Reflecting on The Waves

Reflecting on a Week of Changes
This week has been a unique time in my life. One, because some things in my work/personal life are changing. Two, because I am headed back to Kansas this weekend. Heading to Kansas is always a guarantee that my life will change, I go in feeling one way and come out on the other side feeling different (usually worn out). Then weeks and months later my life continues to change.

Ill start elaborating. Personal life-
An amazing coworker of mine, that is a cross between a mom and a best friend to me, is leaving our office to move to Virginia. This woman came in only a year ago, and cleaned house. She changed our entire work environment. She streamlined all of our systems, wrote protocols, held people accountable, increased business, and most importantly brought a smile to everyones face.
It is nothing short of a God send that this woman was placed in our office and our lives. She managed to remove all of the toxic personalities from our office and environment, so all this posts from the last two years or so about issues with coworkers-she solved six months ago. Thanks to her, I am able to go to work and enjoy it. My heart is back in it, life is good. I also gained confidence and value in myself, I have been shown how much I am worth to the business. I have held the position of professional multitasker for four years now, thanks to this woman my benefit has been recognized and I can see a higher value in myself in the office.
The amount of smiling patients that come into our office has increased, many came by today or this week to say goodbye We even had a surprise party earlier in the week and managed to surprise her, I was honored to be a big part of that. I like making sure people feel special, I think that day we all did a good job.
This person has actually been special enough to me, that today I gave her a link to this blog as a going away present. For those of you who have been reading for a long time, you know that this blog is a very secret safe haven of mine, that I have only given to a small handful of people. The first being a coworker last year, then E and one other girl friend of mine, and now this coworker. Thats only 4 people (unless I forgot someone).

Personal life Pt. 2
I have been thinking lately on how much my life has been on a continuously changing spin cycle for the last few years, especially since the strep infection in my brain. The anxiety and depression has subsided substantially since March. Looking back into October 2018, anxiety was hitting an all time high and I was collapsing. I was scared big time and answers were scarce. I wanted to crawl out of my skin, so many nights I was awake in bed praying that I could just stand up right out of my body and leave it behind. My body and I are on better speaking terms, it still has some catching up to do, but I thank God every day today for the body I have been given. The good, the bad, and the ugly. A few years back I had zero understanding of anxiety, now I get it.

Ya know, they don't say you "get it" until you GET IT. Thankfully, I GET IT now. I understand.

Anxiety is a complete and total change in mental capacity and functions, immediately. Sometimes its triggered and sometimes its a surprise. Ive had a few minor surprises lately with it, but all very minor and all very related to staying up too late or not sleeping. A year ago I couldn't stand to be in my own skin, good day or bad. I wanted out. It didnt feel right.
Two years ago I remember having plenty of vegetable moments, all too often just being too tired to do much. Hobbies weren't in the picture. Depression was made, and anxiety showed up.
Three years ago, I was only a few months into treatment with my doctor, and that was my first taste of feeling human again. Depression was frequent but not severe, anxiety was very mild or maybe non existent (I would have to check my notes).
Six years ago, I had to take time off school because I just couldn't function.
Seven years ago I had to recognize that my life had changed, from an event the year prior, and I would have to recognize my new life style of feeling unwell all the time "for no reason". All sports were dropped and any activity I could live without was left to the dust and never thought of as a possibility. Life had changed and the future was a scary place.

The future is happening, life has been ever changing. More scary changes than I care to think about, but all the changes have led to the person I have become. In the last few months, since my last visit to Kansas, I have come to appreciate the man I am becoming. I am flawed, my body is faulty, things still scare me, sometimes I dont know what Im doing. But this is the life God gave me, it wasn't an accident, it all has a purpose for his glory. Ive made it this far, if I was doing something that wrong God would have taken me out of the picture. I will be here to serve my purpose until God decides my time has come.

Personal Life Pt. 3
I have removed a lot of toxic people from my life in the last few months. I used to fear that I was being antisocial, and that I should be conforming to other peoples quirks and habits otherwise I was doing something wrong. Now I am realizing that those behaviors put me in situations that allowed me to be walked on and taken advantage of, and a lot of those "friends" may serve me better from a distance rather than on my speed dial. Some of these friends have known me for  along time, they may come back around and this may be a temporary change, or it may be time to forget about them. My "best" friend that I used to mention on a frequent basis has been MIA from my life since February. One day he didn't text me back, and I never heard from him again. Very long story short, I sent him an email asking for forgiveness for whatever I may have done, and I apologized for some of my own faults that I knew bothered him. That was the end of that. Sending that email hurt, I had to pour a lot of emotion and thought into it and I knew in my heart that nothing would come of it physically. I knew no matter what I said, was he going to respond. God has given me very strong intuition in my life, sometimes I "just know". But I said my piece, I put it out there, I got it all of my  chest, I asked for forgiveness, I asked God to forgive me for my mistakes-known and unknown.
After this event my life began to clear in a way, I started getting him off my mind. It hurt. It burned. Intuition says its not over and come the end of this year I need to be prepared for something, what that is-I dont know. I just know I should take note of what my intuition said.
I removed 90% of the things that kept my life anchored to this person in anyway, which consisted of deleting pictures from my phone, texts, and taking of the friendship ring that he gave me. One day I will dump that last 10%, which will be when I delete all of the pictures and messages, throw the ring away (turns out it cost like $10 on eBay, I found where he bought it on the first search, he probably put very little thought into it and it probably isn't worth keeping in my drawer), and take the one last picture off my dresser. Its just hard for me to part with memories that during a hard part of my life, brought me a lot of joy and relief from some painful realities. I havent decided if its intuition telling me to hold onto these things a little longer, or just sentiment.

This isn't the only friend Ive had incidence with this year, probably the most dramatic. One "best" friend started dating another " best" friend, then the two of them starting treating myself and others rather poorly. Another "great" friend of mine started dating a new guy, then said new guy got a bit handsy with the girls cousin in the pool. "Great" friend says it didnt happen, cousin gets upset. Lo and Behold, house divided on a rather serious matter there. I voiced my opinion and stepped out of the picture. Anyway, ill stop there with the drama, drama doesn't need to seem like its being glorified.
This year, I realized how much healthier and happier I was when I didnt go out with friends or spend an evening with certain people. I noticed that I was happier stressing over car parts, than I was being caught in drama which began to seem endless. Maybe right now I am feeling a bit antisocial and I am being a bit snobby about what quality of people I want to spend my time around. I think it may be time I start treating my social life with a little more respect, even if it means staying home and not being social.

Lyme-
I guess I could mention a little bit about the topic that gave me the reason to write my blog. Life is going well in the disease department. Sleep has struggled painfully this week, but I have had a lot on my mind. I have had some extremely severe leg cramps all day everyday for the last several days which have made it painful to walk, I'm blaming this on working on my car. Fatigue and motivation are a bit of a struggle, probably related to sleeping.
If I could sleep well, and wake up early, then maintain a consistent schedule indefinitely, I think my symptoms would continuously improve. The one thing that  does remain a struggle is my personality, I still do not feel like im as "awake" as I was pre strep, sometimes it is still very difficult to talk. My brain just stays at flatline. I used to talk a lot more and joke around a lot and everyone thought I was hilarious (which is still there, but not at all like before. I used to keep track of my jokes I had so many). Its coming back, maybe after this coming visit to Kansas this will begin to take a large turn for the best. Im praying for my body as an entirety to heal and function properly (not just function "enough"), Im praying that my brain fog will be lifted, that I will feel completely like myself again and not just a "part" of myself that survived a war, and Im praying that I will be given the energy and stamina to feel GREAT after this coming week all the way through the school year (or further). Last time, my doctor told me I had near miraculous results with how quickly and significantly my test results improved for the better. I am praying that this will be gloriously repeated.

How am I doing on making up for the lost time I was in hiatus?? I told you, thoughts are in there!!