Today

It's hard to believe that I haven't posted since last month. For the past several weeks I've felt achy (pulled a muscle in my back) and cranky and down in the dumps. This always seems to happen during the holidays, and I know that it's fairly common, but it still feels like an out of body experience.

Most of the time I try really hard to keep a positive attitude, look on the bright side and appreciate what I have, rather than what I don't have. I have to say that this breathing thing is putting me in a foul mood. I start to do something, and have to stop to catch my breath even wearing the oxygen. Whatever I do, it takes twice as long to recover from doing it. This really disheartens me after a while. I am tired of fighting for each breath and pretending that I am happy to just be alive. It sucks to exhaust yourself just doing basic daily things. I have to force myself to get beyond that to do anything like shopping, cleaning, cooking or even going to visit someone to the point that I try to avoid doing them at all.

Okay, that's out of my system. Moving on, I've got another class starting after the first of the year. They're really going smoothly now and I find that I just love teaching and sharing my nursing and life knowledge with others. We've just gone through the interviewing process for the next class and what I love about that is that we can find funding for some very underprivileged and worthy people. We have a couple of students who are living in shelters right now and I think it's awesome that we can provide an opportunity for them to change the course of their lives for the better. When I start feeling sorry for myself all I have to do is look around me and find ways to help others and *poof* goes the pity party and it is replaced by a renewed purpose to life.

So my life is a continuum of dichotomies. Good and bad. Up and down. Wise and dumb. Back and forth. Happy and depressed. Sometimes in the same day, sometimes not for months. Today I am grateful that I'm alive and feeling anything.