Gratitude, Story, More on the White Flag

I'm not grateful to be alive. But:
- there are numerous people for whose existence I am boundlessly grateful
- and I am grateful for all the experiences I have embodied and absorbed through my senses
- and for the stories these represent.

I'm not grateful for the unprecedented peacefulness of our era, which is apparently the case despite endless war. I believe in it, but have no way to understand it. But:
- I am grateful for the safety of my family in the Middle East
- and for the love, grace, peace, generosity so palpable in my circles of friends
- and all the stories this brings.

I'm not grateful that my scale's battery died the very day I went to give an honest weight. I'm further not grateful for the anxiety provoked by the fact that the scale and I had been quite consistent, after wild initial fluctuation; and that now, with a new battery, it's showing wild fluctuations again. But:
- I am grateful to be shown that wild fluctuations may, astonishingly, not be all me
- and I am grateful for the reminder that technology isn't always home base
- most of all, I am grateful for the story it offers.

I'm not grateful that I have to have vital signs tracked, and to have rebelled against this, and to have been out of integrity. But:
- I'm grateful that I couldn't stay out of integrity
- and I'm grateful for having the experience of returning to integrity, that waving my white flag felt like such a relief, as it set the scene for beginning to project what might come next, rather than keeping things stuck
- and I'm grateful for the story to be told here.

I'm grateful for hearts, their hugeness, their power of connecting, like the earth with its mats of roots and mycelia.

I am grateful for the brain, with its firing and subliming, more powerful than a WiFi hub.

source: http://fearofwriting.com/brain-food-for-writers.htm

And oh yes, I am grateful for guts, seat of our instincts, absorption, seed-bed of neurotransmitters that regulate our feelings, tidal in ulterior motion like the ocean, like the hidden side of the moon.

http://www.fpnotebook.com/gi/Anatomy/SmlBwlAntmy.htm

And I'm thankful for all the ways these organs connect; all the stories for which they are lenses.

Thank you.

Integrity Again, and Surrender (but not what you think)

Phil is in Vegas whooping it up with his grandkids. Such a good thing for both sides! He is the funnest grampa imaginable, and it must be so good for him to be held in a space of such simple adoration; to be able to have straightforward fun, lots of laughter.

I'm staying home doing my best. Enjoying the quiet time, clear, deep-cold days, the sunrises and sets, visits with friends who are accepting, gracious, topplingly kind. Working on critical papers, writing, being ok with residual messiness and my fatigue-induced apathy toward it.
After my last appointment, I'm acknowledging that even after I get out of the chasm, there'll be climbing to do.
Which brings me back to integrity.
I was well short of the 'ultimatum' goal even after chugging a gallon of liquid, and since doing that makes a person pretty sick, if it doesn't get you there anyway, seems to be less point (or, point-less). Integrity is wholeness, right? So adding a gallon, or eight pounds, to myself is adding something not truly part of my integral whole, which is just as much out of integrity as if I were to take something away from my wholeness, like if I claimed not to know Latin or Greek.
Water-loading has always seemed such an easy fix, but it's only ever "worked" "partly," and there are times it's made me sick, or simply been implausible because I've miscalculated.
Now that I've (been forced to) come clean with my doctor and therapist; now that it's clear I won't be able to make the 'ultimatum' even if I drink enough to make myself sick; even if I gain for real the safe amount of weight in the time remaining, I'm in a space of surrender. I don't mean the Twelve-Step, spiritual, beatific, state-of-grace surrender, with all chakras lit up and rainbows puffing incense. Wouldn't it be nice if I did mean that; if I had finally reached the point I've been told to aim at all these years?
No, guys. I've been besieged from the outside and ambushed from within. I'm waving the white flag. There are certain limits beyond which I'm not willing to go, certain things I'm not willing to give up, but I'm hardly in a position to bargain for terms, am I? At this point, 100% adherence is mandatory until my psych appointment next Friday, at which time we will discuss my fate. Additionally, I am to go in for a weight today, augmented only by being an afternoon weight rather than first thing morning, with no extra liquid to strain (to stain) my integrity.
Ridiculous, eh, all this focus on my weight. It's all a matter of perspective. See my little pet parsley, a tree in the sunset?

A Happy Thanksgiving to all, in integrity.