her.  She spent a few days in ICU and was then moved in to palliative care.  I went each day on my break as I work so close to the hospital and the Boy came some evening and on the weekends.

She recognized me one day and smiled.

She died just over a week ago, slipping gently from this world in her sleep.

(Fir0002/Flagstaffotos)

The past week was filled with comforting the mom, finding out funeral arrangements and waiting for family to arrive from out of town.

The Boy and I then spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday immersed in family and remembering, laughing and crying (some of the reli’s anyway) and meal after meal after meal.

It’s been exhausting of course.

Yesterday, even though we brunched with the family, was the first day of creeping back in to normalacy.  I went for a run before our family time and then the Boy and I spent the afternoon hanging out enjoying the sunshine.  We may have ended the day with some Thai food too!

This past week, well, it was a week.

Last Saturday I got an email telling me that someone I know was in the hospital and that it didn’t look good; she died Tuesday.  (Older lady that I knew through my old job; friend to many and loved by all).

Mid week a FB/ running friend put up a post that her husband has been diagnosed with cancer and that he has surgery lined up imminently.

Friday my aunt had a heart attack and The Boy and I spent the weekend, mostly, at the hospital with family.  It doesn’t look good and even though she is older and has lived a good life it is still sad.

The focus of work holds some appeal right now….

For Christmas the Boy got me

and

They are part of my working on feeling (more that I usually do) positive.  The Book of Awesome recognized the small things in life that we (might) celebrate.  The guy began with a blog and, being one of the lucky ones, got a publishing deal.  He’s smart as he put to print what a lot of us have as fleeting thoughts through our brains.

The last time I was in the big city I had one of those awesome moments.  There is a certain street downtown that if you hit it right you can get a string of lights that turn green just as you are getting to them and thus make up to a 10 block run.  It truely is an awesome feeling.

How to feel positive when work is sucking donkey balls and it feels like they are out to get you….

Bah.

I try not to make resolutions because they can just become one more thing I, to myself anyway, am not good at.

This year I feel this need to make changes and one of them is to run more regularly again.   I’m not particularly fast.  So far I’ve lacked the high and good feelings.

But…

I could do it.  I could get out and do distances that I thought were beyond myself.  I could plod along, listening to music or nothing, in silence or chatting, in sun, rain or snow.  I could go alone or with friends and I could go whenever it was convenient.

Then the weird aches and tiredness started.  Then I changed jobs.  The aches and tiredness increased.  Then I got the diagnosis of celiac disease.

It’s been a learning curve this past year an a half.  Luckily the Boy has been very supportive as I have been up down and all around with trying to figure out how to live this way.  It’s much more normal now but I ALWAYS have to think about what I eat.

In amongst everything I lost the running.  It hurt so I cut back.  It continued to hurt so I took a break.  Since that point it’s been fits and starts but now it is time to find it again.

I am going in to this thinking that I am a newbie, that I am a learner and that my goal is to just do it already (thanks nike…)!  Right now I want to get out three times a week with minimal distance expectations, just running until I am ready to be done be that 1 km or 10.

I do want to get enough mileage on to warrant new shoes…. 🙂

Another year has come and this year I feel the need to be resolution-ish.

Like anyone I could go with the lose weight, eat better, exercise more resolutions but I am not (not that I’d say no to all those things happening…. 🙂 ) going for those three we see everywhere.

I need, and want, to do some internal rewiring of my brain.

I am a realist. I am practical. Really this speaks to being a pessimist hiding behind words that sound good and look shiny. What I am really good at is seeing the dark side, seeing the negative, seeing the failure and seeing anything else that leaves one feeling hopeless.

It is gnawing at me. It is creeping through everything, especially over the last two years. I do not want to carry on like this.  I’d like to become half full rather than half empty.

I don’t know exactly how I am going to do this.  I have some books to read, I’ve enlisted The Boy, I am considering enlisting another friend and I am going to change blog homes.  Whoa.

I love my little place there so it will stay but I will be going here, to begin the change up.

It was time.

I need to make some changes and to help me along I figured a new blog home would aid in my shake up. I am guessing this will make me a little crazy until I figure it out but needs must!