I have had a bad back since I was 30, the first time one of my vertebra subluxated or whatever it is that the chiropractors say.
For the last two months, my back keeps going out and going out again. It is always at the same spot on my back, probably about three v's up from my butt but the strain and clench can go left, it can go right, and it can even go dead center - this pain has no loyalty to one spot.
Last night, my chiropractor told me I was hopelessly twisted and it would take three years to straighten out. Now I don't have three years to go to him twice a week when I can't even pay him now for the semi-periodic adjustment. My chiro, Roger, is a true healer -- like a homeopath, he sees chiropractic not just as a remedy for acute conditions but as a way of not developing those conditions in the first place. "Twice a week you should have your back checked," he said. Not a fan of situps or cold stretching, or really any stretching at all, Roger said "if something goes out in your back and there are no muscles there to pull it back, well, that's it."
So now I'm left wondering: why do anything at all?
The truth is, I used to be a gym and Pilates fanatic. I weighed 129 for many years, which for my medium 5ft. 6 inch frame was really a good weight. Still, if I tried to run or increase my Pilates intensity, my back went out. I loved running and I hated my back.
So here is where else I feel deprived: my body is betraying me, this time in a way that I am frightened it will not return to normal. I should just sit in bed and write, eat chocolate, read Andy Borowitz on politics because he's the only one who makes any sense, and forget all this about strengthening, growing, changing.
Not a chance. Today I have started writing letters to magazines for which I want to write. The good news is: I can actually write. More good news: writing has nothing to do with my back.
More on this later.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Monday, January 2, 2012
Is it really 2012? C'mon......
My first email of the new year was to Cheryl Richardson, the self-help guru (is there a female version of that word?) and author of a well-received book on extreme self-care. I had been perusing the volume and decided to utilize much of its contents toward my own reinvention.
To whit: I have decided that 2012 is the year that I take off all the weight I have gained since 1995, that I find true love or at LEAST start dating (dispelling all traditional thought that women over 50 can't find love or fun), get my finances in order (no easy task: I owe the IRS a princely sum and I am in debt to the tune of another 15,000), build my real estate business to include not only local property but global initiatives, be more consistent in writing through articles and a novel I've been playing with for five years, clean up my spiritual act (don't know what this means yet) and be more involved with my community, my friends (while making new ones) and my diaspora-like family.
This makes me tired just reading it.
Anyway, the first chapter in Richardson's book on extreme self-care is about where one feels deprived. OK, here goes: I do not have enough dream time. What I mean by that is time for my creative juices to flow and fester, mold and re-mold so I can create characters and story lines for my fiction that have some staying power. My real estate work feels like I might as well be selling empty lots on the moon (location, location, location). I have had such amazing years in the past and now I feel deprived (of money) and frustrated (after making gargantuan effort) that I am not seemingly able to martial the resources to keep the upswing alive. As for friends, I want uplifting people around me when so many of my friendships seem now to be built on negatives: the health issues that arrive with aging, lack of money, and lack of love. I am relatively healthy, I can earn money, and I love love. I love people who are upbeat socially, low key emotionally, creative and smart and can manifest the lives they want. I have been one of those people and am aiming to be so again.
On New Year's Eve, I went home early and wrote down everything about 2011 that I wanted to either forget or make sure not to repeat. I wrote a long list and just before midnight said GOODBYE to everyhing on it, took the piece of paper outside and set it on fire. GOODBYE, 2011. GOODBYE to all my excuses, to my frustrations, to my blind spots and to being stuck. HAVE A NICE TRIP INTO THE OZONE, GOODBYE!! And make sure if you try this at home, you do it someplace where you won't burn down a house.
The next day, my phone started ringing. It has continued into today. A friend from London called from his beach house in Holland; a friend from Hong Kong sent love from Singapore; my cousin in Washington who I NEVER see actually sent good wishes for the New Year and when I checked my phone messages, I had a client for a rental I have had listed FOREVER and an invitation to pitch an apartment in a building where I have sold things for years. AFTER NO NEW LISTINGS IN A YEAR!!!
So although my deprivation may continue in areas, and I intend to get clear on what I don't have so I can fuel what I want and need, I see the tables turning slowly. I see light at the end of that proverbial and extremely long tunnel. I can almost see myself, 12 months from now, wearing a fabulous Calvin Klein dress and carrying my best Tory Burch bag, wearing a shade of lipstick I would never have tried before, going out on a third date with an amazing guy right AFTER I get a signed contract on a 10 million dollar property. And I have an agent for my book.
Impossible? Let's not be too hasty to challenge the universe. I'm on my way.
To whit: I have decided that 2012 is the year that I take off all the weight I have gained since 1995, that I find true love or at LEAST start dating (dispelling all traditional thought that women over 50 can't find love or fun), get my finances in order (no easy task: I owe the IRS a princely sum and I am in debt to the tune of another 15,000), build my real estate business to include not only local property but global initiatives, be more consistent in writing through articles and a novel I've been playing with for five years, clean up my spiritual act (don't know what this means yet) and be more involved with my community, my friends (while making new ones) and my diaspora-like family.
This makes me tired just reading it.
Anyway, the first chapter in Richardson's book on extreme self-care is about where one feels deprived. OK, here goes: I do not have enough dream time. What I mean by that is time for my creative juices to flow and fester, mold and re-mold so I can create characters and story lines for my fiction that have some staying power. My real estate work feels like I might as well be selling empty lots on the moon (location, location, location). I have had such amazing years in the past and now I feel deprived (of money) and frustrated (after making gargantuan effort) that I am not seemingly able to martial the resources to keep the upswing alive. As for friends, I want uplifting people around me when so many of my friendships seem now to be built on negatives: the health issues that arrive with aging, lack of money, and lack of love. I am relatively healthy, I can earn money, and I love love. I love people who are upbeat socially, low key emotionally, creative and smart and can manifest the lives they want. I have been one of those people and am aiming to be so again.
On New Year's Eve, I went home early and wrote down everything about 2011 that I wanted to either forget or make sure not to repeat. I wrote a long list and just before midnight said GOODBYE to everyhing on it, took the piece of paper outside and set it on fire. GOODBYE, 2011. GOODBYE to all my excuses, to my frustrations, to my blind spots and to being stuck. HAVE A NICE TRIP INTO THE OZONE, GOODBYE!! And make sure if you try this at home, you do it someplace where you won't burn down a house.
The next day, my phone started ringing. It has continued into today. A friend from London called from his beach house in Holland; a friend from Hong Kong sent love from Singapore; my cousin in Washington who I NEVER see actually sent good wishes for the New Year and when I checked my phone messages, I had a client for a rental I have had listed FOREVER and an invitation to pitch an apartment in a building where I have sold things for years. AFTER NO NEW LISTINGS IN A YEAR!!!
So although my deprivation may continue in areas, and I intend to get clear on what I don't have so I can fuel what I want and need, I see the tables turning slowly. I see light at the end of that proverbial and extremely long tunnel. I can almost see myself, 12 months from now, wearing a fabulous Calvin Klein dress and carrying my best Tory Burch bag, wearing a shade of lipstick I would never have tried before, going out on a third date with an amazing guy right AFTER I get a signed contract on a 10 million dollar property. And I have an agent for my book.
Impossible? Let's not be too hasty to challenge the universe. I'm on my way.
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