Saturday Morning ~ Saturday Evening

It's Seven Thirty AM right now.  The sun is rising, I can see sunshine hitting the bottom of the clouds and a deeper yellow is below the lighter blue sky.  My windows are horribly dirty though and some of this is from the outside.  We are two floors above ground level and as horrible as this may be, we've never had the windows washed on the outside.  It would require high ladders or worse (scaffolding) and we've never looked into it. 

I hear birds chirping and trilling; I see the bare branches of the tree to the right of our building (from where I am looking, which is facing towards the road and away from our building if you were standing outside).  

I've made a quick tea that I steeped for a briefer amount of time than the seven minutes suggested because it has immunity support but also licorice and I know what that can do to me: wire me into a manic state that is so painful that I threw my licorice supplement from a ND away years ago when I had mono.  It was horrible.  Not every medicine or supplement is for every person. I had mono at the time so I was very sick and deeply exhausted but that supplement kept me up.  Of course I think I was taking Prednisone too and had no idea at the time what that means or if you stop taking it that you can put your body in shock.  No.  I would NEVER do such a thing.  Live and learn.  Of course NOW I would NEVER take any sort of medicine like that.  I had no idea what was happening to me in January 2023.  I will never, please God, NEVER take steriods again.  Since it contributed to geave mental illness and deeply traumatic memory loss and Complex PTSD.  

The sun rose higher and was suddenly blinding my eyes.  I pulled the blind down.  It's so beautiful, the early sunshine.  I can't wait to walk in the early sunshine in the park.  But there are some renovations going on and I am a bit worried about what I will find (dirt, desecration of all I knew the park to be) but for now, I will just dream of it, those beautiful walks I had... 

So the literary magazine I subscribed to, they were not kidding -- this is not at all a strict one way thing with a few Christian authors or something like that.  No, this magazine is very committed to literature and one of the essays was about various world religions and how each faith impacted the poetry of that culture.  And there was an amazing essay about an Indian (from India to be clear) novelist who published a novel that is very popular in literary circles, so I am learning.  It's Kiran Desai's 2025 novel, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny and the essay on it shows me that it is a really complex book that shows a lot about the lives of those from India who come to North America... it's fascinating... Portico has a good beginning, with many cultures and voices and some really good writing.  

I missed about a month of writing my new thanksgiving journal.

Trying to get back into it. 

These books need no explanation LOL.  

I am realizing how physically depleted I am. 

I read High Sensitive Person by Elaine Aron when 

it was fairly new; maybe 4 years old. 

***

My memory loss and subsequent PTSD has meant that I had to relearn 

a lot of things, including self-care.  

And so many things were new, like that level of insomnia;

I never had that before.  

So figuring that out and what it means for me physically, 

i.e. significant physical depletion, 

was something that I am, to be honest, just beginning to

really understand now. 

I had some real rest time this afternoon.

A bath with this calming beautiful music: 

Max Richter - The Consolations of Philosophy

I had it on repeat. 

(I linked to the video because I am writing on my chromebook,

I often blog on my phone which has different capabilities) 

I got the official blessing from my Confessor to have a very light

rest of the fast.  Because I have been so sick since October through now

and I need to try to get better.

Sure, I get sick sometimes, like anyone. 

But never like this.

***

Well, it was so good to be at vespers.

And the morning time sunshine was so beautiful.

***

I really want to return to life as a more whole person. 

I have come a long way, it's been 3 years but I have more to go.

We all do.  But God is with us in it.

***

May God have mercy on us!