Rae

*with her best Dr. Nick impression* Hi Everybody!

How ya doin? I’m doing pretty well over here.

I figure, it’s been a while since I last updated you guys on my life, as opposed to posting a topic given by the Health Advocacy Writer’s Monthly Challenge or translating a chapter of the Tao, so I ought to take a moment to say hello.

Hello!

Things over here have been very quiet since I saw all my doctors last month. The only really big change for me is that I haven’t been eating Paleo since Easter. And while I have gained weight (boo!), I haven’t noticed too much else of a difference, except it’s easier and quicker to find things to eat when we’re hungry.

I think the hardest part of being on the paleo diet is that you have to prepare every meal, and that gets tiresome very quickly when you’re already tired.

A part of me feels like I should take down what I have on the website because it makes me look like I’m eating paleo, when I’m not – but there’s good information there for folks, and I have a lot of recipes and stuff in the website – so I’m leaving it there for now, and am hoping I’ll be able to muster the necessary self-control to get back on the diet in the right way, because it *was* doing good things for me, aside from the fact that I was thinking about food all the time.

Other than diet, the only big thing that is going on here besides kitten raising is that we’re waiting to hear back on some jobs for Adam. He’s interviewed for 3 different jobs in the last month – and all 3 interviews went well (at least as far as we know). He’s supposed to hear back sometime in the next week or so. We’re both on pins and needles waiting to find out. If he gets any one of the three, it will change our lives in a major way, as it will afford us the opportunity to move out of Nick’s home, and into an apartment of our own. So, if you’re the praying type, we certainly could use some of your good mojo!

Right now, my life is pretty steadily just surfing Facebook, writing blog entries, washing dishes, avoiding folding clothes, actually doing the laundry that needs to be washed, and occasionally playing Sims 3 Showtime. I almost have a day-to-day pattern going on. At the very least, I’m taking my meds on time and am getting in my 3 meals, daily, so life has a sort of pattern to it.

Heck, I’m even willing to go so far as to say that I think I’m out of my depression and into “normal.” Folks who are depressed don’t wake up and change a cat box first thing in the morning. They usually feel too bad to make cat shit the first thing they attack upon waking. Me, I want the worst of it out of the way as quickly as possible, so the rest of the day is available for better things, like snuggling the cute little poopers!

Last but not least, in the last month, after 7 years of seeing therapists, I graduated from therapy.

That’s right, you read that correctly. It’s on the books that I no longer have PTSD. I have used EMDR and traditional talk therapy and the appropriate pharmaceuticals to work through all of the related psychological crap that goes with it, and now all of the childhood trauma and abuse, and all the awfulness I lived through in my first marriage, I have dealt with like a champ.

I waited a few weeks to announce it because it’s a big step, and there may be times where I backslide – but my therapist is there if I need her, and thus far, I’ve been great.

And that’s about it for now!

Hope you’re doing well too, readers!

HAWMC Day #19: 5 Dinner Guests. Who are 5 people you’d love to have dinner with (living or deceased) and why?

This question… It’s a tough one. Dinner is just one meal, so you want to make it people who will count and folks who you won’t waste time on establishing a relationship with, unless you think it’ll carry over into other future meals.

Three of the seats are obvious to me: My deceased grandparents. I just know that Grandpa Baroff and Adam would get along like old friends, and I have so many questions about the afterlife and their perspectives on living life, now that they’re in a different place that I think Grandma and Grandpa would answer for me. Then there are questions about being a homemaker and a mother and things I never learned from them but wanted to that I would ask both Grandma and Grammy about.

I think I’d also like to invite Grandma Topor – Adam’s Mom’s mom, who lived with him while he was growing up. I’d like to meet her and get to know her at least a little.

It’s become increasingly obvious to me that the fifth seat would belong to Poppy, who is still alive and kicking in Memphis. I’m sure he’d be happy to see all of these people again too, and me and Adam. I miss Poppy a lot, but I don’t have much to report to him on, which is why I don’t call him like I probably ought to. I feel like he’s so much more active than me that my non-career-having self is probably a disappointment to him. I love him a lot though, and I love to hear his stories about how he’s in his mid-nineties and still is kicking around a college campus, learning from and teaching 20-somethings a thing or two about life.

There are plenty of Tables of 5 that I could construct for other purposes though — family is just always on my mind nowadays.

I remember a time when I was at Berklee where the answer would have been (without pausing for a BREATH): Madonna, Prince, Britney, Fiona Apple, & Tori Amos – And Prince would only have been there because I would have wanted at least one guy at the table who could play guitar. And I would have wanted to bug all of them for how they became famous and how I could follow in their footsteps.

It’s funny how our values change. I used to want fame. Now all I want is peace and happiness for myself and the people I love.