Failure at Facebook, but maybe not so much at life?

Image Source

Well, for the record, my no-Facebook pledge lasted maybe an hour before I got an email in my inbox and, you know, just HAD to go respond right away.  Oh brother.  I'll try again later when my will is more stalwart, but for now I think I've still dialed down some of the obsessiveness.  Though leaving the house would surely help as well.  I'm not housebound physically anymore, but since I currently work from home (freelance) and am fairly broke (um, results of the freelancing...), I don't have many reasons to leave the house during the day other than doctor's appointments and occasionally running/walking.  I do still go out at night sometimes, but it's just not the same-- sunlight makes me happy!  I'm just starting to feel like a vampire or something.  Bleh.

Image Source

My doctor's appointment on Monday went just fine.  Dr. M. put me back on antibiotics, but just doxycycline and not the other two, in order to mitigate the negative tummy reactions.  I'm still on probiotics and she prescribed a bunch of different supplements that I now have to go about collecting.  They're all from random online companies, too... one even from an Ebay store run by another doctor.  I've kind of been putting it off, but I'm totally going to get on that tomorrow.  By now, I've mostly learned my lesson about putting off my health for too long just because I feel fine now. Preventative action is the name of the game, people.

Image Source

In other news, I've actually been exercising lately.  Strange, right?  I've already got shin splints, but I'm determined to keep at it.  I've been 3 separate times in the last week, which is pretty on target for me.  I used to imagine the clothes I could wear if I were toned enough as an incentive to make myself work harder (yeah, I'm one of those girls sometimes.  What of it?).  I realize that's shallow or whatever, but if it works, it works.

It's not what I'm going on anymore though.  I try to imagine myself the way I was before I got sick, one semester in particular when I really got into running at night (unsafe but exhilerating), took up yoga, played intramural softball, and started rock-climbing for fun.  I felt strong. Solid.  Invincible.  Of course the next semester I became terribly ill, so there goes the whole invincible theory, but the point is that I've felt health and I'm trying so desperately to feel it again.  This is really cheesy, but I like to listen to Fort Minor's "Remember the Name," while I run to remind myself that anything worth having is hard work-- it's not just me and how life is unfair blah blah blah ad nauseum, lol.  Maybe it's silly, but the song makes me feel empowered and tends to send any leftover victim mentality issues right out the door.  I'm not in control of everything, but I'm in control of some things, and it's dumb to whine about how hard they are.  It doesn't make them any easier or get them done any more quickly.

Oh, one last tidbit before I go.  I heard back from WFU that I actually only have one more English class to take, which means that the last class can be anything I choose.  Woohoo!  I think I'm going to take a journalism class by this awesome professor who guest-taught one of my classes last semester.  She talked about social media and online journalism and how exciting the changing world we live in is.  I dug it.  So I emailed her and she's going to make room for me in the class.  Hooray!  She writes books about living simply, and her blog is here if you're curious.

Saving myself from... myself. I'm pretty fearsome you know.

Gah.  I think I seriously need to go on a Facebook fast.  That's actually WHY I'm posting tonight, just to warn you all.  I've been in this crazy reconnect mode, which is good, but it's causing me to get semi-obsessive about Facebook, which isn't normal.  I've been doing all this reading about dating in the digital age recently because it's just such a weird phenomenon, this brave new world of technology and how it's changing the most fundamental ways we relate to people.  I bring it up because it occurred to me tonight that if I feel the need to connect with someone, I log on Facebook.  Or I send an email, or I get on Twitter and just send out the equivalent of a mass text.  You know what I don't do?  PICK UP MY TELEPHONE AND ACTUALLY CALL SOMEONE WITH IT.

I mean, maybe I'll send a text message. Maybe.  But a phone call, in this day and age, feels so... invasive. Isn't that weird?  With a few mouse clicks I can see someone's online social history for the last year.  If I want, I can read what my friends are saying to each other, and I can see all the events I'm missing.  And yet straightforwardly calling someone and actually asking for their precious, non-digital time feels really presumptuous.  Even with people I know really well!  Seriously, kids, is it just me?

Anyway, I haven't really figured out this whole Facebook dilemma and, frankly, I should probably be putting all that cognitive energy into something revenue-producing, like my freelance work, or into that novel I like to pretend I'm writing.  But instead I'm now making massive lists of new blog names, with my cousin's help, and trying to figure out how to take all of these driving-me-crazy thoughts and siphon them off into a place where I can get some feedback.  So I'm going to take a massive chill pill and take the next, let's say, three whole days away from Facebook.  And maybe I'll go get my damn cell phone fixed too so I can stop checking my text messages (it no longer makes a noise or anything when I get one, and I've missed a lot, so now I'm all paranoid).

In other, slightly more relevant news, I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow.  Some of you have been sweet enough to ask me how my treatment's going, and hopefully I'll have some more answers as of tomorrow.  I'm feeling great, to be honest, but just 2 weeks ago I got pitifully sick (back to the bed-ridden, writhing pain kind of thing) and had to take a break from the antibiotics.  So I'm probably going to have to start taking those again, provided the Lyme didn't just decide to up and leave.  Which would also be just fine by me.  I need to stop being such a priss about some of the medical tests too.  When I was miserable, I did ANYTHING they asked me to (weird science, anyone?).  Now that I'm feeling better, I have more things on my to-do list than just my medical care (yay!) and sometimes when they want me to do some complicated test... I dunno I just put it off.  Not responsible in the least, I know, but it's what I've been doing and I need to redouble my efforts.  On a positive note, however, I've started exercising again, so that's good.  I overdid it a little last week, but I went for a nice long run today and actually feel relaxed now instead of sore.  Amazing.  Borderline miraculous, to tell you the truth.

Oh, and there's this:

That's all I got for today.  I answered everyone's comments in a massive comment on my last post, so if you're one of the sweet people who offered your kickass support, please check out my comment back!   You've all been so unbelievably awesome on this journey.  It's such a weird thing to have to explain-- you kind of have to experience it.  And I appreciate so much that you take the time to share and commiserate and cheerlead and all the other awesome ways you guys have reached out to me.  So thank you for sticking by me, even when good health calls me back to the land of the living and I miss the whole month of June.  Oops. Please pray that I'm not jinxing myself and that I continue to get better!  I know it's not all of your belief system, and that's cool, but I do pray for a lot of you and really care that your daily and long-term needs get met and that you find peace and happiness and, hopefully, healing.

Okay I'm done gushing.  Gross.

First image found at http://www.kavehjamali.com/weblog_more_en.asp?theid=55
Second image: http://kyleriedel.net/shuffle/?p=351
Third image courtesy of me. You're welcome.

It's ALIIIVE!

So, it's 2:08 am and I'm still awake.  Not really insomnia this time around... nope this is just good, old-fashioned, night-owl-ish-ness combined with a healthy dose of I-don't-give-a-damn.

Nessie over at lipstick, perfume, and too many pills gave me this sweet blog award, which I will try my darnedest to post on tomorrow.  Thanks, Nessie!  Truly the best part of this, though, was checking out all the other blogs that Nessie gifted the award too because, damn, this girl could be a blog curator if there were such a thing as a blog museum.  I'm just having a blast going through these puppies.  There's RA Guy, who draws comics, of which I am ALWAYS a fan (Hyperbole and a Half much?). Amanda over at All Flared Up is FUNNY in that awesome, irreverent sort of way, which can seem taboo sometimes when you're feeling as crappy as we sometimes do.  And Helen from Pens and Needles is starting to feel like my long-lost friend the more I read her posts.  So really, much fun to be had tonight on the interwebz.

But I think what I like best about reading blogs from other people with chronic illness-- and especially other young, single people with chronic illness-- is the fact that they make the same mistakes I do.  And that sometimes you can't even really call them mistakes because it's not like we took a gamble. I *know* what happens when I drink, and I *know* what happens when I stay out too late, and I *know* what happens if I push myself too hard for too long.  Yeah.  I get it.  The whole fragility thing.  Womp womp womp.

But, sometimes, I just don't care. I'm sorry.  Sometimes, if I'm not feeling my worst, and I have that anxious, "gotta get out of this house-," "my God I'm 24 years old and I never have any fun"- feeling... well, I'm going to get out of this house and have some fun.  And sometimes it's a mistake.  And sometimes it's the best thing I could have done for myself.  Because whether or not I get better after all, I'm not waiting around for my life to start.  It's happening.  Right now.  Right this very freakin' minute. And sometimes the threat of a crash just doesn't measure up to the threat of reaching 25 and thinking, what the hell did I DO last year?

So that's where I am right now.  Please don't judge me if one day my posts are about how I can't get out of bed, and the next day I'm on my way to a series of events.  Or sharing dumb stories about the stupid things people say in bars.  Or taking overly ambitious road trips.  Or even chaperoning a church youth camp in the middle of this heat wave (something I'm actually considering for next week, depending on how these stomach issues pan out).  It doesn't always mean I'm feeling that much better (though sometimes it does and that's awesome); it just means I'm juuuust enough better to start living my life again.

Oh, blogging, why are you so difficult right now?

It's been over two months since I've posted, and you know the old adage:  No news is good news. Unfortunately, this counts as news, so- you guessed it- I'm sick again.  I don't really have any details.  I haven't called the doctor yet and I don't know how long it will last, but I've been feeling bad for the last five days and it's been getting progressively worse each day.  It could just be a stomach bug, but having been chronic for so long, I'm definitely a bit overly-anxious these days!

And honestly, I'm having some issues with the lines between blog life and real life.  As I start to step back into the fold of... what? The rest of the world?  Normal-paced living?  Something like that.  Anyway, I've been feeling better, starting to move faster and see more people on a normal basis, and I'm just really cautious about being that girl who over-shares.  Because this blog is publicly attached to me, anyone can find me, and some of my more avid followers include my mom, my aunt and cousin in Ohio, and my little sisters.  So when things happen that I want to blog about-- like my penchant for being approached by only engaged/married/divorced men in bars  or the difficulty in differentiating between hangover-sick and beginning-of-crash-sick-- I generally decide against the risk.  I'm not really sure what to do with that right now.

Basically, it's hard being single, young, and sick.  Or should it be "BUT sick," in a way that kind of cancels out any dateability or friendability points gained by the first two factors?  It's weird.  I haven't worked in awhile, I'm not in school full-time, and I've been house-bound for the past couple years.  Soooo my social circle has shrunk quite a bit.  I love the people I know, but I worry about strangling them with my neediness, especially now that I've hit that 3-month post-relationship loneliness huddle.

So that's what's going on.  I have lots of thoughts and no idea what the rules are for Internet-sharing.  I'm trying not to let the Internet get in the way of all the things I need to start doing (part-time job, sign up for classes, start searching for a real career...), and I'm starting to have a little trouble staying sane through it all.  Of course, my body went ahead and slowed things down for me, so thanks for that, body.  Way to hold it down.  Or something.

Anyway, how do you guys decide how much to share?  I mean, really, if the point of doing this is getting to know people (thus showing my true self), being real, and you know, staying sane, how do you share what you want without cringing at the thought of your mom or distant friend or ex reading it?

Also, in unrelated news:  I'm watching an E! Special on Justin Bieber and COMPLETELY developing Bieber fever.   I just want to put him in my pocket for whenever I get sad.  So cute!  In a completely legal and appropriate way, thanks. :)