Things That I'm Thankful For

It's one of those days where I need to write. This week has just gotten to the point where all I wanted to do today was complain about everything and I've found it really hard to not focus on the negative and I found myself thinking "it's not fair" repeatedly in my head about so many things. Then I thought...it's Thanksgiving day. LITERALLY, a day for giving thanks. Take a clue, Chris. I'm not being dismissive of the fact that things are rough. Or that some things that are actually in people's control really aren't fair. But for the most part, there's always going to be negativity in life. Sometimes more so than others. Sometimes it's more in my control than it is in other times how much of my time gets spent in a situation that's emotionally draining. I can't control life events that I don't create myself, and I can't even always control my perception of them. But I can at least remind myself in the really rough times to step back for just a quick second and see that there are indeed positives out there still too. It's so easy to lose sight of those sometimes even when they're right there surrounding you like a warm hug. So here are some things that I'm thankful for right now:

The most amazing friends in the world. I truly have THE most amazing friends in the world and it brings me to tears when I stop and think about it. I feel like I've been the most awful friend ever for the last few months, yet I'm constantly reminded that I have amazing people surrounding me and amazing friends all over the world thanks to the internet. With life being as hectic as it's been, email and letter writing has become this little golden nugget that's a cherished thing that I only get once in a blue moon these days. So I've really not been able to keep in touch with so many of the people that I love so dearly that I know through blogging and email and I hate that. Yet emails keep coming in and letters arrive in my mailbox and it means the world to me that I have such amazing friends that still keep me in their thoughts despite the fact that I've disappeared. You're in my thoughts every day too! With the people I do see every day, things have been funny lately. Things that I would normally get upset about have instead been a reminder to me that people care. I had three people this week ask me at work if I was ok because I sounded awful, lol. Not something you normally want to hear, but I was able to stop for a second and realize that they wouldn't tell me that or ask me that if they didn't care themselves. It's really good to have people surrounding you that will point out to you "hey, take care of yourself!" And then today I had a friend offer to work my new years eve shift when she saw that my boss had scheduled me to work thanksgiving, christmas, new years eve and new years day. So that's awesome too that someone willingly stepped in without me asking to give me a day off AND I'll have off New Years eve now to spend some type of holiday time with my family.

My dad's treatment team. We're in the thick of it now with my dad's cancer treatment. They had to change his chemo and he now has to get it two weeks on, one week off instead of just once every three weeks. The side effects have NOT been pleasant and he's felt pretty rotten. But I'm SO thankful for his doctors. He has such an amazing treatment team...it's a true team of doctors and nurses and dietitians and social workers. They know my dad already, they're available when we need them, I can message them whenever I need to to address concerns and I get an answer pretty quickly, they take care of his medications with no problems and most importantly, they're invested in him which makes him invested in himself. I've never seen him so invested in his care.

I'm just as thankful for a forum I found at Inspire.com. It's a website for health related issues and they have a forum for pretty much any chronic health condition you can think of. I can only speak for the lung cancer forum because that's the one I've been using, but I'd highly recommend it if you or a loved one have a chronic health condition. It reminds me of book blogging really, but talking about diseases instead :p I stumbled upon it googling one of my dad's chemo drugs and it has been such a life saver! I've found answers to questions I would've never found anywhere else. Today was the first time I posted on there because my dad has been having one really specific problem that was kind of major and instantly I got a response that solved the problem. I don't think we EVER would have fixed this problem had it not been for me posting there...it turned out to be a rare side effect of one of many medications that he's on right now. It's a forum of people going through lung cancer and care givers. Some who are just starting treatment, some who are in remission, some who have been in treatment for years. So you find all of this amazing advice you can't even get from doctors :p Though of course I'll check with my dad's doctor before doing anything. But if the other forums are as helpful and supportive as the lung cancer forum, I highly recommend them. Sometimes it's just a good place to talk and get support.

Music. I don't know what I'd do without music these days! I've started playing my classical music playlist at night to help me doze off and it's worked wonders and I've found that I sleep much more peacefully and wake up feeling more rested. And there's just been so much GOOD music released this year!! Especially in this last part of the year. I'm still obsessed with the new Grimes album. Joanna Newsom's new album, Divers is quickly becoming a new favorite as well. She's so damn incredible. Sufjan's new album. Nicole Dollanganger. Chvrches. I've fallen back in love with Jeff Buckley recently. It's so comforting sometimes to go back to artists you haven't listened to in ages yet you know them so intimately. That's Jeff Buckley for me. I don't know why I haven't listened to him in so long. These have all become the soundtrack of 2015 and even though the year isn't filled with the greatest memories in the world, the soundtrack is pretty damn good ;)

Family. Family is always really good. And we've cherished our time together recently even though it's all sort of been spread out. I do miss my little brother though. I rarely get to see him these days since he's up in Baton Rouge in college and working! Looking forward to Christmas eve though when we'll all be together.

I'm thankful for books, I just can't read them these days. I'm even having a hard time with audio books. My mind just isn't able to concentrate lately so I've just sort of accepted that reading is getting put aside right now and I'm not stressing out about it. Whenever I do get the urge to read, I have an awesome pile of books sitting here and I pick one up and start reading and if my mind isn't taking anything in, I just put it down again. That'll come back in time though, I'm sure of it :)

And I feel much better now :) Amazing how focusing on the good can do that, eh? Just though of a few more things I can add to this list too, but I'm going to wrap this up for now. I really should do this more often though. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and that your life is showered with things to be thankful for as well :)

How Is It November?

I seriously don't know how this year has gone by so quickly! There's a part of me that wants and needs time to slow down...as in come to a screeching halt, so that I can get Christmas shopping done and they myriad of other things that I need to get done, done. And yes, I know it's too early to be panicking about Christmas, but with the way things have been this year, it'll be December 23rd and I'll say "oh shit, christmas!" The bigger part of me wants it to just be 2016 already because I hate this year. Not that January 1st 2016 is some magical date where everything will suddenly become better. It's a completely arbitrary date, but there's something about the collective mindset of the world of regrouping and refocusing and shifting thoughts to the positive on that date that I think helps everyone to readjust attitudes. It's STAYING with that attitude despite the numerous challenges we inevitably face every year instead of focusing on "well this ruined what was supposed to be a better year for me." I'm speaking only for myself here and how this concept applies to me. The fact is...bad things happen. There's never going to be a year where you make it 365 days without some sort of tragedy or snafu or mindfuck. But it's about somehow learning how to not get sucked down the rabbit hole and I guess accepting that these things are inevitable...I guess that's the first step. I feel like I'm slowwwwwly on the way there but damn is that ever a long process to figure out.

Tomorrow is day 1 of my dad's chemo treatment. It'll be a long day. I'm sleeping at my mom's tonight so that I can take him in the morning. We need to be there for 7:30 and they told us to plan on spending most of our day there. We have NO clue how he's going to react to it which is the scariest part. He might be fine and he might be terribly ill after. It might work and it might not work at all. They're using two different chemo drugs on him. When he's done with chemo, I have clients to see from 4-8 so it'll be a loooong day tomorrow. But I'll make it through. And when I'm done I can come home and crash and watch crap TV and read and play on the internet and take a hot bath and I don't have anything to do on tuesday until work at 3, so I can sleep in :)

In other news, I need this new Grimes album to come out NOW!!! She released another track off of it called "Scream" and it couldn't be more different than the first single which has grown on me more and more and more and I'm in love with it. Haven't been this excited about an album in a long time :) I love how eclectic this album is going to be and I love that Grimes defies the idea of genre music and just writes whatever she wants and puts many different types of music on an album that are all completely different yet somehow go together perfectly and are essentially her. I want to go see her show here so bad. It's been a life goal of mine to see her live but I have clients scheduled for that night and they're new clients that I don't know if I can reschedule :/ We'll see how things work out.

I was talking to Debi about this the other day in an email...I tend to turn to music whenever I'm going through rough times. Tori Amos has been the musician who has gotten me through the roughest times of my life...for some reason, it's specifically been her UNDER THE PINK album going back to my junior year of high school. Grimes has done that recently, mostly because I've just happened to be listening to her a lot recently. Do you ever listen to a song that you've listened to a hundred times and because of the situation you're in, hear it differently than you've ever heard it? That happened to me on my way to work while listening to Oblivion the other day. It's one of her most well known songs. She wrote the song after being sexually assaulted in order to help overcome the trauma it inflicted upon her. It's undoubtedly helped many and it did the same to me the other day when I was listening to it...I don't know that Claire was talking about her physical health or her mental health when she wrote these lyrics...she's been open about having physical health issues in the past and not always taking the best care of herself but she tries. But I really HEARD these lyrics the other day in this song:

I need someone now 
To look into my eyes and tell me 
“Girl you know you’ve got to watch your health”

And it really brought tears to my eyes...for her and how personal those lyrics are, for myself and how much those lyrics resonated in many different ways, for my dad, and for so many other people that I know and for just being thankful that she put those lyrics out there. We all need reminders like that and she gives it to us there. Take care of your physical health and your mental health. It's easy to forget when you worry about so many other things. That's usually the first thing we ignore sadly. Ok...enough rambling. I'll leave you with the video for Oblivion because it's an awesome song :)