Champagne and Socks

Trigger warning: I talk about food issues herein.

Well it’s week 6 of this 12 week program I’m on – almost half way through. Already? It’s hard to believe actually. I thought it would be so much harder – to give up some of my much loved habits and I thought it would be harder to drag myself up off the couch. Which is not to say that there haven’t been skipped workout sessions or off program meals but they have been the exception rather than the norm. I’ve never stayed on a program this long before. I am the queen of the two week flunk out, to be truthful.

It’s weird to know that I really can go 6 weeks without a packet of lollies and not only not die but not even really miss them. Sure I get the odd craving but it turns out cravings are fleeting. Huh. There are a few things that I have downshifted calories and servings sizes so as to not have to give them up completely. I might really think the world without chocolate is not worthwhile so I’ve shifted to a sugar free dark chocolate which, to be honest, is really not that bad. And we’re also allowed a brand of low fat ice-creams so I’ve not really gone ice-cream-free either.

That said, there have been two main reasons for stopping myself from throwing it out the window and diving into the mini fun size choccie bars flopped seductively in their charity box just 10 steps down from my office cubicle. The first is that I really have worked hard to get to here, both physically and mentally, and I don’t want to undo that and that leads into the second, which is, I suspect that if I had one taste, just one, I wouldn’t be able to stop again. I’d be back into those foods having a hold over me and I’d be back where I started. If I could have just one chocolate bar and stop. And then not have another for a while, I’d be ok. And the goal is to get to that place. I just think it’s a little while off from here still.

So, where am I at? Cause as it turns out, it isn’t just about losing weight.

I’ve lost 5 kg in 5 weeks, which I’m quite happy with. My 12 week goal was to lose half a kilo a week (6kg) and I almost completed that in the first third of the program. I have had to review my goals (which is apparently what you are supposed to do and not just me shifting the goalposts) and now am aiming to lose 12 kg by the end.

We’re eating a lot more healthily and consistently than we were before. We clean out the fridge at the end of every week because we need to make room for the new week’s food plan. I noticed this weekend that we threw out a lot less moldy fruit and veggies and that we had almost no leftovers from cooked meals in the fridge at all. And what went in were almost all fresh, unprocessed groceries. And lots and lots of colour.

On top of this, I’ve started taking a nighttime multivitamin which is supposed to promote rest and repair for your body. I’m really really crap at remembering to take multivitamins in the morning but a nighttime one suits me perfectly and I’ve been really consistent about this.

So the sum of all these things is that I am sleeping better than I have done in years. In YEARS! Yes I also gave up espresso coffee. And I’m exercising a lot more than I was before. And OMG sleeeeep. I know that’s the thing people with children tease you about but I have never ever been a good sleeper so being able to sleep through the whole night without waking up 6 times? Divine! And new for me. And you know what else? I wake up feel rested. RESTED! It’s like a whole new body. Every day. And therefore, unsurprisingly, my Crohn’s is really settling down. I’ve found the nutrition plan has a lot more gluten in it than I would ordinarily eat. We’ve sort of tried the food as is to get a feel for it but this week I am switching things out to replace, especially bread, with gluten free options. I’ll be interested to see how this plays out.

And exercise. OMG exercise. I have a love/hate relationship with it. It’s always been this way for me – putting on the clothes (to be fair, more so when it was those thick ballet stockings with the seam you had to have perfectly straight) is always the hardest part for me and sometimes can be the stumbling block I cannot climb. I am enjoying seeing myself get fitter and stronger. I’m enjoying being able to do more and recover faster. Today I ran all the way down to the sports complex and back and I can’t believe how comfortably I did that (in 3 min/2mn run/walk blocks). I’m getting the endorphin rush that makes it all worthwhile. And I’m also really aware of all the studies that show how exercise can alleviate depression and Crohn’s symptoms.

I’m also *moving* around and strengthening core muscles! I’m suddenly aware of how many friends of mine suffer from RSI and it occurred to me that whilst I am not a writer, I still spend a lot of time at a desk and then further hours hunched over a laptop. It might be prudent for me to be proactive about preventing injuries. I’ve noticed since about the first week of this program that my headaches have gone – I used to pretty much have constant headaches and now I know, because I *remember* them, that I have had only 3 in the past 6 weeks. Not only that but my neck issues seem to have eased up as well. And you know, physios and doctors tell you that exercise will help but you kinda look at them and think something FREE will fix this? Come on! Yeah it turns out getting off your arse and moving around a bit is good for you. Who knew?

I’m only 6 weeks in. I have to make it another 6 weeks and then beyond. And I don’t know how I will go yet. But I have started to get really (more) cynical about a bunch of things in modern life. All these things that are supposed to be convenient and help you save time but really make you fat and lazy and cost you money and then you have to pay more money to get thin and moving and so on. You really have to wonder what kinds of mugs we are, just lapping up all the cola and fries we can get whilst flicking the channels on the remote.

Warning: I talk about food issues and weight in this post.

So I’m at Week 5 of the 12 Week Body Transformation. Weigh in is Wednesday but I’m on track to lose another 1kg+ which pushes me below my first round number milestone. The program promises to be more than just a diet and exercise regime, promoting itself as a life transformer, part of the outcome being the weight loss and the other part, changing the way you think and behave. At Week 5, I think I really can see some of those changes coming through. And it’s required some fairly big mindshifts as well as some soulsearching and thought self policing. I’m not even sure I can fully articulate what’s changed and what kind of ride this is.

My issues with food are complex and not really something to go into here. But they are separate to issues with body image. Which adds to the complexity. My inner monologue is almost constantly negative. And I tend to use food to fix all that ails me – feel down? feel anxious or angry? feel depressed? want comfort? celebrating a win? Is it a day ending in y? All get a liberal serve of food to remedy. On top of that, I am addicted, I think, to certain foods. Maybe that’s a cop out but that’s how it feels. Food is my drug of choice – lollies and chocolate and icecream to be specific. And muffins and pastries and desserts and and and. Add to that that the exercise thing had kinda fallen by the wayside, the whole OMG the momentum required to put on shoes let alone leave the house!

And you’re not gonna overcome that kind of stuff in a day or a week or even in 12 weeks. And the thought of never going back ever again, still doesn’t feel quite real so I know I have a long way to go. But hey, today when I was hanging out with Jonathan for lunch, I happily chose a salad, considered it a “meal” and enjoyed it. There’s hope.

I’ve actually really enjoyed the nutrition side of this program. To be fair, C has taken on the shopping and cooking for it which is a major deal. I would likely not have been remotely as successful if I had been doing the food stuff on my own. And I think the food is far more interesting and exciting than what I was eating  – especially for breakfasts and lunches during the week. So that already makes this hardly a chore. And now, 5 weeks away from bags of lollies and licorice and blocks of chocolate, I can look at it a lot more from the outside looking in and deconstruct a lot of it. Some of which I want to talk about below. But that said, I know that if I were to even taste some of those things, I would be right back there scoffing a bag in a blink and be hooked again. I hope in the future to have a more balanced and healthy relationship with these foods.

The exercise on the other hand has been more of a struggle. You have to complete 6 workouts a week and I find that really hard. I’m juggling so much else in my week sometimes I just keel over. But one of the exercises before the program started was to write down all the excuses you use to avoid doing exercise (or related to food) and you know … I still catch myself trying to fob them off. Like … if you’re injured, that’s fine but you can work around that and still exercise. For me, sometimes my Crohn’s is worse than other days and doing crunches is so not the best thing for it. But now I know that I can just skip the crunches and do something else in the session rather than not exercise at all because I “feel sick”. Big revelation. Also, for me, I tend to find time by jettisoning exercise off first. Now, I’ve discovered I can reorganise my day, perhaps by several hours ahead so I still get in the exercise as well as all the other commitments. I’m still not doing great at this one – I am so overcommitted. And I’m becoming that person I hate – who is too busy to get to things or to answer emails promptly or to prepare ahead of time. I’m working on this one (commitments) and it should be better soon. But I discovered something really important. I had been describing myself as not an active person, or not someone who enjoys exercise. But actually – I do! And I’d forgotten. I’ve had so may moments of flashbacks to when I used to dance and these have reminded me of how exercise and pushing myself to my limits felt back then. And how much I enjoyed that. It’s been really nice to get back in touch with the me of 20 years ago. Before things got screwed up. It’s made me have to readjust how I see myself.

So taking some of what I am learning or skilling myself up to help get through the program has really flowed into the rest of my life. I’ve noticed the same kind of internal talk for addressing other things in my life and have taken to using similar techniques to deal with that. It’s slow and it requires constant awareness of my inner talk and in changing that around but I think I’m making inroads.

I gave a talk on the weekend and I felt that it went terribly. I didn’t feel comfortable up at the front, I hadn’t prepared enough so I ended up reading my prepared notes instead of talking off the cuff, I felt nervous and sounded so and I stammered a bit. I was pretty down about it. At the end of the day several people came over to tell me how much they enjoyed my talk, how it had made them think and so on. But I walked away still saying to myself I’d screwed up and it was a shit presentation. But over the rest of the day, I started to turn the talk on myself – how could I ignore the several people who said differently to how I felt? Why would I value my own self destructive talk over outside of me evidence to the contrary. Maybe all the things I thought about how I went were true but maybe the material I presented overcame that?

And so now I’m looking at tackling two issues I’d like to get straight. One is that I’m having trouble motivating myself to get (more) stuff down (I know I know but …). Back in the postgrad days I used to have a list system that kicked arse – I would write a serious list 0f 10 big deal things I wanted to achieve for that month and then I would divide each down into the exact single tasks or actions it would take to get that big thing done. And then I would give myself a red tick each time I got a task done. A tally at the end of the month for red ticks would determine if or what kind of reward I would get. I have a feeling at the time I mostly was getting stuff from the Body Shop but I’d set a dollar limit and could choose. And being close to the tipover into reward would push me to scour the list to find low hanging fruit. I got a lot done and the system really worked for a while.

I’ve been trying to get back to that system but now I have this habit of moving the goal posts. So I’ll say if X, then Y and then when I do X, I’ll say, yeah but that was easy, now you need to also do W for Y. And no rewards ever get doled out. Which defeats the whole purpose.

Add to that, the very real need for me to find other ways to deal with emotions other than placating with food. I’ve actually found a really good technique for dealing with anger or frustration is to action something. Doesn’t have to be related but just *doing something* when you feel helpless or frustrated really makes you feel better, more in control. Plus you get that thing done. It takes a negative and makes it positive. So I’ve been looking for something to help with other emotions. Something that I could also use as rewards for the getting things done requirement. And it turns out, as I’m doing better and better on this program, I actually feel better about myself. And as I told a friend the other day – you nurture what you love. I feel better about myself. I feel great healthwise as we are eating so much healthy, unprocessed foods. Even my hair looks shinier! And I’m happier.

So last week, I decided to do something about this. I decided I needed to get some perspective on what is reward worthy and hopefully recalibrate my own internal feeling about what is a good job well done. I decided to go to two of my favourite shops – The Body Shop and T2 (since I was at the shops already replacing yet another bung laptop charger) and buy in advance a bunch of treats. They varied in size and value, some just little testers of things I wanted to try and others more luxurious. But all things that would require indulgence once obtained. So the reward would be twofold – 1, I get something! and 2. I have to then use it – to relax, to cheer myself up, to feel good about myself, to destress, to take time out etc.

And then I gave the bag of rewards to C to supervise. So someone else with a nonscrewed up barometer of achievements could help me figure out what deserved reward and when. He cracks me up – when I gave him the bag, went through it and then stood up and nodded and said, yes he had his head around what was in there now, and then swept it off somewhere. To be honest, I felt a little scared at that point! Should I have given up that power?

Today I got my first reward – it was delayed from the promised reward fotr preparing and delivering the paid speaking gig I did on the weekend. I was such a pain in the arse preparing for it and I don’t like public speaking. Still, I sucked it up and I got on with it. And my reward was – picture at the top – Strawberry and Cream tea! And this evening, instead of casing the pantry for after dinner shaped things, I sat with my feet in a hot bath with Radox and I sipped my fruity tea! And it was good.

I didn’t blog much after falling ill. I figured there was nothing more boring than, “yep still sick” plus some of those days I was actually in so much pain I couldn’t type. Or knit. Or really even hold a coffee mug. The ultimate message from the universe, all I could do was lie on the couch and watch TV. Yup. Spent about 7 days there. Watched all of Studio 60. Worked my way through about 3 seasons of Doctor Who. And eventually I got better. I’ve been back at work. Doing things. Catching up. But still running behind.

So a bunch of linky the links before I head back off to the chain gang.

I answered some questions on editing over at Donna Hanson’s blog. I actually think her question (and many people’s answers to – Can editing be taught? – to be really really fascinating. Go read the series!

Deborah Biancotti is featuring a series of paragraphs on creative burnout. Mine is here. And I should add that when I say that I watch TV that I think is really great, I really do mean the Gilmore Girls. If you see me break out a rewatch of the whole series, you know things are bad. Cough. I also really get back into Elton John – a bit of Can you Feel the Love Tonight, Candle in the Wind and so on. And the Goo Goo Dolls, which I admit I was listening to yesterday (Black Balloon, Accoustic #3 and Iris on repeat means all is lost).

Our big Twelfth Planet Press news is that Charles Tan is steadily working on ebook conversion (and soon to have extra help, kind people are really kind) and we now have Thief of Lives by Lucy Sussex available in epub. The Kindle version will be up tonight. And both are available now from Wizard Towers Books. Very soon I’ll have links for ebook subscriptions and upgrades on the site.

C has been away this week. I would have done a big Things I Want To Get Done whilst he is away but I’m knackered. And just running to stand still. Also really behind on TPP and focussing on that. If Tansy will stop pitching ENORMOUS ideas at me. I’ve been thinking a lot about what I’m going to focus on next year when he is at sea off and on throughout it. I have some ideas. Mostly I’ll be concentrating on TPP, I have some two years goals which really will need concerted and sustained hard work to pull off. But I’m also toying around with some other, smaller projects. That need their own blogs. We’ll see.

This month though is a weird one. Most of it we will be spending apart – he’s had two courses on this month and I realised YESTERDAY that I only have this week and next week at work before I LEAVE FOR WORLD FANTASY CON! for which my schedule is already deliciously jam packed. I have finally booked and paid for a shower, seated massage and hang out in a lounge during my long sojourn in Hong Kong airport. I have organised with my family for pick ups, eating and siteseeing (and phone!) for the couple of days before the con. And mostly, I am intending to just have a vacation. I know, I know. It’s A CON. But still. I’ve sent 5 boxes of Glitter Rose over to San Diego for the convention bags. And a thousand postcards for the Twelve Planets. I’ve also been kindly given a wee bit of space in the dealer’s room so if you want something – let me know and I’ll be sure to pack it and bring it with me. I know what dress I’m wearing for the banquet. I think I’m getting towards ready for it! Eeeeeeeekkkkk

In all, I had a busy and partly productive weekend. Friday night I was knackered and glad that the week had finally ended. I worked a 50 hour day job week which doesn’t really leave much room for 30 odd hours of Twelfth Planet Press. Though with the long day I pulled today (still tempted to get some ASif! updates done now, at nearly midnight), I think I did pull about 30 hours on TPP too.

Tired. Not the best way to go into the week. And as seems to be usual lately, did not get close to nearly all the housework done. Sigh.

Still Friday night, I had a lovely bath (C ran it cause he could see how cranky I was, no patience left at all and the puppy misbehaving). I read a bit more of Yarn by Jon Armstrong. And then watched some Doctor Who.

Saturday, I was sleeping in when C came and offered me breakfast out – see he knows how to make me do anything! I was up and ready for a proper flat white, you bet. Unfortunately, either the tail end of my Crohn’s flareup or just the long week and not being careful enough with my food, I had a mouth full of ulcers. With Crohn’s it’s not unsual to have 1 or 2 but I have about 5 at once. And one is sitting near the back of my teeth and right where you swallow. It took me ages on Friday night to work out why I was having difficulty eating dinner. So yeah, kinda avoided eating much this weekend – be careful what you wish for (see further down). So I had a lovely coffee and just a croissant. I wasn’t fussed. And then C suggested we head to Rocky City since we were near to see if the A&R had Trent’s new book Business of Death. Quite liked that idea too! And it turns out it’s been ages since I’ve been in the shops and I try to avoid hanging out in them because … well, I went shopping. I bought Gotye’s new CD and after being annoyed at the price of Mad Men S3 in Sanity, I got S3 and S4 and S1 of Breaking Bad for the same price in JB HiFi. (C is off early next month for a course so I shall amuse myself with TV obsession/catch up.) I also splurged at The Body Shop – went to replace my finally all used up Oceanus perfume only to find they stopped making it. The smell reminds me of my 6 month working holiday in Israel so I’m sad I have no more A&R had not yet received their copies of The Business of Death so I reserved a copy and will pick it up next week.  That should all keep me busy for a while.

Then we came home and I did the interview with Ben Peek for Galactic Chat. And then hurried off to shower and beautify to go to a work function with C. As usual, I totally missed the mark on what to wear. I’m usually not this bad but Navy throws me – I try to match it to the uniform C wears but that is no help at all. He looked really dressed up, as did all the officers, and the women were way dressed down, lots of pants and casual summer dresses. I wore a maxi dress. Fail. We had a nice time which is actually funny because via a miscommunication, neither of us really wanted to go and was going for the other. We laughed and decided we should have better clues for each other but I’m not sure about that now since C got to catch up with some people he hadn’t seen for a long time and we did kinda enjoy ourselves. We’re house bodies the pair of us and the forcing ourselves out was good, I think. I got to see my first ceremonial sunset which was fun. And I had a lovely think about things which I might write up for another post.

By the time we got home it was late and I think I just watched TV and headed to bed. To wake up by 9am to record a special episode for Galactic Suburbia. Tansy and I had a very lovely and long debrief on The Hunger Games trilogy. That episode will go up soon but don’t listen to it if you don’t want to be spoiled for the books because we talk about a lot of the details. After the recording I basically worked, finally, for the rest of the day. I’ve sorted a bunch of PR stuff – PR is all the little things but they are very time consuming to set up and maintain. They are so easy to put off but if you do, then … you don’t have them. I worked through a few of the PR things on my list. I also worked on emails. And book orders. And sending out some other copies of books. And did I mention I answered a lot of emails? I also had the washing machine going the whole day. I did some dishes and a bit of tidying/unpacking. As usual, my mother was right and instead of working steadily across the house, I concentrated on a few spaces and finished them (top of the dryer in the laundry, unpacking a couple of bags/suitcases and sorting out the TV space I sit in) and seeing a few places start to come to where I want them was a good feeling. So much further to go. Sigh.

And I did some cooking today. And here is the tie in to the title of this post. For a while now, I’ve been ordering a fruit and veggie box as part of our weekly food order. And recently C dropped it down to fortnightly because we weren’t actually getting through the box. The point of the box was to challenge myself to make food to fit in with whatever they sent – to cook seasonally and to also push me to try new things each week. I am a bit of a routine lover. But see, if you don’t actually take up the challenge, well you end up throwing out limp fruit and veg at the end of every week. The week before last I decided to make a soup on the Sunday with whatever of the veggies was leftover and looking a bit sad. And then I ate the soup for lunch every day at work. And it was great – very hearty, very healthy and a good low GI that made me last without snacking.

Cue to this week. On Friday night I was catching up on some blogs and read a few different SF/F writers talking about their own struggles with weight and specifically talking about the issues being related to their depression. And boy did that strike a chord with me. Hello! The three authors I read were all taking a long term and really healthy approach to dealing with this issue and I really liked the way they were looking at it – as nurturing themselves back from the harm they did to themselves when they weren’t in the best mental health. That’s me too. And I’ve given myself a year (from about June) to get on top of a bunch of things and one of them is this exact issue. And it’s all tangled up in headspace and emotional things. You can address the depression and work through it but … well … us self saboteurs, we can find ways around. I got a little bit motivated, I admit (I’d been following one author’s progress for a while already). And I’d also been talking with my boss whilst away this week and he made something else click for me too – that running isn’t a good way to lose weight but you notice every extra gram when you run. The idea of losing weight to enjoy running more appeals more than other reasons one might have to lose weight. But at the end of the day this is all a product of a much less healthy headspace and the bad habits (of how I treat myself) remain, even if the reasons why do not.

Which brings me to preparing a soup today for my lunches for next week. I grabbed all the veggies in this week’s box that I didn’t think we’d use elsewhere and I made up a veggie soup. I played around with the flavouring. It turns out spices are awesome. If food tastes fantastic, you totally don’t need as much fat and salt to cover it up. This one is kind of a version of sweet and sour or hot and sour, maybe. It’s quite nice. Not at all authentic but importantly, not the same flavours as the previous soup. I threw lentils in to thicken it. And it was so delicious, I had a big bowl for dinner. Definitely good for a very sore mouth. The interesting thing though was how it felt to prepare the food. I’m used to being loved through food. C does most of the cooking and it makes me feel loved by him when he does so. And I spose my mother always shows love through food too. And if you seek comfort in (junk) food … what does that mean? But to stand there and peel and chop fresh healthy veggies to prepare healthy and wholesome lunches for myself for next week? That felt like a very nurturing thing to do for myself. And that feeling felt foreign. Meaning that all the comfort food I normally eat is not so. An interesting thought I want to mull over some more. After I put the soup on, I looked through the fruit to see what we’d eat. We do worse at the fruit than the veg. So I decided to bake the apples (thanks all for your recipes on Twitter) for dessert. A lovely warm, sweet dessert that I made for us. Yet wholesome. Again, really weird feeling. They were good too though I need to work on the liquid a bit more. But in all, the fruit and veg this week won’t go to waste and I took up the challenge and I feel kinda good about it.

I expected burnout to hit end of April. It’s just the way I am – my business model, as Tansy would put it. I work better under pressure and that’s when I tend to excel, and I give everything I’ve got and then, after that, I’ve got nothing. I usually get sick going into a convention, lose my voice by day 2 or 3 and come home and nurse a bad flu or something for a week or 2. After Natcon in Adelaide, I swear I had Swine Flu. It’s the way I’ve always been, for as long as I can remember.

So it was really weird when I didn’t get sick at the con or in the days after – usually burnout hits just as the pressure finally is off. I wished I’d had a couple of extra days holiday after the convention but I didn’t have the leave to take (I’m still hoping to somehow get to World Fantasy this year and I really really want to have leave to take over Christmas.) As much as I need the time off now, I know I  can’t afford to trade that for time off at Christmas. And the really weird thing is, my long service leave entitlement is kinda just round the corner. It feels weird to have been with this agency this long but, I’m sorta hanging out for it and hoping to make it that far. I have plans for that time, and am hoping I get to have it. We’ll see.

So, what I wasn’t really expecting was this kind of slow burnout rather than the crash and burn. The crash and burn I know how to handle. Take to my bed with the Gilmore Girls and some hot chocolate and just … chill the hell out. And then I’m good. Back to it. This though … this is weird. It feels like a malaise or an apathy or a … a complete lack of energy and a lack in making myself find the energy. I’m still working full time. I’m still working pretty full time on the press – juggling the promotion and marketing of the recent books, readying book 3 for the printer and starting to get stuck into book 4 of the Twelve Planets. And I’m still far behind on the whole TPP to do list to even contemplate thinking the last couple of late nighters I pulled this week have brought me up to speed.

But … I just can’t get enthused. Or energised. Or moving. I haven’t exercised since before Swancon. I’m eating a lot of sugar and chocolate, craving the buzz, I guess. I’m not being super careful with my dos and don’ts for food allergies. I still haven’t managed to make inroads into the gritting my jaw thing. And I have the puppy – so, puppies don’t sleep through the night. I’m not sure I knew that!

Today I got to work, and (societal norms mean that often for me in order to be at work in the times expected, I don’t wake up until I’ve sat at my desk for half an hour or an hour) realised that I felt vile. The first person I spoke to was when I was ordering my coffee and I sounded like I had a head cold. I told her I felt foul this morning and she asked me if i had a headache, that I sounded off this morning. After sitting at my desk for a while, I realised I felt sick and was feeling sicker. I know I can’t work as hard as I was before and expect the physical and mental robustness. I’m burned out. But at the same time, I don’t get the option of … not doing so.

Eventually, my workmates talked me into going home, without take home work, and I did. After a couple of hours of almost no work and a lot of reality TV, I started to feel a little more normal. I’m hoping to get a lot of downtime this long weekend. Of course, I’m also hoping to get more packing and moving done and I’m not currently living in that location so, these things seem at odds. But we’ll see.

The really awful thing is I’ve lost my crafting mojo. I haven’t really worked on any projects since before the con. Normally I find sewing a really good craft for when I am doing fine tuned thinking like line editing and knitting better for project development and reading. But right now, I have no will or interest to do either. In the first place, my hands were really really sore when the change of weather happened and I laid off anything too much (though my mother says knitting kept my grandmother’s fingers limber). But like the rest, above, I just haven’t felt the energy to craft, like I don’t have the creativity in me right now. Burned out and unable to take the stimulation of colours and textures and patterns. Though, at the same time, I’m also doing a lot of project planning, business vision and direction and development. So in some ways, I feel highly creative in that area and not needing the craft. I miss crafting though. I have a sock I am knitting that I pick up and do a row here and there but I really miss the intensive crafting. And worse, I’ve replaced that time with recreation reading. And I’m really scared that it’s a one or the other type scenario.

… this was me answering my dentist’s question today as to why I have been so stressed.

I was supposed to be there for a filling but I had that whole earache drama the other week which we had to deal with first. I spent the whole day dreading going this afternoon on account of the “impacted tooth” diagnosis from my GP. I actually didn’t think it was but thought it could be an issue leading to a root canal that I am trying to avoid. Either way, I was terrified of having a root canal or another tooth removed. He took one look at it and was like, nope, it’s not a tooth thing at all, it’s a muscle thing. Turns out, my jaw is tight due to clenching from stress/anxiety and it’s gotten so bad, it’s caused the earache.

So, instead of having a horrible procedure, I got a 15 minute jaw massage, a prescription of hot pack, yoga, talking to a friend and a script for Valium. And two more appointments for fillings later.

I have to admit, I do love my dentist. I’d been so dreading all of this that I forgot how nice he is. Which is why I see him. And he gave me a very stern talking to about being stressed out and how Type A, high strung worriers end up dying young. And then he told me about his brother who died a year older than I am now and how that made him realise what’s important in life. It was all a bit grim but yeah, he’s right. About all that stuff and the sugar too (I don’t wanna talk about that now). I know most of my current stress is remnant Swancon stuff. The nightmares have almost stopped. Though I did have the stress dream I have of shopping in a general, up market department store (I have no idea why that’s stressful). But still, it’s not just Swancon and I know that.

I’ve referred in passing to the reassessment I’m currently doing about my life and commitments. Pretty much most of it is up for grabs at the moment and is being asked to justify relevance to me to stay in my life. I’ve set myself the next year to do nothing, to destress and to make major lifestyle changes to facilitate that. But that has moved to a slight reinterpretation of “do nothing that I don’t want to do”. 2011 has felt very much so far like a year where I am constantly in situations that force me to confront that which I have been trying to ignore or procrastinate or sweep under the carpet. Ordinarily in my everyday life, I would prefer to go with the flow and not make waves. But this year, no. I don’t seem to be able to get away with such things, be it seeing a movie that I really don’t want to see or something more important than that. It’s been rough for me because I actually would prefer to do something I don’t want if it makes the other person happy. (In the past I’ve made some really self destructive choices in life because of this need to please.) But in being confronted with the fact that I don’t really want to do X, and having to say so for a variety of reasons and often this year, I’ve also discovered that beyond the uncomfortable revelation conversation is this other thing – the joy of not having to do something you don’t want or rather, doing the thing that you do want.  And the more this happens this year, and the more I realise that you don’t actually regret not doing things you didn’t want to do or not spending time with people you didn’t want to spend time with, the more vigilant I am being about first checking how I feel about things and then honestly responding in kind. It’s been very freeing.

So yes, more of that. More decluttering in my life. More spending time on the things that I want to do. More moving away from negativity and towards positivity. And more joy and happiness. And less stress. So the theory goes.

And I guess a return to yoga.

And the unhappy news is that I apparently have an impacted wisdom tooth, not an ear infection after all. That does explain why this earache comes and goes (over quite some time *cough* like from the day my sister got married *cough*). And to make it worse, the only doctor I could get an appointment to see was the unsympathetic one who rarely gives out any drugs of any kind. Which is fine normally, I try to avoid taking as much as possible because most things upset my Crohns. But damn my ear hurts so I wanted the big fat antibiotics to kick the pain out of my head. I was expecting her to tell me to suck it up. But she looked in my ear, said it was fine, looked in my mouth, declared the impacted tooth and then started offering me all sorts of things.

I took the drugs, started those tonight. I have a dentist appointment by chance for Wednesday so will see him then. The words “oral surgeon” were raised. Ignoring that for now. And then she asked me if I wanted a medical certificate for a couple of days off. I was totally taken aback. I mentioned how run down and burnt out I am and she said, “well of course, that’s why this happened,” which I didn’t know you could get a tooth thing from being stressed and run down. Huh. Anyway, I have two days off. I politely declined the antidepressants – seriously weird consult, that bit she offered after we talked about my day job a bit. The sympathy cheered me up some!

And I am home, trying to de-con-press more and hoping that my tooth will settle down and does not need to be cut out. Cause seriously? I don’t think I got what that needs in me right now.