Writing my way from darkness back into light
This isn’t my photo. I found it on BlueSky. It just spoke to me. The single branch swamped in dark water with a single red breasted robin on it’s arthritic finger. It is a story of rebirth, renewal and recovery from a dark and solitary life to the freedom of a bird to soar on the winds of time. Too dramatic? Possibly. I just really like this picture, it gives me hope.
Spring has officially sprung when you see more ducklings in the pond than ducks. Happy Spring!
Well, I did it. I finally finished the third book in my trilogy. I can now evict the people who have been squatting in my head for the last, what feels like, 100 years. The time differential between the time I wrote it (March 1 until April 8) feels like the whole eighteen months which elapsed on paper. I realize a lot of my anxiety from the pressure of time was from the fictional days flying off the imaginary calendar, not the real one. I wrote close to 500 pages in about 40 days. It’s both amazing and dumbfounding and makes me wish I could just sit and write for a living. Adventures in publishing awaits; Any advice?
Twelve days ago I upped my Welbutrin by 50%. I explained to the teledoc I wanted her to increase it by 100% but to do it with 50mg tablets. Aparently, that’s illegal. Learned something new.
I started the 150mg and waited for my brain to accept and become comfortable with the saratonin level rising. In twelve days I’ve taken my meds maybe eight times and it’s not sending a consistent signal.
There was the initial placebo-effect knowing help was coming and the constant hoovering-up of the happy chemical would be able to play longer on the gray matter would become reality…..then hope faded and the darkness reasserted itself and I’m compounding the signal by skipping a dose every few days.
To avoid fault at all costs, I’m thinking my emotional brain is sending the signal it wants relief where my pragmatic brain is countering the signal with….now you have to take responsibility and do something about all the things the depression has kept you from doing. That thought exhausts me when I see everything I’ve been avoiding.
I think the signals need to be flooded with saratonin so switching to my old dose and taking two might keep the signals from crossing and confusing me….What do you think?
I love how, when the blossoms fall it looks like snow but smells like a bubble bath.
I love the color of lavender. I love the smell of lavender. I love amethyst because it reminds me of lavender. I wear a small raku bottle around my neck filled with lavender essential oil when I travel to keep me calm. This is the balm my soul often craves. And whenever I see it in a garden I feel all the love at once.
It’s always good to have someone watch your back while you push forward, but precious is the friend who watches your front so you can rest. Thank you to all my friends who have done this for me.
(Did you notice the decoy duck next to the sleeping duck? I don’t know if that was human made as a joke or ducks made to let the humans know it was a sleeping cove and to be quiet. My money is on the ducks.)
I love birds. I keep walking a path in a town over that really isn’t doing anything for me any more because of the ducks. I love the way the one feather on this ducks tail curls up in opposition to the perfect conformity of the rest of her body. Perfection, im learning is overrated.
I didn’t see this on my walk but watching it on @fatpompoms was so satisfying. I crochet, I over buy yarn, it happens. I create ginormous balls….
And with this ball I made this…..
I think the next ball will be a pompom.
To say I like peanut butter is an understatement. I LOVE peanut butter. For the last several months I have been pretty much living on the spread. I buy it at Costco in the double 40 oz jars and can lick the plastic clean in two weeks. I don’t think it’s just the peanut butter, but the honey I squeeze into it and mix in before hand. Yum!
I had deluded myself into thinking peanut butter is a healthy food. It’s high in protein and that is my only requirement for my diet right now. It’s easy. I just have to take the lid off and grab a spoon, no cooking, no prep, just eat. And, if a little is good for you, a lot has to be sooooo much better, right? Hence the killing of 40oz jars in record time.
There are some health benefits to eating peanut butter, including reducing heart disease, weight loss and satiation. And believe me, you are satiated when you eat four or five recommended serving sizes. With honey.
Peanut butter has been a staple in my life since I was in grade school. We rarely had jelly, jam or apple butter but we did have a dense wheat bread and peanut butter for lunches. I would put it on so thick it would get stuck in my throat and I’d have to run to the water fountain to push it all the way down my throat. We never had the money to buy milk at school, and knowing this I’d still slather the bread with an unhealthy serving.
I don’t know if it’s the taste, the texture, the childhood connection or just that it’s fast and easy but I do love me some peanut butter. Until I realized I was going through 40 oz of it in 7-10 days….not to mention a hive full of honey as well. Even when I was doing it I knew it was a reaction to the stress of the holidays, unemployment, no money, terror of the political climate being unemployed, coupled with depression and anxiety and, well, life. But I knew it had to go.
I went cold turkey on the peanut butter. I still smell it and it sets my mind wandering the empty shelves looking for it, but I refuse to be addicted to it. I have tendencies towards binge eating, which is what I was doing with my delulu attachment to the peanut butter. My compromise for binging currently is I can have anything I want out of the house, I just can’t bring it home because I eat it…..ALL OF IT….in one sitting. So if I want ice cream I go out and get it but not have a stock pile of Ben and Jerry’s in the freezer. However, it’s hard to go out and have a small jar of peanut butter, so it’ll be gone from my life until a time when I can be reasonable about my portions and contain my emotional need between two pieces of bread.
What do you use to satiate your emotional hunger?
I found out peanut butter is good for depression. Junk food science? Maybe. I’ve switched from regular Skippy to Natural Skippy and I don’t buy it from Costco, so I don’t have as much on hand but it is nice to have it back.
Blogging From The Void 