Imagination is not always good

I've always been imaginative. I've always been able to "cook something up" in my mind. Sometimes I write about it, sometimes not. And people have told me that they think it's great to have an active imagination. But I've got to say that sometimes it isn't such a good thing.

To begin with, you use your imagination for all the wrong things. Like you imagine what someone else is thinking when in fact, there's no way to verify this, even if you ask them. You imagine you know what someone meant when they say something to you, even though, it might have meant something else entirely. Of course, they could have meant what you thought they did, but then that's where imagination is tricky. You can imagine your friends are your enemies if you're feeling paranoid. Or imagine your enemies are your friends if you're feeling like a target.

But the worst thing about my active imagination has to do with health and specifically health problems of which I have none. Unless you happen to mention some symptoms in front of me. Then suddenly I develop them. A friend of ours recently had a heart attack. He said it felt like indigestion. I suddenly developed indigestion and stayed up half the night waiting to see if I was gonna drop dead. when I didn't I figured it really was indigestion, took some Tums and went to bed. It was a very long day the next day with only a few hours of sleep. I once heard Michael J. Fox talk about his symptoms for Parkinson's Disease. I began to think I had it and started watching myself in the mirror for signs of trembling. My legs finally began to tremble, but it was because I was standing so long, looking into the mirror.

I try to avoid reading or hearing about symptoms of really famous people. Usually when I hear what's wrong with them, I begin to exhibit these symptoms. Unfortunately for me, they are acting when they recite these ills, so the character is having palpitations, not the actor themselves. It's all so confusing. I know in my head that there really isn't anything wrong with me,but I can't seem to convince myself. I begin to search out remedies and other smaller maladies that it maybe could be in the hopes that it isn't this life-threatening whatever I just heard about.

And I really hate it when I've not paid attention to the "real" maladies and they turn into something I could have been focusing on a long time ago, but didn't think it was noteworthy enough. Maybe it's a learning curve? I find out what's bothering someone else and then I really do recognize that I have whatever it is and become likewise afflicted.

Is hypochondria a disease?

God is hard

I found another note, stuck in the old bookcase in the dining room. This one says, "Challenging you" and I believe it was spoken by someone who was saying that living a faith life is one of that ilk. That God is always challenging you. God is not an easy task master. Belief is hard. Sometimes, almost impossible. And not only when the bad things happen, either. Sometimes when life is so good, its almost too good, God is practically irrelevant. We had a discussion in our adult Sunday School class the other week and one of the members of the class said, that she thought that a faith life was hard on purpose. That if it was easy, it wouldn't really be what God wanted you to do. I don't know if I believe that or not. On the one hand, God is probably way to busy with every thing else going on to be worried about whether my faith life is hard or easy. On the other hand, God is of course, going to be paying attention to me and since he loves me, he'll want me to be the best person I can be, which usually means I have to "grow". Growing usually involves changing and changing as far as I'm concerned is not something I go out of my way to experience if I can help it. Therefore, God is hard. The logic of this is either rock solid, or I'm standing in a puddle of quicksand. I'm not sure which. I'll let you know either because I've changed, or drowned.

Thoughts while in a doctor's office

I wrote this while waiting to talk to the doctor about a lump in my breast about 2 years ago. I'm not sure if it's poetry, prose or just useless rambling, but I just found my notes and wanted to catch the words before they were gone.

Painters of murals who have no depth perception
Flatly articulated on the walls
Only a vague awareness of how things look from afar.

Violins sawing madly in the background
To a Brandenburg Concerto I believe
More cacophonous than melodious

Muffled codes spoken by the "keepers of the records."
Conversations around the corner of diagnosis and
And children and events to come in their lives
They do have lives, outside of this room.
and the women waiting, waiting, waiting for their name to be called
While their frantically chasing thoughts of health and
What-ifs and who knows?
Like a dog with a bone, worrying and picking incessantly
Instead of patiently, as their role describes.

Tapping of toes with impatience, or worry or doubt
Or maybe all three
While the violins saw on, and the phone rings and the
Papers are shuffled and health cards are copied.
Waiting, waiting, waiting.

Working out or was it working it out??

I go to a gym these days, twice a week. I'm feeling virtuous about it, if you must know. I'm only there for about 1/2 an hour each time, but I walk on the treadmill or use the elliptical, then do weights (either free weights or with a machine) and have started doing sit ups as well. I hate sit ups, I know they are good for me, but I hate them all the same. What I really hate is push ups. I have no upper arm strength, so I collapse everytime I try to do them. So I stopped trying. I do backwards ones now. sit on the edge of a bench, and dip down off the edge. It supposedly works the same muscles. I could do them all day. When my daughter and I went to this gym together, she hated that I could do that and she couldn't. Well, I mean she could do it, just not as many as me. Recently the owner of the gym moved to a new place. It's much smaller. And you have to go up a flight of stairs to get there, thereby creating the warming up part even before you get to the door! How clever of him! The problem is that I go alone. Well, maybe problem is the wrong word. I'm a social person. So when I go to the gym there is no one else there. Just me and the radio. It's kind of weird. Of course, if I've had a bad day, it's great, because I can either mutter to myself throughout the workout about the stupid boss, or the stupid paperwork or the stupid existence fo the people in the stupid office. Or as I actually did one day, cry while doing sit ups. It wasn't because they hurt, it was because no one was around to see or hear me. It was sort of freeing and scary at the same time. But I think I would like it better if someone else were working out there. I wouldn't have to know them or even talk to them. Just another person there, in the small space of workout equipment. But there is no one. the owner of the gym has a business downstairs and will come up every now and then to make sure you haven't, you know, dropped a weight on your foot or even dropped dead from exertion. But the sounds of your breathing while no one else is there is sort of eerie. The funny thing is, if more people came to this gym, he would need bigger space. So he really doesn't want a while lot of other people there. But well, I'd like to see at least one other person, I think. There aren't any mirrors on the walls yet, so you can even pretend there is someone else there, even though you know its only you.

So I'm being good about going to the gym, but no one is there to see it. If a person goes to a gym and no one is there to see it, well, you get the tree falling in the forest analogy I guess.