A capitulation to the captions

I'm trying to get caught up on Severance before the new season starts. I also am trying to get some work done because the recent trip to Pennsylvania has made me realize it would be good to keep working into the night. After all, I run a business and to make that continue I need to hustle.

Right now I'm writing a very important email. A couple of days ago I got the message and I was angry and almost burned a bridge. I realize I do that a lot. And that I have done that.

I have watched the first few minutes of episode 7 several times. I want to watch this in the background, but it's so compelling as I think about new editions of a story that compels me.  

The captions are on "automatic" and were on as I started writing this post but then vanished. I'm not sure what the criteria is but I'm grateful the algorithm reminded me to pay attention. 

Maybe I can relax now. Watching other people go through tension. 

A description of the panic

Sometimes I don't know what to do especially if I am out of groceries. Do I go to the store? Do I make do? Do I have the money to go to the store?

The best answer is always to eat and get on with it. I did that today after spinning my wheels for about an hour. Then I cooked something quite nice, and now I'm productive until the cycle begins again. 

Stalled back in

The little black cat really wants my attention. She's confused that I'm awake. I'm not sure if I am awake. I'm doing work that I need to, or at least I am not able to sleep for I feel there's something I need to finish.

"Are you catching up with your work?" my dad asked several times when I was up there helping with rehabilitation. I got cross with him because I just want him to read what I'm doing.  

He never will again, really, even though he's still alive. I don't have any interest in talking about my work with my family. I just know I have to do the work and I don't make time to spend with people anymore. 

The little black cat wants to spend time with me. She's not sure why I'm up this early and so she's in the chair I put by the sit in so that she and her companion can come and say hello to me when I'm working. 

*

It's an hour or so later. I've decided to produce a podcast version of my newsletter. I'm not sure if anyone listens to any of this but it feels important for me to keep going. I'm not sure if any of what I do is important to anyone. 

Yet I seem to do it. I'm amazed at when some force takes over me and I end up having produced something. Maybe I'm the only audience that matters. I just have to fool people into paying me. 

Stalled out...

Now that I am back in Charlottesville I am completely and utterly paralyzed. I don't as much purpose here and I'm not sure how my parents are doing. I wish this was not the way thing turned out, but this is how they are at the moment. 

A dream that is now fading...

I woke up with the sunrise and fell back to sleep afterward. I was in that odd state where dreams come within minutes as my subconsciousness tries to make sense of all that has occurred. I remember being with a family that I wasn't really part of on a vacation where I was there to be a caretaker. No one was really interested in me or what I had to say. I would be interrupted a lot before I decided to just stop talking.

Actual family members began to permeate the dream and I just wanted to be away from them. My dad expressed concern that more people were coming into the house, but I enjoyed the idea of strangers coming in, people I could get to know. 

Confronting the issue

I'm sitting at my father's desk in the retirement home. One of my tasks at the moment is to get pictures from my library into my mother's iCloud library. My niece put my mother's phone in "assistive access" to make it easier for her to use because she struggles. My dad is on his bed napping and my brain is scrambled and so I'm not working.

I've put a King Gizzard concert on to try to add a little rhythm to my brain. I don't know for sure when I will be home, so right now home is my work. But I'm incapable of thinking about the same thing for more than fifteen seconds because at any moment I may have to get up to do something. 

So I'm looking through pictures in my iCloud library and that's often hard to do because there are pictures of my American children in there, but they're not my children. I remember the anger the stepmother had when I would use that pronoun. I don't know what the future will bring in terms of being in their lives, but I'm not hopeful. 

I look at these pictures and they seem to indicate that two of the three humans I helped created had a good time at my house. I find myself not wanting to think about that much because it's not productive anymore. And when I see those pictures of them reading, or on a hike, or at a museum, or in the house playing, it doesn't fit with the official story that I was not capable of being a parent. 

I don't think that's true. But I lost and didn't even bother to fight. And none of it really matters anymore, because I stopped being a parent and there's been a gigantic hole in my soul ever since.

My mother just phoned. She doesn't understand why she can't come up and be with my dad, but at the moment he is asleep and he just needs to be a patient. She can't be patient as she does not understand why she's being kept away.  

Do I understand why I'm writing this, or it just automatic? I'm going to go down and see her in a minute to keep her company. That seems more important and I'll get to it in a minute. 

This is not hard. This is not easy. It just is what is. Life is better if you accept the whirlwind and see where it takes you. That's how you learn to navigate through turbulence. 

  

You don't make friends with Janus...

I'm torn between wanting to get a new newsletter out and just wanting to do nothing. Of course, that's not an option. In an hour I'll be watching the Northeast Regional pull into the station and I'll get on board and I'll try to get the next edition of the Look Back out. 

I'm beginning to think that none of this will ever have mattered, but yet it does. At this moment I feel a sense of shame for some reason that I came back here. I am hopeful it will all be okay. 

What if I make it okay by adopting a positive attitude? Can I do that when I'm feeling so negative? I am torn between both at the moment as I don't know when I will be back in this spot waiting for the sun to shine upon me.