Archive for self image
In the magic zone…
I was smart tonight and made myself a proper pot of coffee right away instead of messing around with the heated up stuff. I knew I was going to like a freshly brewed cup of coffee ever so much better, so that’s what I’ve got. I was patient enough to wait the extra few minutes for it and to put in the little bit of work to make it. The reward speaks for itself. I’m drinking it now and it tastes very good. It’ beats what comes from the microwave by far. I doubt I’ll make that mistake again. I poured the old coffee down the drain where it belonged.
It goes to show you that you can teach old dogs new tricks. I’m never too old to learn, especially when it comes to matters of good taste. I don’t have to be so niggardly that I have to reheat old coffee, no matter how convenient it is. A person does have to draw the line somewhere. I guess that’s where I draw the line. I must always consider myself worthy of a freshly brewed cup of coffee, unless we end up in the crisis years and we are not there yet. Though if it were up to my government, we shortly would be.
I’m sitting here in the middle of the night after I’ve already slept a couple of hours. It is always my intention to sleep through the night, but I know I will never make it. I always have to go to the toilet and let the dog out back. Those are always good enough reasons for me to stay up and turn on the computer for a few hours. It’s a habit that is hard to break and it has rusted into place.
I’m not going to claim that I do my best thinking at night anymore because I don’t think it is true. I think I do as well during the day after I’ve woken up from my afternoon nap. Some sleep beforehand seems to be involved, though.
I pumped up the flat tire of my bicycle the other day and rode it to the tobacconist, but it was obvious that it was not okay. There was a bump in it and the bike rode funnily. I made it over there and back, but by the next day the tire was completely flat again. There’s obviously something in the tire. A piece off glass or something.
The Exfactor is coming over today to do the groceries and fix the tire. He knows how to do such things. He is very handy with them. As a well established Dutch woman, I should know how to do this myself, but so far I’m unable to and unwilling to learn. I would rather go to the bike repair shop than fix a tire. I would get completely frustrated. Mostly I just have to avoid sharp things that lie on the road. Or get indestructible tires. I don’t need my bike this week, so I’m in no real hurry to get it fixed, but the Exfactor does it quickly. He’s a real pro at it.
I have no appointments all week and I’m happy for it. It’s going to be a bit of a vacation week. I will have lots of time to arrange my life as I see fit and do things the way I like them according to my own schedule. That’s such a relief. I like being in charge of my own time. I will not waste it and get my chores done, but I will do them in my own sweet time.
There’s no pressure if I don’t have to be somewhere at a certain time on a certain day. Appointments have a tendency to loom big on the horizon and mess up my day. I prefer not having any at all, even though they are a bit of an outing. I suppose if I were hardly ever to have any, I would appreciate them more. Sometimes, only having to go out to walk the dog is more than enough.That is still enough reason to get dressed properly.
Yesterday was by exception a very nice day. We had sunshine and the temperature was 26C. Today it is going to be cloudy and cold and I will have to dress accordingly. Yesterday I was skimpily dressed with bare arms. I do have a bit of a tan with freckles. Little by little you pick up some color just from being outside. My legs, though, are as white as ever. They don’t match the rest of me. Today it is only going to be 16C, so that is quite a difference. Rain is predicted, but as usual we will probably not see any.We’re dealing with a drought situation.
Last night a single bird sang very cheerfully after 10 o’clock. It was as if he wanted to say goodnight. That’s’ when it had properly gotten dark. I fell asleep shortly after that.
I hope you’re all having a good night. For those of you still up, have a good evening.
Ciao,
Nora
>Feeling groovy…
>
I’ve given it some thought and have decided to stop smoking. It’s taking too much of my budget every month and I can use the money for other things. I will order nicotine patches at the pharmacy and finish up my tobacco that I still have and then quit smoking. For some reason I’m not at all fazed by this and I think that I can do it. I have a tremendous amount of confidence in myself and think that I will succeed.
Ciao,
Nora
>Post 777.
>
>Yawning!
>
Although I’m sitting here with tears running down my face from all the yawning that I’m doing, I don’t want the evening to end yet, because it is quite early still, so I have made myself a cup of coffee and I’m drinking that to keep myself going for a little while longer, although it’s possible that it’s not going to work at all and that I will be forced to go to bed anyway.
In the meantime I’m helping Gandhi escape from the enthusiasm of Tyke and getting her to jump on the dining table, where I had put a folded up blanket, which Tyke has pulled off and is now in the process of “killing.” It is Jesker’s old blanket, but I have a better one for Gandhi to lie on and we will get the better of Tyke yet. I do have to pick sides and Gandhi needs more help. Tyke is quite capable of looking after himself.
I was rudely interrupted while writing this by many emails that needed answering, and as usual I took my time doing that, so now it’s much later and I’ve gotten my second wind. I’m suddenly awake again and ready for an intellectual challenge. I don’t know if that includes writing this post, but I guess I can make it as challenging for myself as I want. Notwithstanding the fact that I’m typing this without the spell check and I can’t use any really difficult words, because I would have to look them up in the dictionary and that would stop the natural flow of words.
I do try to write as quickly as the sentences enter my head and sometimes I’m on a roll, although I do have periods of non-activity when nothing comes and I’m distracted. I’ve been that way my whole life and it caused me some trouble in primary school when I was distracted a lot, in other words, I day dreamed and I still have the tendency to do that now. I call it constructive day dreaming, because I think of things that matter and come up with solutions to odd little problems I’m faced with. It seems that being occupied in one activity stimulates my brain to be active in other areas as well. I suppose I am a multiple use appliance, handy to have around the house.
I did my taxes this afternoon on line and it turned out to be quite painless, because part of the information was already filled in and what I had to fill in was very simple and each question that I had to answer came with an explanation so I would understand the question and if it applied to me. Luckily, my financial situation is very simple and clear cut. There were no complications. It’s probably the easiest tax form that I ever filled out, because I was unmarried for all of last year. I’m going to remember how simple this was, so I won’t procrastinate next year.
I had Iron Nora do the taxes, she’s much more capable than I am and not the least bit intimidated. That woman is handy to have around and my blogging friend Babaloo reminded me to pull her out of the closet for jobs like this that are tougher than the ordinary daily tasks that I’m normally faced with, but I think I can pull her out of the closet whenever I get timid. I’m regularly intimidated by something and I can use a tough woman at moments like that. Especially now that I’m wearing cowboy boots that strengthen my image a great deal.
I have been wearing my brown leather jacket for warmth, but the weather is getting better now and I think I can start wearing my black leather jacket with the zippers and the buttons, which is very cool. It was the first leather jacket I bought and I felt like quite a hip chick when I wore it out of the store. I can wear my green scarf with it, which is an upgrade from the blue and black scarf I’ve been wearing with my brown leather jacket and that used to belong to my mother, so it is very old and it also needs to go into the laundry. The black leather jacket is best worn open, but it’s not quite warm enough for that yet, although tomorrow it’s going to be an incredible 17 degrees Celsius. That’s practically balmy and real spring weather. I can hardly believe my eyes reading that forecast. I’ll wear my jacket open with my green scarf around my neck.
I had three chores to do today and I did them all, except that I didn’t quite finish the last one and then, as it got later in the day, I excused myself from that one and will add it to the chores I will have to do tomorrow. I will have to do three of them tomorrow and maybe four if I’m really gutsy and honest. I don’t write them down, as I know exactly what they are and I don’t forget them. They are lasered into my brain. Three chores aren’t that many to remember. Carrying them out is, because I reach a certain time of the day when I excuse myself from doing work and I only get to play, as if I have a regular paid job.
Actually, my excuse is that I try to keep the stress out of my life, but I think I should test that theory and see if it still applies. If I start doing more than three chores, I will have to start making lists or make the stuff up as I go along. There are always things to do here. I will have must do and can do chores and do the must do chores first. I will have to forego some time on the computer, because it distracts me hugely and is always beckoning me to turn it on.
I reinstalled Windows Vista the other day, because it was acting funny, and as a result I got more space on my hard disk and it also kept all the things I had installed and downloaded myself, even though it said it would put those things separately on the hard disk. I did a complete reinstallment, not an upgrade. I thought it was wonderful and apparently it got rid of some unnecessary junk. Windows Vista is okay, but very often it is murmuring to itself, doing unknown things on line that aren’t apparent and it has many updates. I don’t know why such a big deal was made out of it. The email program is good, but it should be. Would you expect anything less?
It’s late now and I should go to bed, but I’m enjoying myself here. I’ll run out of things to do, though, and be forced to close shop. I’ll go put the clean sheets on the bed. That was the part of the third job that I had not finished. I want to sleep in a clean, good smelling bed tonight. That will be a treat to me.
Goodnight, dear all. I’ll see you all tomorrow, very late in the morning.
Ciao,
Nora
>Oh, let’s go again, one more time…
>
My dear ex-husband was here this afternoon to do the groceries for me. It was his own idea, I did not even so much as whisper the question into his ear. He was really two days too early, but I did not turn him down. I’d rather have too many groceries in the house than not enough. A shopping list was quickly made and off he went in my leather jacket, because he could not wear his motorcycle gear. He has a pair of shoes here for when he has to do these jobs for me. Luckily, he is slender enough to wear my jackets and they fit him perfectly. He looked quite dashing in my leather jacket, but I won’t give it up. I may give it up if he gives me his motorcycle jacker, or one like it. I do need a tough broad jacket like that. It will give me the right attitude. Right, sure it will! That, along with my shit kicking boots.
If you’re wondering where I get this “tough broad” idea from, it is from admiring women who I think are very independent and who stand very solidly on their own two feet and who don’t need a man to help them live their lives. Women who can earn their own living and make their own way in life and make their own choices, regardless of public opinion. I guess they all don’t have to wear tough broad leather jackets and shit kicking boots, but that is how I would reinforce my image of being one. I’m not such a tough broad by nature, so I have to fake it a little bit. I suppose I’m still looking for my imago. What do I want to show me as to the world?
When it comes down to it, I’m just a very regular middle of the road woman. I don’t stand out one way or the other, much as I would like to. So we’re back to yesterday’s theme and what it all comes down to is not the outside, but character that counts, and personality, and you can make that visible enough after someone has been around you for a while, if they take the time that is. I’ve never stopped and thought about this as consciously as I think about it now, though I have on some level been aware of it and paid lip service to it, as any modern thinking human being does. We all say that the inside counts, but we’re all busy making sure the outside looks darn good.
Now is the time to test that out. I’m going to dress myself as nicely as I always do, and wear my hair the same way, but always wear my glasses and go without make up and see how people react to me. I’ll have no eyebrows, because they are blond and invisible, and no eyeshadow and no eyeliner. Just a touch of mascara on my blond eyelashes, otherwise I’ll feel so naked. Only on the top. Then I wonder what sort of impact I will make, or if it will make no difference at all. That’s quite a thing to do for someone who is as vain as I am. Let’s face it, I do like to think that everything I do makes me look better. Although just lately I’m having my doubts.
Of course, it will mean that I’ll have to let my personality shine through a little bit better and not be such a silent onlooker. I’ll have to be present. Make more noise, talk more, be more spontaneous. I’ll have to practice that. Maybe I’ll dare more if I’m more myself and not a painted up version who has to worry about the state of her make up and the condition of her hairdo. Maybe I’ll learn to be a tough broad on the inside and I won’t need the outside accouterments. Or…maybe I’ll learn that I don’t need to be a tough broad at all, but a gentle, sensitive one who has a heart and sensitivities and soft spots. Maybe that will be the real me and I’m artificially trying to be someone I’m not. I may just allow myself to find out. I may have to give up my membership in The Tough Broad Society.
How do you like all this mesmerizing? Isn’t it fascinating? How to make yourself the most interesting subject of your own post.
One thing that was on the shopping list, was dog kibbles for little dogs, because Toby is hooked on the dried dog food from a particular brand and asks for it if the bowl is empty. However, I had the large kibbles for big dogs and this time I had the Exfactor get the kibbles for little dogs. I think they will be easier to eat and the dog may like them better also. We’ll see. It is funny to see Toby chow down on that food. I’ve never seen him eat with so much appetite. You’d think it was candy I put in front of him. He has gained a little weight, which is good, because he was too skinny for some reason and now he looks normal. He’s a big cat and can stand the weight. I’m hoping Jesker is going to lose weight, but I can’t tell, because I can’t get on the scale with him and see how much he weighs at the same time. It’s a two people job. I’ll have to weigh him the next time we’re at the vet.
I’m expecting the pharmacy to make a delivery of some pills that are the lighter dose of the Temazepam. My psychiatrist is allowing me one a day until he sees me on Monday so we can discuss the need for them. He is being a cautious man. I still had some and took one this afternoon and ended up taking a nice nap and feeling better the rest of the day. I have no qualms about taking pills and I am not worried about becoming hooked on them, as I’ve always been able to decrease the doses when that was necessary. My medication is my best friend and it helps me think straight when I can’t do it on my own.My life has never been easier than when I started taking the right medication in the right dose and the right combination and I’ve become an expert at tweaking it. I always know what I need and when something works. I would like to eliminate one of my anti depressives, but I need to discuss that with my psychiatrist and it will have to be done slowly. I think I can do without one of them, but that may be wishful thinking. I will just have to try.
It’s still early in the evening. The apartment is nice and warm, but the heater hasn’t gone on at all yet. Still, with the windows closed it is 21C in here, so the neighbors must have their heaters on. I don’t like to have the windows closed, but it does make a difference in how warm it stays in here and there’s no draft now. I’m still in my clothes and haven’t changed into my pajamas, but I will do so shortly. There’s nothing cozier than sitting around in my bathrobe and slippers and watching the news on television. The long political drama and the endless human one. That part is not quite so cozy. You do get immune to some degree, though. Hardened, almost, under the onslaught of misery.
I hope you all have a good night or that you are still having a good day. We had a partly rainy and partly sunny one here ourselves. Real Autumn weather.
Ciao,
Nora
>Another day dome…
>
I’m keeping a close eye on the thermometer inside the apartment. The moment it drops below 19 degrees Celsius, I’m closing the windows in the bedrooms. It is now exactly 19 degrees and it’s 2 degrees outside. I’m sitting here in my bathrobe and slippers and I’m actually more then warm enough, so it could even drop down below 19 degrees before I take action. I simply refuse to turn on the heater, though. I think all of my neighbors must be heating their places well for my apartment to stay so warm. I’m not going to give them a clue and keep my energy bill as small as possible, but I’ve already said that, so let me not be repetitive.
Today has been an absolutely forgettable day, but you mustn’t really say that about any day, must you? It’s a god given day after all and you must make of it what you can. Regardless, nothing the least bit exciting happened. It was as dull and flat as the Kansas plains (except that in the springtime those can be real pretty with all the prairie flowers).
The highlights of the day were the two long naps I took, one in the morning and one in the evening. That’s why I’m up at this ungodly hour. I fell asleep, as usual, watching the news and woke up at 11 pm with a huge thirst for a cup of coffee and a computer session. Why I have these stubborn notions late at night I have no idea, but there you go. Instead of being soundly asleep in bed, I’m sitting here thinking that now I will start drinking fruit juice or hot milk. Of course, hot milk has the added benefit that it makes you sleepy and then I could take my sleeping pill at the same time. Decisions, decisions!
I got dressed and walked the dog this morning and then ate some nice warm porridge for breakfast, which made me sleepy, and fully dressed, I laid down on the sofa and in the shortest amount of time I was asleep and slept for 3 hours. So you see how I wasted the whole morning doing absolutely nothing but walk the dog. Of course, when I woke up, I had to have a cup of coffee and check my emails and answer those and when I was done with that, it was time to walk the dog again. My whole day revolves around walking the dog. He makes sure I get enough fresh air and rosy cheeks.
I had tea with my sister in the afternoon. She always forgets that I put sugar in my tea and I have stopped reminding her and drink it without. She also forgot to give me a cookie, so I got my own. It’s handy if you know where those are kept. They happened to be really good ones with chocolate on them. Because my sister lives in a big 2.5 story house on a corner, she had the heater on and needless to say, her energy bill is more than 3 times higher than mine. That’s in a new, well insulated house with double glazing everywhere. A big house is expensive in the upkeep.
I’ve lived in big houses and know the responsibility of ownership, that’s why I’m so happy to live in this relatively small apartment now. I have rent control and a cheap service contract and no worries about the upkeep. I can paint it green and purple on the inside if I want and have the most hideous carpet, as long as I take it out when I move, but I’m never going to move. I’m in a perfect location in a nice middle class neighborhood. Oh yes, I care about those things. Crime rate and all that. I wouldn’t want to live in the next neighborhood over. There are some very strange people living there. Generations of families that all stick together and have feuds and lives of crime. Not all of them, of course, but you do have to live with them.
It’s taking me forever to write this, because I’m constantly distracted by my own thoughts and go into a reverie every few sentences and smoke a cigarette. This way the whole night is passing by rather quickly. I could be on a long journey staring out the window gazing at the scenery. It is of great interest as I pass by it. Large portions of my life pass through my mind and I am reminded of so many things while I write this. It’s not with displeasure that I look at them, I just remember them and observe them and think about how it was to be alive then and what a difference it is from today.
I never thought I would have ended up as a single 55 year old woman in the Netherlands, living on my own with a dog and two cats and being creative, though in a way it is close to the picture that I secretly had of myself when I thought about me in the future. I often thought of myself as a solitary human being on her own, in her own life, somewhere in the Netherlands, brewing coffee on an Autumn morning and being free to think her own thoughts. The surroundings are different, but the basic premise is right. I just thought that was an imaginary me I was dreaming about. I didn’t know it would come about like this. So, in the end I’ve become the person I imagined myself to be one day. I better live up to that now.
I’ve added a collage to my art blog here. Please go have a look and become a follower. The more, the merrier.
I’ll go have that glass of warm milk now. I’ve taken my sleeping pill, but it’s not working yet. That means sleeping late in the morning.
Ciao,
Nora
>Another one for posterity…
>
This afternoon, after I took the dog for a walk and took my noontime medications, I also took a sleeping pill and settled down on the sofa and took a nap of nearly three hours. It was wonderful and when I woke up, I felt all warm and fuzzy and sleepy headed, but contend. After I had been up for about ten minutes, there was a struggle between me and the force that wants me to feel self hatred and self contempt and loathing, but I cut it off at the pass and didn’t give it any room to step over its boundaries and sent it back to where it came from, into the deep dark recesses of my soul. Every time it rears its ugly head, I will continue to do this, until it gets tired of showing up and sees it is futile to.
The Exfactor was here this morning, after I came back from my SPN, and he had brought a clear plastic cat flap that he screwed in place over the cat door opening, because Toby had broken the one that was there last winter when it had gotten frozen shut. The problem is that the cats are used to there just being an opening and they can’t seem to get used to this cat flap. They eye it with much suspicion and haven’t gone out yet. It’s a little bit thicker and heavier than what used to be there, which is good for the draft, but the cats seem to think it is unmovable and I may have to help them through it the first couple of times. Those daft cats! They’re normally so smart. I can’t believe they can’t figure this one out.
When I went to see my SPN this morning, I didn’t really have a clear subject in my head that I wanted to discuss, except for the panic attack on Friday. I think I very often live in denial, because how could I not want to discuss those episodes of self hatred and self contempt and loathing? Yet I approached them as if they were a side issue and not the most important one, but once I started talking about them, a whole barrage of grief came pouring out of me and I cried something awful and smeared my make up all over my face.
It all has to do with my childhood and the awful messages I got about myself and everything I did, and how I heard them constantly and started to believe them, and internalized them and made them mine, so they became a belief system in my own head that I’ve carried with me my whole life. And although I say the opposite, deep down inside I believe those messages still and every once in a while, when I am vulnerable, they get the upper hand and I start believing them very much, to the point that I want to self destruct.
Now that I know this, and who is behind it, I know who my enemy is and who I am fighting. Now I can do something about it and at the very moment those thoughts start popping up in my mind, I can crush them with all my might and send them back to where they came from. I dispel them completely and take the truth out of them. Of course, subconsciously, I have believed these things always and have been fighting them all along, I have just not been so aware of it, but I know that its true and that it lies in my nature to think this way about myself. I just have a big mouth and outshout them a lot of times, but I didn’t always have a big mouth and I had to overcome a lot of insecurities.
I won’t share with you the journey I had to make to become a human being. It is too long and arduous. I will tell you that I started out with almost nothing and a lot in the negative balance and that I had to work my way up from scratch. That’s enough.
I mustn’t become bitter. I must look at where I am now and what I have achieved. I’ll be damned if I am going to let a ghost that haunts me take that away from me.
Okay, that’s enough of that! I will end on a positive note. The church bells are ringing and that is good. That’s always a joyful sound. I must go and walk the dog again and eat some dinner. Then I’m going to wait for the 8 pm news to come on and see what sort of hideous things my government has come up with to fight the economic crisis. Something’s rotten in Denmark.
Have a good evening.
Ciao,
Nora.
>A cup of coffee…
>
I had another good night’s sleep and didn’t even read my book ahead of time, but just turned the light off and pushed my head into the pillow and pulled the duvet over me and went to sleep. It’s the loveliest thing in the world when that happens, when I’m so tired that I fall asleep the moment I lie down in bed. I don’t remember getting up in the middle of the night, though doubtlessly I did, but I must not have registered it very well. I do remember seeing Gandhi and the dog lying on his pillow together, with Gandhi taking up more than her equal share of it. The dog tolerates her reluctantly. He hasn’t figured out a way to get her off his pillow yet and growling doesn’t work. She’s not the least bit intimidated by that and just stays put. When I woke up this morning, the situation was unchanged and Toby was lying beside me on the bed, huddled like a warm little stove against my body. Thus we celebrate togetherness here.
Yesterday afternoon I fell asleep on the sofa and when I woke up in the early evening, I felt very bad. I felt self hatred and a loathing that was so strong that I wanted to self destruct. I fought very hard not to give in to those feelings, but it was very difficult and I thought about harming myself and taking many pills to make the feelings go away. I was trying to remind myself that the feelings were temporary and that they would be gone again in the morning after a good night’s sleep, but somehow that didn’t want to penetrate my thick skull and I was only one big bunch of negative emotions that didn’t know what to do with herself.
I sat unable to make up my mind about what to do. I thought about writing about it, but realized it would make for a very dramatic and negative piece of writing that would upset all of you. I wanted to share my feelings, but I didn’t know who to share them with. I wanted to divert my attention, but didn’t know how. All I could think was how very much I hated myself at that moment and how very much I wanted to somehow reflect that hatred. Nevertheless, I kept myself from committing any desperate deeds, and that was a struggle inside myself.
Right then, I got an email from Maggie May with a list of books that I had asked for, that she had enjoyed very much and that I could look up at Bookmooch and at Bol.com. Somehow this came like rain on a desert plain and my mind latched onto it as something useful to do and to take it off the negative thoughts and onto something more productive. Do you believe in providence? It was meant to be, so I busied myself with looking up books and that got my mind on a completely different track. By the time I was done, my medication was working and I no longer felt self hatred and loathing. I was saved by Maggie’s list of books.
I wonder what in the world the function is of feeling self hatred and loathing? I can’t for the life of me figure out any sort of useful purpose for it. It is only plain and darn right dangerous. Why would you, when you are at your most vulnerable, have these god awful thoughts play in your head, that will lead you on a self destructive path? I can only think it must be a glitch in the system that messes up your thinking so badly. I think sleep resets your thought processes to a more normal basis and certainly the medication does. It is unbelievable that your own mind turns itself against you and wants to harm you in any way and that you have to fight those thoughts and somehow persevere in spite of them, when the easiest thing is to give in to them and go along with the self destruction.
I have to remember to go to sleep when I have feelings like these. I have misplaced my sign that tells me so. I must try to find it, but I have no idea what happened to it. I will will rummage around some of my papers today. It’s a well known fact by now that sleep saves me from my worst feelings and that if I get enough of it, I will do well and not fall apart as easily. The worst thing that can happen is to be woken up in the middle of a deep sleep and to try and function, like what happened yesterday when I woke up from the alarm clock that went off to tell me it was time for me to take my medication. I was befuddled when I woke up and unable to place myself in the right context.
Well, I lived through another experience of how not to take care of myself with the timely intervention, however, of the email from Maggie. She’s the one who told me to read The Secret Scripture, so you can imagine that any book she recommends is bound to be a good one. I think I’ll try The God Squad next, by Paddy Doyle. It’s bound to tear my heart apart, but that’s what great literature is all about. It makes you want to read it, no matter how painful it is, if in the end there is hope.
That’s the story of my life, you know. No matter how downright frustrating it gets, in the end there’s always hope, every time, over and over again. Each day is a new day full of possibilities and the day before is left behind as a tale to tell, to no longer dwell over, but to move on from. A lesson learned, hopefully.
Now I will go and read some blogs, but most importantly, eat some brunch. I’ve had my glasses of fruit juice and now I’m ready for something solid.
Have a good day. The sun is shining here and the sky is blue. An Indian summer day after all. Tomorrow there will be rain.
Ciao,
Nora
>Early Sunday Morning…
>
I spend a long time each morning taking care of my emails. It’s a pleasant occupation and I never get bored with it. It’s a good way to start the day and a good exercise for my brain. Some of them are facebook notifications and they are always fun, as they take me from one subject to another and I have to be on my toes and respond to all the different types of comments. The other emails are comments on my blog posts, or responses to my comments on the comments. I hope I still make sense. Either way, I have to switch from one subject to the next and I like to think that these mental acrobatics keep my mind lively and that I will stay alert better for a longer period of my life. Especially if I keep doing this as I grow older.
No doubt this thought is inspired by the fact that I’m turning 55 tomorrow and, although it doesn’t seem to me like such a very old age, I am aware of the fact that I need to keep mentally active and always challenge myself. I’ve seen the slow decline of age in other people and it seemed to come with a certain amount of lack of mental challenges and an overall laziness of the mind, when they couldn’t be bothered with how a computer worked or how a cash machine and blamed the machine for their frustrations. I don’t want to fall into that kind of trap.
Well, you scratch the surface and what do you find? A woman who is worried about growing older and I didn’t think I was, because whatever age I am, I always think it’s still young enough. I just have a bad memory sometimes, but I’ve had that for a long time, so I should not worry about it.
Another thing, just when I was boasting yesterday about not taking naps during the day, I took one in the afternoon. It was very pleasant and really belonged to the tradition of weekend napping. I laid down on the sofa and pushed my face down into the pillow of the armrest and was asleep in no time, totally oblivious of everything around me. This didn’t prevent me from sleeping very well last night and, although I read my book for a while, I was gone from this world in the shortest amount of time.
So, you can never say that you’ll never do something again or that you always do something, because life is unpredictable and your body has a mind of its own. Well, it really and truly does, doesn’t it?
I’m going to spend the day getting this apartment in order, because tomorrow my sister and my nephew and the Exfactor are coming over to help me celebrate my birthday. I must get this place cleaned up, although it isn’t in that bad a shape. I do need to vacuum and dust and water the plants. I think I will make a list of chores to do and check them off as I do them. That way I will see the progress and it will be a more rewarding exercise.
I keep trying to see the positive sides of whatever sort of events take place in my life, no matter how insignificant and instead of only living in the moment, I’m trying to look ahead a little bit and project myself into the near future. This is not something I have been doing, as I’ve only lived from one day to the next and have hardly given tomorrow a thought, let alone the days after that. I’m starting to think about next week now and maybe even the week after that, although this is still very tenuous.
I feel that today is still within my control and maybe the day after that too, but when you get beyond that I don’t know how much control I have over the events, although I could have more control if I planned things better. It all depends on how much I am willing to face up to what is coming up, instead of ignoring what may happen. In a way, I’m a procrastinator and hope for things to resolve themselves before we get to the point that I have to. Very often they do with a little help from me, I admit.
I thought I was like a Buddhist by living in the moment, but actually I was living in denial of all sorts of realities by pushing them away and sending them underground to my subconscious. I try not to do that anymore now and to stop and pay attention to what I feel and think about, especially when it regards my future.
I’m very much aware that I have to find my value as a human being in very small and not so very significant things, at least relatively insignificant things if you compare them to what is significant in this society, but I have a high enough opinion of myself that I will be able to do that. I don’t have to have a successful career and make a lot of money to prove my worth. My aim is to be able to live with myself in the most comfortable way possible, without causing myself mental pain and agony and to find peace and serenity and a stable frame of mind. If I manage that I will have come very far in this life. How I go about achieving that will be a subject of discussion on the meeting with my therapists on the 21st of this month.
It’s very funny how I always get bogged down in a serious subject, isn’t it? It’s second nature to me. I always have to air my ponderings and make them public to somehow give them more value and authority. I probably should have been a religious leader and I would have led my flock with a daily sermon. No, the power would have gone to my head and I would have made a shambles of it, as do so many of them. Who do they think they are anyway to preach their word at a group of followers who believe in them?
I hope you all have a nice Sunday. Honor the day and don’t make too many efforts.
Ciao…
>To wake up well…
>
In order to wake up well, and get the day started properly, I always feel that I have to write a post, even if I have nothing to report but my most mundane thoughts. I think, well that will do, at least it will organize my thoughts and get my mind set in the right order and I will have reached out and made a tiny effort at contact, but the latter is not necessarily the most important thing, because judging by the reactions, not that many people read these early morning missives. That’s okay, this occupies my mind and keeps me busy while I drink my coffee and smoke my cigarettes and try to ignore the dog who just ate his bowl of food.
I woke up early this morning and thought terrible things about myself. I thought, this is awful, you’re not allowed to do this, it is unacceptable, where in the world is this coming from? It was like somebody had dumped a whole bunch of garbage over me and I was struggling to get free of it.
Luckily, I was able to go back to sleep and when I woke up the second time, all that garbage was gone and I could think good thoughts about myself again. I had counted on that happening, but imagine if I had gotten up the first time with those feelings and had started the day that way. It would have been a very painful business and I would be sitting here with quite a different attitude.
Waking up that way, covered in garbage, hasn’t happened to me in a long time, but it used to be the story of my life. I always used to wake up with a certain amount of self loathing, sometimes pure self hatred, yet I never let anyone know that I felt this way. I covered it up and did not let on how bad it was.
Due to my childhood, I’m a master at covering up my feelings and very often am not in touch with them myself. I can be in total denial about a state of mind that I am in. That’s because I did it for such a long time, it became my second nature. I totally don’t have a grip on my current mood and have no idea what to think of it. Am I depressed or just tired? I act like a depressed person, does that make me depressed? If it looks like a duck and it acts like a duck, must it be a duck?
I am planning on doing some cleaning today. Luckily, in Ubuntu the computer has a sleep mode, so I don’t have to feel bad about leaving it turned on. It didn’t have it in Windows XP, it just kept running and running, causing my electric bill to go up.
I must do at least three chores today, if not six. I must try to get that feeling of accomplishment. You do honestly feel better if you’ve made an improvement in your environment. I feel extreme discomfort at having things so disheveled. I barely dare walk around on my bare feet anymore.
Jesker has given up on me and has gone to sleep on his blanket, but I will make him happy and get dressed and take him for a walk. It is storming outside and we’ve already had rain and thunder and more is expected. The rains of England finally reached us.
I have an appointment at 2 pm with the head therapist and we will decide what I will do about my therapies. It will be good to get some feedback instead of thinking inside the box all by myself. Well, with all of your input, of course. Which I appreciate. Don’t underestimate that!
I’ve babbled enough and must get going now, I feel some energy that must be spent wisely. Remember, chores of threes and walking the dog is not a chore, so it doesn’t count.
Have a good day!
Ciao…
Another Splendid Day 