4 Mar

Pain, Fatigue and Dogs

Posted by DOGKISSES in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, companion animals, fibromyalgia, healing, health. Tagged: , , , , .

dogs know how to fight fatigue, just look...

Sometimes I think I forget or am in denial of having Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia.  I go and go and go and then I crash.  I try to keep a balance, but some days life demands things and I do more than I should.  That’s the way it’s been lately.

I have a pretty bad infected foot, which I thought was fibromyalgia pain, until I pulled my little toe away to look.  I saw what was NOT fibromyalgia.

A month or so ago, I bought a pair of boots.  I wore them around the house, just for fun, and also to take the dogs out in the mornings.  My foot began hurting after several days.  I’ve had foot pain before after wearing a new pair of shoes, which is why I didn’t do any close inspections of my foot, especially beside my little toe.

Well, it sure didn’t look good so off to my doctor I went.  He gave me antibiotics and cream, made a joke about me wearing boots around the house asking if I thought someone was going to come by with a camera and did I want to be ready.  Very funny while my foot was swollen and infected, but I’m used to him.  I like him.  I don’t like that sometimes I think he lets things go, like my foot!

It only got worse.  A round of antibiotics started to help and here’s where I went wrong, I guess.  I missed a few doses.  Now, I have a hole in my foot.  I went back to the doctor.

“Do you think I need some more antibiotics?” I asked him.

“No,” he responded confidently.  I would like to send you to a podiatrist with your permission.”

Well, duh.

So, off I went to the fancy foot doctor who didn’t have any manners at all.  I don’t know where he’s from, but I bet it ain’t North Carolina.

I told him how I had thought it was fibromyalgia for the first several days of pain.  Maybe that’s why he had a dismissive attitude towards me, but then I am so tired of trying to figure out why people who act weird act that way.

He kept saying what I hadn’t done or what I was doing wrong.

He sent me to the x-ray room where they took several images of my foot.  Fortunately, those looked good.

“How long have you not been taking antibiotics?” he asked when I returned.

“Since I finished the ones my doctor gave me,” I told him.

“You do know you have a hole in your foot don’t you?”

I told him that I most certainly did.

“I’ve been to the doctor twice already.  I would have gone to the emergency room if I hadn’t known I was coming here.”

“You’re wearing closed shoes first of all,” he said in a tone that I didn’t like.

It was cold outside.  My family doctor had complimented my shoes.  Why had he not put me on another antibiotic I wondered.

The foot doctor explained how serious the infection is because of where it is and I’m too tired to describe it, but I took heed!  It can go up and into my leg if it gets worse.  He says if I do everything he told me to do then it should be getting well within a week.

So far so good.  Ten days of a very strong antibiotic.

I’d told my family doctor how my son said I was going to lose my foot and later, my leg when he saw it getting worse.  The doctor joked again saying not to let him get near any knives.  From what the foot doctor said, my son wasn’t far off from being right.

The good news is that hopefully, the antibiotics, along with soaking it in vinegar water will heal it.  The soaks hurt like crazy.

I dislike antibiotics very much and this one is kicking me down like a sick dog.

Tiny love hereSpeaking of dogs, mine are once again being very good nurses.

Yesterday, when I finally returned from the hospital, I lied down and put my foot up.  I know they felt how stressed I was.

Our big guy, Tiny, (the cutie with the big head) whom I’m going to write about soon, well, he crawled up beside me on the sofa and lied down on barely enough space for his wide body and put his head on my belly.  That’s what he’s been doing for the past few months whenever I don’t feel good.  He lies there looking at me with his big beautiful hound dog eyes.  Yesterday, just for extras, he gave me a kiss.  He doesn’t give many.  I felt very special indeed.

My pretty little girl curled up at my feet in her soft ball of silky fur.  She is absolutely the softest dog I’ve ever petted in my life.  Absolutely!

Dogs Rule!!!

They were incredibly sweet with both of their heads resting on me and their eyes saying, “OH WE LOVE YOU!”

cooking for mom

I’m also grateful to my son for the many meals he has cooked for me lately. I’ve gained a few pounds, which is a very good thing.

However, he is staying with me and it is driving me a little nuts.  I’ll be glad when he wants to go back to his apartment.

Just the truth.

I’m going to give in to the fatigue for a little while, which means I’ll have to be alone.

I think I’ll finish a good novel I started weeks ago, The Accidental Tourist, by Anne Tyler.

I’m tired.  Too tired to think much.  I’ve been writing, but have nothing ready to click publish.

With that said, I’m offering a few links of interest I found today about pain.

“I am here to tell anyone who suffers from pain each day, whose life is circumscribed and whose goals are slipping out of reach, that you are at last being heard. We are in a pain renaissance.”

Read more: “The End of Ouch” –TIME


–“an adaptive mechanism in which severe pain in one area of the body inhibits pain in another is impaired among women with fibromyalgia. Normally, this system works as a check on the amount of pain the brain can handle; if your arm is sore and someone steps hard on your toe, your arm will temporarily feel better as all of your brain’s pain attention is focused on the new insult. In chronic-pain patients, this mechanism is faulty or nonexistent.”

image of sleeping dog via OLX, Tiredness Disorders



we love mom
Thanks for visiting Dogkisses’s blog.


2 Mar

What I can’t say no to

Posted by DOGKISSES in being human, health, mental and emotional health. Tagged: , , , , , , , .

How do you say no to nicotine addiction with severe anxiety going on?

I guess there are a few things I can’t say no to, but most likely, outside of not being able to say no to air, water and food, tobacco is the one thing I can’t say no to.

I didn’t begin this post with tobacco as my choice of something I can’t say no to.  I was going to tell you about something else, something more fun and exciting, but maybe I’ll go with the flow on what I’ve already written on this page.

Maybe I should tell it like it is how addicted I am to smoking and nicotine and how I feel like I’m going to explode, or rather implode, if I go too long without a cigarette.

I may be in denial because I had to pause to write the word cigarette.  It sounds ugly to me.  I wondered before I wrote the word if I want to tell of this awful habit, this complete failing of myself and my family, especially in my attempts to heal my body.  This one thing that feels like if I hadn’t ever started that my entire life would be different today.

I could have been a great athlete.  I could have gone to New York and studied modern dance.  I could have taken job offers as an aerobics and aquatic fitness instructor.  People offered to pay for my training, but smoking made me feel like going into a career like that would be misleading or false.

My habit got worse during a very bad time in 1996.  It got worse again in 2003 when both my son and I became ill.

One day during the summer of 2003 I was smoking a cigarette and thought of a local man whom everyone downtown knew.  He had schizophrenia because his older brother, “dosed him with large amounts of acid,” when he was fifteen years old.  He died in the mental institution when they committed him and put him on a new medication.  It was a tragic loss to all who knew him.  I didn’t know him as well as some of the men did, but I cried when he died.

I was having tremendous anxiety the day I remembered him.  I felt like smoking an entire pack at once, like he did.  He cleaned windows for local small businesses and the owners paid him in food and cigarettes.  He would wait until he had what looked like over a hundred cigarettes.  Then he would sit down at the coffee-house, put them all in a large pile between his legs, and smoke every last one of them back to back.

I always felt his anxiety when I saw him smoking.  He rocked back and forth and smoked hard and fast.

I saw myself in his memory that day I wanted all those cigarettes.  My son was in serious trouble in life and utter fear was overwhelming me with anxiety.  That summer, before my son finally received medical help, is when I remembered our friend who smoked the pile of cigarettes.  I went in the side room of my little home, opened the window, and smoked while I wrote an ode to him.

“The tobacco plant, Nicotiana, has probably been responsible for more deaths than any other herb. At present, tobacco smoking is causing over 3 million deaths a year worldwide, and if current smoking trends continue the annual mortality will exceed 10 million by around 2030.”  (1)

The Nicotiana plant isn’t what’s so bad.  It’s the addiction to smoking and nicotine that leads so many to the doorway of death.

A beautiful plant meant for healing not harming

Nicotiana tabacum

A beautiful plant meant to heal not harm

Nicotiana rustica

“Nicotiana tabacum, the plant now raised for commercial tobacco production, is probably of South American origin and Nicotiana rustica, the other major species which was carried around the world, came from North America. In 1492, Columbus found Native Americans growing and using tobacco, sometimes for its pleasurable effects but often for treatment of various ills.”  (1)

“As early as 15 October 1492 Columbus noted that dried leaves were carried by a man in a canoe near the island of Ferdinandina because they were esteemed for their healthfulness.  In the same year, two members of his crew observed people in what is now Cuba carrying a burning torch that contained tobacco, the purpose of which (it later emerged) was to disinfect and help ward off disease and fatigue.”  (1)

One time a wasp stung me and my leg swelled and ached badly.  I put a compress of wet tobacco on it and the swelling went down immediately.  I wore a patch for a couple of days and my leg was fine.  My grandmother had taught me that when a bee stung my foot around age seven.  I loved walking barefoot and we had more than what I considered our share of bees.

I grew up in the 1970’s in a rural cotton mill town where everyone smoked, except my grandmother.  She was the only adult in my family that didn’t smoke.

I remember my dad smoking in the line at the grocery store, along with everyone else.  The store manager walked around with a wide broom to clean up the butts on the floor.  He didn’t seem to mind this at all.   He would greet people as he did this.  I didn’t think anything about it.

I smoked my first cigarette in elementary school.  I stole them from my grandpa.  They said he was blind, but he always knew when I reached into the drawer where he always had a carton of Winston’s.  I don’t know how he knew because the drawer was out of his sight in the hallway.  One day when I opened the drawer there was a dozen packs of Juicy Fruit.  He never kept his cigarettes there anymore.

I nearly passed out the first time I inhaled smoke, but that didn’t stop me.  I thought I was cool.  I would go behind the neighbor’s outdoor shed, which was beside the cow pasture and smoke.  I didn’t do it often, thank goodness.

It was when I was around fourteen that I began to practice the habit.  I’d ride my bicycle and hide a pack of Marlboro’s in my socks or if I wore my cow girl boots then it was quite easy.  Nearly all my friends would hide cigarettes in their boots.  The cool ones anyway.

I quit the habit when I was seventeen.  That was the year when I made life-changing good decisions.  I wanted good health and an education and I got both.  I had many accomplishments when I was seventeen.

I started back one day when my son was a young toddler.  I was sitting around the kitchen table at my former sister-in-law’s house.  I hadn’t thought of a cigarette in five years.  I was having a hard time being a single mother.

“Maybe you need one of these.  You need something to calm your nerves,” my dear in law said to me.

She handed me a Marlboro light.  I thought I’d smoke only one.  I was wrong.

I was going to write that I can’t say no to severe sexual desire that has gone past the point of no return, but I wrote a little about that in The Elusive Fence.

Thank you for visiting Dogkisses’s blog.  Please feel free to leave a comment.

(1) PubMed Central, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, Medicinal uses of tobacco in history.

(2) Image of sign via Wiki Commons

Click on images of plants for Wikimedia Commons description.

Topic #60 from The Daily Post, “What can’t you say no to?”

23 Feb

Butterfly, A Beautiful Life

Posted by DOGKISSES in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , .

Watch the butterfly happen!  Two minutes of transformation.

NationalGeographic, “Great Migrations: Butterfly: A Life”

The best part is near the end of the clip.  I hope it plays for you.

15 Feb

Funny pet note

Posted by DOGKISSES in companion animals, dogs, fun. Tagged: , , , , .

write your dogs a letter explaining the house rules! Pet lovers will love this!

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE PETS, THIS IS A TRUE STORY.

FOR THOSE THAT DON’T, IT IS A TRUE STORY.

The following was found posted very low on a refrigerator door.

Dear Dogs and Cats: The dishes on the floor with the paw prints are yours and contain your food. The other dishes are mine and contain my food. Placing a paw print in the middle of my plate does not mean that is is suddenly your food, nor do I find that aesthetically pleasing in the slightest.

The stairway was not designed by NASCAR and is not a racetrack. Racing me to the top of the stairs is not the object. Tripping me doesn’t help because I fall faster than you can run.

I cannot buy anything bigger than a king sized bed. I am very sorry about this. Do not think I will continue sleeping on the couch to ensure your comfort. Dogs and cats can actually curl up in a ball when they sleep. It is not necessary to sleep perpendicular to each other, stretched out to the fullest extent possible. I also know that sticking tails straight out and having tongues hanging out on the other end to maximize space that you are taking up, is nothing but sarcasm.

For the last time, there is no secret exit from the bathroom! If, by some miracle, I beat you there and manage to get the door shut, it is not necessary to claw, whine, meow, try to turn the knob or get your paw under the edge in an attempt to open the door. I must exit through the same door I entered. Also, I have been using the bathroom for years – canine/feline attendance is not required.

The proper order for kissing is: Kiss me first, then go smell the other dog or cat’s butt. I cannot stress this enough.

Finally, in fairness, dear pets, I have posted the following message on the front door:

TO ALL NON-PET OWNERS WHO VISIT AND LIKE TO COMPLAIN ABOUT OUR PETS:

(1) They live here. You don’t.

(2) If you don’t want their hair on your clothes, stay off the furniture. That’s why they call it ‘fur’-niture.

(3) I like my pets a lot better than I like most people..

(4) To you, they are animals. To me, they are adopted sons/daughters who are short, hairy, walk on all fours and don’t speak clearly.

Remember, dogs and cats are better than kids because they:

(1) eat less,

(2) don’t ask for money all the time,

(3) are easier to train,

(4) normally come when called,

(5) never ask to drive the car,

(7) don’t smoke or drink,

(8) don’t want to wear your clothes,

(9) don’t have to buy the latest fashions,

(10) don’t need a gazillion dollars for college and

(11) if they get pregnant, you can sell their children…..(*_*)

This “pet note” came in as an email from my friend, Rosemary, who has a wonderful health blog about living with chronic pain, Seeking Equilibrium.

Thanks for sharing Rosemary!

 

10 Feb

Writer or blogger

Posted by DOGKISSES in blogging, writing. Tagged: , , , .

“So, what do you write about?” the eye doctor asked.

“Pain,” I answered.  I could have said life, health or my childhood memories, but pain seemed as good an answer as any.  The conversations at the eye doctor have the feel of the ones at the dentist’s office.

“Really,” the doctor remarked with enthusiasm.  “Where do you write?”

“I have a blog,” I said.

“Oh.  You’re a blogger.”  His enthusiasm was gone.  He didn’t ask me anything else about my writing.

Okay, so I’m a blogger.

I haven’t personally thought of myself as a blogger, even though I see nothing wrong with it and obviously, I am one.

I’ve always looked at it like I have a blog.  I like to write and I write in a blog.

I don’t usually say I’m a writer.  I say I like to write.

Saying I’m a writer seems to imply many things that are not true for me, one of which is, that I make a living doing it.

My sister and I were talking over the telephone yesterday.  I brought up the subject of blogs, since I’d just been to that doctor.

“I’ve never even heard of a blog until you had one.  I don’t know anything about them.”

“Well, people call people with blogs bloggers,” I told her.  “Apparently, some people don’t have such great attitudes about bloggers.”

“Well, I don’t see why,” my sister said.

My mom was asking what we were talking about.  I could hear her in the background.

“Michelle’s a blogger Mother!” my sister shouted out, as if that was new news and kind of cool too.

I laughed.

“A what?” I heard my mother ask in the background.

“A blogger!” my sister said, again enthusiastically.

“Well, I knew she had a blog,” she replied, as if to say, well duh, but my mother’s tone changed when she added, “but I didn’t know she was a blogger.”  The way she put emphasis on blogger left me wondering what she thought of the word.  It didn’t sound like too much.

I feel like a writer.  I want to do it every day.  Sometimes, it’s all I want to do.   I don’t think I’m that good, but I enjoy the process.  I don’t like throwing away ten pages that it took to get one decent and maybe even nice sentence or paragraph, but I sure like it when I get it right.

When I don’t write, it’s because I’m either sick or too busy.  If I ran out of ideas, I think my memory would have had to have failed me completely.  I simply run out of energy or can’t concentrate.

Writer or blogger, either way, I like to write and I write in a blog.

1 Feb

When the truth doesn’t matter

Posted by DOGKISSES in personal, stories. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

my dad had the best story to tell

home

There was a chest in the corner of the upstairs second bedroom, which is where the photo of the pretty woman from France was.  The bedroom was a holograph of the past.  Nobody slept there anymore and the same crocheted quilt with big colorful flowers on it seemed to have always decorated the bed.

Once in a while, with enough pestering from me, either my grandmother or dad would go up stairs with me where we would sit together on the bed beside the wooden chest.  They would open it and let me choose an item for a story.   Stories that I never tired of.   Stories that connected me to them and us to our ancestors.

My grandmother had lost a daughter to cancer and the room held the memories of her in framed pictures, her jewelry and pieces of her favorite clothes hanging in open view from hooks on the old wooden walls.

One story I liked for my dad to tell me was about how I was named.

“Let me see the woman from France,” I would ask my dad.  He would let me hold the picture, while he told me the story.

“She was beautiful,” he would say.

He would start with talking about being in the Army.  He was a cook and sometimes I think he wanted more interesting stories than he had actually lived.

“Her name was Mechelle,” he would say, trying to make it sound French, which I loved.

“I gave you a beautiful name because you’re a beautiful girl,” he told me.  I was happy he thought I was beautiful.  This was back in the day before we stopped talking to girls about their looks and instead started telling them their smart, which I think is a good progression.  At the same time, I don’t think I was damaged by my father’s innocent compliments.

Of course I asked him once if he loved her and if he thought she was more beautiful than my mother.  He nearly cried.  He cried easily.  I’m a lot like him.

“Oh no,” he said with great emotion.   “Your mother is the only woman I’ve ever loved and the most beautiful woman in the world.”  I believed him and I still do.

“I knew her before I married your mother,” he would remind me.

“Did you ever kiss her?” I remember asking him.  He would smile, as if he was a ladies man and say jokingly, “Maybe once.  The women couldn’t say no to me when I was in uniform.”

I never believed he kissed her and I’m sure that’s exactly how he wanted it.

My mom recently told me that my dad made up this story about the woman in France and about naming me.

“But what about the picture?” I asked her.

“There ain’t no tellin’ where he got that from,” she said.  “He could have picked that up at the dime store,” she added.

I don’t think so!

I knew, even as I believed my dad loved only my mother, that this photo was important to him.

My mother tells me that I was, “supposed to have been a boy and was already named Michael.”   She had been a little too sure of herself.

She said her reason for naming me Michelle is that it was easy to change the name Michael.  A very boring reason right?

I’m going to stick to my dad’s story, which also included telling me he always knew I would be a girl, which is exactly what he wanted.

And did he sing the Beatles to me?  You bet he did!

In loving memory of my dad and his stories of adventure, real or imagined.

28 Jan

Interludes in reality

Posted by DOGKISSES in life, mental and emotional health, writing personal stories. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , .

“What are you looking at?” I thought I heard someone ask.

I turned to see a middle-aged woman standing near us.  She was addressing my son, which is fine because he’s a grown man.

I knew this was going to eventually happen somewhere.  Staring isn’t acceptable in our society and personally, I too am generally uncomfortable with being stared at for any length of time that seems out of the ordinary.

The waiter had brought our menus and it was during this moment when I thanked him that the woman walked over to our table.

The hostess had given us a round table in the middle of the large open dining area.   I thought this was a mistake.  I asked my son if he would rather sit along the wall with a bit more privacy, but he said no.

People have always told me that I can’t hide my feelings because of my eyes.  I’ve heard it all my life.  I decided to harness this transparency trying to communicate with the woman standing by our table that my son had meant no harm.

I can’t be sure what was translated when I looked into her eyes.  Perhaps it was a plea for compassion.  It seemed as though we met briefly where words are unnecessary.

“I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to startle you,” she said.   “It’s just that he was looking over at us,” she paused, looking briefly at my son and then questioningly back at me, “but he was smiling.”

“He likes seeing happy people,” I told her.  “He gets very happy when people laugh.”

My son continued smiling while she and I chatted for a moment.   It was a gleaming smile, much like a child’s at Christmas.  The woman didn’t seem bothered.

She apologized again and invited us to join them.

“If you want to come sit with us you can,” she told my son.  “You too!” she added.

They were having a cookware party.  “We’re having lots of fun as he can obviously see,”  she remarked.

I think his smile rubbed off on her.  Her invitation felt sincere.  My son seemed genuinely interested in cookware.  I told my mom about it later and she said, “Well, he would have bought some, that’s for sure!”

We know him.  We know how enthusiastic he gets about things.  We know he laughs hard.  We know he laughs sometimes when it’s considered inappropriate.  We also know this is a way his brain is processing information.  Other people don’t know this, of course.

I thanked the woman, but declined the offer.

She walked away and for a moment my son looked sad.  I asked him what was wrong.  He said he was just trying to figure things out.

I felt bad for him.  Trying to figure things out and all.  I haven’t figured out too much myself.  He doesn’t understand certain rules that when I think about them, neither do I.  Things about our world and society that honestly don’t make sense or aren’t rational, but are nevertheless realities.

We enjoyed the rest of our meal.  Art literally covers the walls inside the restaurant.  In the corner of the room where we sat is a tall puppet-like man with a theatrical face whose head reaches the top of the high ceiling.  Most of their display includes Folk art created by the local artists.   It’s a very cozy place and the food is good.

My son and I were able to engage in a conversation, which is unusual when it’s just the two of us and we’re surrounded by strangers.  He usually seems quite distracted by his physical environment.  Times when his grandmother and aunts visit are the best.   He sits in the middle of us and has a wonderful time.  He must feel safe surrounded by strong loving women.

The occasional group laughs from our cookware neighbors made him smile, but the art captured most of his attention giving us something to talk about and honestly, something for him to stare at other than the group of laughing women.  The tuna also held his attention.  He likes good food as much as anything, but each time the women laughed, so did he.

On the way home I asked if he wanted to stop at the thrift shop with me.  Shopping is another activity he has a hard time with.  Most of the time he can’t stay in a retail store longer than about five minutes.

This time was different.  He enjoyed walking around and bought several items.

We had a good day.  I think the kind of day we had is a pretty normal day for most people.  It is for most people I know.

That night by the fire I realized I’d had several good days in a row lately.   The positive feelings from this experience are unfamiliar and I felt anxiety.

I’m used to stress.  I’m used to quarterly “mental health crises.”  I’m also used to being fatigued much of the time and feeling like life is passing me by as a result.  My point is that I don’t know what it’s like to have lengthy periods of time without serious stressful matters to deal with.

It’s like when the doctor asked me to take some pain medication and call him, “after twenty-four consecutive hours without pain.”  I laughed.  I thought he was joking!  He wasn’t.

I was altogether stunned the day I called him to report that I’d experienced a full day and night without pain.

Sometimes you get so used to something that you don’t realize what a large impact it’s having on you or your life, like the fear I felt when I imagined having more good days, or rather, not having them.

I felt scared to imagine life being easier.  Experience tells me that the next crisis is always lurking around the corner.   How can I dream or ponder on dreams when who knows what might come my way the next day?

If I start thinking about the things I could do if I didn’t have so many crises to deal with, then I get scared of being hit in the face with… I don’t know what.  Reality?

Reality it is!

Less than two days after my peaceful interlude, much has happened to bring me back.  Back to a reality that is pretty hard to deal with.

Maybe I expected too much.  Maybe I expected things to keep moving forward peacefully, without too many bumps in the road.

 

Thank you for visiting Dogkisses’s blog,

Michelle.

“Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity.”

—  Socrates

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19 Jan

Walking out of depression

Posted by DOGKISSES in depression, health, mental and emotional health. Tagged: , , , , , , , .

“You can predict the future by looking at the past,” my first real love used to say.

He used this as a mantra in financially difficult times.  He would declare with confidence and enthusiasm,  “I’ve had money before and I’ll have money again!”

His logic, if there was any, was never clear to me, but when I get too sad for too long I remember what he said.  I figure if I’ve been happy before then I’ll be happy again!

I know myself in pain, fatigue and sickness.  I know myself in sadness, grief, confusion and shock.  I know myself in crises, one after another.  I know myself in defense of my dignity and integrity.

Fortunately, I also know myself in joy, peace and happiness, but if the truth was told, I haven’t been really happy since my son became ill when he was nineteen years old.

Depression had literally disabled me before my son’s illness, but I was managing and getting along.  I had gone back to college hoping to finally finish about the same time my son began having medical problems.  I withdrew for the second time, both times were medical withdrawals due to depression.

I know myself well in depression.  Some days I think it’s no more than the way the sun shines that gets to me.  Some days anyone in my shoes would be depressed.  Then, there are times when I remember something that brings me down.

Recently, the memory of that awful relationship I was in not that long ago crept into my mind.  I didn’t want to feel the memory.  I didn’t want to feel the confusion that comes when I recall what I thought was love, only to remember that he said it was all a game.

The gloom that set in was soon interrupted after a brief phone conversation with a very good friend.  I had called to ask him for a favor.  He was able to help me, which relieved me of an hour-long trip.

It wasn’t his kindness alone that changed my mood, although I was certainly grateful for his help.

After telling me the favor I asked of him was no problem and something he could do quickly, he jokingly started pretending to be a ladies man.  “Hey baby,” he tried to say, but we both laughed at how funny it sounded coming from him.  He’s not the kind of man to call a woman Baby or Darling, or like one of my very southern friends, “Sugar,”  who reserves a special name for the sweetest women, a group he says I fall into and calls me, “Sugar Bugger.”

My good friend who can’t even say, “Hey Baby,” without laughing and is not from the south thinks this is a very funny way to address women.  On occasion, he enjoys playing this type of character.  He knows it makes me laugh, which is why he does it.

He tried again, “Oh, baby.  You’ll owe me.  You’ll pay up –he had to pause trying not to laugh — you’ll pay in kisses!  Chocolate kisses!  I will exploit you to no end making you pay in chocolate kisses.”

We both laughed.  I realized when we hung up the phone how much better I felt.  The dark cloud was gone.

Having my friend joke about such a thing or me merely hearing the word, “exploited,” might have made me very sad or even physically sick six months or a year ago.

The joking around didn’t cause the dark cloud to rain misery down on me and instead brought only laughter.  My friend’s silly imitation of this type of character made me see how lucky I am today not to be in a relationship where what he was joking about would be my reality.  A peaceful feeling set in with me for the rest of the evening.

I feel lucky to have made it back to myself.  What a long trip away it was.

This past summer brought healing to my heart in a new friendship with two sisters, both young and full of enthusiasm for the simple things in life.  I laughed more that summer than I have in ten summers put together.  My son laughed too and for the first time in years I started to see his smile when I snapped pictures of him.

One night we laughed so much and lost track of time.  After midnight I realized the girls should have already gone home.  They were grounded for a week.  Secretly, I felt like a child.  Not that I wanted them in trouble, but we all knew our time was innocent and laughter had gotten the better of us.  Not so much a crime in the summertime.

The girls’ family is of a particular religion that has many rules, a few of which I unknowingly broke, like when I gave them both a birthday celebration.  One of the parents was pretty upset and things changed after that.   Nevertheless, our times together, especially when we all laughed so hard for hours that we would completely wear ourselves out, remains in my mind as a time of healing.

The first day I met the girls I was walking the dogs.  I wasn’t long out of the bad relationship and I had two serious cuts on my fingers from an accident in the kitchen.  They asked me how I was doing and I broke down in tears right there on the side of our road.  I had to bend down and rest on my knee.  I was completely taken by sadness.  I cried while I told them all about my life, how hard it was and that’s when they asked if they could hold the dogs for me.

Most days after that they were here.  Most days they walked my dogs for me.  I cried a lot for the first month or so, but the laughter began healing my heart.  Then when I took pictures and saw the familiar smile on my son’s face that I hadn’t seen in years, I felt that if there is such a thing as angels, those girls surely must be ones.

Not having the best luck in the world, my summer ended with a new neighbor who turned out to be a nightmare.  The situation eventually thoroughly depressed me and the neighbor was soon after evicted for harassment.  The girls weren’t visiting as often anymore.

I felt like I had taken ten steps back.  I had to go through some of the same emotions I had felt that past winter.

The girls went back to school.  My son went back into the hospital.  I realized I was burned out.

Then, just to top things off, a stressful family event happened that caused me more turmoil.  I felt like too much had gone wrong.  I became seriously clinically depressed.

I feel like I’m walking out of depression, but it sure is hard.

In many ways over the past two years, life has called me to question who I am, what I want in my life and just as importantly, what I don’t want anymore, hence my love of the NO icon.

What I don’t want is pretty simple.  I don’t want to be treated poorly and I don’t want to endorse cruelty by standing in the line of fire.

What I want is pretty simple too.  I want to know myself outside of depression.

My mother recently gave me a few letters my uncle found that I wrote to my paternal grandmother in 1990.  I couldn’t believe how happy I sounded in the letters.  I was a little depressed back then but nothing, nothing like I’ve experienced since.

One of the letters reads very much like those happy Christmas letters people write.  Other people.  Not me.

I tried to remember how I felt writing the letters.  I couldn’t remember exactly how I felt, but I know I wrote them.

My son’s letter is the best.

a happy child's letter to his great grandmother

His childhood notes, creative school work and art definitely speaks to a happy kid.  I like that.  I take some credit for the good times he had growing up, which is a piece of happiness.

Returned also to me was a card I had sent my grandmother when I went to Texas to visit a friend.  I think this was the time my friend and I rode across the horse pastures, she on her Arabian and I on a Quarter horse under the light of a full moon and in Texas, that’s a really big moon!

card to grandma, boy I sounded happy

“Just having fun,” takes you a long way walking out of depression.

Thank you for visiting my blog,

dogkisses.

PS  If you haven’t laughed in a while, here’s a video that sure made me laugh.

“Laughing Girl”

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