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IN MEMORY
What I’m Listening 2
Tag Archives: perspective
Mr. Winter and Ms. Spring
For the past few weeks, the weather here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, has been volleying back and forth between the 20’s and the 40’s. But yesterday, as well as today, we were suddenly greeted with a wonderful spike in warmth as we have watched the temperatures climb to the low to mid 70’s. Tomorrow, we return to the normal pattern of our weather volleying between the 20’s to the 40’s – with a little possible snow thrown in the mix. This …
Posted in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)
Tagged 4 walls and a view, FMS, journey, life lessons, Mr. Winter, Ms. Spring, personal, perspective, relapse, symptom
18 Comments
CHANGING the DANCE w/the Beast within ME
One of the things I have discovered throughout my life, and especially living with a chronic illness, is that life isn’t fair and it usually comes with a myriad of unexpected circumstances. Most of which require me to do one of two things: adjust and grow or complain and stay stuck. I’m am once again finding myself in a new place in this journey with ME/CFS. It is a very odd place to be and yet I have this amazing …
Posted in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)
Tagged 4 walls and a view, crash, FMS, health, journey, life lessons, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), personal, perspective, relapse
33 Comments
Changing MY Expectations of the word DEFEND
As many of you have probably noted, I have been struggling this past week. To be honest, I think my eye issue derailed me and I have been wandering around in the wilderness. You might think that is a bad thing, but for me, it really isn’t as it provides me the space I need to think, to pray, to analyze, and to contemplate deeply. Sometimes it affords me the breathing room I need to just let go and do …
a Triple Cord is NOT easily broken
This past Monday was a turning point for 4Walls and AView. It documented the one year mark since I launched this blog. As I look back at all that I have written this past year, as well as the comments and what has transpired as a result of the birthing of 4Walls and AView, I am deeply moved and humbled. When I originally decided to stop blogging about politics due to a decline in my health and my cognitive abilities, …
Posted in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)
Tagged 4 walls and a view, aniversary, Dekker, FMS, health, hope, journey, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), perspective, strength, triple cord
25 Comments
2011: A life of Simplicity
I have been reading many blogger’s New Year resolutions with wonder. I’m always amazed at how the New Year stirs up all sorts of new plans, hopes and desires in people. I think that is a great thing. Even so, this year I decided that I am going in a different direction. My New Year’s resolution, if you will, for 2011 can be summed up in one word – simplicity. The losing of all my worldly possessions, my home, and …
Stand Firm
Grief is a funny thing… These past 3+ weeks since Dekker’s death have been a rollercoaster of emotions. These past few days have found me wanting to move past the grief, and yet, unable to. As I recently told a friend, it felt as if I was stuck in my life and nothing I tried helped me move forward. That is a very hopeless feeling. Several days ago, my friend, Cusp, sent me a note on Facebook telling me about …
Posted in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)
Tagged 4 walls and a view, Dekker, grief, journey, life lessons, loss, personal, perspective, pugs
20 Comments
lessons I learned from a woman with autism
Sometimes life’s lessons come unexpectedly, and from places we could never imagine, such as books, movies – or even, a woman with autism. As you are well aware as a reader of my blog, I have been overcome with grief at having to have my beloved pug, Dekker Black, put to sleep. These past seven years were filled with a companionship I never truly understood until he was gone. While I knew the decision was right for Dekker, it is …
Walking thru these 4Walls
I mentioned to a friend, recently, that I would share what happened this past weekend that helped turn me around after getting the news from the doctor that going outside was now dangerous and life-threatening for me. Thus, my mask and I are now connected at the hip whenever I leave my apartment. And to be honest, I’m okay with that. Anyway, as many of you know, I have really been struggling since Thursday’s doctor appointment. As Toni and Renee …
Posted in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)
Tagged 4 walls and a view, crash, friend, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), personal, perspective, write
18 Comments
going LIMP
I am in my first, full-blown crash of this winter. And it is a pretty good one at that. Other than taking Dekker out to go potty (I really should find someone I can pay to take him out for crash times) and trying to eat regular (hard to do when you are wiped out), I am pretty much in bed. I guess you could say, I am going limp. For those of you who are scratching your head, wondering …
this place called, middle
When I grew up, I was always told to push through whatever difficulty I was going through. I have watched for years, as my mother got up every day, no matter how bad she felt, and did everything that was required of her…and then some. In the military I was taught to focus and just do it. There was very little thought. It was more of an instinctive reaction – one that was honed through hours and hours of training …
SUCCESS and VALUE on MY terms
I attended my first Bible Study on-line today and I have to say I was quite surprised at how insightful and enjoyable it was. As I sat contemplating what we had discussed during our study today, I found myself wondering about value – mine to be exact – in correlation to being chronically ill. As someone who has struggled with ME/CFS and FMS for over 20 years now, and recently developed Celiac Disease and RADs (Reactive Airway Disease), I often …
Posted in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)
Tagged 4 walls and a view, accomplishments, journey, personal, perspective, Purpose, value
28 Comments
Working on RESPONDING versus REACTING
I made a decision recently that I was going to work on developing a more tempered response to stressful situations that pop up in my life. Basically, I am trying to learn to respond rather than react when stressful situations arise. Well, you probably know all too well what that means, right? I got bombarded with one crazy fiasco after another! I actually recall on Monday thinking, I was exhausted just from dealing with the issues that kept popping up. …
Posted in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)
Tagged 4 walls and a view, Acer laptop, Dell laptop, journey, life lessons, perspective, reacting, responding, stress
11 Comments
What if?
My thoughts today are not directed at anybody but myself. Having said that, I have been browsing the web, reading the 40+ blogs I read almost everyday and this thought just kept coming to me over and over. The more I mulled on it, the more I realized that perhaps this was a problem I needed to look at for a myriad of reasons. Often times, I struggle trying to get those who do not suffer from ME/CFS, or similar …
Posted in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)
Tagged "what if", 4 walls and a view, bad day, crash, family, FMS, friend, journey, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), personal, perspective
16 Comments
Home is …
I have always thought that home isn’t the structure that I live in but it is the total essence of who I am and how I live in that space. Harriet Beecher Stowe once said …
Posted in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)
Tagged 4 walls and a view, home, loss, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), perspective
8 Comments
This journey WE call LIFE
Change is in the air. I can now feel it and I am now embracing it! I’ve been contemplating this journey I have been on for the past 5 or so weeks, these last few days. I don’t know if I have done everything right, but I know that I have done my best. I also know there were moments in which I struggled to come to terms with all the loss, the changes, and the dislocation, and yet, I …
Posted in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)
Tagged "new home", 4 walls and a view, asthma, hope, journey, life lessons, mold, perspective, write
20 Comments
Book Review: Same Kind of Different as Me
Leaving This World A Better Place… I believe with everything in me that I have been put on this earth to profoundly change it. That may sound like an audacious statement, but I believe that with every ounce of my being. My one desire above all else, is to leave this world a better place than I found it by changing and impacting the lives of each and every person that I meet. Since starting my blog…
60 things I HOLD to be TRUE
Even in the midst of this incredibly challenging situation, I have to come back to a place where I remind myself what I know to be true. In the midst of darkness and difficulty, re-focusing on the things I know to be true helps me to keep my bearings in the midst of this storm.
Today’s Lesson
Today has been quite a surreal one. I actually felt better today and only had a few ‘spiders’ crawling on me. I was all ready to write my column and get it done (I have it scratched out in long hand) when I came to my blog to quickly respond to the comments on my blog only to discover that the grey theme had a glitch in it that I couldn’t fix. Sigh… So…
Posted in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)
Tagged 4 walls and a view, life lessons, pain, perspective, spiders, symptom
24 Comments
Perspective: Focused on the climb
I’m probably going to stun you when I tell you I watched. Are you ready for this? Hannah Montana: The Movie! Yup. I loved it. There was such a great message in it. It was a good, wholesome, clean, family movie, not to mention there were some really funny parts! But that isn’t what spoke to me the most about this movie. I recently wrote a post about…
The power of PERSPECTIVE
I am now on day 10 of this crash and I see small embers of hope and light! Despite that, I know I have to continue to take it very easy for the next week or two. I do not want a repeat of the past 10 days! This afternoon I was overcome with dizziness, balance problems, the shakes, blurred vision and I had this insatiable desire to get prone as soon as possible. I just felt bad. Anyway, I …
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