Heidi: Lighten-ing Strikes

[Heidi]

Lighten-ing Strikes

 

This challenge is about adopting NothingWhatsoever as a Way of being, about looking at my possessions and entanglements and making surgical cuts to let go of what doesn't actively heal me. Typical decluttering has me looking at what to get rid of; lighten-ing has me justifying anything I decide to keep, from forks to gym memberships, jobs and relationships.

 

Top of the list are the Super Scary Storage Units. I have no idea what's in those boxes. Step one is to divide a space out for keeps even if I leave it in storage, and designate a section for donate for anything already sorted and not in the keep area. I mean really. I don't need anything in there except my birth certificate, a signed copy of a book by a friend, a notebook of my novel, and maybe that stash of amazing olive oil from a grove in southeastern Italy. Even the books for my dissertation are optional. Once I get enough stuff in the donation area, I can get help hauling it away. The storage units are on the other end of town and it feels like a Dreaded Quest to even think about going. I'm avoidant in the extreme about this. So, time in small chunks will be a dramatic improvement.

Also on the list are any and all bills. I haven't used my gym membership. I can either use it or scrap it. We'll see how often I actually leave the house once the paper is done. A thorough inventory of what I'm signed up for (seriously? I was paying for a subscription to chess.com? I don't even remember that.) and then an evaluation of the list. Sounds simple when I put it like that, doesn't it?

NothingWhatsoever. I have a habit of signing up for everything that sounds great. And everything sounds great. I need less to do in my life as I heal from burnout, heal from injury, and heal from trauma. No new things, and a lightening of existing projects and commitments. I've already decided to take the summer off from classes, and this first week I resigned from an editing position. The disentanglement of that will take another week or so, mostly in the form of having them tell me who to send my work to and crafting a letter to my series editor and authors for a smooth (ish) handoff. There's an annual Writing Workshop that I usually attend that has a powerful magic for me. It's meeting virtually again this year (June 13-19, so zero week of next challenge). I'm not committing to going yet, even though it's only a month away. I have a feeling that a lot will be revealed during the eclipses (lunar May 26 and solar June 10). I'd like to make no new commitments until after that.

The elephant in the room is my relationship with my daughter. Nothing makes sense right now on this front, and it hasn't in years. At this point, if I'm being honest, my relationship with my daughter is a past thing. To have a relationship now would be to start something new. Her dad is clearly, violently opposed. I'm not certain I'm willing to take on a fight just to say I can. It certainly wouldn't be a relationship with my daughter, so what's the value?

I have two farm workdays scheduled, May 22 and June 5, at the farm that grows my food for the season (May-December). I like that these come right after the paper delivery and right after court. Hoeing onions or weighing lettuce are the perfect tasks for resetting my spirit and listening for inspiration. Even so, the weight of commitment is noticeable. I know there will be a million opportunities to sign up to help. I need to limit myself to these two. If I want more farm time, I can go to the garden up the mountain, my spiritual home.

 

[Heidi]

Maybe I can keystone a trip to the storage unit with a trip to the gym.

[Scaly Freak]

Here and following.

 

For the Lightening of things.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Hey fellow paladin,  you know I'm in for a light themed challenge. 

[darkfoxx]

Yay, lightening! 

[Heidi]

Today was a lot of looking at the news and the project and not really getting anywhere with anything. No worries though, since checking in is the win. Tomorrow is going to see a bit of a forced productivity, and then Sunday is a forced March to the end. The paper gets delivered Monday morning, hell or high water.

 

Confession: sometimes the news makes me cry.

 

The rest period movie was 2001, which I hadn't seen. And yes, last week I watched 2010. 🤷 Sometimes life is like that. Maybe after I turn my paper in on Monday I'll make a list of everything I watched last challenge. There was a lot, sometimes with a friend and sometimes on my own, and it made all the difference in developing a routine of resting (see the consistency mini challenge if you're digging the idea of a routine of wellness or keeping pace with your gains).

 

I haven't been sleeping well and the dreams are vibrant and strange. Last night was the wildest bunch yet, waking up every hour or so, feeling even more exhausted from twenty to thirty minutes of whackadoodle dreamscape. No wonder I didn't have much bandwidth this morning. After the paper, I'm hoping to schedule gym time, and hopefully that will help with the sleep. I know it will help with eating, since I'm usually am famished after a little weightlifting and swimming. I'm assuming the sauna still isn't back on, despite the recent CDC memo.

 

Its probably going to be an early night, friends. Wish me luck.

[Scaly Freak]

47 minutes ago, Heidi said:

Confession: sometimes the news makes me cry.

 

One of many reasons I have stopped following a lot of news.

[darkfoxx]

Speaking of whack a doodle dreams: I spent an entire night on NyQuil redecorating the Dutch embassy entryway somewhere in Asia (I watched an episode of The Scorpion right before bed) - with multiple layers of colored foliage and an existing fountain thing I had to design around. The design style was like the game I was playing before falling asleep (Animal Crossing Pocket Camp) with grid-style drag and drop reordering. 

 

Every time I fell back asleep, I “fell” and tried again with  a different scheme - do I want the black vine chartreuse pear ivy in front, or back? What about the hot pink grasses? And the vibrant purple tall and spiky grasses? Does this go well with the yellow cast of the overhead light and the iridescent orange wall? What feature do I want to highlight this fall. 

 

I don’t know that it was restful, but I seemed to get a bunch out of it, creative-wise 

[Heidi]

14 hours ago, darkfoxx said:

Speaking of whack a doodle dreams: I spent an entire night on NyQuil redecorating the Dutch embassy entryway somewhere in Asia (I watched an episode of The Scorpion right before bed) - with multiple layers of colored foliage and an existing fountain thing I had to design around. The design style was like the game I was playing before falling asleep (Animal Crossing Pocket Camp) with grid-style drag and drop reordering. 

 

Every time I fell back asleep, I “fell” and tried again with  a different scheme - do I want the black vine chartreuse pear ivy in front, or back? What about the hot pink grasses? And the vibrant purple tall and spiky grasses? Does this go well with the yellow cast of the overhead light and the iridescent orange wall? What feature do I want to highlight this fall. 

 

I don’t know that it was restful, but I seemed to get a bunch out of it, creative-wise 

I love this dream!

When I have an embassy, you are totally in charge of entrance decor. (What's up with that fountain, tho? I don't remember ordering that!)

23 hours ago, Scaly Freak said:

 

One of many reasons I have stopped following a lot of news.

I hear you, friend.
❣️

 

&nbsp

 

Yesterday, my friend Amy (a nurse) came over to give me my B12 shot. This is a win in the consistency column, by the way, marking the first time I have been able to get this done consistently since it was prescribed years ago. We're up to four or five months in a row now, and it takes about that long to begin to have an effect. Along with daily diet of milk and salmon or beef (thank you @darkfoxx) I'm hopeful about having more energy as a baseline.  While Amy was here, Uptown Funk came on and there was living room dancing. I'm pretty sure we looked as goofy and ridiculous as you can imagine, but the fun was real. I've gotten too accustomed to this isolation.

My town is little and uncool -- there were no pubs or places to dance even before the pandemic. At some point in the coming New Times, when I'm looking for a where I'd like to live, it needs to involve access to music and places where people are unapologetically goofy and ridiculous. More of this.

 

[Heidi]

Consistency wins:

Took out the trash

Checked in with the paper, though only barely. Might do more this evening. The avoidance is real.

Made a decent meal. I grilled up a salmon patty and some of the broccoli for this week with the rest of the red onion, then squeezed the remaining half-lemon over it all during the final sear. And a glass of milk.

Afternoon movie was Cannery Row, which was sentimental and sweet, not my usual fare, and it was perfect.

 

A friend has asked me to record a couple of my shorter pieces, the ones that are nearly funny, about not having a phone, not having a television, and about feeling like I didn't understand English when we moved from Florida to Virginia. I might.

[Heidi]

Here.

Have a story that's not mine, but is one of my favorites.

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/470/show-me-the-way/act-one-4

[Heidi]

Going to brush my teeth and try to quiet my mind.

 

Progress was made.

[Heidi]

Friends, this morning my head took forever to come online. 

Im sitting down with a spinach salad, with grilled chicken, vegetables, and a heavy-on-the-olive-oil vinaigrette. Two glasses of milk, some Manuka honey, and aspirin, and I'm starting to be pain free and able to process, slowly. I haven't checked in with anything other than my morning friends. The paper will have to wait until this evening for the final push, but I feel solid.

 

Today's movie is Public Enemies. Back to gangster land. 🙂

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Four Brothers is a good film in the Gangster life adjacent genre. 

[Heidi]

Guess who just submitted her paper with over twenty minutes to spare?

HappyDance

 

A bath and music and a nap.

My calendar just opened waaaaaay up for naps.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Congrats! The pattern on that outfit is awesome.

[Heidi]

Just discovered a subscription to NYT crossword app. Canceled it.

There was a bath and dinner and a long nap, and now I might repeat that.

 

Not enough bandwidth for a movie, I don't think.

[Heidi]

The head went from troublesome to suffering and I took a Maxalt, which seems to be working. The medicine has its own weird side effects, but weird gets my vote over suffering.

I literally cannot conceive of what this summer will be. I haven't had an extended time off since spring 2013. For now, I don't have to know what it means. That's kind of the point.

I have a meeting with the editors on Friday to finalize the handoff. I have an appointment with my sponsor tomorrow. Thursday is the first telehealth session with the ex since The Event in April.

 

Of course Wellness Wednesday.

Some serious NothingWhatsoever coming my way.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

I think your next challenge needs a Peter Gibbon Theme.

[Heidi]

23 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

I think your next challenge needs a Peter Gibbon Theme.

Was really looking forward to seeing this and then:

 

403. That’s an error.

 

Your client does not have permission to get URL /proxy/CUcu6OIc4t9Bt6zAIcW9yizDt6AyG8CS3tyZpilCt7vZdSbrFPVbqz8ijJgbqZb7RXWJUWQWCsmmouwVD1vCd9-XAckOOes8dVr_g7borHBzgNS4jNXnv5cwkEPUT2j-yjsZ-jixsQdTviSuo48DDe6IQno-NOemI9s from this server. (Client IP address: 2604:ca00:150:7061::60:339)

Forbidden That’s all we know.

 

Sadness.

😔

[Heidi]

I spent most of the morning wobbly and mentally offline. I am pretty certain I had a seizure in my sleep ( this morning bwas lots of post-seizure stuff, including a swollen and twitching tongue, no bandwidth, disorientation and lack of balance,  unable to find words, the usual cool stuff).  It took all morning to level out a bit.

 

My meeting with my sponsor went well. It was super emotional, and at one point I burst into tears. Then I wrote my attorney.

 

I was poking around, looking for something to watch and settled on Clarice. Around nine pm I finished the episode and  considered watching another one, but then thought, "Gosh I should probably go to sleep because I'll have to get up soon and work on. . . ." But friends. No. Not work in a project or a paper or edit an article or even read a book. I have NothingWhatsoever until 1100 when I leave for. . . Acupuncture.

 

This is going to be an interesting few weeks.

 

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

The broken image was the I Did Nothing quote from the same movie as your gif. 

[Heidi]

Also, I swept the floor a couple days ago.

 

The letter to my attorney probably has her puzzled. But friends, I cannot keep participating in this adversarial relationship with the ex. Also, the truth is that I don't have a relationship with my daughter any more. Lastyear I was describing it as "my relationship with my daughter, such as it is," but now even that is gone and has been for most of the lockdown. 

 

So there's another no: no I will not keep poisoning my possible future relationship with her by fighting with her dad. Nope.

 

 

The head is much better this evening, but still fragile. I'm glad I have acupuncture tomorrow. I made bread (in the bread machineofso it always feels like it doesn't count -- why am I like this?) and had a hunk of it with spiced almond butter (cardamom, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and a little sugar) and some blackcurrant preserves, and a big glass of milk.

 

Might watch another episode of Clarice.

 

The song of the day was

 

[Heidi]

Pet peeve:

A "two-way mirror" is a window.

 

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

That must have been a hard letter to write.  Hugs and support friend.