Adventures du jour!
Yesterday was a moving the chess pieces sort of day, where it felt like I wasn’t really getting anything done per se, although all of it was important.
I spent an absurdly long time writing an email in pursuit of a cool opportunity, trying to second-guess myself out of it, even AFTER talking to a friend extensively about it. I do NOT want to believe in myself, but if I do believe in myself and don’t self-sabotage, then I get to do cooler things. Fingers crossed. If the way I worded that email somehow wrecks things, then it probably wasn’t meant to be, as what I finally had to come to.
I did get to talk to a friend I haven’t talked to for a while; she’s not doing the greatest, mostly due to bureaucratic fuckery + health issues. It’s well-nigh Kafkaesque, and she was having a shit day, so it came out as something like: “…and sometimes I believe everything bad my ex ever said about me.” I try not to pray for the end of the world but I’ll admit I came pretty close to praying for the end of that guy for a moment. I said mean things about the people fucking with her and got her laughing. I hope she feels a little better.
And I got to hear another friend’s voice for the first time. MAGIC. Living so much of my life online leads to some odd orders for things to happen in. We’re trying to manage some mischief, but it’s a bit out of either of our wheelhouses, so research must therefore ensue.
The rest was the kind of small, draining tasks that are necessary but that I hate. I kept getting up to dance for a song to get the wiggles out, which helped.
Ray made cheddar-broccoli soup and modified it to cope with the exigencies of the fridge as well as making it spicy. I’m proud of her for learning how to do both those things. As a mom, I’m relieved that she has some solid care skills that she can use for herself and share for others (within reason). As a person, I’m beaming that she’s made the jump from “following instructions” to “balancing complex choices without freezing or begging for someone to tell her what to do.” It means everything.
Yoga this morning: OH GOD. I did a sun salute and skipped the rest. Everything from knees to armpits hurt this morning, pure muscle soreness, probably from releasing hip muscles. Different things have to bear weight and strain, and they are Not Happy with being called out. The best way I know so far to help them adjust, though, is to walk it out so things can integrate properly.
On the walk, the same muscle in my hip started cramping up again (a stabbing pain rather than a burning ache), and I stopped to ask it what was up. And of all things I ended up at my dad.
I have this idea that kids have a Most Favored Parent, and this has very little to do with gender or genetics (since I started noticing, I’ve seen it shake out in all kinds of ways). My dad was my Most Favored Parent when I was wee, and, as far as I’ve ever been able to figure out, he basically shut off his emotions after getting out of the Air Force and moving back to the family farm to work for his father (a larger-than-life Titan of a man, unafraid to consume his children, as it were) when I was about two. My mom probably didn’t help. I remember being eight (because I had just learned how to count in Spanish and I was “ocho”) and making up songs about how my dad didn’t like me. As you do.
At any rate, I was SHOCKED to hear–from my ex, not from my dad–that my dad acted proud of me at my college graduation. I don’t talk to my dad now; when I tried to get back in contact with him after I broke things off with Mom, he couldn’t engage with me as a person. Like, I’d say something and he couldn’t respond to it. He’d change the subject, no matter what it was. His only response to the situation with my mom (she wanted him to drive her to Colorado so she could break into the house and make me behave) was to tell me that I was just like her. I decided that I couldn’t carry the relationship for him and let it go. And that all came up this morning.
The last time I talked to my therapist, I mentioned wanting to not just survive but to thrive and said that I was still mad at my dad about not doing his job as Most Favored Parent and wondering what affect that had on me in the present. I need to call her anyway; I could use her advice, and it seems as though I’m ready to hear it.
Now I must return to wrestling with a software program, Affinity Publisher. It is not Adobe-based (YAY!!!!) but it has quirks to learn.