tl:dr: My birthday is coming up and I'm going to be pitiful and request some mail because I need smiles and cheering up and encouragement and *whimper* mail-lovins.

The good:

• My job, which I actually enjoy (I am lucky!), has officially become full-time telework as of April 2022. My cat is HAPPY.
• I am maintaining a weight loss of 100 pounds after gastric bypass surgery in March 2021, having gone from 285 to currently 170-ish. This plateau will likely break if I can get a bit more active now that the warmer months have arrived.
• I am generally out of debt, and now saving for a new car, since my 2007, 160K-mile Prius has been trying to die a valiant death... it's still perfectly drivable, but has... quirks. LOL.

The bad:

• Something is up with my lower back. I fear that something has gone wrong with my lumbar fusion from 2016. Of course I could just be paranoid as hell, but the pain seems mighty familiar.
• I keep falling asleep during the day, which is negatively impacting my ability to work. I have already been diagnosed with "idiopathic hypersomnia," which means I'm really, really good at sleeping! But nodding off and an inability to concentrate is wreaking havoc on my ability to do my job. Sleep apnea has been ruled out. Seeing a new neurologist in late May.
• I had rotator cuff surgery at the start of the year. Recovery is LONG. Still have range of motion and strength limitations. I'm impatient and want this to be farther along than it is.

The ugly:

• My coping mechanisms are failing me. For some reason, I'm reverting to using sugary indulgences as an emotional opiate. This does not bode well for a post-bariatric body. Nor does it bode well for someone who is falling asleep during the day and cannot afford sugar crashes exacerbating that.
• My motivation to get outside and do stuff is being sabotaged by inertia. My job is graphic design, which is sedentary. I've been dealing with huge amounts of anxiety, so I've been hermiting, which leads to more inertia, and... ugh, I just want to sleep. Argh!
• My eyesight has tanked since winter. I've had lifelong issues with strabismus and amblyopia, but lately I cannot read my computer screen without the aid of glasses. I can't even read text on a receipt. Migraines have become more frequent, and this just ramps up anxiety a thousandfold....

So! If you made it through all of that self-pity, thank you. I need some light and love and laughs. Everything feels so heavy right now; Mother's Day was especially difficult because it marked a year since my mother died horribly out of something that could easily have been prevented, and I still feel a crushing sense of loss and abandonment.

I turn 52 on 4 June, and it's going to be low-key because we're still skittish about spending time in crowds due to COVID. It's been 2 years of this awful abnormal world, and the disinformation and divisiveness in the world leaves me in despair. I have turned inward to a great degree, and I'm sorry that I have not been very active here on RAoC for a while. I will try to be better! I'm currently trying to figure out a creative way to give away my Sizzix BigKick because I've (finally) arrived at the conclusion that I'm never going to make my own cards often enough to warrant keeping it. But that's another post... for now, if you're able to send some birthday mail-love my way, I would really appreciate it. Thank you!