update cheese... or something

It works like this: something pushes against the grain of my life, leaks out through the seams and has me grappling with meaning and stress. So I talk about it. Sometimes a lot. And then as hours and days pass it just settles into the warp and weave--- sometimes so quietly that I don't even notice. Which is really stupid, when you think about the anxiety and worry that I have just previously poured into the entrance of The Problem in my life. And just like that, I don't talk about it. At all.

Which has got to be irritating for those of you sweet enough to, like, CARE about me and stuff.

The thing is... sometimes the updatery of a situation is so tedious I just want to forget about it altogether. That, or I know that there is no way I can present the update in a creative way. Whether you wrap cheese in plain brown paper or something terribly snazzy, it's just cheese. (Does that make any sense at all? I'm not sure it does, and it doesn't matter anyway.)

So, er... here's the cheese, I mean UPDATE, for any and all interested parties, about some of the stuff that's been occupying the pages of The Creamery.



For our resident pacifist:

I just went up and cold turkey and told Bean that the pacis would be for sleepytimes for now and forever more amen. And the Massive Freakout Meltdown Panic Attack with the kicking and the screaming and the rending of garments (that's what they do, right? Rend their garments?)... it just... didn't happen. !!!! ...don't get me wrong, there have been moments when Bean sort of SNAPPED and LOST IT and DEMANDED that I give her a paci, but on the whole it's been a non-issue. When she wakes up from her nap, and before I even get her out of her crib, I bring a little bowl over and have her put the pacis inside (yes, she goes to bed not with one, but TWO of them). And then we do the whole thing over again when she wakes up in the morning. In some ways, I am hoping that this foretells how it's going to be to get rid of them altogether. When that time comes (which I'm not pushing... I'm happy with her having it for sleep). And in other ways, the part of me that is somewhat devious and evil, the part of me that doesn't want people crowing over AND YOU WERE SO WORRIED AND SO FREAKED OUT BLAH BLAH BLAH--- I am hoping for a Royal Deathly Freakout of Fire. Because I like to know that I can anticipate my child. And also because I like to be right. But, you know, it's a really small part of me that hopes for that.



About the running and the exercise:

For the non-skimmers among you, you know that I was put on a strict NO MOVEMENT WHATSOEVER edict in June and I (again, here it is) freaked out. I will defend my freak out with the following: I had worked really really really (should I add another really) hard for months on establishing a new routine for myself. A routine for giving my body some attention, for feeling good about myself and my choices. And I was seeing all these great results, you know? I felt better and I moved better and I just started to feel like a Revived Whimsy. And a Revived Whimsy is a Happy Whimsy. So to have it just yanked out from under me because I had done something royally wrong to my neck? It wasn't just a universal NO, it was a door slamming on my nose and I was left on the doorstep all pathetic and whimpery. But I continued to do somewhat regular treadmill walks--- nothing like I had been doing, but I wanted (and still do want, of course) to get healthy and stay that way, which sort of requires a working neck. I had a couple of weeks there where I did some serious I'm-bored-and-depressed-and-there's-no-one-around-to-stop-me-from-eating-four-brownies-in-a-row eating. And then I just... snapped out of it. I'm trying to walk every day now and my physical therapist gave me the green light to start running in 30-second increments--- which let's be honest feels ridiculous, but then again, at least it's something. And I'm happy with that. I can't tell you this is the Big Lesson Learned, but there is at least a little one that I've gleaned, and it's this: You can't always do as much as you'd like, but do what you can and then enjoy it. And sometimes that little bit you can do is even enough.



Which brings us to THE GREAT NECK INJURY OF 2010:

Well, like anything and everything in my life, my neck is a work in progress. And I'm totally okay with that too. It turns out that it was this whole stabilizer neck muscle mess (totally the technical term)--- so the only thing to do is to get strong strong strong. And I can do that. I try to pace myself these days on anything I do, but I am thankfully back to doing dishes and laundry and other housery things. Which is really good. I'm also not so much a sitting-in-one-place-for-long-periods-of-time person anymore. So if you see me in real life, you'll notice that I shift and stand and move and stretch. A lot. And (say it with me) I'm okay with that.



So that was it, my fabulous Thursday Update Cheese. What do you have? I'd love to know what's going on in your life right now, what you're doing and what you think about it all.

Oh, and if anyone knows how to break the news to your physical therapist that you sort of feel like, um, I don't want to come back because I'd rather do these exercises at home and not have to pay someone hundreds of dollars to tell me that my neck needs to get really strong but I'm good to go and thank you you've been great? I'd love to hear your suggestions, because I'm not so much a Break Up kind of girl. I'd rather just not call... ever again... and I know that's bad form in the dating world and I'll just go out on a limb and say that maybe it isn't such a good practice in the medical world either.