When it hits there's not much to do. Or perhaps a better word could be used that implies the sensation of waves of intensity. In any case, there are days when I have problems being around people especially if I am invited to things.
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And if I am invited to two things at the same time, I shut down because I can't select one or the other and I oscillate between thinking of both of them.
So I chose today to go to neither which does give me a tremendous sense of regret and shame.
"Your anxiety won," I can hear a disappointed voice in my head, one that approximates my mother. "It always does."
My thought is that my mother never really liked me very much. The rest of my family seems to think differently, but I'm the one who went through the experience.
One of the events was a memorial service. The other was a birthday party in a city about 45 minutes away. I'm not sure I really want to write about either. In the end, I made a choice not to go and the whole point of writing is to describe the feelings so that others may perhaps understand the turmoil in my mind.
I'm not special. I'm a believer in the sense that we all have this turmoil and some of it have it to different degrees. But I am the only one of me except the chorus inside shouting they are the ones who are the original!
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I'm less empty now that I've begun typing. A long time ago I chose to devote a lot of my time to capturing who I am. I've done that at the same time I've become as prolific as I can as a professional writer. I've left breadcrumbs about me for the future for most of the time I've been able to do so. Too many, perhaps.
I can see that the sun's light is falling on the house next door, the golden hour at 6:18 p.m. I've been less enamored of the outside since the city felled those trees in the park, but I've stopped feeling the need to flee.
That's mostly because I don't know where to flee to. There are too many ideas and not enough of them come with any sense of reality at this time because I've not built any of those potential pathways.
All roads have lead to here where I skipped two opportunities to be around people because after a very long week of work (which included this morning) I really didn't have any capacity to take in any more information from people. I needed to relax, and the potential tension involved with the birthday party wracked my brain.
Again, I don't want to talk about that but the idea seems to keep wanting to pop out. If I wanted the character I wanted to avoid to be in this entry, I would have gone to the party.
At 6:21 p.m. it is evident the golden hour is much shorter in the fall as the brilliance has faded and there's just a weak very light orange spot fading away. The cold is going to come tonight for the first time with a frost warning and everything.
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I would have gone to the memorial service but I did not feel comfortable with the idea of falling apart in front of strangers. Even if it was in a safe space. For this I will accept the label of coward, but the fear I have is an important one. I'm not sure I can articulate it at the moment, but I will try.
Except, I am aware this is a public document. My name is stripped off of it, but I also don't know who reads this blog which now goes back many years. You can go back and see evidence of all of the people I was on different days. On some days you can see the Congressional Chorus of my mind playing out in competing accounts.
I've never really connected with anyone. Or at least, none of those connections seemed to be two-way. I've spent a lot of time alone during my life with not too many close friendships.
I can see at this moment how that's been me by choice, afraid of people seeing me emotional. Unless I'm drinking. For most of my life that's allowed me to drop my inhibitions but I'm too old for that now. I've seen too many people die too early because of overindulgence.
I would have gone to the party except for many reasons. One of them is that my car is not currently up to compliance with an expired registration and an expired inspection sticker. I've not prioritized spending the money to complete either step.
This has been a difficult year financially and will likely only grow more so. Today I received a power bill of $285, much more than I've ever paid before and I have to figure out why. But, I also know that's an extra $100 I have to make sure I have when the time comes.
Perhaps I skipped the payment? I don't think so but I've not checked yet. I make a lot of mistakes.
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Deciding to stay home today was not one of them. There are times when I recognize I need to recharge. While I don't see a lot of people, my work is in the public eye and this makes me nervous. I go to one specific place in town to relax that is not my home.
I had been trying to walk around town more but fell out of it once the trees came down. I think I'm sort of over that, but I also am not so sure. The trees represented a lot and I don't want to write that out at the moment.
It's now 6:56 p.m. and I am hoping that I made some sort of repair to the dryer vent which has been crushed by a wooden beam for some time now. I am considering investing in a new washer and dryer because the one downstairs has been failing for years and may be responsible for some of the additional money.
But I don't know yet because I've not been able to do the research. The website for Dominion is down and won't be back up until tomorrow. It feels odd to not have access to my account. I am hopeful something is wrong with the bill and they miscalculated.
I stayed home today because my life makes sense as I go through it in the way that I am. In the case of the memorial service, I knew I would meet a lot of people and I didn't feel up to it. Saturdays are the closest thing I have to a day off.
But all week there was also the invitation to go to the other place, the birthday party. By 6:59 p.m. it is certainly going on at the moment. I am not there for a lot of reasons, but the chief one is the same as the memorial service.
I need to recharge. There are times I need to unplug from people. I'm not even looking at email this evening. I'm choosing to just live my life from moment to moment, filling the emptiness connecting words together the same way I learned how to do early to make sense of a life spent alone.
I work seven days a week.
I do that because I am driven to report on my community and I love the work that I am able to do. In six and a half years, I've developed a lot of deadlines in order to keep the story-telling flowing.
Saturdays are the one day I try not to have a deadline, though I did post a podcast today. I spent about four hours on that, slowly, because I really didn't want to work. But in order to keep the flow going, I have to be steering the ship.
Sometimes that means remembering I made a choice a long time ago to agree to be alone in order to accomplish some purpose. This idea perhaps should have been challenged, but here I am with a life in which I don't really talk to that many people in real life.
At least, there's no room to really do that. And because I don't really go anywhere in the car, there's no need to attend to certain things especially in times when money has been tight.
The subject header of this one is misleading. Or at least, I should say that the subject header came first. I was feeling really torn about my decision, knowing I would disappoint people. I am used to that sensation and it is not one I enjoy.
Sometimes, though, I get to the ends of these weird posts about my life and I'm glad I've decided to just throw this message in a bottle to see where it may end up.
I could sit here for hours documenting my frame of mind. After all, I took a few hours off today from writing - at least a good six before I sat down to capture this moment.
I do not feel empty when I'm reminded that I am doing what previous versions of me on different days wanted to do.
But I know these things come in waves.
I am sorry if I disappointed anyone, but sometimes I just have to disengage. it is the way I keep my mental health going. Sometimes this coincides with important events. That happened today and I'll have to contend with that going forward.
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