I am not made for winter

 I always felt like winter looked nice on postcards and in books. But in real life winter has been horrible to me my entire life. I seem to always feel bad, get injured, get sick, or experience huge disasters in winter. 

Which is strange I am born of winter.

Another winter is upon me and the dry cold dusty air has already sent me to the doctors once. I just finished a round of treating a sinus infection to have it come raging back as soon as the pills were out of my system. 

Hot summers seemed bad but this past summer was hot and humid and my sinuses flourished, no stuffy nose, no constant pain, no stuffy ears. In fact I don't think I used more than a quarter thing of tissues from June until November. I have gone through 2 boxes in 10 days. 

I just want to feel good enough to walk to work, or go for a walk. I am not asking for perfect health just relief from feeling like I can never catch my breath.

I don't want more diagnoses so being told my septum is a deviant and could be fixed with surgery wasn't great news. I had surgery on my wrist and that has lead to I probably need surgery on both shoulders now. One hip is very painful my hyper mobile side of my body. Turns out all these years I thought I was inflexible but I actually had hypermobile joints in my left hip and both shoulders. I have an unknown autoimmune disorder, I have adhd which may be the link to many of my health complaints, I probably have POTS but I have been fainting my entire life and just am used to it at this point.

Learning in your 50's that you have a mess of conditions that all should have lead to having support and knowing many of my struggles were real and I was dismissed has been its own trauma. So I wont ever become a great content creator, or a famous artist, or any of that because my body and mind work against me and some months and seasons of my life are all about simply living to the next season and hoping for the better.

I went on a journey

I took a last minute trip to Taiwan. I had a great time. I found myself lost more than found, which is ok. sometimes the best time is had by being completely uncomfortable and reminding myself in past lives we would have used instincts and landmarks and since I do that naturally it takes time to settle in and navigate properly.

Three days is not enough time to really take in a city but I was able to see a few landmarks, meet some new people get invited to a gallery show opening, an incredibly special and important one. It was an invitation show that included many of the Asian countries, to compare and show the diversity among artists. I met a bunch of lovely women and a few men. It got too peopley for me pretty fast so much picture taking. 

I like being behind the camera not in front of it. When in front of it my desire to not be perceived gets triggered hard. I have no idea what to do, smile no my teeth are bad, am I standing right, omg I am towering over everyone, do I look fat and frumpy (of course I do that's my look these days) omg am I embarrassing these people, etc ... 

and it doesn't end until the pictures stop. Having my picture taken makes me want to crawl under a rock and not venture out.  Due to working in a Hagwon I have learned to just pose with my students and make finger hearts and know it will be over quick. The parents know their kids teacher is a fat, old, white person. So familiarity with my students makes it more tolerable although to be honest it still stresses me out immensely.

back to Taipei

I stumbled upon a temple that absolutely appealed to me in every way. I felt awed and welcomed, I was looked at due to being a tourist but also welcomed warmly. The temple itself was incredible and I went back over the course of 2 days 3 separate times, when I left I went and left an offering. I still did it all wrong I am sure but I hope they know I was truly in awe of it all. And have the utmost respect.

Oh and of course when I got lost the first morning my feet took me directly to a botanical park I had no idea existed. So yay instincts knowing where to go.

I definitely want to go back and spend more time there. If I live long enough to retire I would like to spend a couple months or so there, winter is lovely there.

and

I returned home to Changwon and promptly came down with the flu and have been sick as hell for the past 5 days.