suzanne, posts by tag: dealing - LiveJournal

(Thanks to cobalt_00 for prompting me to update.)

The last time I posted, I was feeling a bit lost and uncentered. I spent most of the weekend feeling a bit out of sorts emotionally, but this was somewhat related to the yearly sinus draining triggered by the trip home and the airplane ride back.

So, how did I "find myself"? Lots of quiet time alone. Writing in my journal about plans for the future. Wandering around the house and rearranging things to remind myself that I could. Oh!, and lots of time spent holding the cats.

But surprisingly there were two things that really helped me settle. The first was organizing my thoughts about the house itself, making notes about things I wanted to do where pictures should be hung and the like. The other was going back to work. There is no ambiguity about who I am at work. And with the holiday rush and coming back from vacation there was plenty to focus me.

It was really interesting seeing how other people handled similar situations. And it was a good reminder that LJ can be a resource not just a place to post silly things.

The lesson for today is: Sometimes it isn't about me. Sometimes it's about physics.

It wasn't that I'm more out of shape now than I was two months ago. I can stop beating myself up about that. Nope. Both of my tires badly needed air. It's amazing what a difference a few PSIs make.

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When my head gets too full, I'm feeling overwhelmed, and I can't think straight I start making plans for a mental health day. I pull everything out of my head, every concern, stress, and worry. Then I start making lists and plans and put everything back together. It takes somewhere around 6 hours. I come home refreshed, sane, and ready to start working again. On the other hand, it also takes tremendous energy and my head feels metaphorically bruised for a few days afterward.

But I can't pull this trick /here/. I have to be outside, with bare feet on sand or dirt. I like to be near water, though damp soil under big trees will do. I have to be alone, and prefer to be somewhere I haven't been before.

It's a rather odd ritual. But my head is back in order and I feel like I can breathe again.

I've been having another mood downswing this past...month or so. Primary symptoms have included minor depression and lack of emotional energy. As a result, I pretty much stopped reading LJ for about a month. I kept /wanting/ to come back, but just couldn't face the idea of trying to catch up.

I'm starting to pull out of it I think, and I've /missed/ you guys. But I still don't have the energy to catch up with a lot of you. I've decided to admit I'm not going to catch up and just start reading again from here on out.

So Hi. I'm back.

I just listened to the convocation speeches from yesteday's ceremony. I have never been so proud of my school, or community than I was during Nikki's speech--followed by the crowd's spontaneous chants of "Let's go Hokies!" We will heal, and we will continue. This has probably been reprinted many other places, but it deserves to be reposted here too.

The text of Nikki Giovanni's speech should be carved into the memoriam:
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We are Virginia Tech.

We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while. We are not moving on, we are embracing our mourning.

We are Virginia Tech.

We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly, we are brave enough to bend to cry, and we are sad enough to know that we must laugh again.

We are Virginia Tech.

We do not understand this tragedy. We know we did nothing to deserve it, but neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS, neither do the invisible children walking the night away to avoid being captured by the rogue army, neither does the baby elephant watching his community being devastated for ivory, neither does the Mexican child looking for fresh water, neither does the Appalachian infant killed in the middle of the night in his crib in the home his father built with his own hands being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized. No one deserves a tragedy.

We are Virginia Tech.

The Hokie Nation embraces our own and reaches out with open heart and hands to those who offer their hearts and minds. We are strong, and brave, and innocent, and unafraid. We are better than we think and not quite what we want to be. We are alive to the imaginations and the possibilities. We will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears and through all our sadness.

We are the Hokies.
We will prevail.
We will prevail.
We will prevail.

We are Virginia Tech.

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Recording here via CNN, Dr. Giovanni's speech is at the end.

Back in High School, I had a dear friend who claimed that what I needed most in the world was a hole in my skull. His theory was that I kept too many thing bottled up, and refused to actually feel things. I needed a pressure valve or my head was going to explode.

Years later, I realized that he was right about the psychological aspects.

But now that I actually /have/ a hole in my skull, I'm having some doubts about the usefullness of his approach.

I hurt, and I'm really lazy. Brooks says that the lazy really isn't laziness, it's natural and recuperative rest. He seems to feel that the surgery and narcotics give me no choice.

*dozes again* Maybe he's right. I can hardly type. and I still hurt. I'll post details once I figure out how to stay conscious for more than a few

I know I'm not as sick as other people. I'm medically complicated, but actually I'm getting better overall. But today when I woke up with my version of migraine (light/sound sensitivity, sick, focal points of pain that move around) and my tooth aching badly. ...

I'm just angry. At the world, at my body, at not being able to go to work. And anger is an emotion that I just don't know how to handle well. So I walk around pacing, typing (which hurts like hell), and fuming. There's nothing I can /do/ to make this better other than laying down sleeping and reading. (for some reason that none of my doctors have ever understood reading dulls my migraines. But I can't because I'm too restless and .... frustrated.

I don't want to be sick anymore. I've had my sick days, it's time to be healthy now.

One of the annoying things about being me, is being me the night before and day of a plane trip. Now, I'm not afraid of heights, or flying. I actually enjoy turbulence (It's like a roller-coaster! In the Sky!). What I seem to dread is being late. The night before a plane trip, I'm nervous and antsy. I have strange dreams about forgetting something important or being late and everyone being mad at me.

But the worst thing is when what happened this morning, happens. I wake up earlier than I need to, with a really bad song stuck in my head. It isn't a /bad/ song really, it is just a corny "why-do-I-have-this-stuck-in-my-head-Auuuggghh!" song.

Home, home on the raaannnngggee, where the deeerrr and the annnntelooopppe plaaaayyy! I sang it in the shower this morning. Which must have been even more disturbing to overhear at 5:30 am than to do.

Edit: Brooks is now up, and helped. Now the song in my head is "Leaving on a jet plane" which, all things considered, is much better.

My grandmother died this morning. Those of you who have read this for a while know that this is entirely expected, and we've been anticipating it for a long time now. I thought I had cried all my tears, and done my mourning. I was wrong though. I thought it would hurt less than losing my father, but it is a different sort of pain and really can't be compared. They left differenly shaped holes.

I'm planning on writing a summary of who she was, and who she was to me later in the week. Now it just hurts too much. I've been helping with arrangements and figuring out which key relatives to call, and *whimpering* helping my gradfather chose a coffin. I can't do it today. The funeral Wednesday will be a celebration of who she was and the better place she has found. But today and tomorrow are about the aching places in our lives and our families. It feels strange. We lost her two years ago, but we were only able to start mourning today.

In the "God works in mysterious ways" category... I'd been complaining earlier about not having time or space to see all my relatives who I've missed for so long. I'll be able to see them now. *smiles* I think she would have liked that approach to this.

(hugs gratefully accepted, if you don't mind wet shoulders)

Biking in the rain isn't really that bad. Sure the roads are slick, visibility decreased, and your glasses streaked with rain. But overall, not so bad. There is a childlike joy in pedaling through puddles while "Singing in the Rain" is playing on a loop in your head. All good. Sitting for the rest of the morning in damp clothes, with damp hair, and a bad case of the shivers—not so much fun.