To whom do I write?
Myself? I like to think so.
The line blurred when I opened my posts.

When I browse Xanga (rarely)
I see screaming out at me from all sides:
“I hope you like my site!!”
and I think…. who the hell cares?
I couldn’t care less what anyone thinks of my site.
It’s for me. Nobody else matters.
And yet…
And yet, I try to make it aesthetically pleasing.
Is that for my own eyes or for yours?
Again, I like to think it’s for me.

And it’s not like I’m writing things
that I’m dying for the world to know.
It is in fact, private things.
Sometimes the mundane, but sometimes soul-baring.
And those things are so close to my heart,
so fragile, and I put them out there,
out here where anyone can read them.
Yes, some things are too private, and I keep them locked away,
but most of my journal entries are open to see.

And here is the disconcerting, yet beautiful part:
I see you baring your soul too, and its really amazing,
and I wonder how we (as a people, a generation or two, a culture)
have arrived at a place in which we are okay showing
our most tender and vulnerable inner dramas and secrets
to perfect strangers, or to our friends and families,
without even a “FRAGILE: HANDLE WITH CARE” sign
on the door or the outside of the box.

I open my own journal and look to see if I have comments,
if anyone had something to say… hopefully reflecting my entry,
words to bring insight into my mind or yours.
I look forward with eager anticipation each weekday
to read what you have to say,
my newfound friends aquaintances (… what are you to me?)
and when there is nothing new that you have revealed,
I can feel the corners of my mouth turning down in disappointment.

So now to whom am I writing?
To those who are sharing their lives at this point in time,
this brief glimpse into their hearts and the magical connections
that their brains are making every second upon second upon second?
(albeit not purposely with me per se.)
Or to myself for introspection and catharsis and growth
and to see where I’ve come from and to where I am going?

The things I write are many times not things
I would share with my husband, he who should be the bearer,
if anyone should be, of my secrets and longings
and meandering thoughts about the world.
He doesn’t think like I do. He is a concrete thinker.
His world does not include faeries swimming in his veins
or demons nibbling on his toes to the bones inside.

Walking on a hot day and then having to return to work in the same clothes….. ugh.
Love the mp3 player, enjoy the walking, hate the sweatiness.
Must build into my home routine, not work.

I’m already longing for comfy warm PJ’s for the upcoming fall and winter.
Why don’t they make sleepers for adults? Well actually, they do,
but I’ve only seen them a couple of times, and they didn’t look very adult.
More like a costume.
and I suppose climbing in and out of a sleeper to use the bathroom sounds like
quite the bother…. but non-slip booties sewed into my jammies sounds great,
no cold ankles where the chill can creep in.
Maybe L.L. Bean or Lands End has something.
Nick & Nora have tons of cute stuff but I don’t know if it would fit me,
and they are overpriced. I shall start looking about online.

The house feels so much calmer this year at the start of school than last year.
Not having the youngest helps tons. Not having 3 kids in school helps a lot too.
Not feeling guilty if we don’t have dinner at the table is pretty much priceless.

Last night in my online role-playing game I bid on an item for my oldest daughter who plays
in my guild with me because she had disconnected and had to reboot her PC.
I clearly said I was bidding for her, and what her total points available were.
Next thing I know I’m being pronounced the winner.
I don’t need this item. I have a better item.
So I point out that it wasn’t for me, and the guild bully
(who was in charge of the bidding for that item) says
“Don’t bid for someone else or I will kill you.”
I said “Get over it” which was not really like me but I was irritated.
She was the one who didn’t pay attention to what i told her.
A lot of people thought this was very funny that I told her off.
Next thing she says is “You are so dead Mynamehere.”
But she didn’t say another word to me about it.
I was mad!
Apparently I am very protective of my daughter.
If I had tried to bid for someone else I would probably
have been saying “i’m sorry! i’m sorry!” instead.

A guy in my guild who I like to call Rat Bastard (or RB for short) is
apparently not just bothering and harassing me, but several different women.
I’m thinking it’s time to get together and complain about unacceptable behavior.
There is strength in numbers, for volume and for veracity.
I hope they kick him out of the guild! What a jerk!

I am noticing that I’m going through short bouts of depression.
Right now I am not, so I can be more objective.
These bouts last anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks.
I am taking my medicine as prescribed. When I am not being
depressed, I’m fine. I don’t know if it has something to do with food and sleep,
the weather, the relationships I’m in, or what.

Some people say that anti-depressants stifle creativity.
I think it’s just that being miserable makes it easier to write.
When I’m not being miserable I struggle for the words.
When I’m being miserable the words flow out of me
as though someone else were forming them and I am
only the conduit of expression.

Being madly in love makes it easy to write too, as I recall.
Infatuation is just the other side of depression in terms of emotion though.
They are both out of control emotions that take you to places
that you didn’t intend to go. Creativity pours out of these emotional places.
I used to think I would rather be creative but on a rollercoaster ride of emotion
than to be uncreative but reasonably stable emotionally. 
I can remember thinking this in my mid-twenties.
Fast-forward fifteen years (or so) and I gladly trade
my streams of creativity for a sense of a solid floor beneath me.
I still have those moments of passionate emotions now and again.
That is enough for me.

Some days I can feel the hands of God on my life,
more days I can’t. I think this is my doing, my reluctance
to believe in anything outside of myself, my inability to trust anyone,
my tendency to fall back into my formerly hedonistic life, where
“if it feels good, do it” rules. There is a huge chasm between
“if it feels good, do it” and “does this glorify God?” which is what
my Christian friends suggest I use as a guide to my actions.
I think I end up falling somewhere within that chasm most of the time,
wondering how I got there.

I haven’t been to church since January.
I can’t seem to make myself go if my husband doesn’t want to go.
He enjoys our church and is as awed by our pastor as I am.
(He really is THAT good… he’s inspiring, and I believe speaking the words of God.
He doesn’t promote religion, he promotes a relationship with God, with Jesus, with the Spirit or Counselor.
He doesn’t promote his church as the only answer, but he wants it to be a unifying place bringing together
those who cherish the Word, those who cherish the Spirit, and those who don’t want anything to do with
organized Religion, but still thirst for Jesus. He’s funny and real and has problems and doubts and all those things.)
He (husband) just doesn’t want to have to get up on a Sunday morning and leave the house.
And to be perfectly honest, neither do I.
There was a Saturday evening service for awhile,
but they are discontinuing that.
However, Saturday night is no better than Sunday morning.
Tuesday evening sounds pretty good.
Hey! What about Tuesday guys?? ^.~

I should probably be working instead of rambling on with my stream of consciousness writing here……. *sigh*

Pearl S. Buck, (1892-1973), recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in 1932 and of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1938, once said about highly sensitive people:

“The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this:
A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive.

To him…

a touch is a blow,
a sound is a noise,
a misfortune is a tragedy,
a joy is an ecstasy,
a friend is a lover,
a lover is a god,
and failure is death.

Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create – – – so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating.”

-Pearl S. Buck

Today is….. Better. Definitely Better. So Far. No Guarantees.

Just…. blah.  I’m hot, my office feels stuffy, I’m feeling depressed, though not overly so, I don’t feel like good company right now, not even for myself.

I took a walk at lunch today to buy a sandwich and a cookie. It’s about a 4 block walk to the deli or so. It’s kind of hard to say with the block lengths around here. That felt good to be outside. The sun was out and there was a small breeze. I was a little over-warm but not too bad. I was blaring my tunes on my mp3 player so the noise from the nearby freeway made no impact. One of the companies near us was having a little company barbecue with picnic tables and lots of great smelling food. I wanted to march right over and sit down, but I didn’t.

I’m tired and bored more than anything else I guess. Sleep sounds righteously grand right now.

The stepson moves back in this weekend, then school starts, and small groups start back up, and a Bible Study I have lined up starts later in September, and I might start taking one class at the massage school this term which would start in late September as well. Life is about to get busy again. This is probably a good thing.

Things I have to be grateful for:

1. My husband loves me whether he is happy with me or unhappy.
2. My stepdaughters love me and frequently tell me so.
3. I have a stable job, even if it’s boring.
4. My job is relatively simple to do, even though I’d like something interesting.
5. I live in a house and not an apartment anymore, so I have no noisy neighbors above or below.
6. I have numerous friends who love me for some reason.
7. My husband is supporting my bid to get my massage license again.
8. We make a decent income and don’t have to scrimp and scrape every penny.
9. I usually have several hours of free time every evening in which I can do as I like.
10. I have a car that runs almost all the time.
11. My mom thinks I’m awesome.
12. My kitty likes to curl up with me at night.
13. I’m healthy for the most part, even if i could be healthier, I have the use of all limbs and body parts.
14. I have my sight and my hearing. Some people don’t.
15. I play a game most nights online with a group of friends that make me laugh.
16. I have a goal and the beginnings of the plan to get to it.
17. My goal doesn’t seem impossible or out of reach.
18. My doctor gives me Xanax to keep my anxiety under control.
19. I have an individual therapist that definitely cares about me and understands me. (After 12 years, one hopes!)
20. My problems are the problems of the well off and pampered, not the poor and needy. Everything could be worse, even if everything could be better too. Somebody elses problems would make mine look like blessings.

So, thanks God for all your blessings. I will try to focus on them today and not on my deficiencies and problems.

Soul killers draining the life right out of my veins, only to drip (plop! plop!) into the corporate bucket, separating like oil and vinegar the corporate drones from the likes of me.

Get me out of here!!

Mind-numbing typing (tip-tap) on such exciting topics as “financial resources for small community water districts”. Please wake me when I finish page 6 of his long-hand written yellow notepad pages… I’ll be dreaming of lounging in a sunlit room with the soft breeze coming through the windows, and me reading a book, something to take me away to another land, on another world, and soft music playing in the background.

And the wind cries Mary…

“WTB [New Job] for Plum, PST!“

I love the  s.i.l.e.n.c.e.  and   s.t.i.l.l.n.e.s.s.   in the middle of the night in my house. (At least, when everyone has gone to bed before me.) My computer is actually noisy enough to be white noise that covers any sounds from the house or cars outside. It’s like a blanket has been thrown over the house, muffling any sounds other than my own. I know, I’m neurotic about noise. I hate it! It grates on my nerves like fingernails on a chalkboard sometimes. Unless it’s my noise… like, my music, my game, my typing, my talking and laughing, etc… that doesn’t bother me. Actually, laughing almost never bothers me except when it’s directed at someone demeaningly. But yeah, other people’s noise = annoying. I’m what is called a “highly sensitive person” because noise bothers me, textures bother me, light bothers me, sounds startle me. The list below basically describes me 100%.

Here are the questions that *determine* if you are highly sensitive:
? Do you get overwhelmed by stimuli such as lights, noises, and smells?
? Do other people’s moods and emotions deeply affect you?
? Are you easily startled?
? Do you become uneasy when someone is watching you complete a task?
? Do you become tired easily after a “normal” day of activity?
? Are you aware of other things in your environment that most other people are not aware of?
? Do you become agitated or anxious when you have a lot of tasks to do and not enough time to complete all of them?
? Do you avoid disturbing or violent movies, books, or T.V. shows?
? Do you feel the need to escape and retreat when there is too much going on around you?
? Do you dislike changes in your life?
? Do you enjoy delicate tastes, scents, sounds, soft fabrics, or beautiful works of art?
? Have you always been labeled as shy or sensitive by other people?
? Are you overly perfectionist/conscientious?
? Do you seem to be more sensitive to pain than other people?
? Are you sensitive to certain foods such as foods containing caffeine, sugar or alcohol?
? Do you become unpleasant when you are hungry?
? Do you easily sense the energies of places or situations?
? Are you easily touched by others’ experience, stories of kindness, and courage?
? Are you attracted to the deeper things such as spirituality, self-development and philosophy?
? Do you need time alone to recover from overwhelm or over-stimulation.?
? Are your feelings easily bruised?
? Do you have a vivid imagination?
? Are you aware that other people’s moods affect you?
? Do you become uncomfortable around loud noise or bright lights?
? Do you get rattled when too much is being asked of you?
? Do you often worry excessively?

Basically, my nervous system is not suited for any sort of corporate office job. It’s no wonder I want to be a massage therapist. I was right the first time I studied it and got sidetracked by the job that gave me the money I needed to survive. Most massage practices in our culture are in relaxing environments. Quiet, soft lighting, relaxing music, a healing and empathic environment. I so need it!

The Top 100 Things I’d Do
If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord©

1. My Legions of Terror will have helmets with clear plexiglass visors, not face-concealing ones.
2. My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through.
3. My noble half-brother whose throne I usurped will be killed, not kept anonymously imprisoned in a forgotten cell of my dungeon
4. Shooting is not too good for my enemies.
5. The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box. The same applies to the object which is my one weakness.

In the interest of brevity, if you are interested in the next 95 items, go read the rest at: www.eviloverlord.com

Yellow isn’t really my color…. I’m wearing a sunshiney yellow shirt that i love for its color, but I feel drab. And melancholic, I feel melancholy lurking under my cheerful work smile.

Maybe it’s just a drab day. It’s gray outside my window, gray like January, but it’s late August. It has been so hot lately that the cooler weather is welcome, but it’s not even all that cool. Kind of humid. yuck.

I think I want to start running. I hate running, but it’s because running is not comfortable. I will have to set up a schedule and be disciplined about it. That could be rough. I signed up for Curves earlier this year and I have barely gone. I should discipline myself to do that as well. I just need to get in shape. Losing weight is all fine and good, but I want to feel healthy and strong. Right now I feel old and weak.

DH’s recent problem with me is about not wanting to do “family things”.  But, they just aren’t enjoyable for me most of the time. People picking on each other, someone getting hurt, someone getting mad. How is that fun? Then I consider the time that I could have while everyone else is doing something, time that is quiet and peaceful and relaxing.  I’m not sure who he thinks used to insist on family dinners, who used to insist he get off his computer to spend some time with his kids, and who used to look for things to do as a family (that he never wanted to do so we usually didn’t), but it sure as hell wasn’t him. So, somehow this translates to “I don’t like to do family things” when I say I’m not interested in going to a movie, or going downtown to a really crowded event, or I don’t want to watch a movie as a family (because I don’t enjoy watching movies usually), or playing a game where someone is going to leave the table pissed or in tears. Want me to watch a movie? Put in an animated film, put in Bill Cosby, put in one of my favorite movies and I’m there. But no, I do not want to watch “Random Movie Here” because films have a tendency to make me very uncomfortable… my anxiety levels go off the scale on many of them, and I cannot stand to watch stupid movies that cater to the lowest common denominator of humor.  I also no longer like large crowds. Again, I get very anxious, I get nervous when i can’t find people, I hate the jostling, I hate the potential volatility of large crowds that seems everpresent. So no, I’m not very interested in going as a family to The Bite, or to the Rose Festival. I will hate it.  I have gone to my share of family events that were unhappy events. I’d rather have the solace and the silence.

I think that he thinks it means I don’t like his kids… our kids. I call them my kids. I tell them (well, the girls) that I love them all the time and I do! I enjoy their company very much one on one. But two or more = fighting, and I hate that.

In other news, I am looking into reapplying for my massage license and what that would entail. I don’t know if it would be affordable, and I don’t know if it will be practical, but at least it would be something for which I have a passion. Susan says I should not call it my mid-life crisis, but that at mid life people re-evaluate and choose some things to change and some things to alter the path that they are on, to become more of who they want to be and often to give something to the greater good. That’s my goal, to become who I want to be, not who everyone said I should be, and to become who I thought I couldn’t be because I was afraid to try and fail, afraid to be unmasked as a fraud, someone who doesn’t really know what they are doing.

Now what? First step, stop crying. My reaction to this is to isolate, which will reinforce the lack of connection, which is bad.  I’m frightened. I’m worried. I’m sad. I feel like a failure. I feel like sleeping… a LOT. I’m depressed. I feel floaty, but that’s probably the Xanax I took after this conversation.

i’m feeling a lack of connection with you, or rather that you have a lack of connection with me
yep
I’m sorry, but I’ve been having some problems with you, so its best to be distant
oh
maybe not best…. but is rather my response
i see
no wonder i keep asking if you still love me
well, that is a very simple answer… Yes
is there something i can do or not do to help? or should i just let you deal with whatever it is?
i’m not sure
I feel I would like to discuss things with you… but definately not over MSN
but I also feel like not discussing with you 🙂
ok
well if this is something i can’t do anything to change, i guess i’d rather not discuss it, if there is something than i’d like to know eventually
nods
it is probably something that can not be changed, so I should just figure out how to deal with it…. which is what I have been trying to do lately
 just don’t pull too far away that you don’t know how to get back
yeah… thats a tough one
it sounds like you already are
its the best way I know to deal with difficult issues 🙂
i mean it sounds like you are already pulling so far away that you aren’t sure you can get back to me
 I suppose
oh wow
i don’t want to lose you
I dont want to be lost 🙂
I’m definately not going anywhere, so stop worrying about that
bodily anyway