Withdrawal

I am so familiar with this word it’s not even funny.  I’m talking mental withdrawal and I am feeling it so strong. I don’t want to seem like I am twittering, heaven forbid, but I did in exchange of my normal obsession of spin class, opt for a short run today in the surprisingly cool Tampa morning air. God I can remember how much I loved to run, well as Cee Lo Green said: Forget That.  It sounds like heresy coming out of my mouth but I have retired from that regimen and frankly my joints just can’t take that pounding anymore.

Last night I felt like I was a “mug” back at military college because the air conditioning system in this ‘Quality Inn’ was like a model T Ford starting and stopping every 5minutes and I had a wonderful dose of sleep deprivation.  So it’s off to my appointment and to see my beloved Yankees in a Tampa spring training game. I am quite frankly excited.

The Escape

It was planned with exacting certitude this late winter trip to southern Florida. I had to pull away from the magnetic field that was pulling me counterclockwise down a hole I’ve already been down before on a different day, in a different decade. I knew that I didn’t get sober to be unhappy and I had to find out where my true feelings lay.  Has my patience run out with my stepson? Do I still love my wife?  What am I doing, where am I going? 

 I have allowed the situation at home to become muddled and I have failed to detach in a healthy and loving way. The result was three viral infections in a row including two bronchial asthmatic attacks. Some have pointed to the Petri dish of my spin classes but I am convinced that my failure to make boundaries with my stepson and even my wife have in essence brought down the house on my own head. I take full responsibility as an enabler and hostage taker. I too have become a willing prisoner in a home of dysfunction. Trust me this is a good flock, but my shepherding days have to end and end quickly if I am to find myself all in one piece. I cannot continue to live my life based on sentiment and whether I hurt someone else’s feelings or not.  The emotional pull of guilt has lost its attraction, and if it were not for my own distractions I would probably find myself headed for the exit.  Maybe I have already left.  

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.