This has been the theme for me this week..in spades. Not healthy enough to work but not sick enough to see the doctor..a case of riding the old cold virus out. Patience..not a friendly word in my vocabulary. ..barely in my vocabulary at all. Sigh..

I work with young children and babies as a nanny so it was important I not make any of them sick. That meant no work from Tuesday on…a total of five missed shifts. This left me, and more importantly, my checkbook short…way short.  Too short to cover the rent, which my bank paid anyway, but which means overdraft fees and a fee every day for having a negative balance. I just keep getting shorter and shorter while going deeper and deeper into debt.

My days at home have consisted mainly of this: fluids (water), rest, ibuprofen, repeat. I did manage to break up one or two days with a trip to the local pastry shop for ice tea and uninterrupted Internet access…something I lack in my beautiful “garden level” apartment.  But let’s be real..despite being short, I always had enough for a pastry or two..I told myself I was feeding my cold and I would return to my weight loss program tomorrow. ..I have been doing various versions of this routine for over a month now.

Here’s the thing: I have managed to somehow miraculously lose 4-5 pounds this week.  What? ? How’s that possible? My theory is this: I have been feeding my body the evil sugar/crack/heroin that it so craves along with the weight loss  protein packets and vegetables but I am not eating quite as much as I usually do. Add to that the gallons of water I have been consuming to flush out this virus and my overall ill health and you have the perfect recipe for weight loss. Either that…or my scale is lying. Tomorrow I will know the truth: I see my weight loss coach at 10am. Fingers are crossed..pass me the scones.

This morning I found that my current predicament (s) had left me short of any logical or common sense reasoning.  I was convinced that if I couldn’t get a loan of some sort from someone, anyone,  my life would come to a crashing halt.  Seriously. I mean, I am so low down on the financial food chain that none of the pay day loan places that you see advertised ad nauseum on late night tv…NONE of them would give me a quick loan. Not. A. Single. One. Pretty pathetic, no?

But then I thought about it some more and realized: what are they going to do, really?  Yes, I will have a ton of fees to pay but they will get paid..things always do. After further conversing with a dear friend who was able to loan me some money..enough to make a bit of a dent(can I just pause here to say how abundantly awesome it is to hold onto cold hard cash when just a few hours earlier you had convinced yourself you were but a short step from destitution? )…I realized even further how small my thinking had become…I was stuck in my head..and trust me, it ain’t roomy in there. I was closing down and paralyzing myself…I needed air. That’s about the time I walked outside to catch the bus to meet my friend who would loan me the money (mwah!  I love you! ) some of which I deposited into the ATM before pocketing the rest and then going for tea with said friend to laugh at the absurdities of our lives. .well, my life…he doesn’t live quite as absurdly as me..at least,  I don’t think so.

I really had this all figured out last night when I finished up a painting I have been working on for 2-3 weeks. I went in a different direction with it and more importantly,  I reframed my crappy state of mind by carefully choosing to put a positive spin on the shit I have found myself too often wading through.

I am no longer coming up short but rather soaring above it all. And trust me, the view is so much better…

Peace.

Tj