Day 721: Reunited

Yesterday morning, one purple glove of mine reunited with another one.

The black mitten on the right might have to remain alone, instead of reuniting with its lost partner. No matter what happens in the future, I now have enough gloves to keep me warm.

After happily reuniting one purple glove with another in the morning, I then reunited with my close-friend-since-we-were-5-years-old,  Barbara. (Previous reunitings with Barbara can be found in posts here, here, here, and here).

On my drive to Barbara’s home yesterday, I saw a sign hoping to reunite a pet with its owner:

Barbara and I reunited in one of the common areas in her apartment building where, I assume, people reunite all the time.

In that photo, Barbara is reuniting me with one of my favorite winter treats  — hot chocolate — produced from this impressive machine, uniting Starbucks with at-home brewing:

Those of you reuniting with my blog today may have recognized a familiar item in the photos above:  my bongos (with which you can reunite here and here).

I brought the bongos to Barbara’s, yesterday, along with a quiche and lots of fruit.

I brought all these things to my reunion with Barbara because she — like me — has been dealing with some very challenging situations lately. Barbara and I grew up together and we both come from families where reuniting somebody with fruit (and other gifts) = love.

While none of my previous family or friend reunitings have involved bongos, I chose to bring bongos to Barbara yesterday because:

•  those bongos have proved to be a very useful tool for me to express and let go of frustration, fear, and other feelings about medical challenges not currently in my control and
• bongos are a particularly fun way to reunite.

Much to my reuniting delight, Barbara agreed to borrow my bongos and to use them as best she can. In this next photo, you can see the bongos uniting, on Barbara’s work desk, with some other helpful tools for reducing stress (which regular readers of this blog may have reunited with before):

Then, Barbara reunited the bongos with their official name:

In the next photo, my soon-to-be-bongo-ing friend, Barbara, is reuniting with something new she recently created:

Have you ever heard of an Art (or Paint) Bar?  Apparently, these socializing establishments reunite people with art talent they may or may not have ever expressed before. I shall now reunite you with that painting Barbara created, for a closer look:

Barbara told me yesterday she had NEVER PAINTED ANYTHING BEFORE she painted that at Pinot’s Palette Franchise in Lexington. I am now, as I’m writing this, reuniting with my amazement about Barbara’s new, previously undiscovered artistic skills, since that painting easily reunites me with my memory of Boston’s Leonard Zakim Bridge:

(I reunited with that visual memory of the Zakim bridge here, thanks to Tony Hisgett.)

My son and I, when we were reuniting with my late mother every weekend, called that “The Wishbone Bridge” as we passed by it on Sundays. Can you see why?

What other important memories  would I like to reunite with now, regarding my reuniting with Barbara yesterday?

Yesterday, Barbara and I firmly reunited with our resolve to not let cognitive distortions (pictured above, with bongos) and other unhelpful thoughts get in the way of our well-being, including our on-going and valuable reuniting with each other.  We reminded ourselves and each other, during our reunion yesterday to:

• let go of counter-productive mind-reading about each other (e. g., “she’ll be mad at me if I’m late” or “she won’t have time for me this weekend, so I won’t even ask to get together”) and
• remember, as best we can, that we will always do whatever we can to support each other.

For example, Barbara offered, yesterday, to reunite with me during an upcoming medical appointment. I told Barbara that my ex-sister-in-law, Deborah, had also offered (in a comment to this post) to accompany me when I visit some of the bevy of cardiologists who are currently reuniting and interrupting with my life.

People offering to accompany me to medical appointments is a very powerful antidote, for me, to a particularly unhelpful, pernicious, disturbing, and stubborn thought that I reunite with, constantly:

Ann, you are alone in these scary, medical experiences.

Why do I keep reuniting with that thought, despite evidence everywhere to the contrary? Because that felt very true when I was a little kid, growing up in the hospital. But it’s not true now.

I would assume that some people reading this post have unhelpful thoughts they reunite with, at times,  such as:

• I am damaged, beyond repair.
• I am unworthy.
• I am hopeless.
• I am alone.

If you do have unhelpful thoughts you reunite with regularly, could you please unite with me, today, and allow for the possibility that those are simply NOT TRUE?????

If you would like to unite with me on that, feel free to reunite with me via a comment, below.

Anyway, I would now like to reunite this post to my day yesterday. Reuniting with Barbara was wonderful personal medicine for me — even better than going bongos!

After my visit with Barbara, I reunited with my boyfriend Michael, and we did our usual Sunday evening food shopping. There, I reunited with things that reminded me of past posts I’ve written here, including:

reuniting me with memories of a post I wrote my first week of blogging and

which reunited my thoughts with a post I wrote two days ago.

At the check-out counter, Michael and I reunited with our old friend Al:

  

Whenever we reunite with Al, there are lots of words and attitude flying around. I witnessed this, yesterday:

Al:  Do you know why I always check the eggs before someone walks out of here?  I check them every time because I want to make sure nobody returns them.

Michael: I thought you did it to be annoying.

Al: No! It’s because I’m a professional.

Al, at other times we’ve reunited with him, could easily have replied to Michael, instead, “I do it to be annoying to YOU, Michael.”  However, everybody seems to be behaving a little differently these days. Maybe that’s because they’re reuniting with familiar time-of-the-year traditions, like these:

What song do you think would be a good one to reunite with, now?

How about this one?

I’ve chosen that version of “Reunited” by Peaches and Herb (found here on YouTube) in honor of Barbara, because (1) Barbara likes music with lyrics and (2) we might have watched that show together when it first aired in 1979, a year where we had reunited as roommates.

I realize I’ve reunited today with my tendency to write long posts — on a MONDAY MORNING, no less — when you might not have the time to read this. If so, I hope you reunite with it later (and maybe even let me know what you think of all the reunitings here).

Many thanks to Barbara, Deborah, Michael, Al, Peaches, and Herb;  to people who do their best to reunite with helpful thoughts and behaviors; to all those things I like to reunite with, such as quiche, fruit, musical instruments, antidotes, peaches, herbs, candles, and latkes;  and — of course! — to you and every other person in my reuniting community, here and now.