Everlog: Sugar Dragons, Squats, and Sewing

[Merrin]

Initial battle plan for the next challenge.

 

CON: Logging food and staying in keto.

 

Best practices: fizz in the fridge always, microwave protein for lazy and shelf-stable stuff for work. Bulletproof coffee and tea forever. 

 

WIS: 1-2 books for the challenge. Given that I now work in a bookstore, my reading to-do list has exploded. So, it's basically just finding the time to sit down and read. Planned quiet time with Ifrit?

 

CHA: stay on top of skincare, including one night weekly for mask/fancy stuff. 

 

STA: I'm on my feet eight hours a day moving stock, so I think that's covered. 

 

STR: Also note, moving stock eight hours a day. My biceps are looking good.

 

DEX: I NEED TO STRETCH. OH GOD MY SHIN SPLINTS. Daily stretches after work, with yoga on non-work days. 

 

A lot of this has complimentary notes in my Bujo, which helps me more on the day to day than remembering to check in here.

[Merrin]

Today's 2am weirdness: being the captive audience to the guest of a resident, who wants to talk about the 60s and the architecture of the city. I want to drink my coffee and listen to poetry in peace, please.

 

[Merrin]

I think I'm suffering from caregiver burnout. 

 

I miss the old life that we had together. We used to do so many fun things out, hiking the dunes or the Garden or a 14er. Mini golf. Running through the house with Nerf guns. Shooting real guns. Riding everything at the amusement park. Wandering through Walmart out of sheer boredom. Walking to the park to play Pokemon.

 

I hate that I'm worried as much as I'm relieved right now.

 

I don't have to get up and do things around the house for him. I don't think I resent it. If I do, what I dislike more is seeing him in pain just from walking when all he needed was a cup of water or some snacks.

 

I appreciate that he stays on top of the dishes. I actually really value that I can make a fucking mess of pans and plates and spoons to make us dinner, and he can clean up after. The same goes for the bathroom, I hate it but he manages to clean all the surfaces. Same for the kitchen. If he can stand still and do the chore, he will. Like moving clothes over into the dryer. I worry, thinking about him hurting himself, but it seems like the pain level has become so high and so normalized, him doing extra around the house doesn't affect much.

 

If we got a chair, we could do some things again. Walk around Lakeside even without rides, and just enjoy being there. Drive the 14ers that allow it and find walking paths, maybe. Shopping would get easier again. We could certainly go play more PokeGo with a chair. 

 

If he had it in the house, he could get to the kitchen and back without me worrying over him staggering/falling, because once or twice his legs have acted up due to his back. 

 

I am grateful that he's not in worse condition, given the accident and the injury, that he can still walk, even assisted, and physically nothing has stopped working, it just all revolves around his back pain.

 

I'm worried with his being away, that he'll get hurt.

 

I'm glad for a break from the emotional labor, which may be the major part of the burnout. Laundry, floors, cooking, I don't mind doing the brunt of the housework because he can't. But it's the days where he's snappish and then apologizes and I feel like I have to soothe his feelings for being grumpy.

 

It did help that we actually talked about the emotional labor of that, how I can't be the same person to say "It's okay to be stressed from your pain" and "I understand that you are grumpy from your pain." I can't do both, I can't take the emotion and then spend more emotion on soothing a different emotion of his that got set off from accidentally acting like a jerk. Like, yes, it fucking happens, please own it, I can't keep soothing you about this. Apologize, and move on. Goddamn but that's exhausting.

 

I hate that I feel bad for wanting or needing to be social. OMG I can't leave the house for five hours, what could go wrong! And yet I am at work for 8 hours, but that's important because we gots bills and I like food. So, work meets a need, but social time somehow....doesn't? 

 

I feel like I should be using this free time to be doing all sorts of things, but having the house to myself feels just as nice. The alone time is just as important and refreshing, and it's different being alone versus choosing alone time if he's home.

 

Part of the burnout may be coming from some bubbling fears. The last two rounds of doctor bullshit did nothing. Now, we have to demand surgery. And then? Oh, and then.

 

I want to play board games. I want to rent new movies. I want to find theatres where we can see new stuff comfortably, or just get the chair and start going anywhere. 

 

I want to go shooting, even if he just comes to coach me. I want us to cook together more. I want him to make me the leather bag he promised. 

 

We're going on a cruise. Maybe two. We're going to CSCC if we think a wheelchair would be manageable. If not, I will go alone. I love conventions and it's something I started doing by myself, and doing that again feels important.

 

 

[Merrin]

Day 1 of keto again. I loff ze butter coffee.

[Merrin]

Dear Keto Headache,

 

I fucking hate you. 

[Merrin]

It's important to recognize how easily the migraines affect my overall emotional health. I made it in to work, determined to do the reports that are my main responsibility. I was an hour and a half late and playing catch up.

 

Two instructors began to have a conversation across my desk, with one of them in front of me, and one of them behind me, inside my work space, literally talking over my head. I had written on my white board 'Shh-Very Bad Migraine'. I point to this and politely ask them to not talk so loudly/over me.

 

"Your chair has wheels." This is the response from the CD, who up until today and this moment when the migraine has me feeling like shit, I had been thinking was an okay guy.

 

My chair has wheels?! Your legs have feet! This is MY assigned work area! WHY are you talking OVER MY HEAD LIKE I'M NOT HERE?! I want to cry, from the pain of the migraine, from the disrespect, from the total lack of spoons happening right now.

 

Ugh. Uuuugh ugh ugh. Meanwhile, my OM responded to my initial text of 'I'm massively sick with a migraine, I'll try to make it in before 10' with 'I've got you, take your time, feel better' and he reached out on his own for some support. And now he's letting me work in his office space so I don't have to listen to the phone ring.

 

I'm going to knock out these reports and leave by lunch. And if I get a chance, that CD is getting a piece of my mind. I've been here for six months, but with my new OM, we have a chance to get a fresh start, and define our work spaces as OURS. And that's going to be really nice.

[Merrin]

Today's gratitude list. 

 

1. My job that not only let me come in late and leave early yesterday from a migraine, but also allowed for my leaving early today to take Duncan to the doctor.

 

(It's also worth noting that this migraine came from a plant protein product similar to the product that made me sick and gave me a migraine last month. I need to stop taking those items from the pantry. )

 

2. When i had used my last spoon to go and heat up some food, and then couldn't stand what it was... (Weird pasta bake from the food pantry with a weird sauce and cheap meat. Their fail rate is less than 10% per month but when they do, they fail hard. ) Duncan got up and made different food for me. 

[Merrin]

Potentially Good Thing: my OM tells me that he left me something in the drawer marked 'Personal-Do Not Open' so marked that people don't open it looking for office supplies when my bag/lunch are in there. The something was a bag of chocolates with a nice sticky note.

 

Immediately Not Good Thing: within an hour of my thanking him for the chocolates, he then reaches into that same drawer, y'know, 'Personal Do Not Open' because by now, all my sh*t for the day is in there, to then TAKE one of the chocolates he just??? GAVE ME??? I try to joke it off 'You just gave me chocolates and now you're taking them?' and his response was this weak 'Haha yeah'. If this is the same person trying to encourage me to re/establish boundaries at work with my work space/etc...he's sure fucking up in setting a decent example.

 

So??? I guess? I'll just hide all that chocolate INTO my lunch bag now and ??? See What Happens??? The f*ck???

[Merrin]

I'm honestly depressed today. It's that sort of blues/blasé/gloomy feeling. I want to be convinced that everyone here must hate me, based on just a few people being so consistently disrespectful. It honestly feels just a little bit Triggering, and I know exactly why: this sort of joke-y, 'take it easy', faultless type of caustic attitude reminds me a LOT of my ex-in-laws. They would say horrible things to me and then act like I had no sense of humor for responding defensively. Same thing with my OM just now, and the CD the other day. If I stick up for myself, I'm told my boundaries are wrong or un-enforceable; 'Your chair has wheels' if I need to remove myself from my work space, or my labels to my desk get ignored as it suits others.

 

I'd like to go home and cry at a Disney movie, please.