I don't make New Year's resolutions as a rule. Too much pressure. I figure if I need to change something in my life, or more importantly, if I want to change something in my life, today is the day to start. Whether a new year is beginning or not is totally irrelevant. Besides, if you make New Year's resolutions, somehow that makes it easier to let yourself off the hook than if you make a resolution to make positive changes in your life. But that's just me...
With that being said, I have made a commitment in 2012 to get my life back into balance. How is that not a New Year's resolution? Because I said so. All you parents out there can follow my logic. Anyhoo, for the last two years my life has revolved around being sick, dealing, living, and maintaining with Cushing's. Everything in my life has been seen through the spectre of Cushing's. 2012, for me, is the time to get back to my life. Which includes Cushing's, but it also includes alot of other things that, quite frankly, I enjoy much more than being sick with a weird "syndrome" that most people have never heard of.
I have to be honest. Balance is something I have always struggled with in my life. If it wasn't Cushing's it would have probably been something else I focused on to the detriment of everything else in my life. But, being the lucky girl I am, Cushing's has allowed me to really understand the importance of balance even in the face of overwhelming and sometimes crushing adversity. Without balance you can't ever get away from the thing that you need to get away from in order to maintain your sanity. Without balance you can't feel the joy that life in the big picture brings. Without balance you can't truly appreciate the fact that you have the privilege of walking on this earth another day.
I'm teaching myself how to knit. I have always wanted to learn how to knit since I was a kid. I have no idea why. It probably had something to do with the shiny needles that came in fun colors. Now that I am actually knitting, and doing it badly I might add, it makes me so happy. Not because I'm going to be able to make elaborate projects. I'll probably never progress past the scarf. But because it's something I've always wanted to do and I finally did it. Knitting does not bring a zen calm over me when I'm doing it, it's just fun. And the way I look at it, we all need something that is just fun to balance out all the things we have to do as adults functioning in society that are not fun.
I'm also trying to lay out my days without quite so much pressure. I always worry about getting in my errands, workouts, work and "me" time smashed into the day. Oh, and meals. I've never been good at understanding that I can move something to tomorrow. Or next week. If I usually go to the grocery store on Monday, I MUST always go on Monday. Why? Will the world go off it's axis if I go on Tuesday? Or, God forbid, Wednesday? No, no and NO. I'm working on mixing it up and being ok with that. It's the being ok that's the hard part. In the meantime, I'll knit scarves...lots of scarves...
Am I making these changes because of the new year? Not really. My last trip to NIH got the ball rolling and it happened to be at the end of last month. The beginning of this month was a new year. But more importantly getting my life back in balance is something I needed to do, but couldn't really do until I knew that my Cushing's was relatively under control. Sadly not cured, but under control for now. So the opportunity to put Cushing's on the back burner presented itself and I knew it was time to grab it. I still have alarms going off at all hours of the day and night reminding me to take meds, and I still take my weight and blood pressure every day and note it in my log. But my goal is to make my day revolve around other things and have the Cushing's tasks exist among them not the other way around. Get back to me in December and we'll see how I did.
