Perched atop the teeter-totter

Another day and I'm afraid that my outlook has pushed the high pressure system off local map, allowing clouds and rains to flood in. I look out the window and all that is missing is a sailing ship fighting a gale in a clouded and birdless sky.

Alright, it's not quite that bad, but it's not sunny and cheery out and it's not sunny and cheery in either. But not all days can be happy. I must be prepared to weather the bad days as well.

I was secretly hoping that all days could be happy for me now that I've reached an advanced age, but I  am where I am and now I must grow where I'm fucking planted.

Somewhere I need to find the modern equivalent of paint-by-numbers. An activity in which I can sit down and focus, escaping everything around me. To float in a positive space, away from what surrounds me. Placing one brushstroke after another and watching a picture form in front of me. I would like that on the hard days.

Today I took some more pictures of myself to play with. Apparently I uninstalled Coral Aftereffects some time ago, so I'm trying to find some application to edit the picture. I can accept that my face is older and not very attractive, if only it were interesting and looked like it was lived in. I should try some different lighting to bring the lines out of the fat. That might help.

I woke up this morning with painful swollen left hand in the middle. No idea what I did to it. Nothing that I remember from yesterday. It's not tender, it just hurts when I open or close it. I'm thinking tenosynovitis again. I should probably rest it and take ibuprofen, but for now I'm exercise it and drinking coffee.

This is likely the way life is going to be from here on out. It's OK, I feel a lot better than last year at this time. I must keep this in mind. I'm doing much better than last year. Last year I felt myself sliding into the abyss. I can remember how I felt myself losing function and I passively accepted it. I remember the choices I made as I went through my day. Looking at chairs and gauging them as to how hard they would be to stand back up from. I remember gradually moving from shoes to socks because my feet hurt when I stood or sat.

I'm much stronger than that now, but I remember the feeling of slipping. Losing ground and accepting the loss as inevitable. Becoming quiet inside while the world moved around me. I wonder if I would have become transparent on my way to being invisible. I see the future in this and I want to stand a little more upright now and say that I'm not finished yet and that I'll hang on to what I have now. I want to do that very badly, but it feels like some days this statement is a very difficult one to make. I also feel that the statement isn't enough, I have to back it up with action and some of these days I just don't have the action inside me.

If I can't make the difference, then I need to fade away. Others with more energy are working and making the difference and that's what is needed.

Enough for now.

More later,