Hmm. I’m not really sure what to talk about this morning, which honestly feels very on-brand for how my brain is functioning right now. I went back to sleep after Tommy and Kel left for work, as I had only gotten about four and a half hours of sleep the previous night. Our workout didn’t end until around 10:30, and we started a little late, so… yeah. My body is paying for that decision today.
I do need to start my day, but since I crawled back into bed, I’m moving at a slightly sluggish pace. Not fully zombie, but definitely not sprinting either. I feel more awake now, though, coffee has been consumed, so we’re heading in the right direction. I’m picking out some music to study with, which feels oddly important today. I’m having trouble deciding on a vibe. Maybe lo-fi? Maybe gaming music? Something that says “focus” without asking too much of me.
I don’t have Everest today, which makes the schedule lighter. Chris didn’t feel good this morning, so he stayed home from school. Alex is already at work; he’s at a fast food place now, and I hope this job is a better fit for him than the last fast food joint.
On a brighter note, my back is feeling much better. Which means I now own muscle relaxers that I don’t need. I’ll probably save them for a future flare-up, because why not? Though I really don’t like taking them, they knock me out and turn my brain into mush. Useful, but not my favorite.
Oh, and I have therapy today. I think I want to talk about what I mentioned the other day: how the past keeps popping up in my head on an endless loop. It’s frustrating because when my brain goes digging, it always seems to grab the trauma first. Like that’s the default highlight reel. It makes it hard to sort through things and remember that not all of my past was painful. There was good stuff too. I know that intellectually, I just have to help my brain remember it.
And I know our brains are basically drama queens by design, hard-wired to zoom in on the negative instead of the positive. Bad news lights up the brain like a flashing neon sign, while good news politely clears its throat in the corner and gets ignored. It’s that old survival wiring: danger = important, joy = optional. So of course, my mind wants to replay every awkward moment, mistake, or “what if,” while completely skimming past the wins like they’re fine print.
Knowing this doesn’t magically stop it from happening, but it does explain why my brain acts like bad news is a breaking alert and good news is just… nice to know.
So that’s where I’m at today. Slow start, coffee in hand, music undecided, therapy later.
I’m standing in the kitchen having a full-on internal summit about lunch. On one hand, I don’t want anything with heavy calories, nothing that’s going to sit in my stomach like a regret. On the other hand, I want to actually be full, not “I ate, but I’m still thinking about food 20 minutes later” full.
Salad is off the table. Literally. There is no salad. Tragedy.
There are cucumbers, though. Kel left them out, and now I’m stuck wondering if this was a silent act of generosity (“These are for you.”) or just a classic case of cucumber abandonment. I haven’t put them away yet. That will be a problem for Future Me, who will apparently deal with it while making lunch. Multitasking queen.
I could have eggs. Eggs are reasonable. Eggs are responsible. But then comes the toast debate. Toast feels like it might be crossing a line. Is toast helpful fuel or a slippery slope? And just eggs by themselves don’t feel like a real lunch. That’s more of a “sad breakfast that overslept” situation.
So here I am, hovering between the fridge and my thoughts, deeply overanalyzing a meal that will probably take five minutes to eat and three hours to emotionally process. Lunch shouldn’t be this complicated, and yet, here we are.
I decided on two eggs and one piece of toast with jam, and it is somehow lower in calories than yesterday’s salad. Which still feels like a personal attack by vegetables. Life is full of surprises, and apparently, lettuce is one of them.
In other news, I put a fresh ink cartridge into my fountain pen, and, true to tradition, ended up with ink on my fingers. It’s impressive at this point. I could be wearing gloves, working under studio lighting, moving in slow motion, and still… inky fingers. It never fails. Thankfully, we have Lava soap, which is basically magic disguised as a bar of soap. One wash and the evidence is gone, like the ink was never there, and I didn’t briefly consider becoming a Victorian-era writer.
Now I have about an hour until therapy, and I’m standing at the crossroads:
Study (ambitious, responsible, optimistic)
YouTube + planner time (calming, low-pressure, emotionally realistic)
It’s only an hour, and with my appointment looming, I know my focus is going to be halfway out the door anyway. My brain will be like, “Sure, we can study… but also, what if we just… don’t?” So filling in my planner and watching something might actually make more sense, at least until it’s time to switch gears. Sometimes, the most productive thing is not forcing productivity when your mind is already packing up for therapy.
So I forgot to charge my laptop. Just completely forgot. My laptop is now a very sleek, very expensive paperweight. I did remember to plug it in… a whole half hour before my appointment, which turns out is not enough time to resurrect a device that’s been living its best uncharged life all morning. It still won’t turn on. No lights. No mercy.
So now I’m going to have to do therapy on my phone. Tiny screen. Tiny face. Big feelings. This sucks. I can already tell I’m going to accidentally stare at my own face the whole time like it’s a Zoom mirror of shame, or my phone will slip and suddenly my therapist will get a dramatic view of my ceiling light.
Nothing like starting therapy slightly annoyed, mildly embarrassed, and holding a rectangle like it personally betrayed me.
Well, plot twist, my laptop did turn on. Just… fashionably late. Like, well into my therapy session late. So I ended up doing the whole thing on my phone, which immediately started out strong by me not being able to hear him at all. Instant, silent panic. The kind where your brain starts sprinting while your body is frozen. And then, lightbulb moment, I realized I wasn’t wearing my hearing aids. Once those were in, the crisis downgraded from existential to merely annoying, and I could finally hear the session.
The session itself was alright. I talked about looking back at my past, especially my thirties, and feeling like I couldn’t find anything good there. Just a long stretch of survival mode. The only real bright spot was toward the end of my thirties, when I finally got out of my abusive relationship. That part matters. It counts. But it’s still hard to look back and not feel sadness, anger, or grief for everything that came before it.
We talked about how it all started. My husband had died just two years earlier. My dad had also just died. And then suddenly there was this guy, living at Susan’s house, who started hanging out with me and, before I could even process what was happening, was living with me. All of that happened within a month. A month. Looking back, part of me is angry that I was deceived. Another part of me wants to shake past-me and yell about the red flags I didn’t see.
But how could I have seen them?
I was drowning in grief. I was barely holding myself together. I was dealing with my mom, raising two babies, going to school, and trying to function on a day-to-day level. I was barely aware of my surroundings, much less scanning for warning signs. That level of awareness just wasn’t available to me then. It wasn’t cowardice or stupidity. It was grief and exhaustion and survival.
I also talked about how I left, and how part of me feels cowardly about it. I didn’t leave in a dramatic, empowered, movie-worthy way. But I left in the way I could. And I had to. Staying wasn’t an option. Getting out safely mattered more than how brave it looked on paper.
The session actually ran seven minutes over. Meanwhile, I was sneaking glances at the time on my phone, quietly hoping it would wrap up soon because I really needed to use the bathroom.
Afterward, I made myself a matcha tea. I figured I had some calories to spare. Yesterday, the app was side-eyeing my protein intake. Today, it has apparently appointed itself the Dairy Police. Joke’s on it, I barely consume dairy because of lactose intolerance. Dairy and I are just not friends. My daily vitamin should be handling calcium just fine, and the oat milk in my matcha is fortified anyway, so I’m calling that a win.
Now it’s time to put clothes away. Nothing says “emotional processing” like folding laundry. So that’s what I’m going to do, one sock at a time.
