My Journey to Optimal Health, Part...Unknown. It Will Take As Long As It Takes.

The age of 41 1/2 I've looked at myself and my life and decided I want to make a change. My goal? I want to have optimal health. Now that's pretty broad goal, so first I had to figure out exactly what optimal health is. For me it isn't necessarily running a marathon, or climbing a mountain. It's being able to function to the best of my body's ability, with good healthy habits in place. The short of it is, I want to feel good. Now, I'm the first person to have felt the defeat of my own best intentions when it comes to attempting to instill healthy habits. How many years have I carefully written out New Year's Resolutions to inspire me on my annual journey? I'd say a conservative 35 years. Of course I'd never just write one or two things to work on throughout the year that would better me along the way. Nope, try 10-25 things. I guess I thought I was a bit of a mess and needed to work out my unending pit of flaws, especially when I was younger. This past January was the first time I hadn't written any resolutions since I was 12 years old. I'm not sure if it has been liberating, or if it's made me disappointed in myself. Is it better to work toward too much and be disappointed, or work toward nothing and remain unmotivated and unchanged? Either way I feel a bit like a failure, so I am tackling different areas of my life on a staggered schedule, rather than attempting to do everything I'd like to accomplish at once.

Week 1: The first step in my journey was to deal with my back, as at times I can't even roll over in bed due to the pain. I'll try to stand up, and my back says, "Nope, lay back down!" and goes into complete spasm. This is especially inconvenient when I have to pee. My back pain has been an issue since I was in my early 20s, but has definitely gotten worse over the past 2-3 years. This obviously also affected my ability to do a lot of physical activity, as I never knew what would throw my back off kilter and land me in bed for days. This last bout of throwing my back out was precipitated by my coughing. The one before that, from picking a sock up off of the floor. Seriously? No one should have to put up with that. My long time chiropractor  retired a couple of years ago and I really needed a new one. I asked a few people who they would vouch for, and finally decided to go with Dr. Whitney Wihlidal after a strong recommendation from my awesome marathon runner friend, Christa Davidson.

At my first visit I was a bit skeptical, as I tend to be when money is involved. "How do I know if I really need the adjustments recommended?? How do I know this doctor isn't just saving up for a trip to Hawaii??" were the thoughts running through my head. Well, first of all, he has a handy machine. It's a like a metal door frame with bungee cords running horizontally and vertically through the centre of it. At the bottom there are two scales, one for each foot. You stand normally on said contraption, and Dr. Wihlidal takes photos to show you how much or little your posture varies from the straight lines of the cords. The scales show how much your natural posture leans to one side or the other. For example, I lean 29 pounds more onto my left leg than I do to my right. Not only that, but I was sent for x-rays of my neck and spine because of past accidents and traumas affecting my neck and spine. Dr. Wihlidal didn't want to do an adjustment on me until he knew what was going on in there (can't say I blame him). Turns out that pretty much every place your spine is supposed to have that nice soft curve, mine has a straightaway (I even got copies of my crazy back pictures!). Thus, the chronic pain. Yes, I absolutely needed the proposed adjustments! My back may not get back to the exact way it's supposed to be, but in the end it will be so much better than it is now.

My daughter, Trista, with the awesome
 Sheila at the front desk

Dr. Wihlidal with his cool machine that
lets you know how crooked you are ;)

In addition to the chiropractic care I am receiving, I am to do some special stretches targeting my neck and hip flexors, which are my problem areas. I made this into a bedtime routine, and added taking my vitamins and meds for my Crohn's disease (that I never remember to take) to that bedtime routine.

Week 2: I thought my girl and I should take advantage of the gift certificates we got for Christmas from my mom and have a girls day. I booked the appointments with Ron Hill at Shadows Salon for March Break so we weren't on a rushed schedule, cause I despise being rushed. If anyone out there has ever cut their own hair and then expected a professional to fix it afterward, you'll know the look on my stylist's face when I told him what I'd been doing to my hair for the past year. Kinda like telling your doctor you eat completely healthy and exercise every day, but you're 200 pounds overweight. Luckily, Ron is tactful enough to just smile and start cutting. When Trista was done (yes I cut her hair too), she said she felt like a new woman. I showed Ron two pictures of two very different hairstyles, one of which had the front part of the hairstyle up in a braid so you really couldn't see what the actual hairstyle was. I then said something to the effect of "do what you think is best". I mean really, if I can't screw up my curly haired mop I know he never would. And from my incredible power of description, I got a most excellent haircut. Now I just have to fix up that white streak at the front of my head....sssshhhhh.....

Ron and Trista (feeling like a new woman!)

My excellent new hair

Stay tuned for next week's update on my journey to optimal health!

My Son Has the Autism. This Is Some of the Shit He Says.

My son, Trent, has the autism. Or more specifically he falls under PDD-NOS, which stands for Pervasive Developmental Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified. I say he has the autism and not that he is autistic because it is something you have, not something you are. There is no need to be defined as a person by it. He is what they call "high functioning", meaning he goes to regular classes at his high school with only a few minor adjustments such as having a longer time to write class tests. He also has a learning disability called dysgraphia which makes it difficult to put his thoughts down on paper with writing, so he has a laptop with a very cool voice-to-text program on it. This way, he can simply tell the computer what he wants to say and it writes it all out for him. He has friends, but often misses social cues (but hey, don't we all sometimes?), and doesn't like to be out in public for long periods of time.

He has this unique way of thinking that tends to make me think as well. This was one of our conversations late last year when he texted me from school:

Trent: If I ate myself would I become twice as big or disappear completely

Me: Good question. you wouldn't become twice as big unless there was another one of you. You wouldn't disappear completely because you'd die half way through eating yourself, but then if you survived it, you'd have to shit yourself out

Trent: But I wouldn't disappear so there would be nothing left but my mouth because my mouth can't eat itself

Me: Right

Trent: But then there would still be the parts that I ate so I don't really know

Me: You'd die of blood loss before it was just your mouth left

Trent: But if I didn't die

Me: True. You can't eat your own mouth. You can't double in size though because it's still the same amount of mass. It won't double.

Me: Is this for class?

Trent: So nothing would really happen

Trent: No I was just curious

Me: I love the way your mind thinks

Trent: Thank you

Yes, that's right, I thought there had to be an actual reason for his line of questioning but he was just wondering. These are some of the other things he says to me:

-If I punched myself and it hurts, am I too weak or too strong?

-If you think about it, birthdays are like a satanic ritual. Think of it this way, a small gathering of people huddled around an object that is on fire (the cake), chanting ritualistically a repetitive song in unison (happy birthday) until the fire is blown out and the knife is stabbed into the object

-Fingers are weird, they are like your arm splitting off into smaller arms

-What if when you put on a shirt your belly button screams because it's afraid of the dark

-I wonder if the Romans called their buddies "Romies" instead of Homies

-I was thinking about when I played with plastic dinosaurs as a kid and I realized that plastic is made from oil which is made from dinosaurs from millions of years ago. So technically the plastic dinosaurs are made from real dinosaurs

-What if pop cans are alive and when you take one from the pack and open it, you're snapping its neck and drinking its blood in front of its family?

-Every book you have ever read is just a different combination of 26 letters

-How do your eyebrows know when to stop growing?

-In the Pixar intro who do we just ignore that the lamp murdered the "I" and then looks at us as if he was going to say "You'd better not say a f*cking thing or you're next"?

And my personal favourites:

-What if the only reason we can't walk through mirrors is because our reflection is blocking us?

-What if oxygen was like a drug and everything you ever saw is a hallucination?

-What if we are all characters in a book and when we forget what we were about to say, it was the Author backspacing

I'm not sure if it is the fact that I'm a grown up, or the fact that he has the autism, but I sure wish I thought the unique way he does more often!

I Always Get Dumped in January

As I reminisce on the past few years, I have come to realize that the last three men I have dated have each broken up with me in January. Is this more than mere coincidence? It is part of my fate to start out each new year with a fresh, boy-free slate? Do I give terrible Christmas presents? Let's take a look at the bigger picture and analyze the hell out of this, shall we?

Boy #1

I loved him but he didn't love me. I knew he didn't love me, but I stuck around because I thought if I acted the "right way" around him he would grow to love me. If I could go back, I would say to myself, "Oh Darling, get some self esteem. You can stay in his life at his convenience with the realization that he is NEVER going to love you, or grow a set and walk away from that. You are hurting yourself beyond belief." And FYI I made him cookies for Christmas. It might not sound like much, but they are the best cookies ever made. I don't make them very often because they make other cookies feel bad since they know they could never measure up. Seriously. Plus it was one of those things where I was trying to play it cool, since I hadn't professed my undying love to Boy #1 at this point. It was supposed to be a friendly, no strings attached type of gift. But it obviously came from my heart because those cookies were a bitch to make. He got me nothing. He told me I had gotten too attached and he didn't want to see me romantically anymore on January 23rd. I remember that it was January 23rd because I said something to the effect of, "Great. You couldn't pick any other day of the whole fucking year besides the one that commemorates the death of my grandmother. Fuck you fuck you fuck you." Okay, maybe those exact words didn't come out of my mouth, but I was certainly thinking them in my head.

Boy #2

I met this boy at a Halloween party and agreed to a date even though he was wearing a costume in which his entire face was covered in dark face paint. I didn't even know what he looked like. When we met at the movie theatre I saw that he was a beautiful specimen of a boy indeed. He was younger than me. He looked as if he should be in a movie, and he could sing beyond belief. I loved kissing this boy. A lot. He was here for a few months and then moving back overseas, which I knew from the beginning. I didn't get him anything for Christmas because we had only been dating for about 6 weeks at that point and I didn't really know what the expectation was. To be honest, this boy wasn't like other boys I had dated and I found him very difficult to read, but he was an excellent kisser. Two days before Christmas, he swept me away to a motel for a night, as we did not often have time that was 100% to ourselves. He also gave me a few random things for the night away. Okay, maybe I deserved that dumping. He obviously put a lot of thought into that gift, and did some planning. I didn't hear from him for almost two weeks after our night away, only to find out that in that time he had reconciled with his ex girlfriend. Ouch! She probably gave him good Christmas gifts.

Boy #3

This was the boy I thought was going to be my forever. We were inseparable for months. We said we loved each other, and it was true. We had made future plans, and they were good. We were comfortable together. We had so much in common, we were almost the same person. And damn it, I did give him good Christmas presents! He broke up with me on the anniversary of the day I met the father of my children, who has been absent from our lives (both physically and monetarily) for many years. I greeted this news with a huge, "Motherfuck!! Like this day in history wasn't bad enough already!!" Maybe those words didn't come out of my mouth.....oh who am I kidding, I said those words. Right out loud.

After I considered the following graph, I saw that the breaking up has definitely not occurred in the peak break up times. However I am still questioning my theory that I am a subpar Christmas gift giver, as realistically it was only with good kisser Boy #2 that I really put no effort into it. I suppose it has just been a random series of events, but it is true that starting the year with that fresh, boy-free slate certainly is liberating xo

Shine. Possibility. Radical Self-Love.

At the beginning of January I was browsing on the Pinterest, and I came across an interesting little blog post. The gist of the post was that at the beginning of each new calendar year, you choose a word that you would like to encompass that specific year. The word, or words, are to be directly tied to your goals, and would serve as a reminder of how you would like the next 12 months of your life to play out. In essence, this word would become your mantra for the year. I briefly read through all 100 of the "get some inspiration suggestions" to see what would jump out at me, and settled on two words that would compliment one another: Shine and Possibility. I looked at them over and over. I read them several times a day for a few days in a row. I wanted to see if they were something that resonated with me enough to carry them in my heart. I needed to decide if they inspired me to live up to them for a year. I was sure I wanted to let myself shine through my art and writing, and be open to the possibilities that doing this might bring. Last year was my "I'm going to write and make art and show the world" promise to myself, at which I fell miserably short. I wanted this year to be different. I wanted to "live up to my potential". Growing up, I'm sure I saw that phrase on my report cards about 60, 000 times as an elementary and high school student, although I could never figure out how any teacher could possibly know that I even had potential if I was determined not to live up to it.

A few days after I chose my mantra, my boyfriend made the decision to leave me. No face to face goodbye, and plenty of need for closure on my part. I will love him always, but deep in my heart I have come to terms with the fact that he was right, and that his leaving was for the best for both of us. Regardless, I felt angry, hurt, brokenhearted and absolutely blindsided. I looked at my mantra for the year again. Shine. Possibility. Seriously? How the fuck was I supposed to shine now? I looked at the list again, willing another word to jump out at me. Any word to reflect how I could possibly cope for an entire year with my unexpected newfound singleness. Not that I haven't been single before, and for long periods of time, but I honestly thought that Brian was The One. I had made future plans for us. I thought we were going to spend the rest of our lives together. I thought, I thought, I thought. I was wrong. I scanned the list again and again. Making Peace. Heal. Letting Go. These were the same words that I'd been dealing with for the past two or three years. I'd made peace with many things. I'd let go of just as many things. I had healed from numerous past wounds. I was so fucking tired of doing those things. I'd done those things with all of my being for what felt like forever. I'd conquered the healing process and the letting go process and although it's incredibly healthy, I wanted it to be background noise this year. I wanted those things to be automatic, not what I spent my whole year immersed in, goddamn it.

2 AM and I’m still awake, writing a song

If I get it all down on paper it’s no longer inside of me,

Threatening the life it belongs to

And I feel like I’m naked in front of the crowd

Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud

And I know that you’ll use them, however you want to

                                     ~Anna Nalick

I looked back at my original choices. Shine. Possibility. Even though I was incredibly sad, those words continued to draw me to them like little beacons of hope. Words of forging on. Healing and Letting Go could be done as well, but Healing and Letting Go felt like they were holding me still until I was done. I have been treading water with Healing and Letting Go for a long time now. In my heart I didn't feel like being still anymore. I picked another phrase out of the list to add to my year. A word that encompassed those things with a different connotation - Radical Self-Love. Yes, I thought to myself, this time it feels right.

If you are interested in choosing a word mantra for your year laying before you, the above mentioned blog post has a lot of really great ideas: http://www.viviennemcmasterphotography.com/2015/01/02/100-words-of-the-year/

Unbreak My Heart

And suddenly it was over. Five days ago I got the news that my boyfriend, the man I considered my soul mate, told me he wasn't happy and then he just left. I'm not going to say I understand it or that I'm okay with it, but his mind is firmly made up and I can't change it. He is the only man I have ever been able to be 100% myself with. Maybe that was the problem? Do I have some unbearable traits that are unbeknownst to me? I can't answer that. I do know that although I am heartbroken and devastated right now, I am glad Brian and I met. I learned a lot from him, and I hope he learned a bit from me too.

What I learned:

1. You know when you buy onions and you put them in your fridge crisper or on your counter and all of those onion skins get all over everything? Keep them in an open produce bag and no flaky skins get anywhere.

2. I love cats. I used to think I hated them until I lived with one. Even though the cat was super jealous bitch to me, I still loved her. Now I have a wee kitty of my own :)

3. I don't need most of the stuff I have. A couple days after the break up, I went through my entire house and got rid of two vanfulls of "stuff" to Value Village. Stuff I had accumulated but didn't need, and kept for the sake of comfort and safety. I feel so much better with more open space in my home now.

4. If there is anything I shouldn't feel guilty about spend more money on, it's quality food. The Farmer's Market is awesome, and I love going there in the summer. I don't even mind getting out of bed for it. 

5. I need to write and paint more. It's an outlet for my overly emotional being.

6. Being bipolar is nothing to be ashamed of.

7. I don't have to cater to my children.  I pay the bills and I can make the rules. I need to ditch my single parent guilt at the door. I need to prepare them for life outside of my home.

8. A garage is for parking a vehicle in. This is my third winter in my condo and the first winter I've been able to park in my garage. Best thing I've ever done. 

Now it's time for me to let the healing begin, because even though in this moment it feels like healing isn't possible, it will happen. Eventually.

How To Appreciate a Good Man When You Find Him - Step One: Thank the Johnnys and Robs of Your Life For Breaking Your Heart

 

It's been a long time, no? It's like this: I was waiting for the light to change so I could cross the road and I met a boy who swept me off of my feet. Enough said? Oh, you want to hear more??

I was taking my daughter to the Canada Day parade (July 1st for all of you non-Canadians) when IT happened. But first, a bit of background information. I hate parades. You're right, hate IS a strong word. That being said, I hate parades buuuuut I still have one child who is young enough to love them. So on the morning of July 1st when it was all rainy and bleak I was ecstatic! YAAY! No parade! The closer it got to noon, which was parade time, the more it began to clear. Dammit! Why wouldn't the weather gods co-operate with me? I thought of just not going, making up a little white (black as the Devil's soul) lie about the parade being cancelled due to the impending rain, but one look into my daughter's big brown eyes and I knew I had no choice but to take her. I usually go right down to the park to sit, which is where the parade ends, but this year I decided on a less crowded venue on the main street where we could watch it sail by us and then go back home. We found a parking space as close as we were going to get at my last minute, feet-dragging pace to get downtown (we might as well have walked from home), and started making our way to find a parade-watching spot. As we were standing on the corner with a small group of other people waiting for the light to change, a boy (man) came up to wait as well. I had seen this boy around town before, since we were teenagers, actually. I thought of him as one of the "Downtown People" because that's the only place I'd ever seen him. I had tried to smile at him a time or two (or ten), but he walked right by me without acknowledging my presence, and I eventually just gave up. So here we all were standing at the same street corner, waiting for that red light to change when Downtown Boy looked at me and said, "I know you. I see you on Facebook." Now, before you all think this is a creepy stalkerish thing, it's really not. We have a lot of mutual friends and at times we had actually both commented on friends' Facebook statuses. So we didn't know each other, but we knew of each other, if that makes sense. He and I made small talk until the light changed, walked across the road together and then parted ways.

Now keep in mind, this man had my, admittedly shallow, attention with his looks from the minute he said hello. And yes, that's why I had tried to smile at him and catch his attention in the past. So of course as soon as the parade ended, I got on my beloved Facebook and "friended" that Downtown Boy. Conversation ensued, and we made a date to meet. At our first meeting (date), we got together at a local pub. We sat down at a booth and both of us put our cell phones and keys up on the table. We both had the exact same phone (iPhone 4) with the exact same black Otterbox on it. Each of our key chains had the same clip (you know, those clips that say "not for climbing") on them because we both have trouble keeping track of where we put them so we need to secure the keys to something (I use my purse, he uses his belt loop). We had a drink or two and went for a little walk afterward, and at the point that he reached his hand out to touch a soft looking plant as we walked by, I knew that there was more than coincidence going on. We both touch (caress) plants as we walk by them? Unreal. I mean, who does that?? We talked about how we both long to live in the country, and how we feel that the trees and the sounds of nature are truly healing for the soul. The more we got to know each other, the more we found we had in common. It was as if we were the same person split into two different bodies.

 

After this date, our mutual friend Christa called that boy up, in nothing but my best interests, to give him a talking to that any awesome friend would. She explained me to him, and how my love can run quickly and deep. She wanted him to understand what I was about before he got his feet wet, which was probably one of the greatest things anyone has ever done for me. It dropped the veil from my eccentricities early on, leaving him with only half of the work of uncovering these (sometime) oddities.

 

It was on that first date that Brian first told me that he was bipolar, but I said nothing about my own mental health experiences. I had been denying the same diagnosis for most of my life. The phrases, "They made a mistake" and "I was misdiagnosed" often came out of my mouth when discussing it. His acceptance of that part of himself made it safe for me to do the same, and his full acceptance of me has instilled more love in me than I have ever had before. He has made me feel that it's ok to be me -- fully me -- for the first time in my life.

I was discussing my relationship with Brian with a friend just the other day. This friend and I had had our hearts broken by the same man, years apart. I told her that I didn't regret my past hurts because without them I would not be who I am right now. Without the Johnnys and Robs that had completely devastated me, I never would have developed into the type of woman with the ability to love a man like Brian, and feel that I honestly deserved his love in return. I now know that those past loves were preparing me for my great love. With John (the father of my children), Johnny and Rob I questioned everything: my worthiness, the actual amount of their affection, why their words and actions didn't match, and why their ambiguity reduced me to tears on an almost daily basis.

There are two types of romantic relationships - the ones that prepare you for your one great love, and the other is your one great love. How do you know which is which? The ones who prepare you make you question everything, especially yourself. The great one does not question you and you don't either. ~Rebecca Lammersen

Brian, being the "nice guy" that women talk about, would have quickly fallen off of my radar if I hadn't learned from my past experiences how utterly valuable this type of man really is. He loves my kids and they love him (ok the oldest teenager is a bit of a harder nut to crack), and he treats them as if they were his own. After 10 years, I know this is an incredibly rare trait to find in a man and I am super thankful for it! With Brian, I question nothing. Not him, not myself and not the two of us together. Everything feels completely right and comfortable, and has from day one because our past relationships have prepared us for each other.

Brian makes me feel safe, and appreciated. I know when I am with him I am important, and when I'm not I'm still on his mind. And you know what? It's completely mutual.

 



The Micro Waves in Microwaves: Will They Kill Me Or Not?

I recently decided to get rid of my microwave. I'd been toying with the idea for a while, but got more serious about it once my youngest child turned 10. I was worried about them using the stove top to heat things up, you see. I know accidents can happen at any time and I just wanted them to have a bit more maturity under their belts before they took on the large household appliances.

So I'd been reading a bit about the dangers of those little micro waves heating up our food, and although I want to believe they're super dangerous, the World Health Organization says it's all a-ok to use microwaves. I tend to be a bit more skeptical of these things in my advancing age, and don't necessarily believe something like that is true just because I'm told it is. One website even called people like me "a member of the tinfoil hat brigade". Jerks. Anyway when all was said and done, I'd sent the microwave off to live out its life with someone else.

The problem with getting rid of my handy little appliance, was that I was used to it. There had been a microwave in my home ever since I was 7 years old. What a convenience! The first full day without it I realized how habitually ingrained it was for me to take a leftover out of the fridge and throw it in the microwave. That day I found myself wanting a bagel. Now. My chat with myself in my head went something like this:

"Oh shit I keep the bagels in the freezer. Yeah that one in the basement that freezes things really, really solid. Ummmm ok now how can I make this bagel less of a block of ice so I can cut it in half and put it in the toaster? No. Waiting is NOT an option. I want it NOW. I wish Siri could have made it for me. I would have given her the instructions five fucking minutes ago so I would've already had it. That's how fast I want it. Instantaneously. Ok, put it in the oven to thaw? Too long. On top of the toaster? Won't defrost right through. I know! I'll run it under hot water until I can pry a knife in there to cut it. Oh wow. Who knew frozen bread would get so soggy under running water?"

Yeah that happened. Luckily I was home alone at the time so there was no one to see my crazy chain of events. And so it has gone with almost everything I pull out to eat/heat up/cook. It's no longer an automatic motion, I actually have to think if the new best way to do it. There's a bit of a learning curve but I'm enjoying the new challenge. I wonder of micro waves (the actual waves, not the cooking machines) can travel through walls? Maybe I should go talk to my neighbour about the dangers of her appliances....