News and serious talk.

First off, some news.  I am going to do some weaving weekends this year.  Sign up is on my web site, or you can email me.  So far two scheduled, one for April 18-20, and one for May 16-18.  I may do more, but that's it for now.

I just looked back at my blogging history......I started tentatively in 2007 with SEVEN posts.   Then in 2008, I ramped it up to a big 35 posts.
Then I got my groove on in 2009 with 205, and even more in 2010 with 241.
In 2011, I really was cruising along, and posted 328 times.
It is evident that after I started with the headaches, in October 2011, that change was coming.
In 2012, I posted 260 times.
And with 2 surgeries  in 2013, I only posted 156 times.
Why do I mention this???

Well, I  am spending some time in the deep south, staying warm for the winter, as much as is humanly possible.   It isn't really a vacation exactly, although that is what it feels like.  Mostly, I came because I was looking for some relief from my head.   I have concluded (and I hope that I am right) that much of my headache comes from outside forces....mostly pressure changes, in the weather, and in how the weather affects my sinuses.   I am also pretty sure that in severe cold temperatures, I scrunch my neck up almost constantly, muscle contraction and abuse that directly affect my neck and my head.
So far, it appears to be true.
My headache is much, much better.  So far.

But in addition to all that, I knew I needed to regroup. 
If you talk to anyone who has had brain/head surgery, they will all tell you the same thing.
It changes them.
Someone once said to me, "well it wasn't brain surgery exactly, it was on your NECK."
First off, they did have to repair the dura of my brain in the first surgery.  Secondly, if you look at a schematic of your head, you will see that C1, 2 and 3, are in the MIDDLE of your head.

Sorry, but "NECK MY A$$."

Anyway, I rant and digress.

Somehow, since all this has happened to me, I am different.  It is very difficult to explain.....I am me, but different.
My Chiari friend said that it felt that her brain had been rebooted.   That's close.
It has shuffled up my priorities.   It has changed how I feel about a lot of things, and what I think about a lot of things.
It feels sometimes that I have been dropped into a different country, and I am not sure I speak the same language.
I have less filters than I ever had........and I never had many.    I have less tolerance for drama than before,  if that's possible.
My relationship with "tact", which has not been good my whole life, has plummeted.
I find myself re-evaluating everything.   I am constantly re-planning, re-thinking, and driving myself crazy wondering why I can't settle.
I have had what I call "lust for land".......I peruse properties on the internet, EVERYWHERE.   Like I will ever move to New Mexico, or Montana.  I scan houses on realtor.com, and then find them on google maps.   I try to imagine what my life would be like if I pulled up roots and moved to one of these places tiny towns, mostly, in the middle of nowhere.   I worry that I am missing the life I could have somewhere else.   But where?

But I know this sickness.  Alcoholics call it 'geographical change'.  They think that moving somewhere else will make it better, chase away their demons, when in fact, the demon is with them wherever they go.
As mine will likely be.  This head, and all the trauma that has befallen it in the last two years, belongs to me, and no one else.  It demands that I do the best I can with it, one day at a time.

I know that I really don't want to move to some strange place, and start all over.  But there is some frantic part of me, like the drinker, who wishes for something that will make it all go away.  And like the drinker, recovery will always be a part of my life.
I know that.
Moving is not the answer.  

Roy and I walk every morning, 3 miles in the sunshine, to the ocean.   I think about all of this feeling of unrest, craziness really,  I try to put my finger on the core of it, but it eludes me every time.

I only know for sure that in the last two years I have lost my mother, I have lost the life and the  self  I knew and was comfortable with, and insult upon injury,  I have lost my best friend, as well.
Enough already.

I am just not sure who I am anymore, that is the awful truth.

There are, thankfully, a few things I am dead on positive about, one  is my love for my family.

My love for my friends, my dog and my cats.

My love of my looms.

Maybe they will help me find me again.  I  hope so.