The power of pills.

I'm not exactly happy about my pill situation - on top of the psychiatric medication I've started this year, my psychiatrist keeps suggesting this supplement and that supplement, and now I'm taking about five things daily, which bugs me.

It's hard to feel healthy when breakfast is oatmeal, oj, and a cup of pills.

But...... it's really helping. My mood is stabler and happier on a consistent basis then it has been ever before in my life. I'm sleeping a bit better (there's nothing in this world that could make me sleep well), and all around things are improving.

So, I need to learn to how to over come this feeling of pill-quantity induced ill health, and while I work on that, work on figuring out how use the nutritional parts of my cooking program, so that I can eventually get my various nutrition needs from meals instead of pharmacies.

Today is a good day.

Today I have recorded and shared memories of a pleasant time in my life.
Today I have crafted with my daughter, teaching skills that give me pleasure.
Today I have baked, filling my home with goodly scents and a feeling of worth.
Today I have cleaned, creating order and comfort in my home.
Today I have planned, foreseeing what is to come and preparing for it so that when it comes a hard time will be easier.

Today is a good day.

Knowing when to quit.

It's one of the most difficult pieces of advice to accept - to quit doing something that is too hard. We're taught from earliest childhood that "winners never quit, and quitters never win" , that "the only sin is lack of trying", that "if at first you don't succeed, try and try again."

But sometimes, you need to quit. You need to stop doing what creates only pain.

That's what I'm looking at right now. I am - was - a backpacker, and there's a lot of pride and sense of self tied up in my being a person who backpacks.

But these days, it hurts. I suffered a leg injury a couple of years ago, and spent a big chunk of time in physical therapy getting my ability to walk back to normal. There is, however, a big difference between walking around town or hiking with a daypack and compacting the whole of life into 35 lbs, strapping it on, and heading out into the woods for days on end.

I just got back from a backpacking trip - 3 days, short 4 and five mile days, 33lbs, trekking poles to help compensate for the leg weakness I know I have. A planned shake down hike for the long vacation hike I've got planned for August.

And it was no good. Even with the physical training I've been doing, even with the additional physical therapy work to make sure that the joints and all did what they should, it was no good. Better, yes, much better then last time I tried this hike, but still..... I hurt too much to be able to enjoy it. I didn't hurt so much I can't move afterwards, which is an improvement.

But it was no fun. It was mile after mile of low-grade agony that didn't let up, and stole every view, despoiled every sudden wildflower, and left me weeping at the end of each day.

Maybe if I only hiked for being to say I got the miles done, this would be enough. That I could do the miles.

It is time, I think, for me to try and find a way to be happy without being a person who backpacks. It's a very challenging thing to try and do, especially right now, when I have train tickets, and motel reservations and child care arranged for a three week hike that I want to do so badly... A hike that I have dreamed about being able to take for years.

A hike that I am - despite having trained and focused on preparing for it since January - physically incapable of hiking.

I am not strong enough to say today that today is a good day.

I am strong enough to when it is time to quit.

Despair.

Today I am alive.
Today I am making chicken stock with two chickens.
Today I am drinking tea.
Today I have a fountain pen to write with.
Today I can think about today.
Today I am alive.

There is despair. There is grief. There is anger, and loneliness.

But today I alive.
Today I can drink tea.
Today I can make chicken stock with two chickens.

So today is a good day.

Happiness and Fear

I am doing something today, right now, that I haven't done in many many years. I am consciously listening to music. Not music as an afterthought on a radio variety show, not music as an aspect of a film, not music just to add sound to the air.

It can be frightening to stretch past ones habits like this. Frightening because of the unfamiliarity, because of the threat of newness.

And frightening, for me, because of mental illness. I have clinical depression, and pleasure in newness scares me because - as desirable as it is to be happy, as good as it is to enjoy what is new and different - it is also a potential symptom of a worsening of my disease - a symptom of mania.

It is, I think, an irrational fear for me to have - my diagnosis does not include mania, and I trust the physicians who interpret my experience for me. I believe - I must believe - that they are able to accurately characterize my difficulties.

Still it is difficult to choose this happiness. It is very challenging to let myself feel as good as I feel, because I have no gauge for it's normalcy.

None the less, there it is. Today I am listening to music, and I am happy.

Today is a good day.

On Today

Today I have rested, and read, and played.

Today is a good day.