It’s a lovely sunny day, today, unexpectedly. It could be ‘expectedly’ but that would have required that I actually look at a weather forecast sometime in the recent past and I’ve barely looked at my phone. I’m not very involved with my phone the last couple weeks, and even the news nauseates rather than fascinates, and I’m avoiding it as much as possible. (Thanks, Delhi, you turned the entire world of news into the ’24-hour Rape Channel’) Still, expected or not, a lovely sunny day greeted me.  I was out and about pretty early for a Saturday, shopping, doing… then in the garden, pruning the roses, giving them a boost to prepare for Spring, re-arranging them in their new homes (many of them are potted, and I have the luxury of easily moving them about). Today should feel easy… but I had a tough night fighting invisible enemies in a hostile dreamscape and listening to my demons mock me. I woke crying several times, and although I think I ‘got enough rest’ to satisfy my body, my mind feels bruised and worn down, and I’m on the edge of tears most of the time, for no obvious reason. (Hormones? How can I tell anymore?)

Yesterday was special, and especially hard. Promising, but demanding… I ended the day fatigued beyond what seemed reasonable, but feeling more hopeful than has been typical for a long while. I want to say “I have a future…” but that sounds far more dramatic or potentially alarming by implication than I really mean it to. I already had a future… we all do, until the moment we don’t, whether it is chosen or forced upon us by circumstance.

I’m tired. My head hurts. The ‘harder I try’ the more my head seems to hurt, some days, like my brain doesn’t want to work so hard. There’s this very angry part of me that wants to drive harder, wants to scream ‘no pain, no gain – don’t you dare give up!!’, and make me do more-better-sooner… I fight myself constantly these days; questioning every assumption, every knee-jerk reaction, every bit of ‘programming’ and every task on ‘auto pilot’… one of my partners asked me very early this morning ‘When do you rest? When do you stop and take care of you?’. I could hear the concern, the frustration… but the simple failures, mistakes, don’t they cause frustration, too, aren’t they always a  huge disappointment? I’m not sure I know where my own priorities are, but I’m afraid to stop trying to do more-better-sooner, right now, as if I could somehow force myself to be well and whole and ‘okay’ – and if I don’t, well, somewhere inside myself it feels like a character flaw.

I’m too tired today to easily manage my emotions, prone to taking things personally. I want to do things well, treat myself and my partners well… I may have to be satisfied with not treating them badly. Maybe tonight there will be no nightmares, only sleep…and tomorrow another sunny day.