1. Over the last two or three weeks, I initiated contact with two longtime friends who had been silent (one of them for two years). I was concerned about their well being and had some (unfounded) anxiety about whether I'd done something to alienate them. I also contacted a friend who was worried if I'd decided to end contact with him after I failed to respond to an email. We are back on track again and I will see him when I travel to Eugene.
I've resumed correspondence and contact with all three of these friends. The two friends I had the unfounded anxiety about have, indeed, been dealing with health problems. I understand so much better why I hadn't heard from them and I'll be able to spend time with one of these friends when I visit Eugene, but not the other because of his struggles with health.
I'm relieved that these three friendships are intact, that it's clear from our recent correspondence that we care very much for each other.
I think when I was younger I always thought that when I was older, I would outgrow or somehow get beyond anxieties that have troubled me much of my life.
The most constant anxiety I've lived with since I was a teenager is that I'm just one wrong move, one utterance, one act of recklessness or neglect away from alienating any one of my friends and even family members. It's an anxiety I've experienced (big time) in marriage. I used to experience this anxiety a lot in relation to the people I worked with when I was an instructor and also at church.
I'm better at fending off this anxiety now than I was when I was younger.
But old habits are stubborn and my inner voice's longtime patterns of sowing doubt and anxiety are difficult to change and silence.
So when that long familiar feeling that I've disappointed a friend or family member rises up or when that voice inside me tries to persuade me that I've alienated a longtime friend and that friend is done with me, I am better at interrupting, putting an invisible wedge between my consciousness and those dark feelings, better at arguing back with that voice.
The recent correspondence between the three friends I alluded to in this blog post and me was a very positive move. I'm glad the trip I have planned to Eugene gave me good reason to contact each of them, tell them I wanted to see them, and that things are all good.
2. I've had a cyst on my backside emerge and recede for a couple or three months. It's not been especially painful, nor has it ever gone away on its own.
Today I visited my primary care giver at Heritage Health uptown.
I had also corresponded a bit with the transplant team about this cyst.
No one seems overly concerned about it -- that was a relief.
I was very happy with how the NP I saw today handled things.
She examined the cyst, told me to occasionally put a warm moist wash cloth on it and she told me she would put in an order for a seven day course of antibiotics.
I told her I was a recent transplant recipient so she did some research, determined which antibiotic my kidneys could best deal with, and then she went the xtra mile. She called me to get a phone number for my transplant nurse coordinator, called the transplant clinic, talked, as it turned out, with one of the transplant pharmacy specialists, and confirmed that the antibiotic she had in mind for me to take was acceptable.
I appreciated and was very impressed with her conscientiousness and willingness to put in this extra effort on my new kidney's behalf.
She called me back, raved about how helpful the transplant team was, confirmed my date of birth, and ordered the medicine from Yoke's pharmacy -- and I picked it up.
3. I do like these packages of marinated meat that Trader Joe's sells. I bought a couple of them in CdA over the weekend. Tonight I roasted potato strips, red onion chunks, zucchini spears, and red pepper slices and I stir fried the pieces of balsamic and rosemary steak tips I'd bought from Trader Joe's.
Debbie and I both enjoyed the marinated beef and the roasted vegetables, seasoned with Trader Joe's 21 Seasoning Salute.
I hope I can remember that one day I'd like to try to replicate some of these Trader Joe's packages of marinated meat on my own at home.
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