Things getting better for me. Despite some bumps in the road, the road is gradually smoothing out. Here are some examples.
For years, my life has had a lot of areas for improvement. I started out where I could this year. That ended up being daily cardio after getting turned away from multiple plasma donations due to an excessively high pulse rate. Cardio is known to reduce heartrate over time, so that seemed like the natural place to begin. I felt pleasantly surprised that another benefit of cardio has been improved mental and emotional health, a greater ability to handle the daily ebbs and flows of life, and better sleep. Alongside the cardio, I also started consistently doing Wim Hof breathing for the first time in years. At the recommendation of a friend, I looked into the book Breathe by James Nestor. The recommendations in that book have vastly improved my normal breathing. I find it much easier to breathe through my nose than before I read the book, even when doing cardio. Add some cold showers to all of this, and I’m feeling better physically than I have in a long time.
As I’ve been looking for a steady job, I’ve been doing DoorDash deliveries and various short-term projects for some folks I know. Those have been great for my financial situation. What surprised me is that they’ve also helped my emotional and mental health. There’s been less stress from having money coming in regularly again. Doing lots of manual labor and having less idle time both seem to make me feel less frustrated and enhance my sleep. Even when I go to bed late, I’ve still found it much easier to fall asleep, stay asleep through the night, and feel refreshed upon waking up the next day. Those have all been wonderful to experience.
On top of all of that, some family matters have been improving. It’s still too early to tell how it’ll work out long-term and I don’t want to make any predictions at this point. I’ll keep pursuing this and hoping for the best. Several things inspired me to seek this out and I’m so glad I did. For the first time in ages, I have some hope that healthy family relationships will become possible for me.
I’ve lately been feeling similarly to how I felt during the best times of my adult life: peaceful, content, and at ease. Driving back home from a recent project shortly after sunset while wearing clothes from a job I left in 2019 (while in the same part of town as that job) took me right back to some good times. I got another hit of that earlier tonight when looking at the sunset after visiting with a bunch of puppies. The good old days are gone, and, sadly, they’re never coming back. Still, new good days are coming. It’s so nice to experience that after so many years of torment and setbacks.
Despite all of these positive changes, I still catch myself fearing that things will take a turn for the worse. The many past occasions in which my life situation alternated between flowing smoothly and falling apart has got me thinking that that will happen again. Thus, although I wish this weren’t the case, part of me is waiting for the other shoe to drop. Since I no longer have my dog Sawyer to help me get through the hard times in life, I feel even more fearful that this will end badly. Sometimes I have to remind myself that we’re only halfway through the second month of 2024. In 2018, it took a few months before my financial situation and emotional life recovered after an incredibly difficult and painful 2017. I hope that similar recoveries will happen and that all the good progress I’ve made thus far this year snowballs throughout the remainder of 2024. I’ll keep you posted along the way.