12.27.09 – Life in the Balance

I used to be comfortably numb. I wasn’t particularly concerned when my ears closed up and I could barely hear people for about a year and half, believing what my allergist said, that I needed to move to a drier climate. When I quit the job I hated, my ears suddenly opened, making me wonder if a great deal of the allergic symptoms I’d had over the years really were allergies or just my body trying to either protect me (by reducing the volume of the awfulness around me) or get my attention.

I’m not numb any more, but at times I wish I still was. The slightest thing can send my body out of balance, although I have learned to roll with this far more than at the beginning.

As I uploaded yesterday’s video clip on the flowering tea, I felt such potentially negative sensations. I went into my tried and true method of dealing with such situations – I took my phone, got in bed, listened to music, and watched the clock, believing that if I wasn’t worse or dead within a half hour, I’d probably be okay. And I was, although I was wide awake at 2:30 in the morning, which rarely happens to me anymore. I think it may have been the caffeine, as I always forget that green tea does have caffeine. Drinking six cups of green tea after 4:00 p.m. was really, really stupid.

As a youth I drank an obscene amount of caffeinated soft drinks, which then turned into day-long drinks of caffeinated coffee at the office in my 20s and 30s. Now I can have two cups of caffeinated coffee in the morning, but am in trouble if I have more, especially late in the day. It’s as though the body has had its fill, yet I still forget this.

Eventually I’m sure I’ll get the hang of keeping things in balance, or at least I hope I do.