I have not been on for a while. I have been very busy and sick in between. Life has been good. No drama for while (knock on wood). It has been moving forward and a little more normal. Normal.....hmmm. That is rather subjective. My normal equates peaceful or without drama. I guess for some people drama would be normal or for another chaos may be normal.





On another note:
My decision tonight was to exercise. Let's see if this is the first day of a new beginning or if I am not ready to be committed.
Day 1: Hard core exercise for 15 minutes. Jogging, running in place, push ups, and lunges. Hard but I did not give up. I am 246 pounds, I am over weight, I am placing myself at risk for health. That is the fact. That is today. It will take many tomorrows to make a change and even longer to make a difference. My wish and hope is that I am here to accomplish it all.

My daughter called me yesterday. As we spoke she made a comment that struck me. She said, "you've changed since the cancer." I asked if it was in a bad way or a good way. She said neither, just changed. I think I would have preferred good or bad. "Neither" sounds so stagnant. I thought about it and I never got angry at having cancer but about a year after I was done with chemo, I did get angry at myself as I felt I had let people hurt me and say things to me that I should not have allowed. People had said of me, "it's OK, she does not get offended or she is strong, she can handle it or don't worry about her she can take care of herself." It did not allow me to express what I was really feeling. That changed after chemo I started saying what I thought and walking away from people and situations I did not like. I am not sure why I did that but I think I know I was angry, really angry. It wasn't comfortable. I have looked at things a little more and you know, I am strong. I did not let people hurt me, I could not control their words but I chose how I was going to respond. I picked my battles carefully and I have few regrets about how I responded then. After the cancer, for that years time, I have a few regrets. We can allow ourselves to go down paths we know won't bring us greater peace. It is time to find the me that used to pray for the best, forget the worst and always have faith.

 

There are times in our life that we have to take a step back and re-evaluate things. Finding a balance in life is challenging. Relationships are complicated and sometimes not worth the effort as they don't help to make us strong and can do so much for making us more miserable. Strength can come from walking away from that which makes us miserable. 

I AM DOING MUCH BETTER REMEMBERING THIS.

 

Poem about trying to please others…

When I laugh, they say: ‘Aren’t you embarrassed’?
When I cry, they say: ‘Why can’t you smile’?
When I smile, they say ‘He’s showing off’!
When I frown, they say: ‘His real personality has become apparent’!
When I’m quiet, they say ‘He can’t talk’. When I speak, they say ‘He talks too much’.
I was tolerant so they said ‘He is a coward, if he was able to take revenge he would he would have taken it’.
When I pulled up some courage, they said ‘He is ill-mannered, he wouldn’t be bold if he ruled’.
If I say no, they say ‘He is strange’.
When I approve, they say ‘he is foolish’.

I found this poem when I performed a Google search "poem about trying to please people". No author was listed.
 It sums up the way I feel when I am around my in laws, particularly my mother-in-law.  This poem sends me down a path of remembering times when my actions or motives have been questioned, denied, criticized and commented on.
One of the first of these moments was when my husband and I had been married just shy of a year. It was summer and I was set to go into the hospital to be induced as I was 2 weeks overdue with our first child. Early that morning I felt like something was wrong with the baby and so I called my doctor. He asked me to explain what I felt and I told him that I felt like the baby's spirit had left me. I thought he would think I was crazy but instead he had me come into his office. He tried finding my baby's heartbeat for quite a while and he then left the room for a while. When he returned, I could tell he had been crying. He told me my baby had died. He suggested I still go through the labor process. I was induced and 8 hours later I was holding my baby in my arms. She looked like she was just sleeping. She looked so perfect and beautiful. She was 8 lbs., 8 oz. and 22 inches long with jet black hair and long eyelashes and long fingers. I wanted desperately to scream and demand that they bring her back to life. How could this happen? The autopsy showed she had gotten a blood clot in her umbilical cord and oxygen rich blood could not get to her. This did not help me feel any better as I wondered why I did not feel that something was wrong sooner? Could she have survived if I had gotten to the doctor sooner? I was so ready for this baby and it was ripped away from me. I was overwhelmed with sorrow but I stayed quiet and cried silently and tried so hard to keep it together. I was afraid if I let go I might never be able to stop. The hospital released me less than 24 hours later as they did not want me to have to hear the babies in the maternity ward understanding that this could be difficult for me. The day after having our baby I was sitting at the bay window of our home. I looked outside and tried to find some peace in myself, some greater understanding of what had happened and I was trying to turn to God for comfort but the tears would not stop streaming down my face. At that moment my mother-in-law came close to me and whispered in my ear, " you need to stop crying you're making [your husband] feel bad." She made me feel like I was being selfish and that I had no right to feel the way I was feeling. My husband had not told her anything nor had he conveyed that he had wanted me to stop feeling bad or anything. He understood that I needed time. She never once asked me how I was doing or feeling. She looked at me with contempt the whole time she was there. She made a horrible moment in my life even worse. There, I said it. I have never said that before. She made things worse. She has made soooo many things worse!
Why is it that I try so hard to please them and want them to like me? I am so lost and feel so drained. Somehow, I have got to find a way to just move on without them in my life. But, tell me how I do that when I am married to their son and I do not want to negatively affect his relationship with them?
My sister-in-law visited with her new husband last summer. He pulled me aside one day. He is a good man and a very straight forward individual and he is older, quite a bit older than myself. He looked me straight in the face and said, "honey, you have got to move away from here. I see how your in-laws treat you and what they think about you and staying in this place is going to kill you." I wish I felt vindicated as it has been hard for even my husband to believe that his parents feel so negatively towards me as the things his parents do are done when he is not within ear shot or there.
I wish I had a strong desire to just move but instead I think about how they need us to stay and help and that I could not feel good about leaving them when I am married to their only son and he feels the obligation and desire to help. I like to help when I am with my husband as these are the times they are kept in check.
Writing this helps. Still, it is only something I am only willing to write but not willing to say.

It has been a challenging week. I have been working really hard to accomplish so much and there does not seem to be enough time for it all but I am trying. Work was all consuming this past week and I even had to go in on Saturday to make life easier on Monday.
In the midst of all of this I also had my 6 month oncologist visit. I am in remission and my blood tests came out great! I have a CT Scan in a week but it is just to make sure that a pain I am having is not cancer. My doctor and nurse said I was looking great. That made my day. I have lost 3 pounds so yay for me!
Even so, this week has been one that made me think deeply about my life. The nurse asked me how I was feeling. I think it was because I probably looked a little somber. I love my oncologist and his staff but it is a reminder of the other people who used to visit there that have passed away. Four people on my same chemo schedule have passed away since I finished chemo. They were all beautiful people and I think of them. I know they would give anything to have had extra time with their loved ones. Time I have been given. I am hard on myself sometimes because I feel I waste some of that time. I play some games to help my brain stop thinking about work and other worries. I have to have FAITH. It is so important to concentrate on that which I can change and have faith that the rest will work it's self out. It does not mean I won't someday possibly get cancer again but it won't help worrying about it or thinking about it.

So I have decide to have FAITH live there. It will take belief, prayer, hope, a joyful heart and continued move towards a positive life. It won't happen over night. Nothing in life worth having is easy to attain and it is even harder to keep. It will take work. I have to work at this with the zest I show in my job. My life is more important than work and so much more worth it.

So the new year is almost upon us. One can't help but be retrospective and or decide to make some goals or resolutions. I am not fond of the word resolution but I do have a few goals which I have already started as I don't like waiting until the new year and hey, I like being different. My goal came from a quote I read quite a while ago and was recently reminded of. It is:

I have rededicated myself to setting my expectations higher and to the point that I know it will be difficult to attain them. These expectations are only for myself. I am not fond of the belief that we can try to change others or that we force our beliefs on others. I have found that being an honest and true person to myself gives me strength to move past the negative people and/or influences in my life. The right people in my life is a matter of choice.
 To the new year, another year I have been blessed to still be here for. There is so much to be grateful for.

Update:

• We are all finally over that horrible cold and virus that has been going around.
• The fasting helped but I did not make it past 2 days.
• The juicing was great and yes, the bathroom was my close companion for the first 24 hours. lol
• Losing weight has gone slow but I have lost 4.2 pounds. 
• I found some great jeans that fit a full figured short person.
• WalMart is scary the night before black Friday. Many store items were covered with signs saying "Don't Look, Don't Peek!" I think those signs could be used on some folks there too.

• Thanksgiving was great! We spent it at my in-laws and we had a good time. I never give up hope that they will appreciate the relationship I work to have with them.

Now for a Winter funny: