things
Starting a place to collect my thoughts. Chart my mood, thoughts, activities, ups n downs, progress.
from the bottom up.
to do:
1. wash blender, make a smoothie with last of fruit before it goes bad.
2. check load. Put away whites that have been sitting for days.
3. Make sure babies have food, water
4. grab an empty box, make emergency staples kit
5. put away pantry items
6. H has been ill: throw away trash, clean nightstand, spray mattress with sanitizer. Sanitize nightstand.
Pie is planning a kitty revolt. Can hear him kicking off already. He's been fed, has water. He's just gonna have to calm himself a minute Bc I'm self/caring with this smoothie. Altho I may have to eat something else as well.
laundry load #2. Feeling weak. Hope this smoothie does the trick.
almost forgot I have my phone appt today. Prob only 1/2 hour. For the best Bc I'm not thinking it's gonna work with this counselor anyway. But am hesitant to have no one. Unsure. God, please help me to listen today, see how it goes, talk less and have an open mind. Will discuss seeing specialist with her.
got to get more energy and push thru these tasks.
my stomach is just ill. I do feel like I'm pushing myself. It's just that so little gets done it makes me feel bad. Don't have the energy to get this all worded correctly.
am on load #3. Folded but haven't put anything away yet. Sanitized mattress which I'm now laying on without sheets Bc I'm planning on maybe spraying it again plus letting it air. I did keep my counseling phone call and took a shower. Notfing great physically between low energy, stomach ache, anxiousness and I forget.
im trying. It's just so little and not enough. But if I keep pushing maybe something will change. Right now, a brief rest.
But not letting myself off the hook: when I rise I'll put away the whites and work on nightstand. Gotta keep pushing to see progress. And hopefully my stomach will settle. Whatever's wrong with it.
counseling was good. Might not give up on it just yet after all. Just wish these nerves would quit. It's hard to feel good this way.
songs get stuck in my mind. current: https://youtu.be/52ph3VPf-I8
a song or two then I'll get up, try again.
time to get up. Laundry, chores. https://youtu.be/MX6MvV8cbh8
May I ask you something?
today's entry: the sheltering sky
a sparrow just rose on the wind and took a dive. The wind is picking up.
woke with "so lonely" in my head. has moved to "message in a bottle". Which I will listen to while I gather my thoughts.
as always the plains sky rolls above. with it always the wind. I like a good storm. As long as shelter remains.
https://youtu.be/MbXWrmQW-OE
things are beginning to blow away. I remain. Just small things, extra. I cannot be moved by the bench that blows over or the voice of the sky rolling above. Just a lil longer outside before or until I can no longer.
Also, it's only me that I'm hoping finds my own message
ok. time to consider doing things. my thoughts are not gathered today or right now. more laundry is an easy enough start.
later I should take a walk. no need to remain tethered so closely to the house. maybe I should go now before the heat of the day. I feel a desire to feel the wind, be part of this world, acknowledge the ground below me, cast my thoughts up and out. They cannot form anyway. I will rid myself of them before they do. Express and elicit my own emotion and let go of attachment to these undeveloped things. No need to explore them - cast them to the wind and let them develop in their own autonomy, free of me and my restraints, my judgements. A premature pushing from the nest. Let go of me and be gone. But also I wish you peace - I know that while not yet ready to face the world that they can make it on their own. So I'll respect and enforce their separation from me. Also, the sun beats down. Better go now.
a song for our travels as I release you. https://youtu.be/MpN1j8R5lZ8
five believers. I got my black dog barking. Sad that I can't access the version I once knew. have it on maimed cd, somewhere. these phones and their limitations. Dylan held a grudge it's a shame Bc I'd like to hear it now in the way that I remember it.
Just got back from my walk. Day one. Not bad for me. Black dog enjoyed it. I forgot to think about much of anything but the most important part was getting the exercise in no matter how little the attempt.
H called. He's picking me up. We're driving to the city. He, me and black dog. I have to wear a bandana Bc the wind is strong. We're like something out of mad max or a band of Gypsies. The truck, or as I call it - tank, has no ac so windows must be kept down even at 80 or 90 mph. We rock like a ship on the sea. The shocks are bad. Fighting the wind is a real thing out here. And you can't hear anything above it.
I'm glad to have a small break from my hermitage and it's a type of exposure therapy just as the walk up the road was too.
any possibility where there might be people is exposure. So it'll be enough just to wait in the truck.
I was supposed to go alone. He tried to prepare me for going alone last night and this morning and I said I would. But I'm really glad I don't have to. I'm figuring either something came up and he needs to be there personally to make sure he gets the right things or he figured I wouldn't do it alone. I may ask him, I'm not sure. Not sure I want to know if he was just afraid it would be another time of me letting him down. The guilt never leaves,never eases. Maybe if I do better it will ease. I'm trying. It's not enough. I hope he can forgive. And for my part, I'll try to leave him alone, ease his way.
when he had to see attorney driving back we could hear the radio a bit. The wind wasn't quite as bad that day or the reception was coming in just right. This old truck picks up the rare station. Fitting. It's like we're in our own movie, this kinda hard scrabble life. It's not that bad and it's not that hardscrabble. But rambling down the road with no ac in sweltering heat.. I can say we were the only ones with our windows down : ). Only way to be closer to outdoors would be a motorcycle I suppose and no helmet ha.
but this song came on neither of us had heard and a burden had been lifted as we had just received news that we had a postponement in trial.
it's a simple song and I guess you had to be there but it was so nice to hear .. I guess anything would've sounded like gold but I think I'll remember that drive back home and that moment in the wind when we held hands while driving in the heat and the wind and felt a moment of joy and declared we were unafraid.
https://youtu.be/FwinvCBqkOg
dedicated to my beloved and all his hard work and all he's overcome and to the hard times that remain and are to come and to honor the hope and the trying for he is always working. And I love him and his goodness and I hope that I can learn to foster and nurture the hope in him better and in myself
Bandana time. We cast our ship upon the sea.
It's not night but I just keep pushing repeat on his songs https://youtu.be/fht3de2oL_M
the video is a lil ridiculous but still something that resonates if you ever lived here.. it's like you think you see your town for a second. And who doesn't remember Kennedy and Jackie o and we've all been waiting for. Time to come wishing it would hurry up.
He's back to work. I'm back at home. Just riding exhausted me. And no wonder he's exhausted every day. Just the plain barrage of the elements and the near constant vigilance to keep the tank ship on the road wears on one. It is a bit of an unruly beast and we're like some renegade outcasts just trying to stay afloat in that thing.
in a bit I must muster some energy. I can't let him down. I can't keep being useless. Right now my left eye hurts and my vision is even worse in it than normal. Maybe just from being out in the elements. Why am I such a loser? He'd work thru it. Knew a girl who started having vision problems back in school. Turned out to be cancer. Took her eye and took her life before she could even become much more than a child. She was a sad lost soul. Surely this tho is sinus or headache.
and it shouldn't be a valid excuse to not do my part. but when looking for excuses any excuse will do. And that's a sad truth about me. That's part of my ugliness. That a man can break his back to keep a roof over our heads and that I'll let him without even lifting a finger of my own. These things need to be faced. They aren't pretty but they are the truth.
he showed me where he totaled my truck about last month or so. I knew the tow truck guy said his angels had worked overtime but seeing it for myself I believe even more that he was very fortunate. He narrowly escaped maybe going off an overpass onto the street below? Altho I think it's difficult for that to happen in reality with the barriers in place. Thank god he was uninjured and no other vehicle involved.
thank you, God, for keeping him safe. Help me to be worthy of him.
slept rest of day. didn't mean to. woke to H's hand on my forehead checking for fever just now. He's gone again briefly to check on one of our elderly who needs a favor. Aging isn't for the faint of heart. I know it hurts his friend to have to ask someone to do what he once could do himself. Also, he's just out of hospital for pneumonia and H is still not fully over the flu himself. My mom keeps talking about these being unprecedented times. It's true that things have changed a bit since virus. But I also believe there is nothing new under the sun. There is no situation, event, or calamity that could befall us that is not common to man maybe.
altho I played charley Crockett on loop for a few hours today my leitmotif is still police's so lonely. Tomorrow or the next day will bring a new theme - that is also not new under the sun
why is it that attending a discussion on here, walking up the road, riding along with H takes all my energy for a day? What's wrong with me that I lack human decency?
counselor and I discussed how I should listen to my instincts a bit. Or is that just an excuse. "when you look into my eyes is it me or just a brilliant disguise?" but it's drowned out by so lonely like a cacophony in my mind that won't let me think and also keeps me safe and distracts and deflects
but to the specialist I must still try to go. someday. I need to make that call. Counselor agrees with hub and with me that I should get my hormones checked. I suspect they've been off kilter from the start. I'd say since teens bit there isn't a time I didn't know in my gut that something was wrong with me. But as a child I was able to contend with it and I had the stability of connection with God and prayer life. Once I hit teens there was no going back. I became so resolute in my rebellion and fostered and fed the instability in my mind. Was there another way? Was it inevitable? Or was it all a damn raw deal where I was bound to fall and fail? I know I'm to blame for failing. Still wish I could've mustered the strength to see a doctor back then. In my weakness I told no one. Advocacy begins inside one's self if no one else knows what's going on. I should've been smarter than I was. I should've realized it was up to me.
now, all this time later - decades, have I still not learned I must advocate for myself? Will I still let the voices win that tamp down my resolve, that beat my reasonings into ramblings and dismissals? It's a misuse. They were never meant to be reforged into such maladaptive forms. God, help me to stand, help me to find my way.. what way do you want for me? I'm asking you now again altho it's feeble and selfish and half-hearted. I know You understand.
perhaps another small walk up the road is called for. waiting on the Lord. to come and take this selfish self away from me, to give me strength to carry on. Also waiting on the sun to burn and purify, burn away the top layer of these impurities, take them from me. These insects buzz in the heat of late summer - appropriate music for the musings of this lost and agitated, base, useless soul. I know they wouldn't irritate if my minds set was different and if I could understand more. I know it's the beauty of nature and not a prop to be seen as only a tool, a musical backdrop, to my disturbedness. They are not objects for me to objectify them. They are not here simply to bear witness of me. They are here for their own good reasons and for God's good pleasure.
God's good pleasure... I better not start on that topic with malice in my mind/heart. Please forgive me, God.
the ants sting me and why should they not?
I'm weak and selfish and I cause my own undoing. Instead of walking in the heat to purify I only sit in the sun with this cacaphony of sound. ants have always been with me but do I look to the ant, o my sluggard soul? I do not. So I reap what I sow.
H got back home and looked at me curiously sitting out in the sun. I opened the door and gave him passage to the house. Another two rounds of song and came in. Told him I was thinking of taking a walk in the heat and let the sun burn the insanity from my mind. "Yeah, no shit" he agreed. It's hot.
it's folly. all my wretched soul desires is folly.
I kissed his cheek and put my hand on his back, could feel the sweat. In his infinite small and undeserving kindnesses to me, he brought us a bag of ice and ice cream.
my ungratefullness for this good life blessed with seems to know no bounds. All these words folly too? I'm hoping maybe in the end they will lead to self-examination and not be in vain. But such a broken record I am so who knows?
not my daddy but yours. I still bear witness. You may not sing your song but I hear it
(plus, it's just damn fine music. think my soul gonna do something tonite)
I had these songs from maybe two years before but as situations occur and consequences loom they build speed like a rock rolling downhill, like premonitions of things to come.
Luckily my mother is there to speak goodness back into my life and to help me remember my ancestors and their goodness and to draw me back to the goodness even if only in part. She tries to draw me back to God, to prepare for that day of reckoning and to make better of this life. Hasn't worked yet, I won't let it. There's still hope tho despite all our wrongdoings maybe.
10 o'clock at night and I've finally calmed down. Some days are just like this I guess. Still a far cry better from how I once was long ago. I'd be twisted off in the night somewhere. Long ago but o how it stays and revisits sometimes.
think I'll try for some chicken noodle soup, a shower and some rest. Try again tomorrow to do better with chores. Today all I could do was drown my thoughts and my soul in music. I wish I would let go of the looking back and look instead to the future and to these things here now that need tending to. I'm ever one to shirk responsibility. What is it I'm avoiding so badly? The banality of it all? The uncertainty? Hard to believe that they could exist at the same time but somehow they seem to. Wouldn't think pending senses of doom (the uncertainty) would be so banal. Maybe it's Bc it's never quite true in my mind. Or maybe it's just the waiting. It seems I dishonor the times: past, present and future.
once these words are spent will I ever read them again? I put them here while generally looking back at the part and yet I don't seem to reflect much more on them. Maybe that's there purpose tho. Just to get out of my head. At least for now, always at least for now. Getting by, thru another day. But I never seem to be learning or applying myself. Still, I don't disdain my feeble efforts to keep my own wolves at bay. I do what I do for a reason. Even if not a good one. Maybe the lesser of a few evils? I guess that's enough some days but I do need to stop living here.
but I didn't argue once with H today - earbuds in. I didn't help him either. I did no harm; I did no good. My head still hurts but less. And maybe the insects have stopped their incessant buzzing by now. Will check after shower.
I'm procrastinating, what's new? Anyway, the ants have gone to bed and the blister bugs have come out. Even the cicadas or whatever was buzzing all day have quieted down and it's just grasshoppers or something chirp/buzzing amicably.
One more song like one more cup of coffee for the road.. at least it's not hot in here 😀.
https://youtu.be/Om_sdJqvUGo
Actually today wasn't near as hot as it could've been. Maybe tomorrow I'll chore better and then at night we can watch Lost in Space and have some of that caramel ice cream H bought today. I never had soup. Ate dry plain Chex from the box and a banana instead.
another day done, thank you God for your mercies and for the coolness and calm of night and the hope of tomorrow.
note for tomorrow: trying to accept the duplicity in our nature
The integrity of the upright guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity.
— Proverbs 11:3 (New International Version)
also look into that which I would do I do not do. altho not certain it applies as I tend to do what I please. even my poorer motives serve a purpose. did he maybe get that part wrong? absolution excuse
It's good to see the wellness test I think. I've kept the results of my last three tests. And altho the explanations are not very elaborative, it does give me some idea of how I'm doing over time.
based on the last three results I'd say that altho I'm just as impacted by situation as before, I am learning to cope. The numbers are still too high for my liking on depression and anxiety but not so high that I shouldn't be pushing myself to make progress. At least these are my guesses.
I've known that my basic self care and basic care of others are both lacking. I often feel this vague sense of unproductive guilt regarding my lack of care for others (specifically H and my mom and occasionally my sister) but it also comes with this thought "what can I do about it anyway?" I do not feel responsible for them.
but I am responsible for me. hmfda not on purpose bisbmcwm. I'm sitting here using an exacto knife to make a hole in an old pair of capris so that I can put this makeshift jethro belt thru to hold them up. It is true that I go without. No one makes me. But I go without in clothing or make do with little in bathroom products, household cleaning products and I make questionable food choices. I'll eat food on the verge of spoiling meat, produce or dairy. My desire to not waste maybe? The guilt I feel over asking for anything from a spouse who already works too hard while I do nothing? No one asks me to make do in this way. I do it myself Bc it's either penance of some or practical or maybe just a touch of not feeling adequate. I guess I'd stop the nonsense maybe if I'd just be more productive. I wish I could find a way to still honor my desires to wear it out, use it up, make do, without it being impractical or a hindrance. Maybe I can find the balance. For some reason I think that better self care is the step I'm on to finding this balance.
as it is, I will not walk down the road in my jethro pants. So will have to rewash load that soured in the washer yesterday. I meant to put it in dryer before we left to city. When I got back, in alll those hours time, seems I just couldn't be bothered.
some progress is being made tho. the wellness test, kitties, book, counseling, communication, slight return to prayer, accountability, slight lessening of time in group chats.
