Winter blues/ grays?

 

I just called a psychic hotline, twice. Two different readers. I didn’t believe it.

I didn’t ask specific questions, and didn’t get much that resonated. One said I might meet someone in June or July with an A name, a cancer sign. The other said someone might come back into your life, and maybe someone in the next month who is blonde.

Generally,   feel kind of disappointed.

I feel like I am addicted to intense emotions and when I am not in them… it’s just blah. I was half heartedly journaling today about how once work is done I just come home and do nothing. I make myself dinner, I watch the news, I do some Spanish, I play on my phone until I am asleep. I wake up and do it again. It’s like 5 days a week of this at least. Its not replenishing, but it doesn’t deplete me - and it feels like it keeps me sane. I have a hard time imagining or brainstorming what to do about it.

I think that’s part of why I reached out to the psychic hotlines, some idea of maybe there is an outside source that can tell me what’s next. Give me a heads up… and on the phone I felt my spirit drop, because almost instantly I realized how I was asking some stranger who isn’t invested in me to give me direction rather than trusting or engaging with myself.

But I feel like I am struggling to engage with myself. I have feelings all day long. Big feels, small feels, thoughts, movement. I get to experience stuff that most people don’t, vulnerability, insecurity, validation, seeing someone conquer their fears or step up to challenges. I brainstorm, I use creativity, I connect. But its also all totally fake… as in… I step into a role and then out of their lives.

Yesterday a client was talking about their grief over the death of someone they cared for. That person had only been in their life for like a year and a half tops, and they shared that they felt like an imposter to have such big feelings when the people who had known them for 15 or 20 years might be struggling even more… and we clarified that that their imposter syndrome wasn’t real, it was a mechanism that tried to push down other feelings… jealousy, envy, grief over the time that was supposed to have existed.  The client shared, I had pictured this person at 50, and imagined they’d be part of my life for a long time… and now I don’t get that.  Its unfair.

Part of me wanted to intellectualize too.  Hey… you step in and out of people’s lives… you don’t get to know the whole of them, and they don’t get to know the whole of you… but you can cherish the bite out of the timeline you get.

But I didn’t say that… not in the moment. The client was having a hard enough time just accepting that their feelings were valid and that they didn’t need to push them away… they didn’t need a new intellectual way of understanding… they needed permission to feel more fully.

If there is a truth to my Saturday afternoon, what is it?

I am avoiding doing my taxes.

I am not sure what is to come… and it pains me everyday that we could have a better world but we choose not to.

I could invest more heavily in work, but I already know it won’t make me happy so I am trying to tow the lie between stepping in and being swept away by the current of workaholism…

I need to find more things to do, that aren’t so emotionally draining, and are socially based. To have time with others that just feels good, and active but not emotionally.  Maybe jump back into a class?  

A friend just called and I basically cancelled plans for the night so I could lay in bed and do nothing. I am not sure why I am feeling down, maybe it’s the impending snow storm and a desire to conserve energy. I should probably go get groceries tonight. I don’t really feel like it. I had been considering getting a gyro, but that sounds too heavy. Maybe its chicken noodle soup kind of night. Maybe popcorn and a movie.

I just kind of want to know where my life is going. It’s very hard to invest in things when you don’t know what the world will be like, or if you can depend on stuff. I keep thinking about how I don’t want to hang out with my Dad right now, like there is an aversion because I am angry at them and kind of just annoyed in general, and then I think about what would happen if he suddenly died, and how horrible I’d feel. You never know how much time you have with people. Maybe that’s why I am feeling sorry for myself… maybe I am struggling with my own grief. Maybe I am thinking of the bites of people’s lives I’ve enjoyed, and wondering what I can expect now, and wondering why I am never satiated.

Its been harder to follow through with stuff lately. Maybe because winter is dragging. Maybe because the sociopolitical climate and my extra time and energy has been going to protests and mutual aid. Maybe because I don’t have any consistent love investing in me in a romantic sense. One of the psychics said ‘you do better in love…’ I agree now can we make it sustainable?

I know that part of life is just making a claim and seeing what happens. As in… I should just say, “hey I am going to Mexico City in September…” or something, and then make that happen. Maybe I should try to be a digital nomad, do telehealth appointments and stay the month, travel on the days or times I’m not seeing folks. Maybe I should buy a house. Just commit to an area of the cities, call it Roseville or something, and then meet the neighbors, and then build a business around that area, and volunteer or join the community in a real way.

Maybe I should get on these cholesterol meds, and maybe a different stomach med, and see if I can get healthier and feel like I have more energy.

Maybe I should become a spiritual director person, at least get the certificate so that when I dabble in therapy it has its place. Maybe I need to commit to my church, which I just haven’t felt as invested in lately… probably because they are doing a pledge drive. Maybe I need to join a dating site.  One of the psychics said to do it, the other said that isn’t how I will meet my person. Maybe I should take an adjunct job so that I can teach again. Or start workshops. Or learn how to do adult groups like my neighbor at the office does.

The shift in energy certainly is related to my body, I have a stomach ache… I feel kind of drained, almost like I’m getting sick. I woke up feeling a bit groggy and headachy, but by the time I left I was actually excited about the day. Maybe I should have gone for a walk with my Dad, but I was excited to try to do some writing and reading… then gradually I just got more and more annoyed and brain foggy.

This morning I had been listening to Nirvana and feeling like all I needed to do was think about something any little thing, and then find a metaphor, and then write a poem, and then everything would be better.   At the coffee shop I finished Andrea Gibson’s last book, and cried… and then I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to say. There were voices and music playing and none of it was aligned with me… even right now, I am thinking about how grateful I am to have had so many people reach out and say hi, try to reassure me, ask me for my time, and how in each of these, some part of me felt like ---ughhh its so much work to try to be known, to accept the invitation to connect. My friends love me, want me in their lives, and sometimes I am like… yeah, but…

And I know a lot of it is because I only feel like I am valuable when I am playing a helpful role to them. What am I when I am just hanging out?  I think about when I went to see B in England, and how I was determined to make her feel better. But I couldn’t. And how later when I went to see her and her husband, I felt like I was a cling on, not just a third wheel but like toilet paper stuck to a shoe. Tonight, I don’t really wanna see my friend (I) because I know she isn’t in a great place, and I feel like I’d bring her down even more.  Talking to (P) on the phone yesterday, his wife and kids in the background, preparing for their Friday night ritual… and he says he loves me, and I am welcome, and come out to see us… and I feel like I’d be the weird uncle coming to stay and not know how to interact… / performing a role of safe adult, rather than being myself the whole time.

I’ve had this thought for several weeks that I am not exactly getting to be my true self much in my life. I often point to the IFS ideas of the C’s and P’s…. I guess I get to be some of them, but not all of them…  compassionate, calm, confident, curious, courageous… at work.

Creative and connected… again only at work. No wonder I drift into the role so easily.

Patient, present, persistent, playful  again only at work. Where do I get to be these in my life consistently?  I dunno.  Even at work, its based on the other energy, not necessarily mine.

I asked G-d to use me, and I am useful… but again, I think I need more than that. How do I build a life that feels like more than that? And aligned, and hopeful.

 

I keep thinking about how dreadful our society is right now, and wonder if it is time to build alternatives. My old coworker (A) sent a song to me and V yesterday, about turning off the news and building a garden to see what is real. I feel out of touch with what is real… despite dealing with the heaviness of reality every day.

I dunno what else to say… I feel like I might need to go to bed for a few hours. Maybe the Excedrin wore off and I am actually sick today. I do feel kind of achy.

Anyway. For now.