Saturday, January 3, 2015

overwhelm

Three days into the new year, and I am sitting down to write something in this blog... and I have to run off to the restroom...

OK.  Back.

I already tried to start this posting on my smart phone, one that I'm afraid has gone senile, because it just won't let me spell the words I want.

I got fed up, and got up off of the couch that I've been lazing about all day.  Went to my computer, which immediately does its freeze and the-center-cannot-hold sounds, and I get anxious, and get ready.  To quit.  Another posting another time.

I turn on Itunes, play Sara Bareilles.  Brave.  Kind of on the nose.  But OK.  I like other songs on this album.

Three days into the new year, and I'm discouraged.  I want my own place very badly, so that Steve and I can grieve and find out how our lives work on our own.  I also want a job, one that I like and is a good job, and that will take more time than I want to give.  But I am determined not to crash and burn.

So I am waiting for all of the steps Vocational Rehabilitation is putting me through.  Putting my trust there, in a man that surprised me in his earnestness, in the love of his job, and his passion for helping, and the conversation with me that took around four hours.  They won't find the perfect job.  But they'll give me focus and drive, and possibly, a new direction to my life I hadn't yet considered.

Those are big changes, which I wish were just here so I can move out of this transitional phase.  This phase where I've fallen off my exercise and food regimen, something I'm trying to build like a sandcastle at low tide.  Smarter, Jacob.  You can do this.  Just be smart.

I just don't feel smart.  I feel like I'm slipping backwards.  Like I've gotten a vision, or more of a feeling, of who I am, and then its being pulled away from me.  Am I going to let it slip past, drop back into patterns, or push again into good things, into understandable weeks that are strongly planned for health, and for goals to be met...

Or maybe things aren't going to be the same as they were.  What works now?  What is less of a resolution, but more of a little by little, one foot in front of another, strengthening those legs so that they are ready to jump when the time comes?

I had a pizza today.  Two cokes.  Been eating pretty badly for a while now.  And I tell myself "now is the last time.  Now.  Now.  no, Now..."

Now is the time to just stop the cycle.  I'll have another pizza some time.  But not tomorrow, followed by burgers and other crappy food.  I'll clean up my food, starting with breakfast, then lunch, then dinner.

I'll do a lot of things.  Things that I don't need to list.  Things that may or may not be changes.  I mean, I'm sitting here, writing a blog post.  Unexpectedly.  Because my mind is swirling around so many things, starting to show the hard edges of 'should be' cutting into the flesh, and creating big wounds of guilt and shame.  Enough.

I'm changing.  I'm being me.  I'm allowed to do it.  My intention is not to hurt anyone.  My intention is to stop hurting myself.  Something I'm still learning how to do.

Now I'm on Manhattan.  This played on the way back from my mother's house in Waldport.  Just Steve and I, and its like it was like the first time I heard the song.  And it just hit me as what he might be thinking or feeling, and how dare I, how dare i, just like my mother told me, how can I leave him after the cancer, and the suicide attempts?  How could I do that him?

That is the echo that seems to scare away my self confidence.  And hell, I even said it just a few paragraphs ago.  Its about me.  But I know I don't do this in a vacuum.  And I have hurt him.  Real bad.  And I am never going to be able to make up for it.  And we are still living together, so...

Not easy for either of us.

Three days into the New Year, and I wish it had happened the way I saw it before I passed under the gate of 2015.  Something magic, then suddenly, my space, super fit and off my meds, working at something meaningful.  Making enough to stand on my own two feet.

Now I'm on the other side of the gate, and the idealistic me is hugging the metalwork at the side, smiling, waving his hand, blind to the work that is ahead of me.  I turn back, look down at the keyboard, and continue to find a way to wrap this all up...

I think its about as wrapped up as its going to be...