Let Me Out of Here

A week away on business will do more for my psyche even though the thrust of my trip is mainly business.  I intend to relax and take in a change of scenery.  Time to write and change my exercise regimen even though my plan is to seek out an Equinox and take in a spin class there. 

 My 2nd bronchitis attack gave me some alarm that I might have to postpone my flight but I took the precaution of staying away from the gym for what will be 4 days.  As much as I miss those classes I needed to make a change to break this string. 

A saying in AA tells me that when we became sick and tired of being sick and tired we would make changes. I am sick and tired of being sick and I just hope relief is on its way. My home life has been a bit more palatable of late but nothing intrinsically has changed. I wish that I were just a bit more of a hard ass and throw someone out on his ass but there is too much at stake because it involves all four of us not just him and I.  And coupled with the fact that I hate to be mean even though change is long overdue. I am reminded of my sister who took advantage of my gentleness and is not even speaking to me just like my stepson is right now. 

A Day In the Life

Every day is special is what I have always heard echoing in my ears because we never know when it will be our last. That seems reason enough to stay present and never let the past or the ghosts of tomorrow keep us rooted to the spot.  I am not taking my life for granted anymore and I am driven to not only live in each moment but also not let anyone steal my serenity. I know that I have been too quick to relinquish my own happiness because I thought it was the right thing to do or I thought myself to be selfish. In order for me to be truly happy I need to be selfish knowing the laws of my heart and mind will permit only just so much self-absorption.  I trust my spirit will always float to do the right thing because I cannot live with myself if I don’t. 

Shedding Stress

Shedding stress is not as easy as shedding pounds. It’s nearly 10 weeks now that I find myself in respiratory distress and wonder how much of it is attributable to the stress in my life. One thing is for certain are that those people, places and things that I cannot shed now I have to let go of. I cannot keep expecting that the people in my life that claim   (and will swear on a holy bible that they do) to  love me are doing more harm than good.  They are doing the best they can with the resources they have but whoever taught them did a horrible job. This is not judgment this is what is. 

When someone has low self-esteem and a sense of entitlement attached to it, that person is not going to be able to understand their own malady unless they go and get their own stress relief like therapy. This is the option I have chosen most recently in my life basically because I need a sane voice that is emotionally unattached to me. It would seem that there are many that claim to love me in varying degrees but that is not what I am after now. I need a plan and even though I live extemporaneously that is not going to work as I head into the latter part of my existence. In fact I am seeing the end of the road as a distinct possibility I just need a direction so I don’t fall off the map.  

Forbearance

It’s time for a bolder look and I don’t just mean the words I write. It has to be the forbearance from not taking the time I have left as just being too late. There is a renaissance going on in my life right now that comes without the fanfare of the past. It just seems that the learning of falling down holes and getting out of them time and again has passed. My intuition will take over now I don’t have to live in fear because all the governing brakes and steering fluids keep me on track. This leaves me to the devices God gave me in the first place without an out of control ego to screw it up. 

Take me one flight up this time without the bumps and I will step out onto the floor of achievement that has eluded me because I thought about it too much. This rise carries no imbalance and as I walk now there is no weaving, just a natural walk direct and with a pace that is neither quickened nor shuffled.  I want to be in the game this time and the clock is the only thing I can’t seem to slow down but that’s what the hope of the hereafter is all about. 

Who will be with me on this new journey? I know that it won’t be anyone that I have to enable and no one that I have to give to more than I get. Those days are gone because I am worth so much more than that. Those that are left behind I will mourn for but when I meet them in heaven I will try to make it up to them. For now however I need raving fans not me as the default setting to do the shopping and pay all the bills. 

No It's Not Valentine's Day Again

This past week I had my own drama in the cardiologist’s office. This happened as I was getting an overdue echocardiogram and nuclear stress test.  The echo went fine and my arteries were clear and I said to myself well Jack you don’t need plavix.  There was no left ventricular hypertrophy as I once thought but there still were the atrial fibrillation episodes that would hit me unexpectedly from time to time. I had given some credence to the notion that too much caffeine was the culprit but this day I had had no coffee that morning. Of course that had me thinking I needn’t pay any attention to my intake of it in the future. I dismissed that thought rather quickly.  Never however were these episodes exercised induced, but once I was in A-Fib I had to be in repose to quiet my beating heart. 

As I stepped on the treadmill hooked up like Steve Austin, I saw the monitors jump as my HR read at one point 150. Clearly way beyond my resting rate of 54.  My cardiologist was aghast as to what was happening as finally he was able to document for himself just what my atrial fibrillation looked like. He almost started to stammer as to what my recourse might be; including coumadin, another catheter ablation or what we finally agreed on was my suggestion of just doubling my bystolic from 5mg to 10mg.  In the end he said to call him in 5 months. What’s a cardiologist to do with an irregular heartbeat on a man aged 60 who does not have high blood pressure or diabetes or clogged arteries? Not much just wait and see. And that’s just what I will do. I did notice one thing however my HR spikes were much lower than it was a year ago and I attributed that to my spin classes. More to come on this as it happens. 

A Spiritual Awareness

Can I avoid a letdown after today?  I think I can but I won’t have a clear perspective until I wake up in the morning, Sunday morning. Watching that first hour from the “cheering section” gave me the perspective I have never conceived of.  I have known for many months now just how devoted I am to spin but sitting there watching a 100 riders and 3 instructors told me something new I hadn’t even considered that I absolutely love to spin. Probably this is not such a revelation in view of the fact that you will find me in the Lavender Palace 6 days a week. 

A friend told me that when people get together like we did yesterday that we produce a spiritual awareness. I guess that it must be so.  It was the power of hundreds moving with one voice, a particular movement within their physiology and a single mindedness. It felt like a higher power was at work. I am not referring to God here, even though I thought he must be smiling at us creatures, I am talking about a power greater than ourselves. And certainly with that many people in one place feeling and doing is a lot more powerful than the mind of just one.  

It is Sunday and I feel not isolated today. I get that sometimes when I awake and everyone is deep in the somnolent state as I have stated before in other entries. Today there is nary a wrinkle in my smile and when I get close to those types of moving parts again my inhalation will be that much deeper and when I enter my 3rd space today and tomorrow that scent will fill me once more. 

Spendthrift

My life is so much more alive when I allow all my feelings to get exercised. There can be a cost of course but I am willing to spend the emotional coins to empty my pockets and place it in the turnstiles for the ride I was intended to take.  

A little metaphor for me today as it always lets me get a glimpse of what I am feeling at any particular moment. I know that my balance sheet is in the black and because of that fact I sleep well every night of my life now. I am free from guilt because I am kind, generous with my emotions and try to treat people with empathy and regard. This is my mantra and no one can tell me I don’t give enough. 

11 Years Ago Today

On the anniversary of my mother’s death from renal cancer some 11 years ago  I am reminded that at age 70 her life was cut short based on the life expectancy we are experiencing today. I can thank my mother for me never smoking because when I was a teen she offered me $300 dollars if I didn’t smoke by my 21st birthday. $300 was a lot of money back then considering that I washed dishes at Jones Beach for $1.25 an hour.  Of course there were other addictions she didn’t warn me about but those I would have to live and die through on my own. 

So it is with more impetus than I had originally expected I find myself at the Cycle for Survival event in Roslyn this Saturday and you can bet that my mom will be in my thoughts in every other pedal stroke. And in between will be dedicated to those I know and don’t know that are living through the big C right now.  Yes I will be blogging about it but I know that the energy will feel like I have wings. 

Apples & Grapes

 It has become readily apparent to me that not many can get their arms around my thought processes without coming up with their own form of illogic.  I don’t know why this is but that is the way that it is.  Either do I know why some people claim to have an inkling what I am thinking when they have no idea what their own thoughts are. 

Maybe not really a mind bending thought but it amazes me to think we have an understanding with people we love and it is sometimes thinking an apple tastes like an grape

The Death Knell

It’s now getting to be old hat that my wife doesn’t talk to me. I guess she thinks it’s a game or what I deserve. Little does she realize this has sent the death knell to this marriage. I have nothing in common with her now except to live under the same roof and keep her son and daughter in law housed as they continue to draw down on my bank account.

They went out again to dinner tonight and he and his wife go out to dinner more in a week’s time more than I do in a month of Sundays.  He has absolutely no problem telling me he’s broke but he has plenty of money to frequent restaurants on the money he’s not paying me.

My wife sits here knitting for a friend’s baby and sings to one of the expensive cats I bought her and continues to ignore me. I am just the breadwinner here and this is increasingly become a foul place for me to reside. This makes the pain she will feel all the more tolerable to me because of the pain she inflicts on me now.

A Shift In the Force

I have turned the corner, I think. This thing, now that I have a name to affix on it: Asthmatic Bronchitis. It provides me a portal to look through 1/0th the feeling of what my sister went through everyday of her abbreviated life.  

 I don’t give much thought to breathing except when I am spinning for an hour most mornings.  It seems my whole life I have been trying to catch my breath.  

This Saturday morning feels different though, not just because my URI is abating but there is definitely something different in the air. I am acknowledging that there are still members of my family that are encumbering me because of their lack of initiative, and I intuitively  know that all this will be over soon. I just need to take care of my needs and things will just fall into place because I have done the footwork and a closed mouth speaks louder than one that is constantly pressing air through it because it brings no results, none whatsoever.  

Cosmic Shift

All of a sudden I have felt a cosmic shift in my world. Part of it came from an increase in the level of my business the other part has manifested itself in that I have many more phone calls to answer.  And I have started to feel more lucid in just what the hell I want to make myself happy. For the past dozen or so years I have been engaged in making my blended family happy, sometimes at the expense of my own happiness. 

That has changed as I shift my focus to a healthy selfish.  As I have coined my own phrase: The Stick is Getting Shorter, so too is my patience. I cannot tolerate this laissez faire attitude that my charges seem to take as to how they just don’t have to be motivated to contribute to the household that I am paying for in total. I don’t think I need to provide any more warning than I have given already when I do pull the plug. And that time is approaching