Tag Archives: yoga

10. I resolve to cover Patrick Swayze in clay

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Happy New Year folks! I want to kick-start 2016 with an appropriately positive post about taking the new year by the horns and riding it bare back to Copacabana and home again. I want to list my modest 34 New Year Resolutions, which are usually a variation of the following:-

1: Always wear matching underwear.

2: Join gym (again).

3: Join pottery class – recreate scene from Ghost.

4: Join Yoga studio next to work. Go EVERY lunch-time.

Etc etc…

There’s normally around 30 more, equally self serving, ambitions to join, learn and live adventurously.

I want to start this year with my best foot forward, blindly hopeful and determined, like a whippet at the starting gate (in matching underwear) that has just caught scent of a rabbit. I want to be ready and raring to go. I want to, but I’ve found myself anxiously hanging around the starting line with my tail between my legs. I want to be chomping at the bit with my habitual enthusiasm to skip round the track, but it’s cold and I suspect the rabbit’s going to get away. I want to begin 2016 just as I have previous years.  I want to, but I can’t. This year I’ve got a new appendage hanging on for the ride and it seems to be weighing me down; Lucian Lupus, what are you doing here? You weren’t invited! I don’t quite feel like racing anymore…

I’ve realised that my usual New Year Resolutions are no longer working for me. Wearing matching underwear feels futile when it’s an effort to put any on at all. I need to manage a full day at work before wasting energy covering Patrick Swayze’s six-pack in clay. And surviving a gym session is as realistic as me running a marathon backwards and blindfolded whilst speaking fluent Swahili. (Although this is fairly unrealistic at this time, it’s not altogether unrealistic if I should really put my mind to it. Next year perhaps. Natarajia mbio za marathon nyuma, which means, ‘I look forward to running a marathon backwards and blindfolded’- in Swahili. I’m practically fluent already). I digress…

It’s no big deal really. I just need to realign my resolutions, at least until I’ve found the right medication to curb Lucian’s current enthusiasm. Every day I’ll write a new and more realistic resolution depending on how I’m feeling at the time. I.e. ‘wash your hair without sitting down in the shower!’ Or, ‘remember to take your pills after breakfast!’ Or, ‘Do. Not. Feel. Sorry. For. Yourself. because it’s not like Patrick Swayze was ever actually going to be in the pottery class.’

Admittedly it’s been a fairly disheartening start to the year as I’ve struggled with the mundanity* of lustreless lupus life. But reassessing my list of resolutions for 2016 doesn’t have to mean I’m any less imaginative or determined, I just have to be a little bit more realistic, for now. (FYI. 2017’s list is going to include space travel and a pet monkey.)

So I’m keeping this post short tonight, because my resolution for today is ‘go to bed early, because tomorrow you’re back at work!’

Goodnight fellow whippets. Now get some rest because we’re going to need all our energy to achieve the resolutions we’ve set out to conquer – whether that’s to catch the rabbit, or just to wash your hair. x

*Apparently mundanity isn’t actually a word, but you know exactly what I mean, and I think it’s a perfectly great word. If we all start saying ‘mundanity’ then the clever folks at the Oxford English Dictionary might be really embarrassed that they’ve accidentally missed out a word, and pop it in there. Success! Mundanity all round!… although that doesn’t sound like very much fun.

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I resolve to be good, in moderation.

8. Insomnia and a Kidney Beret

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I don’t care what Instagram says, healthy eating isn’t fun and it certainly isn’t sexy. The truth is, ‘come to bed eyes’ should be more aptly named ‘sauvignon eyes’ because let’s face it, no romance ever blossomed over a wind-inspiring Green Smoothie. No babies were ever made after a playful evening of carrot batons and Wheatgrass shots. No dalliance into debauchery ever concluded with kale. No life-loving, adventure-seeking being ever said ‘hey, you know what’s really fun? Broccoli.’ (Unless of course, the broccoli is attached to the end of a bungee rope, or Snickers bar.) That’s not to say I haven’t tried to be green and lean. Every January I successfully detox for a week, and celebrate with a vat of Pinot Noir and a Chinese Takeaway for four, for one. But for the first time, I’ve got a legitimate reason to try, and I can’t find a legitimate reason not to. And so my foray into eating clean began with a hint of cynicism, a dollop of dismay and four sleepless nights.

The Super Doc (Doctor Lanham at the London Lupus Centre) suggested it was time to stop taking Tramadol because after three months, the stuff was doing nothing for my mojo. He also gave me a trial prescription for steroids in the hope they might encourage my immune system to perk up. Concerned that five days on the ‘roids would inspire immediate beard growth, an appetite for Call of Duty and a penchant wolf whistling, I decided that I should counteract chemicals with pure goodly goodness. I raided Amazon for books with (smug) pretty girls on the cover – they all seemed to be holding a yoga pose and green juice concurrently. Multi-tasking majesties. And their faces (smug faces) shone with the dew of their early morning Pilates, and their eyes sparkled, and their teeth twinkled and their plentiful hair curled like magnificent Unicorn manes. They glowed from their insides out, with livers exquisite enough to be worn as broaches and glistening clean colons that would make the most delightful necklaces. I didn’t just want to look like them, I wanted to be them (or at least wear their shiny organs as jewellery.) And as my salubrious sisters sang to me from their recipe book covers, I realised I shouldn’t have come off the Tramadol quite so quickly.

For FOUR NIGHTS I lay awake, counting sheep until there were none left. My body ached with exhaustion, but how could I possibly sleep when I was so busy re-enacting scenes from Trainspotting? The Tramadol had taken more of a hold than I had thought and the ‘roids were preparing me for a wild night out I was never going to go on. A sleepless haze distorted my days but I was determined to carry on regardless. Getting dressed felt like participating in the Iron Man finals. Commuting to work was a mission to the underworld with Hades on my back. Eating was essential in order to take my pills, but it’s ever so tricky to fry an egg white omelette from foetal position. Life seemed to be getting harder and curly kale wasn’t helping. Narcotics and healthy eating is a juxtaposition Irvine Walsh obviously hadn’t considered when he was writing Trainspotting, which is a shame because I could have done with a point of reference and the glowing girls weren’t helping.

When I found myself waking up on Regent’s Street having fainted amidst indifferent tourists, it was time to head back to Super Doc (with an awesome new recipe for sweet potato brownies.)

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Nothing says FUN like celery! (said no one ever)