A weight off my body-mind

When I walked the dogs this morning, I noticed that my waistband feels looser and my belly feels emptier. I think I am losing weight. I just now weighed myself on my (seldom-used) bathroom scale, and it read 275. I don't have a point of comparison yet, but I'll start weighing myself every week or two.

I stayed up late last night, reading; all this fresh productivity is seductive. And I'm rediscovering the joy of studying -- not just reading, but reading deeply, critically, asking as I read whether I agree with what I'm reading, and why or why not, and taking notes to cement it all in my mind. The joy of thinking. I've missed this for so long. It's one of the things that seemed to drain out of me years ago as I went into the worst depths of my chronic fatigue and depression. I was in a graduate program, studying for a career in the helping professions. I thought I could continue with school even after I became unable to work anymore, but I couldn't. My degree program sits, two-thirds finished, with no progress on it for seven years now. I've spent a lot of energy in those seven years trying to make peace with the idea that I would likely never finish the degree or have the career I wanted. I've had glimmers before -- brief surges of hope, a few days or weeks at a time -- that that could change. But then I always fell back into the fog where I couldn't concentrate, couldn't study, couldn't retain anything I read.

But this feels different. I'm not going to get ahead of myself, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not. (Mom says, repeat that at least 50 times a day. :o) But ... I really think it's different this time.

I also know that turning off the TV made this possible. Obviously that's not all that made it possible; I've been working for years to recover my health and build my inner life, and I and my shrinks finally seem to have found the right meds for me. But it seems that turning off the TV either gave me the opportunity to see that this is possible for me again, or else turning off the TV was the final component that actually made it possible by ending the vampire its daily quart of mental blood.

So ... maybe I can still get back to something resembling the plans I had before. Maybe I can finish my degree. Maybe I can work again, on some schedule adapted to my more limited capabilities. Maybe, maybe, maybe .......