The Value of a Memory

First, the routine stuff:  Today's smoothie is apple-pear with spinach, romaine, the inevitable banana and cinnamon.  It is absolutely delicious.

Earlier this week I tried an Avocado-Kiwi.  It was my first effort with avocado.  It was not delicious.  Possibly it was the fact that I knew there was avocado in it (I don't like avocado, but I'm conscious of its health benefits, hence my desire to disguise it with fruit and consume it in smoothie form), or possibly it was just not a good day for me to try to be friends with so much green stuff, but either way, I could barely choke it down.  We will be retiring that one to the ranks of failed experiments.  I've been fortunate that there haven't been many.

But today's is good.  You can't go wrong with apples and spinach, you really can't.  It's a good fallback position while I try to figure out my next move.  I really want to be adventurous.  I'm just...not.

I've had a good week, so far.  Cutting back on caffeine has helped me to feel a little better, though I'll admit I was really cranky and draggy yesterday.  I think I was glutened at some point over the weekend and I'm still trying to shake off the aftereffects.  Either that, or I have a very mild stomach bug.  Either way, it's not horrible - I've definitely had worse! - but not a ton of fun either.  Still, I'm getting by.  I'm sticking with the meditation; B. has been getting up early and meditating with me each morning, which will be good for both of us.  Today's mediation was on anger, and after we finished I talked with her about what it all meant, and how it can help us when we get angry and need to be able to keep the anger from ruling us and making us do things that aren't so smart.  It was a great teaching moment.

Now for the not-so-routine:  I was going to write about living with arthritis today - a post that's been begging to be set free for a week or so now - but I think it can wait another couple of days.  I got some very sad news last night; my daughter called me from college, where she shares a dorm room with S., the daughter of my former church youth directors. S. is very good friends with the daughter of a couple for whom my mother, sister and I used to babysit.  Last night, the husband of that couple passed away from an apparent heart attack.  It was very sudden, completely unexpected, and is absolutely tragic.  He was, I want to say, in his late forties, possibly very early fifties, apparently healthy, and no one saw this coming in any way.  His 23-year-old son, the boy I used to babysit, who was ringbearer in my wedding and whom I will always see as a dark-haired, chubby-cheeked three-year-old angel, was the first one on the scene after it happened.  (I'm trying to find a delicate way of saying "found his father dead" and isn't that just absurd?  It isn't delicate, it isn't polite, it's horrible and tragic and devastating and ugly and wrong.)

It's just awful.  It's unfair.  It's not something that should happen, and I don't even want to believe it.  It also underscores the importance of living your priorities, every moment, and never taking a single second for granted.  Everyone dies.  Not everyone who dies is very old, or sick, or in any way ready.  Death doesn't screen you for risk factors before it takes you.  It doesn't ask you if you think it's time.  It doesn't canvass the community to see how much you will be missed, or check with your family members to make sure that all that needs to be said and done has been said and done.  It's Death, and it doesn't care.  It just takes you, when it decides its time.

Absent extraordinary circumstances, you can't really be ready for death.  No matter how hard we try, there will always be time unspent, words unsaid, apologies unmade, forgiveness withheld, feelings unexpressed, wisdom unshared.  Life is like that, and we simply can't manage complete closure with everyone in our lives every day.  But we can live each day in such a way that, if today turns out to be our time, after all, those we love will be left with as many warm, loving memories as possible.  They will need them.  Those memories will be their only strength in a time of inexpressible sorrow and bewilderment.

I know J's family has many of those memories.  They may not be much comfort right now - nothing will - but eventually, they will be more precious than gold.

Busy, Busy...

Just a quick post...I've been super busy all week, both at work and at home, so I just haven't had time to write.

I'm starting something this week, though, that I need to memorialize.  I think that each week, I'd like to pick a couple of healthy changes I need to make and focus on those.  I want to make them sustainable, so I'm only picking one or two.  If I need more than a week to solidify them, then I'll take more, but I really would like to add something new each week.

I've already started the smoothies and watching my calories, and I'm going to tighten up on that, weeding out the areas where I've been a little lax.  That one doesn't really count as a change, just increased effort.  I'm focused very intently on quality of calories, because I've learned all too well that "calories-in, calories-out" is a vast oversimplification of what's needed for healthy, sustainable weight loss.  Also, having an autoimmune disorder makes it absolutely imperative that I focus on nutrient balance.  (It's absolutely imperative for everybody.  An autoimmune disorder just means your body won't allow you to forget it.) 

This week, I'm going to focus on cutting back on my caffeine intake - that's been a slippery slope for me, and since I use half-and-half in my coffee, it's a calorie issue as well as excess caffeine.  I do believe the research supports that a little caffeine is healthy, but Friday I caught myself on my fifth cup, and later drank a Diet Coke or two.  Definitely a slipper slope!  So that's my first area of focus.

The second will be exercise.  I've been working toward that one as well, so I'm not sure if it counts as a change, but I'm going to focus on getting in five solid days of a decent workout.  That will also have to include being diligent in my stretching and myofascial release (because there's no WAY I can exercise consistently without doing that) so that one definitely counts.

I have another post in mind, specifically arthritis-related, but today's a busy day (again) so who knows when it will actually be written...if only Dragon could write a software that would transcribe directly from your mind, without the necessity of speaking...