It’s spring and there’s lots of snow on the ground in Boston this morning.
I need to get to work in two hours to be available all day for anybody who needs emotional and psychological support in an enormous primary care practice at a major Boston teaching hospital.
I feel like I need some emotional and psychological support because of #1 and #2, directly above.
My friend Kathy Tarantola (who has appeared in this previous post) is an amazing photographer who is helping me decorate my new office in Newton with her pictures.
Today is the 19th anniversary of my father’s death. I often picture how much he and my 18-year-old son would have enjoyed each other if they had ever met.
Before I met up with Kathy and her boyfriend Michael yesterday to hang three of Kathy’s beautiful pictures in my office, Kathy sent me an old picture in an email that said, “two cuties!” Picture my face when I saw this adorable photo of Kathy’s nephew Matthew and my son Aaron:
You don’t need to picture anything else in this post, because I have all these pictures I took yesterday:
Picture this: I’m here in my temporarily snow-bound home thanking all who helped me create this pictured post. I’m also thanking you — of course! — for picturing whatever you’re picturing, here and now.
… and I thought it said “Lift.” Today, I’m not sure if it says “Lift” or Life.”
Does it matter what the sign says?
In my therapy groups, sometimes we decide that what’s out there doesn’t matter. What does matter is how you see it and what you do with it.
No matter what that sign says to you, I can still ask if you see it (lift and/or life) in any of my other photos today.
Speaking of life’s lifts, as I was lifting those photos into this post, I heard that the amazing Jackie — who always put a lift into my life (and whose leave-taking obviously affected this previous post) — is coming back to work after leaving a year ago. That definitely gives me a lively lift, here and now.
What gives your life a lift?
Here’s a post ending I lifted from my life yesterday:
Even though there are many heroes in my life, this is the first time I’ve ever written a post titled “heroes.”
Yesterday, I spent time with lots of heroes. For example, last night one of my heroes — my boyfriend Michael — showed me this:
Earlier in the day, I met with my heroes Dr. Mark Estes and RN Melanie Marshall (both appearing in this heroic blog post from March 2014). During yesterday’s check-up with those medical heroes about my Implantable Cardiac Device (ICD), your humble blogging hero heard and said lots of things, including the following:
Dr. Estes — who is always more conservative, cautious, and concerned than my other cardiologist hero, Dr. Deeb Salem — wants me to travel to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, to consult with Dr. Carole Warnes, well-known hero to others who have my extremely rare cardiac condition (congenitally corrected transposition of the great arteries a/k/a cctga),
I believe Dr. Carole Warnes is the heroic doctor who wrote me in 1997 when I was pregnant with my only son Aaron (another one of my heroes) with her opinion that it was safe for me to carry him to term (despite other doctors publishing articles concluding that pregnancy was dangerous for women with cctga).
During the appointment with Dr. Estes, I saw him blush three times, including when I told him that my hero Michael had told me, “You’re always in a bad mood after you see Dr. Estes.”
I told my hero Dr. Estes that my boyfriend Michael heroically exaggerates.
Dr. Estes acted like I was some kind of hero when he introduced me to a heroic medical student as “The most famous patient at this hospital.”
I said to my hero Melanie, “It’s funny that I’ve been trying to get famous by trying out for The Voice when apparently I’m already famous.”
Dr. Estes heroically lied about my age in front of the student (giving me a heroic wink while doing so), but I heroically corrected him.
I told my heroic treaters that I was grateful for all of my medical heroes at Tufts Medical Center, calling them “The Dream Team.”
Yesterday, my medical heroes told me they want to keep me alive through my 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s.
I heroically added “… and my 90’s.”
I may be a hero to some people, but I am not heroic enough to visit Rochester, Minnesota, USA in the winter. Does that sound like a hero to you?
Do you see any heroes in any of the other photos I heroically took yesterday?
Astound me, please, with a comment (heroic or otherwise).
I feel lucky that, every day, I find lucky inspirations for my lucky blog posts, like this lucky sign I saw early yesterday on a lucky Saint Patrick’s Day morning:
Even though I didn’t win a prize from any pots of gold, I feel lucky that:
I’ve got a lucky number of consistent and kind readers here at lucky WordPress.
I do group and individual therapy at a luckily large and well-known teaching hospital in lucky Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
My lucky 18 year old son, Aaron, is luckily healthy, happy, and wise.
My lucky boyfriend Michael is lucky enough to have met lucky me.
I’m seeing my lucky cardiologist, Dr. Mark Estes, today, who luckily knows more about pacemakers than almost anybody else in this lucky world of ours.
Today is Friday, which makes a lot of working people feel lucky.
On lucky Thursdays, I am lucky enough to facilitate two therapy groups. Here are all the other photos I was lucky enough to capture yesterday, in lucky chronological order:
While I didn’t order Lucky Hydrox yesterday, I was still lucky enough to
sing from my heart, as I was walking to and from my lucky workplace.
Here’s one lucky song I was lucky enough to be singing, yesterday, with all my heart:
When I sang “Soothe” on my tryout for The Voice last month, I wasn’t lucky enough to make it to the show. However, next month I’ll be lucky enough to sing “Soothe” for my fellow social workers at our lucky yearly party.
Maybe you’ll be lucky enough to see and hear a recording of me singing it, here.
I hope I’m lucky enough to get lots of lucky comments today.
Amazingly, yesterday somebody said to me, “That’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.”
The person expressing that amazement did so during one amazing moment of an amazingly busy day for me, when I did individual and group therapy at work, went to my amazing dentist’s office, walked around Boston and its amazing environs, went to an amazing group psychotherapy organization board meeting, and took photos of many amazing things.
Would you be amazed if I asked you to guess which amazing photo below shows the amazing thing that person found remarkably amazing?
The most amazing thing I can think of doing right now is to try to remember if I’ve ever said, “That’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen!” out loud. I’d be amazed if I haven’t, at some point in my amazing life, but my memory isn’t amazing enough to come up with amazing specifics. My amazing guess is that I could have easily said that about
I just googled “Pat Metheny most amazing” and found this site, which recommends this amazing performance of this amazing Beatles song as one of his 10 best:
Amazingly, it’s time for me to end this amazed and amazing post with one more amazing photo from amazing yesterday.
Firstly, I’m calling this post “Finally” because of two photos I’m finally sharing now:
Secondly, I wrote “THIS IS GOING TO BE OVER IN HALF AN HOUR” on my office whiteboard to help somebody who has panic attacks rarely lasting longer than 30 minutes. I hope remembering that finally helps that person have fewer and shorter bouts of panic.
Finally, here are all the other photos I took yesterday:
Personally, when I say or write “Finally,” I often discover I have more I want to express. In therapy, we call that the “doorknob statement” — an often important statement somebody shares when finally leaving the office, holding the doorknob on the way out.
Finally, here’s my doorknob statement for today:
Finally, I’m letting go of old fears about my health, about performing in front of others, and about taking up space.
Finally, I’m ready to thank all those who helped me create today’s “Finally” post and you — of course! — for reading it, finally.
Yesterday, when I was having a grumpy day, I saw this on a teabag:
What does “Live in your strength” mean to you? Does the strength of that advice live, for you, with any of my live-in-your-strength guesses?
Appreciate what strengths you have.
Live in the moment.
Take advantage of what life gives you.
Find strength wherever you can.
Expand your understanding of your own unique gifts throughout your life.
Embrace what you’re good at.
Share your strengths with others.
Let go of judgment about your limits.
Challenge yourself, with kindness.
Which of my other photos from yesterday best illustrate “live in your strength,” for you?
On the strength of my including two photos of the same lively yellow moped, above, I now want to share these strong life memories:
When I was in my early 20s, I went to Bermuda with my friend Peter and rode a moped for the first time. That made me feel so alive, I bought a yellow moped when I returned to Boston, exactly like that lively one I saw yesterday. For years, I lived on that moped, riding it to work and all around town. After my lifestyle changed and I stopped riding it, I still kept that moped, no matter where I lived. When I moved to where I live now, four years ago, I sold that yellow moped to one of the lively movers. Ever since then, I’ve missed my yellow moped and I’ve envied the lives of scooter riders that live all around me. However, my cardiologist strongly advises me to live the remainder of my life off of mopeds and scooters, because of the strong anti-coagulant medication that helps me live a normal life.
Which “live in your strength” music would you choose for this post? I choose the strongest (or, at least, most popular) song from 1975, the first time in my life that I lived on a moped.
I now invite you to live in your strength by expressing any thoughts and feelings in a comment, below.
Live and strong thanks to Peter, to my cardiologist, to Terry S. at work (who owns the “Daily Bitch” calendar), to the Captain and Tennille, and to all those who live in their strength, here and now (including you, of course).
Personally, I’m glad I took the time to find all those previous posts about time.
If you had time to read another one of my blog posts today, which of those posts would you choose? I hope you have time to answer that question and to let me know why you made that choice. If you don’t have the time to do that, I understand.
I shall now take the time to tell you which of those posts I would re-read, if I had the time:
Day 443: Changes in time, because I assume it’s about changing the clocks by an hour (as we did again last night) and
However, because so much time has passed since I wrote those two posts, I’m not sure if my assumptions (times 2) are true.
I’m not going to take the time to read any old posts of mine this morning, because I need to take some time to pick up and move three pieces of furniture for my new office at various times through the day. And because I need to rely on the kindness and time of others, I need to figure out some tricky time challenges, to make this all work. Plus, I want to leave some time for myself just to relax. I mean, isn’t that the way one should spend time, over a weekend, before it’s time to go back to work?
Now, I’m going to take the time to see if there are any new photos about time biding their time on my iPhone.
Here are the photos I took time to take yesterday when I was spending time with my downstairs neighbor Karen, my son Aaron, and/or my boyfriend Michael — all time well spent:
I shall now take the time to tell you that this …
.. is entirely made of candy (except for the wood), according to my neighbor Karen.
Here‘s another song about time from a long time past, performed by a local group from Boston:
Unlike Orpheus, I CAN find the time to tell you this:
Several times while I’ve been writing this post, my son’s alarm has gone off, because he’s taking the time to help me move furniture this morning and
If my long-time friend Janet is reading this post, I’m assuming she might take the time to tell me that the band Orpheus is actually from her home town of Worcester, Massachusetts, not Boston.
Like 1167-or-so previous times, it’s time for me to thank all those who helped me create this post and also you — of course! — for taking the time to visit, here and now.
… I stopped to think how check-in is so important in every therapy group I do.
In my therapy groups, after we complete a mindfulness exercise, we do check-in, wherein people:
introduce themselves to each other,
describe their experiences in the moment,
report on what’s been going on for them,
express their expectations, hopes, and/or concerns about the session ahead, and
share whatever else they choose.
As I remind people every time, there is no right or wrong way to do check-in.
I am now going to check in with my phone, to check in any other photos from yesterday.
Now I’m ready for my check-in!
Today, I am very grateful to be here with all of you. Since I last checked in with you via this blog, I had a full day of work and then I went out to dinner with my boyfriend and my son. At the large teaching hospital where I work, I’m so happy I get to see people individually and in groups AND also be available to patients visiting their doctors who need emotional support, in the moment. Sometimes, when I’m on “quick response” (as I was yesterday afternoon), I don’t get a lot of calls. In that case, I always find other things to do, some of which I share on this blog.
I’m done with my check-in, so now I shall pass it to you. Feel free to check-in with a comment, below.
And thanks to all who check in, whenever and however they do.
