Damn. Still struggling with my bullshit today. There’s no obvious driver. For some folks, the weather would be enough; it is gray and chilly and the rain falls pretty steadily. A wet autumn day, with a twilight quality in early afternoon. I’m fortunate that I’m generally not affected by S.A.D. Doesn’t mean I don’t occasionally feel blue on a gray day, but it’s usually not the season… it’s something else. Right now? It’s a lot of small things piling up and becoming “a thing” – my anxiety, my struggle with it, and my stress about the state of the world. It looms large in my awareness, and lurks in my very dreams, most of which, right now, are nightmares.
I’m just feeling a bit low is all. It happens. It’ll pass. Feels even a bit “hormonal”, although I cling to the thinking that menopause should have put an end to that mess. Maybe it doesn’t entirely? Considering the state of medical science regarding women’s bodies and health, I can’t be surprised that we don’t know more even in 2022.
…So, this is where I am today. I feel bleak, a bit blue, not quite overcome by anhedonia. I feel beat down. Silenced. I’m not actually any of those things in any practical or real way. These are just feelings. Perceptions. They have only whatever life I give them, myself. So I keep fighting it. Self-care steps of various sorts – you’re looking at one of those right now. 🙂
I get an irritating email from the VA just as the sun breaks through the clouds for a minute. My aggravation brushes aside the blues and the stabbing pain of a flash of sunshine through an uncovered window straight into my eye are at least enough to distract me from my shitty mood momentarily. So. Here I am. Beginning again. Again.
I am sipping my morning coffee, thinking about my afternoon tea. lol It’s a bit meta, isn’t it? I’m okay with that – I do some of my most personally useful thinking in this way.
This has been a good weekend of self-care and partnership. My Traveling Partner and I spent time in his shop together working on a project – the first “from nothing to something” project to come off this new CNC machine. Exciting! It’s a small thing – a trivet. I needed one in the kitchen, though, to avoid setting very hot pans on our countertops, which are not stone, or made from stone, just some ordinary enough surface that could be at risk of damage from excessive heat. I like to take care with things.
A useful reminder of my partner’s affection.
This morning, I slept in – like, properly actually slept-in later than I might ordinarily, and also quite late considering when I crashed for the evening (and without even reading for a few minutes!). I woke feeling not only “well-rested”, but also feeling that my “mental buffer” was entirely cleared out of things needing to be processed from recent events. Lovely. Self-care win. A big one. If the only reason I’m “sleeping in” is that I went to bed very late, or slept very poorly, it’s not particularly worthwhile – it’s just me trying to get enough rest. This time, I definitely got enough rest, and a little more than that. 😀
I see a sunny autumn day beyond the window. My coffee tastes good. I feel loved. There is a smile on my face.
My partner ducks in for a moment to see how my morning is going so far, and asks me to check my oxygen on a pulse oximeter. I use the one on my phone and quickly verify that my oxygen level is “in the green zone” – I’m breathing. Yay! 😀 When my anxiety flares up, even “in the background”, the resulting experience of “hyper vigilance” sometimes finds me “holding my breath” without intending to, after some in-breath or another, as if alert for a threat, waiting, watchful… for some reason, my partner is very sensitive to this detail in my experience, and at some point when a change in my chemistry or pheromones becomes detectable (this is our theory, not confirmed through convincing medical research, so please don’t change your life over it) and if we’re in the same room he’ll fairly reliably have an allergy attack over it. We’re ruled out other more obvious things, so this is where we’re at with that. It vexes us both. For me, it’s mostly an irritating circumstance that breaks my focus when I’m asked to check my oxygen, which is … annoying and also saddening (to potentially be a cause of my partner’s allergies). For him? For him it’s worse, I think; he suddenly, unexpectedly, can’t fucking breathe. Crazy. I hope we figure it out. I don’t talk about it much, but it’s one of our day-to-day challenges. People have those. lol
It’s the last day of a lovely long weekend. I’ve got some errands to run, and a plan to make baked ziti for dinner. Life being lived. Lovers loving. Time passing. There’s still time to get into the garden… to read a book… I’ve got a list of inspired work to get started on in the studio, too…
…It’s time to begin again. Pick something. Do the thing. Repeat.
There are so many tea-related metaphors. I’m more of a coffee drinker, frankly, which you probably know if you’ve read more than one or two of my blog posts. I do occasionally drink tea, though…
Proof I do drink tea. Sometimes.
Here’s a thing, though; tea has been around a very long time. It has ancient origins. The idea of having a cup of tea to relax, or as a pick-me-up, or as a shared moment among friends, or a celebratory or thoughtful ritual, is not new. (This is going somewhere…)
…I mean…damn. Have some tea. Think about how that connects you to your ancestors – and the world!
Life has been “busy”. My anxiety has pushed me back into therapy, because although I worked a long time to manage my anxiety generally (in the face of trauma, stress, and emotional pain), I haven’t actually done much to deal with my anxiety in the face of … success and contentment and a pretty good life. Turns out, that also massively aggravates my anxiety! Fuck. Seriously? Well, shit.
Even a lovely colorful pleasant life rich in love and joy can be a source of stress.
One of the things I had talked over with my therapist is this idea that I feel unprepared for things to go well, and as if I am constantly vigilant, waiting for “the other shoe to drop”, which is a weird source of anxiety, seems to me. I also gave voice to my frustration that I’m struggling to stay on track with my meditation practice – in spite of my awareness and direct experience that it is profoundly helpful for managing my anxiety. How is that even fair? lol
All through the summer, I explored area parks and nature areas with my camera. Thinking, walking, taking pictures of flowers, trees, and birds.
I zoomed in close-up to examine small details.
I developed favorite spots as the weeks passed. I switched up my routine to put me out on the trail with my camera almost every morning for a hour or so before work. It did a lot to inspire, soothe, and entertain me. It met real creative needs that I’d been struggling to meet well for rather a long while. I still do it most days, even though the sun rise is (much) later. I start my work day later, too, and stay closer to home on work mornings (saving the further away spots for weekend mornings). I’m grateful that I can.
Just this morning, at dawn, I had a realization…
I think I’ve been “getting too close” to the issue at hand, and as a result failing to find a thread that connects some of it in a useful way, with other things that are also going on with or around me…
It’s easy to get too close to something, and miss the important details I’d easily see if I took a step back.
I drink a lot of coffee in the mornings. I often write in the mornings. I do camera walks in the mornings. I feel fresh and wide-open to possibilities in the morning. Once my two coffees for the day are over, I’m generally pretty well wrapped up in work, or moving on with a list of things that need doing, or errands that want running. By nightfall, I’m exhausted, irritable, in pain, and struggling to find emotional balance. There’s a lot of time between the end of that second coffee and the end of my typical day. I’m going to start stopping for a cup of tea in the afternoon. 🙂 An easy moment from which to begin again, to reset, to reconsider, to reconnect with myself… I plan to make a commonplace ritual of it, as so many people do, and I will seek to be very mindful, and deliberate, and take advantage of the break in my routine each day to really pause, reflect, and appreciate my circumstances.
…If nothing else, it will use up the tea in my cupboards, and give me a reason to use the tea cups in my porcelain collection. Delightful. Self-reflection, a break in the afternoon, and delight?? Sign me up. (Oh, wait, I already did…) A new practice. Sometimes it takes a bit of new along with the routine to find my way along the path. Something with which to begin again. 🙂
Brain fog and distractions. I’m having trouble staying focused. I am not even having a profoundly difficult experience of pain or anxiety… it’s wild. It’s been a rollercoaster for days. I’m in pain or I’m dealing with my anxiety. They each distract me from the other without actually changing my circumstances at all. I still hurt when I’m anxious. I’m often still anxious when I’m in pain. I don’t necessarily experience them separately… or conflate them into a single experience, either. I just… find myself chronically distracted by one or the other or both.
…Maybe more coffee will help…
I got distracted coming back with a hot cup of coffee. Not by my pain, nor by my anxiety. Nope. I got distracted by one of life’s joys; a great conversation with another human. Connection. How does really connecting with another person do so much good? It was a nice break in the day. A few friendly minutes on other subjects entirely. Win.
…I still hurt.
…I still have to manage my anxiety.
I’m okay right now, though, and I just remember (again) that it’s a long weekend ahead. 🙂 I guess I’ll begin again…
This morning is a strange one. The emotional landscape is peculiarly surreal and …”wrong”. All the pieces in my jigsaw puzzle seem the sort to add up to a lovely morning. The sights. The work space. The relaxed timing. The context of a secure home and loving partnership. But I feel strangely blue and on edge. “Background anxiety” sure, only… the background seems to be trying to take over my otherwise pleasant morning without cause. It seems “unfair”, but also kinda “sticky”. This is a difficult moment.
Sunrises and new beginnings.
…It’ll pass…right…?
I sip my coffee and remind myself how much of this is probably just “chemistry”. We just ended Daylight Savings Time for another year this past weekend. I regularly struggle for some days that follow; the change in time/timing on things like medications and sunrises messes with my body and my internal clock quite a lot. Could be that and nothing more. The timing is right for it to be “the thing going on right now”. That, on top of important project milestones with my Traveling Partner’s business… and for me, at work… and of course there’s voting (and the fucking world is basically a toxic mess right now)… and staying on top of my to do list… and holiday travel plans… and… mortality. Fuuuuuuuck… no wonder I feel “low“.
It will pass.
So, I take a few minutes for myself in the time between my morning camera walk, and the start of my work day. I have coffee in this quiet (and quite empty) office space. I laugh out loud when I realize the music playing softly in the background is all very… “emo”. It likely acts to amplify my already rather blue feeling of things today. Knowing that [hopefully] can serve to diminish the effect it has. So… I take a minute for awareness. And coffee sipping.
…I find myself wondering if my frustration with finding “medication management” for my anxiety somewhere local is contributing to my blue morning? The most recent “application” (yeah, it very much was that kind of process) got me a rejection, primarily because I am only seeking medication management support to go along with an existing therapeutic relationship that works very well for me. The provider was pretty explicit that they weren’t willing to take me as a patient unless they could have all of my therapy dollars have both the therapy and the medication management within their office. I’m not sure which irks me more; that they rejected me (cuz rejection just sucks) or that they would be willing to even suggest changing providers over dollars and cents when we’re talking about mental health care – and a therapy relationship that works very well! Fuckwits. Huh. I’m angry about this. Also, yeah, totally human and my fucking feelings are hurt. Wild.
…And I’m still dealing with my anxiety…
Fucking hell.
I amuse myself imaging a tiny imaginary janitor in my consciousness sweeping up shards of this-n-that and tidying up the chaos, sort of squinting back at me, shaking her head, sucking her teeth and shrugging “pay isn’t great, but it’s steady work”, and shuffling off to the next mess.
…It’s living. It’s life. It’s messy. I’m still here. I’ve endured a lot. I am still here. I just keep beginning again.
Evening Light 