Beginning Again

[OceanSpray]

Last night was hard. I broke down pretty hard but that’s more progress I guess. It felt weird. Not as horrible as before but certainly not great.

But it sent me down a rabbit hole on YouTube. As an author, I scour YouTube for all the writing education I can get but I missed a whole niche of pure storytelling knowledge.

Musicians/coaches of different types analyzing legendary music. It’s an absolute treasure trove of storytelling and invoking emotion and poetry. I’m obsessed.

 

[OceanSpray]

Feeling a little weird. It’s not something I didn’t know cognitively but I never paired it with real introspection.

I love art. In all its forms, writing, painting, photography, everything.

I want to be great at it. I feel like that’s an of course. But no, maybe it’s narcissistic or whatever but I want to be great. I want to be someone that makes people feel. I want to be remembered. I want to create something that really means something.

The problem is that the best art ever created, comes from pain. Usually the very height of the artists pain.

I have no shortage of that. Right now.

But when I really think about it, the more I heal in therapy, am I giving that up? Will I lose the ability to really relate? Will I forget how this feels? Really feels? Or will I only be able to create a caricature of distant, healed memories.

 

[OceanSpray]

I feel like I’ve either started this before or thought about it but never really followed through. But I have a hard time with letting myself be tired, or letting myself recognize that I had a busy day and so it’s okay to be tired or stressed. I forget my own mental issues and I forget how much of an impact that has on a person and then I beat myself up for what I didn’t get around to. I’ve noticed others in the forum do something similar and I want to see if it helps a little.

So today I woke up at 6 so I could get to the laundromat by 630.

Roommate 1 was home so didn’t have to feed the four legged fiends. Just washed, dried, and folded two loads of clothes this time.

Roommate 2 didn’t set out their laundry last night so that reduced a load for me.

I came home and mowed a little bit. It’s a push mower and the grass was still kind of damp so that was not all that fun. I’m trying to shift mowing to be something fun in my brain, right now it’s just tolerable. It helped that while I did that I listened to a video on the whole P Diddy/Big/Tupac stuff.

Ate breakfast that Roommate 1 made.

I was feeling off so I laid down for a nap. Ended up waking up kind of sick a couple of hours later. But we needed groceries so off to the store we went.

Put groceries away and spent time with R1 watching a couple of their favorite shows. Right now they are really into Farmer Wants a Wife (it’s funny enough) and Masked Singer (). But hey quality time right.

Started on dinner. I ended up making 24 French bread pizzas to have for dinner and shove the rest in the freezer.

Tried a horned melon. It was disgusting.
Tried seaweed chip things. They were worse than the melon lol.

We suck at efficiency so realized we forgot some stuff at the store so after cleaning up from dinner I headed back to the store and grabbed what we needed. Stopped at the gas station on the way back home because I forgot to grab the cold soda I wanted to treat myself to.

Now I’m sitting in the parking lot of the gas station taking my sweet time because I don’t really want to go home. But I’m also really tired. But why? Like I freaking napped all day and watched TV. I have zero reason to be tired and yet I feel exhausted. All I can think of is that being around R1 in particular, I have to be *on*. I’m a different person around people than when I’m by myself and I crave that alone time.

Unfortunately between this economy and my brain, this is what I’ve got. There won’t be extensive alone time.

It’s only 7:15 so I’ll update if I manage to do anything else today. I really need to do dishes but I’m hoping one of the R’s will self motivate a bit.

 

[OceanSpray]

Refilled all the animal food things including the birdfeeders. It’s stuffy and gross out tonight, I was going to water the plants but I think I’m going to do it in the morning. Hopefully I’ll remember.

 

[OceanSpray]

If today were my ideal day, what would it have looked like?

I would have been able to sleep in a little bit because I would have had everything needed for laundry right here at home.

Breakfast would have gone about the same.

Someone else would have done the bulk of the mowing so that I could just mess around with the flowers, perhaps watered them first thing this morning.

I would have spent some quality time on my writing.

I would not have napped because I would have plenty of energy for the day. Definitely would not have been sick.

Would maybe still have grocery shopped but would have preferred to be far more efficient and not had to go twice.

Would have decompressed by doing some painting or drawing.

I still would have tried the new foods, and I still would have made the pizzas.

I still would have refilled all animal stuff. But I would have been content, even if not excited, to come back home.

I would feel rested and ready for the week.

 

[OceanSpray]

Comparing the two, they aren’t all that different. So what *could* I have done differently today to bring it closer?

Laundry: there’s not exactly anything I could have done directly today. It’s a matter of working and saving money which is more relevant during the week.

Yard work: I’m not really sure how to change this. I’ve tried communicating with both R’s that I need help in this area, that I’m feeling overwhelmed, but goes in one ear and out the other.

Napping vs. quality time with writing and art: I don’t know. I feel so rundown and I know that engaging in art helps energize me and yet it’s so hard to get myself started. As far as writing, it is particularly hard to focus when other people are home and bothering me. I think it’s also a struggle because sometimes people say it feels like I’m avoiding them or avoiding being social if I “hide” in my room. Which makes me feel guilty, rude, and selfish. Everytime I sit down to do the things I want, it’s out of an almost rebelliousness because I feel so guilty because there’s so many other things I *should* be doing.

 

[OceanSpray]

I visited with mom for a couple of hours this morning and had every intention of doing *something* today.

Completely failed. But hey it’s a holiday so doesn’t count right?

 

[OceanSpray]

I did a little bit of cleaning but struggled to get out of my head long enough to do much else. There’s a lot that’s floating around in my brain that I don’t know how to articulate yet.

And then we had a tornado go right by so that was an eventful evening and my body is fully drained after that intense adrenaline spike. Everything is fine, no house damage, I won’t know about yard until morning when I can see better. Huge hail and major winds though that had me and the animals huddled together terrified and refreshing the radar over and over.

 

[OceanSpray]

There was only a little damage, nothing major so that is good. My anxiety can’t handle living here.

Decided on a church I’m going to try out tomorrow night, we’ll see how it goes.

Cleaned a bit this morning after taking niece to school, then worked and did some book brainstorming. Nothing too eventful and nowhere near where I want to be as far as being a productive human. But f_ck I’m tired.

 

[OceanSpray]

Today was the most intense day in a very long time.

I didn’t work, just took my niece to school, fed the beasts, and then napped for a bit. Sometimes I try to get my thoughts together before therapy but sometimes I just don’t have it in me to function.

Therapy went longer than normal and I’m grateful she’s been allowing this extra time sometimes. I think I’m going to try to get it set up to every two weeks but have those be two hour sessions.

We started off about my feelings about the Nickelodeon documentary and how it relates to me. I was never a celebrity, nothing like that. More of abused for a long time right under everyone’s noses and then I went “crazy” and everyone passed judgement on that not understanding or even trying to understand why I was hurting so bad. And now truth is trickling out and everyone is sitting back flabbergasting asking how could that happen, how did no one notice?

And I feel like that’s all too little too late.

So we dove in and hit some really really hard things.

And then I got brave and came to a Wednesday night sermon at a local church. It’s not one of the original two I was considering. In fact it’s pretty much the polar opposite. I don’t know yet how I feel about that. I felt very torn and not uncomfortable but not completely comfortable either. Everyone was extremely friendly, almost too much so and I don’t know how I feel about that either. The whole building and system and everything was just so very different from what I’m used to.

My big drawback is they touched on a couple of topics, making their stance clear, that are pretty opposite of my stance. I do think I want to try again next week, but I need to think on what I’m okay with supporting, even if only by showing up.

 

[OceanSpray]

Thursdays doings: worked a full day and then had a miniature road trip through non stop construction. I swear just going from one side of the city to another is an actual road trip now. The workday went fine, just long.

Today: it’s been a long day, chauffeuring people, getting the car inspected and then registered, somehow ended up in the grocery store twice just with different people, watched one family member completely shut down another family member in the crappiest way, and went to the local fair with my brother, niece, and her best friend.

 

[OceanSpray]

Today has been busy putting together a new garden area, spending a couple hours at the laundromat, reading a bit, and going to dinner. I’m tired