Love, Justine

MISSING NOTEBOOK #9 WOMEN’S CENTER

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April 20th, 2018

Day 291

Friday

1pm

Elaine just tried on my high-heeled boots and strutted around like she was on a catwalk. 

It was hilarious.

Mr. Big is trying to get us to walk four miles around the cafeteria. 

No thanks.

I’ll take a Jillian Michaels DVD any day. 

Grammy had an appointment in Coudersport today, and I stole a TIME magazine from 2016. Let’s see if it has anything interesting in it. Wow, in China there is a glass bottomed bridge that is 984 feet above the ground and is 1410 feet long. 

Holy crap. 

It can hold up to 800 people at a time.

Another interesting story talks about how virtual reality can help with chronic or acute pain. 

Here’s a good quote from a book on “Emotional Agility:” When we don’t go directly to the source of what’s causing an emotion, we miss the ability to really deal with what’s causing our distress, and we lose our ability to be fully engaged with the world around us. Instead of trying to push negative emotions aside, we should accept them as a useful–though sometimes uncomfortable–part of our lives.”

Here’s something else on negative thoughts–specifically low expectations–

A study in the journal “Annals of Oncology” found that women with low expectations during hormonal therapy for breast cancer experienced twice as many side effects from the treatment as those with less negative thoughts. 

Wow.

Another study found that most dogs like getting praise from their owner just as much as they liked getting food, if not more.

Now I’m reading an article on exceptional siblings, all who grew up to do amazing things. Here’s what they all had in common: 

1. Many parents of the super-siblings were born abroad.
2. Educator parents
3. Political engagement of parents–political activism
4. Siblings recall frequent, intense conflict among their brothers and sisters–but little conflict between their parents.
5. Many families have an awareness of mortality, from a severe illness to the death of a family member.
6. Few of the siblings recall growing up with firm rules, and most said they enjoyed more freedom than their peers (and much more than 21st Century kids).

April 22nd, 2018

Sunday

Day 293

12:30pm

Weird. 

Morgan Freeman is doing Mountain Dew commercials. 

I’m still reading my stolen TIME magazine–I’m onto an article about transplants that don’t save lives, but increase the quality of life of the recipients, such as face, hand, and penis transplants.

Interesting. 

They can even do uterus transplants!

I didn’t know that. 

The poor guy who got the first double hand transplant has to live with hands that don’t work.

That’s sad.

Okay, no more TIME.

I haven’t written any of my essays. I guess I should get on that. We got another new woman on Friday. She’s got a story for everything: Raised in foster care, had her face surgically reconstructed after an abusive boyfriend beat her up, two kids she doesn’t have custody of, etc.

I have to shower before visits.

7pm

Visiting with the boys was nice. I miss Tiger terribly. I’m waiting for my sponsor now, reading my AA book:

–We reviewed our fears thoroughly.

–We trust infinite God rather than our finite selves.

–All men of faith have courage.

–We remembered always that our sex powers were God-given and therefore good, neither to be used lightly or selfishly nor to be despised and loathed.

–If we are not sorry, and our conduct continues to harm others, we are quite sure to drink.

8pm

I talked to my sponsor–mostly about my resentments against Big. She asked me if I had ever acted toward somebody the way he is acting toward me, and I reluctantly said yes.

Yes, I have.

I used to be a perfectionist who thought that I was the best at everything, especially my work. This was in my early twenties when I was head tech and personnel manager at an upper scale veterinary hospital. I made employees cry, demanded the best of them, and was relentless about rules and meetings.

This was after Ethan had died and before Kaylee was born, and my work was my life. I ate, slept, and breathed veterinary medicine, and I was goot at it, too.

But I was compassionless.

I was unempathetic.

I was mean.

Not that I meant to be, I just didn’t have enough life experience not to be. I wasn’t working through my grief either–I was hurling myself into work instead. 

It was my whole life.

Much like Mr. Big, I would imagine. Recovery and work, work and recovery. He even watches the cameras here when he’s not here. No relationship, no kids, not even pets. Well, two outdoor cats, but that doesn’t really count. 

Ah, well.

I guess I should feel sorry for him instead of wasting all of my time resenting him. 

He’s filling a void, I guess. 

I wonder what caused his black, empty hole in his soul.