Spotlight on Stigma... Welcomed but Not Accepted

It's been a terrible day. It’s storming all around me. Incredible winds... thunder/lightning... a small lake forming in the backyard... and I'm in a screened-in porch. I had to move close to the house and put a big bag around my laptop to protect it from the blowing rain so I could write while I enjoyed the sounds, smells, and feelings of the storm.   However, though externally I'm enjoying the storm, internally I'm a wreck. It’s one of those days that's been a true roller coaster ride - jerky ups, steep downs, twists and turns and loops, and some boring straightaways. I fought with a company who misled me (and lost), contacted another company who charged me for something I didn’t receive (and won), filed for unemployment once again because they messed up at the unemployment office once again, had a huge fight with my daughter, was interviewed for an article about having a child who deals with mental illness, and did a few mundane chores. Unfortunately, I don't ...

I just realized there's a double-meaning to the title of this post. I picked "Focus" for what I need to be doing as far as activities and professional work in the upcoming weeks. However, as someone who just had cataract surgery on my second eye and who is having trouble "focusing," it works for that too. As I said, I'm now recovering from my second cataract surgery. I'm really disappointed and frustrated. I can't see with my left eye - the one I use for distance vision. (Note... I have been corrected for what's called monovision - where one eye is corrected to see close up and the other to see far away. With most people, your brain adjusts and uses the correct eye to focus on what is needed at the time while temporarily shutting down the other. I used this method with contacts and had really good success, so I do know my brain can adjust.) I know that my eye doctor, multiple websites, etc ALL say that it takes, on average, 1-2 weeks for your eye...

No real theme for this post, except that I'd like to just share where I am.  Life just doesn't seem to want to let up. Almost two weeks ago my mom had a stroke. The day after that, I had the first of two surgeries on my eyes due to cataracts. The air went out at my house (at a time when I was told to NOT sweat, and I sweat even when it's in the low 70s). For many reasons, I was the only one who could stay with my mom at the hospital, which I did from Sunday until Friday all day, every day. My daughter had a big issue with her dad and I had to help mediate it.  Yesterday was the first day I had a break. I expected to be able to rest (finally!) and just be a bum all day.  It didn't work out that way.  You see, even before the cataracts, I had horrible vision. When I was about six years old and got glasses for the first time, my parents told me that I looked around and said, "Wow! The trees really DO have leaves." I probably actually had terrible vision from the ...

Have you ever stopped to notice how numbers define our lives? Some examples: - Grades - Bank account balance - Credit score - Likes on a social media post - Facebook friends - Blood pressure - Weight - And with COVID-19, temperature. Those are just a few examples. But have you ever gotten depressed over a number? I have thought about this a lot throughout my life. If you have read much of my blog at all, or if you know me in person, it's apparent I am extremely overweight. My number phobia probably started in elementary school when they weighed every student. It might have been done in private but I think it leaked out. Or maybe I was just embarrassed that the number might get out. But either way, I remember it as being traumatic.  Fast forward to a little later in life... the number still terrified me. However, I didn't know that it was possible to refuse to be weighed at the doctor, or at least to turn around so I didn't have to see the number on those few in...