Thank You

Almost every night I go for a walk outside. Sometimes I walk a few miles, sometimes I only walk down the block and back. It is my thinking time, a part of my meditation time.

Over the past week during my walks I have been reflecting on my life. What comes up over and over is a strong current of thanks, like a high tide of gratitude in my heart.

I am grateful to be alive.

I am grateful for the experience I’ve had so far in my life.

I am grateful to have learned so many powerful lessons.

I’ve had love, great overpowering love, a few times in my life. I am grateful to have felt that love and to have been part of the giving and receiving of love between two people.

I have come close to death twice in my life, when I had a motorcycle accident and when I fell off a roof. I am grateful to have survived and for the clarity those two experiences gave me.

Thinking about all the people who were injured here in Boston recently, I look at my right arm and am so grateful to still have it and to still be able to use it. I have recovered so well, people don’t often believe me when I say there was a chance I could have lost my hand. My surgeon here in the US has shown my surgical x-rays from Argentina and his reconstruction of my wrist to thousands of other orthopedic surgeons because it was such a rare case. He still tells me he was just happy I could move my fingers after my third operation, and any recovery after that is gravy.

I did a handstand earlier this year. I did a handstand with the support of my reconstructed wrist. What a feat!

My Community is Here in Boston

Last Monday morning, Patriot’s Day, I was driving back to Boston from New York City. I was coming home.

This was a new feeling for me: coming home to Boston. I lived in NYC for eight years, from age 17 to age 25. I grew up there and learned who I was as an independent being. I grasped freedom for the first real time in NYC. I loved my life there. I fell in love with myself there.

All of that, but after eight years I was tired. I was tired of the crowding and the grittiness. I was tired of the grey and craved more green, more space to breathe. I started to feel more connected to the child within myself, the little girl who grew up playing outside, riding tire swings and horses in Michigan.

Fire

At midnight last night I found out that I received 130/130 points, or 100% on a paper I wrote last month for my Comparative Health Systems class. In the paper I compared the health systems of Burkina Faso and Bangladesh. The paper is worth 40% of my final grade.

I have had many celebratory moments so far this year, but none touched me as much as receiving this grade. This perfect grade means so much to me. It is a benchmark in my recovery from suffering a traumatic brain injury (TBI) four years ago. It is a sign of transition; time to leave all that injury/recovery crap behind, it is over.

My pain body (explained here) gets triggered when I acknowledge that it is time to move on, from recovering to recovered. My mind flashes back to the hundreds of hours of rehabilitation I endured, to all the doctors who told me to relax, to calm down... To the doctor who suggested I not worry so much about recovering my ability to read... Fuck them all.

I never gave up. I had sad moments, overwhelming moments, painful moments, but I never gave up. I refused to believe that I would only read children's books after the accident, or that I would never return to graduate school. Thank everything in existence that I never gave up on myself.

Don't you dare give up on yourself.
Don't you dare.
I don't care what they say
Don't believe them
Don't let them put out your fire

50 Things I'm Proud I Did in 2012

At the end of every year, I make a list of 50 thing I am proud I did. Instead of making resolutions at the beginning of the new year, I think, what would I be proud to say I did at the end of the year. It's a way to be more positive and uplifting about accomplishing things, instead of feeling stressed, pressured, etc. So here we go!

1. Returned to grad school after a two-year medical leave
2. Got A's in 5/5 classes I took
3. Kept my sanity while moving apartments three times
4. Started running again
5. Completed a 5k turkey trot on Thanksgiving
6. Drove from Charleston to Boston .
7. Worked out with a trainer twice/week from May-August
8. Went from not being able to do a full situp,
     to doing three sets of 20 in one workout.
9. Hiked around America's Stonehenge
10. Went on a two-day yoga and meditation retreat
11. Did an handstand in yoga on that retreat!! ...
      Ok, this one is huge for me, just huge.
      Since 2009 I have had seven operations on my arms
      after I fell off a roof. Years of physical therapy,
      taking care of my body and helping my arms recover
      paid off in that moment!!!
12. Bought furniture for the first time
13. Opened up to my family about my injuries
14. Survived my mom visiting for two weeks
15. Went to Boston's Stylefixx event
16. Went to a  Tristan Prettyman and The Script concert
17. Went to the Cambridge Zen Center for a few dharma talks
18. Taught a little girl how to stand up for herself
19. Went apple picking... twice!
20. Threw a wonderful housewarming party with my roommate
21. Spent a weekend with my brother in Long Island
22. Traveled the Freedom Trail here in Boston
23. Said 'no' to things I didn't want to do
24. Went a day or two without pain in my arms!!
25. Befriended an elderly neighbor
26. Improvised and used a standing desk
27. Played violin regularly for the first time in years!
28. Learned a few songs on the ukulele
29. Wrote a poem collectively with a brain injury support group
30. Sang in front of about ten people (OCMS - Wagon Wheel)
31. Started seeing a chiropractor
32. Asked a friend to come with me to the doctor.
33. Painted some pottery, pictures, and gifts for loved ones
34. Wrote nice 'please don't park here again' notes
       and put them on peoples' windshields when they parked
       in the handicapped spot with no sticker/card.
35. Reconnected with great friends
36. Fell in love with biostatistics
37. Did my homework under pressure in two hours,
      and didn't get a headache.
38. Went to the kid's science museum by accident
      and had a great time
39. Went salsa dancing
40. Climbed to the top of a lighthouse
41. Tried a bunch of new sex positions
42. Went on a horse-drawn carriage ride at night in Central Park
43. Was listed on Niall Doherty's blog
      100 People Doing Extraordinary Things
44. Recommitted myself to the person I want to be
45. Found a facewash I love!
46. Spent more time cooking at home then ever before
47. Won $5 playing Mah Jong with the old ladies club
48. Went fishing.... topless
49. Went swinging, like with a little kid on a playground.
      That sounds bad.
50. Went to a movie alone

Ok, that is the list! So many little things happened in 2012, I could add 25 more things, but I like this list. At the end of the year, I got quite sick with heart troubles. See the post below this one. I'm working on maintaining my happiness through that and also figuring out who I am as my life continues to change. Lots of transitions and work to do.

I lied about making resolutions... For 2013, I did make one resolution: Read 100 Books. So far I have completed three. Have to pick up the pace or I'll fall behind! While 2012 was the year of regaining strength and fitness, I hope to make 2013 the year of losing weight. I am unhappy with how much I have gained since my heart troubles started, and hope to shake it off.

Hope you enjoyed! I'd love to hear some of your proud accomplishments from 2012, please share some below!

Looking Up

I am at the bottom of an abyss.
In know an abyss is a bottomless pit,
But it was so long and dark a fall...
I only know I am laying at the bottom,
Looking up
At the light.

I caught two mice in my apartment last night. I have been afraid of the dark lately so I have been staying up until the sun begins to slip through the shades. Maybe 6:00am, maybe 6:30. Sometime in the lost hours of the night, I ripped off my heart monitor. Sitting on the couch, thinking about the lead wires attached to my body, attached to a machine... it was all making me nauseated. I've been wearing this heart monitor for 12 days. My skin is raw from peeling off and replacing the leads, one just below my collar bone on the right side, one just below my breast on the left side. I hate it.

I know, I am taking my frustration out on the damn monitor. I have found myself in the terrible cycle of hating my body for being sick. In secret I plead with my heart, please, please just give me one day. Please just stop. I'll say it was just stress and I am fine and we can be friends again. Please just stop. 

Stop what? Stop speeding up to 110 bpm when I am sleeping. Stop hitting 105 when I am sitting in class. Stop skipping beats. Stop fucking up and making my hair fall out from lack of blood flow. Just stop.

My poor body, all it needs is love
And I am kicking it while it's down.
I am looking up.
From this dark place,
I am looking up at the light.

Happiness

I take care of my happiness. I think I am better at caring for my own happiness than I have ever been for any houseplant or pet. So how does this work?

I laugh. I once read something about the Dalai Lama that described how he gives himself completely to each moment. When something is funny, he laughs completely with his whole being. His Holliness does the same for sad moments, confusing moments, every moment he can. I strive to do the same, especially when I laugh. In our society it might be impolite to laugh loudly. I don't care. I laugh until the the funny comes to a natural end, never rushing or stifling it.

Moving further down this path, I carry funny memories around in my mind. Not just funny memories, but happy memories. Some people hold on to their pains, their troubles and tough moments. I choose to carry around happy moments. I can tell you a handful of moments during which I fell in love. I carry the moment I sat on a mountain in Antarctica and felt my dreams coming true. I carry funny stories and travel adventures, so many happy memories.

Massage Me

I woke up this morning and scheduled a massage. I’ve only had a handful of massages so far in my life, all of them in other countries. I just needed a massage. I needed to be in my body, to be forced to be in my body.

Pinch yourself. Hard. Make it hurt.

Isn’t it beautiful how aware you are of your skin, your fingertips, your nerves firing… Isn’t it beautiful how aware you are of your body in that little moment?

That’s what I wanted, but on a larger scale.

So yeah, I scheduled a massage.

At 3:15pm, I disrobed and laid face-up on the padded table. I was scared, afraid of my own vulnerability and all the emotions bubbling under my skin.

The Great Unknown

I am everything and I am nothing.
I am here and I am not here.

I
am
unknown.

I've been actively embracing The Great Unknown lately.

I am in Boston, taking classes at Boston University's School of Public Health. I don't know if I'm living in the right place (right... haha as if there is a wrong place). I don't know if I am meant to be here, taking classes. I think about leaving grad school and all its bureaucratic crap behind, disappearing to India, returning to NYC to dive into my own deepness, anything.

My mind is everywhere and nowhere.

Love: I've learned over and over that I.... I... don't make the rules. I can't plan Love. Planning and other things I've done came, come, from fear. Let that go and what do I have? Nothing but this moment. Nothing but everything unknown in Love.

My heart is everywhere. My heart is in my mind.