It's a low blow to Texas to say that I'm dreaming of the north since it's been the hottest summer on record and maybe it's not its fault. But I have been having dreams about lush, green Pennsylvania...about the mountains...the flowers and the plush landscape. I'm sure that in the dead of winter I would also be fantasizing about Texas... but maybe the grass is always greener, literally.
I know that this is my second entry complaining about the heat, but it makes me useless. If you sleep in your day is shot... you can kiss any outdoors activities goodbye unless you're some superhuman with an extra efficient cooling system and skin that produces its own sun protectant. I am already 3 times more tan than I ever want to be (I take skin cancer and wrinkles seriously).
I suppose in every stage of life you go through you discover something about yourself and I can surely say now that I do better with long cold winters than I do with sweltering sizzling summers. Give me the Ugg boots, the salted sidewalks, the muddy slush anytime over this dry, cracked and unbearable sun.
It rained yesterday afternoon for a whole 15 minutes. It was enough to hatch some pesky mosquitoes but not enough to actually nourish the thirsty ground. Can we fast forward to October already?
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Monday, August 17, 2009
My Little Dog
We're sticking to a strict exercise schedule with this little guy. Here's Simon, post-walk and pooped out. He can barely hold his head up!
The Itch
It's been too long and we haven't traveled. For my Chilean husband, who hasn't even been to Argentina, that's perfectly fine. He's living abroad, and Texas is practically another country entirely, so why am I not happy?
But man, I get the travel itch when I haven't been on planes and trains for a while. I would even be content taking a 3-day vacation to Mexico.
The truth is that I'm just dying to escape the Texas heat. It's disgusting. I thought that northeastern winters were enough to keep you in bed with your head under the covers for 5 months straight. But no, it's frickin hot out and I don't want to go anywhere.
We've had 57 some (I believe today will be 58) consistent days with temperatures reaching over 100 degrees F. I try and take my dog for a walk in the evenings, hoping it's calmed down, and we even stick to the shade... and I find him laying down on the sidewalk, panting, after only 20 minutes. If I can get up early enough (today was not one of those days) I'm lucky if I can sneak in a walk before 9 when the temperatures stay around 80 degrees.
I have a meeting this afternoon with a professor at 2pm. I'm dreading having to take public transportation, which involves standing at the bus stop during mid-day. It's just intolerable.
If anyone finds some cheap travel deals... to places like northern Russia, Siberia, or Tierra del fuego, please let me know.
But man, I get the travel itch when I haven't been on planes and trains for a while. I would even be content taking a 3-day vacation to Mexico.
The truth is that I'm just dying to escape the Texas heat. It's disgusting. I thought that northeastern winters were enough to keep you in bed with your head under the covers for 5 months straight. But no, it's frickin hot out and I don't want to go anywhere.
We've had 57 some (I believe today will be 58) consistent days with temperatures reaching over 100 degrees F. I try and take my dog for a walk in the evenings, hoping it's calmed down, and we even stick to the shade... and I find him laying down on the sidewalk, panting, after only 20 minutes. If I can get up early enough (today was not one of those days) I'm lucky if I can sneak in a walk before 9 when the temperatures stay around 80 degrees.
I have a meeting this afternoon with a professor at 2pm. I'm dreading having to take public transportation, which involves standing at the bus stop during mid-day. It's just intolerable.
If anyone finds some cheap travel deals... to places like northern Russia, Siberia, or Tierra del fuego, please let me know.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Just here.
I know that I haven't posted in a while. It's been a crappy summer and I haven't much felt like writing. When I did I tried to keep to the positive side of things. No one likes to read an entry by a big complainer.
I failed to mention this, but at the end of May I decided I wanted off of my antidepressants. I was feeling spectacular. The semester had ended on a good note, I had established a consistent yoga practice and although poor, I was excited about the prospect of having the summer off to begin working on my master's comps reading list. I was half-heartedly looking for a job out of economic necessity.
Then, I got one. A miserable one. Not all of it was bad... my co-workers (most of them) were generally pleasant and I didn't spend a lot of face to face time with patients. But I did spend a lot of time on the phone. The majority of people I spoke with were kind, but every day there were a handful with such negative attitudes and energy that it just seemed to seep over the phone line and into my ears. I think, perhaps, a stronger person can learn to block it out. Maybe I could have done that if I had still been on my SSRI's, but when left to my natural state, I'm a big wet, sensitive blob of goo. I just want to help people. And I realized that sometimes when you can't give people exactly what they want, when they want it, it's just impossible to make them happy. And then I learned that other people will just never be happy no matter what. And unfortunately it just still kept affecting me.
Have you seen the movie Julie and Julia? How she goes to her bleak cubicle and answers hysterical phone calls all day? That's not too far off from what I was doing.
After a few weeks I began to feel like all my energy was just sucked out of me. I was grumpy when I got home and every morning I would wake up filled with dread. I had to keep reminding myself that I just needed the money so badly. So I still arrived on time every single day, even if it took all of my strength just to get up and get dressed. To get through the day I took countless trips to the staff kitchen, scarfing down Cheezits, Ritz Crackers, chips and soda. I gained 10 lbs. And I didn't even realize it.
And then, a few weeks ago, I had a bit of an epiphany.
One of those patients, who was giving me a real bad time and just filling my head with all sorts of negative energy came into the office and had a bit of a fit. She didn't have an appointment, and it seemed she came into see the doctor and claimed to have one. When we explained that she'd just have to wait, she started crying, being very difficult, and basically causing me to want to crawl under my desk and hide. I noticed she was quite overweight. I also happened to see on her chart that she suffers from depression and anxiety.
So, out of boredom, and curiosity, I began to notice that most of my daily problem patients fit this profile: middle-aged, overweight and suffering from depression or anxiety. In fact, it got to the point that I could sense when someone on the phone fit this profile just by the way they spoke with me and reacted to things like not being able to talk to a nurse right away, or not being able to get an appointment as soon as they would have liked.
And then I realized that by absorbing all this negativity, and embodying it myself through my own weaknesses, that I, too, was on the road to being the same way.
I know that it's possible to recover from depression and anxiety, I know that it's possible to be more mindful of my thoughts and reactions. I'm beginning to see that it's a daily struggle to keep myself positive and on track.
I vowed to finish my entire period of work that I had agreed to. I've decided that I will walk every day with my dog and try to go to yoga at least 3 times a week.
My plan of attack is yoga. I have no idea if that will work but I'm determined not to go back on antidepressants. I know it's been done. I even tried acupuncture last week and got a prescription for Chinese herbs. I have these 10-15 lbs that I'm set on knocking off.
I just don't want to turn into a negative, happiness destroying, life sucking middle-aged woman who makes poor receptionists want to cry. I don't want to continue feeling so empty. And I really don't want to keep writing so many entries where my most-used word is "I"!
I failed to mention this, but at the end of May I decided I wanted off of my antidepressants. I was feeling spectacular. The semester had ended on a good note, I had established a consistent yoga practice and although poor, I was excited about the prospect of having the summer off to begin working on my master's comps reading list. I was half-heartedly looking for a job out of economic necessity.
Then, I got one. A miserable one. Not all of it was bad... my co-workers (most of them) were generally pleasant and I didn't spend a lot of face to face time with patients. But I did spend a lot of time on the phone. The majority of people I spoke with were kind, but every day there were a handful with such negative attitudes and energy that it just seemed to seep over the phone line and into my ears. I think, perhaps, a stronger person can learn to block it out. Maybe I could have done that if I had still been on my SSRI's, but when left to my natural state, I'm a big wet, sensitive blob of goo. I just want to help people. And I realized that sometimes when you can't give people exactly what they want, when they want it, it's just impossible to make them happy. And then I learned that other people will just never be happy no matter what. And unfortunately it just still kept affecting me.
Have you seen the movie Julie and Julia? How she goes to her bleak cubicle and answers hysterical phone calls all day? That's not too far off from what I was doing.
After a few weeks I began to feel like all my energy was just sucked out of me. I was grumpy when I got home and every morning I would wake up filled with dread. I had to keep reminding myself that I just needed the money so badly. So I still arrived on time every single day, even if it took all of my strength just to get up and get dressed. To get through the day I took countless trips to the staff kitchen, scarfing down Cheezits, Ritz Crackers, chips and soda. I gained 10 lbs. And I didn't even realize it.
And then, a few weeks ago, I had a bit of an epiphany.
One of those patients, who was giving me a real bad time and just filling my head with all sorts of negative energy came into the office and had a bit of a fit. She didn't have an appointment, and it seemed she came into see the doctor and claimed to have one. When we explained that she'd just have to wait, she started crying, being very difficult, and basically causing me to want to crawl under my desk and hide. I noticed she was quite overweight. I also happened to see on her chart that she suffers from depression and anxiety.
So, out of boredom, and curiosity, I began to notice that most of my daily problem patients fit this profile: middle-aged, overweight and suffering from depression or anxiety. In fact, it got to the point that I could sense when someone on the phone fit this profile just by the way they spoke with me and reacted to things like not being able to talk to a nurse right away, or not being able to get an appointment as soon as they would have liked.
And then I realized that by absorbing all this negativity, and embodying it myself through my own weaknesses, that I, too, was on the road to being the same way.
I know that it's possible to recover from depression and anxiety, I know that it's possible to be more mindful of my thoughts and reactions. I'm beginning to see that it's a daily struggle to keep myself positive and on track.
I vowed to finish my entire period of work that I had agreed to. I've decided that I will walk every day with my dog and try to go to yoga at least 3 times a week.
My plan of attack is yoga. I have no idea if that will work but I'm determined not to go back on antidepressants. I know it's been done. I even tried acupuncture last week and got a prescription for Chinese herbs. I have these 10-15 lbs that I'm set on knocking off.
I just don't want to turn into a negative, happiness destroying, life sucking middle-aged woman who makes poor receptionists want to cry. I don't want to continue feeling so empty. And I really don't want to keep writing so many entries where my most-used word is "I"!
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