February 20, 2023
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 326: I rarely have the Sunday Scaries. What I do have is Sunday how am I starting a new week with my tank on completely empty???
I had a “blocky” weekend. One activity in the morning followed by lunch and putting Smol down for a nap whereupon I crashed for a few hours. Saturday even included a surprise nap for me. But I’m still not starting the day recharged or rested because this damn cough has been wrecking any semblance of rest I could have gotten. Here’s hoping my doc has prescription cough meds I can get immediately.
~~~~~
Just realized that I started this memory in last week’s post and didn’t have time to finish it: I’m feeling alllllll of my 40 years today. When I was a young teen in martial arts at the community center, we had a classmate. I think he was 40? He could have only been 30. It sort of all looked the same from the vantage point of a 15 year old. Anyway, Harry was older than us by a lot and the poor guy crackled when he tried to stretch out with us. We were limber and young and wow, we really took it for granted. I did, at least.
Now I’m snap-crackle-popping when I turn my head and maaaan. It feels like a little bit of the past coming back to haunt me.
~~~~~
We got the prescription cough meds just before the pharmacy closed. š¤š¤
(more…)
February 13, 2023
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 319: Oh, my aching head. I was up all night coughing and sneezing and intermittently gasping for breath when my nasal passages would suddenly close up. That was not fun.
I thought Smol Acrobat might be turning a corner on their cold-thing as well, they weren’t nearly so unpleasant/moody after their nap yesterday as they’d been all week, but they still woke up screaming at 1 am. At least it was just one time. Sigh.
This is Week Four of random viral something. The better news is that it’s Week 3 of the antidepressants and while I’m not yet 100%, it’s getting better. That very unstable fragile feeling is a little less pressing and present each day. I feel a little less like I’m standing on a raft in a stormy sea each day.
Year 3, Day 320: My brain worked at the speed of the original game of Pong today.
Bink. Bonk.
Bink. Bonk.
Bink.
PLONK.
By the time we had to leave for JB’s class, it was an empty echoing cavern.
I can’t tell if this is the depression, anxiety, or being sick for a month finally all being too much for me. Or just Tuesday. Could just be a Tuesday.
~~~~~
Smol Acrobat is an absolute pill at meals and tonight’s dinner was no different. They ate several bites voluntarily but then everything was screech! No! Demand! No! Demand! No!
They particularly dislike my insistence that they behave like a human with manners and say please along with whatever verb we’re fielding. They hold food hostage midmeal, holding it over the edge of their chair, asking yes? Yes?
NO.
Yes?
NO.
Yes? *grins, drops it*
They’re a tiny villain in the making.
Year 3, Day 321: Smol is keeping up their game of playing favorites and of course since PiC had an 8 am meeting, they chose him. That meant every single thing was a fight: wants milk. No, wants milk from Daddy.
Wants to get in the chair to eat. No, wants DADDY to help them into the high chair.
Wants milk. NO, milk from Mama is poison.
Wants more bagel. With cream cheese. No, don’t put away the peanut butter! Want cream cheese on bagel and want to see the peanut butter jar sitting on the counter. No reason.
Unreasonable terrorist! We fought every inch of our way through washing up, putting on socks and shoes, dropping off JB and coming back home.
They finally called a truce when I offered the opportunity to dump yard clippings into the compost. Thankfully, the hedge needed trimming badly anyway, so I clipped and they gathered. I can’t lift my arms now but at least we had peace for about 25 minutes.
~~~~~
Mental health today was a bit shaky. I couldn’t figure out why.
I had outdoor time with the unreasonable toddler in the morning. I had a good but short conversation with my cousin. I picked up JB and walked Sera and floated a plan to bake a random cake today if JB gets all their chores done. We have an extra Duncan Hines strawberry cake box mix from their birthday. I don’t actually like it much, myself, though everyone else does. I used to love the box mixes but this one tastes chemical-ly to me. What’s a good box mix we should try instead?
Catching up with a friend late at night it occurred to me that the tough morning with Smol left me feeling like I was on a back foot all day. I was probably as emotionally exhausted as I was physically.
Year 3, Day 322: We’ve been seeing a lot of new birds around the house lately. Usually it’s just blackbirds and a bluejay, but I spotted a few robins last week and two blue headed, rusty red breasted small birds yesterday. I might have to try and look them up.
~~~~~
Mental health today is … still opaque. It was a nice day outside. I appreciated the warmth of the sun, and cool breeze. But it just underlined the feeling that I can’t remember how to feel joy or happiness without the burden of whatever it is I’m feeling now. Heaviness. Bit of numbness.
This NYTimes opinion (gift link) article on supporting a friend with depression and suicidal ideation may be the closest to accurately describing the experience (and what one needs when dealing with depression) that I’ve seen in a long while: How Do You Serve a Friend in Despair?
Itās only later that I read that when you give a depressed person advice on how to get better, thereās a good chance all you are doing is telling the person that you just donāt get it.
I tried to remind Pete of all the wonderful blessings he enjoyed, what psychologists call āpositive reframing.ā Iāve since read that this might make sufferers feel even worse about themselves for not being able to enjoy all the things that are palpably enjoyable.
I learned, very gradually, that a friendās job in these circumstances is not to cheer the person up. Itās to acknowledge the reality of the situation; itās to hear, respect and love the person; itās to show that you havenāt given up on him or her, that you havenāt walked away.
Year 3, Day 323: Our first Friday with childcare! It felt a bit strange. Not that we have had any actual routines on Fridays, it’s frequently a catch as catch can sort of merry go round with PiC and I taking turns hopping on childcare and school pickup and trading work time. We are just testing the full time waters without commitment right now and seeing what issues it raises for us. Right off the bat, I know PiC is nervous about the huge jump in cost. I was too, but I’ve been processing that for months. The other big thing is the dropoff and pickup grind. The daycare facilities are quite nice so we know they’re getting lots of chances to explore new things we can’t offer at home. BUT that means that it’s challenging getting them in and out of the classroom because they want to dawdle and explore and poke around and climb this thing and play with that giant connect four thing and wait! There is sports equipment right here to grab hold of and and and. It’s a solid 45 minutes at the top and bottom of each day.
That’s not including the 30-60 minutes of fighting with Smol to get them to get dressed, eat, wash up, put on socks and shoes, and a jacket and to go. You’d figure it was a 25 minute routine, right? Yes, if they cooperate. They have never cooperated. It’s constant redirection and herding them and working through one meltdown after another. We’ve never had a morning free of crying floor angel or rolling log full of scream. Not once. Toddlers. They’re hell on the nerves.
Still, at the end of this day, physically, I didn’t feel like a steamrollered pile of muck. It’s a weird distinction to make to folks with reasonable health, I’m imagining. I’m tired, yes. Very worn out, definitely. But I don’t feel that imperative to crawl into a dark hole and pull it in after me like most Fridays before this. This seems to be an improvement. Is it because of the meds or because of the childcare? Maybe both.
February 6, 2023
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 312: I’m on Week 3 of a cough and sore throat that won’t quit. Smol Acrobat came down sick yesterday and couldn’t nap or sleep properly so they’re home, and JB’s off school today too. Depression grabbed me by the throat on Saturday and it’s been a 48-hour-and-counting fight to stay neutral against passive self harm ideation, digging in my heels against spiraling further down this riptide, with no end in sight.
To say I’m gritting it out is an understatement.
At any given moment, I’m on the verge of throwing up, screaming with rage, and curling up into a ball of apathy never to move again. At the same time. Depression is a bizarre companion. Fatigue doesn’t make anything better.
(more…)
January 30, 2023
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 307: Woof. Stayed out way too late last night. Happy Year of the Bunny or Cat depending on which zodiac you use!
I’m going with Bunny-Cat. Which makes me think of Bunnicula.
I’m on Week 1 of the new medications. Telling myself to be patient during these first three weeks isn’t actually making me be patient.
It’s annoying that while I was the frog slowly boiling in depression, I was entirely focused on surviving day to day. Now that I KNOW that it’s likely been what’s driving at least some of my inability to focus or be patient, now that I am actually on meds, I’m hyperaware of each symptom that’s been blocking my focus. Irritability! Anxiety! Snapping at JB for being late! Anger at myself for being late! Anger about my fatigue! Every! Unreasonable! Thing!
Please let my lowest effective dose be really low so that I can get to it sooner than later. I don’t know that my frayed temper can take four or five weeks of this.
Year 3, Day 308: I actually slept deeply last night but still struggled to get up. I can’t say I felt rested, generally I never do, but I felt less unrested if that makes sense. I’ll take it and hope for more.
The tendons in my fingers aren’t working right today. That’s awkward! I rather need my fingers to flex as needed. That’s sort of crucial to all the typing and dog walking, eating, and driving that has to happen today.
Letter writing was a lot harder too, with fingers that didn’t want to grip or glide a pen across paper.
Year 3, Day 309: My mentor reminded me that we have enough money that we can use some of it to buy our peace of mind. I’ve had to sit with that reminder a bit to see what form of help we can buy that would be a net benefit.
Some things, like hiring cleaners, are more stressful than they are helpful because PiC is extremely particular about taking care of our things and the last set of cleaners didn’t use ladders or stepstools, they climbed right on our furniture and floating vanities to clean above them. That worried me, I didn’t want them slipping and falling off or the floating vanity to crack off the wall. At installation we were told the beams attaching it to the could hold a certain amount of weight but the vanity weight plus a person might be too much.
I’ll start with ordering food delivery. It’s not the best bang for our buck but on Friday, we won’t have to figure out what to do for dinner and that’s a small cache of brain we can reclaim. PiC and I both think about dinner, that’s probably not efficient, but we’re sharing the pain and that’s something.
Bigger picture, we may have to take that full time daycare hit sooner than planned. Last year, I thought maybe we’d start around the summer. Now, I’m thinking… maybe much sooner. These part time weeks are wearing on me this year.
Year 3, Day 310: Every time I hear a pharma ad run through the side effects and say something about not taking this while breastfeeding, I feel this whooosh of relief that I’m not going to ever breastfeed again.
The prices at our new local Mediterranean restaurant have gone up 20%. Yeeps! I ordered anyway. We’ll have some for dinner tonight and I’ll freeze some for next week.
Tuesdays and Thursdays are hectic. I’m cramming a whole day of work into a few hours before self defense. We try to arrive half an hour early so we can get parking and to give JB another 15-25 minutes of cardio. The kids play serious games of tag and gymnastics before class starts. Makes me feel like we’re getting extra bang for our buck. We already save 30% by prepaying for the year but when would I ever turn down a little extra bonus?
I hit the Gap and Old Navy clearance sales for our Lakota families. If everything ships, I’ll have acquired 44 tops, 10 pairs of pants, 10 pairs of sneakers and toddler boots, and 64 pairs of socks split between the Allen Youth Center and the Red Shirt School for $370.
Year 3, Day 311: Maybe the meds are helping even at sub-therapeutic levels. Maybe it’s a placebo effect. Whatever it is, even with my cold getting much worse today, and terrible sleep interrupted with nightmares, heartburn, and other indefensible reasons last night, my level of end of week despair was not nearly as high as any other Friday of the past few months. PiC did cover a lot of the work day with Smol and that helped too but I took my turns both morning and afternoon despite feeling like garbage with this cough and chills.
Today’s dinner: small pies and fancy salads!
Pies: Chicken Tikka Masala, Cajun Chicken, Beef and Stout, Apple Saffron
Salads that I wouldn’t have time to make: Seared Lemon Pepper Tuna , Tabouli Quinoa Salad with Mediterranean Chicken, Duck Breast.
Very expensive for the quantities we’re getting but I couldn’t make this without doubling the cost in time and ingredients. Triple that of frustration. Also it’s sampler style so we can taste four different pies in one go. One pie can barely happen around here, forget more than that!
January 23, 2023
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 300: I love and hate holiday Mondays. This one everyone else has off except me. I should have taken it as a vacation day but I forgot to.
On the one hand, it never feels like Monday, it feels like an odd floater day and it makes all the rest of the week feel off. On the other hand, I got to sleep in a little because Smol didn’t insist on being officially awake at 6 am (minor miracle) and no one else had to be taken to school or to daycare or anything by a certain time. I always appreciate a little more rest when I’m this fatigued. My nights have been plagued with intense fear nightmares since last week. My subconscious is clearly fixated on my fear of abandonment. Is this enhanced because of the upcoming psych evaluation? I realize that I’ve internalized the old stigma of the ADD/ADHD from days past. I certainly didn’t feel anything like judgement for friends who were diagnosed in adulthood in the past few years but I feel it for myself.
~~~~~ (more…)
January 16, 2023
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 293: We were doing so WELL for a few days there. Smol Acrobat was eating most meals with gusto, they were communicating better and best of all: were not coughing, sneezing, dripping, or burning up. Until today.
Add that to the last three days of terrible sleep (worse than my usual, which is saying something), caused by searing pain in my neck and shoulders, and feeling really shitty about the weekend of conflict with JB which had me feeling like a total parenting failure. I could absolutely cry today.
All I want is a burger, fries, and 16 hours completely alone with my computer, some books, a pile of blankets, and Sera.
Sigh. None of those things are happening, of course. Not on a Monday, not with a sick Smol to tend to. I vented to some friends and sat at my desk, glumly working as fast as I could, wanting to let out the stress with tears but not being able to.
At some point, the thought occurred to me: everything feels very hard right now. Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to give myself a little break. Maybe I can commit to just a little time to myself, sometime this week, if Smol can be away during a school day.
My therapist often says being gentler with myself would help let off a little of the pent-up pressure and I usually don’t know how, but that silent ghost of a promise helped.
I stress ate some candied pecans (why do they sell these by 6 oz bags and not the pound?!), went in on a little lotto pool with a friend, tried to set up Yotta and got rejected, and discovered that Smol can put on their own jacket. I had forgotten they would have learned at daycare by now, so when I asked semi-jokingly “can you put on your coat?” and they said “yes”, well surprise surprise, they can! Only when they’re inclined to.
This tweet thread is timely. Given these two options, if I am transparent at all, I’d almost always opt for emotional transparency instead of vulnerability. I get close to emotional vulnerability here, mostly, and with a very few other people. I think it’s because I am so accustomed to people not showing up when I express a need or a struggle. I expressed it in the past and I was still on my own. So why bother? Why bother and be disappointed when I could just skip that entirely? I understand the flaws in that thinking now but I remember why it developed.
Year 3, Day 294: Treating my pain today is a whole universe away from when I first experienced my chronic pain 27 years ago. None of these factors listed on the tweet below were ever examined back then, most certainly not the trauma bit. It’s not eliminated my pain, this week is a huge reminder of that even if I were inclined to forget, but it makes a big difference. I can function more. The joy is dampened by having developed ME/CFS in the meantime but I can appreciate the reduced pain frequency nonetheless.
Year 3, Day 295: Alas, we did not strike it rich on the Mega Millions, friend and I bought tickets on a lark, so after a terrible night of hysterics and some vomit for Smol (with PiC and I sort of splitting the night), and night sweats and nausea for me, it’s back to the donut factory for both adults this morning. Darn.
Semi-related: My sense of taste is all off this week. Things taste metallic or “chemically” (I don’t know how else to describe it) to me, where they taste perfectly fine to others. This could just be my normal weirdness rather than anything COVID. I go through cycles where potatoes taste bad and carrots taste like soap. No idea why, but I hate it. Last night’s Japanese curry dinner tasted too salty and my berry flavored sparkling water tasted like medicine. š¤·š»āāļø
~~~~~
Some days I feel all kinds of conflict internally: I want to be up and about, I want to curl up in a ball and hibernate, I want want want. It’s puzzling today because I already let myself lay down for a couple hours today to rest, anticipating another hard night with Smol Acrobat. These feelings make me feel like a child. Shouldn’t I feel like an adult by now, here in my 40th year? What does an adult even feel like?
In fact, that reminds me of a conversation I had with my friend and mentor who is starting a new stage in life and likens it to being like a toddler again: it’s exhausting having feelings, feeling them, and learning how to navigate them. No wonder we get sensory overload and exhausted.
Speaking of lacking emotional vulnerability: I saw a tweet asking for help for a stranger going through medical issues, from a friend of theirs, among many many other Mutual Aid tweets. It struck me, again, that my whole emergency and savings planning revolves around never asking for help. I want to save enough for retirement and for our future health needs, and set very high goals, because I don’t ever want to tell anyone that we need help in an emergency. I spent too many years digging out of financial holes, and getting set back frequently, and I can’t believe or trust that anyone would care enough or be able to help us if we hit the rocks. SMH. My scars run deep.
~~~~~
A whole lot of friends discovered they had ADD/ADHD during the pandemic, and I was happy that they were getting treatment that helped. It took Abby’s latest post to make me start wondering if I might have a touch or more of it. I emailed my GP with the list. I am a slow learner!
Weirdly, as I sent it off, I had this bizarre feeling of “no I don’t WANT to have another thing wrong with me!” I was almost embarrassed. I feel so broken. I already have fibromyalgia and ME/CFS.
And yet, I will have to laugh if I end up with another diagnosis, courtesy of blogging friends. So many gifts from Twitter/blogging/the internet.
Year 3, Day 296: Much less overnight hysteria from Smol last night, though they still had multiple wake-up, which was much appreciated because my joints and tendons are furious today. It feels as though iron spikes were driven deep into my joints. It was impossible to find a comfortable position to sleep in that didn’t make it worse.Ā So, that’s fun! /sarcasm
~~~~~
I’m trying to redeem an expense benefit from an employer today. They offered a small stipend for certain expenses this year so I chose to use it on daycare.
Since daycare won’t take credit cards, we paid in full and followed the directions (I read them three times) to submit a claim for reimbursement with the receipt.
Dear readers, they rejected the claim today because “you paid in full”. Yes, we did, that’s why we’re asking for a reimbursement. Duh? Who asks for a reimbursement when they didn’t pay? That’s a whole other verb. That’s what the whole reimbursement and uploading a receipt process is for, is it not?Ā Annoying. I’ve submitted a help request. Let’s hope someone gets their head out of wherever it’s hiding. I’d like to cross this thing off my list and deploy that money where it can do some good.
January 9, 2023
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 288: Gas is below $5/gallon. I checked our records and it went below $5.25 around Thanksgiving weekend. What a difference it makes to each fill up total! We’d been nudging $100 for a 3/4 tank at those prices. *shiver*
~~~~~
We have a break between storms today and I’m trying to make the most of it. I ran out of steam yesterday. We’ve got two more loads of laundry, I’ve got some donations to ship to Allen Youth Center, and I’d like to get Sera a doggy sweater.
~~~~~
Huzzah! Nicole and Maggie’s comment fixed my problem. Well, got me to fix it. When the block editor was first rolled out, we were able to pick which editor to use for new posts. Then they took that choice away. So I went into the settings but my toggle to turn off block editor was greyed out.
I checked again this week and the toggle is functional! I can write new posts in classic editor! š
~~~~~
I noticed on Twitter that a player collapsed on the field during the Bills/Bengals game, and the NFL didn’t immediately, or very quickly after, cancel the game. I don’t follow football but this is the kind of stuff that floats up to my attention because it’s something my circles are interested in. It was both not at all surprising that the NFL didn’t have what it took (morality? souls?) to immediately cancel the game and apparently expected both teams to take the field again shortly after, without knowing if a fellow player was ok. I heard that the teams and the team reps told the NFL that the game wouldn’t go on (buzzfeed article). There’s something deeply wrong with parts of our society for that not to be an immediate decision, IMO. And football is such a dangerous game.
~~~~~
Inspired by the vacation that very much wasn’t, I designed a couple new tees: small body, big feelings (guess who?), big heart big feelings. Tickled by silliness about people being more charmed than sensible: skritches get stitches. (more…)