Song: “Swing the Mood” by Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers
Mood: 6
Nightmares: 0
I woke up quite a few times last night. A couple of them were because I was too warm, but most of them were because I was worrying about something or other. I got out of bed a couple of times and padded through the house but – as always – everything was fine. There are now seven million pictures of the locks, keys, garage door, stove, security system, and hot water tank on my phone. I’m still not sure if using my phone like that is a good or bad idea.
I felt like I was 217 years old when I groggily hauled my carapace out of bed this morning, and it took a while for all the tubes in my head to warm up before I could start thinking properly. I poured myself a bowl of cereal, converted some bread into toast (we have the coolest machine to do that), and then sat down at the table and gazed at it for a couple of minutes before I finally picked up my spoon.
So… the day started slow.
I spent a lot of time today thinking about what Dr W mentioned yesterday about whether I want to be the kind of person who sat at home and wandered around the house and yard to try and proactively catch any problems before they start, or whether I want to be the person who goes out of the house, goes on holidays, etc, and knows that something bad happening is very unlikely and we even have insurance for it? The more I’ve been thinking about it, the more I’m finding that it’s not as easy of a question to answer as I had hoped.
Take the bathroom fan. It could bind up at any time. True, it’s not likely to happen right out of the blue – usually they make funny noises before the seize – but it can happen. It takes 2 seconds to duck into the bathroom and make sure that if the fan is off, it’s off because the timer has shut it off. The dishwasher is another example. It only takes a second to check whether it’s leaking, so why wouldn’t I do that? The positives far outweigh the negatives. Except… there’s a problem. If I could do this once and be done with it for the day (or even the hour of the last ten minutes) it would be fine, but I’m running all over the house, chasing noises, smells, even things I think I see in my periphery ALL THE TIME. I can’t do anything during the day that can’t be interrupted. I’ll frequently be away from whatever I’m working on for anywhere from 30 seconds to 30-45 minutes. In some cases I can figure out where I was and resume things, but in others I need to start all over again. I don’t want to be this guy.
On the other hand, I know people who are so relaxed and carefree about things that they are never prepared for anything. A good example is someone I used to know. He refused to buy a good vehicle and would always pick up some 150,000 mile beater to replace his old beater that had finally given up the ghost. He also wouldn’t put money into it unless he absolutely had to, and he wore how little he put into the truck as a badge of honour. What he did, though, was call people every time he had a breakdown (and there were many). Flat tires, out of gas because the fuel gauge didn’t work, wouldn’t start for some reason or other. The best example was one winter where his battery would go dead during the day and instead of getting a new one or figuring out the problem, he would just get someone to give him a boost. In his mind, there was nothing for him to worry about because he could always call one of us suckers to go and save his butt. Well, you know what? I don’t want to be this guy, either.
So I must think about this.
I sent my texts out today and they went pretty well. I’m still working to reduce the amount of combing through my old texts I do. It’s harder than it sounds, but I think I’m making some progress.
My mom called and we had a good chat. My folks are doing pretty well and are enjoying the summer so far. Their garden is doing great and they’re enjoying being able to walk around without having to put on three layers of clothing.
My Dr P appointment today was difficult and very tiring but otherwise it went well. We worked more on ACT and my personal values. I did some homework last week but after we looked at it, we decided that the instructions in the book were a little too strict, so I’m going to go through the exercise again this week. I asked Dr P about FA’s idea about the ear defenders and he doesn’t consider it avoidance, he considers it reducing distractions. I shouldn’t be wandering the house all day with giant earmuffs on and music blaring in my ears, but for the purposes of my exercises, he thinks it’s a good idea. I will look for my ear defenders right before my exercises tomorrow. Great idea, FA – thanks!
This evening I played some more Star Trek Online. When I’m back at the base and doing boring stuff like going through my inventory, just for the heck of it I go and stand in a decorative fountain. I was very surprised to see how many people stop, look at me for a couple of seconds, and then start taking to me. If I’m standing in the bar, or at the shipyard, or around the bank, nobody pays any attention. But standing in the fountain? Attention magnet. Maybe I’ll try that in real life sometime. It might work the same way.
Again, I’m sorry – I have more that I want to write but I really need to stop here and get to bed.
Stay safe.