You need hands...

SW ⟫ 207.7 | CW ⟫ 172.3 |

Ozempic: ⟫ 1 mg

Just call me Typhoid Mary – whether this is COVID or just a simple cough/cold, it is hanging around and feels like it’s getting worse. As are the burps. Read some advice on Reddit so Stripes bought me some shop-brand Gaviscon to see if it helps with the burps. I guess, normally I wouldn’t bother worrying about them but sometimes it feels like I’m going to throw up when I’m burping and it’s making me feel scared about using my CPAP. It’s also after every meal and when I sit up, like the wind is trapped whilst I’m lying down and then when I sit up, it punches out of me with little warning.

I was dozing off last night and thinking about how well my nails are growing. I spent a chunk of time earlier in the year trying to grow them – painting them with strengthener every day, filing them and using cuticle oil religiously. I fell out of that habit and yesterday I realised how long my nails were looking. Anyway, that led my brain to meander to a time when I was looking into doing Intuitive Eating and followed Paul McKenna.

He was everywhere and I even attended one of his seminars in London with a couple of friends. His ideas were sound but they ultimately didn’t work because I was fighting against my body’s chemistry and couldn’t figure out intuitively what I wanted to eat. I wonder how it would have worked if I had had Ozempic at the time? At the seminar, you could talk to a consultant and they did a sort of mini hypnosis thing on you. I asked for help to accept my hands – I felt they were abnormally large and that my fingers looked like sausages. I even remember where that came from – it was teasing from one of my siblings when I was much younger. I know that they didn’t mean anything nasty or malicious by it, but those words stuck with me.

The thing is, that session did help me. I began take better care of my hands and nails and felt less self-conscious of the size of my hands. The absolutely ridiculous thing about it is that Stripes and I have similarly sized hands and I think she has always had very elegant hands and fingers. From the time she was born, my Marmee would say Stripes had the hands of a pianist – dextrous, strong, capable, beautiful. And I can well see and apply that to her – I think overall Stripes is very ‘elegant’ in the way she moves. Possibly because of the yoga she’s done on and off all of her life, but still – when she’s not falling over one of the cats, she’s a very graceful and elegant person. But I could never apply that to myself.

It wasn’t helped by the fact that I occasionally got exzema on my hands – at one stage, it looked like someone had pressed a hot iron to the back of my hand, it was so bad. As I’ve lost weight, I’ve been looking for signs on my body that show what’s happening and haven’t been able to see it. Sometimes though, I will look at my hands and think they look slimmer, more elegant. Maybe I’ll get there in the end – it would be nice.

I had a bit of a mini breakdown on Sunday. I didn’t sleep Saturday night and when Stripes came in on Sunday, I broke down in tears when she asked me what was going on. I feel bad because I unleashed a torrent of self-hatred and just really dark thoughts about myself, my weight loss journey, who I was and am. And then, Rowan sent me an email (we were exchanging questions) and she asked me what I thought about where I was in life. My answer is giving me food for thought – the actual question was what are my thoughts about where I am now:

self-pity most of the time lately. There are nights when I have so many stories running through my mind but I don't even have the energy to get up and use my laptop. When I'm feeling okay, I love the fact that I read/review books and write on the side, as well as the art stuff. I wish I had the strength/confidence to write original fiction but am proud of the fact that two of my original stories were published. I am so lucky because I don't have to find the money for basic healthcare, although my PIP (funding from the government to make it easier being disabled) is under review so I might be suffering from financial constraints if I don't get it renewed. 

We were also talking about tiny living, something she is very interested in and perhaps pursuing, and that too made me think.

I love the idea of tiny homes but I am too big for one (at the moment). If I was a smaller size, I think I would like the idea of one. My bedroom is basically my version of a tiny home. I have a fridge, a kettle, games consoles, a bed and cat beds - I don't need more than that to be honest! Oh, room for the girls to be comfortable when they spend time with me. I'm not really safe to go to any other rooms because of my lack of balance, so I don't really feel like the rest of the flat is mine if that makes sense? The bathroom was converted to a wet-room when we moved in so that I can shower safely (I fell in the bath and couldn't get out - humiliating and painful in equal measure)

And that seems to sum up my life in a nutshell – apart from the daily battle to lose weight, it consists of living in my version of a tiny house, with the cats and girls visiting, writing, making art, reading books and writing reviews. Throw in some medicinal marijuana and that is the extent of my world. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing, but I do wonder what it’s doing to my mental health – our mental health because Stripes is my companion and I worry that her world is too small as well. Stripes and I talked about me paying for some therapy but the one first thought of – BetterHelp – has such a bad reputation that it puts me off trying to get something online. I could go to the GP but then the worry is that it will go onto my medical files and they will decide that I am not mentally prepared for surgery. Which is always looming in the back of my mind.

I have done some work on tidying up my environment. The addition of the sofa has made a huge difference and that side of the room does look much better. I went through my wicker basket and threw out clothing/pyjamas that were too big/tatty, as well as putting my underwear into a drawer so when I go out it’s easier to find my bras and stuff. It felt strange throwing away underwear knowing it’s too big for me – only by about a size, but still. And because I did everything on my list, I allowed myself to open the new cat chaise lounge and set it up. All of the cats love it, but I was seriously chuffed to find that Munch adores it and can be found just lounging like the queen that she is throughout the day. Stripes has told me before that Munch actually spends quite a bit of time in my room with me, but I don’t realise because of where she chooses to hide herself, but she does like me and does spend time with me.

Silly that a cat’s opinion of me means so much.

This morning I decided to do some work on my art for the spook me community running this year. And I am seriously pleased with what I’ve achieved. I don’t think I’ve ever made anything quite so atmospheric and can tell I’ve made progress in using paint.net. Obviously there are still areas where I struggle, and sometimes ideas don’t translate from my brain onto the page but that’s similar to writing. If I have nerve, I’ll add one of the images here – probably the one that I’m not going to use because it’s the wrong ‘couple’ for the story I have in mind.

It’s a mixture of digital and AI digital art, with a sprinkling of human error! I haven’t written Sterek in a hot minute so I think I’ll stick with writing Steter and using the other banner. I have the story idea in my head – I just need to find a way to get it down on the screen.

I have a book I have to read and review before the 12th so I’m going to log off now. It’s got to the stage where I’m tinkering with this art and potentially ruining it so I need to leave it alone! And it’s time to figure out what to eat – ugh!