blog resurrection part 2.5: hope, or something like it.

i decided it's time to resurrect my blog, if only to keep myself sane. i need an outlet other than lying awake in the middle of the night worrying about life. at the very least if i'm awake in the middle of the night i need to compose blog entries about what's keeping me from sleeping. much more productive that way.

susan* and i celebrate our two-year anniversary tomorrow. i'm very very hopeful that we'll also celebrate obama being elected president. really, if other dude wins i don't know what i'm going to do. it's been much too freaking long (and inspiring) of a campaign for it to end so horribly. i voted, i frequently ask my friends to reassure me that obama is going to win (they won't; it seems everyone is being extremely cautious about this), and i spend a lot of time generally begging the gods not to let him lose. also, i watch msnbc and have developed a huge crush on rachel maddow because she's hot and smart and hot. all this means that i have done my part in the political process so the political process had better not let me down.

i wish i could have been more politically active (like, at all) but i'm currently broke, unemployed, and have been sick with random illnesses for the better part of this year. my random illnesses have not been life threatening--i'm truly thankful for that--but they have been debilitating. most recently: labyrinthitis. and benign positional vertigo. also, motion sickness as a result of the first two. i have an appointment with a physical therapist tomorrow to figure out what all is going on and to try to make it go away. i hope she can help. i'm kind of at the end of my rope here. basically, i would like for the suckage to end now please.

the upside to this is that my diet has much improved. i started getting desperate a couple of weeks ago because doctors, they're not so helpful. they were like, i think you're fine but have some more antibiotics just in case! no thanks. so i did a bunch of research, started eating better, exercising more, taking vitamins, and i quit eating processed sugar. that last one has made a huge difference and i'm feeling much better. every few days i'll have a sugar craving and eat, say, some reeses peanut butter cups. then i'll feel like crap and realize it wasn't worth it. unfortunately that realization has yet to precede the decision to binge on sugar. the learning not to eat sugar thing, it's a slow process but i'm getting there.

the downside is the broke and unemployed bit. also, the debt. i spend a lot of time freaking out about all of this because sometimes it's just too much. some people (i think they're called optimists) seem to have this weird belief (optimism?) that when things are bad they can only get better, but a friend of mine takes a completely different approach when he tells me this: things can always get worse. it's true, that. and it makes me laugh.

so i tend to beat myself up about how i got where i am. i can point to a series of decisions i've made that were, it turns out, bad decisions--i just didn't know it at the time. i spend a lot of time thinking about the many times i should have done things differently. not what i should have done differently, just that i should have pursued a different course of action. this is, of course, a completely useless exercise. today i read something that took some of the pressure off and hopefully will change the way i think enough so that i'll be nicer to myself from now on:

"Although I take full responsibilities for my mistakes and failings, I also recognize and understand that my actions and behaviors are connected to other people’s actions and behaviors - nothing happens in a vacuum."

all i have to say is: reading that made me feel better. i still need to get my shit together, but that was a much-needed reminder that not all of the crap i'm going through is a direct result of my own stupidity. some of it, yes. but not all.

*she's still completely awesome