My evening ended on a blue note. I wasn’t just kind of blue, I ached with it. I felt… low.  I logged off for the evening, uncertain if media-over-stimulation might be contributing, although there wasn’t much that was definitely bad in the news (well, bad relative to the constant droning and pinging of real-world bullshit, which is bad already, and fairly ceaseless).

My tattoo had begun to itch a little, as the surface skin began to pull away from the healed skin beneath. A little like a sunburn pealing, it was nagging at me for attention, and I really did not want to scratch and damage the tattoo. I couldn’t really relax. I was feeling sort of tense of fussy, just generally, waiting to hear from my Traveling Partner that he was safely on his way back to the world after a weekend of festival camping I could not take time off to enjoy with him. (I’m not welcome with his other partner, regardless, and realistically, my “issues” would not be likely to do well for an entire week of festival-going; it’s not really about the time off.)

Looking back, there were surely things I could have done differently, other practices, other choices… I yearned for connection but was too distracted and irritable to do so comfortably. I declined a number of offers from people dear to me to chat (“I’m here if you need to talk…”). I just wasn’t really up to it. I was mired in my bullshit mood, for the moment. I put on a favorite old jazz album. (Maybe you are listening to it now…) I wrote a cross email to a friend who finds some humor in my cross prose. I lingered in a long sensuous somewhat-warmer-than-tepid shower for like… forever. I gave myself a pedicure and a foot rub (I grant you, a foot rub is better when someone else is doing it, but it’s still pretty nice to do for myself). I crashed early with a book I then did not read; I fell asleep. Sleep may have been what I really needed; I woke to the alarm.

Don’t look directly at the sun.

It’s a new day. I get to begin again. Shortly before I went to bed, my Traveling Partner sent me a quick “I love you”, and I could once again see him on the locator map. It felt comforting that he was again “in range”. When I woke, his message letting me know he’d arrived “home” was waiting for me. I check the locator map to see where he meant by that. lol

I can choose.