Losing my serenity

 Sept 14, 2023

Meditation today seemed impossible. It doesn't help that I haven't tried (outside laying in my bed trying to sleep) in a very long time - it seems my mind doesn't want to release it's hold because it is afraid of what will happen if I don't attend.

I didn't used to feel this way. Once I got my own to-do list off my mind, I was able to float away into nothing and hope that God or the Universe would hold me while I was there. Now, when I try to relax, I am gripped by the terror of what will happen if I don't pay attention.

Part of it is the entire atmosphere of the world and country. While we're not at the whims of the Sweet Potato Hitler who is no longer in charge of the world (thank God), many of my countrymen are. Every day another shooting. Two this last month at the UNC Chapel Hill campus alone. Every day is terrifying. Every day we see what one of our political parties want to do to our countrymen. Ban crossing state lines for medical procedures where they are legal. Firing elected officials and state Supreme Court justices (WI) and school board members to further a ChristoNationalFascist agenda. Unaffordable living that keeps all 3 of my grown children (2 in college and 1 working full time) living with us so they can learn or work or live. They do not have the options we took for granted - peace, a living wage, acceptance.

I'm terrified every day. I try to meditate/pray/ignore and alternate that with doom scrolling to see how bad it is today.

And my body keeps sending me speedbumps to halt any progress - COVID/melanoma/plastic surgery - all in the last 2 months. I feel like I've lost so much and it keeps taking more. 

I am trying with all my soul to revive my art spirit. I was so wonderful while I was doing it and it still can be - if I can get in the groove again. Thankfully, the new art desk my hunny gave me for my birthday seems to be really helping. I have a place of serenity - when it's not causing me to throw things. 

I don't like being on edge. I don't like not being able to relax with my best friend, my husband, because we are on opposite sides of the political chaos everywhere. I'm horrified by some of his opinions and he is horrified by some of mine. I don't know how we do this for the rest of our lives - except to do it.

I love my family so much - my husband, my wonderful daughter and my amazing sons.

Hanging on day by day here. 

Ciao.

L

Not everyone can do it

August 27, 2023

Day 7 of COVID+

Not everyone can do it.  Not everyone can be a caregiver.  I have been one my whole life - since my younger siblings needed watching,  then my parents separated and my mom went back to work - and I guess I had a great Mom to mimic.  Too good. 

I take care of everyone.  Not in a babying way. More of a loving teacher way.  And if you are sick,  man,  I am there like my mom was.  Four kids and 4 grandkids later, I kick ass.

But this week,  I went down with Covid for the first time ever (after 4 vaxxes and 3 years) and it has been rough.  A full week later and I'm still testing positive with a low grade fever and chest pressure and fatigue.  And I got left alone.  So alone.  I finally had to whine on the 3rd day for sometime to help me remember my meds because NO ONE came in my room.  Correction...after the 2nd day my baby boy brought me tea and soup and had checked in on me every day after that. 

But hubby care? AWOL. Nada. He couldn't use our bedroom so he was really stuck in some ways.. but didn't use the week to make a good workable solution for himself.  He just slept on sofas and chairs and bad blow up mattresses and got more and more sullen (maybe from lack of sleep) and finally today I made a bed in my office with the best blow up mattress that he found and I'm moving in there for awhile.

I've never felt less cared for or less loved.  It has sucked 1000%.

Even Erin,  who usually does the great daughter thing,  didn't do anything for me except get me gummies to sleep when I asked,  because she's pissed at me.  I started talking to her a couple weeks ago about making plans to budget and move out at some point (she's been living in the basement for 4 years) and she's angry with me.  Bad timing for sure. 

So I'm hanging in there taking care of myself and thanking God for Paxlovid. 

But damn, hon. It's awful that you can't take care of me.  My golden years are suddenly seeming scary. 

Heart hurt

 Monday, Feb 20

We went for a walk around Centennial Lake this afternoon. I made myself do it because the Buproprion I tried for the last week gave me tachycardia again so I had to stop - and seems 30 minutes of exercise a day can work as well as meds. So we walked.

We walked for almost 3 miles around around the lake and it was beautiful, but I was dead by the second mile. I made it to the end and through the grocery store with George and then laid on the bed at home until I was too hungry to stay there.

Dinner and dishes and TV are done and I'm getting ready for bed - but the painful pressure on my heart comes back. It is there when I rest or when I move. I just have to push through and remember the things I need to do and have to do and ignore the hurt in my heart until it's time to go to bed. That's depression. 

I did realize that this is the year our house changes. It is slowly changing from a "kid" house to "our house" - mine and George's. Without kids. We never had that before. I was pregnant from the day we moved into this house. And now we have to make it our own. We are 22 years older and I'm not sure what it will turn out to be. I wish we could be those crazy 30-somethings who started this whole thing.

Time to go to bed and turn off the hurt.

Depression

I have depression.  I've had episodes since I was a teenager,  along with anxiety.  This is one of those episodes.

I wake up each morning without anything to look forward to.  Every single thing I do is an effort. I don't want to do anything.  Anything. 

I started taking my buproprion again,  but half the dose. I had to do something.  I'll give myself credit.. I'm always looking for solutions. 

This is miserable.  Well,  actually more like feelingless. Day after day.  I feel like I'm wasting my life but really,  what else do I need to do? My children are all adults.  I'm getting ready to retire soon. I'm done and have no purpose.  For now.  

I am trying to read more,  and it helps,  but not for long.  I scroll Twitter endlessly just to feel something.  Maybe the anxiety from the political idiocracy helps keeping me from going down further into the constant downward pull into the pit in my soul. 

I'm so tired of this crap.  The constant struggle with pain, or itching, or anxiety attacks or depression episodes. I'm so tired. 

Too much information, not enough relief

Jan 27, 2023

I realized we are living in unusual times - for us. The information stream is endless and seems to all be dark, sinister and depressing. 

We are living with the result of decades of back-office deep conservative politics that are now running our government and it's chaos. Simply chaos. The 118th House of Reps is a comical and awful disaster. Watching Kevin McCarthy have to go through 15 rounds of votes and give up endless favors to the MAGAs was just astounding. It hadn't happened like that in over a century..and the last time was the result of Civil War fallout.

I've gone back to taking my anxiety meds daily and more often. Medical marijuana seemed to be the trick - and I got an official card - but it brought back my menopausal hot flashes in a major way, so that's not something I can do often. I got smart and turned off my Twitter notifications and am waiting for a new platform that's not run by neo Nazi Elon Musk. He's just awful.

The laws that Trump and his ilk have committed are now being addressed but the cases they will need to clean up their mess are endless and it will clog the courts for years.

Thank God my kids are out of public school but the GOP are ruining them as well. All they do is tear things down without a decent plan for replacement that will include everyone. They want to eliminate SS and Medicare and replace with a GD 30% sales tax! They are nuts!

I've been tired my whole life of stupid people. I feel like Sheldon Cooper. And now the stupid people are running my country. I feel so bad for my children who have to navigate this hellscape and don't have a chance to succeed the way my generation did. Bad and guilty.

And honestly part of the reason it is so bad is that my hubby is on the conservative side of any argument. Not Maga and not Trump, but still listening only to the GOP. I'm smart enough to understand the things they are doing wrong but not conversant enough in economics and finance to counter his arguments, so I just say silent. Horrible things go on daily and we don't talk about them at all.

I understand why I depend on social media and my girlfriends so much - it's the only place I find sanity.

But it sucks and the anxiety continues. Prayer seems hopeless but I am trying to meditate. The MAGA right has made Christianity a laughing stock and I can't feel comfortable with it right now. Christianity seems ridiculous. 

I have so much to be thankful for - a beautiful home, family and life. Medications and adaptations to make living work for me. Enough money to send my kids to college and stay with us as long as they need. Lovely grandchildren. Hobbies and work to keep my brain and soul mostly satisified. 

But the world around me is hell. 

Damn.

Tweet Hell

Too much time on Twitter.

Too many awful and crazy stories and people running around and running the GOP.

TOO much to stay sane or calm.  

I almost lost it today.  

Two hours, 1 Xanax, 1 guided meditation

With incense and candles and 1 15 minute ballet practice at my new ballet barre and I'm 50% ok.

I'm not sure how this or I will end.. but it's going to be interesting. 

And wow the Blogger app sucks

Happy dream

I had a lovely dream last night that gave me hope for my sanity. I dreamt that I had moved once again and was in a school. I asked to exchange one of my classes for a dance class and they did. It seemed like a school of the arts. I realized that it was always so important for me to dance. Which makes sense of my grief knowing I can't dance like I once did.  

But...I realized that moving from place to place so often in my childhood may have helped prepare me for the eternal changes in this body and in this life. I constantly change as I age and need to adapt. I think my childhood keeps me do that.  

It was a small but happy awareness. I will adapt. I will make this life my own. 

The purpose of life is.. . life

Driving hours and hours down a flat highway with the family to another wonderful vacation at Disney again, I'm haunted by one thought. What is the purpose of our life? Town after town with houses and businesses separated by stretches of land. Without the hustle of a big city, you realize how much nothing surrounds us.  

   Every morning, why do we wake up? To do what? Survive? Gain adulthood, create more of us and take care them so they can....survive and procreate. There's really nothing else involved. Life is just perpetuating itself to ensure its survival. Thats all. There is no "great purpose" to creatures. We are just nature at its latest manifestation.

    This was so fine until we got our cute wrinkly brains and started to be self aware. We watched ourselves do this and wondered... why?

    Without the tools and knowledge of science, we started creating myths and legends to create order out of chaos. Then governments. Then religions. 

    Those discoveries let us to wonder and awe at our surroundings. Led us to comfort in higher beings and an afterlife. But none of that is the reason we are on the planet. 

     Because we have no reason. Our purpose 

is to live and survive. Help others survive. 

Help our society survive. Period.

     At my age, it's almost calming to realize there is no achievement to be reached, no finish line. Just survive and help others survive.

Amen