Bork Slowly Borking

 An ok day yesterday. A few touches of feeling unwell. But, eh, still ok. Albeit not as ok as last week. I have a new theory. The reason I feel better with swimming is the temperature. It's cold. It's the snap of the cold that makes my internals change. I Thought of this yesterday when jumping into the pool and feeling a lot better, and then realising my shoulders were chilly. The water is cold. Which then reminded me of something I said to my brother. On a winters day walk along the coast, with wind and sea spray coming over it was face hurtingly cold. But not too extreme. And I felt a lot better out in the cold. Headache shifted, didn't feel so ill. My brother said it was the fresh air. When we finished our walk and went back to his house, within 10 minutes of warming up, I felt rough again. Cold. Links the two things. And I've noticed a reaction to cold before. A lot of things happen when you are subjected to a cold shock. Blood vessels constrict, heart rate rises, a...

 As it turned out, yesterday ended up busy. Hazel popped up in the afternoon asking if I was going swimming. Yes. Can I tag along ? Yes. So we did that, I didn't swim much as I kept Hazel company for the first time in the pool. Six lengths if that. Also an odd thing. Last Friday I did 925m and finished with a sub 30 second sprint. Yesterday I tried the same sprint, holy hell, super harder. 31 seconds. What the hell. How can I vary so hard within 3 days ? It really smells like the whole on / off - how well is my system doing at the moment thing. Anywho. Hazel spent a lot of time getting ready after swimming. Girls. Pfft. I don't mind. But I do find myself spending acres of time waiting for others at times. We were literally the last ones out of the changing rooms. Afterwards we took the mutts for a walk. Hazel struggled towards the end. A lot of excercise. I was however good. Rawr. The benefits of my swimming I think. Anywho by the time that was all done it was early evening. Go...

 Melancholy today. This last week has been peculiar. The internal waters are definitely on the move. Turmoil perhaps. Though you wouldn't know it from the outside. My mental landscape has been shifting around a lot. My mood has gone up, far up. Then half back down again today. Its made me question a lot of my long term assumptions. Made me think about how my illness is progressing. Better than I thought ? Not perhaps circling the drain. Light at the end of the tunnel ? But it has also made me aware of stuff I am lacking. Perhaps. Remove the ever present debilitating effects of illness, and your mind shifts to other perspectives. And question how much my mood has an effect on everything else. So. In a bit of a funny state. Not one thing. Or the other. I think I've realised something. I'm hugely more isolated than I thought. And it has an enormous impact on me. It is one I can deal with. And adapt to. And cope with. But I think it is tremendously detrimental to me. Somewhere ...

 A lot slower start yesterday, a deeper hole to climb out of, some creeping symptoms in the morning, wobbly legs, general feeling of meh. But it lifted. And I had a third good day. But the difference of morning to the rest of the day was notable. Fascinating. Again, just like a switch. On - weird symptoms, feel like shit, blah. Off - all good. So, feeling good yesterday, I started doing some hardcore tidying up. I looked critically at the front bedroom. Started making a list of things to do. Which ended up with me doing a run out to the dump to get rid of a bunch of crap. Come home, and do some more lower level dumping. Whoa. In the bigger picture this is a fairly pathetic level of Doing Shit. It's hardly on the scale of clearing a house for a whole day. It's a single run to the tip. And pottering around throwing other shit out for an hour. For me it's a huge step up. I have a bit of mojo rekindled in me. Which of course, as is the way, has a feedback effect. It make me fee...

 Two good days in a row. Shocking. Went for a swim yesterday. Did not flag. Did not tap out afterwards. Did 925m in probably half the time I did it a couple of weeks ago. I could have done more. A lot more. But the pool got busy. It was. Quite surprising. Stamina was way up. I when I did the whole sprint length thing, I could feel how strong my shoulders were. This is really somewhere I have not been in a longggggg time. I am used to flaking out, having butt kiss strength, and just having to coax myself along. Perhaps it was something to do with having a good day before ? Give me a run into things being somewhat normal.. and I get better ? I dunno. Could just be a coincidence. But for sure the swimming is doing good things for me. I went grocery shopping right after the swim. Which is testament to how much I was not flagging. It's starting to become clear to me just how far down the spiral I have been when I got ill. Not only was I super ill. I think I lost so much physical conditi...

 Could not sleep last night. Annoying. I also forgot to take my mental meds. Oops. I uh. May pay for that. Perhaps that didn't help the sleep situation. The main cause was a brain that would not switch off. The conversations of the day filled my head. My nephew, my brother, my friend, another friend. In the past heavy shit has not bothered me. I could walk ungrazed through a minefield. This is fine. I am not sure if it's me, even heavier subject matter, or just a growing weight of responsibility, but it seems these days I am not always unaffected. And often it's post event. Post conversation. It ticks over in my head. And I need to offload. Don't get me wrong. I don't regret doing what I do. And given a second chance at a situation, I'd do the same thing again. It's just that I am not as untouchable as I used to be. Situation dependent. Mmm. There's also a recurring theme cropping up slowly over the last few years. That for all my very clever thinking an...

 The week has gone. Whoosh. I had a revelation on Tuesday. Worked. Not so great. A bit stressy. A bit of a power through late in the day. By the end of the day I felt sick, ill, and had a headache turning the front of my head into mush. But I had missed swimming the day before. And I really wanted to go. I felt like shit. I dragged myself to go. Within 10 seconds of getting in the pool, oh. My. God. It felt sooooo good. Euphoric. I stopped feeling ill. My headache shifted. The nausea disappeared. And all the stress simply vanished. Honestly. It was a pretty awesome high. Wow. WHY HAVENT I DONE THIS BEFORE. IDIOT. Swim. After work. Oh my god. EVERYONE SHOULD BE DOING THIS. So I swam around a bit. Not a lot. Mostly just chilled in the pool. The sun was getting low in the sky, shining through the tall windows, and glittering across the surface of the pool. It was mesmerising. Beautiful. And I was free of illness. And headache. Perhaps it was an endorphin rush. In any case. It was fab....