Muddling

I just want my mind to give up and let me have a rest from its constant noise. I get that for about 20 minutes in meditation…well, some days I do and some I don’t. I’m getting better at it…not silencing it, per se, but being able to step back from it. It’s the same thing that saves most teachers: the ability to block out all that excess noise and focus on one kid’s voice, eyes, face. Or the voice in our heads…telling us to keep it together, despite the chaos. It works that way now sometimes…I can step back from the sad and the grief. They’re still there, I still feel them in my chest, my gut, but I can stand back, arms crossed on my chest…and watch. It doesn’t make it hurt less. It doesn’t make me feel less sad. But it gives me some distance, I guess.

My life needs to adjust: the purpose needs to be to Live and not just to get through or survive…because that’s what it is now. I wake up in the morning and think about how I will survive the day. I don’t think about how to Live it, most days. When I can, I add a hike or artmaking. That’s closer to Live. I’m not happy about what the Live looks like, but that’s what it is. I can’t control what other people think or do…I can’t even control my own mind half the time. During meditation tonight, I hugged it, my mind. I just freakin’ hugged it from behind, because it wouldn’t turn and face me. Girlchild accused my radio station of playing sad songs all day, and I guess it was true, because I cried on the way to pick her up and on the way to and from quilt class. And to school. And to the doctor. The rest of the time, she was in the car with me. Distraction. My mind was in a bad place, wandering around in the cold and the dark. Someone should have put on some better music for it.

I started this in the morning. I typed: “Just electronically checked in at the doctors office. Cute perky little things ask if I want to try the kiosk. Yes. If if means I don’t have to talk to anyone and say have a good Thanksgiving to people I don’t know but recognize because I’m here all too often. That superficial social stuff. Becoming a hermit. Must be the holidays. Plus I’m a tech person? I guess.” Is the world becoming more antisocial with kiosks? Maybe. I do prefer the self-serve at Home Depot and the grocery store. I’m tired of making small talk. “How are you?” “I’m fine.” “No, I’m not. I’m having a really bad life at the moment. I’m not going to kill myself, which is what people keep asking, but I’m just not having any fun. Or even anything anywhere near fun. Why do you ask? Are you looking at my purchases differently now?” Yeah. So. Kiosk it is. Then no one needs to know that I bought artichoke hearts AND coriander seeds.

After doctor appointments, there was someone I would always call, because the appointments make me feel unsettled, shaky, unsure of my own body. I just needed to check in with someone who apparently cared about me. I can’t burden the kids with my health issues. There are so few health successes. Even today. Doc was all excited about the weight loss, but then wanted to know how. So I told her. She was…I don’t know how to describe how she was. She’s been my doctor for a million years…since the girlchild was born. She was worried about me. She asked if I was getting help, did I want more help, did I want more meds, did I want to hurt myself. She tried to tell me that single women were happier (is that true?). She even hugged me at the end, and that’s why I cried on the way home. I made it out the hallway and past the waiting room and the perky little things and the kiosks and through the parking lot and into the car. And there was no one I felt I could call. I’m sure that’s not true, that there were people I could have called, but my brain was all tied up in whom I would have called.

My numbers aren’t bad. Some are better, but I didn’t get rid of any meds…I got more. Fucking meds. Fucking body. It feels like a conspiracy. How are you supposed to reduce stress if bad shit keeps happening? I don’t know. Mr. Meditation will tell me, maybe.

So a rough day. Discussed holidays with the girlchild. She says to have no expectations. I say it’s not even expectations, because I don’t expect anything. It’s that I had something and now I don’t, and the holidays are a big slap in the face reminder of that. Plus no routine and too much thinking time and it just reminds me and I don’t want any more reminders. And it’s all about survival and not Live.

So I did a lot of fabric stuff today, despite a million hours of grocery shopping and errands and driving (or riding, because girlchild is driving me). I did the fabric stuff to try to counteract the brain muddling through its holiday crap. I wanted to get through ironing half the pieces down, but the errands took longer than I thought…

I did get through about piece 535, though…

So not bad. And I have the flesh run of 7 fabrics now, so it will be easier when I get to the other bodies…

Babygirl was not helping by sleeping on the flesh fabrics…

I’ve done the Mother and the bird above her head…tomorrow, I’ll start on the Maiden maybe…if I have time. I’ve got 5 hours and 40 minutes into the fabric choosing, with probably 7 plus hours to go. I also cut pieces out at our rescheduled quilt class…

Got about two hours into that. And then came home and ironed some more…

Probably worked later than I should have, but I’m wide awake and scared to go to bed when I’m this awake.

My brain really doesn’t need more opportunities to get all worked up at the moment. Someone needs to whack it over the head with an iron frying pan to gently persuade it to sleep. Seriously. It’s significantly late and I am wide-fucking-awake.

Just tell it to stop. My kids try to distract me with stories and videos and movies that we all watch together. Discussions of who is hotter, Thor from the Avengers or Gale from The Hunger Games (the boychild just scoffs at these conversations). Talk of what movies we’ll see later this week…there’s some guy named BatDad. There’s a geeky video of Miley Cyrus infiltrating Key Club. I would probably be OK without all that stuff, but I know they are trying to engage me in life, in Live instead of survive. So I go along with it. It’s OK in the moment. It’s the standing in line or waiting in the car moments where I start to muddle through the muck again.

I thought y’all should see my recipe card for the Nida family holiday Swiss green beans (no French-fried onions were sacrificed for this dish)…

It is well-used, and every year, my SIL calls to get the recipe again because she’s lost hers.

Thankful I can always find it. Thankful for kids who care. Thankful for a doctor who pays attention and remembers enough details of my life to ask the right questions. Thankful for the art…for as long as I can remember, it has been saving me. I hope it never leaves, because everything else probably will.