Last night I planned for my first day at my new job. So far nothing has gone according to plan. After making the girls breakfast and packing their lunches I fed the fish and started cleaning out their underwater homes. In the middle of doing this I received a call from my oldest daughter who explained that she had her right shoe and her sister's left. When I dropped the mates to the shoes off at school I stopped by to see my youngest whose water bottle I found laying on the driveway. I gave her a hug since she had a rough morning and that's when she explained that she had forgotten her boots at home. Since I had to go back out I thought I could run to the gym and sit in the sauna for a while to help prepare myself mentally.

After I got back from the sauna it was nice outside so I took a short walk. I met up with my neighbor who has lung cancer. She's very uptight, unlike my other neighbor who has been through multiple bouts of various cancers and somehow keeps going through chemo, radiation, surgery and seriously unpleasant side effects. I didn't have much for breakfast this morning on account of the trips to school so when I got back from my walk I made some juice. Last night I wanted a steak, I meant to pick one up at the grocery store however I managed to forget both of the things I stopped to buy. I took a bath even though I had taken a short shower at the Y, since I have poor circulation I try to alternate between hot and cold water. This helps but I have to turn the faucet without thinking otherwise I can't go through with it.

So, I was bathed, dressed, fed and ready to work. Only I was so cold my first two toes were a sickly pale non-color. I shivered in the office for a while before I went to lie down with my heating pad. All I wanted was to be warm. Despite my wool socks, undershirt, long sleeved shirt, jeans and heavy sweater I was still freezing. Finally I wrapped myself in a blanket and left a message for the nurse practitioner I work with. When I met up with a girl I had gone to high school with I bought the girls these organic chewable vitamins. Regardless of what multivitamin I take they hurt my stomach so eventually I stopped taking them. I have a great brand of Vitamin B complex, I have a shelf full of vitamins and supplements but I still haven't figured out what my body wants.

On my fridge I have a list of the things your body needs, I try to follow that as best I can and I try hard to avoid foods I'm not supposed to have. My yoga DVD has helped some and getting outside has been good for me. I bought a new pair of shoes with the money I won from The Iron Noder Challenge and this time I did something different in terms of the support system. Most people will pronate if their foot is not properly supported. My foot does the opposite and rolls to the outside when I walk. When I was out in California a practitioner explained that my foot was compensating for a lack of arch support by rolling out. This time I bought shoes designed for the foot that pronates instead of my traditional pick which is the shoe designed for people who under pronate. The base of my left toe has been sore for a while since I stupidly bought shoes that work perfectly for my right foot but stress my left great toe. Of course I didn't know that's what was happening until the injury had already occurred so now I have two pairs of shoes I can't wear unless I want further foot damage.

I'm really frustrated by the people out in California right now. I can call my former customers but if I don't have the product knowledge and training I need I'm not going to perform well. Right now I don't feel like calling them up and telling them to buy me another ticket out there because my last trip out there almost landed me in urgent care. Something is wrong with my body and I don't know what it is or how to fix it. Maybe there isn't a solution. Maybe I'm not going to be able to do anything other than type, sleep and do some light exercise. Yesterday I did about twenty minutes of Just Dance 3 and I felt good afterwards. My body was warm, my blood was flowing and my knee was a little sore but I can handle that. Today I did much less physically yet feel about eight times worse. This book of traditional Chinese medicine that I really like said there are excesses and deficiencies that need to be corrected before healing takes place. I want to feel better, sometimes I don't feel this way and I can't figure out what is draining blood from my extremities or what is causing some of the other symptoms I'm experiencing.

****

Update from California: Business has been good which means they are very busy. My friend and partner who has moved out to Washington is sick. She said that reading some of my Facebook posts made her homesick which made me wish I was going out with her mom to visit. Today I had a breakthrough moment. I was driving along thinking about two characters that I have. The guy wants the girl to marry him and even though she likes spending time with him and finds him appealing she keeps telling him no. The other day someone said something that hit me funny. It probably shouldn't have been a big deal but to me, it was. The girl in my story wants safety. The guy was married before to a woman who also wanted to be safe. She had anxiety issues that he fueled which is why their relationship didn't work out. It wasn't that they didn't love each other, she needed something he couldn't give her and when her needs weren't met she stopped being able to be what he needed from her. It made me realize that I do not feel safe, I want to be safe but I don't know how to make myself feel safe in a place where I feel danger might be lurking.

Today the California people said that they wanted to bring me and my friend back out for more extensive training. There's a Certified Pedorthist class being offered at the company I used to work at during May. The instructor travels and if there are enough people signed up for his course he will come to you to teach it. Several of my former customers have matriculated through his system, my former supervisor took it and I've heard nothing but positives from people I've spoken with. When I spoke with one of the partners about the people I talked to today he was surprised that I had said people like to talk. Apparently he doesn't ever get that response and I can't really understand why since as a CPO he is knowledgable and respected by the group of Primary Care Physicians that entrust their patients to him.

The first customer I called said that she had missed me. We talked for a few minutes about how her shoe program was going. Apparently a guy I used to work with had taken over her account and now he's gone too. The California plan is to market to Primary Care Physicians but since I already have relationships with pharmacists, podiatrists and other O&P companies I think it makes more sense for me to work with the people I know. Even if they don't buy anything from me networking with people is fun and I want my name to be the one that comes to mind if they do run across business for me. That's happened in the past and I've had fun putting together deals for people who are excited that their time has finally arrived.

****

I was going to do a separate piece on intelligent lovers but I think I'll just add some thoughts here. If you have one of these in your life nothing is going to change however your perceptions will be wonderfully altered. Your tolerance for things that would normally upset you is infinite, you are able to fully relax knowing that someone else is smart enough to give you what you need when you need it most. These people don't come around very often. I made the mistake of not treating someone well by assuming that my lover was unintelligent. I beat him over the head with innuendo instead of appreciating the intelligence that surpassed the beauty.

In the past I have failed to be an intelligent lover. I talked when I should have been listening so I missed profound thoughts. I remained rigid when I could have flexed, not realizing that compromise is the essence of great relationships. There's nothing I can do about the past except apologize to the people I've lost. I wish there was a way to thank them for trying to educate me. At the time I didn't realize I was being taught, maybe someday I'll more fully appreciate the lessons I could have known.

****

Well, it had been about five days or so since I had last logged on to E2 and when I did so this morning I was shocked to see the number of messages in my inbox.

At first, I thought I had did something to offend the masses and was going to be the target of vitriol from all of my fellow users. I got to wondering about what I might have said or did to elicit such a response but then as I began reading the text of the messages I was amazed at the content.

No, these were not words of incrimination or insult; they were words of condolence and sympathy. I immediately thought to myself about what I might have done to warrant such an outpouring of grief.

And then I came across this.

I’m guessing that most of those who chose to respond and either know or met me in real life and were familiar with my past history of health/heart related problems just glanced at the headline and were so moved to tears that they felt the need to respond without reading the entire article. I’m guessing word spread like wildfire after that and the avalanche of responses took on a life of its own.

Fear not fellow users and readers, I’m still alive and kicking but there are some things I’d like to clarify before we move on.

First of all, it’s a weird kinda feeling seeing your own name as the subject of somebody else’s obituary. I don’t know how to describe it but after reading of my namesake’s lifetime of accomplishments and successes a sort of envious feeling came over me. As evidenced by the comments of his family and contemporaries this man lived what appeared to be an honest and good life and I found myself making comparisons to what I’d achieved and sadly, found myself a bit lacking. I guess we might all do that during periods of introspection.

What really got my spine tingling though was the last few lines of the article. I won’t repeat it here but if you feel so inclined feel free to go back and read them.

I hope that when my time finally does come, my kid will be able to say that about me.

In the long run, I guess that’s all that really matters.

I just wanted to close by saying thanks for all the love and kind thoughts over the years and I plan on sticking around for awhile to come.

borgo

Note: My inbox wasn’t really flooded but I just thought it would make a good lead in to what I wanted to say.

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