Where did this sunshine come from?

First of all:

Look, I know I'm late to the party, but Lizzo is so great. I just want to listen to "Juice" on repeat. I'M INTO IT.


Secondly:

This whole thing of emotional resilience is fucking amazing. I don't really know where it came from...maybe I was building the muscle while I was on Gabapentin*, and then when I dropped the med I bounced straight up into the sunshine? Like when you walk around with a heavy pack for a while and then when you put it down you feel like you might float up into the air. I can't think of another explanation but it's amazing, and I hope it stays.

Like, my godmother is extremely ill right now--she has a treatable but incurable cancer, so there's no knowing how much time she has. That is truly awful news, and I sat in my car and cried for an hour when I found out. But miraculously, I'm ok. It's a horrible thing that is happening but it's somehow not blackening my entire landscape.

I've gotten middling to bad sleep for the last week, and I had hoped this past weekend would be my chance to catch up--but (probably because of who I am as a person, or maybe because it's my Fate to never go to bed on time) it wasn't. I still averaged between six and seven hours, when I'm a person who needs eight. And then last night I'm not sure I even hit five. For most of my life, a night like last night would have had me in hysterics. But it didn't.


Guys, walking through this world every day without wearing the 1960s solid metal deep-sea diving suit that is chronic depression is like winning the goddamn lottery. It's incredible. 10/10, would recommend.















*In case I didn't cover this before (since I never write this decade), I was on gabapentin for several years to address the nerve pain I get due to an inherited degenerative neurological disease, but since Ian and I are considering starting a family, we were trying really hard to find a way for me to function without it. My nerve pain is triggered by stress, and for the last several years the prevailing theory has been that it got too bad for me to handle (without medication anyway) while my dad was in the hospital for two straight months with an infected pressure sore, and my friend went into the hospital at the same time with ovarian cancer. But then when we examined the situation further, we remembered that I had also started drinking coffee during that time period, and I decided to experimentally cut back on coffee. My pain was instantly a hundred times better, so I've (very sadly) dropped coffee and dropped gabapentin, and now I control the pain with CBD capsules and/or Lion's Mane Mushroom capsules, depending on my pain levels.

And gabapentin...I knew it was rough stuff, but man. The withdrawal made me sick for days, and once I was off of it I realized that it had been keeping me depressed and giving me pretty extreme brain fog and memory problems. Life is so much better without it, and I'm so grateful that I'm able to function without using it now.

Moods and cloud cover

I think things out in mental prose when I'm emotional or thoughtful, and then, if I remember and get around to it, I write them here. And then, if I deem them to be too emotional (usually read: embarrassing), I go back and qualify everything. Or if I get angry or annoyed with myself over what a sappy, soppy mess I've become, which happens with some regularity, I go back and qualify everything. (Perhaps it's utterly obvious that I am hugely uncomfortable with emotion, and that writing for me is an exercise in allowing and processing emotion, and so I don't need to say this. I don't know. Anyway.) I don't lie, per se, but I cover. Like the unsent, unflattering (to me) letter to David. It's not that it isn't true. Any of it--the letter or the added qualifications. But I would feel horrible, I think, if he read what I wrote the other day, because I so minimized the depth of it.
The letter: I do feel that way. I don't usually think about it. Those embers are still there. I do sometimes get teary when particularly-close-to-home songs come on the radio. And when they come on, and I realize halfway through that I didn't immediately get emotional, I start feeling all proud of myself. The brokenness thing is true, and I hate it. Having grown a little past that fit in the last twelve months, I now become uncomfortable and irritated when we're together, and I don't like it. Don't like being together. But I still miss being together. I guess it, this mess, might be a little like putting on a shirt that used to fit, that I used to love. (So much.) I remember it looking and feeling great. But it doesn't fit anymore, and its colors have faded while my skin has darkened in the sun. And when I put it on, it's uncomfortable and unflattering. The shirt has changed a little, and I have changed a lot.

And I write things like "and I'm never attracted to anyone anymore," which is generally, but not utterly, true--and then I feel like it will screw up any shot I might have with any guy who reads it. So I qualify. And that sickens me a little. On the one hand, I'm not generally attracted, even when I expect to be, and it is often (or seems to be) largely due to a not-like-David factor. That sickens me a bit as well. But rarely doesn't mean never. And so on the other hand, well, one, I don't want to seem like a complete psycho, even if I guess sometimes a case could be made that maybe I am. And two, being emotionally retarded (no, literally--not in an offensive slangy way) doesn't mean that I'll never grow out of it or that I want to stay in this stupid stuck-in-the-past state forever. I mean, PLEASE, SOMEBODY, PLEASE convince me that my shot at love isn't over. The very idea is ridiculous--it's not like our relationship was all sunshine and flowers and declarations of love; more like pretty good times punctuated by piercing, breathtaking doubt--but I still find it incredibly difficult to let go.


Plus, dammit, I'm lonely. Not for a social life. For such a close friend and companion. I really miss that.


Why, and how, do things turn into such a mess sometimes?

Heart and soul.

I like to think of myself as a Christian, but sometimes I think I'm a bad one, or I think that my views (which tend to be fairly mutable) are too far off center to count. Sometimes this makes me wonder about my ultimate fate--illogical and slightly ridiculous as that may be.

I have realized hundreds of times that speaking or writing negativity causes my internal self or feeling or balance or whatever I would call it to take a negative turn. Possibly someday I will realize this enough times to stop speaking negativity.

I think I spend a lot of time trying to paint my heart so that it looks like the heart of God, or looks the way I imagine God's might look. Pure and loving and forgiving, respectful, wise. Obviously this doesn't work. I am not God. I am not particularly Godlike. I am probably pretty average as humans go, and "average" on the human scale contains a lot of less-than-awesome stuff. Purity? Forget it. You can listen to me talk for a day and cross that one off. Loving? On a "God" scale that would have to entail perfect loving, and... no. Wisdom is especially laughable. Sometimes I think I'm doing pretty well, and then I end up in the presence of another human, who is by definition fallible, who makes me look like a petulant child. And then I remember.

I am a petulant child. I guess we all are in our own ways (or at least it comforts me to think so, in a misery-loves-company kind of way), and that isn't such a terrible thing. He said "suffer the little children to come unto me," didn't he? And there's a verse in Mattew (18:3) which, though it differs across translations, shares this sentiment in all: that in order to enter the kingdom of heaven, we must be like children.

Almost any verse in that book is up for debate. People make what they will of the text, for good or ill. In my mind though, a child is a person who can be taught. A child is a person who is growing. A child is, generally speaking, a person with an open heart.

I'm making a little bit of jump here, and I apologize, but there's a stronger connection in my mind than on paper. I have felt for a while that tears are the great equalizer of humanity. That, as I put it here or in a paper journal, "only children weep." Most of adulthood is little more than a constructed wall and a facade of control that we put ourselves behind because doing so is easier than knowing ourselves or one another. It is easier for me to pretend that everything is simple and straightforward than it is for me to really look at who I am. It is easier for you not to know me, either. But when we weep we relinquish our control and we drop our walls, and we allow ourselves to be exposed as the fragile children that we all are. We admit that the world touches us. We admit, not only that we can be hurt, but that we are. I think it can be a very powerful thing.


Back to the heart metaphor: it is gradually coming to my attention that perhaps my fear of asking (read: praying) for things for me stems from the fact that when I mess with shit, I mess shit up. Thus I fear that asking for things in some way constitutes "messing with the plan," and will therefore cause mass chaos and high levels of regret. Anna tells a story occasionally about a friend who did something and then worried aloud that it would screw up her life, which prompted the (somewhat snarky) reply of "Wow, you must be really powerful if you can mess up The Plan." A week after hearing this story for the second or third time, the idea that it maybe could possibly apply to my habits seems to have trickled down into my brain. It now occurs to me that maybe the reason I mess up when I try to force things to happen is that I am not, in fact, God.* And that maybe, praying for something is not quite the same thing as, for instance, trying to stick my hand into a running car engine and bend it to my will, or trying to make six different things happen at the same time.


Back again to the heart metaphor, hopefully this time in a way that makes more sense: usually it takes a lot of repetition for me to truly internalize a eureka moment, so I don't know whether this will stick this time, but I am (for tonight) starting to see that perhaps acrylics are not the best solution for my heart problem. I still get irrationally angry. I still don't know who I am. I still tend to think that my viewpoint is the only viewpoint, and that I am (for all practical intents and purposes) the only person in existence. Even the best paintbrush can only do so much. So I am, tonight, seeing that maybe the way to make my heart look like His is to give up. Stop standing over here and looking over there and carefully applying paint to any place where it may have flaked off since yesterday, and allow actual contact instead. I am not good at letting my guard down. I am not good at Love Close Up. I am not good at allowing myself to feel things. But I am learning.






It takes a lot of effort for me not to apologize for the overtly religious nature of this post, but I am nevertheless choosing not to. If you don't believe in God, I am saddened by that, but that's your deal. If you are turned off by the hatred and judgment that Christianity has been and often is used to justify, then I understand, and again am deeply saddened. If you believe that God is the energy force that connects all living things, I get that too. I feel the same way sometimes. I don't know who or what God is. I don't know if any of us have all the answers. I hope that, as the Bible and Torah say (In Deuteronomy 4), if anyone truly seeks God, they will find him. I hope we are all given a chance to choose after the veil of this life is lifted. But I don't know the answers, and I am no judge. I just believe what I believe.

























*Apparently this is big news to me.

Snow.

There seems to be a lot of it going around. We had some tonight, and as I was mentally composing bits and pieces of this post I realized that I wanted to call tonight's snow heavy, and I also wanted to call it light. I decided that each descriptor was accurate, as they (sort of) apply to different aspects of said precipitation. The flakes were large and wet -> heavy. The flakes were large and caught the air to provide that great floaty, spinny effect -> light. It looked so gorgeous, so romantic. The descriptive phrases I came up with tended to be less romantic. Example: the way the snow floated so gently down, it looked like particulate matter suspended in a liquid. Candlelit supper worthy, I know.

But speaking of particulate matter, I love the way such light, slow-falling flakes provide a perfect visual aide to the wind, and show every swirl, gust, and riffle in the air. I loved the way the snow fell beneath street lamps, and I especially loved the way it swirled and spiraled down onto the steeple floodlights of the church I passed on the way home tonight. My favorite, though, was when a light shone straight into the branches of a small tree, and I could watch the slow snow settle gently down through the branches.


Unfortunately, wet snow is much prettier from the car. Once I was outside in it again it sounded and felt like a sullen, lead-footed rain. Tonight when I walked Miley the rain (all that was left of the former snowglory) had essentially stopped, and the damp wind made the night feel significantly colder than 39 degrees. I buried my chin and walked on, and spent very little time looking at a sky which was the color of stomach acid adulterated with varying amounts of charcoal.


But the key point here is that the snow was super pretty. It was. Ok, sleep time. (Showers? Who needs 'em?)

Whatever.

The sky looks fabulous tonight. It's weird of me to say that, I know. I think maybe I'm slightly more biased than most (as though there are more than three other people in the world walking around with massive crushes on their local starscape) because I walk out my front door* every night and look up at it through these massive trees that tower over our house, and then I wander down through the neighborhood until I can stand by the dark, sleepless, singing creek and look through the woods. It's like taking a pretty girl and dressing her up in satin and silver and pearls. She would be pretty anyway, but some nights she is breathtakingly lovely.

Tonight every inch of the ground (not the road) gleamed under the glow of our two streetlights. I love the frost on nights like this. It made me a little sad though to think that for so many centuries of winters this magic lay on the ground, right under people's feet, and no one could ever see it. Perhaps it will show up under the full moon, but I'm not counting on it. This may be the first time ever that I have been grateful for street lights. Wonderful!


































*Toor? Really? I can't type worth a damn tonight.

When does winter officially start, again?

People often say (and I considered saying tonight) that stars are like diamonds. I stopped to consider this, though, and I have to say that we're getting it the wrong way around. A transparent little stone doesn't have much on a bright star shining through the cold night and bare November branches. It just doesn't.

As I was looking for a suitable picture of a diamond I found this post on blood diamonds. Not that it's particularly informative, but it is a good reminder of the things that go on for the sake of profit*. And come on! Diamonds aren't even rare!**



I resisted the leaf pile at the bottom of the hill tonight. This was more difficult than I originally anticipated, because it has grown substantially and because tonight the sky was clear and dark, and the stars were, as I said, brilliant. As I walked down the next block I thought about how I wished I could call David and ask him to come over and lie in the leaf pile with me. (Sometimes these things are better when shared.) Obviously that isn't really an option because we're still exes and haven't quite progressed to "friends" again, in the sense that lying in a leaf pile wouldn't be okay. As usual I wondered whether this was an "I want David" thing or an "I want someone" thing, and I came to the conclusion that the idea of lying in a leaf pile with an anonymous "someone" seemed a far less attractive prospect. I think that in this case, what I want is to lie in a leaf pile with someone I love, who knows me, whom I know. A person with whom I share a relationship based on love and understanding and mutual comfort-in-the-presence-of-you. What's the right term for that? A soul friend? Sara would probably qualify, minus the added bonus of hand-holding that would come with David if that were possible, but she's still in Scotland. It's an issue. I'm sure there are people with whom leaf pile star gazing would be enjoyable, but I'm not good at coming up with names.

Would you believe that I put more time into editing than I did into writing last night? I don't plan to do that again this evening. Just a heads-up. Can you even see a difference? Don't spare my feelings here. It's not a big deal.***


I listened to Christmas music on Lite 98 today. It has begun! I've been thinking lately that the "Christmas music from Thanksgiving to the 25th" thing is probably a marketing gimmick. Just a friendly reminder in case some idiot walks in the store without remembering that he's supposed to be emptying his bank account.

I still love Christmas music, though. Mostly.


I forgot some other things that I meant to say. Ah, well. I wonder if somewhere in my mind there is the equivalent of a grease trap. Or perhaps a more appropriate analogy would be, I wonder if somewhere in my mind there is the equivalent of that horrible space between the counter top and the refrigerator, the final resting place for all manner of spoons and cooking utensils, cheap magnets and important notices and bits of nastiness that fell from one or the other. I bet there is. Now if only I could find a way to move the refrigerator, I'd be in business.
























*Wikipedia claims that 2-3% of the market is made up of blood or conflict diamonds.

**I am trying to find an actual statistic on this, but thus far all I have is this quote, again from wikipedia: "The image of diamond as a valuable commodity has been preserved through clever marketing campaigns."

No, okay, here. I have something more substantial. Blame De Beers.


***Evidently it is late enough that I am getting self-conscious and defensive. Bed time?