My moods have waxed and waned lately. The other day I was in a terrible mood. It was one of those that was just making me feel ugly and I swear it permeated out of me and I just looked ugly too. Which didn’t help my mood any.

I am tired of dealing with the pain and I’m tired of missing out on doing things. Some days I feel like I’m about to burst with being tired of feeling crummy. Add life’s doling out other stuff like my daughter being in two car accidents in one week you could understand why I might get moody     .

But it’s not who I want to be.  We are all allowed our moments but I don’t like those moments to last. I don’t want to put negative energy out into the world. Don’t  we have enough of that? I feel like we get back what we put out.  I will tell you that it’s not easy to put out good stuff when you feel crappy.

I seem to find a change in my down spirit when I go looking for positive things. I know it’s bad when a baby goat on Facebook  doesn’t make me laugh. When I get like that I know I’m craving nature. The real kind -like me being out in it. And that’s not always easy now BC of the pain. But when I want something I somehow will figure out a way to do it.

Walking has become important to me. I know that if you keep moving you keep moving. So I keep moving. Even if I don’t want to. If I have to I take pain meds and I go. Pulling in the elixir that nature freely gives lifts my mood most of the time.

When my mood is up I am vastly aware of all the good things in my life. I see how one small area of pain can turn gold into ash. It’s all perspective. And some days my perspective will be positive and others not so much. I am only human.

I keep looking ahead to better days. But I don’t want to waste the days in the present. Waiting is fine but we need to live while we wait.  So I do what I can. I live the best I can. I try hard. Sometimes I’m just tired.

I have another surgery April 21. I am optimistic that my surgeon can help much of the pain. I’m grateful to have found a doctor that is so dedicated to helping woman with post breast therapy pain. Multiple surgeries aren’t uncommon in this group. In the waiting room on one visit I met a woman who was going through her 19th surgery. The third with my surgeon. We exchanged contact info and we are in touch and she joined the Facebook group for post breast therapy pain that I am in.

On that same visit I met Mary. We had “met” online on that same Facebook page a while back. It was fate that we had appointments the same day. Mary and I suffer from the same pain areas and we lament to each other. It feels good to connect with people who are living what you are living.  You don’t feel so alone. When I left the surgeons office that day I felt happy.  Even though I felt crappy. I like days when I can feel happy and crappy at the same time.

I think about what I’d like to do when I feel better. How I’d like to help others. I want to share this story with others. If I could save a person one less closed door, one less doctor telling them their pain isn’t real , or that it isn’t from the cancer treatments, – I’d feel so great. This story may always be dynamic but i know I have circumvented the system and I know that can be of great help to others

There are other things I want to do to help others. I might be able to do some. Some I might not. We will see.

I also want to do things for myself that I havent been able to do for some time – ride my horse, paddle a kayak, swim , lift weights, do laundry (ok that’s a stretch) , cook(sometimes), and spend time on the beach just being.

See what I mean about living in the future? I thinks that’s ok but I want to live here and now.  I want to make now the best it can be under the circumstances and sometimes it takes a lot of effort to that. I have learned to be resilient over this last nine months. I have dealt with pain, surgery, loss and grief and more pain. I am strong. Even in my worst moments there is something inside of me that wants to keep going. Thats been a beacon during some of my hardest days. That little niggle of strong.

Today we have been pelted with a snowy rainy mix and I want to take a walk later to see how the sun hits the snow on the trees. Maybe I’ll get some photos.

Right now I’ll share some beauty from my walk the other day. I decided to walk into the cornfield.

I hope I am putting out some good chi. I’d sure like to get some back.