Searching Within

Category: Processing

working through thoughts, making sense; connecting dots, seeing themes; simple, direct; untangling, organizing thoughts; as in “working through”

  • Down the Hall is Not a Walk

    My new smart watch says it is time to take a walk. Tim says the place to start is put on your shoes.

    Wow. I went so far. Grabbed an Amazon package from the front lobby delivery shelves. Checked the mailbox. What is exciting: DMV sent my certificate and sticker, SiriusXM says my trial ends in a few days, package of CBD pain relieving roll-on gel, two Deming Way appointment reminders.

    With the Ranger I played a game. I never put my vehicle sticker on my plates. I could have but I wanted to see if anyone would notice. In ten years only two times I had to do some sort of extra step. Do I want to play that game again? The sticker is a very pretty green.

    I keep meaning to plug in the codes and use Sirius. Just never got around to the act. Of all the times I just sat in the cab, that was a lot of could have time. Is it still worth the final two days of free?

    Colin says all the soccer parents are using CBD on their kids and praise the results. He said it is expensive. I ordered. Arrived. Should I do something stupid so I have some pain?

    In years and years of paper appointment reminders that I opened not a single one BEFORE the date. I’m 100% sure I could toss these two envelopes, but I will tear them open just to be sure. I was wrong. One letter is about <48 hours in the future.

    What is the watch for? Alicia says to track my sleep. I wanted the one with the leather band. I did the relaxation test. 91/100 with lowest heart rate 64. Rigged system. Goes up to wake up the device.

  • Rescue, Rescue Me

    Jared Halley has a new song, “Rescue Me.” Everyone will hear it as a love song to a person. For me, I swap the “you” for a place.

    Rescue is the town in California where I grew up. So with a song title rescue me, before the first verse finishes, I’m already transported back to childhood in El Dorado County. [Age 9-15, 1978]

    I’ve been drowning in loneliness. That part is true now and it was true then. Hoping someone would show me. Except the someone isn’t a person. It’s the foothills, the oak trees, the horses, the dairy goats, the clean straw late at night. With you I feel bulletproof, and the you is riding free across 500 acres on a horse I loved. You’re all I dream about and all I see, which is another way of saying I only look at the good parts and let the rest go dark at the edges.

    There was plenty at the edges. The darkness, the weight, the confusion of a kid who knew something was wrong but didn’t know how to articulate physical and emotional abuse.

    “Come break my shackles, rescue me.” Everything I loved about that place, gathered into one spirit. A ghost made of foothills.

    I used to say Rescue, rescue me to myself as a kid, because I wanted the name of the town to have a power. I don’t think I can describe exactly what I was asking for. It’s too big to pull one thing out of. But it was never a person. It was the place, and the place and that time are gone, and I’m still slipping into prayer at odd quiet moments.

  • Moonlight Paddle

    Twenty-one minutes on the water. Not tired, not cold enough yet to deserve the fleece. It’s in the dry bag calling to me but I think I should be really, really cold first, so I’ll appreciate it more when I finally give in. I keep finding the weeds. I am petrified I will drop my phone into the lake.

    Four kayaks are lounging together, loud and laughing, telling stories. Two more over there, traveling as a pair. Two more past them, also a pair. A guy is paddling backward so he can keep talking to his buddy. Somebody balanced popcorn on a paddleboard. The geese are squawking. The barge has live music and the music is bad.

    Dip the paddle, the water drips. Dip, drip. Two and a half hours of this, a constant meditation I did not ask for. How do you turn your mind off? My back doesn’t hurt, glory be. I can feel the muscles pull, clean, no pain, and when I lift the blade the drops come down like rain off the end. That part is good. That part has nothing attached to it.

    I finally dug out the fleece. You’d think I’d never trusted myself with a decision before, the way I drew it out. I think I saw a fish, or a big turtle. I suppose I wouldn’t be so cold if I stopped reflecting and meditating and actually paddled.

    Happy? More like absent of extreme emotion. Not happy, not depressed, not content. Lonely. Missing out. I did it, so now I can write about it. Maybe I can lift some of these details into something else later and call it fiction. The boats strung with Christmas lights looked like fun. I wished for a warm hat. I invited someone to come. They never answered. I came anyway. Alone.

    After: watched Antwone Fisher. A therapist story. I cried when he met his mother. I was sad past all proportion when the therapist told him their time together was done. And there it was, hours after the water, the thing the lake wouldn’t give me. I wonder what I am getting out of Tim time. I wonder if it would be better not to go.

    If part of the fun of a thing is the anticipation, then why did I spend the whole day agonizing over how to dress for the lake. And if anticipation is the fun, why is looking forward to therapy treated like a problem to fix. The same engine runs both. One I’m allowed, one I’m not, and nobody can tell me the rule.

    I would not wish for twenty-four hours without depression. Too small. A week. I don’t know what I’d do with a week. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.

    I ordered delivery: mac and cheese pizza.

  • Making Change is Hard, Especially Without Caffeine

    I started a reflection about change.

    • Change is not about want or wanting.
    • Change may be setting an alarm for when it is time to not do something.
    • Change is not about one single action.

    Reason for change right now: to improve quality of sleep. Alicia says, cut out the consumption of caffeine at 1pm (or second best 3pm). How to make this change? I’ve forgotten to check the clock before having a favorite cold Mountain Dew. I’ve already missed the cut off several days and had drinks at 3:30, 4:30, 5:30pm. I guess the slips are improvements over the 10pm or 1am late refreshments.

    Once upon a time, I was drinking 6 or more cans of Mountain Dew each day. To become caffeine free, I worked through a weaning process of 6 weeks where I converted to drinking only water. I made that change a long term habit. Is it possible again?

    =I Asked My Guys=

    • Pi said, “Change isn’t chaos, noise, or running away. It’s not force, fear, or pretending the past didn’t happen. It’s not waiting for permission. It’s choice, direction, and quiet commitment.”
    • Purpose said, “Change is not a moment of motivation. Not a promise. Not the absence of the old pattern. Not something someone else can do to you. Not proof you were broken before.”
    • Claude listed “what change is NOT:” instant, linear, proof you were wrong before, erasing who you were, same as improvement, always progress, always chosen, forgetting the past, betraying your former self, comfortable, easy, just wanting something different, meeting others’ expectations, a fresh start that erases history, visible to others immediately, permanent (can backslide).

  • Examining Pride/Proud in My Childhood – Part 2

    Tim said all children want their parents’ approval. I questioned whether I ever wanted mine. Yes, as a child.

    Age 7. I had a 5×7 drawing pad. I had recently learned how to draw shapes that would overlap and how, if a shape had a hole in it, you could see the shape underneath. I took a page to my mom, and she thought it was wonderful. I went back to my desk and quickly did another variation and showed her, and she was much less enthused. By the time I showed her a third variation, she couldn’t be bothered.

    Age 8, at school, I made a ceramic handprint and painted it yellow. I liked it. I wanted to show it to my mom. She wasn’t home, and I thought maybe I could find her by the big ranch barn down the road. While walking down the dirt road to find my mom, I dropped the hand and broke my art project. I think the little finger broke off. Later, my mom scolded me, saying it broke because I was carrying it around unnecessarily. The message was that I was being irresponsible to take the ceramic into the middle of the ranch. The art project was thrown away because it was broken. Yellow has never been my first choice of color, for anything, since.

    And then, seeking approval during middle school, high school, or college? I can’t remember caring whether my parents were proud of me. More similar to a paradox of wanting to stay small to avoid criticism and disappointment while having a strong desire to be seen. My choice to be a tomboy was definitely not related to seeking approval.

  • Examining Pride/Proud in My Childhood

    Rescue, California

    Age 9, 1973, was my first year in 4-H and my project was Dairy Goats. Even though Mandy and Surita were well past the one year age mark of maturity for breeding, we had not yet found a suitable buck. We were looking forward to having our own goat milk. We bought Candy, a big reddish-brown Nubian, from a lovely goat lady named Oma who lived on the outskirts of Sacramento. Candy gave birth to triplet does on 3/3/73: Bo Peep, Tinker Bell, and Desert Honey. Overnight, our dairy goat herd had doubled.

    Bo Peep was my kid. Our 4-H project lead spent a great deal of time with the students to learn proper showmanship etiquette. In June at the El Dorado County Fair, the novice showmanship class was enormous. In the final round of exercises, the class was lined up. I was first in line; Bo Peep perfectly positioned. When the goats would stand perfectly still and start to chew their cud, it was a nice indicator that your goat was relaxed.

    Just before the judge was about to declared the winners. Bo Peep playfully butted me. I lost my balance, ending up on my butt. I quickly resumed my place next to my kid. When the judge gave her placement review—I was the 1st place Novice Showmanship winner—the judge said something about my performance was clearly exceptional… “Oh, except the moment of inattention that landed her in the sawdust.” I was embarrassed to have my flaw mentioned over the loud speaker. Even with the call out, I’ve never forgotten the pride I felt, accomplishing something all on my own.

    Age 14, 1978, I was a 4-H junior leader for dairy goats project and I taught the younger kids how to handle their animals in the show ring.

    A student, a 9 year old girl, won 1st place in novice showmanship the same year that I won 1st place in senior showmanship. I was competing against the multi-year veteran winner, a recent high school graduate. A nice bookend to my 4-H career showing Dairy Goats. I enjoyed the joy I saw radiating from my student. I didn’t know my kids had been listening.

  • Let Her Be

    Maybe middle school. I overheard my mom talking to someone about raising her children. Something about how she pushed hard for her first three children to get good grades, to succeed academically. Sharon and Bill in particular were praised for being highly intelligent. Her fourth child, she decided to do different: not push, let her be. Knowing the result of the declaration of her experiment was too soon to tell at the time.

    I don’t recall specific memories of being called “lazy.” But looking back, that word stuck with me, beginning about ten. One day I found a gold, short chain necklace buried in the dusty dirt road near the barn. Lazy was the word on the chain In cursive. I liked the flat metal cursive “L” and “a.” I thought why not wear the word of who I was. At one point I was scolded for wearing the found necklace with that word. I was confused. I discarded the necklace—I internalized that descriptor.

    I have vague memories of being told, “you don’t think.” Meaning I didn’t follow through on tasks well or problem solve effectively. I have a difficult time counting a BS degree as my success, because I had crappy grades all through college. Not sure if this history has any root to a belief about slacker at work the past six months (or other low productivity times).

    Is it true that lazy and perfectionist are at the opposite ends of a spectrum? Doing more, not nothing; work. Seems like laziness would be difficult when you are working overtime making something an unobtainable status.

    Note: originally, verbiage was “Dailies not nothing; work.”

  • Need a Name

    About Thursday May 21, 2026 appointment

    Stressful challenge: Alicia wants me to discontinue all caffeine after 1pm (or second best, after 3pm). Aaaaack! I don’t know how to do this. I like my 10pm or 1am Mountain Dew.
 

    Driving home from Ring Game, browsed right into the new song Hit the Wall by Gracie Abrams. Just the right music and lyrics for an event cut short and how that made me feel about life.


    I’m plagued by “a thing” that happens when I leave Tim. Research seems to best describe the feeling as separation distress.
 
Last 5 minutes of session I’m watching the clock, forecasting the leaving. After goodbye, driving to next thing is the most miserable part – sad, lost, frozen thickness around my core and chest. Not ready to stop talking. I’m leaving a place I still wish I could be. I fill every inch of attention with hyperawareness. Every moment driving (mirrors, lane changes, controls, surrounding scans, mechanical sounds intense) becomes a surreal dissociation. Being completely in the moment. Mindfulness on steroids. But I can’t stop because if I leave even a crack of space, the sadness pours through. The hyperawareness is a dam. Once I successfully complete next task, feeling can start to retreat.


    Today, a parking spot when/where I need it most. A near perfect parallel parking maneuver… mood shift, I got better, slowly started to finally get out of the separation distress.
 

    I need to know why getting your way, getting what you want can make depression go away, even for a moment.


    Bad feeling is lingering.

  • Whack-a-mole

    “Whack-a-mole is an idiom used to describe an exhausting, repetitive situation where problems keep popping up as fast as you solve them. It implies a futile, never-ending cycle where fixing one issue immediately causes another to appear elsewhere.”

    -Cambridge Dictionary

    Seeking opportunities to whack is one method to soothe depression. For distraction. Stay busy with the task of being in the battle in order to be distracted from the feelings.

  • The Exit Song

    The adult version of “head, shoulders, knees, and toes” is “wallet, glasses, keys, and phone.”

    -actual origin is unclear

    The Ford Escape only came with one key fob. If that was the only key in my song, my pat down would be simple. Instead, I have two sets of keys that didn’t become combined. One for the Escape and the other key chain contains apartment key, apartment outer door fob, mailbox key, and Princeton Club scan tag. So much Redundancy in my system. The Princeton Club phone app has a barcode. An apartment key and a fob, both really? Does the apartment mailbox key really need to be carried around with me at all times? The apartment storage locker key is in the Escape for now. Every time I open the driver’s door I’m reminded that I haven’t programmed the door entry keypad yet.