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.
Yet again I have absolutely no idea how it is Friday, and actually I feel a little bit disoriented by how not-Friday everything feels.
But here we are. Let’s peek.
The hard stuff
And the stupid part is that I didn’t even have the flu.
You know that thing that happens after you have the flu and you’re recovering, and everything sucks?
Because: you are tired. And cranky. And everything takes longer and feels heavier. Also things you normally like weigh you down.
And things you normally don’t mind are not fun.
This week felt exactly like that, except I didn’t have the flu so I wasn’t recovering from it.
It wasn’t like being depressed at all, it was EXACTLY like recovering from flu.
Ugh. Labor day.
It just felt like a sick day.
Stayed in bed.
I like this but I kind of wish that I didn’t.
Found out that someone I like used to skateboard, you guys!
Skateboarding is some serious Havi Catnip. I may like this person a little bit too much right now. I wish I did not have this piece of information!
Trying not to think about it. Lalalalalalala pancakes. As Lisa would say.
Stood up at three different appointments.
I have nothing to say about this.
Unbelievably unproductive.
May have reached new levels of not getting stuff done.
That’s what happens when you take a break from shiva nata.
And also when you have imaginary-flu that you are recovering from.
And also when you need a vacation.
Not taking iron.
This is not good.
Worried about something and can’t do anything about it.
But still worrying.
I am so upset about this!
My favorite place in town, now my least favorite place in town, is where I go for an amazing massage when I really, really, really needed that.
Their stuff is not inexpensive but they do deals on occasion. This year I gave myself a birthday gift of twelve treatments, to be spread out at delicious intervals. For meeee!
And the second one was supposed to be this week but they didn’t call me to confirm so I called them. Phone disconnected. They’re closed.
They’ve been in business for over a decade. Did not see this coming.
So yes, I’m upset that I paid for 12 treatments and only had one of them. But really I am more upset that they didn’t even, I don’t know, send an apology email. I mean, ANYTHING. Just to, I don’t know, acknowledge how awful it is.
And this is somehow worse because all summer long I have been comforting myself with the thought that yes, things are challenging right now but later I am going to have the best massage ever and have hot oil put in my hair and I will be happy.
And now none of those things are going to happen and my favorite place a) doesn’t exist and b) I don’t like them. Upset!
Also, didn’t this just happen? Oh, three years ago? And no, that situation never got resolved. The Better Business Bureau was useless, everyone we talked to was useless, we never got our mail. If you were still wondering.
The not-good news is still not-good news.
I want this to change please!
For the better, please.
The good stuff
I am okay.
This is not new but this week it was a very big deal.
And: I remembered that I am okay, and this was also a big deal.
Plum Duff! Plum Duff!
Plum Duff is something we do in the business maybe once a year that I would like to do more often. It’s not really a sale but it’s better than a sale!
Oh man, it was so much work to make it happen. But we pulled it off.
And now it is Plum Duff, and Plum Duff is the best, and I will tell you more about this when I make my announcement in the announcing part.
This is my favorite thing that we do. It makes for so many happy people and I get to be a part of it, and also it spreads hope and joyfulness and possibility. These are important things.
Ohmygod. The beautiful things people have been saying about Plum duff!
This is a very good reminder for me because I tend to think that people are all, oh right, that thing I wanted, now I will get it.
But they are so excited!
People all over the world who can’t come to the Playground are getting buttmonsters to squeeze, all through the magical door that is Plum Duff. Password: heaveaway
Anyway, the people who are getting Plum Duff stuff are so so so happy that it’s Plum Duff time. They are saying the most wonderful things in the shopping cart. The First Mate forwarded to me!
Like this:
“Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you x eleventy with extra special bounces for the plum duff toy shop specialness!!”
My heart is full of love and gladness. Thank you for reminding me.
I became a dragon this week!
Maybe I will tell you guys the story some time. It has to do with ritual and play, two of my favorite things.
It was cool. I now have the superpowers of many, many knights.
And the golden goblets.
Shiva Nata and wonder and delight.
I ran a training this week for an injured roller derby player, and it was AWESOME.
A new verb.
Of course. To play shiva nata. That is correct. Why did I not realize this before?
Then I played shiva nata, and everything was better.
All the ideas! I have all the ideas!
Amazing shiva nata that turned into a children’s book! And more.
I was playing with words and playing shiva nata, with my body and brain at the same time, and the words turned themselves into a story!:
So now we’re going to turn shiva nata into children’s stories. Into a shivanautical generator for children’s stories. And illustrate them.
Genius! Fun. Play. Adore. More on this to come.
Comfort.
There was comfort this week.
Thank you, Floop.
Thank you, Marisa. Thank you, Chuck. Thank you, everyone who showed up.
Havi’s playmate: Of course. Even when you’re sad.
Havi: That’s fortunate, because I have kind of a lot of sad.
Playmate: I have kind of a lot of “will sit with you and be with you.”
Playdates.
This was a week of playdate after playdate.
I think I said that last week too?
I like to play. I like to play like this. I like how it’s always different and always surprising and always new.
Happy.
Playdate Unplugged.
Unplugged!
Because everything is better unplugged.
But in this case: literally unplugging the plugs.
I will stop explaining now.
I am taking today off.
Unplugged. Again.
I am feeling hopeful about things that I was not feeling hopeful about before.
Finally.
The invention of the Cuddle Sutra.
There are many new sutras in the Cuddle Sutra.
I am going to be the expert in the arts of Imaginary Snuggling come winter.
Is this a proxy? It might be….
Rally is this coming week! Monday!
God I love Rally.
The fun part of the Chickening happens here.
Tabstravaganza! Or: what’s Havi been up to with all those open Firefox tabs?
- I am surproused. Very surproused! By so many things right now.
- These opinions overlap with mine way more than they should. These are actually the right opinions. Oh, the Onion.
- Black Hockey Jesus, still someone I love and care about. And the only person who could write a review of his daughter reading to him.
- The AV club is doing their wonderful “get a bunch of amazing people to cover songs” thing again, and I love this and also I am so in love with Sharon Van Etten. As you know. My favorites this round were hers, obviously and this one (I have a known weakness for ridiculously skinny men singing), and also Memoryhouse doing the Police. It’s wonderful. People doing the magic thing that happens when you get together and SUDDENLY-MUSIC. The sad part is that you have to put up with Starbucks ads, and I loathe Starbucks more than I could possibly ever describe to you. And, as with anywhere-on-the-internet-that-is-not-here, avoid the comments.
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.
This week’s band is by way of my playmate, once again.
Out of context. But what isn’t?
The Leaping Croutons.
They’re loud and bouncy.
Though, of course, as you might have already guessed…. it’s really just one guy.
Hallo Hallo! I am saying Hallo Hallo. Announcement time.
Picture me wearing that crazy hat…
You guys! PLUM DUFF!
It is now Plum Duff. Temporarily, at least.
Plum Duff days are the very best days. The best!
There are bonuses. There are amazing things that you normally can’t get. Things are special, sparkly and beautiful. And sweet.
The story and the Very Great Things are on the plum duff page, which needs a PASSWORD and the password is heaveaway but I am also going to put it below, like so:
THE PASSWORD! HERE IT IS. I AM GIVING IT TO YOU NOW: heaveaway
That’s it for me …
Join my Friday ritual in the comments if you feel like it. Or call silent retreat!
We let people have their own experience. We’re supportive and welcoming. And we don’t give advice (unless people specifically ask for it).
Wishing you a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious day, a restful weekend and a happy week to come.
Shabbat shalom.
p.s. It’s fine if it’s not Friday anymore. There’s complete chicken amnesty — join in whenever (or not) and it’s no big deal.
Follow
Okay, Chicken!
The hard stuff:
–Very screwed-up sleep patterns.
–Unsurprisingly, appallingly low energy for much of the week.
(Hang on, did I Chicken about those exact same two things a week or two ago? I could check, but at the moment, I would rather not know. Onward.)
–Sudden waves of missing my Dad. The freshly stabbing grief of oh, that’s right, he died, how could I have forgotten that?
–Attempting to deal with my daughter’s moods in a calm and at least somewhat sovereign manner. Very difficult when my buttons get pressed.
The good stuff:
–PLUM DUFF!!!!!!!!! with extra raisins and extra !!!!!!!
–Gangnam Style! I may be late to the party here, but I have fallen in love with this song and this video. Every now and then, a song comes along that is medicine for me, it just is, I don’t fully understand why and I don’t need to understand why, it just somehow contains some kind of essential nutrients that I’d been needing. Plus, attempting to play Shiva Nata to this song is crazy fun. Gangnam style!
–Weekend trip to the beach (and the kind of lovely bed and breakfast where I hardly ever get to stay) was simply beautiful.
–I had a splendid epiphany yesterday, hard to put into words but this comes close: I can tap into my superpowers any time I choose! All I need is intention and presence, and I can make any moment magical! The potential is always there!
Lighting a cinnamon-and-vanilla scented candle and sending love to all the Chickeneers. Humming!
The Hard Stuff:
The letting-go of a fight that was pretty much all me and my Obliviousness Self’s fault. Except for the parts that weren’t and I’m not even sure how to unpack the situation except for to pack it all up and put it away for Future Self to deal with it or not.
Rodent Shit on a bunch of stuff in the KITCHEN. yuck yuk yuck. THREE CATS, and they just go for the lizards!! i want to lock them in the Sun Center overnight until they deal with it!
Missing Canada. As soon as I have my travel papers I want to go home. AND SEE SNOW. And rain. Seriously, I miss the precipitation.
The Good Stuff:
the love and The letting go of the fight because he really, really loves me. It’s safe to let go of the grudge because of the love.
the cleaning of the kitchen and having rodent proof drawers to put the sanitized pots in. Listening to Skrillex’s album “Bangarang” and very pleased about the pun of “Bangarang” and the sound of pots.
The sunshine and the kitties and the beauty of WHERE I LIVE, HOW DO I GET TO LIVE IN SUCH A PLACE.
Paintings in progress!!
Reiki in progress!!
Learning and Reading – Loving the meditation classes and the “The Divine Plan theosophy” readings in our evening meetings.
LOVE AND GRATITUDE
Plum Duff is the plummiest and duffiest too. I’ve already ordered the stone skipping cards I’ve been salivating over for what seems like a year (more maybe?).
My week… beak-cause…it was.
The good:
So weird, I started writing children’s books 2 days ago. Even though I have a gazillion other things to do, this idea caught my fancy.
Had a great weekend at a home of friends where I usually have a terrible time due to allergies and the “suck you down into apathy” energy of the place. But not this time. Turns out, other people there have the same experience as I do (so much for outsider me) and that made all the difference. Hooray for me, for speaking up even when I thought I’d be more of an outsider if I spoke my experience aloud.
Work and work and work on my thing. Realized my thing was acting like a diva and I’m – well, I’m the entourage. Not good. Found a way to rest and make room for the resentment and conduct some “relationship counseling.”
Adman extremely helpful this week.
Writing, yoga, meditating –time for all these!
Not so good:
Family that wanted to buy our house still do but the inspection turned up some scary weird stuff that we have to fix before anyone will buy this gorgeous place. Costing mondo bucks and not sure we’ll get out from under this baby.
Will anyone come to my workshop???ahh,ackkkk- first time I’m experiencing this. Not fun at all.
That all folks,
Wishing you
Oh, the worrying! I relate!
The hard:
Worrying about things out of my hands. Even though I knew that, I couldn’t shake it. I kept beating myself up for a choice that set things in motion but I also kept worrying that there was something more I should have done or could do.
The worst case scenario kept getting worse the more I thought about it in entirely plausible and possible ways. Very stressful.
Also angry that I’d made the necessary arrangements several weeks ago, called to confirm them a couple weeks later and was told it was all sorted, only to have them act like none of that had occurred a month later.
And the customer service rep kind of blew me off with a “sorry for the inconvenience” when I gave her dates and times and names of people I’d spoken to before.
So stressful having to rely on other people to do things that will directly impact my well-being.
Even though it worked out in time, I still have a worry/stress hangover from the past week and a half. Grr.
The Good:
It worked out in time! Much relieved for that. It was going to be very expensive and time consuming if the worst case had occurred.
I’m feeling better after days of under-the-weatherness.
My book request was in at the library when I stopped in by chance after voting.
I finished editing a photo of my parents for their anniversary and printed it out. Not perfect, but good. “Expression over perfection.” 🙂
“Move This” by Technotronic just started playing on iTunes and I’m feeling better for typing this. Thanks for this space, Havi!
Cheers, Chickeneers!
The Hard
– soooooooooooooo many deadlines for things that are time consuming, boring, and tedious to complete
– apathy paralysis
– resenting fun social events and time with friends because of the aforementioned deadlines and work to do
The Good
– dance class on Saturday
– homemade fried chicken and root beer floats with friends on Labor Day
– taking time to write again
It’s been a strange week for me, with lots of stress but also lots of laughter. I’m finding I don’t remember much of it, though! So here’s what I *do* remember…
My Ouch Hards:
– It’s September can we stop the heat pleeease
– All the kitchen appliances breaking down. Luckily there was a solution for the fridge or we’d have been pissed.
– Bad news about schedules at work. Depressed a bunch of coworkers.
– Skin erosions on my ribcage exactly where the lowest point of my bra hits. Major ouchiness.
– Burning myself on my right index finger. Subsequent ouchy blister.
– Austerity budget this week and next. *siiiigh*
– annnd thus being sad about not being able to join in for Plum Duff.
My Whee Goods:
* Incoming Writer Self. Holy gods that has been amazing.
* And with that, a cessation of the whole 2-week-long headache thing.
* Sleeping the majority of the long weekend.
* Skin erosions on my elbows starting to heal before they got past the epidermis! So much relief.
* Some really good, supportive co-workers.
* New York Naturals kale chips. Raw, vegan YUMness.
* And starting to move the living room into the configuration we want 🙂
All sorts of love to everyone who chickens and all who read.
Eeeeeee…Friday!! It’s exciting!!
EVERYTHING happened this week. It was awesome/crazy/hard/good.
The Hard:
– Okay, so one thing didn’t happen and that’s that the bank didn’t get back to us. Not that I was expecting them to, but the waiting? Hard. I want my purple house!
– Giant massive awful fight of DOOM. Okay, so it wasn’t perhaps that bad, mostly because I didn’t let it be, but it wasn’t fun. And it was long. And sad.
– I went over 48 hours with less than 2 hours of sleep. That’s how I entered the fight. Also didn’t eat during that time. The dysfunction! It was epic.
– My friend is going through a super hard breakup and somehow we played telephone tag with him for 2 days, which is much too long not to talk to your friend when he is sad and hurting and you want to give him a hug. (Also hard: knowing that me wanting to give him a hug really has nothing to do with what he wants or needs.)
– Other people’s addictions are hard. Two people I love are dealing with addictions right now and…it’s hard.
– I got to the next level (more on that in the good), but then after two days I crashed back into the old level really hard and even though I figured it out and it was highly useful information, it hurt like hell.
– And that was the day that yoga didn’t help. Or at least didn’t have the effect I was wanting. But yoga always helps! Yoga has to help!! If yoga doesn’t help, then WHAT IS TRUE?! (<–Monsters have fear)
– I have stuff about my birthday. And my birthday is in two days. And I have stuff.
– Nothing. Getting. Done. Leading to: ever lessening amounts of money.
The Good!:
– We took a babywearing class! It was really more of an excuse to flirt with other people’s babies. Other people’s babies are adorable! So much fun!
– The midwife says she can only fit one finger in between my abdominal muscles and “barely feel my internal organs,” which is good. Or at least better than I’d been afraid of.
– THE NEXT LEVEL! The antidote to the whole frustrating thing-I’ve-been-calling-surgery-as-a-proxy…thing. The next level was there and the next level is fantastic and I am oh so ready to learn all about being at the next level!!! (-bounce bounce bounce bounce rejoice rejoice rejoice rejoice-)
– Also the next level totally ended/obliterated/made obsolete the fight and it was AWESOME. I am so stinking proud of myself, even though all I really did was let the next level take care of everything.
– Hanging out at the park. For five hours. Beautiful. The Park! It is the best!
– Playing with the kitties at the shelter! And they were all so sweet and adorable and much less stressed than kitties at the shelter usually are. And I pet them and they purred…
– You know that thing where there is so much to worry about that you just can’t? Because there’s just so much and it’s all so important that it’s somehow ridiculous and the only response is to laugh. I have been laughing a lot. Though laughing + solutions would be better.
– Plum Duff is now! Rally is next week! My friend is coming to town and is going to Rally with meeeee!!! More bouncing is needed, clearly.
– The Floop thread in which all the elements came together and took me to the next level and revealed all their connections and created my new plan. OhmygodIlovetheFloop.
Oh! It’s a Friday that I actually knew was a Friday, and it even feels like one for me. Mostly because I am over-the-moon excited that I get to leave for Portland tomorrow.
Let’s see…
The Hard
-There is “nothing wrong” with my car according to the dealership. Translation: we don’t really feel like looking too hard, so just wait until it breaks more.
-I feel like there must have been more hard… I don’t remember any of it. I’m filing that under good…
The Good
-Wallet came back!
-LINE DANCING! Tuesdays and Thursdays! So much fun. And I practiced for two hours on Wednesday. Clearly I like learning choreography.
-IttyBiz Emergency Turnaround! There’s not really an emergency, but it’s pay-what-you-can and I’ve been coveting the non-icky self promotion course… I realize they’re not the same, but this one will help me get enough monies to get that one. See? Also it reminded me that I haven’t listened to Floop calls in a while, and they are amazing and wonderful and helpful as always.
-OMGrally! And Portal-land. I need Portal-land. For a city I claim to not have fallen in love with, I’m definitely way too excited. I leave tomorrow! And tomorrow night there is contra dancing!
-My dad’s website that I have been working on FOR EVER is just about almost-maybe done. And I am officially awesome at CSS. Well, maybe not officially…
-Inside jokes! I have a person with whom to have inside jokes. Hooray!
Hug-offers to the chickeneers! Happy Friday!
Chicken before bed. Maybe will help sleep.
The Hard:
Car Stuff. To the tune of, very loud tunes. 800 trombones.
Headache. Not enough water, too much of being a passenger to and from the car place lead to the worst headache of all time.
Friendless Friday Night.
My writing has hit that point where I don’t know where the story or my characters are going. All I typed yesterday were the transmissions from radio KFKD.
Unproductive day caused by waiting for car for 7 hours.
Email from sister about cuteness by niece caused my brain to think “you forgot to go to bolivia and now you never can!”
Weird OkCupid emails from weird people.
And normal ones, but I’ll screw that up too.
Pity party happening, blergh. Reign it in! No, let it out!
Weather – too hot, too muggy, too rainy, too blah, too sweaty.
The Good.
Happy safe car.
The magic of Cola. (I was at Whole Foods, my only option was Cola.) With its caffeine and sugar and some stretching and Vitamin I, the headache passed.
The cat is my friend.
At least I wrote something. Even if they were the annoying DJs from KFKD.
The kitchen is clean.
Whole foods had grass fed hamburger on sale so now there is 10 pounds in my freezer.
Tomorrow is another day.
Hard:
I couldn’t be in my house or my kitchen comfortably this week and had no power to change that, no notice, and it is impossible to function not knowing how or when or where you’re going to do things like cook or put lipstick on or journal or whatever. I lost 2 days work bc of prepping for and dealing with this.
Scared: I can’t lose 2 days I have a deadline soon.
That’s a boundary I have no control over, but I’m still struggling with the ones I do have some say in, overworking, blah; but it is very very hard not to overwork when you lose whole days to sudden house chaos and are on a deadline.
Due to not being in kitchen, ate gf pizza with totally satanic vegan cheese that gave me unbelievable breakouts all over half my face.
Wow! Cranky!
Scared: how am I gonna finish this, revise it in. 5 wks? Too many dumb appts and bs, they must all be eliminated so I can focus
Good:
Did get a bunch more written and have between 50-70 pages of rough draft above the 130 I need. Parts are amazing ( other parts . . . A little repetitive but that’s ok.)
If I write someone a little ebook about (silent retreat) later perhaps I can keep the hellish interloper out of the house later.
Dentist: I got an A+ He said: your teeth are so good I am sure they will never fall out in your lifetime. Yay future me 🙂
Bill Clinton. Now THERE is a superpower.
Havi’s description of the post-flu is exactly what chronic fatigue feels like and it is really helpful to read it somehow, it helps me remember that feeling like this every day is why everyday tasks etc are hard rather than neutral. Helps me not be invisible to myself.
Practice on (silent retreat), and some good feedback and playfulness.
When I was super panicked about aloneness in face of revision, I reached out & there is Actual Help right there, wow! Huge relief. Another helper showed up as well, and there was support for the house situation to some degree too.
A new friend is showing up in perfect timing, as well, that will really change a whole bunch of things.
I tracked my time and am figuring out better systems, relief to be able to do this now that the chaos has passed.
Big hugs & happy birthday to the Virgos xo
Hard:
* timing issues
* re-entry
* discerning and insisting on boundaries
* shoulder/arm/finger ack
* not where I’d hoped to be wrt weight, writing, etc.
Good:
* unexpected compliments
* actually vacationing: watching tennis, exploring gardens and shops, reading children’s books while drinking beer…
* dog and man welcoming me home
Wishing you all sparkling and soothing things to support you.
@ Mechaieh – I love the idea of reading children’s books while drinking beer. I think I’ll go do that! It’s been that kind of week.
Hard:
– losing things. Like my glasses (the Butler found them), and my cell phone (hasn’t turned up yet) and phone numbers.
– avoiding my son until today because seeing/talking to him would have been even harder.
– bad news from my friend J.
– not having energy or interest in doing anything — total lethargy — finding that doing nothing is a self-perpetuating cycle, the less I do the less I want to do.
– MrB and I both have a weird sleep schedule so we haven’t been going anywhere together.
– nasty tasting expresso.
– I’m fat. I’ve known it intellectually for a long time but the other day I was trying on clothes and OMG. What makes it worse is that I have been trying for a couple of weeks to lose weight and I thought it was working.
– I STILL haven ‘t seen my mom.
– My plan for this evening and the alternate plan didn’t happen and that was a bummer.
Mixed:
= one of my writing projects has morphed into a much bigger one; I have tons of stuff to work with and it’s exciting so I have been sitting at the computer for hours, with my butt getting sore and my shoulders getting tired.
= I agreed to do a thing with MrB that I really don’t want to do (because he was so bummed when his plan fell through) and he is going to do a thing with me that he’s not really interested in but it fits so well with one of my projects (and he understands about that!).
Good:
+ I found some dresses I wanted. I get to have clothes that I like and that I look good in.
+ that weird thing with my ears is getting better.
+ MrB bought into a really good vacation deal so we will be able to travel a couple of times next year.
+ My class starts on the 12th.
+ Rally! I can’t go to Portal-Land this month but I can Rally at home. I can Rally on my lesson plans, especially the introductory material. I can Rally on the writing project that has morphed into something bigger, or I can Rally on Cabo Bojador or I can Rally on one of the many other things… One good thing about Rally At Home is that I have ALL of my material available.
+ I went to a small but excellent art fair this afternoon.
+ I sandwiched the visit with the Boomerang Boy between the art fair and another cool and fun thing, and it was grand.
Sending good wishes to all the Chickeneers.
Clug clug!
Harg sthuff
– sthick! Ugh ugh sinusey, headaches, low-level exhaustion all the time ugh.
– hard pattern that I used to think I/we were getting more efficient at? We are in it and it feels like it’s taking FOREVOOOORR!! Doomdoomdoomdedoom.
– grinding wheels, getting caught up in details, and all my old bad habits, blah blah blah but too sick and tired to figure out where the gaps are.
– Little Lad has grown taller and lost weight. He is so thin. He EATS. He just, I don’t know, maybe the nutrition doesn’t get in? Maybe he’s got some damn crazy arsed metabolism? Time to follow up with specialists. Great.
– cue crisis of confidence that I’ve got what it takes to mother him. Also, helpful pattern of avoiding him as much as possible but in the way that you avoid the things you love most in the world because the gap between the sacred, radiant trust of IT and the smallness of ME is so painful. Nonetheless, my thuggish You-Are-A-Bad-Mother monster has been stashing every detail of every incident away for safekeeping and future threats of violence.
– knowing that all the above is just a perfect storm that happens when things are set up the way they are and where the hell is my damn village??!?!!? I just want someone to take care of meeeee waaaaaahhh!
*sigh*
Good stuff
+ my mum
+ things could be worse
+ ever so slightly fractionally more space btwn all the oh-god-this-awful-pain-uggh-make-it-stop-everything-about-this-is-awful of my experience and That-Which-I-Believe-To-Be-Reality. Maybe. I think.
+ sun came out today. Sat on a blanket under our blossoming plum tree with the kids and ate sourdough and honey from the farmer’s market.
+ …… tomorrow is another day? I guess?…..
That’ll do. I’m sure there was more good but I’m a bit all in the hard right now bc of headache and sickness and blah.
Clug!
Hope I am not too late for the chicken…
The hard:
-Strange aches and pains.
-Having to make a decision, even though I don’t feel like I like any of the options.
-Decisions that affect me being made out of my control. Feeling helpless and angry as a result.
-That feeling of desperation that whispers that quitting, even if it means unemployment, is the only option.
The good:
-Allergies getting better, thanks to new meds.
-Thinking about new boundaries. What are my *real* responsibilities vs. what I feel I am habitually obligated to do? If my input is not wanted or needed, I can recognize that this hurts, but it won’t hurt forever. Maybe I can just step back and direct my energy elsewhere. (A whole lot of scary with this too, but in a good way.)
-Telling myself stories to re-frame the situation. This helped.
-Realizing that I can hang in there without quitting. Perhaps there are some things I can do in the meantime that will help me get to where I want to be.
One foot in front of the other, people. One foot in front of the other.
Invoking amnesty again.
the suck:
-no motivation to work, when at work. suck, stuck and shame, plus low level anxiety and panic.
-plus feeding into old narratives of incompetence whoch helps everything else
-no time to write up Exiting August and Entering September. I really like this practice and now feel like the train left the station too much to do it. Missing Out Monster assures me this is My Fault AND Perfetly NAtural so dont try to change it
-low level feeling that I am doing my writing sabbatical wrong. Annoyed that I cannot even take this vacation fully, and will too soon be Back AT Work, and I’m worries that re-entry will be full of Shame and Discouragement and Sad
-so many pieces! not enough connections! like a box of Tinkertoys with only wheels, no connecty-sticks of any size.
-Altarsister sharing news with us that triggered me too hard to respond for 5 days. Triggering + Shame at letting friend down.
the Sparkle:
-yanno, things are really pretty good
-school year antics and scheduling not easy, but getting smoother
-both girls easing into the year very well. Oldest is steppign up to middle school beautifully, so proud
-anotehr bag of discard clothes from Marketing Gal’s glamourous daughter = awesome new clothes for me and Oldest Daughter. These clothes are very needed and timely, also a HUGE help in transition away from elementary school and into a teen identity
-my editor at BBI has invited me to blog for her. LOVES my work, expecially what I put on anothr online zine. Wants me to write seasonal material (++++). Gets me writing again, gets me on the BLOGOSPHERE which was a Next Step that I was stalling about.
-gorgeous weather, now with ocasioinal rainy days thrown in. Love late summer and the transition to fall
-Yeah, I’ve been b;lowing off yoga and Flailing but putting in the time and focus on the pilates. AM now craving my pilates workout.
-Last time i did the pilates dvd, worked longer and hit thew wall later. This + physical signs of achived goals = much joy
-the husband and i doing well: more affection, morer laughter, more straight talk, more forbearance and letting it go.
-Youngest Kid’s bedtime stuff responding beautifully to reward stickers and Daddy in charge of bedtime.
-went to yoga, no one else came. So the teacher gave me 90 minutes of yoga therapy and energetic work, tailored to Where I Was That Day
-bonus: taking risk of telling yoga teacher about (silent retreat) nd lo, she was all like, Oh I have that issue, and even worse, and here’s a BUNCH of insights and help anmd yoga tecniques and ACCEPTANCE and LOVE
-extra bonus: was always curious about this HUMMING thing that Havi talks about. Well, yoga teacher taught me to do it. Then i looked it up online and it has a BEE significance (at least on this one website called Cauldrons and Cupcakes, which delights me), whcih was even more yea! And then doing the humming and omg this is awesome!
-realziing i am really blessed and the blessings are just raining down.