Thankful

Yesterday

I accept a meeting request with the VP of the Tigers, along with the new fundraising specialist and the new game-day specialist who has worked with the local pro football team and the local pro lacrosse team. Their resumes are superb and their appearance should be a load off my mind. I can concentrate on writing articles, producing videos and running the web site. Our social media guru is still on board.

But this is the first time in three years I have made a commitment to a volunteer organization. I've been on hiatus. There's a dull shadow of nervousness back in some recess of the mind.

Coincidentally I have graduated from the wait list and will go on the bariatric medical diet within two weeks. This day I attend my first virtual class. The other participants seem very reserved, many too shy to undarken their cameras. This will be a weekly commitment for about 24 weeks.

I also attend a phone appointment with another doctor. I have the hardest time with his accent. I gather though, that I will have to take blood sugar readings every other day and go to my doctor's for a weigh-in every other week.

All this just after committing to my dearest writing pals that I will join them for live November write-ins. The commitments are piling up all of a sudden. Over-commitment has proved a very dangerous threat to my health in the past. It leads to neglect. I know I have to be careful. It weighs on me. The doctor is full of bravado and talks about changing the doses to all my medications. I'm thinking he can go to hell, this stranger, and no one is changing my meds except my family doc who I trust with my life.

I sense all this weight but it's not demanding; just lurking. And ah, the miracle of facebook and it's glorious insights. This day I gain the insight that my regular sushi friends are celebrating an outing at our fave sushi joint and I wasn't invited. Well, I can't complain. If they didn't choose me then that's on me, not them. I have not been the kind of person they want to sushi with currently. So be it. Oh well. I do not suffer the illusion that when I am de-grouped it is someone else's fault. 

But it's a little haunting, and the feeling brings back that from a couple weeks prior, on Thanksgiving day. Me sitting on my walker on the driveway, getting my daily dose of outdoors, planning cheese sandwiches for dinner because I have not received my October assistance payment due to some problem; a problem which adds more weight.

And through the open window of my next door nighbours I hear the celebration going on. A bunch of folks I thought were my friends, who I have thanksgivinged with several times before, are dining without me. It's a little shocking but I'm okay. Maybe they'll send a plate home with my housemate who is there. But they didn't.

At darkfall I call Mom and we skype. She loves me like a rock. And the faint little pit of hurt is diminished.

Today

I hear from my caseworker finally. She releases my October payment. I'll have it in a day and a half and then my November payment right on it's heels. And she tells me there is a $150 benefit languishing on my profile and though it is not properly triggered she's sending it to me anyway. She tells me to treat myself to whatever I want before graduating to Disability benefits within a month, and by the way, Disability will have a nice retro sum waiting for me as well. Just in time for my new diet launch with a very pricey bill attached at the outset.

Today I shower, go for a walk, do laundry, make a healthy meal, dog-sit, read a chapter, work on projects. I'm feeling better and it's a banner day. The shower is barely painful at all. I am physically improving and it's not fully understandable why. I've hit no real milestones yet, only improved some habits.

So I'm thankful this thanksgiving season.

For being alive. For the biosphere hanging on still. For being human and not a cockroach or a lobster.

And for knowing more clearly who my friends are. Or aren't.

And even for those who are not but who used to be. My failures have not diminished special memories.