My Apologies

To all those whom I owe visits for TT, Friday Snippets or Poetry Train. I've been fighting another respiratory virus since Thursday.

I've been trying to avoid mentioning it here because several weeks ago I put a moratorium on complaining and negativity as part of my attempt to address mental and emotional clutter in the same way that I had tackled the clutter in my room in January and in my schedule and files in February.

Almost immediately after making that resolution around the first of the month, I took a jarring fall while on a walk with Ed. This reinforced my belief that there is some kind of cosmic comedienne standing at the ready to turn every solemn oath we make into an occasion of slap-stick. I took it as a challenge though and resisted writing about the fall while I was still dealing with its fallout. I think it did help too. The joint and muscle pain cycle that follows such falls was much shorter than typical.

This is the third virus to knock me for a loop since early February. In the past the juxtaposition of such a string of 'bad' events following on my efforts to make positive changes and commitments to goals and dreams has often served as an excuse to quit. So far, I've resisted all the temptations to a mental and emotional meltdown, all the seemingly rational arguments offered before the Supreme Court bench of my mind that such things are 'proof' that every attempt to apply my will to my life needs to be punished as supreme acts of pride.

I know, that sounds fairly silly sitting there on the screen but it has been one of the deep seated beliefs I've had since early childhood. Becoming aware of it leaches it of much of its power. The trick is to become aware of it soon enough to apply opposing arguments before automatic and unconscious behaviors have a chance to sabotage my efforts.

In this case, a plausible opposing argument is that it was the unhealthy way I was living on adrenaline and caffeine and very little sleep and even less exercise between July and January. It was a miracle that I hadn't suffered worse consequences from that much sooner. The fact that the viruses didn't take hold until February, a month after the room do over, meant that I had a healthier and more peaceful place to rest in while sick. The fact that before the first virus zapped me I had had over a month of daily exercises in applying opposing arguments to the above and similarly bizarre accusations from the insane prosecutor in my head could as easily be offered as 'proof' that my efforts were being blessed not cursed.

I was reluctant to break my moratorium on posting about all this but I felt I owed an apology to the meme visitors that I owe visits too. I hope I managed to keep the tone free of the 'poor me' whine that talking about these things so easily degenerates to.