Archive for the weekend
>Falling down hard…
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At 10:30 this morning I went to the gas station and bought a pack of cigarettes and I have been smoking them ever since. I am going to smoke every cigarette until they’re all gone and then I’m going to quit all over again. A terrible desire to smoke came over me and I couldn’t contain myself any longer. I wasn’t looking forward to the day and had not slept well. I was worried about coping and couldn’t imagine the day without a cigarette. I could have just had two or three, but now that I have them, I want all of them. It seems like they are the most precious things I’ve ever had. They are so neat and pretty in their rectangular pack. I’m in trouble, aren’t I?
I will assume that this is just an episode I’m going through, like a drunk falling off the wagon. I’ll get back on the wagon as soon as I can. As soon as all these cigarettes are gone anyway, because I’m enjoying them too much. I’m not courageous enough to flush them down the toilet. Not yet, anyway.
I didn’t sleep well and at first didn’t even go to bed. I sat in my armchair with my book and fell asleep there. I woke up a few hours later and turned on the computer. I should have gone straight to bed, but I don’t seem to be thinking clearly these last 24 hours. I did make it to bed eventually, but I didn’t sleep long enough and now my schedule is all messed up.
I think my increasingly bad mood has to do with the fact that I’m smoking and I just flushed the rest of my cigarettes down the toilet. I’m sure that the poisonous chemicals are not good for my state of mind. On top of that I was awfully disappointed with myself and I didn’t like my own behavior. I would only dislike myself more if I kept on smoking. I tore the cigarettes in pieces and threw them in the toilet bowl. There, that’s it. I need to be able to feel proud of myself and like my behavior. I know I can live without smoking. I just have to continue to do it. Come hell or high water.
It’s not been a good weekend to tell you the truth. I’ve been out of sorts and I don’t know how much stopping smoking has to do with it. In reality I think smoking does my mood no good and I think it is just an illusion for me to think that it does. I actually feel better when I don’t smoke. It’s the habit of smoking that I miss and the instant gratification, but in the long term I don’t think it helps me be in a good mood at all.
But still, I do miss smoking and having to think of other ways to fill my time and keeping myself occupied and having to direct my restless hands and mind along other paths not previously taken. I would be a liar if I said that was not true. What I must try to do is keep my life simplified and not add stress to it by not getting enough sleep and upsetting my schedule and doing things that I normally would not do. I need to keep myself focused on each individual moment and not anticipate so much and try to look into the unforeseen future and worry, which is what I was starting to do.
I have to try, while I quit smoking, to live from moment to moment and not make things so difficult for myself. I have a tendency to want to complicate my life when it shouldn’t be necessary that I do, or when it is even silly to, and I must break that bad habit. I do have to cut myself some slack and go easy on myself. There’s no reason to prove that I can jump through hoops. I will once again return to this moment, right now, and be present in the reality of my life and see the simplicity of it. I’ve made it uncomplicated for a reason.
I’m glad and relieved that I threw those cigarettes away. I was worried about having to smoke the whole pack. I thought that’s what I wanted, but I was not comfortable with the idea. It bothered me that I was so willful.
I’m going to read my book now, or better yet, take a nap. I think that will be nice. It will settle my mind and I will be in a better mood to go celebrate my nephew’s 16th birthday later today.
Ciao,
Nora
>Thank goodness it is Saturday…
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Isn’t it wonderful that it’s the weekend again? The week flew by and I don’t know where the time went. It just disappeared in a the blink of an eye, or several of them, and now I get to relax in the luxury of two days of spare time. I will enjoy it very much. The only thing I have to do is make a trip to the tobacconist to replenish my supply of tobacco and to buy another lighter, because Tyke demolished one of them again the other night. That is just a short outing, though, and that’s the only obligation I have, besides walking Tyke a couple of times a day.
I can’t tell you what a relief it is to have no outside pressure on me at all and to really know that nothing is expected of me for two whole days. Subconsciously, during the week, I always live with the idea that there will be expectations made of me that I can’t live up to and I don’t have that on the weekends. They really are an enormous break for me. But then again, I’m sure you must all feel that way and I’m sure it is a universal feeling and the weekends must be a big break for everybody, even the people with the most “uncomplicated” lives.
I’m repeating myself, I’m sure I have written this down before.
I finished my novel yesterday afternoon while I was sitting in my armchair with a big pillow in my side to lean against. The ending was fantastic, but you really feel so sad, because you think that all the agony and pain and madness could have been avoided if the truth had been told at the very beginning. If there had not been this attempt at this huge cover up. It really shows a lot about human nature and not the prettiest sides of it either, but rather how we might behave under the hardest pressure and when we make assumptions based on what people might think of us and how much we let that bother us. Some barely to be forgiven acts are committed and you have to somehow come to grips with them. Or not and have them be unresolved in your own mind. The novel was Drowning Ruth by Cristina Schwartz.
I’ve now started reading Where The Heart Is by Billie Letts and it’s a completely different novel with a lot of dark humor in it. I’m not sure if I should call it dark humor, because I have a tendency to take things seriously and someone else may call it light humor, but the main character finds herself in quite a pickle, though it is treated with a certain amount of lightness and gaiety, as much as that is possible. You most definitely feel compassion for her. There are good guys and bad guys, that much is clear. I’m only up to page 65, so I can’t say too much about it yet. A lot needs to develop yet.
I’ve now made it a habit to sit in my armchair for a few hours every afternoon to read, because I don’t read at night before I go to sleep anymore. It’s rather comfortable and very often Tyke or Gandhi climbs on my lap. They do want to get as close as they can get. I have my glass of milk and my cigarettes and settle in and have a good old read and concentrate completely on the book. The world is at a standstill. At night I listen to the radio and last night I fell asleep listening to the commentary to a football game of the Netherlands playing against San Marino. I was asleep in the shortest amount of time because I was not that fascinated by it. It was a rather dull game and the Dutch had 90% ball possession and made all the goals. It was a little bit too easy.
It was cold in the bedroom last night because I still had the window open and I put on warm pajamas and socks and crawled way under the duvet to get warm. Tyke laid down almost on top of me. I must get him a pair of pajamas too.
It’s foggy outside right now and 9C, but we’re supposed to have sunshine today and 19C. It will be a nice fall day and tomorrow too. No rain anyway. Even I got tired of that.
I must take my medicines and get dressed. It’s time to walk Tyke and breathe in the cold morning air.
Have a nice day!
Ciao,
Nora
>Interludes.
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I’m not ready to go to bed yet. I want to stay up and sit here in the quiet night a while longer and enjoy the company of the sleeping animals. Tyke is curled up in the arm chair and Gandhi is lying on the sofa. Toby is stretched out on the kitchen counter.
Of course, the moment I wrote that down, they all woke up and demanded attention. The cats wanted kibbles and milk and Tyke wanted to go out back and have a rawhide chewy. I took care of that and everyone is settled down again. They went back to their same places and seem very comfortable. I think they’re in it for the long haul now.
I stood by the back door in my skimpy sun dress and enjoyed the very cool night air. It felt so good on my bare skin and I wished for it to be that way during the day. It’s the wrong time of year to wish for that, though. Nowadays we always have hot summers. That’s got to do with the climate change. I would like to live somewhere where the summers are cool and the winters are mild. Can anyone tell me of such a place?
We had a tiny little thunderstorm this afternoon and two and a half drops of rain fell. It was not the shower we had looked forward to. It was a cool enough day, so that was a blessing, but despite the fact that I had all the windows open, I could not get it cooled down enough in the apartment. It is still warm in here now. It’s too bad that I can only leave the top windows open on a crack during the night, because it doesn’t help much. Barely any cool air comes in.
The usual suspects showed up today. The Exfactor and my personal helper and the domestic help. The weekend started properly for me when everyone was gone in the afternoon. I’m blessed with the help, but I’m also happy when I’m on my own again. I was left with an easy mind and a clean apartment and took a nap on the sofa. That was my way of getting ready for the weekend.
No doubt I’ll be taking a lot of naps. My sleep schedule is screwed up again and I’m sleeping at odd times. I have to try and get some order into it, but I can’t seem to manage the self discipline it requires. I’m like a man in a cave without daylight who makes up his own schedule. I’m almost ignoring daylight and nighttime and I’m sleeping when I feel like it, although I do try to be more mobile during the day. It’s when I have to walk the dog.
I had a big bowl of porridge for dinner and my stomach is very bloated and I have a lot of gas. I look like I’m about to deliver a baby. I hardly eat wheat products anymore and I wonder if I tolerate them at all. The only wheat product I really eat is porridge and I eat it once in a while. I always have the same reaction to it. I think I better stick to fresh fruit for roughage. The fruit juice also has a lot of pulp in it. I think I’m ready for another basket of strawberries and maybe some mandarin oranges. I’ll have to send the Exfactor to the Turkish fruit and vegetable man when he’s here next.
I’ve just taken my sleep medication, so I’ll end this epistle and wish for sleep. I hope you all have a nice night and a good morning when you wake up.
Ciao,
Nora
Another Splendid Day 