It's only Wednesday and it's been a long week already.  Work is crazy with lots of weird stuff.  My feet are killing me and I've got an appointment to see the doctor on Friday.  I'm hobbling like an old woman when I get up from sitting and by the end of the day at work, a lot of pain.

I am taking my camera out more often with me which I'm enjoying, pushing myself to practice.  The dog's staring at me, waiting to go out for our evening walk.



I just realized I put this photo up a short time ago.  Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!

The days are getting much shorter.  The cold is coming and it will probably start snowing next week.  It's not a surprise;  I've lived here for almost fifty years but still  I miss the light.

I love the fall, it's what comes after that's hard.  The monochromatic landscape which has it's own beauty but I do love colors.  Right now everything is brown.  When the snow starts, everything will be white and the light will be blue to me.  Maybe not everyone sees the blue light but it feels like that's all I see in the winter.

It's been busy at work.  One young guy has been coming to us for the past three years.  He has metastatic bowel cancer.  Every time he visits I can see the decline.  He came in yesterday for a scan and he's in a wheelchair now.  He's thirty-four years old.  I asked him if I could give him a hug and he said yes.  Another seventy year old lady with lung cancer came in two days ago.  She was only diagnosed five months ago and the cancer has spread to her liver and adrenals.  She's still in shock and started to cry when I talked to her.  I hugged her too, twice for good measure.

We lost one of our good young nurses to another job;  he loves the job but I miss him.  He was a breath of fresh air.  My favorite radiologist is leaving to go to another job in the new year.  He will be deeply missed by all.  Change is a constant but I do get tired of it.

I'm trying my five breath meditation to see if that helps.  It has a little.  I'm trying to stop my negative thoughts, so I take five deep breaths.  If that doesn't work, then five more.  Still the sadness lurks, just under the surface, waiting for the dark to overwhelm me.  Fuck I hate depression.

Things I'm thankful for today.
Our grandson will be staying with us on Saturday night.
The kitchen reno has been scaled down and will start soon.
The love of a good man.
My friends who love me.
Chickadees and woodpeckers that visit our bird feeders.

What are you thankful for today?

Thanksgiving was nice.  We had our grandson over twice, once for supper and once for the night.  He's such a sweet little guy although his other grandparents don't think so.  He's started to make strange and he had a hard time with all the people at their house.  There was some crying and screaming and some giggling.  He's also got two new teeth just about through the gums which explained some of the crying.  And the making strange, he rarely sees Gracie's family.

My oldest daughter is pissed off with me and wants "time away from me".  Good for her.  I'm tired of her drama which she likes to blame on me.  My son is heading back to jail in the near future which kind of makes me feel like an awful person.  I was talking to a friend at work and I wondered out loud if it's not me.  I have friends who love me and whom I love.  I am kind and empathetic and compassionate, as well as passionate.  I'm loyal and hardworking.  I'm not a bad person.  My children and I are just very different people.

It's hard for me to say that I'm not a bad person.  I've always been the black sheep of the family, the difficult one.  Fuck it.  I have a wonderful husband who loves me, as I am, warts and all.  I have wonderful, loving friends.  I like my neighbors and they like me.  I love my patients.  I'm a good person, difficult at times but then aren't we all?  

We just finished watching Fleabag, a series on prime amazon and I loved it.  It's about a young woman who makes mistakes and still keeps going.  She's brave and loving.  There's a lot of sex  which is fun.  The best part is that she breaks the fourth wall and frequently talks to the audience, even while having sex.  It's delightful.  Made me cry too.  I would recommend it.

It's Thanksgiving here this weekend.  I have a turkey in the oven and the potatoes are boiling for the mashed potatoes.  Everyone is coming tomorrow and then on Sunday, we'll be going to Gracie's parents.  My middle daughter won't be coming this year.  She is busy being angry with me.  My best guess as to why she is angry with me, because in my family we tend not to talk but just hold grudges, is that I won't pay for therapy for her.

About six weeks ago, I got a text message from her asking for money to pay for therapy.  I asked her, "What's up?" and no reply.  Two weeks later, another text asking if I was going to pay for her therapy.  I said, "No, you're a grown woman and I love you."  We had a disagreement this past summer because she felt I was not treating her like a grown woman and now she wanted me to pay for her therapy without talking about anything, just give me the money.  Now.

My middle daughter is angry I think because she doesn't feel like she gets enough support from me.  She was under the impression that I paid for therapy for my son, I didn't, and wanted to know why I was willing to help my drug dealer son but not her who in her words, "Is trying to make something of her life."  I told her I didn't pay for any therapy for my son but she's been silent since.

I know she wants to get married.  She wants a home.  She wants a baby.  She lives in a city where her and boyfriend can never afford a home.  Her boyfriend doesn't want to live with her and seems emotionally unavailable, I only met him the one time but that's the impression I got from him.  Her brother has a baby boy, I'm involved in my grandson's life and she's jealous.

Somethings don't change.  How we interact with our siblings is one of those things.  My middle daughter is the middle child, stuck between an alcoholic, drug dealing brother and a severely disabled sister.  I don't think she ever got enough attention from either me or her father.  She was the easy one, easier than her siblings anyway.  She got the short end of the stick through no fault of her own and I wish I could change that but I can't.

My daughter is jealous of her new nephew.  She wants a family of her own.  I guess I do know why she's angry and it's easier to deflect it onto me than to look at herself.  God knows I do that enough. Fucking hell this life thing never seems to get any easier.

This past week has been stressful at work.  One of my coworkers is a very difficult person to work with.  She is passive aggressive, lazy, slow, and generally inept.  She finds problems where there are none and doesn't see problems where they do exist.  She doesn't trust anyone, believes she knows best always and wastes patients' time.  What gets me the most is her inability to admit or learn from her mistakes.  We all make mistakes but we acknowledge them and we learn from them.  She doesn't, so for the past eight years that I've worked with her, I have watched her make the same mistakes over and over and over again.  It's tiresome.  When I point out a mistake to her, she blinks and then nothing.  No acknowledgement, nothing.  She also doesn't pay attention.  The other day she asked when we had changed a process at work and I told her about a year and a half ago;  that's how long it takes her to notice anything.

Anyway, one of the young nurses got a job over in nuclear medicine.  It's a full time position which is what he wanted.  He was probably the youngest candidate but he will be fantastic for it.  I urged him to apply for it and I'm so glad he got the job, even though it means we will lose him.  His present position was only temporary.

My coworker had also applied for the job but she wouldn't have gotten the position.  Her shortcomings are well known and nobody wants her.  To save face, she pulled her application and at the front desk, told the young nurse this news, including the fact that she didn't want the job, it was a terrible job and on and on.  She shit on his parade.  I know it's sour grapes but it's rude and unprofessional.  She continued on with this theme this week.  She told him that if he can't cut it in the new position, he can always come back to his temp position.

When I hear this I get angry and I feel myself absorbing all of her anger and dissatisfaction which brings me down.  I've felt tired and grumpy this past week, unable to articulate what was going on inside my head.  I can feel my shoulders tightening up and with that comes a lovely headache.  Writing this out helps me understand it a bit better.  I have been absorbing her negativity without realizing it.  I imagine the same thing happened with my ex-husband and even my father, two very angry men.

I know I am responsible for my own moods but understanding how my mood is affected is useful information for me.  I will miss this young nurse very much.  He is such a good person.  He's kind, thoughtful, hard working, compassionate, knowledgeable and eager to learn.  He was like a breath of fresh air in our department.  He gave me hope which I didn't realize until now.

So life goes on.  Another lesson learned, another season passes.