Tag: DST-TK

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.

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.”

Middle school. In bed, realized I could switch my breathing: automatic to manual if I focused on it. Happened maybe three days. Actually I was trying to die by holding my breath. But once I achieved making it completely manual, then it was freaking me out because I couldn’t switch back. Panicky. Trying something had a completely different result than I wanted. That was the scary part—stuck in manual, couldn’t undo it. A kid lying there in the dark, alone, testing something, then terrified I broke it.

Driving to New Berlin. Something flickered in the corner of my eye, my glasses. Got hugely scared—at nothing—and tapped the brakes too hard. Escape skidded sideways a bit. Scared me more. Next time I needed to slow down, hit the brakes too hard again. Kept happening. Why can’t I just get past the fact that I got scared at nothing? Chain reaction. Hit the brakes too hard over and over. First time this has happened since I got the Escape. Feels like commentary on my life. Get scared at nothing, can’t stop overreacting.

Building manager doing floor repair in the hallway between the main hall and side door. Two days of drilling, scraping, pounding, moving equipment around. Sound was living in my apartment. Sounded like they were under my floor. Then corner by the ceiling. In the cat litter box scraping—checked, wasn’t Max. The noise was moving to different parts of my apartment. In my space. Wall and door between us but it didn’t matter. Drove the shit out of me all day.

Thing so easy, but not: causing grief. Make arrival of Max wet food seamless. # of cans, # of days. Auto-ship with time frame. Yet keep running out of cans or ending up with overabundance. This is a parallel to something else in my life, except I can’t quite figure out what the other thing is. Part of feeling or pattern?

Incorrect, however, I have been known to ruminate for sure, but not lately // Instead, there has been more processing and making connection through thoughts and writing.

Correct, I did not use the superpower to go to pool Fri nor Sat… but I did go. I wanted to go… and, yes, a push from Tim did help for Sun success.

Correct, the egg cooker is still in the shipping package. Superpower took awhile to fully work, but I shopped, picked the one that I liked the most. Why is it not unwrapped? Cleaning is an ongoing, long term struggle. Philip did at least two things related: he made the best boiled eggs and he kept the kitchen clean. Maybe talking about grief is what’s needed. Yeah, actually it is, because now I’m crying.

Here’s what’s making me angry: Tim said “Little less talk and a lot more action.” “Just do more.” “Generally, failure doesn’t stop people. People give up.”

There’s an enormous list of doing. It started with one second on a core ball. Not just talking, not just writing. A hell of a lot of done, do, and doing. No need to send Tim the list. Tim has lived it with me.

Do more? What about the plethora of actions Tim isn’t privy to? Fuck you, Tim.

[Abridged]

• I never should have asked in the first place.
• The music essay was immensely more than just about music.
• Why was I trying to find deeper connection with people where I was never going to be friends?
• Severely angry about breaking the rules.
• No mention that I did a clever serial thing with the daily; the splitting wasn’t exactly easy. // why am I looking for validation for something stupid?
• Wanted credit for refraining from a attachment; the restraint wasn’t exactly easy; now none existent.
• Understood: People can have wide range of music tastes.
• Understood: Same song means different things to listeners.
• I lost touch with music when I no longer had my Ford Ranger nor my membership to Princeton Club.
• A Nickelback song on the list. One that was already mine. The irony: processing, sends me straight into tears.
• There is an emotional backstory on what Nickelback means to me.
• And now how to keep my Nickelback sadness out of the new weight training? “You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness.”
• This all feels like such a cosmic joke. The irony. Not a full circle; maybe a split ring.
• Will want to consider how to take advantage of Escape stereo.
• But, I will want to invest in headphones to add music back to training, question?
• Will the system automatically drop Friday? :::sigh::: Makes next wait, long.

Attachments: 20260504.pdf

Daily planning is figuring out what to send when. Planning falters when the facts of the day call for a change of message.

There was no weekend plan implemented. The plan was to make a plan, to prioritize. Didn’t happen. Friday, stuck. Saturday, stuck. Two hours shy of a full 48 hours. Sunday became alive at the time to pack for push. I was one of three. When we parted, my plan was to workout in the pool.

I could go East or West. I chose the functioning jets. Every good thing has faults. Fast current during the Sunday family 2-7pm period is not fun.

Locked myself out of my locker. Second time in 6 weeks. My name is again listed in the official record of locker assist!

The full plan didn’t get finished. Tuesday is push and sword. Friday is Tim and Goat Yard. This is a lot, but not enough. When is solo saber practice? When is weight training? When is the next trip to the pool? When is the returns to Amazon? When is the decision happening about whether to continue the conversation about music?

Last Sunday, email from Philip about $35. Nearly had a meltdown. That devastated, depressed feeling. Felt like I had no one to talk to for advice. Can I wait until Friday or can I solve this myself, on my own. What should I write? What should I do? I asked myself what would I be told. Do forthright communication. I thought I did that. I didn’t realize my opening, “Wow. Thanks for asking.” was not the most mature. I thought I did make it clear in the body of my email what I wanted to happen. Hearing that my reply was basically petty, totally compounded the lost feeling. I didn’t understand all the questions Tim asked about what happens next.

Talking about the ask for money was not meant to be forgotten. It was on the list; just didn’t have the list for reference. I was confident that the topic just needed to be reported, not discussed. I felt scolded—that I’ve done the Philip in the last few minutes pattern before. Maybe he is a topic that can take an entire session; but, that is not how I want to spend my time. Especially since the next step is based on whether or not Philip replies.

I hate how, no matter how much “validation provided for efforts” happens, I feel like I failed raising Philip. And this week, I didn’t know how to answer. And then my reply was less than perfect. And I was accused of dropping a bomb end of session. So is that one more flaw for not putting Philip as a topic at the top of my list?

All I really wanted was to hear that I handled $ ask correctly.

I have two appointments Friday morning on the far West side of Madison: dental cleaning and growth tracking. First, Old Sauk Clinic. No drilling scheduled. Next, Tim.

Curious… Deming Way: 3 miles north, 8 minutes (too much of a sad parallel reminder of character count and reading time).

I’ve only been once to the location on Deming Way. “…I would be early and have a long long wait. Does the sitting and waiting cause more or less anxiety? I think I’ve learned my lesson. Just compartmentalize and call it done. Ready. Set. Player One. That is after I’ve done my time, and waited for the start. No Tim. I could connect from here. At the top of the session is a review of the rules. Can’t call it a do-over, Tim doesn’t like that; recalibration perhaps. I’d sit on the couch with my laptop, maybe the pie chart pillow on my lap, and leave the computer space untouched for Tim. Would I need a key to enter? Has the office already been locked up for the weekend? Or is there some shared space happening and I’m trapped outside?…”

The irony sits clean as I’m driving back downtown: I’m nearly where he could be. Just that he’s at home. Soon I will be at home, as well. I already completed preregistration, and I said ‘yes’ at home. Is it breaking the rules to actually be somewhere else, as long as I’m still in Wisconsin? There is no chance of an escape, out of state, in an hour travel.

Just an active fantasy life. No space was or will be invaded. I’m not there. Never was.