It’s Got To Be

Good enough.

Because I am about done and my brain is tell me I could have done more, I should have done more.

But really.

Fuck off brain.

I got done what I needed to do and then some.

Yoga.

Meeting with a lady bug and working on inventory for an hour.

Three loads of laundry

Cleaned the house, scoured the bathroom, took all the trash out, swept, vacuumed, swiffer’ed.

I know, swiffer is not a verb, but you know what I mean.

I went grocery shopping.

I cooked two different meals.

I made a spicy andouille and chicken soup with vegetables and corn and brown rice.

I canned up three jars and I froze three other containers of it.

I’m starting to stockpile meals for the next school weekend, every time I can I will freeze a little something to have for my school weekend.

Inevitably I have a lunch out with a friend in the cohort, much more so this semester than any other, I suspect since I’m in my last year with my cohort and making an effort to be connecting with my friends.

So food’s been made.

And I also roasted a chicken while I was doing my CBT webinar class tonight.

Plus a pot of brown rice with peas and corn.

I’ve got food for the week and then some.

And yet, I didn’t get enough done?

What ever.

Read an article for my Jungian Dream Work class and realized that I was pretty much caught up with all the material except for one article, I should be able to knock that out pretty quick, I might, maybe, even go back and read it before I go to bed tonight.

The CBT webinar kind of took it out of me though and I had to recuperate after wrapping it up.

Which meant eating some of said roasted chicken and brown rice with peas and corn.

It was delicious.

Then I put on a mixed tape and got my fucking good time on.

I needed to get a release.

Ahem.

Sometimes a girl has to do what a girl has to do.

Giggle.

Anyway.

I did do plenty today.

Made some phone calls.

Stayed connected with my people.

I did plenty.

Plus.

I mean.

It is my day off.

It’s ok to “slow down” a little.

And I’m feeling better.

Although this morning I was sorely wrong about takin my antibiotic when I did.

I’m supposed to take it four times a day, I still have one more to take tonight, around my meal times–breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack.

But.

I don’t like doing yoga with food in my belly.

And I still felt like I had some food from my little snack last night in my body, I thought, I should take it now, since I won’t actually have breakfast until 11a.m. or so, yoga and then a shower.

WRONG.

Not a fun yoga class, my tummy was super upset the entire time.

I got through the class though and the sweating was good and I’m glad I went, just note to self, take the antibiotics with food please.

I haven’t really had any sharp pain in my tooth today, so I’m hoping that between the ibuprofen I’ve been taking and taking the antibiotic that I’m doing ok.

Which is good as it will be a full week.

Supervision tomorrow, work, two clients.

Therapy Tuesday, work, two clients.

Wednesday is my short day, “just” work, and then seeing some fellows in the hood up at the Sunset Youth Services.

Thursday is work and two clients.

Friday is going into work an hour early to help my boss and two clients.

Saturday is group supervision.

And that’s my week.

I am sure wonderful things will happen during the week, it’s not always grinding and making things happen.

There are moments of sweetness and lightness, laughter, seeing the amazing beauty in my life, being grateful for all the love I have.

I have so much.

It astounds.

And.

It’s October!

How did that happen?

I noticed that the sunset was pretty early tonight.

I did something proactive for myself that I’ve been thinking about for over a year, ever since one of my professors mentioned that she had one.

I got a SAD lamp for my house.

I was diagnosed with Seasonal Affective Disorder in my early twenties.

It wasn’t until my early thirties that I got the Adult Child of an Alcoholic, PTSD, Depression, and clinical Anxiety diagnoses.

Add Alcohol Use disorder.

And.

Cocaine Use Disorder.

Look ’em up, there in the DSM V.

Anyway.

It has been recommended by more than one trained professional that I get a light box.

They’re expensive.

But I said fuck it.

I got one today.

The Northern Light 10,000 Lux Boxlite.

I got it off Amazon, so it was a tiny bit cheaper than the one from the website, but yeah, I dropped a couple hundred.

I don’t get much natural light in my room and I noticed it a lot today since I was inside a lot doing work on the house and homework and meeting with the lady.

I had a bout of low-grade depression last winter, not much, certainly not enough for me to go back on antidepressants, and I almost didn’t realize it until it was just about past.

I also was having a very hard time resolving myself with leaving the boys that I had nannied for two and a half years and transitioning to starting a new job with a new family.

Compound that with some family of origin stress and I was definitely on the depressed end of things.

So.

I am going to be proactive and do good self-care.

If the dentist thing taught me anything I need to really be on my self-care.

It is important.

I am someone a lot of folks depend on and I want to be dependable and I want to be able to be present at work, for my clients, for the people I love in my life.

I’m worth the investment.

As they are.

Just trying to give myself more love so that I may love others as much as I possibly can.

So I choose to replenish myself and make sure I get enough “sunlight” this winter.

I will have more to give.

And there’s so much I want to give.

So much.

 

How Fast I Forget

Wasn’t it just a few weeks ago that I was thrilled to have any work, let alone the promise, literally the promise, that full-time work would soon follow?

I think it was.

In fact, when I think back a few more weeks I can recall the thought that I would be beyond the moon over the rainbow grateful for any work.

Cue this afternoon, early, pushing my bicycle up Noe towards 19th.

“This is fucking bullshit, this is too much work.”

Thanks brain.

Chill out.

It’s just one hill.

Two blocks long, there’s a wee little road in between 19th and 18th on Noe, just to let you know you’re at the half-way point, and then you’re there.

At another house in the Castro doing the nanny.

It was the culmination of an uncomfortable morning as I felt a little emotionally hung over and not ready to face the day, the putting on a bright smiling face, and the nanny pants.

I was in tears this morning as I wrote and felt all discombobulated and, well, out of my fucking head, is what i felt.

Insane.

It was like the dirty dregs of terror were left rinsed out in my brain and I, despite having written what I thought was a decent blog, I had not addressed my brain.

Sometimes that monkey needs a little extra action before bed and I had not taken the corrective measures to assure a calm morning.

Pretty calm.

You could have looked at me sitting at the dining room table eating my oatmeal with apple and drinking my big mug of coffee spiked with unsweetened vanilla almond milk, pen scratching across the page, and thought, there’s Carmen, happy in her morning routine.

But my brain was eating me alive.

It was having me for breakfast.

By the time I had made it half way through my pages my brain was satiated and burping fear.

I tried to stifle it.

It’s not becoming to cry in your morning oatmeal.

But that’s about what I did.

The shine of tears shimmered in my eyes, then drifted down my cheeks.

I heard my room-mate stir from his bedroom and I briskly wiped off my face.

I was sitting in a puddle of financial insecurity.

It comes back it does.

What I recognize though, is that it passes faster and faster and as I get closer and closer to having more full-time hours, I know it will dissipate and go away.

I was having fear about not being able to pay the rent.

Which is such an old fear I wonder why I bother with it anymore.

I suppose because I still get fuel for the fear train from it.

The longer I do this, this living, this way of being, in this kind of awareness, the more I see that I am climbing up the steps with a yo-yo in my hand.

It may feel like I am descending at times, which it did this morning, but the reality is that I am steady and slow, sure-footed and gracefully (well I like to tell myself that) rising up.

Once I catch my breath, literally, I pause and look out over the hills and see this beautiful vista that I get to be a part of again. The climb might feel exhausting, but that feeling fades, and the sun shines and the air lifts the hair off the nape of my neck and I am split asunder again by the beauty of my life.

I have had this thought, it is not a nice thought and it has some diseased thinking in it, that what was the point, went to Paris to write, and came back broke and oh, look, I am a nanny again.

But that is just the silly biting voice of all that wants me to not be happy.

Safe, breathless, and still, I propped my bike across my leg, got out my water bottle, took a huge swig of water, and calmed down.

Even with people I know, even with situations I have some familiarity with, I have anxiety.

I forget this all the time.

I have clinical anxiety and clinical depression and I am not currently medicated.

I have worked really hard to stay off the meds, but I forget my naturally tendency is to live in a state of anxiety.

First day at a new job is anxiety inducing.

Duh.

“You can always go back on a small dosage if you need to,” my psychiatrist said, her face, demeanor, all of it relaxed and at ease.

“Well, I have to say I do have some anxiety about feeling anxious,” I laughed and tried to not wring my hands.

This is a sure-fire tip-off, when I wring my hands.

When I am calm and can sit still and hold my hands lightly in my lap it is a sign to myself that I am fine, and a reminder that I used to incessantly, without pause, especially in early sobriety, wring the fuck out of my hands.

“That is a legitimate anxiety disorder as well,” she said.

Oh stop.

Which I had, I have stopped being on meds for almost two and a half years.

This is amazing.

Yet, I will forget.

I will forget the work I have done, the therapy, the medications, the anxiety, the debilitating depression, oh all the fucking work I have done to just get “normal”.

Not to say that I am special.

Nope.

I know loads of people who have had it far worse than I.

What it is though, is a soft, gentle reminder to myself that I need to cut myself some slack.

This has been a tumultuous time for me.

Moving back, time changes and jet lag, getting into a new place to live, acknowledging the East Bay as my home now, re-acquainting myself with friends and family, shit, I still haven’t managed to see everybody and I get overwhelmed with figuring out my own schedule let alone this person there or that person here that wants to hang out.

Hell, grocery shopping is hard.

I realized that today as I was walking through Rainbow at 8:45pm on a Sunday.

I had forgotten where things are and what I needed.

I had gone shopping with Joanie last night but forgotten to pick up coffee.  I had gotten overwhelmed in Whole Foods.

This is better than having panic attacks at SafeWay or Costco.

I have only managed Costco twice and once I literally bounced and left the cart in the line, I had to get out that bad.

So, sure, there are going to be moments of fear or struggle, but there are also these bright clear moments when I run into a friend at Herbivore, FROG! And get to see another friend, RONNIE! And then I am having a wonderful meal with a darling and I am alright, the world is alright and there is nothing to be afraid of.

Not even the fear itself.