I don't know you anymore/upside down & inside out

I wander through life and hope not to stumble or fall. Lately, I've stumbled more than I've fallen, but I only now realize how many times I fell over the last few months. I don't know why I'm writing this because I wouldn't want anyone to know. I guess I'm banking on the fact that nobody reads this idle chatter so I have nothing to worry about.

Days are long and nights are longer. I struggle to keep up with the simplest routines but I force myself to keep whatever I can in the realm of "normal". I just want to feel human again. And I don't want anyone to know I ever wasn't.

There's so much good in my life and I just have to remember it. I try to write it down every week so I can look back and see through all the craziness, that there were good moments. I have good people in my life, good things--love my jobs and singing. I'min love with a married man....but we won't go there. I never said that.

I need to sign off.

Something different

Sometimes it's good to explore something different. I'm not big on change, but variety can be good. Sometimes. I'm avoiding the topic at hand right now because it's a difficult one. For the last few months, I've been on a wild ride of mood swings, anxiety attacks, and feeling out of control. We all know that I thrive on routines and control. I hate surprises and not knowing what's coming. This is precisely how my life has been --filled with surprises and I never know what's coming. It's uncomfortable and scary. I find myself saying things before I know what they are. Words fly out of my mouth or onto my computer to land on some hapless person who may or may not deserve them. After a lot of destructive thoughts and intense anger, I reached out for help. I realized that this type of anxiety wasn't the "normal" "general" anxiety I always have, but something deeper, darker, and almost unstoppable. I can't live like this. Finding myself using alcohol to relax or numb the pain was a frequent occurrence. Staring at a bottle of pills and wondering if taking all of them would make me feel better and I'd fall into a puddle of tears wondering how I had gotten to this place. I'd been here before and I thought I climbed out. But here I was right there and it was all too familiar. I know I've hurt people in the past few months--or maybe longer. EEEK. I know I've seemed "off" and people have noticed I'm not myself anymore. I don't know whether to be sorry, scared, or embarrassed. Or all of the above. I'm out of solutions. I am hoping the help I've received will work. It will take time so I have to be patient--not something I'm terribly good at. I have to trust that there is an end to this awful feeling--this heaviness in my heart. I have to know that I CAN beat this. I don't have to cry every day wondering how I can survive when I'm dying inside.
The old saying is "better living through chemistry" and I know it to be true because I've lived it for years. Now we're adding something to the potion. Hopefully it works wonders.
That's all. And yes, this entry is blue. I feel a little less purple than usual.

Lessons learned

Lessons learned (in no particular order)

1. What you tell one person, you're telling the whole world. If you don't want everyone to know, stay silent.

2. Email sucks.

3. People can be mean.

4. Committees should be no more than 3-4 people. 

4a. Committees suck.

5. Karma's not a bitch, it's a mirror (source unknown)

6. So many people are fake AF.

Where does the time go?

Ok, last time I wrote was over a month ago and I was determined to do better. Oh well. I feel I have reached the end of my list of things I need to say to the world. The rest is better kept to myself or just divulged to those few who understand.

It's a challenge to be me. I am still wandering through this crazy world with my type A, slightly OCD personality that never quite fits the mold society tries to set for me. This past month has been particularly challenging in that arena. One small victory was discovering I was right to set a type A deadline on a project. The victory, however, is moot as there is nothing to be done but gloat inside that people should have listened to me. But they didn't and they never will. Not on this project. So maybe they'll see in the end, that planning ahead was not just being nit picky and overly cautious, it was for a reason. Just maybe they'll see. Probably not. Committees suck.

And that's my blog for today. Maybe I'll be moved to write more sooner rather than later. Dating but not really dating a married man...but that's another story.

Long time no write

I'm in disbelief that almost a month has passed and I haven't written a single word! It's not what I intended but it's what happened. I will try to be more diligent in posting content to this blog. Perhaps I can learn from myself and schedule it as part of my (ahem) ROUTINE so it becomes habit and not a chore to be pushed aside or forgotten. 

It's mid February and my trip around the sun is almost complete. I will try to forget turning another year older, but the mirror doesn't lie and my age is showing. I need to fight this battle a bit harder and at least conquer the things about which I DO have control. My weight has skyrocketed for reasons I won't go into here. I hate knowing I went from almost underweight to obese in the space of about 15 years. I worked so hard to get to my goal weight and swore I'd never be fat again. And yet here I am. Sigh.

Anxiety abounds and routines, though they save me from a lot of things, don't have the power to erase the feeling of failure that washes over me every time I assess myself and my life. I have an index card that reminds me that I've been here before and I survived. So I have to believe it's true. I will conquer this and I will feel better. Rose colored glasses firmly in place.

Planning really works

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Planning really works. It just does. It seems like a daunting task when you start, but once you're in a routine (yay for routines!) it's easy. I just looked at a pile of dishes needing to be put away. I spent more time fretting over doing it than it actually took to do the task. I have overhauled my routines and my planning over the last year--I've described it in some of my earlier posts if you're interested--and it has changed my life. I clean much more efficiently and things that used to take hours and drive me crazy as they piled up in front of my ever increasing anxiety ridden eyes, only take minutes to complete. And it's all because of planning. 

I am actually very proud of myself for achieving this goal of being able to say I clean my house efficiently by breaking down into small parts so I never have to say "I have to clean my entire house today". And nothing gets a chance to get totally foul when it's cleaned on a regular basis.
There are a few other (ok, more than a few!) things for which I need to use this same method, but progress has been made. Let's see how much I can accomplish this year!

2017, we're going to get even MORE organized! Bring it on!

The End

Tomorrow marks the end of an era. Tomorrow marks the end of America as I've always known it--the place where dreams are possible, diversity is celebrated, and where it's ok to love who you love. Clearly, I was wrong about this country. I don't recognize it anymore. I hear voices I've never heard and they scream hateful things about people who are different. And by different, I mean not white and Christian. Never in my life have I felt so empty as I feel knowing that we are going to be in the hands of a monster. 

People say stay and fight like hell. I want to run. People say make your voice heard. I can't find my voice. I'm disappointed, sad, scared, and disgusted. I'm ashamed and I feel defeated. Maybe I should have seen it coming. Maybe this IS what America always was but the colors were never allowed to shine through because somehow, good people made them fade for a while. But there is no more fading, and while there are good people, there just aren't enough. We've been defeated. America is dying. Maybe it's dead already.

I hope against hope that this nightmare will end and we'll all escape unscathed. But I fear the worst. I fear torture, alienation, and the wrath of a dictator so power hungry, he cannot tell the difference between the twitter click and the bomb click. 

Hoping for the best and preparing for the worst--and I can't even fathom what the worst is going to be.