Imogen Healing

Tag: love

  • It’s the most wonderful time of the year

    It’s the -Ber months! which means fall is not far behind. Fall and winter are definitely my favorite seasons. I love spring, but summer comes way too fast after. I love cold, crisp air and wearing comfortable clothes. Feeling cozy all day without sweating. The smells, the sights… I just love it and best of all, NO MOSQUITOES!

    The heat wave is gone, my gardens and dogs are so happy with the cooler weather. Mosquitoes are still here, but more manageable. My luffa has started producing and I am so excited! I am getting more into weaving, but taking my time with this hobby because I want it to last. I tend to dive all into new hobbies and discoveries and eventually burn myself out. I want to be able to do things with this one, so I am making sure I am taking breaks when my back starts to be uncomfortable, taking breaks between works, stretching, doing other things in the meantime that still fill my inspired heart.

    I’ve been having to face the reality that I may be forced to go back to work before my body is healed. I know I can’t handle a full day of work, but insurance told me they don’t understand why I can’t work, since I’m not fully incapacitated or needing surgery. I’m trying to prevent that! Ugh. My PT and I have finally found where the pain has been stemming from, which is the usual rhomboid area. I must have pulled a muscle ~13 years ago without realizing it. We’ve been needling that spot and the pain radiating from it has been getting smaller. It’s really achey right now and I missed PT yesterday but I haven’t been doing well mentally the last few days. Today, I feel a little perkier and have a little more hope. I will have to take a little time to the side today and give myself a stretch, massage, and muscle stimulation. it’s really so simple, but why is it hard for us to do the simplest, mundane things? they’re repetitive, annoying, never-ending… like laundry and doing the dishes. ME HATES EM. but, ya gotta stay on top of them or else an anthill turns into a mountain! The saying “once you stop moving, you start dying” is so true. I may have been force to slow down, but it doesn’t mean I need to come to a full stop. I just needed to sit through and readjust some perspectives. 🙂

    Here are some of the things I managed to make in August!

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    ClAKTlNuYXBjaGF0LzEzLjU1LjAuNDkgKFNNLVM5MzFVMTsgQW5kcm9pZCAxNSNTOTMxVTFVRVM1QVlFNyMzNTsgZ3ppcCkgVi9NVVNIUk9PTQ==
    ClAKTlNuYXBjaGF0LzEzLjU1LjAuNDkgKFNNLVM5MzFVMTsgQW5kcm9pZCAxNSNTOTMxVTFVRVM1QVlFNyMzNTsgZ3ppcCkgVi9NVVNIUk9PTQ==
    ClAKTlNuYXBjaGF0LzEzLjU1LjAuNDkgKFNNLVM5MzFVMTsgQW5kcm9pZCAxNSNTOTMxVTFVRVM1QVlIMiMzNTsgZ3ppcCkgVi9NVVNIUk9PTQ==

  • Oh So Humm

    I got my cortisone shot yesterday, and it took me back to the days where I was hospitalized for my kidneys (I was diagnosed with IgA nephropathy in 1999).

    The shots (novacaine or numbing agent, then the injection, then medicine) hurt at some points where I needed to grip the table and curl my toes, but I made it through. The doctor who administered the shot kept conversation with me the whole time, and his assistant was so kind. They said I did really great, like they were impressed. It wasn’t much to me, just something I needed to push through and nothing I hadn’t been through before.

    I’m lying in bed thinking that it really did hurt and I want to cry about it like hey, that actually really hurt. This was the first real shot or injection that caused this much “discomfort.” I realize I do downplay my pain to “discomfort” because my pain tolerance is so high. And I feel like a lot of tension and stress has been stored where the shot was administered (in my spine where the neck meets the shoulders) for so long that it’s coming out, and being in the hospital was actually traumatic in 5th grade for a week or so, but I never really remembered much of it probably because I was probably heavily sedated.

    I never associated that period of my life as negative. Yes, my body was fighting but I had so much love and support, none of it mattered but I had to be strong, too. I pushed through the pain of all the poking and prodding. I don’t even remember it as anything bad, just something I had to be strong for and I guess numbed myself. I needed to cooperate in order to feel better and not see my family so worried. Yet, all I remember is my family being there the entire. time. A parent or both, a grandparent or all 4, my siblings… Every time I woke up, during the hard times, every doctor visit, small events at the hospital, follow up visits, visits to the salon to get my facial hair waxed since it was so thick due to the steroids I had to take to get better, nursing me back to health, making me laugh and feel seen in my weakest states.

    Needles, thermometers, thumbs used as rectal thermometers, etc. I received a biopsy, while awake and my dad witnessed it with me holding my hands the entire time. They even had to redo it again. That is 4 little shots and 2 big extraction needles at the age of whatever you are in 5th grade.

    I also had a major surgery in 2010 at 20 years old for a cochlear implant. The surgery and recovery were really rough. I was couch bound for weeks and needed assistance just to sit up and go to the bathroom. I don’t remember the pain, I remember the love. 

    I’m so thankful for my parents. I love my siblings. They do so much for me. I wish I could do more to help them in return. They deserve a better life than they’re living. 

  • Breaking cycles

    No matter how tired I am, I still just lie awake in bed staring at the wall or the ceiling. I forced myself to put my phone down and stop doomscrolling.

    My first thoughts were about a lover that recently was trying to reconnect after about 4 months. I stopped talking to him because we weren’t helping each other anymore. We seemed to bring the worst out of each other. I felt down about myself a lot, talking to him. He reached out needing some help, and I am always willing to lend a hand. Of course, this could’ve lead to reopening a wound I’ve been trying to close. Three years ago, I would have just jumped right back into some kind of -ship with him, as the connection between us is still very present. We’ve already tried to bring it down to platonic friendship thrice, so I made a hard decision to be honest and tell him that I don’t think I can reconnect with him.

    My first feeling after this thought?

    Loneliness and some sadness. Having to put distance between yourself and someone you love really sucks. Whether it’s a platonic or romantic relationship. I love HARD and deeply. Even if you’ve hurt me in the worst ways, I still love you. You deserve to be loved, unconditionally. But it does not mean, I should just be a doormat and empty myself with no reciprocation.

    Some people just don’t know how to perceive love, and just aren’t capable of speaking my love language. That’s okay. It just means I need to put up a boundary because it’s not worth my losing myself again just because I want to love someone. You can also love someone and not actually like them, as strange as that sounds.

    Setting boundaries for yourself, and sticking by them can get so lonely. All I want to do is love people. It’s not on me to heal them to be able to accept it, though.

    My second thought?

    This is the third person I’ve told that I don’t want to reconnect or continue talking. That’s massive for me. It’s very hard for me to turn someone away, especially someone I love. It’s even harder for me to let things and people go that mean a great deal to me, even if it’s destroying me in the process. I can’t do that to myself. I owe myself so much better. I might be lonely right now, but I am just in a dark and slow healing place.

    Like a seed!

    When the conditions are right, I will sprout and grow into the most beautiful field of flowers. Everything I desire and dream of will come to fruition and more than I can bare to imagine at this moment. The work I’m putting in now will get me there. I deserve so much more than what I have settled for in my life.

    Third thought?

    I’m so proud of myself for continuing to be breaking cycles.

    🤟🏼

  • Stop to smell the flowers, dangit!

    I have been looking through old pictures and videos, and I’m so glad I did it. I started out deleting videos that are meaningless and taking up space, and ended up finding videos I forgot about or shot with intention of editing and never did. I used to take pictures of EVERYTHING, especially when I got my first 35mm digital camera for my 16th birthday nineteen years ago. Somewhere along the way, I started taking less and less photos. Maybe because it got really expensive to print them, and they just get lost in albums online. It also got to the point where I’d take so many pictures of everyone and everything around me, but no one bothered to include me in pictures, as well. We also have to pay for every little thing, such as storage, editing programs, etc.

    I never fully stopped taking pictures, but they became more limited. I know this is because of the people I surrounded myself with throughout the last 10 years. This year is different, I have put myself first for the first time in my life and things are coming together. Finding these precious videos and photos have just reminded me that I need to start taking pictures again. My phone is all dogs, nature, and selfies alone. I used to have so many pictures WITH people, but people don’t really like to stop to take pictures anymore. There’s always that fear that the way we look will be exposed.

    WELP
    GUESS WHAT?

    You look the way you look, and you need to come to terms with that. In fact, your parents, your significant other/partner, your best friends… have all seen you at your worst and still love you. Every picture of you that is taken is how you look, and what people literally see when they’re with you. Stop being so ashamed to look anything other than “perfect and flawless” when we all have flaws that make us unique, who we are, and dang lovable!

    IMPERFECTION IS PERFECTION.
    STEP INTO WHO YOU TRULY ARE.
    I LOVE YOU JUST THE WAY YOU ARE.
    I SEE YOU. I HEAR YOU. I LOVE YOU.