Parallel Pain.

A friend of mine just lost her mother. They weren't especially close, but she was her mother nonetheless.  I am having trouble thinking of anything else today. I am working from home, thinking about how in another part of the city, a friend just lost her mother. 

We're living parallel lives, and she is living tremendous grief and is experiencing one of the most profound losses a person can experience. The loss of a parent. And in this case, the loss of a mother. 

One day, I will lose my mother. The most significant relationship of my lifetime. A woman I live in the same building as. My mother. A neighbor. Our lives are very intertwined. My dogs visit her daily. I cook for her. We run errands together. I borrow her car. Our relationship is both practical and deeply comforting. Two single women, one elderly, one disabled. Both fragile in our own ways. 

I try not to think about the loss of my mother too often. I don't want to grieve a loss that hasn't yet happened. Why take on that pain before it's inevitable? But when a friend loses their mother, it is hard not to think about what that loss will look like for me.

For friends, they have partners and children. I don't. My mother is my most lasting relationship, and it's with someone who is biologically, fundamentally, programmed to love me. And I feel that. Nobody will ever love you like your mother. And I have trouble with attachment, and she's the only person I know who truly loves me. 

I feel that my mother had me because she wanted me. I've never felt like my mother didn't want her children (which is the case with some of my friends). I've never felt anything but love from my mother. We have our soft spots, our histories, but I've always felt I had a mother who loved me and wanted me, and who loved being a mother and grandmother.

I try and stay present and grateful for my time with her. Who knows, I could die first. I wouldn't wish that on her, though. I would rather take the loss, though it will be terribly lonely for me.

What a deeply sad reality - all the loss of the loves in our lives. 

Luck and Ladybugs.

Every spring it happens. What seems like hundreds of ladybugs emerge from some crack or crevice in my house. For a week or so they gather near windows so I open screens and doors to shoo them out. Sometimes I take a small piece of cardboard, usually a business card or an advertisement and scoop them up gently, plopping them into a little cup. I make my rounds and then go outside and shake them free. Sometimes they fly away, sometimes the just fall to the ground. Sometimes their movements are slow, their wing-covers a dry brown. Other-times they're quick and bright and I struggle to understand how they survived the winter tucked away in our house.

I also find some dead. Dried-out on window sills and along the floor. Sometimes I see them huddled in corners of the ceiling where I can't reach them. I can't help them there. We don't speak the same language so there's no use in calling out to them.

The other day was a bad day. I wasn't entirely myself. I was a half-person. Despondent and exhausted. And instead of collecting these ladybugs and setting them free, I removed them from my space through the rumble and suction of my vacuum cleaner.

For three of them, that's how they left this house. On any other day, they would have left differently.

But on that day, luck was not with them.

Yesterday I did some cleaning, and throughout the day I pushed these little ladybugs into a cup, or into my hand where I would lightly close my fist, keeping them from flying away  I would make my way outside and open my hand, shaking it over the garden.

And today, I do the same.

But that one day, I did not. That one day, they were unlucky.

Face update.

I only have one official follower - hello you!

I thought I'd just take a minute and say my face is about 90% better. If you're not sure what I'm talking about, check out this post here, and then follow the bell's palsy label.

I've got some weakness on my right side. My muscles don't feel as present, or as strong as my left. They feel sleepy. I have some trouble right the right side of my lips, which I sense when I press my lips together, or put on lip balm.

Honestly though, I felt like a winner as soon as my eye could blink on its own. I took for granted how much the body does automatically, it really is its own ecosystem. I was closing my eye manually, and constantly putting drops in. I was very worried about damaging my cornea.

If you or someone you know ever wakes up with Bell's, here's what I did: I went to the ER, where I was prescribed a weeks worth of steroids / an eye patch. The first week I rested A LOT and slept 10 hours a night MINIMUM (I was also stressed and exhausted). I also used a "sac magique" or magic bag (a fancy bag of hot beans!) on my face nightly for the atrophied muscles. I kept the sleep up, and even now I've scheduled shorter work weeks in order to rest-up and try and heal 100%. It's a pretty scary thing! 

I hope none of you get it - but if you do, know it isn't that uncommon and in most cases it does go away!

I did a lot of research, but most of it scared me, since some cases last significantly longer, and some do have permanent muscle loss. 

From what I've read, it seems the most recent studies out of Japan are thinking it's a virus... But there's still no consensus - which is scary.

Our bodies are equal parts amazing and horrifying!

"There's something wrong with your mother."

On Thursday of this week I received an Amazon notification about the delivery of one of my christmas gifts. The notice mentioned it was delivered Wednesday. I called my mother to ask if it had arrived, and she said yes, and that she wrapped it and I can't have it until Christmas. I reminded her that people often steal Amazon boxes so that in the future she should confirm with me that we got what we ordered.

Around 2:30 pm I see that I missed a call on my cell phone, from the house (our house) and that my mother had left a message. I took the message and it was my mother's friend Linda. She said to call her at the house, and she was with my mother and something was wrong. I immediately called her, my mother answered and sounded fine, and I asked what was going on, and she said she didn't know. Linda took the phone and she said my mother was repeating herself, confused, and that she thought something was wrong. I left work immediately.

I got home about 45 minutes later. Taking public transport while crying is always a joy. But when you're crying in public the reality that you're crying in public is usually the least of your worries.

My initial reaction was devastation, and the immediate assumption was that she had had a stroke. So, my initial conclusion was that my mother, as I knew her, was gone. I tried to stay calm, to avoid having a panic attack, but it was work. My mind would race to worst-case-scenarios and possible ways things would change. Will she recognize me? Will she be frightened? Is my mother gone? Will I have to sell her house? I don't want this responsibility... All of this while staring out the window of a city bus.

I would be omitting the most primal reaction I had if I didn't mention the initial gasp and sob, while thinking "I don't want to be alone." It's difficult to touch back on now - since it's passed - but I felt like a child. I felt helpless and afraid and could barely think.

I got home and Linda explained to me that my mother didn't remember plans they had made for lunch, and then when Linda called her to make new plans, she forgot those as well. When they spoke on the phone, Linda said something was wrong and came over. That's when she called me. When I walked in, I was distraught and trying my best not to cry.

I told her I was going to take her to the hospital, she seemed slightly worried, and almost childlike, but she recognized me and trusted me. She went upstairs to get a sweater, I got her purse, and as we left the house she noticed a sold sign and asked which of our neighbours had sold their house, and where he was moving. It was my first experience with seeing her amnesia / memory loss. Our neighbour had sold months ago and was moving in with his girlfriend. She knew this, and it has been months in the making, so this pointed me to thinking she had lost months of short-term memory.

The drive was traumatizing. It was around 4 pm, traffic hour and I just wanted to get to a hospital as fast as I could.  The nearly 30-minute drive was spend answering my mother's questions on loop:

"Where are we going?"
"The hospital."
"Who called you?"
"Linda."
"Linda called you? How did she get your number?"
"You gave have it to her, she called from the house."
"Linda was at the house?"
"Yes."
"How did she know to call you?"
"You guys had lunch plans you didn't go to."
"We did?"
"Yes."
"And I didn't show up?" "No, and she called you, and you forgot a second time."
"I did?" "Yes, so she came over."
"I don't remember any of that." "I know, that's why we're going to the hospital."
"I must have scared the shit out of Linda."
"Well, she was worried."
"Oh okay, good for her then."
"We just want to make sure everything is okay."
"The last thing you need is a loopy mother."
"You're not loopy - you're fine, you just don't remember."

I was just focused on answering her questions, that seemed to be on a minute-or-so loop. I was trying not to sob, and trying to be as present as possible since I was also driving.We got into a patterned dialogue, where my answers soothed her and being able to comfort my mother helped me calm down.

Once we got to the hospital, I parked, and we waked into the emergency room. Triage asked a list of questions directly to my mother, she was unable to name the month or year, she said November, and "the 1990's." She wasn't able to tell us what she had done that day, or the night before (dinner with friends) or earlier in that week (she was at my brother's house, babysitting). Triage gave us a priority 3, on 5. Once passed through triage, I texted my brother.

He showed up about an hour later. Things changed a little when he got there. He doesn't like hospitals. He spent the first month of my nephew Nathan's life in the hospital due to some type of intestinal necrosis. And he was with my mother in the hospital when my father died - so he had trouble being in the E.R and would often go outside or go take a walk. 

My mom was often distracted by her worry for him. She often said, "poor Nick" and would fidget around. 

I also felt a weird type of comfort by just answering her questions. She was nervous and when I answered her questions, it reassured her. We got into an almost song-like loop. Repetition. She'd loop around every minute or so, and start asking the same questions. Concerned E.R. neighbours would give me knowing looks, and my brother would often get irritated and leave. I think he found it difficult.

After answering the same questions a few times, I came to know which answers reassured her the most, and so I stuck to those ones. 

We eventually made it to a doctor, who was surprisingly an anglophone, and who ordered a scan and an x-ray, and who did some blood and urine tests. 

We got to the E.R around 4 or 4:30, and my brother showed up around 6. Progressively, around 8 or 9 she started remembering bits and pieces she didn't remember earlier in the night. It was encouraging, and it dulled some of the panic my brother and I were feeling.

We saw the attending doctor around 11:30 pm, and he said all of her tests looked good, and that it seemed, to him, like Transient Global Amnesia, and that we'd need to confirm with the neurologist the following morning. He said to go home, and get some sleep, and that, in all likelihood my mother would wake up with additional memories the next morning. 

We got home around 12:30 am and my brother and I were totally bushed. My brother looked like a zombie and I had lost my voice from talking on loop / repeating all the answers to the questions my mother had been asking. 

We kept asking her to go to bed, and she kept saying, "I want to watch TV!" and then "Holy shit it's 12:30!" so after a few rounds of that she made her way to bed. My brother said his head hit the pillow and he passed out. I did the same. 

The following morning I could hear pitter-patter feet and came upstairs (I'm a basement dweller) to my brother sitting in the living room. He said he woke up my mom and she remembered his being here. She made her way downstairs and we all sat around and asked her questions to see what she remembered. She remembered being in the hospital, and had fuzzy bits, with a large whole of about 6 to 8 hours. BUT, she did remember the hospital, and driving home, and did have bits of memory she did not have the previous day. It was an encouraging start to the day. She said she only fell asleep around 4 am, and was significantly more nervous, now that she was fully aware of her memory loss and of her need for medical care. 

We made our way to the hospital for a 9 am appointment with the neurologist. We were called in around 11 and met with a junior resident (maybe?), I'm not sure what his medical standing was, but he wasn't the guy. He was the student guy. He did a slew of visual tests, muscle tests, tested her reflexes and her ability to snap her fingers and stuff like that. He told us he'd call us in 30 minutes with the other doctor to go over their assessment, so we made our way to the cafeteria to eat a grilled cheese (my mother couldn't tell us what she'd eaten or drank for the last 24 hours so we wanted to make sure she ate something) and my brother and I weren't eating due to nerves. 

We went back up to the E.R and waited for 2 hours. So I made my way to the nurse's station and said the doctor said it would be 30 minutes. The nurses thought this was funny/infuriating and asked what ass of a doctor said that (I added the ass part, but it was implied). Turns out the doctor called us in the 20 minutes we were in the cafeteria. 

My brother, mother and I met with the junior doctor and the head of neurology and the doctor did his own little testing and poking and then asked us our accounts of the last 24 hours. We then talked about Transient Global Amnesia as a group - and my brother said that nearly everything mentioned in the Wikipedia article is spot-on to my mother's experience.

Transient global amnesia (TGA) is a neurological disorder whose key defining characteristic is a temporary but almost total disruption of short-term memory with a range of problems accessing older memories. A person in a state of TGA exhibits no other signs of impaired cognitive functioning but recalls only the last few moments of consciousness, as well as deeply encoded facts of the individual’s past, such as his or her own name. 

A person having an attack of TGA has almost no capacity to establish new memories, but generally appears otherwise mentally alert and lucid, possessing full knowledge of self-identity and identity of close family, and maintaining intact perceptual skills and a wide repertoire of complex learned behaviour. The individual simply cannot recall anything that happened outside the last few minutes, while memory for more temporally distant events may or may not be largely intact. The degree of amnesia is profound, and, in the interval during which the individual is aware of his or her condition, is often accompanied by anxiety. 

This onset of TGA is generally fairly rapid, and its duration varies but generally lasts between 2 to 8 hours. A person experiencing TGA typically has memory only of the past few minutes or less, and cannot retain new information beyond that period of time. One of its bizarre features is perseveration, in which the victim of an attack faithfully and methodically repeats statements or questions, complete with profoundly identical intonation and gestures "as if a fragment of a sound track is being repeatedly rerun."

The prognosis of "pure" TGA is very good. It does not affect mortality or morbidity and unlike earlier understanding of the condition, TGA is not a risk factor for stroke or ischemic disease. Rates of recurrence are variously reported, with one systematic calculation suggesting the rate is under 6% per year. TGA “is universally felt to be a benign condition which requires no further treatment other than reassurance to the patient and his or her family.” 

The doctor said that in most cases, the biggest "issue" is accepting that it's a freak, temporary condition, and that we can just go on "living our lives." We headed home, around 2:30 pm on Friday. It has been roughly 24 hours of total upset. 

My brother stayed with my mom while I did some groceries, and then he had to go back to his family since my nephews and sister-in-law were freaking out themselves. I stayed with my mom, and we were both exhausted and in shock. I made my mother a big dinner, and we ate and showered and went to bed. We both slept for 10-11 hours.

Saturday when I woke up I made my way to her room and crawled into her bed. I hugged her and took a selfie of us, with her hiding her face under her sheet, and me looking like a toddler who'd aged a million years. I sent the photo to my brother, who facetimed us with the grand-kids. We stayed in bed for a while. 

Once we got up, we went for breakfast and ran some errands, she asked me a few questions here and there, trying to fill in certain blanks, bit she was 90% normal. I had a dinner party with some of my best friends that night, so the plan was I'd go and update everyone, all at once. My mom and I were both still exhausted, so we took it easy and watched a movie. My dinner was only at 5pm, so we were able to rest most of the day. 

At one point when we were in her room, laying in her bed, I just kept saying how exhausted I was, but how weird I felt. I felt traumatized and unsure. It just doesn't make any sense to me, that she's back to normal. It was a 6-8 hour period where she didn't know the year, or what was going on, and it just scared the shit out of us, and now everything is fine. It just doesn't compute.

As mentioned in the Wikipedia article:

"The most important part of management after diagnosis is looking after the psychological needs of the patient and his or her relatives. Seeing a once competent and healthy partner, sibling or parent become incapable of remembering what was said only a minute ago is very distressing, and hence it is often the relatives who will require reassurance."

Yes.  

It's an absurd, fake-sounding happening. In the long trek back home (via public transit) I just felt like my life, as I knew it, was over, and that everything was about to get awful. 

The car ride was me internally catatonic, outwardly sobbing and answering questions, and just void of myself. I was doing the best to reassure my mother, and I was just doing my best to keep breathing. To keep my head straight. To try and make the right decisions in something that would no doubt come to define me life, and the life of mother and family. 

It's now Sunday. I'm exhausted. I spent most of the day sleeping and lazing around. At one point my

mother and I watched YouTube videos of baby orangutans for about 45 minutes. I fell sleep in her bed, and she came downstairs to watch television and eat the leftovers I brought her from the dinner party.

There were many moments of absurd levity throughout the 24 hour period. But those came when we were out of the woods. My mother often said "The last thing you need is a loopy Nan," and "If I'm a loopy Nan, I hope I'm a nice one and not a mean one." 

My father's mother has Alzheimer's, and lived with us when I was a child. My memories of her are sweet. I would go down into her room in my nightgown and sit on her in the rocking chair and she'd rock me. My mom tells me she'd steal my halloween candy and I'd get pissed. My brother remembers the darker, more traumatic side of Alzheimer's, as does my mother, so both of them had strong fears in that regard. My brother at one point said if it was Alzheimer's, to "shoot him in the head." 

At one point I jabbed that she was doing this "so I wouldn't move out," and she laughed. And a little bit later she made that joke back to me. Her recycling of my joke was one of the first examples of her remembering little bits and pieces. 

When we went for breakfast yesterday I said I still had Christmas gifts to get, and she asked for whom. 

"For you, mainly. And little things for my friends."
"Oh, you don't have to get me anything."
"For crying-out-loud Karen, you were just hospitalized. You think this is a good time to be cheap?"
"Well you don't have to."
"Well you like when I take you out on day-trips. So the E.R. counts then."

We laughed at that. She and I were able to laugh more so than my brother was. He'd get upset. 

Now it's 9:13 pm Sunday. It took two days to write this since I'm just so tired. I need to shower and get to bed so I can get through this week at work. 

I feel uneasy. I feel unsettled. I feel hazy. It feels too fucking lucky that my mom is fine. It feels like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop - a weird fucking expression to use to describe how I feel this is too good a resolution for something I thought would leave me alone and devastated. 

I am grateful for the luck of it. I'm still in shock. I'm just confused by it. I feel like an orangutan 

who just watched a magic trick. I keep trying to make sense of it, but there is no sense to be made. No matter the illusion I'm still just a fucking ape trying to get the basics. 

This whole experience has thrown me. 

I've been thinking about my own health. Nothing stokes that more than visiting an Emergency Room. 

I've been thinking about the power of kindness. I was in such an empathetic space with my mother I was as kind and as helpful as I could be with the people in the hospital, and I felt it just changed the entire experience for my family and I. The energy changed. The people changed. 

I will try and be as healthy as I can, and as kind as I can, and then, it's fucking luck. 

Yes, it's fucking luck. But kindness matters. It matters in the in between. 

I'm totally disoriented, but I know kindness helps. 

And I know I'm very, very lucky.

Movement over time.

Image by cwote.

So yesterday I had a session with Ranjana. It had been a few weeks since we'd seen one another, and the conversation flowed well, I've been in a good space lately, and she said it showed. We talked about what may have contributed to that better space.

Things are better. They're better then they were last year. And they're worlds better than in my early 20's. That's not nothing.

I know I have a lot of work to do on certain sore points for me, mainly my body and my nomantic/social life, but I feel better about my ability to address those things. That's new for me.

*one hour later*

Unexpected break-time! My friend V showed up down-town and we went for a coffee and a cigarette! Fun times!

I'm all cigarette-and-coffee-high! Yahoooooooooooooooooooooo!

It's a nice day today, so it was nice to get some sun and some not-fresh air.

He and I have been talking a lot about salary these days. Basically, with the election of the new Liberal government here in Canada, there will be tax breaks for the middle class, but the middle class starts at the $44,000 salary point. I'd say the majority of my friends make under that. We're all struggling to make ends meet. It's not great. He's in a position to re-negotiate his salary, and he's not looking forward to it. Instead, he might leave for Toronto, where salaries are better, and where his girlfriend already has a high-paying job.

This is the second friend this week who is considering leaving the province, E is thinking of going to Halifax to live by the coast, and get away from the city. And that's on top of J who is thinking of Toronto because she and her partner have better job opportunities there (as two anglophones in the music industry).  And of course, my buddy C already left for Victoria, and she's bought a house there, so she's rooting.

I'm not excited about my job prospects, or my finances. I'm not looking to have a ridiculous salary. I understand I chose something related to the arts and that certain types of creativity are not valued. I'm also not that kind of talented that blows peoples minds. I'm also not "good at business,"or monetizing myself or my work.

Source.

I would, however, like to live above the poverty line. I don't think that's a ridiculous desire for someone who is hard-working and competent. I would like to be able to live off of a full-time job. At this point in time I'm living paycheck to paycheck, and saving is excruciating. I could absolutely live on an extremely tight budget and save more, but I want to be able to live my life.

Now that I'm trying to take better care of myself, that incurs additional costs. Therapy, even if it's sliding-scale, costs money. A vitamin regimen costs money. Healthier food costs both time and money in meal-prep and ingredients. Skincare. Aesthetics. Clothing for work. Books (much to do with mental health and self-care). Money.

If socializing is a large part of combating depressive tendencies - generally that also incurs costs. Granted, most of my friends are as broke-ass as me, so we're pretty frigan good, but going out and engaging the world often costs money.

Maybe seeing Star Wars: The Force Awakens will help my mood. And getting advanced tickets in VIP seating at the 18+ theater costs many peanuts. LET ME LIVE.

This has been a bit of a weird post. All of this beginning with my writing about Ranjana's remarking a difference in my body language and attitude.

I hope it all isn't temporary. A weird hole in the clouds. I hope to continue moving forward with my recovery and self-care.

It's just weird how "dealing with" my mental health situation also goes along with "dealing with" other aspects of my life. Nothing goes on hold. I still worry about finances and job security when I'm depressed, it's just diluted. I'm feeling better these days, so I'm thinking of it more actively, this financial situation I'm in. I just see things differently when my brain is unclogged and my vision isn't blurry. It's like removing a pair of dark shades.

So yah, these problems were there before, these money problems, they were just further down my list of priorities, under not killing myself and getting through the day.

I see everything with a greater sense of clarity, yes, but I'm also less irritated. I have more energy. Not in a let's skip to the bakery kind of way. More in a, wow, I can listen to you talk and not want to kill myself, kind of way. That's major. Since I have to interact with humans to live my life.

So yes, maybe I am doing better. I hope, deeply, and with a morose gripping in my chest, that that continues to be the case. I could stand to have good days like this. It's so very nice. And yes, maybe part of me is mournful that these days have been so rare, and I'm envious, and in awe, that there are those who lives lifetimes of good days, but that part of me is microscopic. Overall, what I feel is gratitude for the lighter feeling, and elation that the darker parts of my life are not as permanent as they often feel.

To good days. 

Descending the mountain.

Last weekend I visited my brother and his family for Thanksgiving. Before dinner, my brother mentioned going to a local provincial park and getting some air. They run their ski-lifts during the fall, carting tourists up the mountain to enjoy the view and the fall colours.

We headed there a little after noon, my mother, my brother, sister-in-law, and the two kids. It was a slow, awkward ride up, the sun glaring directly into the faces of those being pulled up the mountain. Every once in a while someone would drop a backpack and the ride would slow down, hold a few minutes and then sputter back to life.

After twenty minutes or so we were at the top of the mountain. The views were indeed beautiful. There was a light fog in the distance, so we couldn't see the city. We could make out nearby towns. We could see the red and orange of the fall colours, and neighbouring farmlands stretched between smaller hills. Different fields patterned different, creating a patchwork of crops in varying shades of rust.

I find it difficult to enjoy natural spaces when they're crowded. The top of the mountain seemed too small, and poorly planned. No doubt skiing was the main attraction, the walking trails and pedestrian facilities were lacking.  Folks mashed together near the edges of the mountaintop, looking outward. I tried finding a quiet spot, but every space has huddles groups and bickering families.

"Why are there so many Chinese people?" asked my 5-year-old nephew.
"Maybe there isn't as much of a season change wherever they're from so they're here to look at the colours," I tried to answer.
"Where are they from?" he asked.

I stopped myself from instinctively replying "China" since folks with Chinese ancestry could be born anywhere.

"Well, they could be from China, or from here. People can be born anywhere. I don't know." My answer didn't satisfy him, really. He ran off after his brother, no doubt not really caring about the complexities of his question. It bothered me. I wanted to express to him that nationality is a construct and that we should try and avoid assuming anything about anyone. He's five though, and I didn't have the energy.

The kids soon became a bit much for me, so I tried to step away and get some quiet, and maybe some literal perspective as well. I made my way to a wooden bench and sat facing an over-tall safety railing. It looked like a high wooden fence, similar to what you'd see around a backyard, only the horizontal planks were over a foot apart. It seemed to have been intended as a safety gate, when really all it was to me was an obstruction to a view.

I thought about scope. How untethered any of us could be, if so inclined. Here are these tourists. Chinese. Italian. Japanese. All from such different places, so far away from this hilltop. What if I got on a plane, and left? What if I went to their local hilltops?

It just seemed like for a moment I understood opportunity in a broad sense. That things could be left. Other things could be picked up. Choices could be made, in ways I maybe couldn't even really comprehend. My frame of reference is small. My understanding of what is possible is smaller.

Lives can be lived in between choices. Lives are lived in wholly intentional, present ways. This is a think people do. Other people. Not me.

I could leave. I could pay off the little debt I have and then just save up. Sure, right now I think those savings are meant for a downpayment and owning my own little place. But it doesn't have to be that way. I could move. I could live a different life. I could attempt an adventure. I could retreat from this modern life and commit to a hermitage. I could do something. 

So much of projecting into the future involves things we know about ourselves. I am this way. I like these things. I don't like him. I appreciate her. I need certain things. I have limitations. How much of that patterned thinking becomes a habit of limits?

I could stand to be looser. There is no doubt an easiness to being able to feel something, and think something, and not overly identify with it. To visit it, think on it, and then let it go.

So much of my human experience has been spent worrying. Anxious. Depressed. Feeling unfit. Feeling stunted. Feeling like I need to accomplish a certain attainment, or get to a place where I feel fully formed before I can really be of value to another.

I feel this way socially, romantically and also creatively. Notions of success.

All of these hard-defined levels. These goal posts. These mile markers.

So little of it has real value. Weighing value itself is a god-damn riddle.

Perspective is easier on a mountain top.

Jaywalking.

I slowly walked towards the office, passing by a small gathering of bicycle-cops. I started to jaywalk. I suddenly stopped, and stood awkwardly at the corner of the street. All three cops stared at me. I pretended not to see them, as I stood, interrupted in movement. They looked at me, waiting. I starred at the cross-walk sign until it lit up with its little walking figure. I crossed the street legally. The cops turned their attention back to their bicycles. We all went on living our lives.

Everybody is going through something...

Source is i sweat garlic.

Rachel Denti.

Rachel Denti has a great project of "everyday thoughts" on her Behance.

Some I relate to very much... Check out her work. 

Spoon Theory.

At a dinner party over the weekend, some friends who live with chronic-pain started discussing Spoon Theory.

They referred me to a blog-post as the origin source of the term, I recommend reading it: The Spoon Theory written by Christine Miserandin.

In the piece she discusses explaining her experience living with Lupus to her best friend:

I explained that the difference in being sick and being healthy is having to make choices or to consciously think about things when the rest of the world doesn't have to. The healthy have the luxury of a life without choices, a gift most people take for granted.

I think her piece is really powerful, since it’s so rarely discussed - how difficult it is for us to represent our experiences to those who have no frame of reference for it.

Most people start the day with unlimited amount of possibilities, and energy to do whatever they desire, especially young people. For the most part, they do not need to worry about the effects of their actions. So for my explanation, I used spoons to convey this point. I wanted something for her to actually hold, for me to then take away, since most people who get sick feel a “loss” of a life they once knew. If I was in control of taking away the spoons, then she would know what it feels like to have someone or something else, in this case Lupus, being in control.

Her use of spoons allows for an immediate representation of loss.

I also needed to explain that a person who is sick always lives with the looming thought that tomorrow may be the day that a cold comes, or an infection, or any number of things that could be very dangerous. So you do not want to run low on “spoons”, because you never know when you truly will need them. I didn't want to depress her, but I needed to be realistic, and unfortunately being prepared for the worst is part of a real day for me.

This was a big one for me. I have a fear-based foreshadowing sense of dread in me. I’m always worried I’ll go through a “bad period” and get so depressed and despondent my life will fall apart. Even when things are going relatively well, I need to make sure I have “backup” plans in play, that I have support services I can turn to. It’s pre-emptive, but it’s anxiety based. I think about my mental health daily. I know some things make it harder on me. I know walking into any situation tired means I'm at a a greater disadvantage than I usually am. I am only starting to use language to really discuss  and explore my experience (that's pretty much what this blog is), and ideally in doing so, I'll really develop the language to properly describe my state of being, and represent what it is I live to those around me.

I rarely see her emotional, so when I saw her upset I knew maybe I was getting through to her. I didn't want my friend to be upset, but at the same time I was happy to think finally maybe someone understood me a little bit. She had tears in her eyes and asked quietly “Christine, How do you do it? Do you really do this everyday?” I explained that some days were worse than others; some days I have more spoons then most. But I can never make it go away and I can’t forget about it, I always have to think about it. I handed her a spoon I had been holding in reserve. I said simply, “I have learned to live life with an extra spoon in my pocket, in reserve. You need to always be prepared.”

This made me wonder about the friendships I have. I would say those closest to me know how deeply depressed I am, and have heard the stories that have come out of the most difficult times in my life. There are always friendships that are more superficial, and those are what they are. Only a handful life with depression and anxiety - so at least they have a frame of reference. I guess there's a limit to how close I can become you're a god-damn unicorn. Anyway, I have a friend or two who are these kinds of people, the happy kind. We hang out when I'm in a good place.

I once grazed a pretty dark topic with one of these "normie" friends. Her eyes glazed over and she looked horrified. So that only happened once, and it scarred me. It no doubt scarred her.

The way Spoon Theory was introduced to me, was by two wonderful, supportive people, so this already to me has a supportive, positive vibe to it. Hearing them discuss their spoons between each other was really sweet. They were speaking the same language, and were really empathetic to what the other was saying.

Anything that helps us represent our struggles, and helps us in conveying how we live our lives is always appreciated.

I plan on using this system from now on with these friends, and I hope to share this with friends and allies in various spaces.