So I accidentally saw a post about you on Facebook. You'll never see this so I figure it's rather safe to post it, plus if you did happen to stumble upon it I'm sure you wouldn't even realize it was about you.
We used to be really close friends but when I was was in the hospital during my second hospitalization for a flare you and your parents spoke unforgivable and extremely hurtful words.
At the time I had only known of the things you said to me in that email, your words so sharp and twisted. I remember the pain those words caused as I sat in a hospital bed unable to talk, unable to walk, and unable to take care of myself. I've blocked alot out from those weeks I spent in the hospital but I've never been unable to block out the things you said to me.
My parents told me months later about the time they ran into your parents at the local Wegmans one night when they had just come back from a long day at the hospital with me. They used to drive the 90+ minute drive every day for weeks and would have a routine stop at the store to pick up whatever food they thought they might be able to get me to eat once I was able to start swallowing any kind of pureed food into my system. Your parents stood in the grocery store and repeatedly told my parents that I was making it seem worse that it was, that I was lying about having MS and that they were just enabling me. I'm sorry but the countless MRI's of lesions on my brain do not lie.
It's years later now and still whenever I see you in the grocery store or at the mall I turn the other direction. Earlier this year I was at the gym changing my shoes for a workout and two feet stood next to me. When I got up I saw it was you and the hurt came rushing back. You acted like we were old friends and wanted to chat and meet up for lunch. I had so many things I wanted to say to you, the things I never got a chance to say, the things I've thought about saying for years. Instead I stood there in awe at how you acted like nothing had changed. Like it was still high school and we were the best of friends.
It's funny though because just how I've never forgotten those words you wrote to me in a email my parents will never forgot the words yours spoke to mine. I remember my mom and I went to the movies last spring and your dad was right in front of us in line. The line weaved though the outside of the theater and the wait was ridiculous, it was a Saturday night. I tried not to notice him but I know my mom did. Her and I continued to chat about random things until your dad turned around. He started to ask about me and I gave out the simplest of response hoping to end the chat as soon as possible. He started to talk about you like I was so interested in what you were doing. We heard you were working for a successful accounting firm downtown and living on your own. It was all information I could have cared less to know, yet he continued. Finally we made it to the window and bought tickets. He bought two tickets for the same show. My mom and I made our way into the packed theater and grabbed two seats, he and your mom sat right next to you. Me and your dad shared a armrest. I've never felt so anxious in a theater before.
It's amazing after all these years I can't ever imagine having a normal conversation with you. Sure people fight and end friendships everyday, but we never fought. I never responded to your email, your words said enough and for me to try and convince you otherwise would have been pointless. You wrote those words because you clearly believed in them. Your parents spoke those words because they clearly believed they were true. There was no convincing either party that they were wrong.
I guess I would have thought after being such good friends for over 10 years you would have at least visited me in the hospital and seen for yourself before writing the email. I like to say that I don't hate anyone, because hate is such a strong word and feeling to have. What I can say is that I find what you said to be unforgivable. Still to this day, almost four years later I still feel the same way. You can't take back those words you said and maybe you've forgotten what you wrote, but I haven't. My parents haven't forgotten what yours said either. My dad who will make friendly "small talk" with anyone, even with people he doesn't necessarily like, will avoid your parents like the plague, even after all these years, and we've never seen him do that to anyone before.
So yeah, I saw the post about you yesterday. Your engaged to a guy almost ten years our senior. I've blocked you from my news feed on Facebook years ago but somehow this slipped through the cracks. It's funny how a simple post can flood back memories. I suppose if you hadn't said those things we would still be friends, and I'd probably be your maid of honor and we'd be knee deep in wedding plans. It's funny how one email can change everything.
In spite of everything I still wish you the very best.
Friday, November 2
Thursday, November 1
The Guilt of Taking a Sickday
This past weekend Erik and I both came down with really fun sicknesses. I spent Sunday moving at a pretty slow pace with a combination of a fever, sore throat and body aches. I'd classify it as the flu but I've been told the flu just isn't going around yet in this area. About 8 hours after my initial symptoms started Erik started seeing the same ones happen to him so by Sunday night we were in bed by 8:30 with hopes that sleep would be the cure all.
Unfortunately for me it's currently day 6 of this sickness, this "flu" turned head cold, turned crazy cough turned back to head cold. It's OK to be jealous, I know I would be of this thing. While Erik initially had the same symptoms as me his "sickness" has diminished and apparently it is basically nonexistent at this point. OK, so maybe I'll admit that I'm actually really jealous of him right now.
All week I've come to work, even during Jury Duty (yeah I had that too this week) I came into work on my lunch break and have heard things like "thank goodness you are hear - I was worried you would be out sick!" Of course shortly after I'd hear that I'd be awarded with some crazy assignment they would want done with some unrealistic time table for a turn around. Maybe if I'd taken a sick day I currently wouldn't be sick. Food for thought I guess...but alas I'm still sick.
It's funny, even when I am sick I feel so much guilt if I take a sick day. My company gives us 10 sick days a year and I've used one thus far, but I can honestly tell you I've been sick way more than just once this year. I guess eventually I'm going to have to learn how to utilize a sick day without feeling guilty because why should I feel guilty if I really am sick? Partially I feel like I am going to miss out on something but what really am I going to miss out on? Yesterday I would have missed the distribution of our annual bonus checks, but without the check stub it still would have been deposited in my account and my boss could have just gave me his thank you for your hard work, this is a token of our appreciation speech for the next day anyways. Hopefully, sometime soon I'll start to feel alright about taking a sick day when I need it, there's no reason to feel guilty for taking care of yourself, work doesn't always need to come first.
I decided that Wednesday night would be my sick night, I'd stay on the couch with the exception of going to the door to hand out candy. I even turned down plans with a family friend after countless texts of all the reasons why I shouldn't (he really should be a post of it's own sometime soon). When I first started looking at apartments I was excited at the prospect at being able to hand out candy on Halloween because I'd always love going trick-or-treating as a kid. I share a front porch with my neighbor and the first group of kids walked right past my door so I kindly asked my neighbor to make sure she points them in my direction before the leave. By 7:15 I had run out of candy which was pretty impressive seeing as it was about 40 degrees and raining outside. The past years I've handed out candy at my parents and we would average about 20 kids so I bought a bag of 58 pieces of candy and had about 30 fruit snack packs that I usually bring in my lunch as backups. I fully expected to be eating leftover candy this week, and actually looked forward to it. I do however plan to raid my parents extra stash after out weekly dinner this evening.
By about 7:50 I was quite bored with my sick night and found myself on my bike trainer for a "easy ride" and rode through It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown while it played on TV because who can resist that show, especially when you only have about 7 watchable channels of TV anyways.
Tonight it's dinner with my parents and some much needed grocery shopping. My meals this week have been quite sad as I've emptied my fridge and cabinets. I was supposed to shop Monday night after Jury Duty but fear of the storm drove people to wipe out shelves at the local grocery stores (we only experienced rain and wind, definitely not the same that downstate experienced).
Lastly in the final century riding news update the weather forecast for Saturday shows a high of 42 degrees with a 30% chance of rain/snow. Obviously these are perfect riding conditions, right?
Unfortunately for me it's currently day 6 of this sickness, this "flu" turned head cold, turned crazy cough turned back to head cold. It's OK to be jealous, I know I would be of this thing. While Erik initially had the same symptoms as me his "sickness" has diminished and apparently it is basically nonexistent at this point. OK, so maybe I'll admit that I'm actually really jealous of him right now.
All week I've come to work, even during Jury Duty (yeah I had that too this week) I came into work on my lunch break and have heard things like "thank goodness you are hear - I was worried you would be out sick!" Of course shortly after I'd hear that I'd be awarded with some crazy assignment they would want done with some unrealistic time table for a turn around. Maybe if I'd taken a sick day I currently wouldn't be sick. Food for thought I guess...but alas I'm still sick.
It's funny, even when I am sick I feel so much guilt if I take a sick day. My company gives us 10 sick days a year and I've used one thus far, but I can honestly tell you I've been sick way more than just once this year. I guess eventually I'm going to have to learn how to utilize a sick day without feeling guilty because why should I feel guilty if I really am sick? Partially I feel like I am going to miss out on something but what really am I going to miss out on? Yesterday I would have missed the distribution of our annual bonus checks, but without the check stub it still would have been deposited in my account and my boss could have just gave me his thank you for your hard work, this is a token of our appreciation speech for the next day anyways. Hopefully, sometime soon I'll start to feel alright about taking a sick day when I need it, there's no reason to feel guilty for taking care of yourself, work doesn't always need to come first.
I decided that Wednesday night would be my sick night, I'd stay on the couch with the exception of going to the door to hand out candy. I even turned down plans with a family friend after countless texts of all the reasons why I shouldn't (he really should be a post of it's own sometime soon). When I first started looking at apartments I was excited at the prospect at being able to hand out candy on Halloween because I'd always love going trick-or-treating as a kid. I share a front porch with my neighbor and the first group of kids walked right past my door so I kindly asked my neighbor to make sure she points them in my direction before the leave. By 7:15 I had run out of candy which was pretty impressive seeing as it was about 40 degrees and raining outside. The past years I've handed out candy at my parents and we would average about 20 kids so I bought a bag of 58 pieces of candy and had about 30 fruit snack packs that I usually bring in my lunch as backups. I fully expected to be eating leftover candy this week, and actually looked forward to it. I do however plan to raid my parents extra stash after out weekly dinner this evening.
By about 7:50 I was quite bored with my sick night and found myself on my bike trainer for a "easy ride" and rode through It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown while it played on TV because who can resist that show, especially when you only have about 7 watchable channels of TV anyways.
Tonight it's dinner with my parents and some much needed grocery shopping. My meals this week have been quite sad as I've emptied my fridge and cabinets. I was supposed to shop Monday night after Jury Duty but fear of the storm drove people to wipe out shelves at the local grocery stores (we only experienced rain and wind, definitely not the same that downstate experienced).
Lastly in the final century riding news update the weather forecast for Saturday shows a high of 42 degrees with a 30% chance of rain/snow. Obviously these are perfect riding conditions, right?
Monday, October 29
Motivation or Something Like It
I've had two rough trainer sessions this week. They were both two hours but I can say I am less sore after my ride last night than I was after Tuesdays ride. Thankfully I had Taylor Swift and my friends over at The Big Bang Theory, The Office and Park's and Rec to keep me company last night.
Even with the best company I still find it hard to drum up motivation, which is obviously clear if you look at my workout log the past few months. Just looking at stats for the past few months shows a clear pattern...when I am motivated for something I train harder.
I guess this is a pretty simple concept and I touched on it in my last post when I mentioned I need a new goal to work towards. Truth is I am craving a goal to work towards. I joked with Erik that I can't really make a new PR goal for a race because the only race I did my goal was to finish. My time was not so great, but I could ride that course today and beat my time with my eyes closed. Of course that's hypothetically speaking because I have yet to master the whole cycling with my eyes blindfolded technique. Hmm...maybe that should be my new goal?
I could make my goal to beat my previous century ride time but I can think of one reason why that wouldn't be a far challange - hills.
My first century we climbed over 3000 feet with one especially killer hill. This century will feature about 800 feet of climbing with the biggest "hill" being that of a bridge over a highway. Yup.
So, even if I beat my previous century time I will still feel like I cheated abit with such a easy course. Of course now that I say this I will probably end up in tears somewhere along the course or something crazy. The biggest issues that I could potentially see causing me to want to quit the ride are:
Even with the best company I still find it hard to drum up motivation, which is obviously clear if you look at my workout log the past few months. Just looking at stats for the past few months shows a clear pattern...when I am motivated for something I train harder.
I could make my goal to beat my previous century ride time but I can think of one reason why that wouldn't be a far challange - hills.
My first century we climbed over 3000 feet with one especially killer hill. This century will feature about 800 feet of climbing with the biggest "hill" being that of a bridge over a highway. Yup.
So, even if I beat my previous century time I will still feel like I cheated abit with such a easy course. Of course now that I say this I will probably end up in tears somewhere along the course or something crazy. The biggest issues that I could potentially see causing me to want to quit the ride are:
- The weather. It's Central New York and we've been known to have snow on the ground by Halloween. Right now the forecast is predicting low 50's with chance of rain. Cold and rain don't seem like the best time on a bike...that's why I bought a bike trainer after all.
- Boredom. The course is three 33 mile loops with a extra mile added on at the end. The fact that I can sit on my bike trainer for 2 hours at a time and not want to ride my bike through the window speaks volumes, but still I worry about the mind numbing silence that often occurs on long rides in the middle of nowhere. Plus, Erik always seems to ride just enough a head of me to not be able to hear me complain.
- Getting sick. Ever since I had a training ride where I got sick about 20-30 miles in I always have this fear that I will get sick again during a ride. Nutrition is a tricky subject for me currently and during the century I basically survived on gels and GU like it was my job. My stomach made it quite clear that day that solid food was not allowed but I am hoping that was because my body already hates itself when it's hot.
- The weather. I know, how can this be both good and bad? Well, I thrive in colder weather, seriously it's my jam. I don't get overheated and nasous and that's pretty awesome.
- It's one last chance to ride outside until April/May. Sure I don't mind my trainer now, but I'm guessing after I spend the next 5-6 months solely riding on that I may want to throw it out of the window.
Thursday, October 25
Happy Belated Anniversary To Me
Blogging consistently is tough, I'm busy, I'm sure you are busy, so yeah let's just leave it there.
I'm currently free as one arm has a IV sticking out of it*. I'd provide a picture but who really needs or wants to see that? It's that time again, infusion day, and honestly I have no idea what number infusion it is. I was going to ask the nurse but she graciously allowed me to escape about 30 minutes early after I joked that I've spent a ridiculous amount of hours in the infusion chairs.
A few weeks ago I quietly remembered it was my diagnosis 4 year "anniversary." There may have been cake and there probably would have been wine if I could have found the corkscrew. Every year I've set out to make things better or push myself harder. You know, kinda as a way to say F-you MS, I'm better than ever...or maybe some kind of a I'm awesome and MS just isn't. The people in my life that know I have MS are always surprised on my positive attitude on things but the reality is that I believe if you wait for doom to come it will make your life miserable. Why be miserable if you can choose to live in the moment and just be happy? Positivity is the best drug, seriously, and as cheesy as it sounds I really do believe it.
I'm proud of what I've accomplished since my diagnosis (i.e., graduating college, getting a job, completing a century ride) but I can't help but wonder what I am going to do in the years to come. When I was diagnosed the major thing I wanted to accomplish and worked towards for a long time was the century ride, but now that's done and over with...so what's next?
It's a weird feeling having no big goal to work for...so I am hoping I'll be able to come up with that sometime soon. To keep myself busy I've signed up for a last minute century ride the first Saturday in November. When I say I've signed up I really mean is that I was egged on by two coworkers and my boyfriend so while I would have happily remained in pj's all day I guess that isn't going to happen. I realize that it is less that two weeks away, and yeah it's going to hurt quite a bit. I've been using my bike trainer which is awesome but I am no where close to being in century shape. I spent two hours on my trainer Tuesday night for some much needed saddle time and I'm still sore today. I'm trying to look at the two major positives for this ride - it's a flat course and my parents live near by so I can be rescued with a quick phone call.
Life is funny though because as soon as I moved my social life ramped up and my schedule has become slammed. The dishes in my sink are piling up and my cabinets are looking bare as I try to find time to hit the store. It's definitely a learning curve to keeping things going, and I'm becoming a master planner at scheduling my time which helps. I just keep saying to myself that things will calm down next month, but truth is I've been saying that for the past 3 months.
Here's to hoping to a quiet November I guess...
*uh, yeah, that was Monday, today is Thursday...whoops
I'm currently free as one arm has a IV sticking out of it*. I'd provide a picture but who really needs or wants to see that? It's that time again, infusion day, and honestly I have no idea what number infusion it is. I was going to ask the nurse but she graciously allowed me to escape about 30 minutes early after I joked that I've spent a ridiculous amount of hours in the infusion chairs.
A few weeks ago I quietly remembered it was my diagnosis 4 year "anniversary." There may have been cake and there probably would have been wine if I could have found the corkscrew. Every year I've set out to make things better or push myself harder. You know, kinda as a way to say F-you MS, I'm better than ever...or maybe some kind of a I'm awesome and MS just isn't. The people in my life that know I have MS are always surprised on my positive attitude on things but the reality is that I believe if you wait for doom to come it will make your life miserable. Why be miserable if you can choose to live in the moment and just be happy? Positivity is the best drug, seriously, and as cheesy as it sounds I really do believe it.
I'm proud of what I've accomplished since my diagnosis (i.e., graduating college, getting a job, completing a century ride) but I can't help but wonder what I am going to do in the years to come. When I was diagnosed the major thing I wanted to accomplish and worked towards for a long time was the century ride, but now that's done and over with...so what's next?
It's a weird feeling having no big goal to work for...so I am hoping I'll be able to come up with that sometime soon. To keep myself busy I've signed up for a last minute century ride the first Saturday in November. When I say I've signed up I really mean is that I was egged on by two coworkers and my boyfriend so while I would have happily remained in pj's all day I guess that isn't going to happen. I realize that it is less that two weeks away, and yeah it's going to hurt quite a bit. I've been using my bike trainer which is awesome but I am no where close to being in century shape. I spent two hours on my trainer Tuesday night for some much needed saddle time and I'm still sore today. I'm trying to look at the two major positives for this ride - it's a flat course and my parents live near by so I can be rescued with a quick phone call.
Life is funny though because as soon as I moved my social life ramped up and my schedule has become slammed. The dishes in my sink are piling up and my cabinets are looking bare as I try to find time to hit the store. It's definitely a learning curve to keeping things going, and I'm becoming a master planner at scheduling my time which helps. I just keep saying to myself that things will calm down next month, but truth is I've been saying that for the past 3 months.
Here's to hoping to a quiet November I guess...
*uh, yeah, that was Monday, today is Thursday...whoops
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