Dear Diary Part 2 – Hope

DEAR DIARY,

April 2, 2018 – Monday
Today is the first day of the rest of my life. Damn, how trite that sounds, doesn’t it? But today the reality of things has hit me. Today starts the first week when I no longer have my job to go to. Instead of spending the daylight hours sleeping in anticipation of the night ahead, I can spend the day cleaning the house and working up some new blog posts. Or maybe I can pull out the paints and begin to create a new masterpiece, not worrying that I will run out of time at a crucial point.  Today I have hope.

Today I am not already dreading the pain I would normally be expecting if I had been going to work tonight. I celebrate the fact that I no longer will be standing for over 11 hours on a concrete floor with joints that scream after only a couple hours. That knowledge alone brings me energy I wouldn’t have had any other way.

I feel like a child who just discovered cable TV. Instead of finding a program and watching it, he flips through the channels wanting to watch them all. In my head I’m asking myself, “What should I do first?” How can I best utilize my time? And each new thought brings energy to get started on it. Which one takes priority?

This is where I have to be careful. I have a tendency to over organize and not actually get down to the business at hand. I love to organize and put things in order. Planning my day, my week, my year is a satisfying feeling. But then, the moment comes when the planning quits and the actual “doing” is supposed to happen. This is where I run into problems.

I do have a routine planned out for my time. Tweaking it as I go along will probably be necesssary but for now at least it’s something to work with. Having more time with my husband is definitely a perk to this arrangement. For the last seventeen years I’ve slept days and worked nights. Often this included my weekends too. We are both independent so it worked out, but there have been lonely nights (and days) when it would have been nice to get more time together.

I’m focusing on the positives. There is a lot of hope for my future. At least I still have a future. I do believe if I had continued on as I was, my life expectancy would have been cut short. Pain management, sufficient sleep and a less stressful life will help me get a better handle on high blood pressure. There’s a better chance of getting control of my diet and implementing a daily exercise routine that won’t cause too much pain.  Today I have hope that I can make my life healthy and better again.

Change is never easy. Being an INFJ with CPTSD and self-esteem issues connected to having a narcissist in my past, change is one of the scariest things in my life. The fact that I am facing things as well as I am indicates I’ve already come a very long way in the journey to self-healing.

I hope to spend a lot of mornings with my husband drinking coffee together as we watch the sunrise. What better way to start your day? Or your life?