December Book Report: A Gentleman in Moscow

This book, by Amor Towles, has been on my to-read list for a long time.  When my Secret Book Santa gave it to me in a holiday gift exchange at school, it moved to the top of my list and has been my read for the last week.  

In a word, the novel is splendid.  At turns sentimental and suspenseful, Towles weaves together a simply wonderful story of a man whose life seems limited but instead is limitless.  Pressed to make the best of a difficult situation as his beloved nation sinks into the ridiculous rigors of Bolshevism, Count Alexander Rostov remembers his father’s most valuable bits of advice: “Master one’s circumstances or be mastered by them” and “constant cheerfulness is a sign of wisdom" and puts them to good use.  With these pearls, his life —— seemingly constrained by his captivity in the Hotel Metropol —— becomes an existence of wonder, joy, and friendship.  The Count is a man the reader both likes and admires.  The novel is well-written, the narrator well-read and as charming as the Count, the Russian history at the center of the story is both well-understood and well-utilized.  It was the perfect read for me as I wait out the delay for my hip surgery and struggle to master those circumstances.  I loved the novel and will set it aside to be read again some day, grateful for the ways in which a book has once again saved me.  

Christmas Cardinals

My dad was a baseball fan and the St Louis Cardinals were his team.  He passed on the love of baseball to both my sister and me.  In turn, I passed it on to my son.  Via Grandpa, JT became a Cardinals fan.  Some of my fondest memories are the sound of the two of them on the phone, dissecting their team’s prospects and celebrating their triumphs.   My Dad’s passing earlier this year made the 2023 baseball season bittersweet for me.  But I’ve found comfort in memories of Dad brought on by cardinals.  This set reminds me of the joy he found in his three grandsons.  It’s made me happy all of the holiday season, a reminder that Dad is still here to celebrate his boys, cheer on his team, condemn Republican stupidity, and look after us.

Alchemy For Peace

Each year’s Christmas tree is a beauty all its own.  The magic of twinkling lights on a tree bejeweled with ornaments that tell the story of my life is never lost on me. I welcome the light it brings in December’s darkness.   

The world is a hard place right now and for me the tree is a reminder to be grateful for the many blessings in my life.  Tonight it seems especially lovely and my heart is grateful. I hope that this bit of holiday joy can be a beacon for more peace in a world that badly needs it.  

December Cooking Journal: When Eating Isn’t an Option

The requirement that I lose weight to be allowed the hip surgery I desperately need was frustrating on many, many levels.  I think that all people deserve the healthcare they need and the overwhelming evidence is that fat people benefit enormously from receiving a new hip if they need one.  While I looked for a surgeon willing to treat me immediately, I also hedged my bets and engaged in food restriction.  I wasn’t hungry so much as I was angry. I love to cook and try new things.  My mental health suffers tremendously when I count calories.  But my crummy self-image was nothing compared to the pain of my crummy hip, and so I did what needed doing.  

Contrary to all the bullshit spouted by the media, I’m not fat because I lay about and eat bon bons all day.  I’m a person who eats 5-7 servings of fruits and veg on the daily.  When my hip doesn’t ache, I am active.  My metabolism is shot to hell from years of weird food rules and restrictions.  Fifteen years ago, I learned intuitive eating techniques that were the way out of the cycle of misery brought on by near-constant dieting.  I adapted the strategies I learned from intuitive eating to limit food and shed the 30 pounds that would earn me a qualifying BMI for surgery.  I made the food I craved, including this yummy soup, ate limited portions of it, and I let my anger burn.  In this way, I was able to qualify to have medical care.  That requirement is totally fucked up, of course.  But I played by the bullshit rules and won't stop doing so until I have the hip I need and deserve.  

Gratitude Journal: Finally, Some Really Good News

Today, I saw the surgeon to see if he would provide the hip replacement treatment I desperately need.  JT accompanied me for the appointment.  More than anyone else, he has seen the ways in which I’ve been increasingly disabled by my hip.  A 23 year old being the up-close witness to my pain and sadness in the last three months is not an easy journey.  He has been an absolute rock for me and it’s not an exaggeration to write that I wouldn’t have gotten here without him.   He’s not the only person in my support network - far from it - and I am incredibly lucky on that front.  But he has had to rescue me from myself over and over again since the pain became unbearable in August.  As my mobility has faltered, he has filled the gap. 

We came to today's appointment a united bundle of nerves, arriving early, tense with anxiety and each of us with an eczema breakout.  I was convinced that the surgeon would move the goal post for surgery, demanding that I lose even more weight (I've lost 30 pounds in just under 3 months). But we needn’t have worried.  From the outset, the Physician’s Assistant was clear: you’re getting the hip.  The surgeon popped in and asked for more x-rays and within the half hour I had my pre-surgery packet and a promise that the scheduler would be in touch within the week.  There is a wait list but surgery will happen toward the end of  January.

 I am incredibly grateful to arrive at this point.  I couldn’t have gotten here without JT,  my sister, the pain management doctor I was lucky enough to find, and so many of my friends who cheered me on when I felt like my prospects were bleak.  At supper last night, JT poured us each a finger of bourbon and we drank a cheer to my new hip. I thanked him for all he has done to get me here; he reminded me that I had been by his side in 2022, when things were hard for him.  We’re a team, he said.  Tonight, we’re a team that feels both grateful and unstoppable.

Things That I Miss

To qualify for the medical treatment I need (yes, we’re still on the topic of hip replacement), I was forced to lose weight.  Setting aside my fury over the fact that weight was used to exclude me from life-saving healthcare with little medical evidence in support of the policy (and clearly, I cannot set that aside), I immediately set to work limiting my food intake.  It’s a hard world to live in for a woman who loves to cook and feed people, but it is the world I am currently living in and will live in until the day I get the hip that I need.  I miss the world of intuitive eating - where I could eat when I was hungry and choose the food I craved.  Salads with homemade dressing?  Yes, please. Grilled veggies with burrata?  Coming up.  A cookie or two after supper?  Help yourself. The occasional icy cold Coca-Cola?  Sure enough. 

Instead, I drink water and eat small portions of food - 800-1200 calories a day - and think of nothing but food, even if I am not hungry.  I hate this existence - and yes, that’s a strong word - because for me it is accompanied by immeasurable self-loathing and obsessive calorie counting that finds me frantic with worry that I should not eat at all.  Or should throw up what I do eat. And the fact that I am doing this because medicine has arbitrarily defined me as too fat for medical care well…..let’s just say that doesn’t ease the problem of self-loathing.  I miss so many things: liking myself and valuing my body’s strength, the ability to make a new recipe without considering the calories involved, the endless mental space to imagine instead of obsessively fret about food.  The other day I made cookies for the 7th grade and I would have loved to eat one.  I didn’t because I was petrified to slip from food restrictions in advance of my appointment with the surgeon.  So add that to the things I miss - not the cookie, but my rational brain - one cookie would not a disaster make.  I miss being able to enjoy the food I eat.  I miss being able to have a treat when I want it without consuming fear that one cookie stands between me and independent living.  I miss the way body positivity and the HAES movement made me feel like my BMI was the least interesting thing about me.  These days, my BMI is the only interesting thing about me.  It’s brutal to miss being a person who genuinely liked herself, full stop.  When you add in the dreadful limits that exist in my physical abilities as I live with this painful hip, it’s a wonder that I am still fighting for my life back.  But, damnit, I am fighting.  And I deserve to exist.

Style Journal: The Bullpen

For as long as I can remember, I’ve used part of my Sunday to set me up for success in the week ahead.  On Sunday, I change my sheets, plan for the suppers I’ll make in the week ahead, and organize my calendar for the week.  Each of these tasks is helpful but the best of my Sunday traditions is setting up the bullpen.  Each Sunday, I plan the clothes I will wear in the coming week.  I organize, steam or iron as necessary, and then hang them up on my closet door, ready for the early mornings that the week will bring.  Sweaters are hung up or folded and set at the ready on my dresser.  On Sundays, I tuck into bed grateful that the bullpen will steer me right come morning. 

As the week progresses, and the bullpen is less full, I know that the weekend is getting closer, which is also a pleasing side effect of my bullpen tradition.  This habit has served me well over the years, and I especially like this element of my organized life.

One Step Closer?

On Tuesday, I officially made the weight requirement for my orthopedic surgeon to perform the hip replacement I so desperately need.  The news was overwhelming and all I could do was cry.  That afternoon, I moved my orthopedic appointment up to the 15th of December.  I’m still holding the line on food restriction and though the pace of my weight loss has slowed - a thing bound to happen once my metabolism caught wind of what I am up to - I remain on track to lose a pound a week.  Food restriction will continue in earnest until the day of my surgery - a date yet-to-be-scheduled.  And that’s the fly in the ointment right now.  

When I see him on the 15th, I am fearful that the surgeon will move the BMI target and require that I lose more weight.  I have no especially rational reason to believe this; my primary care and pain management doctors have reassured me that the surgeon won’t do so.  But none of this journey has been rational. The surgeon’s adherence to BMI, a health metric well-discredited, is where the irrationality started and my less-hopeful self assumes more stupidity will follow.  Of all people, the orthopedic surgeon who told me on September 21 that the only treatment for my pain was a hip replacement surely knew what the next three months would bring.  In September, I could still walk without a cane and could make it the length of several football fields before I needed to rest.  By October, I needed a cane to make the length of a single football field.  Now, I can’t walk that far without excruciating discomfort.  I can't grocery shop or go anywhere by myself.  I cannot sleep at night without narcotics.  He knew this would happen, didn’t warn me, and really didn’t seem to even give a damn.  My lack of faith in his word is understandable.  And yet I met the goal and I am holding on to hope for a surgery date and with it, the prospect of a return to the full life that I long for.  

Among the Trees: A Christmas Tradition

 All year long, I’ve reserved the 5th of each month for a post about the places I go for walks.  Mostly, I like to walk in the woods and most frequently, I walk in the woods at Colonial Park.  Since my hip took its turn to  dreadful in August, I haven’t really been able to go for a walk.  As I wait for the hip replacement I so desperately need, I’ve become more and more disabled.  These days, I can stand for just a few minutes and only walk very short distances.  I haven’t been to Colonial Park since September.  I could go, of course, and sit on a bench and admire the nature around me, but I have found doing so very sad, not the source of peace and joy that it once was.  Deep inside me, is a fury and anger about the way in which denial of healthcare has served to disable me further.  Being forced to sit in a place I once walked in is yet another reminder that my life doesn’t matter because I am fat.   It’s hard enough to live as I do right now without that reminder.  I’m saving my favorite places for that point in the future when I’ve lost enough weight to be allowed a new hip.  But trees are my evidence that the universe is splendid and I do take time to admire them.  This month, that came in the form of a trip to select our Christmas tree.  JT led the adventure, which enabled me to be confident that I could walk and stand long enough.  We visited Home Depot at twilight and the rows of balsams and fir trees smelled amazing.  

This year we chose a balsam tree and JT loaded it up, secured it in the stand, and then brought it inside for us to decorate.  

The house smells amazing and soon enough, this gem will have twinkling lights and ornaments.  Choosing a tree is one of my favorite Christmas traditions and I’m grateful that JT helped to make it happen this year.

A Night with Neil DeGrasse Tyson

In my experience, a Neil DeGrasse Tyson event is a bunch of scientific true believers.  I can say for certain that was the case for me, JT, and my friend H.  We saw Tyson on Thursday night and, like the fan crew we are, we cheered when the wisdom of science range true.  

Talks like this - surrounded by hundreds of people who know that only science can save us - provide a sense of real hope in a world that often feels bleak.  That’s happy.

December 1: Christmas Cactus

At the close of my visit to California after my father’s passing in February, I brought home some clippings from my Dad’s Christmas cactus, a beautiful plant that he had been growing for years.  The cactus spent the Summer and Fall outside under my watchful eye.  I was pleased as the transplants took hold and began to grow.  The plant is the recipient of a lot of attention; I talk to it as if my dad can hear me.  In the cold weather, it’s come inside and sits front and center to soak up the Winter sunlight.  

I didn’t expect any flowers this year but that is exactly what has happened.  

In my mind, these bright blooms can only have one source, the green thumb of my dad reaching through the great beyond.  Each morning I say hello to him and the blooms.  I think that my early-rising Dad would appreciate a morning greeting as dawn emerges.  And that I feel his spirit as the day begins is a lovely gift from this precious plant.  

November Book Report: A Place to Hang the Moon

This gem of a book came my way via Bas Bleu, one of my favorite sources for the sorts of stories I love the most.  Set in WW2 London, it’s the story of three siblings:  Will, Edmond, and Anna.  As the novel opens, the three find themselves well and truly orphans as their elderly grandmother has passed away and there is no family remaining to care for them. Though they have resources, the lack of guardian is a problem as the oldest child, Will, is only 12.  He’s an amazing and thoughtful big brother but, like his brother and sister, he wants a family to care for him.  As the three express it, they long for parents who “think they hung the moon.” 

The family solicitor hits upon a plan of sorts: the children will join a group of evacuees departing London for the safety of the countryside.  There, he hopes, they will find a home where they may stay after the war is over.  The children are in on the plan, though it’s being kept secret from everyone else, and they set off with a group of evacuees.  The first home in which they are placed shows promise - the parents are kind -  - but the brothers in the home are not welcoming.  Relations are tense and then an incident sets up conflict and the children are forced to seek another host.  The second home is no improvement at all and is even worse in many ways: the children are cold and hungry.  Comfort of sorts is found in the routines of school and actual happiness can be found at the town library, where the librarian, Mrs. Muller, proves to be welcoming and kind.  Each day after school, the children visit the library to read and find solace in books.  Privately, the children wish to ask Mrs. Muller to host them and Mrs. Muller seems willing……and well, I don’t want to ruin it for those of you who like a good story.  This one is splendid.  

It’s all set up for just the sort of happy ending I love best.  The story is well-written (the narrator is terrific) and the children are both wise beyond their years but still very much children.  I loved this book and it will live happily on the re-read shelves at my home.  

Four Weeks

After a glorious week off, classes resume this morning.  I love my job and all that it entails, so I’m not sad to return to work.  I spent a great deal of my time off resting my crummy hip and it was a happy thing that I could string together a few hours without pain nearly every day.  School days aren’t like that for me and I’m staring down the abyss of busy, painful days.  That’s hard to embrace, though teaching is a very good distraction from my discomfort. 

At the end of this 4 week stretch, I’ll have two weeks off.  That will end on January 5, the same day that I will see the orthopedist for a re-evaluation and - fingers crossed - move toward scheduling the surgery that will signal the beginning of the end to this nightmare.  As I face the next weeks, I will keep my eye on that prize and do everything I can to be the recipient of good news on January 5.  I struggle with the fact that because I am fat, I have to *earn* the medical treatment that will restore my mobility and stop this pain, but that is a story for another day.

Cooking Journal: Thanksgiving Supper

Normally, I post a Cooking Journal reflection on the 20th of the month.  But I am behind with everything these days, and this blog is no exception.  I figured a few days late with a Thanksgiving supper post was perfectly acceptable and so here we are.  I am deeply enmeshed in food restriction these days, looking to achieve the arbitrary BMI number that will get me the new hip I so desperately need.  I took a break from that on Thanksgiving and allowed myself to eat for the day.  

So it was that JT and I had a delicious Thanksgiving supper.

There was turkey and a potato casserole (neither of us loves mashed potatoes).  I roasted Brussels sprouts and made a posh cheese tray.  There was homemade cranberry sauce and  hot yeast rolls with butter.  We had pumpkin pie for dessert - JT loves pumpkin pie and I’ve also been known to enjoy a slice or two.  Mostly, we enjoyed the day and felt gratitude for the time off this week, the company of one another, and the happy home that we share.    

In Which the Indignities Pile Up, part 2

The first time I ever liked my body was when I was pregnant with JT.  The pregnancy and delivery of a baby I had grown inside me were life-changing in so many ways, especially in terms of my relationship with my body.  I could make human life and my attitude toward myself slowly began to shift.  I wasn’t skinny - and never will be - but I felt strong and able.  I began to work out in earnest - not to lose weight but because I liked the way it made me feel strong.  In the years since JT’s birth, I’ve gained and lost weight but never deliberately.  Once I learned that dieting was a one-way ticket to formidable and overwhelming self-loathing, I rejected the practice.  My dysmorphia never went away but could be avoided by not looking in the mirror or joining pictures.  I learned to wear the clothes I wanted to wear because they felt good and because the fat-girl rule of “choosing something flattering” seemed stupid and constricting.  Since pregnancy, I haven’t weighed myself because that number on the scale would destabilize the whole house of cards that was my sense of self.  My outward confidence was unshakable.  Internally, I was sometimes less confident.  So I avoided triggers that brought on self-loathing: dieting and a scale were out; intuitive eating was in.  Deliberate and specific food restriction were out; eating what I craved and what tasted good was in.  Seeing any doctor was risky because weight would inevitably come up and no setting was safe.  I once had a dermatologist tell me that my skin cancer risk was higher because of my weight.  She said it in a disgusted tone that caused the resident to come back in and apologize to me after the doctor left.  By then, I was a sobbing mess and the resident handed me a tissue, patted me awkwardly on the shoulder and recommended a different dermatologist, one who understood the science (being overweight does not cause skin cancer!).  I found a decent gynecologist and got regular pap smears and used a convenient clinic for the occasional sinus infection.  When arthritis in my knees required gel shots, I sought an orthopedist.  Treatment came only after a stern lecture about my excessive weight.  But the treatment was successful and enabled me to return to a busy life of movement, so fuck that doctor became my attitude.  

Then my hip failed me in spectacular fashion.  I *knew* that no orthopedist would help and, true to form, the first three I saw told me I needed a new hip and then refused me surgery.  One refused until I could meet a BMI target; one refused until I lost weight but promised surgery in 1-10 years if I lost an unspecified amount of weight.  One rejected me with no expectation of surgery or explanation but weight was of course the reason.  That there is loads of research reporting on successful hip replacement for high BMI folks doesn't seem to matter.  All of this feels like my fat self and the life I've built don’t matter.  So it is that my confident self has landed squarely in territory that I know to be dangerous for me: I must restrict food to lose weight in order to receive the medical treatment that I desperately need.  Each day that I am denied what will be life-saving and life-altering surgery is a day I live in pain with a side-serving of self-loathing.  At work, many people have offered commentary - mostly along the lines of “I hear that when folks get a new hip they are so sorry they waited “ - as if to urge me to take action.  At first, I smiled and nodded.  But as the commentary continued, I’ve found that honest talk shuts that shit down.  So I tell people who make that comment,“I’m too fat to get a new hip and I’m working on fixing that so I can have a hip.  But thank you for caring.”  It shuts people up - and embarrasses at least some of them.  But it is both galling and humiliating to be in the position; an open acknowledgement that I matter less because I am fat.  I’m hopeful this story has an eventual happy ending.  Thanks to a ridiculous amount of food restriction, I am on-target to meet the BMI requirement one orthopedist set.  I will see that doctor in January and part of me is hopeful; most of me is convinced that he’ll refuse the surgery and set another BMI goal.  But I am doing everything I possible can to get a hip and to prove that I matter.  When this is all over I hope I can laugh about it.  Right now, I just feel incredibly angry and humiliated, like the 5th grader who was once told she was too pretty to be fat.  Now I know that I can be as pretty as I like while I am too fat to matter.  It’s not much comfort.

In Which the Indignities Pile Up, part 1

I’ve been fat for most of my life, at least since the third grade.  For the same amount of time, I would avoid that word: fat.  It felt pejorative and mean.  Knowing how society feels about fat people, I steered clear of it.  Chubby, curvy, chunky….I could live with those words.  But fat - and any discussion of weight or words like overweight and obese - were off-limits. My aversion started in the 5th grade, when the pediatrician explained to me that I was “too pretty to be fat.”  At the time, I was just over 5 feet tall and 110 pounds - taller and more solid than most of my classmates - and I was already horribly aware of how my bigger body was received in the world.  I was a quirky kid who l loved to read and swim and ride her bike.  I struggled to make school friends….girls in fifth and sixth grade did not like the same things I did and so I was an outsider.  I liked food and probably ate too much of it.  I can say with confidence that school lunches were not helpful; neither was my time spent as a latch key kid.  My mother had some weird food limitations habits - she was forever dieting - and that didn’t help my sense of self worth or teach me to eat only when I was hungry.  In  my family, food was restricted in all sorts of ways and so those arbitrary rules governed eating for as long as I can remember.  But it was the way my body was received by others that was most alarming and from 5th grade onward I quietly embraced the message that I was fat and therefore deserved the second class status that fatness demanded.  In Junior High and High School, I secretly restricted food.  For a good long time, I was 5’3” and weighed 125 pounds.  I still felt fat, ungainly, and unworthy.  

My inner shame was often stifled by my outer confidence.  I was - and am - well-spoken and confident of my smarts.  I rode that ability into high school Forensics championships and admission to UCLA.  

In college, I learned to embrace myself while cloaking my feelings about my weight.  I did gain some weight and worked mighty hard to get rid of it by throwing up, a trick I learned in 7th grade and really embraced in college.  I was never slender —— that was just not in the cards —— but I did learn to live in my large body and side-step the dysmorphia I experience toward it.  I worked with counselors on and off in college and grad school and I found my coping tools.  I never liked my body and I often cloaked myself in clothing to hide my appearance.  I also made damn sure that *no one* knew how I really felt about myself, adopting a “fake it ’til you make it” approach to fat self-esteem while never, ever using the word fat or acknowledging my feelings about my weight to anyone but myself.  That’s been one of the hardest parts of the challenge with my hip - the fact that I am suffering because I am fat cannot be denied or hidden away.  But that’s a story for another day.

Gratitude Journal: Christmas Cactus

I cling to my daily gratitude practice like the lifeline it is while I live with my painful hip and the food restriction said hip requires.  There is a hand-lettered note on my nightstand reminding me to find grace.  At the end of each day, I meditate and identify that grace.  

Pain and anxiety about my hip are my constant companion and some days, grace feels like a mighty small antidote.  But I cling to it….it’s not small unless I make it small.  Lately, a daily measure of grace can be found in my Christmas cactus.  A pretty little plant is growing from the two stalks I took from my dad’s enormous cactus.  My plant got its start in February, after my dad’s passing.  When I see it, I am reminded of him.  That it is flourishing is a source of such comfort and joy to me, and I am grateful for it on a daily basis.

Disabling

My hip has grown worse in the past month and now I mostly get around with the aid of a cane.  Pain is my daily companion and pain relief is not effective.  Sleeping continues to be a significant challenge.  Though I am physically and mentally exhausted, I can rarely rest.  At night, I require narcotics to have shot at two hour windows of sleep, mostly managed when I sit up.  Being in constant pain has a way of fraying neatly all of my patience for myself and dimming my coping skills to a mere shadow of their former self. I’ve struggled mightily to be in good temper about the situation.  I cry on a daily basis.  

The only solution is a total hip replacement.  I’ve read volumes of medical research and by all accounts, a new hip will work and find me right as rain.  I’ve seen several surgeons but none are willing to operate until I lose weight.  Some are murky about the target; others use the discredited BMI standard.  Ultimately, I lack the emotional bandwidth to keep trying to find a surgeon who will operate now.  And so I’ve yielded to deliberate weight loss - dieting - as the avenue to relief.  It’s a dangerous road for me.  I am eating a daily calorie diet of 800-1200 calories; once a week I mix it up and approach 1800 calories.  A combination of self-loathing and pain seems to dim my appetite, so I’m not as hungry as I feared.  Food restriction has been made weirdly easier because of my long-standing body dysmorphia, a condition that fills me with self-loathing.   For many years, I have managed the worst side effects of dysmorphia by using body positivity and intuitive eating.  Neither of those tools are available to me while I restrict food to reach an arbitrary BMI standard.  Most doctors know that BMI is bullshit and, rather than defend it, they use the insurance companies as their excuse.  In some ways, that’s neither here nor there as I am now stuck: forced to restrict food and contend with a dysmorphia that is in full command.  I assume that everyone who sees me is filled with loathing for my body, as I am.  Though I do my best to compartmentalize that sentiment, it’s still in command more than I would like, as I knew would be the case once I started restricting food.  I put on a brave face for everyone but my son and my sister; both have been incredibly good to me.  My sister is both a kind and patient advocate as I lose weight while gripping tightly to the shards of my sanity. She’ll come East to help when I have the surgery and is basically a candidate for sainthood for dealing with my bullshit.  The only good news in this fucked up situation is that food restriction is working. I am close to the BMI goal for surgery set by one of the surgeons.  I hope like hell he'll stick to that proposal because in this strange race to exchange one crippling disability for another, I'm at risk for losing it all together.

Style Journal: Soft Nightgowns

As the weather begins to cool, my need for cozy nightwear grows.  In keeping with my preference to never wear pants, I am not the pajama type.  But I love a nightgown.  When I was a little girl, my grandma would give me a Lanz flannel nightgown for Christmas.  They had ruffles and pretty prints and I loved them.  Though I still have a soft spot for flannel, the idea of sleeping in flannel makes me sweat.  These days, I love Lands End long-sleeved cotton nightgowns.  They are soft and cozy, and each year has at least a few prints that I like.  I especially like small prints and my current favorite has all the trappings of a cozy morning.  

The nightgowns wash like a dream.  Just the thought of putting mine on at the end of a busy day makes me happy.  Here’s to feeling cozy.

One Year

It’s been one year to-the-date since T left.  In all fairness, it should not be expressed in that way — she left in anger on the 6th of November but in the clear light of the next day, it was the right decision for both of us.  On that day, our break-up became mutual.  I thought so at the time; one year later, a lot has changed but not my feeling that our relationship had reached its end.  I have missed her and, perhaps even more than that, I’ve worried about her.  In January, when I finally tried to convey that sentiment to her, I was firmly rebuffed.  We’ve had no contact since those terse texts.  In that exchange, I offered to talk and apologized for not being able to love her in the way that she needed.  She thanked me but had no other response; no apology or expression toward me of any sort.  That was it.  So our relationship of 11 years ended in a whimper. 

I’ve since had plenty of time to reflect on our years together.  But it’s a one-sided story and I’ve little idea how she thinks of our time together.  I’ve wondered - often - if she ever loved me.  I think that reflection comes from the hardships of the pandemic and our last year together.  I hope that’s true; there was a period when I was deeply in love with her and I thought she felt the same way.  I can only speak for myself, but as I think back on our last few years together, it feels that I spent an inordinate amount of my energy trying to manage her mercurial moods and inexplicable anger; to look after her in the way that she needed.  I recognize that my efforts failed, but I did try.  When things between us were at their most difficult, I would console myself with the notion that when I really needed her, she would be there for me.  I don’t know if I believed that as much as I hoped it would true.  But if the Summer of 2022 revealed anything to me, it was the falseness of that hope.  And by the time of her blow up in November - on my birthday, of all days -  I was simply spent.  The next few weeks brought me a strange sense of peace, followed by a whole lot of regret.  Now, a year later, peace is the more dominant sentiment.  Of course it’s tinged with regret; 11 years together is a long time.  I am not yet accustomed to thinking about my long-term future without a whole lot of uncertainty, a feeling that makes me anxious.  

In the last year, I have had the time - and space - to actually look after myself, an art I mostly lost in the blur of our last few years together.  I am not lonely on my own, though I’m a little scared of growing old by myself and being a burden on JT.  I’m sad; really, really sad that I could never find someone to love me as I am.  This is the second time a relationship that I believed was my forever life plan has failed.  Though the differences in my reactions are telling, in the harder moments, this second failure makes me believe that there is something gravely wrong with me.  Those feelings can run rampant far too easily.  So mostly I square my chin, dismiss these feelings of inadequacy, and remind myself of my better qualities.  I’m kind and funny; loyal and true.  Amazing, smart, and worthy.  Stylish and charming.  Beautiful.  And certainly deserving of better than I was receiving in the life I had with T.  One year out, I don’t know if I entirely believe these things, but I want to believe them.  That has to count for something.