When you’re opening a tiny paper window to eat a foil-wrapped chunk of chocolate each day, the days seem to go faster. By the ninth or tenth, all those open windows whisper ‘there’s not much time left to do all the things.‘ By the 20th, they scream ‘hurry, time is running out.‘ Today, I savor the chocolate, knowing there is only one window left, but I question this advent tradition along with the way we are living out these days- not waiting- but rushing and hemorrhaging resources. Like the Universe, we’re expanding, until one day we will simply disappear.
Nice
So, yesterday was day five and it was Saturday so I was in no mood to get up before 7 and go for a walk, but I did and it was only by sheer automaticity that I made that day five walk. I got up and got dressed, walked downstairs, and put on shoes, and left the house like a robot and walked! I thought, I can shorten it, but I didn’t and it was okay [other than already being insufferably hot and humid outside and I came home drenched in sweat]. So, today, I still got up at 7, but I will do hand weights and I will be back to walking tomorrow.
Results so far, I have gained a couple of pounds [lovely], I have more energy during the day, and I feel a little happier. Nice.
Four Days and it’s getting easier
This post is from two days ago: Stardate 17 July, 2025 and the Trump minions are losing their minds because the house of cards that was Q-Anon is flattened by DJT’s handling of the Epstein files. More than 150 people are still missing in the Texas floods, it is hot everywhere and it rains and floods at least weekly, sometimes daily. People are being starved in Palestine and Netanyahu continues to order hits on food lines and camps. China is building a better army and better AI. We are the laughing stock of the world.
Still a measure of will to get out of bed at 7 to walk, I wouldn’t say the walk was easier today, but I feel better after, weirdly. Three day in a row and I am triumphant because, damn, who starts their fitness goal in July? The heat is oppressive so as it eases, it can only get better.
Yesterday’s post: This morning’s walk [#4] was much easier! Easier to get up, easier to walk, didn’t seem like it took so long and I actually enjoyed it. So far, I notice less fatigue during the day, which I am attributing to my morning walks. I am less likely to dread cooking supper and less likely feel like I need a lie down between 2 and 4 pm. It’s frankly, amazing. I also noticed more gratitude on my walk this morning. Even though I rose and left earlier and it was my warmest morning yet [78 at 7am and muggy], I enjoyed the trees and flowers and was thankful for a shady and lovely neighborhood in which to walk.
Dog days
It was tough getting out of bed this morning at a little after 7 for a 7:30 walk and the walk was less fun than yesterday. It was already 75 degrees by to the time I got up and about 77 by the time I finished my walking. It does add energy to the top half of my day, but I continue to have a lag about 3-5. C came home at 5 and of course, had to go to Costco to get more cheese for her lunches. I did manage to make a list of things I need to do today and I accomplished at least five of them.
I am officially over summer. I don’t care if we have to go back to school/work, take me straight to September. Sigh, this heat and humidity is killing me. We are not living, we are struggling to exist. Our 100 year old house cannot be cooled by its six window units when it is this hot, so we are continually sweaty, exhausted, and grumpy.
AI created image
Third Quarter
I think I might need to change the subtitle of the blog, since these are no longer midlife musings unless I am going to live to 122. Maybe “third quarter?”
I am writing for accountability. There’s something wrong with my lungs and I need a CT scan with contrast. I don’t want to end up on oxygen. I asked the pulmonologist if I can improve my lung function and she said ‘lose weight and exercise,’ so here we are. We’re gonna do this together. We are going to start with 30 mins of walking 5x a week and 2 days of weights. I don’t want to give up my sweets, but I’d rather keep the wine, I think.
When C goes back to college it will be easier, she leads us down the worst paths with food. It’s ice cream every day, dessert every night, girl loves to eat, but she can.
I got up at 7 to walk this morning- eat the big frog first, and it was not easy. I just missed the rain, I guess, because it was wet, humid and cloudy. Not perfect conditions, but okay. I worked up a sweat.
Here’s to a good start. July 15.
A Lenten Shed
I long for this time, like a snake whose itchy peeling edges beg to shed. This season, I choose loss. I’ll lose the weight of physical pounds but also the heavy burden of things as I give them away, but also refuse to believe what social media tells me that I cannot live without. I”ll fling away fear, worry, and judgment and I will look at myself and others with grace that lets in the divine. I will let the aged milky film that covers my eyes fall away organically so that I can clearly see the path ahead.
Double Drabble
I started hating my body at nine when my belly was a white biscuit between two slick navy blue bikini parts. I hated my body when my Dad said we should jog together and started calling my sisters and I the Bertha Butt sisters. My breasts were too small to offset a ribcage that towered over hip bones when I lay deformed on the beach. Later, my pregnant belly swelled and then deflated into two doughy parts on either side of a vertical C-section scar. I gained fifty pounds and lost only the weight of a ten pound baby.
At fifty-nine, I almost love my body, I certainly don’t hate her any longer. My legs are strong and my knees can bounce on a trampoline. My arms, though melasma mapped, can squeeze my grandchildren. My dimpled thighs droop like my breasts, which point southeast and southwest these days. Preschool children love to squish my upper arms. My soft stomach is the bodyguard who tells me when to take a break from sweets and rest my body. My hair sparkles with natural highlights and I still smile with my eyes. If I could just learn to love my neck.
Pilgrimage
You pull me back from time to time. Tired and with a long to-do list, something compels me to return. The bread is gluten-free, which means I am not allergic to God here. I study random patterns in the gingerbread colored brickwork while meditating to advent hymns. My empty tank is filled when they light the peace candle. I buy beads to help the unhoused and accept a milkweed pod which may feed Monarchs on their way to Mexico next fall. A woman whispers, “I love your fairy hair” and I smile. We are all still young inside.
Drabble
Today they walked around in the way looking at their phone while we cleaned. Dad asked them to take out all the trash and they suddenly seemed terribly sad again- long face, sloth-like movements. They were headed out with a half-full giant bag when I asked if they got all of it. “I know we can find some more trash to fill that up.” Glaring at me with blue daggers for eyes, they said “there’s no more trash in the house.” To which I wanted to laugh and laugh, but I just went to find them more trash.
Add another Autoimmune illness-Vasculitis
I pay for this site so that I can keep the kimmstree.com address, but I haven’t written on here in three years. Part of the reason is because life got really hectic; now it is less so. Part of it is that I couldn’t decide what kind of blog this would be, but I think it has pretty much been a health blog [impending menopause, thyroid, RA]. I toyed with the idea of using it as a platform for my side gig selling books for Usborne, but then, I am so disenchanted with the MLM model, that I just can’t.
So, here’s a quick update: My RA morphed into Vasculitis. I’m convinced it was due to stress from my job [some Shakespearean parents whose constant litigation caused many so much extra work and hassle]. What that looked like was petechiae on my lower legs and hemorrhages on my retina. Because my sister had been hospitalized with LV and had to go on months of Cytotoxan, my doc put me on the infusions Robin was taking: Rituxan- and things got better. I take the infusions every 5 months- previously it was six months, but I was having breakthrough pain and symptoms, so she shortened it. This drug replaced Humira with a side of MTX. I stopped taking the Methotrexate due to a host of side effects, as well as the Plaquenil and replaced all with Rituxan. Now the infusions are a Godsend for the RA, but the vasculitis tries so hard to slip back in. I am a week from my first of two infusions this month and I am having symptoms which I attribute to the Vasculitis: sore ears [a weird aural fullness that is a painful ache], fevers, aching around my neck, scalp pain, itching.
I had planned to retire at age 60, which is a little over 2 years away, but I cashed in my chips this year, a victim of Covid19. I didn’t get Covid, but my sister did and she was on a ventilator for over 100 days. That will be a whole other entry entirely. I went to work from home March 2020 doing what teachers do- making it work. Spring of 2020 was hard, but the 20/21 school year was even more difficult still. Many people have no respect for what this was like. They saw teachers sitting on a sofa at home and, we were, but we were there for 16 hours a day. We only got up to take care of pressing personal needs. I taught EC, so I had to create content for my students that was engaging enough to keep their attention. It would take me hours to create content that could be delivered in less than 30 minutes. I learned to use CANVAS, delivered group and individual instruction, managed staff, made packets, trained parents on how to use all of the new platforms, delivered items to student homes, and continued to keep up with data, IEPs, and everything else the district threw at me. I just could not do it again this year. I wanted to hang in there for full retirement, but I looked at it through a risk to benefit ratio and then cashed out. I have absolutely no regrets.
I feel like it will be the Vasculitis that gets me in the end, not the RA, and I do not want to waste any time. I am taking a writing course, writing, working out, soul searching, and just generally grateful for every single moment. The problem with working as hard as we were all working last year is that you don’t even have time to be grateful, it’s like swimming from Cuba to Miami with sharks chasing you. I love each morning and I go to bed happy every night. I am still working for the group home writing plans and have taken on a part time supervision role, but for right now that is enough. I am also having fun volunteering at the Carolina Theatre downtown.
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Dribs & Drabbles 