In which I cover the good stuff and the hard stuff in my week, trying for the non-preachy, non-annoying side of ritual and self-reflection.
And you get to join in if you feel like it.
You guys! I am doing a different thing for this week’s Chicken, and that thing is proxying.
I will still chicken my week. But!
Whenever I refer to having just been in the Olympics (!) and then winning all those medals and oh wow best Olympics ever (!), I am secretly talking about something else.
Yes?
So. I just finished teaching Crossing the Line (the password for this: haulaway), and it was a long and amazing eight day voyage that was secretly years and years in far-away lands. So that is the hard and good of this week.
And for our purposes it was the OLYMPICS. And they have just ended, and I am an exhausted, happy, proud, deliriously overjoyed athlete who is recovering because dude, the Olympics.
The hard stuff
OHMYGOD THE OLYMPICS ARE INTENSE.
Wow.
I feel really energized but also really drained. Not negative-drained but still like it is time to just fill fill fill fill.
Also I kind of can’t move.
Cold packs! Or hot packs! Or whatever my trainer knows is best, please.
OHMYGOD THE OLYMPICS ARE OVER.
This is disorienting!
Especially when they are both the ending and the beginning. The culmination of everything you have been caring about in your life, and also the door into the next layer/level/thing of your athletic identity.
It was almost like our athletic training center (yes, this one) suddenly revealed that it had come into being for the purpose of this experience and these Olympics, and that was a crazy thing to discover.
So I am excited about the rest of my athletic career as well as my eventual retirement and transition into a new aspect of this, but I am also dealing with encountering the various and unexpected forms of Oh Everything Is Different Now.
Recovery is challenging…
Like when you just want to get back to your regular training practices but you can’t because now is the time for sports therapy and stuff like that.
Also you are toast. Toast, I say!
Because you were functioning at the PEAK of your peak of peak performance and you were on a mission, and you were fully there.
Nostalgia?
Sad about missing all the incredible and dedicated athletes who I got to spend so much time with and who shared this experience.
My entire body hurts.
Both in an awesome way and also in the way that requires deep attention and immersion in warm water.
Exhausted and dead tired and just wanting someone to deposit me in a bath.
I am flying to Denver on Wednesday for another athletic event.
Ha! I actually am.
And this is wonderful and weird. I need this next week to magically be three weeks so that I can enjoy the confetti parades and still get taken care of and also prepare for the body feats that will happen there.
The good stuff
WOW THE OLYMPICS!
There is no good way to explain how overjoyed and delighted with being alive I am right now.
Or how important and spectacular and meaningful this experience was for me and for my team and my country and my sport and the world.
WOW WE WON THESE CRAZY-AWESOME MEDALS LOOK!
Everything that needed to happen happened in exactly the right way.
My secret hopes, dreams, wishes and desires for this experience all came true.
We reached records that we didn’t know could be reached, and stayed loose, flexible, graceful and strong.
We were unshakeable. There was no shaking.
FLOW-STATE OF HAPPY!
And so much fun.
Really the whole experience was so incredibly great that I can hardly stand it.
Usually the first few days of an athletic event are all about focus and getting into it before it gets good, but this entire experience was brilliant, sparkly, exciting and exactly-what-it-needed-to-be for the full duration of being in it.
I knew I would love it but I had no idea how much. So much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If I had to make a list of accomplishments in my life that I am most proud of and joyful over, this now catapults way to the top.
Being an athlete doing the thing that you have trained for forever is so right.
You can feel all the years of working up to knowing what you know and being to execute things in particular ways.
Every cell and every moment saying: we have brought you here.
I am very much not a “life purpose” sort of person, as you guys know. I believe that what I will do will always change, and that this is a vital part of being me.
But this week felt aligned. This is exactly what I was supposed to be doing this week, in this way, at this time, in this setting, with these people. And it worked in the deepest way possible.
Now I have all these ideas about possibilities!
Like all the rest of the things that can be achieved in this particular athletic field.
And the as-yet-impossible maneuvers and skillful movements that are now in the realm of maybe-someday.
Everything feels right.
It just does.
Look at all this confetti!
Who doesn’t like confetti?
I am filled with excitement, gratitude, anticipation, gleeful rejoicing.
And most of all: LOVE.
These are very nice things to be filled with.
Especially after I hurt my leg at the last Olympics, so I had been feeling a little anxious about that.
But being at these Olympics helped me remember how beautiful and powerful the last ones were, even with the hurt leg. And that was a healing for me-from-then too.
So yeah. Basically this is me blinking in the light, trying to assimilate the impossibly beautiful thing that I have experienced, and finding out what happens next.
And I’m putting this here so that in a few months when I’m tired/cranky and can’t remember why I love the Olympics (especially given just how much insane work I put into getting to them), you can point me here and I will remember.
The fun part of the Chickening happens here.
Tabstravaganza! Or: what’s Havi been up to with all those open Firefox tabs?
Hardly anything because I wasn’t internetting, what with being at the Olympics. But:
- Obviously I love this: Can I stream it? Extra points for the domain name.
- Bonnie pointed me to this outrageous piece of joy (the first two and a half minutes are heaven).
Playing live at the meme beach house — it’s the Fake Band of the Week!
Background? Ez and I make up bands. Stu (retired Bolshevik-fearing voice-to-text software) once translated “people will hate me and be jealous” to “they’ll hang out at my Meme Beach House“. It’s just one guy.
We came up with twenty seven hundred fabulous band names at the Olympics and now I can’t remember any of them. Argh.
So. This week’s band:
There Are Two Of Everything.
They pretend to be a duo, but I know the secret. It’s all done with mirrors and recording studio magic. Because it’s actually just one guy.
Hallo Hallo! I am saying Hallo Hallo. Announcement time.
Picture me wearing that crazy hat…
- Come to the Rally (Rally!) in January! We will play and it will be magical.
- Even though the Olympics aren’t for another four years, another four years is happening in OCTOBER. And you might be there. So take a look at Crossing the Line: the 8 Day Voyage! (password: haulaway)..
- The class in Boulder next week has 24 people and we are full. But you could try getting on a waiting list just in case?
I think that’s everything. If not, I’ll add stuff to the Very Personal Ads over the weekend.
That’s it for me …
And of course you can join in my Friday ritual right here in the comments if you feel like it.
Yes? Anything hard and/or good happen in your week?
And, as always, have a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious day, a restful weekend and a happy week to come. Shabbat shalom.
p.s. It’s okay if it’s not Friday anymore. There’s complete chicken amnesty — join in whenever (or not) and it’s no big deal.
Follow
Hand on heart sigh for the amazingness that was this year’s Olympics.
It’s not even Friday YET, never mind anymore. Not even here on the east coast where it’s always Friday first. But I’m going to Chicken.
This is hard and good. Realizing that what you are sad about is not really that he is with her, or that he isn’t with you but really being sad for who you were for so long when you were with him, that you thought so little of yourself that you just picked the crumbs off the floor and thought that was enough and all you deserved. And you from now knows you deserved better, but you from then spent so long pretending that was ok and denying that you should have better than your heart breaks over and over for her. And you from now is worried that she doesn’t know her worth, that she doesn’t expect enough for herself and that she will settle again for scraps instead of going into the kitchen and creating a wonderful meal. And you from now is embarrassed about what you from then did for so long, clinging to so much nothingness that it’s hard to talk about.
So, lots of crying and opening to this now. And I’m glad this is a Thursday Chicken because I can leave this here and come back tomorrow.
Exactly. That’s exactly how it was.
The Gentleman keeps giving me his ‘I’m reading your aura’ look and then affirming: “Yep, it’s like you’re just internally taller or something. Wow.”
And my massage therapist? Couldn’t believe my back was the same one he’s been working with all these months. He said all the surface tension has released and the deeper knots are finally letting him move them.
Everything is different now. 😀
Yes. I’m suffused with a deep, humming certainty that was unimaginable to pre-Olympic me. Everything is different now. <3
Wow, it’s been forever since I’ve chickened. Or so it seems. On with the chicken!
Hard
Catching up after the hard drive crash. Way better than it could have been, since *almost* everything was backed up. but still hard. Also, having to redo the username and password on the machine, since the tech guys misspelled both.
Needing warmer clothes and realizing I don’t really have any. Combined with the fact that I no longer want to wear jeans.
Realizing that I’m still, deep in a small part of my heart, hoping the ex-boy will come around. I thought that was gone.
Also realizing that the real reason I’ve never owned dining room furniture is that it means I can’t invite people over for meals. Can’t let them that far into my life
Good
Launching Hidden Garden, for real and out of Beta.
Ordering a dining room table, I’m looking forward to seeing how this whole dining room thing pans out.
New idea for new project.
Starting to get into a rhythm with my calendar, being able to use it and such. Making real headway on projects and plans and being able to *see* what I’ve already done, so there’s proof that it’s happening.
Chickening from a hotel room after having moved several times due to…
The Hard:
*see above
* Weird Oct. snow storm that knocked the power out of my house going on 7 days now. No water either. ACKKKKKKKK
* Daughter’s fabulous job has turned nightmare for her. So hard to watch. Was doing fine with all the upheaval until this.
* Poor kitty, alone in the house, even though I’m visiting her.
* Heavy snow on trees that still have all their leaves knocked them down and killed off many branches. Poor trees 🙁
The Good:
* Made it home safely in snowstorm that looked like I might get stranded.
* Generous friends letting us crash with them.
* Big sloppy gorgeous snowflakes.
* Fall colors against snow – spectacular.
* Found hotel with heat and hot water.
* Extension on paper approved.
* Power restored to workshop venue, so workshop will go on as planned – yeah.
Yay for all the Olympians! Yay for all the Olympics organisey people! Hirosighhoorays.
Cluck cluck
Hards
– days of not hoping
– probably anemic by now given Babe is doing great and sucking the life blood out of me. Very limited energies.
– awkwardness around how-the-hell-do-i-explain-to-people-and-bureacracies-this-is-all-very-unusual-and-besides-it’s-an-unpredictable-and-fast-moving-storm-system-that-changes-everyday…. Awkward
– feeling hassled by people who want to love me in a way I don’t want to be loved. I DON’T DO PHONES OKAY? It says nothing about YOU. Don’t take it personally and ask me to make YOU feel better right now when I’m only just holding myself together as it is! Gaaosh!!!!!
– East Africa…. And DRC. Afghanistan. The Amazon basin. Everywhere else that things are fucked up….
The cotton wool of hope and positivity and action that I usually protect myself with wears thin when I need it most. (Anyone want to remind me that millions of people are working RIGHT NOW to right the wrongs of the world in a billion different ways – please feel free to speak up and remind me that I’m not ALONE and that The Revolution lives on even if I can’t do anything right now? Please? Thanks).
Goods
+ hope returning. WITH EVIDENCE OF JUSTIFICATION FOR HOPE!! On paper!! Still playing conservative, hedging my bets, head-over-heart. But hope springs. 🙂
+ Little Lad and Babe are doing great. (Mmmm squirmy).
I am consciously encouraging Little Lad to learn how to navigate his Very Intense Emotional World instead of shutting off the feelings entirely and putting them away over THERE and disconnecting from the Intensity like lots of autism spectrum kids do. (Yay borderline diagnosis – he can kind of do it).
Anyway, one of the things we’re doing is saying “I love you” quite a lot, so he gets really comfortable with it and feels really PERMITTED and SAFE in feeling love. Ummmmm – yes. He’s comfortable. I get told that he loves me about seventeen times in a row about half a dozen times a day. So sweet, and just purely honest about the size/intensity of his feelings and completely guile-less. Supercharged emotions! Spectrum superpower!!
(Back off world, don’t you damage this kid!! Not yet, not yet, not yet, not yet….)
+ living in a country that HAS a bureaucracy to go to for support. So many women don’t.
+ interwebby safe, smart, funny places. And friends. Even the ones that want to RING me for gauze sake…
+ spring keeps springing. Mango smoothies. Etc.
+ hope. It’s my drug.
Bk bk bkaarrk!!
I’m not quite ready to chicken yet, but I really want to leave a huge sighful hug for seagirl (if you want it). What you write sounds way too familiar for comfort, so I’ll go and make me-from-then a hot chocolate now.
Jumping right in this week
*** The Hard ***
– as usual, some anxieties over aaaah-but-if-what-then.
(they were a bit less loud this week)
– acknowledging and then feeling, the lack of structure and the lostness. acknowledging it will hopefully be good eventually – but for now sitting where i am and acknowledging where i am and also – where i am not. it hurts
– in the same line of thought – a fight with a friend over not-much, with a lot behind it. wanting more-better-safer. wanting to be able to give more.
– not knowing the next step.
– trying to get back in touch with an old friend and realizing there is more hurt than i thought.
*** The Good ***
being where i am. taking it slow. taking little steps in and around the blanket fort i built. starting to imagine and remember what kinds of good energies i used to have and may have one day. loading up on stories and movie trailers and ideas. knowing ni have enough, there is enough. being at home. starting to redream. realizing i did close doors and i wanted them closed.
I think this is my first chicken, if I remember correctly, so here it goes:
THE HARD
Being tired most of the time, because this was my first complete week in self-defense class and my body is not used to excercise.
Being absent-minded at work because I have all these ideas I cannot seem to make come true and I’m going bitter from hearing my monsters a little too much…
Missing some friends who are living abroad, specially because they are having a bad time and I cannot do much for them, except ‘listening’ to them (which is more like ‘reading’ as in IM chatting on Skype).
THE GOOD
Doing excercise is feeling good for my body and for me, I am also learning to hear what my body needs when he asks for a break in a specific moment or tells me not to force a muscle beyond a given point.
Feeling tired has given me the chance to make a present for Future Me, like yesterday I went to bed early as a present for Friday Me 🙂
I also finally got around asking for help for this Project and got great willing responses, plus the applications for the Project will open this weekend and I’m already preparing for it.
Yet another good, I went to downtown with my frinds AND my mom to be part of the celebration of the Day of the Dead (it’s a mexican tradition, I’m mexican living in Mexico) and it felt good to include my mom with my friends.
And today there’s this event at my work, which I’m organizing and everything seems ready and steady.
Almost forgot, things with my abroad friends are better, one arrived home last week, another is arriving tomorrow and the other one is still far, but doing good now.
End of Chicken 😛
And just wanted to add some congratulations to all the participants of the Olympics 😀
Happy Chicken everyone!
Hand to heart sigh for everyone who got to go the olympics – y’all give me hope that someday I get to have that amazing experience too! So thank you for that and to Havi especially.
Meanwhile, the Hard:
-Crowds and claustrophobia. Went to SeaWorld last weekend (which will also feature in the Good) and was hoping to do some of their special spooky Halloween attractions in the evening, but Great Caesar’s Ghost there were so many freaking people!!! Not trying that again.
-Monsters yelling at me that there isn’t enough time and money.
-Guilt about not getting more exercise which is also related to…
-Falling into old unhelpful eating patterns (i.e. to see a Frito is to eat a Frito, no exceptions.)
The Good:
-Free day at SeaWorld. The City of San Antonio gave all employees who recently hit a 5, 10, 15 year etc. anniversary a free day at SeaWorld. There were shows with whales and dolphins and acrobats. There were frolicking baby sea lions. I got to feed (and pet!!) dolphins. There was much good here.
-Quiet me time. Deciding that the way to get myself up on cold mornings is to have hot cocoa each morning while I write my Hello Day. Add in a cat in the lap and you have heaven.
-A wonderful new book by my favorite author.
-an insanely generous Christmas gift from my parents and grandparents that has me in a pretty much constant state of Squee.
-finding an avatar for my project.
Wow. That’s a lot of good. Take that fritos!
I’m not sure i’m clever enough to Proxy today, and since i’m low on trust about things that mean other things (given some weirdness at home, nothing to do with y’all), I’ll give it my best shot:
the hard:
-the schedule
-knowing that the schedule and my exhaustion is robbing the kids of some of my help.
-Things That Mean Other Things! And Things that Mean Something Diferent than Yesterday, but will go back again tomorrow!
-I NEVER KNOW WHICH CHUTE THE PELLET IS GOING TO COME OUT OF! The one the thing I do know, i’t;s never the chute I’m standing by!
-Because the person dropping the pellet does it on purpose, dude! The GAME is RIGGED.
-i’m fat and i hate my face this week.
-i should rephrase the above so it doesn’t hurt, but i dont have enough love in me to do that
-my FIL is moving in with us. i feel completely railroaded by this. I am attmeoting to mitigate the damage by putting on my KittyCat Ears of Sovereignty and declaring “I’m choosing to open up because of family and respect for an ancestor.” but yeah, my evangelical promise-keeper FIL is moving in with us, and i Have to hide the mojo.
the good:
-counbting my blessings
-a job
-healthy kids
-enough and enough and enough to share
-my ornage sweater
-burrito filling ready to go
-a fridge full of food
-purging everyone from facebook that puts up unk food content. i should just get off FB altogether but this is a good first step
-being proud of every time I refuse to take the bait
-being proud that in this new routine, I give a lot, I work very long hours, but I am also becoming a much fiercer advocate of gettig what i need. Food, sleep, rest, alone time–I just do it.
-and it gets easier every time
-as tired as I was, I met a writing deadline this week
-for paid work
-and didn;t have to blow it off and then the next day listen to the Monsters rag on me about how could i miss a deadline, i’m a diletannte, i’m not a real writer, told you you would fail, better not even try that next deadline etc etc
-which might be the best thing I’ve done for Slightly Future Me in years
-Pirate consortium has a rendevous in Boulder. Yarr! I will wear my KittyCat Ears and bring my markers and GOOD paper and I will play for 2 hours. This is what’s keeping me going right now.
-friday = easier morning, less work on thursday night, a chance to catch up, mojo, time to Flail, time to go to the creek
-2 netflix movies FTW!
-Druid ritual tomorrow! i think i will go
The hard:
Tired.
Slightly disoriented, albeit in a good way.
An afternoon/evening with the pup as he did his post-anesthesia shuffle.
Did I mention tired?
My lovely new red vest apparently bleeds red when worn and it turned my white shirt somewhat pink. Boo to that, I say.
No progress made on my VPA.
The good:
Rest.
Ideas.
Stories.
Unexpected sunshine.
Salt & Straw ice cream.
The magic of the Olympics.
An old friend is in town for a visit.
The colorful maple trees at the Arboretum.
I have a red vest! It is bright and cheery and I feel like it is going to make winter easier.
Yay for the Olympics (well, the Havi-kind anyway, my opinion on the ‘real’ one is probably unrepeatable here)- there’s something tingly and hopeful about just knowing it exists.
The hard:
Tired. Just switch off.
My body reminding me that I’m tired and need to stop by walking into everything possible. Ouch.
Discovering yet another plan-disrupting set of engineering works on the railway.
Pushing myself to do stuff when I’d promised myself that I would get some time when I didn’t have to do anything. That didn’t work out so well.
Multiple favourite items of clothing disintegrating at the same time. Bah!
The good:
I finished my dissertation! I don’t even need to think about it again until I send it off in January.
Evening in the pub drinking wine with one of my most favourite people.
Being smitten.
Taking some photos I really like this week – feeling like I’m finally doing what I want to photographically.
Realising that something I always took for the unchangeable reality of how things are is, in fact, a monster voice. And there may be others too…
Acknowledging that I’m exhausted and taking some time to retreat rather than forcing myself in to Doing All The Time. (Probably related to the point above.)
I really enjoyed ballet class this week.
A walk along the beach in beautiful sunshine.
Hugs for all the hard, sparkly smiles for all the good, and have gorgeous weekends.
The hard:
* I fainted on Sunday, twice. Came to find out I’m just a fainter, but it took 2 days and 2 different doctors to come to that conclusion. Lots testing was done and lots of worst case scenarios were being thrown around about me. I managed to duck some, but my anxiety also decided to put on a glove and catch a few to save for later. Anxiety is a cruel mistress. Also, anxiety induced nausea is just a vicious cycle.
* Because of my health stuff, I missed Halloween and trick-or-treating with my kids on Monday.
* Frustration from people trying to save themselves a little bit of work but causing about 10 times more by not following directions in the first place. Frustrated because I wasn’t heard or heeded. ARG! This could have been prevented and done with by now!
The good:
* My family and I are healthy.
* I got over the anxiety from my health scare and I’m actually taking better care of myself now. Making notes in my Book of Me to remind myself how to avoid fainting spells and overcome the stuff that comes up afterwards if I do faint.
* My family takes excellent care of me when I need it. I should let them do that more often. It’s good to be loved. 🙂
* I quite possibly have one of the best bosses ever.
* I finally understand something that has been bothering me for a long time. Yay for understanding!
*Today is Pirate Friday. That always makes things better.
Hard:
–This week started well and seems to be ending badly, which has the monsters trying to convince me that the good stuff doesn’t count.
–Blind-sided by emails that somehow had the power to completely derail my mood.
–Exhausted and thirsty at the tail end of last night’s dress rehearsal, so I wasn’t able to get into it as well as I wanted.
–My sweetie is having significant, discouraging, and above all painful dental issues. What a mess. I feel badly for him because he’s hurting, and for me because he’s often irritable. Plus, I feel guilty, as if I should be able to fix things somehow.
Good:
–I had a very strong moment of standing up for myself, calmly and firmly communicating that the way someone was behaving towards me was unacceptable.
–Secret Sabbatical! Oh, it felt good.
–Samhain was lovely in many little ways.
–I found some beautiful new journals at a very reasonable price.
I’m feeling a definite need for conscious entry into this weekend. Hello, weekend! Will you be friends with me? Can you come out and play?
Many Hiro Sighs for those who participated in the most recent Olympics. What an event it must have been!
I’m so proud of myself for getting to the end of this week. Wow.
The Hard: Communication mess-ups everywhere. And I even studiously studied NVC, and tried to practice it, and all my efforts seemed to, like, backfire on me. Oh, and my back is tight and hurting after this week. Direct result of the week, most definitely. Also, so much feels unresolved at the moment, and I’d nowhere near feeling okay with the unresolved-ness.
The Good: I made it to today. Despite things feeling like they were falling apart, I actually was incredibly productive this week. I did things, in the face of much hardness. I didn’t self-destruct. I continued to care for myself, even though this could have been a great excuse to be self-destructive. My therapist is awesome and brought some calm to the middle of my week, which was so welcome. So excited to photograph Amna tomorrow. Excited about many other business-ey things, too. Oh, and I also started writing something that’s just flowing out of me with minimal effort. Wow, that’s kind of a miracle.
Sending blanket forts and pillows and warm socks to everybody who feels like burrowing this weekend!
Crossing the Line! It sounds so amazing. I want to I want to I want to! Don’t know that I can afford it in 2012 because of a different possibility for adventure that might open up. But I want to! (That darn reality thing! Budgets! Time constraints!)
So much hard for some of you — sending support and hugs to all of you, especially Seagirl and Leni. Receive them in the form that will most nourish you.
The Hard:
That darn reality thing
Pain
Depletion
Committed to doing something with not much time to do it in, and other people involved are not paying attention to what they were told and are squabbling.
Knowing some things I want in my life and not knowing how I can have them and still be safe and supported and sovereign.
The Good:
Spending a rainy morning at the bookstore café, reading poetry and a rainy afternoon at home, snuggled on the couch with a good book.
The FS archives. Because things speak to me in new ways according to what I need. So helpful.
My coach and my cleaning service and my massage therapist.
Working well on a couple of projects.
Starting class with a new student.
Kylie, I accept the blanket fort, pillows, and warm socks, with thanks.
Also! Claire P: millions of people ARE working RIGHT NOW to right the wrongs of the world, you are NOT ALONE, and the Revolution Lives On. In your statements about the good, you showed that you know this, but if you want an external reminder, here’s one.
Cheers Chickeneers!
The Hard:
– the Way Too Full Schedule this week: extras like a program review (only happens every 7 years), a Federal Reserve dinner, and midterm grading
– my husband commandeered my pillow because he couldn’t sleep on his … I thought I was sleeping fine on his but I now have a pain in my neck and am extra schleeepy
– snow slowing my commute
The Good:
– finding brief moments of pause even in the busyness
– truly perfect pieces in my wardrobe … having just the right thing to wear to unexpected occasions/events (to the Katie Of The Past, nice work!)
– interesting meeting with a new research collaborator … who would have thought as an economist I’d be conducting an experiment with a linguist!?!
Havi! I am SO happy for you! And I want to say ‘proud of you’ except that doesn’t seem quite right given that you’re the teacher and I’m the student – just assume that I’m glowing with pride for you in the most non-patronising, admiring way possible 🙂 xxx
This week has been basically:
The hard:
Wordbirds! Oh my! Writing 2-3 stories a day while having a job and an epic procrastination problem is HARD! Especially given that I’m determined to at least try to get enough sleep while doing this…
The good:
WORDBIRDS. I’m doing it! I’m! Actually! Doing! It! And someone has sponsored me already! And it turns out that spending hours every day on my thing makes other things strangely easier to face, not harder. This is an important revelation for me.
And! And! I had my first ever writer’s nightmare! And yes, I am listing that under ‘the good’ because it makes me feel like a writer…
Let’s play chicken!
The Good:
Good food, ice cream, Halloween, television.
training
Art
family
home
The Bad:
unsolicited advice from idiots.
The Ugly:
Mostly the unsolicited advice and judgment of idiots.
I now feel ready to truly chicken!
@Miss P, thank you. I’m glad (not glad?) it resonated with you.
The Hard:
A friend who felt left out and then get mad instead of curious and then said “I understand, you both are single and on the prowl.” Yes, she said prowl. Which is not what I am on. I know it was about her feeling left out. Then the other friend and I were able to joke about prowling, complete with “cat hands.” Like jazz hands but better.
A sister who is overwhelmed.
The Good:
Shake Your Soul YogaDance last night!! Oh, if you have the chance to do this, do this! So much goodness and fun and Michael Jackson and Maniac and sacred chants and sweat!
The post yoga dance beer(s). One of the better beers. But sad the kitchen was closed, we were so hungry.
Kirtan in 2 weeks! Joy!
I love that your week of Crossing the Line was the Olympics for you and that it went great. I am not much of a sports person, but when the Olympics are on, I’m not doing much else but watching as much of it as I can.
I think the hard this week for me was not finding any balance between creating new art for my shop and promoting existing work. I got quite a bit done but none of it felt new and that was disappointing.
The good: warmed up enough a couple of days for a nice albeit brisk walk in the sun.
Also, homemade cookies. And we didn’t lose power during the blizzard, which is huge. Can’t believe a few hundred thousand people still don’t have power.
Is it finally time to Chicken today? I’ve found it hard to write things up on the Internet lately, so my journal gets more airtime instead. But I miss writing here.
The Hard:
– going out with a group of people where everybody has known each other for a couple months, and I’m the “newcomer”. Not only is it awkward, but it sets off so many of my inner alarm bells that I just DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO. Too much to deal with all at once. I’ve tried talking about it with Me Who Hates Socializing, and she just held out a huge Shield of Pain. Then we got rid of the shield and it was just a huge amount of Pain. (Hugs, poor sweetie me.) I would like to understand where it comes from but we are just not there yet, apparently.
– my beautiful new leather bag, that I bought especially as a lovely thing for myself because the leather was so soft and supple, now has a huge beer stain on it (from sitting on the ground in an open barbecue place and a beer can getting overturned nearby). I feel heartbroken and intensely angry in turns about this. Also my monsters are having a field day with thoughts like “you shouldn’t have taken it there in the first place”, “you could have done this, this and this to protect it”, and “you should take better care of your things”. All of which in Not Useful in the slightest, now that the damage is done.
– feeling jealous and paranoid about my roommate. I feel like she likes other people better than me, and then goes out with them without inviting me. Which may all very well be true to a point — I mean, she doesn’t have to ask me along every time she goes out — but it doesn’t have to be because she secretly hates me. I can’t fathom why I feel this way.
– not understanding why I feel what I feel about many things. But this is a common occurrence, not just this week.
– things far from being resolved work-wise and most of my patterns are obscure as ever. Being afraid that the Shiva Nata dvd won’t help and I will be stuck here forever. Actually, what bothers me
The Good:
– going to an outdoor barbecue on the beach in November, because this is Hong Kong weather. So lovely (and tasty!). All the fire and embers reminding me of fire rituals in the past. Being able to enjoy the heat, smoke and sparks while everyone else complained about them, because of memories from those rituals.
– every time I go out and do something, even if it’s buying groceries, I feel proud of myself, because I’m doing it in a foreign place. Extra extra zillion billion sparklepoints if I’m going out with my new “friends”, because it scares me so very very much. (PS: they’re not bad people! Please don’t think that!)
– the stain on my purse is getting lighter as it dries, and I still hope that someone who knows how to treat leather will get it back to being soft in the stain area, too. Maybe it will just end up looking “distressed” and pretty. Hope hope hope!
Love to all the commenters, and thanks to Havi <3
Hard Stuff
-still dealing with the impact of PTSD stuff
-growing unsure about whether Facebook continues to be healthy for me
-continuing to struggle with a client, leading me to have to consider whether I need to make the decision to end that business relationship
-feeling overwhelmingly lonely this week
-continual anxiety about getting my health care needs met
-continually feeling like “what I’m doing isn’t good enough” and/or “I’m not doing enough of the good stuff even if I am doing it a little bit”
-the monster that tells me it really, really matters if certain people I hardly even know dislike me, because (in the monster’s viewpoint) “nobody should EVER dislike [me] and if they do [I] must be doing something WRONG”.
-releasing the idea of trying to do NaNoWriMo this year
-saying goodbye to October, my favorite month
-feeling lost without a non-work-related writing project now that VeganMoFo is over
Good Stuff
-I think I went on a date? Whatever it was, it was fun and I had a nice time.
-my mom came to visit and we had a good time together, baking cookies and sharing meals and watching The Sing-Off all night long
-really good rehearsal this week
-I brought cookies to rehearsal and they were way appreciated!
-both the classes I’m taking to kickstart my business are going well
-realizing that there are numbers that could work for me to have a floatable business
-finished reading the Autobiography of Malcolm X and Moon Over Manifest in time to return both to the library on their due date
-did a Tarot reading for myself
-met all my deadlines this week
-making some new blogfriends
-obsessively watching/listening to every YouTube video of Pentatonix from the Sing-Off and trying to figure out how they could possibly be so mindblowingly awesome
-I think my ankle is starting to get better! I’ve been able to walk on it more, with less pain, for the first time in ages!
-it stopped snowing and got sunny again
-I finished VeganMoFo! I successfully accomplished my goal of posting every day for the whole month, and commenting on 3-5 other people’s blogs every day as well.
Fake Band of the Week
This week’s fake band is: The Soap Notes! They are a barbershop quartet, but they perform outside spas and massage clinics instead of barbershops. Their sweet sounds will rub you the right way!
For non-medical/massage people: SOAP notes are the notes your massage therapist or health care provider is supposed to keep about you, which describe your Subjective experience, their Objective observations, their Assessment of your condition, and the Plan for how to address it.)
Hmm. Chicken! On Sunday, oopsie.
This week the hard: my thumbs hurt! And for some reason I don’t understand I failed to make the appropriate appointments to have them cared for.
And confusion over Where and What Next.
This week the good: clients, yay! And straightening out some awkwardness and uncertainty and suchlike. And getting a little more clarity on some ends of the next steps. And sun!
Yay. I’m sure there were other things, too.
and now, the resting time.