what january has taught me
kelly | 1 February 2007 - 11:42pm
- Sleep is a privilege, not a right. (At the beginning of each school year we used to get a pamphlet about school bus rules and it always said that riding the school bus was a privilege, not a right. I found that an odd thing to say, but now I repeat it every chance I get.) And the more you want sleep, the more it eludes you. And when you get it back, it becomes the most beautiful blessing of your life, one you cannot believe you have taken for granted for 26 years.
- It is possible, even with a supportive family, caring friends, a loving husband, and a cat who insists on spending every minute on your lap, to feel isolated.
- There is something about sunshine that suggests nothing bad can happen in the world. Ellen has the same effect.
- The obsessive attempt to diagnose one's symptoms online is itself a disease. Such search sessions not only result in anxiety, but also lead to the awareness of new symptoms that may or may not actually exist. But, even if one's husband forbids the activity for the sake of one's mental health, there will be irresistible opportunities to sneak it in.
- One of my particular talents is to assume the absolute very worst possible scenario without any evidence to support it whatsoever. This I knew already. What I didn't realize is that such a perspective can be nearly as destructive as the thing you fear.
- Months like this are actually esssential to happiness. To be truly happy is to appreciate the fact that you are happy - to be, if you will, meta-happy - and that's only possible if you realize that, like sleep and the school bus, happiness is a privilege. Any threats (real, potential, or imagined) to one's happiness serve as reminders to revel in life, to hug people close, to celebrate the beginning of a new month.
- 227 reads
all comments photoblog
backlog: one year ago
Archives
| « March 2010 » | ||||||
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
| 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
| 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 |
| 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | |||
may it all be OK.
Thinking of you.
Sounds like a rough, rough month.
I hope you have indeed gained new perspectives of happiness.
And may you find sleep again.
A new month, a new beginning.
Happy February to you, my friend.
No more google for you! I mean it! :)
Anybody want a peanut?
I couldn't agree more with every single of your bullet statements. I hope Feb is better for you.
Fezzik: As you wish.
Don't I know it? All. I think I'd be dead without Ellen. That's only a slight exaggeration. Googling your own symptoms isn't ALWAYS a mistake. But it almost always is. Sleep is a true blessing. Be well, Kalki. Because . . . I'm really not in the mood for you to be otherwise. And it's been kind of a rough winter here so . . . don't mess with me. Mmmmkay?
Dude, how did you get in my head? Seriously. The isolation thing. And the searching the internet for diagnosis thing. Imagine if you have a little bit of medical knowledge (read 1 year of pathophysiology) so you can actually think of the grim diagnosis to look up? Maybe it's a good thing we don't live near one another......
Wow, points 4 & 5 are so me. My fiance has made me promise not to look up what I'm going through symptom-wise online because I make myself sick and depressed just thinking that I could be sick. I hope you get to feeling better in the month of Feb.