Disguised.Me

Mirror, mirror.. tell me who you see? Am I you or me? I can never remember.

A Year of Worry

I, like many other Americans, am very wary of what March brings this year. As it is, we’ve now hit one year of living in the throes of a full-blown pandemic.

Honestly, we don’t have shit to show for it either.

People are still unsurprisingly and unapologetically stupid.

People are still unsurprisingly and unapologetically selfish.

People don’t give one single fuck if they go out and do whatever they want.. and cost someone their life.

I’ve made it through another month of daily posts, for better or for worse. But even more incredible, is that I’ve made it through one of the worst things that has happened in my lifetime. I’m only 34 and I have seen so many terrible things. More things than any one lifetime should hold, but here we are, only about 1/3 into my life (if I’m fortunate to live to a much older age), and life is still somehow trying to raise the bar.

I’m stressed, I’m depressed, I’m exhausted, and I’m really just not even sure where to go anymore. What to feel. Why I feel the way I do, sometimes, is a mystery. Other times, it’s more apparent.

March should be a transitionary month for me, in many ways, but I’m also scared. It has many positives that can come my way, that are already in the works even.. but there are many ways that the pendulum could swing away.

It’s terrifying and I can only hope that, at it’s worst, it’s balanced with good and bad. I don’t think I could take another month of purely bad, let alone another year.

May March bring us all peace, sanity, and a little bit of humility toward our fellow humans. Despite the fact that they’re trying to drive us all to extinction.

Pick, Heal, Pick, Heal.. Pick

Humans are dreadfully depressing sometimes. We are inherently self-destructive, regardless of whether things are going poorly or going well. We hate the pain of healing, but we constantly find ways to cycle back into the process.

The worst and most prevalent method of self-destruction lies in our inability to leave scabs (physical and emotional) well enough alone. We get hurt, the pain is real, the pain is alarming, the pain begins to subside. The wound scabs over. It’s fresh and, depending on the size of the wound, it’s very noticeable. So we pick at it. It bleeds. We start the process over.

We don’t learn anything from that first one. We watch it bleed, probably don’t immediately triage it, and then we sit with the pain for a while. After a little bit, it begins to scab over again. We’re healing. This is wonderful. And then we bump into something, it knicks that scab, and we bleed a little bit. Frustrated, we pick at it and make it worse. We’re starting over with the pain and the transition to healing.

We’re smart now. We know that we need to be careful and try not to damage that scab. We don’t want to bleed again. We put a bandage on it. Some time goes by.. and it begins to itch. We won’t scratch it. We know what happens. We bargain with ourselves. “I’ll just scratch around the area, but not directly on it.” The first couple times, the lie works. We manage to fake our way further into healing. Out of nowhere, it itches like mad. This can’t be ignored. Itching around the area does nothing.. we have to scratch directly. “I’ll just do it gently, just enough to stop the itch but not cause it to bleed.” It works. But then the itching comes back and we scratch it blindly while we’re distracted or tired. The sting tells us we’ve messed up. We picked at that scab and we’re bleeding again. Furious and frustrated, we pick at it. Why not? It’s already bleeding.

The pain is there and we have to once again transition into healing.

Sometimes, the scab never goes away. The pain comes rushing in and we transition into healing, and then back into pain, and then to healing again.. in a cycle that never dies.

We never learn.

We never heal.

And yet, we persist.

Someday, we’ll mean that promise we made to ourselves.

Parenting: A Journey

Today we got back the benchmark testing for Q2 for the little one. It’s not where it should be and I’m trying not to take it personally. My poor husband is at sea with me, huddled in the very same boat.

I know that parenting is a non-linear, constant learning experience.. but sometimes it feels like it really likes to kick you when you’re already pretty far down.

I will be devoting more time to helping her with her problem areas, but I’m also alarmingly aware that she just simply does not test well. Her actual struggles, coupled with poor testing, is really just setting all of us up for a long, long, long road ahead.

Parenting is a journey, not a race. The only way to win, is to be 100% supportive of your kids and their successes. This isn’t for you. This is for them.

Excuse me while I intone that until it becomes my truth.

Disoriented

This entire week has been a wild ride and it’s not even over yet. Emotions are running high, mental health is running low, and everything else is happening in-between. I keep saying that I hope tomorrow is better and that I feel better, or sleep better, or at least can act a little more okay better.. but it’s starting to feel like I’m lying to myself about how much progress I’m making.

I need to unwind, have a few minutes to myself where it’s just me and whatever I want to do, with no people, no sound, no anything. I know that’s what my mental health needs, but I can’t help but be at war inside over how ridiculously selfish and self-absorbed that sounds.

Eventually I’ll make peace with some of the voices screaming inside my head, but for today, it’s just another episode of ‘doing my best and getting by’.

Winter Sickness?

Or sick of Winter?

I am constantly battling some kind of body ache, allergies, migraine, internal lady issues.. just neverending. Today I’m battling a nasty migraine and the worst heartburn.

I just want to crawl into bed for the next 2 years, at this point.

On the plus side, I have found several very promising prospects in my house-hunting adventures, so I’m hoping that things keep looking up that way so that I can finally start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. We’re branching out, looking in places we weren’t before, and seeing some little gems secreted away. Overall, it’s still underwhelming, but every once in a while, we’re seeing something pretty fucking nice.

Please send all good pre-approval and house-hunting juju our direction, because we need this desperately for a serious quality of life overhaul.

Comfort Zone Discomfort

Lately, I find that when I remain inside my comfort zone, I still feel a layer of underlying discomfort. It doesn’t make any sense, but it’s happening nonetheless. I want to say that it’s triggered by a degree of guilt because I’m remaining within that designated comfort zone, but at the same time, I just really don’t know if ‘comfort’ has the same level of depth it once did.

I find myself wondering if I can do better, or worse, or more, or less. It’s never a sense of completion and contentment within when I do something.. it’s just always a feeling of, “Is this really the product that I’m putting out here?”

I have to find a way to quit being so negative, quit being so self-critical, quit being so over the top in my ability to pick things apart.. and start being more caring and kind to myself.

Honestly, the idea of that sound absolutely terrifying, which means that in order to accomplish a little bit of pride, I have to step outside of my comfort zone.

Hooray.

Disconnect?

Today was a day of minimizing my online presence, and honestly it felt pretty good. Didn’t check Facebook, didn’t hop on Afterlife, barely even interacted through Discord. Just .. sort of had a day where it was just me, chillin’.

Got some cleaning done, did some reorganization, identified and removed several sources of clutter, and still somehow managed to sleep until noon. It’s back to work tomorrow, but they’re saying we’re going to have another snow day (3-5″ from 8am-3pm), so I’m hoping that someday my car will be out of the snow pile it’s been in since last week.

I’m hoping to make more headway on the awful ‘catch all’ room we have, but that involves throwing out 3-4 very large, very heavy pieces of furniture and my body is definitely not ready. I figure if I get all of it situated so it can easily get down the stairs, then we shouldn’t really have too bad of a time hitting it with some teamwork. After that, it should really be smooth sailing from there, because then I can setup the pieces of shelving that I’ve bought to act as a pop-up pantry.

I’m starting to finally see the light and I really hope that I’m able to make enough progress to where moving is a bit of a joke. Afterall, we’re only taking about 5 large pieces of furniture from this place (and several TVs), so it’s already going to be way better to move out than it was to move in.

If I keep making progress, I feel like my overall mental health and even professional productivity may improve! One can hope, anyway.

A Continuation of Self

I’m constantly at war with myself, trying to find ways to ultimately create a better version of me. In my current state, this means that even the slightest improvement is huge because I’m really, really low. My health isn’t the greatest because of my weight and general lack of communication with my doctor(s), my motivation is next to zero, simply because I’m stressed to death, and my level of enjoyment in things that generally are on my list of positives is basically nothing.

To combat this, I’ve been making a conscious effort to give myself time to enjoy things (playing WoW, crafts, watching things on TV) in between my quest I stated yesterday, which is a massive quality of life overhaul. It’s going well sometimes, and then other times I wake up at noon, disoriented and wondering where the weekend went.

I don’t have a terribly concrete grasp on what will help me, but I know that working into things I once enjoyed is only partially helping. I really need more things to do that are by myself. I don’t get to do any hands-on crafting because I lack space, so that one is pretty much out. But I can still attempt things, in smaller bites, and see what brings a tiny bit of warmth to the spark of joy inside of me.

I want to read, so desperately, but I rarely find that I have the time. When I do have the time, nothing holds my interest. I just stare at the same page, wondering if I even enjoy it anymore. I’d like to try audiobooks for a change of pace, but I find that they’re quite expensive and I’m not 100% sure if Audible is worth the subscription fee. But, as I keep reiterating, something has gotta give in the meantime. Sure it’ll be better when we move because I’ll be able to throw myself 100% in to making a house a home, but until then.. it just feels like everything is a little bit stuck.