Tag: bedtime

Unprepared

I don’t really want to write about this right now, but here we are and here I write.

I am taking care of myself like a mother to myself, because my mom is on the other side of town, likely long asleep for the night, and I am up here, house-sitting on my own. Even the dog is wiped out asleep.

But I am sitting on this bed, preparing to go to sleep – for as long as my menstruating will allow at once, or course – with eyes burning from the tears shed during my shower… my throat just a little sore from the sobs released… my brain struggling to see straight with this potential upturn of its outlook world. I have myself a glass of ice water, and it has already helped with my burning eyes and shaky throat and hands, soothing everything like a balm…

You see, I watched the film Remember Me tonight, the one with Robert Pattinson wearing the same bracelet watch he wore in Twilight. I didn’t know anything about it but that it had him in it, it was some sort of romance, and, due to the title, this romance clearly was going to end before the film did. Usually, it is death of some sort, but this film was giving vibes that it potentially could be just that death brought them together and they helped each other heal and move on in life, though now without one another.

…. Yeah…

(*****Spoilers coming up here, so stop reading the post, if you want to watch the film without a super major spoiler.*****)

Okay, so, the moment they showed the date on the board, I was stressed. I was already stressed-annoyed at the film in various ways at this point, how there just wasn’t enough of anything. But, at the date, I was beginning really to stress. I was extremely grateful there was no footage or re-enactment or anything of the sort of the buildings or the smoke-dust-rubble clouds. There is that. However, I was actually angry at the turn of events. At the obvious phone call. At how it no longer felt like a poorly done feature film I had just been watching, but like a small glimpse into what could have been someone real’s real life. And that that was how it actually might have gone for someone real.

And it just felt so real, I couldn’t let myself face anything other than anger at such an ending being sprung upon me like that – how dare they? This was supposed to be a film, not a sop story about our misery that day… and forward…

I was only a kid at the time. I didn’t remember that it was a Tuesday, but I remember that we were coming back to our classroom from gym class, and Kristen and Trish-Anne and I stopped to look at the television that was on in the ESL classroom – the televisions were almost never on, except for a rare film. But it wasn’t a movie.

What is it?? we all wondered and asked each other and no one in particular. Kristen had seen the longest view of the television. “Someone bombed the twin towers,” she said as she turned back to me. I quickly reviewed what I had glimpsed on the television: tall buildings, smoke and fire somewhere in the middle near the top. Her words make sense in such a way that they do not. She was wearing overalls that day. With her words, I didn’t understand how to feel, nor how I felt anyway. But I knew none of it was good.

Our teacher sat us down and explained what had happened. So far.

The buildings still stood at that point in time. That’s why it had looked just like a bomb had gone off. Not what had really happened.

I only remember near the end of the school day onward, now. There is nothing after the beginning of our teacher telling us what had happened. I don’t remember if we had the live news coverage on or not, but I know I saw it somehow… it is brandished in my brain, so I know I saw it eventually.

(**** Another warning: Graphic references coming, so be careful.*****)

While it was difficult to see such beauty disappear so suddenly, like a game of Godzilla at home with our massive cardboard building bricks, although more effectively, as they even went to ash instead of merely falling down everywhere, what probably hit me the most was – and this is difficult for me even to write right now – the people…. It was seeing those people, desperate in their last hope for physical salvation, jumping, as the building shrank toward gravity’s command. That and knowing how so many people had been able to phone their families and friends to share their verbal love one final time while living on this planet… knowing one’s impending doom, and having to say goodbye while still so seemingly whole and safe and well.

……

We have a few major incidents in our lives, ones that give us a kind of foundation to our ways of being going forward. Something happens, and it is mentally significant for us – we are usually extremely disturbed by it – such that we decide then and there that we never want to have to feel that way again, and so determine never to be such-and-such again. Therefore, to avoid such-and-such, we will do this or be this going forward. I have never been able to figure mine out. Not ones that really stand out above the rest. Not ones that show me the source incident for my desperate need to be right, or, at least, to know, whatever it happens to be.

But, in my shower tonight, as I gave in to the rising emotions within myself, and allowed them to surface and release, I began to wonder if one of my incidents just might have been somehow around September eleventh. Around that footage of those people, falling…. falling… hopelessly falling. It wasn’t exactly anything that happened directly to me, but seeing that footage happened to me. For days and weeks, and possibly months and years afterward – actually, yes, years, because I still do it today, both in the original way and in other ways – I would have these visions and thoughts of how people could have survived, what they would have had to do to get out okay, to make everything okay again in so many ways…. to make it just buildings and lost architecture. I had so many plans, mentally tested to every degree. Not everyone would make it out, I knew, but I would. Even if I had been on the upper floors, I would have. Because, perhaps in that moment, I became a sort of MacGyver. I had to have a way out of there. I had to…

I even had one idea – and this is big for such a little kid, I think – that involved rappelling myself down after Spider-Manning it to some nearby buildings and careening down a makeshift zip line… possibly even making several back and forth between the two towers, having people work together to get more of us out of there, and fast.

But why did I have to do this brainstorming? I didn’t lose anyone directly in the event, so I had an odd connection to it all to be so strongly enveloped by this idea. For me, though, it made life suddenly real, the danger of it real. I had recently been in New York City. We had gone into those buildings. But it was raining that day, and hard, so the observation decks were closed. So, we didn’t go up all the way. But we could have. And we could have gone later.

Why did those people die? Why didn’t they find ways out, or ways out in time? My answer back then, whether I ever said it aloud or not, was, “They weren’t prepared.” And, so, I would be. This was my wake up call and the beginning of my own preparations.

Preparations for what, you ask? For life. I was saying today how I kind of have a rough ten backup plans for any specific thing. And, though I was slightly joking, I know that I could start listing and probably reach ten rather easily. And that’s for anything I do or intend to do. And, also, for things I have done. I have evaluated them, too, and determined how I could have done them better… in myriad ways.

What’s more, to this day I take any scary scenario I see in a film or show, or just hear about, and end up going through, in the side of my mind, the best ways to get out of it safely… even though it has nothing much to do with me and my life. I cannot face a scary scenario in anything without automatically doing it. I just have to figure out how to get out of it, get out of there, and survive, stay alive, be safe again.

Anyway, my stomach is hurting in an achy, sleep-needing type of way, so I’m going to close this out and get to sleep already. All of this has been just some brainstorming on my part. I have always held a weird space with this event, especially in that whole reliving the crashes and shrinkings of the buildings and how to get out of them safely and effectively… in my fear to accept that there might be nothing that can be done when it is truly one’s time… in my desperation to make sure I am ready to face whatever comes my way. There is a shaking terror within me at the idea of being unprepared, caught off-guard… a life-threatening terror. And seeing this in this new light has shaken me somewhat tonight (and also a lot quite physically).

We didn’t go up all the way that day. I had figured and intended to go back and go up another time, on a clear day. I would be like in the Godspell film.

Except, now, I never would be. And neither would anyone else be…

Instead of crying myself to sleep, though, I determined that I wanted to be held and taken care of and loved and accepted. So, I am doing that for myself, instead.

At that, goodnight. 🙂 ❤

Post-a-day 2020

Scars and cars

Two things:

1) These scans are at the point that they have dried out so much, they now keep cracking when I move, ripping themselves open anew, sending immediate and searing pain through my hands or knee, when it does happen. I finally managed to drive okay, but it was an old stick shift today, and putting it into third gear was quite difficult with my right hand situation. It ended up busting open my scabs more than once, and drawing blood from them… yippee… haha

2) Speaking of driving that car, it is a ’97(?) Porsche 911. That means the speedometer only shows numbers in increments of 25 (up to a very high number), the engine feels very comfortable at around 80mph, and driving it is like a party for the senses in a way they always seem to forget that they adore. Driving such a car makes driving fun. A long drive into town, while mentally seems miserable, ends up being no big deal at all, and, in fact, a kind of total meditative experience as I am one with the wind and the glorious German engineering and power of an engine. I don’t even have the need for speed, myself – it really is the car. But, since I’m driving it, I tend to take it easy for the most part, and chill with traffic at safer and much slower speeds than one likely would expect from a driver of such a car. Nonetheless, that car makes driving fun. Really.

Now, I’m curious how this idea could affect my search for a reliable, responsible – both for me and for the planet – vehicle this weekend. The plan is to lease a Nissan Sentra, after verifying that I still like the vehicle, years and years later…, but that will be a hard comparison after driving this car again… oops. 😛

Wishful thinking, y’all. 😉

Post-a-day 2020

Physical healing

Well, further healing happened last night and today, but I am ridiculously exhausted tonight. By about eight o’clock I was already ready to go to sleep for the night, though I wasn’t even halfway to the house where I am house-sitting for a week. Now, hours later – because I had to be shown certain things by the owners before I could start getting ready for bed – I can barely think, my eyes burn, and I can’t even seem to keep myself from folding forward in a hunch while sitting. I am wiped, yet again. And I didn’t even get that nap in again today… bummer, right?

There only seems to be another couple or few days of recovery needed for my injuries from Friday evening. Though, I could see my knee needing a bit longer. My hands are doing really well, and only seem to need another day or two to be able to work almost entirely normally again.

For now, though, I rest and I sleep and I let everything heal. Then, after healing, I can jump right back into the exercise and the running on which I am getting very behind(!!!). (I never imagined having such a setback on this 100-mile goal… oops.)

Post-a-day 2020

Exhausted Healing

It is really rather amazing how, when the body is healing itself, one’s overall energy level seems significantly decreased. Without any conscious effort, most of our effort is going to our injuries, cell by cell, drop by drop, healing. I reached the end of my day, and I didn’t even have 4000 steps today, though I usually average over eight by 6 p.m., and sometimes reach over 14,000 before bed. However, I found myself already exhausted, and, now, lying in bed, I can barely keep my eyes open to write this. I am just so wiped.

And, by the way, I even took a two-hour nap this afternoon.

(!!!)

Frankly, I was already wiped only eleven hours after I awoke this morning, which is only nine hours of being awake.

It seems utterly ridiculous. And yet, after that amazing nap this afternoon, I noticed a significant improvement in my knee. I have a feeling that I will sleep even better tonight because of it. Though I likely won’t have any muscle growth happening, since I can’t really exercise anything on my body right now, I think a lot more healing will happen tonight, while I don’t even have to expel the energy of those nine waking hours and 3800 steps…

It is just fascinating, this body. And I am ever grateful for it and its glorious magic and skills and determination to work beautifully. 😉

Post-a-day 2020

‘Tis but a flesh wound

… but. goodness, does it hurt!

And this was after I had poured water on them to clean the dirt and rocks and excess blood off. And my right hand was even worse, but it was balancing the phone for the photo.

I’ll share more about the adventure tomorrow, but, for now, I have very limited use of my opposable thumbs, so typing on my phone is extremely difficult. Also, I have to be up before six tomorrow morning, and things have been significantly slowed getting ready for bed tonight because of the fall. Hasta tomorrow!

Post-a-day 2020

Stuffed Love

Which is very unlike a stuffed shirt, by the way…  😛

Tonight, I snuggled up with several feather pillows and my extra-large white bear that was given to me by my paternal grandparents when I was probably only single-digits years old, and watched Frozen, while sitting (or lying) on my bed.  And it was delightful.  I don’t know why people let go of stuffed animals and piles of pillows in their adulthood.  Even in college, I had several stuffed animals with me at school.

The year I lived in an apartment with a friend of mine (still campus housing, but an apartment, nonetheless), we had full sized beds as part of the furnishings.  A different friend was staying the night, and, as we were getting into bed to go to sleep, she thought it was hilarious yet adorably wonderful that I had stuffed animals in my bed, their having clearly been my nighttime snuggle buddies so far that year.  She, delighted, declared it like “a jungle!”, and snapped a photo of me snuggling in with the animals.  Of course, I made total room for her in the bed, and it wasn’t crowded for us or anything.  But, when I didn’t have physical company in my bed, I preferred having stuffed company to being on my own with the sheets.

To this day, I like to feel that something is around me when I sleep.  When I get to sleep in a bed with a person, some small piece of me has to touch that person, in order for me to sleep fully at ease.  When there isn’t a person, I just like having contact with something presence-marking.  These days, that typically means a stuffed dog strewn across my thighs, and my arms casually relaxed across my rib cage, creating just enough pressure for comfort and subconscious reassurance…  Perhaps it was because I grew up with siblings always around, older than I, and so I always wanted to sleep in their beds with them…, because they were my older siblings and I loved them and looked up to them.  And then, when they weren’t around, I ended up sharing the bed with my mom or my dad, depending on in whose house I was staying that night.  (Apparently, I wasn’t supposed to stay in my dad’s bed, because of the divorce stuff, but, with my active history of terrible nightmares as a child, I voluntarily would creep down to his bedroom and sneak onto the side of the California king.  Sometimes he noticed before morning, but I made enough of a fuss about not wanting to be alone upstairs, and he was half asleep, anyway, so he let it go.  Naturally, my mom was annoyed at this, so I kind of just stopped telling her about it.  It wasn’t even an every night thing, either, but, when I needed it, I needed it, you know?  And then it was just habit and comforting, even when I didn’t need it anymore.)

By the time it really didn’t bother me so much to sleep on my own, and the nightmares had mostly subsided, my sisters moved into my dad’s house.  And, just as part of spending time together, I ended up often sleeping in the one sister’s bed, and then always sleeping in the other’s, once she moved in, too.  We always had a habit of talking after the lights were out, kind of just chatting about anything or nothing – whatever we wanted or needed that night.  It wasn’t usually for very long – maybe five or ten minutes at most – but it was always something I loved, and something I didn’t want to miss out on having by sleeping elsewhere.  There were even the occasions where we all three shared a bed together… those were really great memories for me.  I was literally surrounded by love for me.

…

Perhaps that’s really why I want stuffed animals in my bed, or pillows, or the touch of someone…, because that is one of the strongest memories I have of being loved and wanted and appreciated and cared for… surrounded by love as I went to sleep at night.

Ha… I’m noticing now how, even at dance events, when we occasionally have crammed three grown people into a queen sized bed, I’ve been totally okay and comfortable with it, and even delighted about it.  The physical presence represents so strongly for me the experience of love, of being loved.  I guess that all goes back to growing as a baby in the womb, huh?  We turn to the fetal position in times of extreme need for love and help… that feeling of being held all around by a safe, loving, omnipotent source of life.  So…, yeah… I’m beginning to think that stuffed animals are more than okay and acceptable – they’re actually a really good idea.  They can help to provide the comfort that we can’t seem to provide on our own, when no one else is physically – or emotionally – around us…

Yeah…

Post-a-day 2020

Room servicing…?

I started really taking on making my room functional lately. Just yesterday, I had a massive reorganization take place, in which everything went to what looked like – and was – total chaos for a while, during which time I sweat boatloads while shoving and shifting and shoving and shifting some more…, and then everything kind of found a place out of the way, leaving so much open space that I love hanging out in my room now. A lot of stuff is not in a real, semi-permanent place yet, but the big stuff has found its locations, I think.

My bed has only moved a few inches, but boy did that totally shift things in my sleep last night! I think I have resolved the issue of the air blowing directly over my mouth (and thereby practically choking me in my sleep with dryness), which was the main issue. So, I expect to sleep loads better tonight than last night. Perhaps, when I wake up, I’ll even be in the mood for making myself some tea.* 🙂 That’d be great. 🙂

*For those who do not know, I tend to make tea for myself when the world just feels right, and I feel at great ease in the space around me. So, it would be a sign that things are going very well with my room organization, and that I slept well and have woken up refreshed and ready for the day fully.

P.S. Okay, all that stuff about tea is true…, but I also will make tea when it is super cold out… but that still falls into the same reasoning, because life just kind of feels right when it is really cold outdoors. 🙂

Post-a-day 2020

Ready

I began the first steps of a new program for my daily self today. It was actually really, really cool. I have a gift membership to MasterClass yet hadn’t used a single class until today, despite my first being given access in early March.

But I was inspired by a girl in a movie I saw recently, when she showed that she started each day with a TedTalk. I want to do that, I thought. And so, I added that idea into my recent dilemma of how to accomplish all these things I want to accomplish but have barely even touched?

So, I now have a daily task of doing at least one of those specific things. If it turns into multiple ones in a day, great. If it is just the one, also great. The point is that I am doing them. And today was perfect as a start. I watched the first half of the MasterClass, and took the challenge and inspiration given from it to started doing some practical work in response to it. At the end of the day now, I feel not only delighted in myself but also excited, relieved, and surprisingly fulfilled by my accomplishments of the day. And even a bit inspired, especially so to do it all again in a new way tomorrow.

Tomorrow, after a solid sleep and mental processing and, hopefully, healing, here I come. 🙂

Post-a-day 2020

A different ouch

Well, my hamstrings started to grow sore last night… Today, they have been amazingly sore, but only when something comes into contact with them, or I have to go from sitting to standing. Otherwise, I guess I haven’t really noticed them much… But, boy… in those moments do they hurt(!!!)… whew…

I just hope testing will be helpful tonight instead of the opposite of what they actually need – action. Either way, I’ve got to exercise tomorrow, since it didn’t happen today – things ran too close to one another today for me to get in a workout. And that was totally okay for me, by the way. I have finally begun to embrace who and how I want to be around my own physical fitness and my food and such right now. I am exercising for myself, again, and eating for myself, and it has been feeling amazing – and so easy to do, too. And I didn’t get all stressed or angry with myself or my life when the workout didn’t happen today, or when I saw yesterday that it likely wouldn’t happen today. It genuinely has been okay. And I am grateful for that.

But I’d really like to relax these aching legs already. 😛

Post-a-day 2020

Really?

I book-clubbed tonight… on a book about God. Actually, on a book about Jesus.

I have never done that before.

I had never really wanted to do that before, though, because I’m not sure I have ever really had friends who are comfortable enough in themselves to be able to see and speak honestly about all of it and their own lives and experiences. So, it is cool that I have a friend like that, that we are both like that these days.

And I enjoyed the book-clubbing… cheesy as the questions may have been… and un-relatable as the author’s experience may be for me (and my friend)… But it was nice to talk about such things and in such a way. I am satisfied from it. Like a few sips of sparkling, cool beverage on a warm day. Satisfied. 🙂

Post-a-day 2020