I thought I would write out my thoughts here first, but this may very well become the first episode of Opinion Piece (working title, because it's probably already taken), my podcast in the works.
A shot of failure
I put that new mic and boom arm to work yesterday, and recorded myself reading a blog post from January. It wasn't too bad. Ended up being about a 15-minute listen, including all pauses for stupidity, ums, ahs, etc.
I believe I am best at getting my thoughts out in a succinct manner when I first write them. Just "riffing" as the kids probably don't even say anymore, I sit here frozen. Nothing to say. Like that brain-dump, Morning Papers writing. Not a good thing.
So, it's Monday morning, and I did FAIL to plan out my workweek last night. Instead I just did some work, then played some Solitaire, and other mindless riff-raffy games (what's with the word "riff" today?) Is it an acronym for Right Inside Fail, or Right in First, or Ready in Five ...? This all remains to be seen.
I have my sexy Notion board all mapped out, and broken into Daily to-dos, Daily always-dos, Weekly, and even Monthly dos. Takes about 2 minutes to get it set up for the next day, if that. Keeps me in line because allow me to tell you, there is a magical metric FUCKTON of stuff I do and have to remember at any given moment. If I didn't have this page, I would surely be lost, and out of a job by now.
I don't know how anyone else keeps their shit straight, as I appear to be the only one really using it for work planning, etc. We use it for assorted web pages, and wikis, and whatnot, but other than that, it's crickets when I am there. And to think, that's what we used when the company first started, and EVERY thing was home-based there.
I can't really share it because privacy and all, but it's a very aesthetically pleasing page to my eyeballs, like Odin.
Look at dat face. Just LOOK at it ...
ANYWAYS, I listen to random shit throughout the day. Saturday, I listend to the audio version of The Compound Effect:
I'm sure the author is right, but I'm also sure that motivational speaking never motivated me to do anything. I'm more of a Van Down by the RIVER kind of girl.
I have a lot of things I want to accomplish:
Continue to lose weight
Quit the nicotine
Start that podcast
Do art
Etc.
I also have very little mental capacity with which to make all this shit happen. I have learned that you should not plan to quit smoking on the day there are 10 people running in and out of your house replacing your plumbing, all while trying to contain dog-beasts, a cat, and also attempting to accomplish work-related tasks. That was stupid. Also not good to think I could accomplish it in the midst of adjusting to his new work schedule. I haven't quite figured out if it will be a good thing or a not good thing, when it comes to quitting. One the one hand, it might be easier, since I have a LOT of alone time, and therefore, no temptation from him smoking. On the other hand, I have a LOT of alone time, which means, a lot of loneliness, boredom, and chances for breaking down, driving to town, and buying more.
The common denominator there, though, is ME. It's ME that has to do this, no matter what else is going on. And while it's never going to be the "right" time to quit, it has to be some time.
This is NOT a post about that, though, so off we go on planning, which is the real topic du jour. I don't have a plan. I don't have a routine to speak of. I just mostly exist to breathe, smoke, and work.
I was listening to some stuff from Jordan Peterson last night. I can't listen to him a lot because most of the time, he sounds so sad, and like he's about to burst into uncontrollable sobbing, but he does say some things that make sense. (nevermind what I said about motivational speakers) ...
Among the thoughts:
People who don't have enough order in their life tend to get overwhelmed.
Specify your damned goals because how are you gonna hit something if you don't know what it is?
If you keep yourself all vague and foggy, then you don't know when you fail
... I'll keep myself blind when I fail. That's fine, you just won't know it until you've failed so badly that you're done
Make a damned schedule and stick to it. It's not a bloody prison ... Set the damned schedule up so that you have the day you WANT
And here we are some five days later and I have progressed no further. I have no schedule. I have no plan. I listen to goal-setting content, and all I can think is what is the fucking point, and what do I really want? I don't even know what I want on a grand scale.
This has to stop.
This being nothing, doing nothing, sitting here taking up space - it just has to stop.
It starts with what I did last night. Went to dinner with a friend. Got out the damned house. Did something other than work or go to the store. Just went out and be-ed.
Sometimes, I feel like I have dumbed myself down to the point of being a blithering idiot full of soundless fury with much nothing about ado. If all the world is truly a stage, then what the fuck am I? A dust mite up in the rafters?
I have forgotten how to dream. I've been too long stuck in reality. Ask me to define myself, I would fail to be able to do so.
Being full of useless quips and quotes today, I'll leave it with this: There's no time like the present, right?
I no longer know what to do with myself. Really. I'm at a loss. Even writing that sentence made me get up and leave the room. Maybe that book has some answers. Would probably help if I actually read it. I started to read it, but then got distracted by wasting my free time doing absolutely nothing.
I tried watching the Barbie movie. Based on clips that I saw here and there, and that beautiful Billie Eilish song, which is also fitting for my current mindset, I thought there was some deeper meaning that I wanted to see. There wasn't. Well over half way through, I just could not. It was such a color headache the likes of which I have not seen since Once Upon a Time in Mexico ...
Where was I. I got distracted trying to find a clip from the movie for demonstration purposes, but then started watching said clips.
Anyway, I'm not depressed. I'm tired. I'm worn out. I'm burned out, as The Theys call it. I'm frustrated. I'm just a heap of nothingness at the moment. The ONLY part in Barbie that I related to was when she flopped down on the fake grass on her face, like a discarded doll. THAT, I felt hard.
Credit: Google Search for "Barbie falls on her face on the lawn"
You know, with the exception of one or two days, since I returned from Arizona, I have ate the same thing for lunch, and sometimes dinner, every single day. I am without urge to cook. I am without urge to plan to cook. I find it taxing to just take care of myself in the most basic manner. Until I went to town yesterday, I couldn't tell you the last time I left the house at all.
All of these people that I see on my socials, how do you have friends? How do DO activities? How do you go out in the world and want to be there? Maybe if I traveled at least monthly, I'd be able to fake it more, but just constantly being here, doing the same thing over and over and over has left me urgeless to even attempt to do anything else.
I am not living. I am just existing. I don't have relationships with anyone else but my husband, and to those of you reading this, it's NOT YOU, it's ME ... I lack the ability to maintain contact with anyone, unless I have to, or they are my child. I love all of my siblings all over the place, and I know I have failed as a sister, grotesquely, even. I guess I just feel that all my issues are at the level of "First-World problems," and I don't wish to burden anyone else with such trivialities. (<----That's an actual word!?!)
I feel that I have zero purpose. I do not DO anything of real import that couldn't be replaced by another human or a machine. I know I am smart, but I am NOT intelligent. If I were, I would have accomplished so much more by now. I can't even stand to watch others who have ideas, like on YouTube, because all I can think of is I would try and fail, so why even exert the energy? Good for them, but I am not they, and they are not me.
There's no mommy issues here (well, maybe ...) but I was raised to be "less than." I was raised to settle for whatever I could get because I wasn't ever going to amount to a "hill of beans." Did they ever expressly utter those exact words? No. Did they show it via their actions, or trying to sweep me under the rug, so they could save face with their adoring public? Yes.
I have been cancelled by my son because I chose to say what I truly felt about something that's ongoing, and instead of listening to me, or asking me what I meant, or even wanting to speak to me on the phone, he has chosen to forget I exist. Cool.
My mom only calls when she needs something, like being driven to Walmart. I don't even rate taking her to doctor appointments. Just the errand girl. I have been treated, by her, like the hired help on most all occasions. Slipped some cash, as if I needed PAID to do this, even. What the fuck? Why be around someone who is so embarrassed to be seen with you that they don't even introduce you, let alone let people know that you are their daughter? It's kind of nauseating.
I'm not the world's best wife, no matter how much he may argue that opinion. I'm not. I am not affectionate. I am not overly emotive. I work too much. I do too little else. I just don't know how to change me to be the wife I think I should be.
The only place where I feel the least bit worthy is my work. I don't even consider it a job because I have a pretty ideal situation. I did work hard to get to where I am now. I won't try to pretend I didn't, but I still don't feel like I measure up on most days, even with repeated praise from my boss.
I'm just depleted. Probably could use therapy, but I don't want to talk to anybody. I want to be able to fix this, fix me, myself.
I don't even begin to know where to start. So I just sit here prone, struggling to even move from my seat. Frozen. (Literally, today, and figuratively.) That sketchbook in the photo above? I took that picture weeks ago. It's still sitting there. I got the TV stand put together, so I can set up the home gynauseum properly, but do you know where it sits? Right by the door where I moved it after I built the damned thing, waiting on a bunch of other things to happen.
About the only thing I'm doing really good at is my eating. I cut out the Crystal Light, as of the last time I posted here. I also stopped eating those damnable French Fried Onions (the Meijer brand) because I know they are lower in carbs on their face, but not if you polish off a bag of them in one or two days. I actually took a moment to ingest some serious carbs and sugar last night, but it wasn't worth the five bucks paid. I find that the more this way of eating goes on, the less I can tolerate any manner of restaurant food.
See, my brain is all over the place. I have plenty of things I could be doing right now, but instead, I'm sitting here digitally whining about nothing. That's how I feel about myself. What the fuck is the point? Why am here? What purpose do I serve? Before you assume anything, I am NOT suicidal. I am just utterly confused, and mostly lost.
You'd think by now, at this no-longer-young age, I'd have some things figured out.
I've not been in the most stellar of moods. It's been a week. A busy week. I can't believe this is already Thursday night. I don't know where the time has gone. Things are about to change again. That's the only real constant, right?
Some people are dying. Others are dying to forget their entire past including their name. Some are trying to move forward despite what anyone else thinks. Some have found what they want. Some have not. Me, I feel like the post in the middle of a merry-go-round, watching it all spin out of control around me.
Some houses are old. Some are new. Some are worn. Some are through.
I'm just making up groups of words until I figure out how to say what I have to say without saying too much or not enough.
Meanwhile, let's move on to the mundane.
I fucked up.
I decided it'd be a good idea to consume Crystal Lite again. Peach Tea to be exact. I was mistaken. Not only is it wreaking havoc on my blood sugar levels, it's not been all that kind to my skin either.
Time for a change. I had the last of it this morning, and then switched back to water with fresh lemon juice and a bit of stevia.
I've also been hitting the fried onions, and my latest micro-addiction, Korean BBQ almonds, a bit too hard, too, so that, as well, is about to change.
I'm NOT on any kind of concerted effort of a diet. NOW would not be the time, and I don't know that any time ever will be the time. I just know that I am no longer enjoying how the majority of junk and processed foods are making me feel. The very, very, very short-term satisfaction is not enough of a payoff for the resulting shit feelings afterward. Some days, it'd be easier to live on coffee, water and cigs than to ingest anything of that nature.
As for smoking, I'll never again talk about it, or the fact that I want to quit. Anytime I "make a plan," or follow the roughshod advice of a bunch of nonsmokers who decided their plans would work best. Believe you me, I know ALL the benefits, and I know ALL the problems I cause with my habit, but it's going to be a very personal, very private endeavor when the time comes that I do quit. I also won't talk about it AFTER the act of quitting has occurred because that just keeps it top of mind, and I am thinking the best approach will be to keep my laser focus away from the topic altogether.
I looked back over the beginnings of this blog, and how I was nearly daily updating on metrics, and blahbity blah, but then I would disappear for months on end because I gave up. Zero effectiveness. I have realized that talk does not replace action, and action does NOT need to be talked about. Just do the thing and move forward.
As for current states, I'm still on the tuna salad and hard-boiled egg kick for lunches, or whenever I don't feel like eating anything else. The weight, she's hovering around the 196-lb mark. I'll take it. Measurements are fairly useless, as even if you have one waist measurement, there are 52,000 different waist sizes in pants, and NOBODY accounts for boobage, unless you buy a 3x or larger. Life continues on.
Updates on the ongoing renovations:
We got a TV stand for the living room, but said stand was NOT the same color as displayed in the product description. It more matches what I have in the office. Therefore, It's going to be used out here in the gymnauseum area of the room. I like it. Plenty of storage for the free weights, the DVD player, and any DVDs I want to bring out here.
Meanwhile, my husband found another stand that is MUCH better suited to what we're going for in the living room, so we got that.
Both require assemblage. I put together stand #1 over the weekend. My husband started on stand #2 when it arrived, and we engaged in teamwork to finish it up and move it into the living room, and move the old beast out.
Things are coming together.
New plumbing is going to start happening next week. That'll be a fun bill.
I think that covers all current updates for the homestead.
Back to the inner turmoil ...
Let me just say I am beyond fed up with the gaslighting that has, thus far, put me in a place where I feel like if I talk about how I feel about anything going on with anyone, I'm just being selfish, self absorbed, making it all about me, etc. I feel like anytime I have something to say, all it takes is one sentence or less to trigger all manner of rage and vitriol aimed in my general direction. People do not stop to consider that what you said was NOT meant in the way they are misconstruing it.
I am not a perfect specimen of humanity. I CAN be mean. I can give as good as I get. I'm just tired of being put in a position to keep other people's secrets, or be a pawn in their game to make themselves feel better, or to just shut up and let everyone do whatever it is they're going to do, no matter if it hurts them or anyone else.
So, rather than try to tell them, I'll just say it here:
What you do is solely up to you. There is nothing I can say or do that will ever change that. If I DO have something to say it is out of love, or concern. My digital, typed delivery might suck, but it does not require anyone to take my words and twist them to mean something entirely different. My words also do not warrant being disrespected to the level that I would rather never talk to you again than to feel the sting of your words and rage.
Don't ever try to manipulate people with selective honesty and expect me NOT to speak up. Don't ever talk shit about me to my face and expect me not to react. I am loyal to a fault, and for the time being, I'll keep those secrets (and you should hope everyone else does, as well), and I'll live with the MORE THAN AWKWARD situation you've decided that those of us privvy to your selective honesty should live in, but I can't control what anyone else does.
If you want to erase 30-plus years of memories, right down to your name, go for it. I can't stop you, but I'll not stay silent about how your own words and actions make me feel. It does not make me bigoted. It does not make me ignorant, uneducated, or stupid. It makes me hurt more than I can properly express. And no matter how much you say I'm just being shallow and making it all about me, it's taking a toll on my mental and physical well being.
But, you do you. The rest will either fall into your way of thinking, or fall away completely.
Those are words I never thought I would say about anyone that I love so dearly, but backed into a corner, I'll come out swinging.
I was never perfect. I was definitely the furthest thing from a good mother. I was definitely also the furthest thing from a perfect child. I'm not even that outstanding of a person now, and I continue to pay for my imperfections.
So, I find this fitting:
I just want peace. I just want rest.
I want to live in this speech for the rest of my days:
Disclaimer: If real emotions make you uncomfortable, don't read this
The difference between yesterday and today ...
I'm pretty much left with doing nothing but holding an empty stare on my face. For someone who never leaves the house outside of a trip to a store for provisions occasionally, I guess my emotions are just too intense, be it in person, in writing, or on the phone.
When you put some time in betwixt you and a problem, pain lessens and logic enters the scene.
I kind of feel like I've been dissected into pieces like that ^^^
I do still feel this, but not at the level of intensity I did yesterday.
Context and self talk:
As a child, I was TOO emotional, such that the only way I could earn getting my ears pierced was to not cry for a week, complete with a poster-board chart hung in the kitchen for all to see. Bury those feels in food, damn it. Don't let anyone know you feel a fucking thing, especially as a pre-teen, especially when all those female hormones are starting to circle and whirl and boil to the surface. Just don't.
For the most of the next two or three decades, I had ALL the feels, but mostly didn't express them without alcohol. Then, I was a dribbling idiot, by my own definition. Not a good look on anyone. I think my 30th birthday was the turning point when I stopped drinking excessively.
I've only been truly shitfaced once since then, New Year's Eve 2018. I do not remember this. But hey, at least the hat was cute, right?
Then, I started writing. I filled notebooks with my feelings when I figured out it was the only way to get things out of my brain. That went on for many years, until I finally got sick of hearing myself write, and figured out that it does nothing by way of productivity. That was probably 14 years ago. I burned what was left, and never did that whole "journaling" thing again.
I also used to write long letters to people because I could not properly express myself out loud to make sure I got things said that I needed to say. Those fell on deaf ears and blind eyes. Ignore her. She'll shut up eventually.
That's also probably about the time when I really began using foods to bury the feels. Just eat your way through it. What else is there to do? Nobody really wants to hear what you have to say because they're too busy trying micromanage HOW you say it.
Storms are very, very silent. Until they're not.
This is true any day of the week.
This is mostly what I feel like at present moment, after a few months of assorted bullshit coming in from all directions. There's no shortage of names and descriptions for how others perceive me to be, after they have taken anything I say and twisted it around to mean something completely different than I meant or intended.
I did feel fairly leveled yesterday and the day before. There has been a shitstorm of epic proportions looming overhead, kind of like the picture above. Any one of these shitstorm components, in and of itself, happening separately, fine. I could manage. When they all happen within a few minutes, days, or weeks of each other. Nah.
Some days, I can feel those vultures casually soaring and circling up above, just watching and waiting.
I'm tired. I am worn down. I am emotionally drained. It doesn't pay to have feelings. It doesn't pay to trust someone to hold what you talk about in confidence or in any kind of high regard when instead, it's just stored for later use as things to throw back in my face.
I'm not allowed to be frustrated. I'm not allowed to express said frustration. I don't have any right to grieve. I don't have any right to be insulted when someone shows me how very little they care. I don't have a right to be hurt when someone else decides to erase a significant portion of their and my history, nor do I have the right to ask them to not say one thing, one phrase. How dare I. How very dare I.
I am overwhelmed. I am not a pillar of strength. Time and bullshit are taking their toll on my psyche, and my body, and I'm not sure how to get out, around, or through any of it. Do I handle it with grace and dignity? Absofuckinglutely not. Do I panic? Do I freeze? Do I cease to be able to think? Do I yell? Do I get upset? Do I get frustrated? ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY.
There just doesn't seem to be any happy medium when it comes to my ability to have relationships with many people (not everyone, but a large majority). I tend to attract those who would respond to simple statements of my own feelings with disgust, impunity, and a whirlwind of hatred that does not equal the statement made. OR, those who choose to be cold, calculating, unfeeling, obsessed with "The Lord Jesus Christ," and wouldn't know a hug or affection if it slapped them upside the face with a 2x4.
If life is a pinball machine, I am the pinball. The balanced middle ground is very narrow. One side = hellfire and brimstone; Other side = frozen tundra.
So, instead of focusing on the collective bullshite over which I have zero control, this is what I want and what I am doing for me:
1. Art. I have the stuff, now I will use it.
2. Yarn. I have the stuff, now I will use it.
3. Exercise. I don't care what anyone else does, this is what I need for me.
4. Self maintenance. Self care is a misnomer. I can't necessarily say I care what happens to me, but at least I can maintain what's left of me while I am here, right?
5. Decluttering and engaging in some format of minimalism.
6. Solving my own problems. Nobody is coming to save me, so it's up to me.
As often as it enters my braincell, I don't want to take my leave of the planet. I'm far too much a coward to do anything like that anyway. I used to not be able to understand those that did, but I do, now, get it. I just don't live in that camp. However, I also realize that no matter how many times, or how many different ways I say I need help, the only one hearing me is me, and therefore, it's up to me, and only me, to get to a place where those thoughts cannot penetrate.
I cannot control what anyone else says, thinks, believes, or chooses to do. I can only control me. I am a flawed soul, and I make mistakes daily, if not hourly, but I am trying, and I will know when I hit the mark. For now, that's all I can do.
I don't remember if I took the actual picture in 2014, but it hit me seeing the glimpse of light amidst the snowy, cloudy winter sky. It's not often I capture something that looks exactly as I saw it, but this was one of them.
Before I forget, I forgot to tell you about an absolute angel I met on the plane last month. She reminded me of my daughter-in-law. She was tiny, but you could tell she just had a good strong energy about her. We were exiting Chicago for Phoenix. She was returning home to Arizona after trying her hand in the military, which she discovered was not for her. Good for her for knowing when to call it quits!
Anywho, for context, I have a hard time with take-offs. The speed, and the act of a plane leaving the ground, right at that moment when the front wheels lift off, and then shortly thereafter, when the whole thing is airborne, and pointed more upward than down, and the physical sense of pressure all just gives me a tremendous amount of anxiety and ear pain. I mostly try to ease my discomfort by chewing no less than five pieces of gum, holding my hand to my chest, somewhere above the rack, and looking out the window and down at my uncertain future on the ground.
I tried more than once yesterday to right (write), but it felt forced. I'm not into "trying too hard" anymore. Also not into the whole 'fake it til you make it' mentality either, unless it's work-related. For some reason, there, it's easier to digest. Sometimes, I just have nothing I need to say, or even want to talk about.
So, we were taping the living room yesterday for today's onslaught of VERY neutral, VERY bright off-white paint and in the 1950s built-in bookcase of oddities AFTER writing yesterday's entry, I found this. Which then reminded me of my love of Venetian clowns, of which I used to have a few. I have no idea where this particular piece came from. It's about the size of a couple quarters. I have no memory of it at all. Just a sign from the Universe that it heard me when I said the masks are off? Regardless, it's now sitting on my desk, in eyesight, as a reminder.
Let's just get the pictures out of the way right up front, and then, if you're bored, you can read the words (of which there will be MANY, so bring snacks) far down below.
Firstly, of course, Odin. Because he keeps growing, here is this week's best shot:
