Rowdy Roadblocks
I’m feeling down today. A little lonely and a little sad. It’s better than the detached anxious I was last week, but it’s still mostly detached. That’s good, in that it’s probably old feels and not really about current things. But it’s also bad because it’s hard to address – it’s hard to find the right feel to work through because my brain has had several decades to practice hiding it from me. It’s presumably triggered by something more present though, so let’s prod around my brain and see what we can find.
Lazy day today. Shanda was out all day with LS but I stayed home. Had lunch, played some Cities: Skylines. That game is pretty and I like simulations but it doesn’t simulate the kind of pretty I want. It’s so road focused – you literally can’t zone without surface roads – and has terrible tools for working underground. Plus it will only simulate walking that follows paved paths. I spent a couple of hours making something work but it was too much work and not enough fun. That was the second try this year; I think it’s not the game for me.
Got a little pool for Dog. He liked the Sound so I’m hoping he likes to tromp around in a wading pool too. He wasn’t super keen as it was filling but we’ll give it a day or two and see how he acclimates once it’s not new and noisy and under close supervision. It’s also an excuse to release a fair bit of water into my yard from time to time, which is nice because it can be a really dry and sandy place this time of year. And maybe it will attract racoon friends, which would probably be exciting if not exactly good.
Shanda got some new socks today. Not the whole haul, and not all of them fit (even within a pack of the same brand) but still lots of fun. It’s good to have socks be removed from the list of things we can’t talk about, or that have to be hoarded and not worn. I haven’t gotten to colorful socks that I can actually wear yet, but I’m a harder target to fit – I can only sometimes find socks big enough for my glorious calves, let alone thigh highs. (Nor do I own anything that would show off thigh highs). But I do have lots of normal socks now, and some fluffy ones for at home, and those are both like 9 steps better than before.
I got through an L roadblock today, which is great. With a little luck I’ll be able to do a thing at them this weekend, which I’m really excited about. But there’s still no talking about it so I am still really uncertain about what the future might bring. I don’t feel empowered to act independently, even thought I feel capable, because I have been specifically warned off. And I don’t have a plan for how to act in coordination because there is no talking. I’m a less patient than usual because I recently pulled my own related feels out of repression and I’m ready to take a next step – was told this was the time – but haven’t been able to make it go over several weeks since. I’m not technically disempowered but I’d sure love to get actual agreement instead of provoking a confrontation later wherein someone feels excluded and hurt. Or at get least some guidance on where the sore spots are so I can try not to slam into them full force.
Talked at J today and about the definition of art and the dividends of sharing. About expectation and response and repression and stress. Got a response that helped me refine my question – maybe even progress my feels on realted topic – but that didn’t much satisfy my curiosity. J does often respond when I find the right question. I should endeavor to do so more often.
To wit, it’s about 3.7 million times eaiser to provide you prompts and questions and reminders and reassurance and praise and in general care if I know what the shit is happening to you. I can offer you generic prompts and guesses at care – I do a lot of unidirectional communication – but it’s both easier and more effective if I know where to point it. Technically it requires me having a good guess at both what you’re doing and how you’re feeling about it, but often I can derive feels from stories even if you have not yet. Particularly the stories where you let me see what you hope for in the future, or what you fear from your past. So tell me stories and I’ll try to find ways to make you feel good about them, or at least to prompt you to feel good about yourself.
Back to work tomorrow. I’m on the queue which is annoying but also means I can ignore almost all other work if I feel busy. And I likely will because I’ve already got 5 SRs, plus time booked to do more insurance calls, my BZ project deployment, a chair to assemble, budgeting, and I need to go back yet again to get my glasses (hopefully with the right lenses this time). Plus the usual bits of the week like gym and therapy and this weekend Shanda’s sister is coming and I’m (hopefully) going to a play. It’s also robots kickoff but I am not going to be up for early weekend car travel to some uncomfortable bleachers just to watch a YouTube video, so I’m only going to participate in that via after school meetings (i.e. Friday afternoon).
I’m feeling pretty good about chores and other home things. Household stress is way down; still chipping away at all the old feels we’ve uncovered recently but no longer stuck push through and ignoring them. And the feels themselves have made good progress; today Shanda got to feel good about back to school shopping with LS instead of hating it. As noted above I’m still a bit unbalanced myself but it mostly hasn’t kept me from doing things (other than writing), and I continue to be generally satisfied with progress on our neglected old projects and daily life maintenance. There are a couple of bits that still feel pretty hard to make go but there were so many built up that’s unavoidable.
I tried again today to do a marker project and again failed to make it go. I have a technical plan that I feel reasonably confident about, despite my very limited skill and experience. I even have a plan for making seperate process work to go along with the marker bit. But feeling incompetent is just the excuse my brain cooks up to justify my shame. I’m ashamed to want to this to be a thing that’s for me. There’s a lot of pain waiting to come out: about the way my creations were used to hurt me, about the way I was taught that I hurt people by making them, about not knowing things that a toddler knows, about wanting to be noticed – or just wanting anything at all, even just for myself. I spent so long pushing it away to keep myself safe and it feels very dangerous to do anything else.
But I can never seem to convince anyone that things are hard for me, or that I want help or reassurance or attention. I can get people to shout answers at me, even though I’m not asking the question you’re worried about. Or sometimes you’ll explicitly tell me that you don’t care and don’t want to think about a thing I asked for help with, leaving me to do it by myself. Even when I know what help I want and ask for it it’s hard to get anyone to believe me. Or at least hard to get you to respond in a way that is connected enough to make me feel less alone. I know how to turn things into an emergency if I am going to demand your interaction, but I wish I knew how to get attention in some less drastic way.
ZiB
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Sent from a phone.
