My presurgery playlist helped, but it was missing something. So in the end I settled on The End by The Beatles. The drumming in it helps put me in a good mood. My voice still hasn't fully returned, so I whispered along:

Labels: recovery, surgery

Hoping this is my last wrist surgery. Cause fuck it I just want to dance!

Listening to my Indie Friday playlist to get me in an upbeat, I-will-conquer-this-surgery mood. I've got some ideas for tweaking it, but hope I don't forget them when I wake back up.

Real talk. I will do what it takes to survive. Even if I can't buy my house yet. But I will have a large garden, and next year I will have bees. I have a new nephew I adore. A niece who I love to pieces and who shows me all kinds of affection and wonder.

I don't have any romantic love prospects. I'm not going to let that stop me from my house and the garden and the bees. I will do all those things with fierce passion and persistence. But I still have strong feelings for him. Anything can happen in surgery. So know that I love you. Know that I regret our decision, that I would work so hard to get you back and be the best for you. Would, because the one thing I won't let myself do is chase someone who doesn't want me with this much passion, love, and desire to build a companionship worthy of us. I loved you the most. But not the best I could have. I know that now.

I miss you all the time, often for unknown reasons. I feel like I'm missing part of myself. Or like without you I close off part of myself. People always say they knew their spouse was the one because they made them a better person. I'm not sure if that's quite it. I think together they are just able to be their full selves and that makes them feel better.


I don't know. There's so much I could say but my IV bag is almost empty and I don't want them to see me like this when they take me back to surgery. I pray for strength in all this.

Labels: surgery

I have been trying to keep my mind off of my upcoming doctors appointment and the possibility of another surgery.  My stomach was a bundle of knots last week after I found out so I spent this weekend focused on my garden and a romantic comedy style book, Still Me by Jojo Moyes.

I am tired of this cold weather. Somehow the cold seeped into the front room I am growing my seedlings in and the water in the grow kit was ice cold so I had to replant all of my plants and mix the soil with new dry soil to try and soak up some of that moisture and avoid drowning or freezing my seedlings. I've kept a lamp on them at night, but it's not as good as a heat lamp.  Gardening felt like a chore and not the usual therapeutic experience.

So then I threw myself into my book and it was so good I read it in under 24 hours.  I lost my voice this week and it still has not come back completely.  So when I found myself laughing while reading the book, it wasn't my laugh.  It was cuter actually.  Like my speaking voice is this raspy ex-smoker whisper, but my laugh is like a little girl's. 

I tend to avoid romance novels because the genre just seems so repetitive and cheap (to me at least), but there are some romance cross books that can pull me in.  Still Me is the third book in a series about this slightly wacky English girl, who is pretty much my age.  I think the main character is endearing, and I'm rooting for her, so I overlook when and if the books take on a dream love feel. She had a lot more struggles with her love life in this book though, so it was easier to feel like I could relate and cheer her on harder.

In this book she gets into letter writing, which caused me to reflect.  Letter writing feels more intimate than sending emails.  It's less of an impulse, because you know after you write it you have to post it and it won't arrive instantaneously.  You have to be more confident in the contents. And you have to have faith that a reply will come, unless you're saying goodbye.  I actually have several letters I've never posted for this very reason. Even though I had strong feelings I wanted to express, it wasn't the right time to share with that person.  People look back at past figures in history or authors and they look through their correspondence and it is so eye opening and gives the public a better idea of the inner workings of those in the past.  I wonder if they've ever run across letters not sent though. Would they be filled with passion, stories of betrayals, or just composed of fear? Or composed of love? And I would love you better, I would love you better, I would love you better, I would love you better, I would love you better.

Labels: gardening, letters, reading, surgery, The Maccabees

I wanted to tie this post to Josh Ritter's Wolves, but it's been done. Still it's the song I listened to on repeat in the car. I wonder if the wolves could be your fears. He finds them everywhere. To me that's my anxiety. Heartburn, indigestion. No not that. Fear in the pit of my stomach, churning. Nausea on an empty stomach.

There's a song, that fits wrapped around your shoulders, that can soothe me through it all. I know there is, but I don't remember discovering it. Razzle Dazzle Rose helps soothe me some. Is that a trumpet? Is that the soothing part? Maybe. Or her voice. Mostly Tracyanne Campbell's voice.

Rose, I'm feeling older 
Courage my love it makes me bolder

I need courage. I need hope. I need a hug.

I think getting outraged at the doctors office makes you crazy. Everyone else is speaking so calmly, why would you raise your voice? So I just smile and nod and try to make them feel better about my news. That's screwed up. Both versions. The one where I try not to make a big deal out of it and the one where you get emotional in public. Where is the inbetween?

I don't know if I can go through that surgery again from the beginning. I don't know if I can hold my head up every time I lose a part of myself. I want to feel whole again.

Labels: anxiety, Camera Obscura, emotions, Josh Ritter, mixes, pissed, processing, soothing songs, stress, surgery

I love this song. I've been waiting since birth to find a love that would look and sound like a movie. I'm all about making a mix to be the soundtrack to my life, so the desire to film what you can't find makes sense to me. But I've also been in love with love since I was a little girl. If my sister's life goal was to be a grown up, mine was to be in love. I didn't dream about the perfect wedding. I didn't even have an idea for the perfect guy. That wasn't as important as finding a love that would live up to my dreams of love. Growing old together. Traveling. You know, I don't know if I really spent too much time contemplating what we'd do. I just wanted to be happy and loved and I wanted one person to call my own that I could love with all my heart and mushy stuff like that.

Labels: family, in love with love, love, mixtapes

Today was a strange day. Not at all what I expected from Pi day.

Labels: finding happiness, good will come, library book, mixes, music appreciation, new playlist, pi day, sick day, swooning, work stress

I hate being sick. Being out sick today actually stressed me out even more, which can't be helpful. I just want the ability to breathe back. Without a migraine.

Labels: sick day

This last week was pretty shitty.  It felt like nothing but work.  I don't want to accept or sign off on another meeting or event with only two months of planning.  That is not a smart idea.  It's so exhausting mentally. 

The whole week wasn't a waste though and I had one really good night come from it.  I stopped by my sister's house on the way back from the library and caught up with my sister and snuggled with my niece.  (Quick aside, I absolutely love that I have to pass my sister's house when I go to the library, because I feel like it helps me stay more connected to her.  Even if I don't always stop by, I do think of her and sometimes call.  Plus you may have figured out by now that I go to the library like at least once a week.)  Well that wasn't very quick.

Anyhow, my brother-in-law was out so it was just us girls, kinda.  I got to see my nephew wiggle and move around in my sister's belly.  We talked about her plans for after he's born and they showed me his room and so of course I opened his closet and pawed through his little outfits. 

My niece had a bath while I was there and we played with her bath toys and worked on saying "splish, splash."  She wanted me to splash my hands in the water with her and I tried but still can't bend my wrist.  She is a little sponge and after watching my hands tried to splash the water awkwardly like me.  God, I love her.  Spending that kind of intimate time with her made me even more ready for physical therapy.  I want so badly to pick her up, twirl her, carry her until my back hurts, be more playful with her, just be a better aunt to her.  Some things just take time. 

I had more to say on recycling and my shampoo and the books I'm reading, but I'm too tired to focus any longer.  I was sad this week was so draining because I listened to Aziz Ansari's Modern Romance audiobook and had some really good take-aways.  Maybe something will trigger all that and I will come back and write about it later.  I am currently a month ahead on my reading challenge, so I actually have a lot to say about certain books.  Alas, sleep.

Labels: books, family, reading, reading challenge, sleepy

This song got stuck in my head over the weekend, and while the chorus is fun, it was driving me crazy on Monday. So I turned to their first album, Employment. I can't believe how long I've listened to their music. Just after college maybe? I've been missing out. There's something about English rock that just makes me feel girly and young and flirty and fun and I don't know, maybe even a little like a different version of myself. Arctic Monkeys, Bloc Party, the Maccabees, Kaiser Chiefs, so many that just make me so happy. 

Labels: English bands, music appreciation, songs stuck in my head

The next two weeks work is going to crush me, BUT my first three seeds sprouted today!!! Day 4: two cabbage sprouts & 1 broccoli sprout.

Annnnnnnnnd I finished Little Fires Everywhere before it was due back, which is awesome because there are now 56 people waiting for a copy from the library.

So I'm basically going to turn into a little hermit until I get through this first meeting.  Powering though my reading list, watching my garden grow, trying out a few face masks, take a short break from make-up, and cuddling with the cats until I have to fight them to get off the book I'm reading.  There really should be an amendment to the phrase, "This is why we can't have nice things."  Just add on: why we can't have house plants, why we can't have snacks on the couch, why we can't read in peace, why we need to lint roll everything, but also, why we want to snuggle all the time."

Labels: cats