Chili, Fudge, and Resolutions

Monday, January 3, 2011
12:43am (so pretending it's still Sunday)

Well, it's been a full day, if nothing else. I started the day off a little late due to various sleep disturbances throughout the night that I won't go into right now in order to avoid unnecessarily reheating my anger. I had a couple cups of coffee and started working on resolution #3 for this year, which is to be abroad by the summer. I found a program in Ecuador for teaching English. It's all inclusive for $3990, including airfare and all meals in-country, and is two months long, so it looks like a winner so far. The only draw back might be the return date. It says "mid-August." If that means mid early August, that's fine, because I can get back in time to start my TA commitment back up. If that means mid late August, that could throw the whole thing off. Probably, though, this will not be the only program to which I apply, as I really do want to make it happen for the summer. So I wrote three essays this morning for that application. They're rough still, but I'll edit soon enough.

Mom, Carly and I went for a walk down at the park this afternoon. It was pretty cold, but the sunshine was nice. The moderate, as opposed to intense, exercise was nice. It didn't feel like a workout, but it felt excellent for my back. Note to self for resolution #2- walking gently eases back pain. I don't plan to ditch my more intense, fitness-oriented workouts in favor of leisurely strolls, but they might be something I can ocassionally incorporate into my life to gently loosen my spine.

This evening I visited with my grandparents. Mam-maw was having an exceptionally bad night, talking about a fear of going to sleep due to fear of nightmares. She was just really, really a wreck. She's depressed and nervous about many things, not to mention that she hasn't been eating. When a person doesn't eat, at least some basic carbs, the brain starts taking weird directions. Carbs or a lack thereof really affect mood a lot. She said her back was hurting, so I offered to rub it. That had the best effect on her. She just started to calm right down. The things she said were making sense again, and she wasn't going from crying to shaking, from crying to shaking. She was like, man, you really know where to get. How did you learn to do that? Unfortunately, the best teacher is having chronic back pain yourself, lol, but at least it found a useful application tonight.

I wanted to do something nice for my grandparents and parents tonight. Mam-maw wishes she could cook more for Pap-paw still, and Pap-paw has never really cooked anything more than a bologna sandwich in his life. So for our brief hang-out time tonight, John and I drove up to Witschey's and got stuff to make chili. Took John home, dropped him off because he wasn't feeling well, and came home. Carly helped me in the kitchen. Together we made a big pot of chili, cornbread and peanut butter fudge. The fudge is all for Mam-maw. She loves it and seems to have some emotional attachment to having it around the holidays. She got sick while making it this year and had to quit, so she never got any. So we made it for her tonight. Fudge is really tricky to make, fyi... sugar is so easy to burn.

Worked on all my other resolutions in some format today, too. #1- I did 26 push-ups straight today. #2- did some basic yoga stretching before bed to hopefully help with pain. #3- essays for Ecuador as mentioned previously. #4- This has been in my mind all day, and I've felt it surfacing. I'm just not letting people pull me down. I'll decide how I feel about myself and learn to screen out external negative voices. This also helps me be nicer to others. When I'm less defensive, it's not only easier to let others in, but also not to feel a need to pre-emptively attack. #4 came out at my grandparents' tonight when Mam-maw was talking about her fear for nightmares. Sometimes I feel I shouldn't speak about God or the spiritual out loud to people because I'm obviously not in a church nor on any structured path. I feel people are always ready to ask, "Who are you to say anything about it?" But it came right out of my mouth. "Well, just say your prayers. Tell God you want Him to hold your mind tonight." She looked at me confused, but then seemed to make sense of it and asked if I'd pray for her, too. Thing is, it's a prayer I've used before when I've had trouble in bed at night. Sometimes, although not frequently, I get overtaken by the most intense and irrational fears. The best thing I can do in a time like that is realize that my fears are not rational and to try to align my mind with the universal Mind, my idea of God, where I know things just are what they are, not distorted like in my mind. Things are calm and make sense there, even though not to my own senses. So I got to speak from an uncomfortable part of my own experience tonight and not feel uncomfortable doing it. So that's progress on #4.