I haven’t posted anything for a while. My life has been very difficult: overwhelming, crazy-making. There’s an earlier post about Feeling Unreal, so that’s been another part of this difficult summer. I don’t even know how much sense this post will make to the reader, I’m trying to give the flavor of my experience.
This post was written on August 5, the earlier post was written only a few days before.
Feeling very strange. The weather is strange. Yesterday afternoon it poured while the sun was still out. This morning it’s warm, humid, and grey.
Yesterday was hot. I thought about lying down for a nap, but remembered what Erica said about how working “whole-heartedly” was one antidote to exhaustion. So I started working on my Lammas post for the new Neskaya website.
Very confusing. Some things the program liked and gave me green dots, some things it didn’t like, and I couldn’t figure out why. At some point Eleanor came in and told me she’d got the phone jack that splits into 3 at the hardware store, but it didn’t work either. She’s afraid that mice have gnawed the wires. I said we would need to call the phone company and have a service person sent. I asked her if she would do that. She said something about scheduling, so I looked for my calendar clipboard and couldn’t find it. I burst into tears and said “This is making me crazy.” Eleanor said to forget it, she would take care of it after she gets back from her parents. She has to go next week for her mother’s birthday. She sounded very cross which made me feel worse, but Erica had said something about negotiating new boundaries with her. I know that I always feel terrible when something has to be fixed in her apartment. I feel responsible for everything. At first I freaked out whenever something went wrong, then there was a period of time when I was OK with it, but yesterday it was a last straw. Possibly working on the webpage was not a good idea. Writing is something I can do whole-heartedly, but struggling with unfamiliar technology is not.
I went back and read what I had written in response to Andrew Harvey’s work on Spiritual Activism. I see that I have always been on the side of the underdog, that I have gone to protest marches and vigils, that I would have done more if they were closer to where I live. I’m badly handicapped by PTSD, and having to take care of myself so I don’t become totally disabled. Actually, I’m worried that I’m close to being totally disabled right now. I haven’t been able to fill the forms out for Kendal, I haven’t been able to take my computer to the bank to solve the password difficulty. I know there are more — o yes call the dentist and make appt for work that needs to be done — but getting up and looking for the yellow pad where they are written is too much right now. I have too many pads and I keep losing them. I keep losing things, that’s something else that drives me crazy. All this stuff, all these little details that have to be taken care of, are right now making it impossible to take care of myself. I haven’t been able to meditate for weeks, I keep forgetting to take Mocha for walks — even short walks outside — crazy! It’s all crazy. Today I feel unreal, weak, disorganized, uncentered, off balance. Trying to build balance exercises into my day.
When is there time for spiritual practice, for sitting calmly, for spending time in “liminal space” as Erica said? No wonder I feel unreal. Erica says that feeling unreal is due to lack of validation, lack of someone seeing what’s going on with me and naming it.
Kendal is a Retirement Community that I have applied to.