My subconscious has been working on overdrive to work out some things lately, and I’m trying to get caught up enough that I can keep things mentally sorted for myself.
This post has one AdJ from April 25, then two side quests from before that. The AdJ is the “main” stuff I’m working on; the two side quests are just two poems I wrote in between other things.
I already have another whole-ass AdJ written with the results from the walk last night, but I’ll wait to post it until after this goes out.
…
Adventures du jour! (April 25, 2023)
I’ve been angry all day. This post is self-accountability stuff, ongoing with the project not to be scared of myself.
I am out of energy, out of brain cells. Didn’t get much done today. Everything felt heavy, full of resistance: molasses. Got some stuff done. Feeling useless, disconnected.
Hormones: going nuts. ADHD: spiking. Allergy/Sinuses: Yuck; feet swollen, sinuses hurt. Dyslexia: fucking can’t type for shit. I can’t read words but I can skim quickly (which is weird to me, I can skim quickly and pick up the sense of things, but the individual words are swimming when I hate to stop and go, “What did I just read?” when the ADHD distracts me). Migrainey shit: Head hurts but normally. Ears ringing at normal levels. Sensory stuff normal. No auras.
The way I’m doing anger is exhausting. It’s not energizing. It’s not helping me make choices or make plans. I have the kind of mind where if there were something direct I could do, if I could hunt the problem down and beat the shit out of it, or terrify the crap out of it, I’d have done it and taken a nap and slept like a baby with a smile on my face. But no. I have to keep that part of me contained, and keeping it on a leash is exhausting and adds to the difficulties. I’ve been dancing hard all day despite my feet and joints hurting. I ate a bunch of sugar stuff today for energy, had two cups of coffee to help rest. Took a nap. Still exhausted. I just want to cry, the kind of crying that takes hours and boxes of tissues to get through. I am so fucking triggered. But I’m also at a point of almost not caring. It feels wrong to mention anything about being angry. I am not supposed to do, or think, or feel any of this. I should meditate. I’ll see if there’s anyone sitting on the table under Most Favored Tree. If not, I’ll do it there. I want his company.
Today’s work is looking at the problems I’m facing around anger itself. I think. And finding a way to either disentrigger myself, rechannel the anger somehow to something useful, or generally get to a point where the emotion becomes effective and not slowing *me* down.
Dealing with fear is becoming a game-changer; if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be having this internal conversation with myself now. I would be finding a dozen ways to pull the wool back over my eyes. “It’s fine. It’s not my problem. I don’t actually care that much.” Those are fearful thoughts trying to conceal themselves. It’s not that fear is bad; it’s that I let fear compound upon fear, until most of who I am was not safe to think about.
Not dealing with anger means I’m sabotaging myself through exhaustion and mental distraction. I *know* there is useful anger, but I have mostly dealt in useless anger, the kind that leaves you exhausted and hopeless and stuck in place. I was plenty angry at the ex and at my mom, but it never led to change, as such.
Right. Let me get my shoes on.
Setting my intentions before I head out:
I care. What needs to be done? It’s not fine. How can I best position myself to do, or at least not get in the way of, what needs to be done?
How can I use anger more effectively? What is in the way of doing that? and why?
I would like to take whatever it is out and look at it. And then I will put it back in its right place, instead of where it is now.
I will not throw it away, I will not yell at it, I will thank it for doing what needed to be done.
But it must be seen. Amen.
…
Side Quest (April 22, 2023)
So a lot of people have always been on the “outside” of what mainstream America considers the norm. I, myself, who felt like an outsider, didn’t realize that I was “inside” until 2016 or so, when the politics hit the fan and I started doing the heavier work of dealing with my racist, sexist, bigoted background. As I started doing the work, I got harassed constantly, to the point where I would be harassed or subjected to bigotry by eight a.m. (after getting up at seven).
It’s been interesting watching the wave of “outside” crash over people. They’re always shocked that they’re getting constantly backstabbed, criticized, harassed, bullied when that line between “inside” and “outside” sweeps over them.
“But I never felt like I belonged,” they’ll say. “Why is this happening now?”
—You don’t have to feel like you’re “inside” in order to be an insider, I guess is the lesson there. You just have to not be the squeaky wheel. Believe me, if people could read my mind I would have been pushed “out” long before 2016.
just now
he said, “i’ve been having problems lately with people getting
upset at me over the damnedest things,”
and in real time i watched
the outer edge of normalcy pull back across him,
abandon him although white, straight, cis, able-bodied et cetera,
and he entered the static that remains after the channel goes out
he’s thumping on the top of his old-fashioned cathode-ray for
the last ghostly flickers in the snow–but i’ve always been like this,
he was saying–but the program of uncritical approval has ended
a sad moment, a lonely one, surprising that it took so long,
a journey into that sacred, hellish blank space
where nobody can tell you what you’re supposed to do
as he moves from theory to practice, as he begins to doubt,
suddenly he’s mysterious to people who used to know him
back when he used to know his place
an existential threat of the unknown in late nite TV land,
the stink on him of morning
…
Side quest (April 24, 2023)
This poem came out of dancing. I’ve been doing a lot of dance breaks, where I’ll get stuck on something and put on a song and dance to it in order to think it out. There’s the aspect of ADHD where I kind of get extra clarity from being in motion, just in general, but there’s also an aspect of observing what choices I make as I dance. Am I dancing a slow song with staccato movements? Am I dancing a flowing song with aggression? Am I enclosing spaces, sliding into them, stomping on them?
What do I really think?
How sore I am this morning
Some days I use
My whole-ass body
To think
Feet feet feet
Hands hands
Feet feet feet
Hands hands
Slide o slide,
My twirl
And I think such thoughts!
Such thoughts I could never think
When I spent all my time
Trying to hold still.
New thoughts!
But this morning
This whole body
This whole thank you body
Would like
Some ibuprofen
Take it easy, child
Take it easy, momma
Let these thoughts heal up
Let the rest of you learn
Too.
…
Some old, crackled paint.—One of the more satisfying photos I’ve taken lately.
Midjourney art for the “just now” poem.