Resilient Always
I was writing something else, will use tomorrow.
Trauma Therapy Tuesday was my big day out. I enjoyed my little post-session walk and was glad to keep working a little at integrating a terrible memory from age 4.
It's one that had unfolded new memories, it was worse. The last few sessions have me appreciating how remarkable I was as a child. I was brilliant at figuring out the least terrible option then getting through it and getting myself out of the house for a while.
I'm also marveling at how well I am, considering what examples were put before me as a child and what I endured.
I was, and am, a resilient bad ass.
Masks as Political Statements
Despite not pushing myself, taking breaks, and trying to move mindfully while gardening yesterday, my pain level had been very high today. I was really grateful I took the day off and this morning CK and I played video games while moving slowly.
I got some lettuce and kale planted for us.
We talked about the horrible white woman in Central Park off and on. I'm feeling pretty disheartened between her and a friend sharing she was harassed for wearing a mask at her local market.
"Rural is angry.", she noted about it.
My head hurts, mostly allergy related, butt partly the day's accumulated anger. My heart hurts, how can so many people believe wearing a mask to be protective of others and self is a political statement.
But it's 2020 and here we are.
Gardening for Hope
I got another raised bed prepped today! Tomorrow I can plant some lettuce and kale starts CK has waiting.
We've been dealing with home repair issues too. Our washing machine needs a new cord. We've managed to diagnose the issue and next weekend will fix it. We got it running fine, we think part the problem is the outlet.
This simple stuff has been good to bring focus on what is most needed. Or top priority is our well-being.
"Us first."
We started saying this after getting my Mother out of our home and lives. She'd done her level best to undermine and destroy what we'd built together, but we're stronger.
That said, these pandemic days are far more frightening than family drama. This is saying something given what a horror show my family was.
We're at nearly 100,000 people dead of COVID19 in the USA.
Seventy Dinners
It wasn't grand or special. We didn't even have exactly the same thing, my entree was leftovers and CK had hot dogs cut up in baked beans, yes, beanie weenie. There were carrot sticks for a veg side. The fruit salad for dessert was the most labor intensive part of dinner.
It was tasty, filling, and nutritious enough. We both ate our seventieth dinner together, that's the most important part. We played games together at the dining room table then each of us on a computer game, but in the same room together.
While checking on the dogs out in our yard I admired the bees attending all of flowers blooming right now.
Harvest
The garden gave us Sugar Snap Peas today. Just a handful we ate while playing a game together this evening. They weren’t amazing, the way very freshly harvested produce is sometimes, but they were good.
I picked up the mail. It contained a handmade card and a linocut print, both made by students. “That’s a pile of fan mail”, CK commented when I got home.
I am, again, deeply moved at the offerings of my students. I’m also really impressed at how well people are adapting and growing.
Now that I’ve spotted the backdraft of shame in response to these mail days, I’m hoping that will begin to ease. Sometimes recognizing, then articulating these insights to CK, a friend, and/or my therapist, starts to break up the hold the Childhood Logic has on me.
Tomorrow is Dinner 70 and I have no idea what it will be, nor do I have anything thawing for CK. It might end up being very easy if we garden a lot. We’re also spending a bunch of the weekend playing games and discussing more ideas to make CK’s 40th extra special.
It’s the Grief
I felt overcome with grief this morning, set off by a thoughtful gesture. As I blinked through a moment of tears, I was struck at how much grief I’ve felt this week. The heaviness and sadness I’ve felt are not depression, but grief cycling through.
I made a couple of videos over at the club I still work for. It was pretty tiring to go out to do that. I also stopped to pick up some medication, I had intended to go to the post office as well, but forgot!
I found myself wishing I could just drive off to the beach. Then I remembered that it’s still closed.
Grief came back then.
There’s so much to grieve right now. Even in our good fortune there’s so much we’re missing out on this year, including an event with friends & family to mark CK’s 40th next month. I miss my students.
My errand included some spectacular roses, I’m really grateful for all these moments if beauty.
Unstable Days
Having a day where there isn’t much to say. Despite feeling sad, I managed to get quite a few tasks done for the house and make us a pretty tasty dinner all from scratch, aside from dry pasta.
Dinner #67
Perhaps I’ll do something special Saturday for dinner 70.
I’m sad about the pandemic and despairing for the state of my country. I’m daily enraged by accounts of white people refusing to wear masks for the greater good and of cops assaulting people of color who don’t wear one while giving them out with smiles to whites people. I’m feel increasingly fearful and it isn’t misplaced.
Ninety Thousand
How is it that we're at the number and the protests are for people to be served?
I say that and I know the answer. The racism that has only seemed subtle because I am a white woman living in a state that had exclusion laws to make sure it stayed as white as possible for as long as possible. It isn't subtle anymore.
White people clamoring for life to "go back to normal" when what they really mean it's for them to go back to being served. Refusing to wear masks because the disease disproportionately affects black and brown people, and affects them in more ways, more seriously.
I'm so sick of American Exceptionalism.
There's no greater good. There's only my good for me and mine and those people who look and act like I do.
I feel so exhausted today, even after napping. Grateful that CK dropped our ballots off, that dinner was easy, and that I talked with friends today over Zoom and just texting. I'm grateful for our beloved companion animals even if they can be really tedious at times.
Exhausting
Same calendula today. Taken during a break in the rain.
A friend is dealing with complex rental issues and asked about moving and school districts online. They're from another country and were surprised at the way a move disrupts schooling and how you have to plan moves around it.
Well, that's why summer parents think about it.
My Mother was never satisfied. Once she got to something she wanted she'd immediately start in on all the things that were not living up to her expectations. She also burned bridges often. Usually all of this would result in us moving to a new place that would fix everything.
Between first grade, age 6, and graduation, age 17, of attend 17 schools. There's a couple middle-to-high-school transitions in there, but even with that it represents 15 moves. We also moved repeatedly before age 6 and experienced a period of homelessness when we sheltered with my Mother's sister.
Another friend shared thier high count. We comiserated over being asked if we're from a military family and having to respond with, essentially, "No I had a terrible childhood."
The original friend noted they were sorry I'd gone through that, it sounded exhausting.
"Yes!", I thought. Life with my Mother was exhausting. She was an energy vampire. Years after her death I’m still remembering new, terrible things and still resting to recover all the energy she stole from me.
All this is so heavy, when you layer on the pandemic it explains why I have days like today where my body feels like I’m made of rocks.
Housewife
The work of feeding us is my chore. It is a task that really brings CK a lot of stress and is one that it makes sense for me to take on. I usually enjoy this task, but I’m finding many times I’m so apathetic about food that it’s been challenging. This on top of the food fatigue CK experiences has made feeding us an adventure.
We stopped eating out. It has been deemed relatively safe to get take out, but we feel that's a point of potential exposure we’d rather not have. CK helps by being pretty accepting of whatever meal I manage. Sometimes we’re coaxing each other to eat.
Today I had 2 different types of Clif Bars because I couldn’t manage anything else for myself. CK did moderately better and by dinner I was up to cooking.
Many household tasks are my realm of influence. I’m the keeper of the hearth, a role that not only makes sense as I don’t have a “regular” job. I’m also teaching and finding ways to do my work, but housewife has become my rule more and more.
I’m surprised and pleased to discover this is a good role for me.