Selfie day

So I looked back at my post history the other day and found this post  proclaiming that May 30th would be my main self portrait  day. So I thought I'd make good on that promise 4 years on.  Got my lights out and everything!

So much has changed in the intervening time it's quite scary. Scary how much greyer I've become, how much more ... uh ... walking stick-y I've become, how much weight I've put on. Scarier still is that I've been on this site over 5 years and still not flaming hit a major milestone! 

Life happens to us all I guess. Time for me to start happening to life again  ;)

I couldn't decide between colour and mono, so here... have both. :) 

The taper is going well. I dropped down a dose again on Saturday which means I've hit the halfway dose. I've reduced the amount of the stuff swirling around my body by half and I feel about twice as sharp, and far more willing to give something a go.

I don't think I'd have even contemplated doing that selfie at the beginning of this process. In fact I know I wouldn't have. It's hard work doing that stuff sometimes, and even the idea generating process would have been a hurdle too far.

It's not all great though. I've got more pain than I had last week, and I'm a fair bit more tired too. Re-connecting with the world is difficult at the best of times, but right now it sometimes seems like I chose exactly the wrong time. So many awful things and I no longer have the luxury of feeling so detached. I'm having to rebuild my emotional armour to a certain extent, and use that raw feeling of being exposed as a driver to make work.

One pleasant surprise though, is how much more I'm loving music. Music was always important to me, always a source of bliss. That was something that the pregabalin took away from me. I've derived very little pleasure from my music collection over the last couple of years. Now, though, that seems to be returning with a vengeance. Spotify is getting a proper workout, and I've even bought a couple of CDs. Never thought I'd do that again, but I love the music so much that I want to support the artists more than a simple spotify sub can do.

Anyway - enough blathering. If you've not seen these taper diaries before, just click the #pxctaper tag below and start at the picture of the hand with the pill in it,