Monthly Archives: January 2013

First of all, thank you all for the lovely comments on yesterday’s post. It was wonderful to hear from so many of you and feel supported and loved. Very uplifting.

To answer some of questions, being back at the farm doesn’t mean that I am better. We’re working on it, but I don’t think I will “better” for a long, long time. I am still pretty weak, still losing weight, although the rate has slowed. I am wearing a sweater that I haven’t worn since college, one that I lent to Amy’s 9-year-old daughter last year.

I didn’t quite realize how frail I look until I saw Amy and Paul’s faces yesterday when they saw me after two months. I am somewhat confident that eventually I will be healthy and thriving again, but not tomorrow, or next month, or the months after that. It’s going to be a process.

In the meantime, I have (finally) come to the conclusion that I am going to have to make some major changes to streamline and simplify my life. I have been struggling and fighting with this decision for months and I thought that giving in to this disease would be giving up, something I am loathe to do under any circumstances. Instead, making the decision to give some things up has felt incredibly freeing, like an enormous weight has been lifted from my chest and I can breath again. For the first time in a very long time, I can imagine what the future might look like, and that is incredibly hopeful.

I don’t have any real news to report at this point- no decisions have been made. But I know there will be changes and I am okay with that now. I hope you’ll be okay with it too.

And now, on to resolutions! I have only two this year, and they are more like goals than resolutions.

The first was inspired by a conversation with my sister Carrie. She and my mom had offered to help me with something and I turned them down, as I am want to do. When the task proved so difficult that it drove me to sobbing, body-racking tears, my sister asked why I hadn’t just taken them up on their offer to help me in the first place. I answered, through gasps and sobs, that I thought they only offered to be nice, that they didn’t really want to do it.

My sister countered that if that hadn’t wanted to do it they wouldn’t have offered. I replied, “What do you mean? I offer to do things I don’t want to do all the time!” And Carrie said, “Well stop.”

Please don’t think I’m completely moronic when I tell you that this was a revelation to me. I sort of thought everyone agreed or offered to do things they didn’t want to do all the time. Apparently they don’t. And from here on out, neither do I. I am going to start saying no.  At least, I’m going to try.

The other resolution is a small thing really. I was at the doctor’s office the other day and I looked down and noticed that my nails were a mess. All different crazy lengths and in need of filing. And then I decided that, after 40 years of not being able to grow long and lovely fingernails, I am never going to. I’ve been trimming my nails short every Monday since then.

Do you make resolutions? And do you keep them?

P.S. The internet is down at the farm so please forgive if you are awaiting an email from me. I’ll be going into town to blog and check emails until it’s back, but we have a big photo shoot scheduled for this weekend with lots of friends coming in from out-of-town to help out, so it may be hit or miss.