Apologies For The Radio Silence...

I know I have been pretty quiet lately. I'm still dealing with the emotional fallout around the holidays with my family, as well as more stress at work and some ongoing personal matters.

Quite honestly, it takes nearly all of my energy to get out of bed in the morning, and by the time I get home I am so drained I can barely stay awake. I know it's a combination of all of the stress from the matters I mentioned above, as well as everything that has happened the past two-plus years, and the time of year.

I have SAD - Seasonal Affective Disorder - which is at its worst this time of year. Making matters worse, this has been a particularly brutal winter so far. With the exception of a few days last week, it has been much colder than normal here since the beginning of November. We have also had a stormy winter - we are barely a month into the official season, and we will likely surpass our annual average by the time tonight's storm (8-10 inches) is finished.

I know the SAD will go away, and hopefully eventually the lethargy, sadness, and exhaustion will as well. But right now I just need to do the best I can to cope with it all as best I can and hope the better days ahead get here sooner rather than later.

***

Some appropriate music for this post from Daniel Lanois, who hails from northern Ontario. This is from Acadie, his 1989 debut album. This gorgeous, haunting song is called "Ice":

This song is precisely how winter feels to me. Remarkable for an artist to capture something as ephermal as an entire season in a single song. But then, Daniel Lanois is a remarkable artist.

He produced or co-produced, among many others, U2's The Unforgettable Fire, Joshua Tree, and Achtung Baby, Peter Gabriel's So, Robbie Robertson's self-titled solo debut album, Bob Dylan's Oh Mercy and Time Out of Mind, the Neville Brothers' Yellow Moon, and Neil Young's La Noise. If you like any of those albums, you will like his solo albums. Guaranteed.

Smiley Smile

Hi all. Hope everyone is enjoying the weekend. :c)

I'm feeling a bit better after taking the week off. Still tired, which is to be expected, I suppose. I have quite a bit I need to process on a number of fronts from the past few weeks. It may also be from the time of year as much as anything else.

Hopefully things will slowly improve in the coming weeks. I hope that is the case. I will do what is within my power to make it so.

I have several fairly long, rather serious posts to write, but I thought I would post a short one about a funny moment from Thursday evening. :c)

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Here's Wishing You The Bluest Skies

Happy New Year, everyone. Hope the holidays were good for everyone.

I am still here. But I will not sugarcoat things: the past two weeks, particularly Christmas week, have been the most painful and draining of my life.

I touched on some of what happened with my family in my posts just before Christmas. I learned even more about what happened in the next few days (I spent the holidays apart from my parents and my brother's family) from my sister, who visited me Christmas night with my nephew C.

I will write about the family matters soon, but suffice it to say it confirms everything I suspected, or, really, that I knew all along.

Right now I am as exhausted as I have ever been, other than when I was recovering from mono several years ago. But this is close. I slept for nearly 20 hours on Saturday. Last night I came down with a nasty stomach bug that is going around, and missed work. I slept from about 8:00 AM until nearly 5:00.

I've been meeting regularly with my therapist the past few weeks; we met three times last week, at her suggestion. I'm glad we did. She is concerned about how exhausted I am. I have a doctor's appointment scheduled for next week, and I will discuss matters with her at that time.

I carried over a week of vacation with the intent of using it for a trip in the next few months, but I may need to use it before then simply to… well, do nothing. I really want to save it… but not at the expense of getting really sick.

In spite of the enormous heartache and loss of the past two weeks - and as far as I am concerned I am done with my brother and sister-in-law - I am proud of myself. The past two weeks were the culmination of the two and half hardest years of my life.

And I survived.

In fact, I grew enormously. (Well, OK, not my boobs or butt; you can't have everything, I suppose.)

"He" could never have stood up to my parents, or my brother, the way I did. Nor could he have resolved to take the high road no matter what they chose to say or do - and then followed through.

But I did.

I am bruised and battered… but I am done with the worst of it, I suspect.

I will write a new post about my new year's resolution soon. Essentially, it is this: 

I am now going to focus on ME.

I am going to get in the best shape of my life.

I am going to learn how to look my best.

And I am going to embrace my new life. 

Because I earned it.

Look out, 2014. 

Here comes Cass!

:D

***

I've used this song before, but it's such a perfect song for new beginnings I am going to post it again. Also, you can never have too much of the Kinks in your day!

So… here's wishing you all the bluest skies. Oh, and the very best of choruses, too. :c)