Up and Down

I'm still hanging in here, it's up and down though.  Michelle gets frustrated when she doesn't know if she can count on me to help with the kids the very next hour.  I can best put it that I'm consistently inconsistent.  Most people do see the good side of me but that's how I plan things.  Unfortunately I can't just plan to be in good shape all the time.  Michelle sees the real me.  I do know that my digestion is the biggest culprit of how I feel.  The plans that I make take lots of planning.  I usually stick to one major plan each day usually.  Today it was lunch with Michelle.  Tomorrow is lunch plans with a couple of friends.  Thursday is my Louisville Pancreatic Cancer Action Network meeting.  Friday is gym class in the evening followed by a quick meal with some friends.  My normal plan is get plenty of rest in bed and not eat anything big the meal before I'm going out with friends.  After going out with friends, I'm often laying in bed waiting for my stomach ache or simply sleep.  I have also reached the point where I can't make morning plans.  I don't get out of bed until after 10 and its often 11 am.  I do sometimes get up early in the morning (7am) to help with getting the kids up and ready but I always go back to bed.  It's not that I'm being lazy either.  I literally sleep that late.  I do however often enjoy my evenings.  My normal bedtime routine culminates shortly after 10 where I'm taking an extra pain pill plus an ambien to help me sleep so maybe I'm sleeping off my hangover.  I hope it's not bad to admit that but I do enjoy that 10pm bedtime routine, I feel pretty comfortable. I have to be careful sometimes as I often talk up a storm with Michelle when she's finally ready to call it a day.  It can seem I say more to Michelle after 10pm than I do most of the day combined.  I also have to stay off of Facebook as I want to make sure I remember everything I'm doing.  I do have to set my alarm for every 3 hours through the night to take additional pain meds though.  So that's my "day" these days.  I try to spend as much as my evening with the girls as well so that goes into the planning process as well.  I had a great birthday.  Michelle wrote about it and did a good job.  I would have loved to enjoy the evening from my friends' perspectives as they had a good time.  I still had a very good time.

I do get to experience some really cool things as I go through this.  I very much cherish the time I spent with Lambda Chi Alpha at the University of Kentucky. I met some awesome friends and really did learn a lot about my life through things we did as a chapter.  Yes I had fun but maybe the biggest lesson my fraternity taught me from my initiation week was "humility."  I learned through an activity we did that it's important to help others and there's always someout there that has it worse than you think you do when you are down.  The lesson still sticks with me.  I'm in a crap situation now but I can think of different paths out there that would be haunting to me.  I still think I'm blessed I know I am).  A few weeks ago a bunch of my fraternity brothers showed up to a get together that flew under the radar as some came from out of town.  They gave me our badge pin that was made with real stones and I very much appreciated it.  I mentioned off the cuff that I'd love to see our inititation again because I hadn't seen it since 2000.  Through some connections here in town, the brothers of LXA at UofL threw up their hand and wanted to perform our ritual for me in my honor.  There's a lot that goes into our ritual so it was a big committment for them.  I admire the way the stepped up for me yet do not know me.  Our chapter at UofL has grown a lot that last few years and I'm glad to hear they are strong these days.  My witness firsthand is they have a lot of charachter and that's what you are supposed to learn in college when in a fraternity.  This past weekend, I go to see our ritual gain and I had brothers come in from all over the state including many from Lexington, Paducah and one from Chicago.  My brothers mean a whole lot to me and I love you guys.

Lastly, I wanted to reiterate I'm tired these days.  I say that because I often have a guilty feeling when I'm around others.  It's that when I'm with friends, family members, whomever, I still stay pretty quiet.  I think when people see me, they want to make the most of that interaction and a lot of the time I'm just tired.  I'm a very quiet person by nature no matter how you look at it, so that's my first excuse.  It just takes a lot to get out sometimes and a very strong natured conversation can honestly wear me out.  I love spending time with friends, I just oddly sometimes value their "being there for me" more than their conversation.  Does that make sense?  I'll sometimes run into a past friend from high school or something like that that I haven't seen in years and they want to know how I'm doing but I don't really want to talk about that.  Another example is I was pretty quiet at my birthday party however I really enjoyed my time.  I'll sometime see friends I haven't seen in months and I realize it may be the last time that I see them so I'm joyous to see them but I'm often still laid back and quiet.  Sorry about that friends and family.  I'm not great at goodbyes either.  While a good stern 3 second hug might be warranted in a situation because I might not see that person again, it's just hard for me to make the most of that opportunity everytime I'm out.  The truth is if I see you out, please know that I'm elated that I get to see you but I'm not going to talk your ear off.  I also feel bad to those I'm really close to that don't get that conversation every other day that want to talk to me hourly if they could, especially family.  The truth is even Michelle does not get that many conversations each day.  I'm either resting or sleeping.  Phone calls wear me out and I'm afraid sometimes that the quick interaction I like having may turn into a 20 minute conversation.  I hope this last paragraph made sense, my excuse is I'm just quiet.  I'm tired from the evening again so I've reached my max.

God bless and thanks for all the support out there!!!!!!!!!!!!