Day: August 10, 2014

It appears that what I needed to establish emotional equilibrium was to shut myself in my room for six hours during which no one attempted to talk to me. I slept, stared at the walls while my brain sorted thoughts, did a little bit of writing, and watched some Netflix. After all that I took myself out to a late lunch where I sat by myself and talked to no one in a mostly-empty restaurant. I guess I was in serious need of introvert time, because life feels better today. I may be ready to tackle next week.

I think the other thing that really helped me gain perspective is that I spent part of today working on my One Cobble at a Time book for 2013. That is where I take all of my blog entries for the entire year and format them into a book I can put on my shelf. I’ve been putting it off because I didn’t really want to emotionally revisit 2013. It had some heavy emotional stuff in it, most of which landed (like an avalanche) in March. Today I worked on putting the March entries into the book. Just reading them was hard. I was so worn out. I kept expressing a hope that things would ease up, that I could find some calmness. Instead it just kept getting worse and more. Week upon week until a crescendo of emotional mess during the last week of the month. I would read an entry that ended with a small hope for things to be better and I would cringe, because I remember what came next. That was the month when Gleek was having panic attacks at school and we went through a diagnostic process with her. The other kids were going through emotional transitions with varying degrees of meltdown. Howard started anti-depressants. We were on the final weeks of sending a book off to print and running the Kickstarter for the challenge coins.

Yesterday I wrote a giant post about all the things that are impacting my August. Today I am so very grateful to have that list of things instead of what I had last March. Suddenly this August looks easy. Sure I have lots to do and lots to track, but none of it hurts. Everything hurt in March of 2013. Today I walked around my house and saw the fruits of the struggle we went through during the transitions of 2013. I saw Gleek’s room arrayed and relaxed instead of set up for defense against anxiety. Link’s Eagle Scout project in process is evidence of his reduced anxiety and the fact that he is beginning to take charge of his life. Kiki has stretched her wings and paid for half of her school expenses with her art commissions. Patch is poised for some transition during the coming year. He’ll need help with that, but for once his needs are not over shadowed by the urgent needs of siblings. I’m so glad to be in the middle of this August.

Tomorrow is Monday and I fully intend to meet it head-on and get all the things done.