When You Got It, You Got It

I apologize in advance for the ridiculously repetitive theme I write about in some kind of everlasting rotation. Yes, here I go again, in a state of utter desperation, attempting to do anything and everything in my power and budget to get well again.  

It appears that if a germ comes within 5000 feet of me, they find me a welcome hostess and pack their bags and stay a while.  Whatever ad agency designed the Mucinex Phelm Houseguests must have met the family invading my airways this past week.

In any event, I have been receiving some integrative therapy at the Whitaker Wellness Institute in Newport Beach, CA.  I armed myself ahead of time with the checklist of components necessary for me to stay on track with this newest venture -- I have to understand what each treatment recommendation is for, how to do it, have support readily available when I am overwhelmed, be convenient and for 500 bonus points, find some level of humor in the event.  Check, check, check ... and we're off again.

Yesterday, while being treated for a bronchial infection that came in like a wrecking ball (this will be my only Miley Cyrus reference, promise), hooked up to a urine-yellow IV cocktail of potent vitamins and nutrients, a Midwestern senior citizen gentleman from Oklahoma, clad in his very best Costco Hawaiian shirt and cargo pants, strolled over to me and actually hit on me.  He kept rubbing my arm, told me I had "purdy" eyes and asked me to dinner.  Was I wrong to refuse on the grounds that I was on a catheter?  He wasn't giving up too easily, either.  Hey, "when you got it, you got it."

There you have it.  I am a babe somewhere in this world right now.  I have dusted off the disappointment that it happened here in the IV room and not, say, at the bar at Javier's on the PCH where all the Real Housewives of OC and other non-organically modified people hang out.  Apparently there are some concentrated pheromones in that drip pouch and I am the wounded zebra on the plains of the Serengeti, dating world wise anyhow.

I'm not going to lie, I have been pretty ill for a while now and I am so very "over it".  The very prospect of feeling better must have put a little spark back into my "purdy eyes" -- so no offense taken, Mr. Oklahoma.  Looking around the room, I see a lot of folks who must have been cast as extras in the vintage flick "Cocoon" -- all those people seeking the elixir to bring back the jive in their dancing, willing to travel to an alien planet if it came to that.  I get what they are after and have a little lump in my throat for the handful of non-chronologically-challenged patients who are also in isolation awaiting their own personal storms to pass, too.   

Something's Funky in the Fridge

Last week was quite a week.  For several days, there was a faint streaming sour odor in the air. Oh yeah, time to check the fridge.  I'll get to it.  One thing about the rotten stuff in life -- eventually, it gets to the point where you just can't ignore it anymore.  

And so, somewhere mid-week, even the strongest magnetic seal of my upgraded refrigerator door could not contain the truth.  It always seems these realizations are running in a parallel service lane of my other, bigger life.  One way or another, I am going to have the point hammered into my head, it appears.

One day, I really want to sit down and write down a consolidated list of "Things I Learned in This Life".  This one is a whole chapter unto itself.  The Lesson:  "When You Keep Gathering, You Must Discard to Make Room for It."

As I excavate the produce bins and extricate those purchased (well-intentioned) farm-fresh, now slimy organic vegetables (gratefully) mostly contained in their original plastic wrappings, I am thinking of all the new "good for me" things I have added into my life, still hopefully wrapped up awaiting consumption.  (Exactly how many packages of provolone cheese are in here, anyways?) But there have been interruptions and so we ignore what we gathered, grabbed more and duplicated/triplicated what was already in the inventory (who can remember if we are out of mustard or not, really?), and soon, like the shelves of devilish expiration dated foodstuffs, I also find the parallel stacks of unattended projects, books unread, exercise videos unused, downloaded music unplayed, clothes to mend/iron, cards to send, and so it goes on and on... until... ewww.  It all looks so moldy and bad, and the smell, not so pretty.  

It's not altogether the worse thing in life.  Sometimes we need the nudge to get to the good part: the result of the sort.  What is good enough to keep, and oh yes, that baking soda freshness of the outcome yet another fresh start.  But first, you have to find the thing that's rotting.  It could be an idea that became a downward spiraling, looping obsession, an underachieved goal ripening into the slimiest pages being written in your autobiography, an opinion, an embraced offense, a missed opportunity, a gathering of just too much life and not enough space to consume it.   Oh the disgust.  When it comes to the place that you just can't take it anymore, then comes the edit down.  The closet discards, the trash bag parade to the curb, the room to move ... the quiet to think.  And in this space comes a rethinking of internalized stuff, too.  Time to bag that stuff up and toss it out, too, with the old veggies and moldy cheese.  Tossing it feels good (after).  And then comes... The. Fresh. Air.