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I hope you feel better later on.
Apr. 9th, 2024 04:05 pmI’m back. Will I be back so often once the fam is back? Hard to say.
I awoke to gray and rain but now it is sunny out. I went out to take the garbage to the can and the recycling to the curb, this is the first time I’ve left the house since before the fam left. I just made the poor choice to eat a sour gummy worm after some spicy tteokbokki and chunky monkey ice cream. Do not recommend this combo.
I got it together enough to edit a PTA survey, to do some laundry, to make the guest bed and B’s bed, to vacuum the downstairs so that when K’s mom gets here it won’t be a total disaster. I am not really looking forward to the sudden deluge of people, going from complete solitude to a family plus a houseguest, but I’ll survive.
I took a Ritalin, I don’t know if that was a good choice. Probably not as it’s pretty late and it’ll probably keep me awake tonight, but I was feeling kind of like I didn’t know what else to do. I saw my doctor awhile ago about a possible ADHD diagnosis and she gave me a trial prescription. I don’t know if I have ADHD or am just hopelessly bad at life. At any rate I was feeling incredibly overwhelmed by anxiety and by my to-do list and it seemed like taking something maybe would be an idea I hadn’t yet tried. So we will see if I am back in several hours, insomnia-riddled.
One thing I’ve been practicing lately is reading. I know this sounds silly. But I feel like I used to have a much longer stamina for reading, and I believe it, like anything, is a skill or a muscle that can atrophy. I think between being a busy mom and being hooked to my devices and notifications, I’ve gotten bad at concentration and like it’s something I want to actively work on. Just doing one thing at a time. Not listening to an audiobook and playing solitaire (though I do enjoy this). But there are times when one thing is enough. It feels a bit like meditation to me. Concentrate on the breath. Bring your thoughts back when they stray. Instead of following them down the internet rabbit hole. Don’t get me wrong, I love the internet rabbit hole. But sometimes it’s good to be brought back. To find the center once again.
I need to work on my to-do list, or I will not get anything else done. I don’t think I like this George Benson version of “Oh Darling”. It’s too calm, not enough dynamics, too smooth. Some songs do well to be covered and some songs really only exist in a canonical version. I had to cleanse my palette with the original.
Are some people satisfied sometimes? Do they ever stop at the end of the day and think “that was a job a well done. I did enough today.” ? Because I don’t think I ever do, or have. I’ve always felt this tug of fear and indecision, paralyzing me for parts of the day, operating in spurts, getting enough done to feel like I did what I needed, but always always regretful, always upset with myself for not doing “enough”. Not performing to my potential. How do I know I have potential if I’ve never reached it? If I don’t have data to support what it looks like when said potential has been reached? Feeling like I’ve let myself and others down. Or, if I haven’t, I did things too fast, not carefully enough, not well enough. I did enough in terms of quantity, but the quality was sub-par. Some people would probably say I am being hard on myself. I probably am. What I’m wondering is, is if that is also what others do. Or do they not have the beat-yourself-up part. Do they just feel satisfied. Can I feel satisfied?
I wonder this a lot, about everything. Because I very rarely feel satisfied, except for when I eat. And when I cook. Probably because there is a pretty clear metric of success, and because when you’re done cooking, you’re done. There’s not more you could’ve done, usually. You followed the recipe and then the finished product is there on the plate.
I am now listening to Supertramp’s “Oh Darling” which I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard. And somehow I got from there, via “Oh Darling” by Ashboyo, to “$300” by Soul Coughing.
Back to satisfaction. Like I wonder if I just can’t be satisfied, if I am maybe just a person that cannot feel happy. This is just a personal failing of mine and nothing that can ever be “solved” and like, would it help to stop trying? To stop seeking? But also my perpetual seeking is kind of what makes life worth living? I don’t know. Also does it matter if other people feel this way? What would I gain by knowing if I’m alone, or not? How would that help my situation? I complain a lot that my mom can’t be satisfied, that no matter what she does or where she lives, she will be miserable. So why would I think that I might be different? I try to hide it under a veneer of gratitude, I try to complain less than she does, but here we are in my journal. I guess the thing is, K is perpetually dissatisfied and doesn’t particularly try to fix it. He assumes that things are bad, they are always going to be bad, and bad is just how it is. We share the perpetual dissatisfaction but while he approaches it from this place of inevitability, I approach it as a constant challenge. I am dissatisfied and I am going to fucking FIX things. I rarely do, to my satisfaction, but it makes me a much more dynamic human than him.
He’d be the first to corroborate this, it’s only because of me that we ended up in Seattle, or that we ended up in the house we are in. I am nothing if not a seeker, looking to the next place, the next job, the next opportunity, the next activity. I think this drew him to me initially; he may now find it exhausting. I sometimes find myself exhausting. I also see injustice and want to do things about it. I don’t do enough, let’s be clear. I am not trying to paint myself as a tireless activist. But I do something, and it infuriates me that he does nothing. Even more so now that we have a kid, because it’s one thing to do nothing on your own, knowing it probably won’t have an effect, but I think it’s another to show your kid that doing nothing is an option, is the option.
Something I think a lot about is how different my parents are from who I thought they were. I suppose all kids go through this, you grow up and you begin to understand that your parents aren’t all-knowing, they don’t actually control everything. My parents were super young when I was born, and so more than some people, I grew up along with them in a way. I spent a lot more time with my mom than my dad as a kid, and as such her view of him colored mine for a long time. He was a “fuddy duddy” who didn’t like to do anything, she said. But that was never true. He used to play volleyball in an adult league, he served on the board of the neighborhood association, he facilitated publishing a neighborhood newsletter, he used to do science talks at my school. He just didn’t do what she liked to do. He was the one that actually interacted with other people, whereas I don’t really think she did, if it wasn’t completely necessary. She didn’t serve on the PTA, she didn’t volunteer, she didn’t really make friends with neighbors. That was my dad.
They are a lot different now. I think life has weighed hard on my dad, and I see that moving here is not really what he wants to do. At the same time I think he could use a break from the intense burden that is the care of my mother. I think he could use help and some distraction for her. Something for her to focus on and a way for her to feel of use. My mom used to seem so strong and capable. She seems frail and damaged now. I don’t know when it happened exactly. She still makes herself up every day, still looks impeccable, still has a lot of charisma, still is constantly learning, but something in her has given up. I had hoped my parents would be active as they aged, more like my grandparents who were traveling the world up until around 80, but they’re not. They don’t travel, they don’t exercise, they don’t do much of anything. It makes me sad. I am hoping that by coming here, they become more active and engaged, but I don’t know. I can’t make them do anything, they have to want to do it.
This really went off on a lot of tangents. I suppose it’s time to get back to that to-do list.
I hope I feel better later on. Enjoy my musical rabbit hole links, fictional reader. I know I will, when I come back to this someday.
I awoke to gray and rain but now it is sunny out. I went out to take the garbage to the can and the recycling to the curb, this is the first time I’ve left the house since before the fam left. I just made the poor choice to eat a sour gummy worm after some spicy tteokbokki and chunky monkey ice cream. Do not recommend this combo.
I got it together enough to edit a PTA survey, to do some laundry, to make the guest bed and B’s bed, to vacuum the downstairs so that when K’s mom gets here it won’t be a total disaster. I am not really looking forward to the sudden deluge of people, going from complete solitude to a family plus a houseguest, but I’ll survive.
I took a Ritalin, I don’t know if that was a good choice. Probably not as it’s pretty late and it’ll probably keep me awake tonight, but I was feeling kind of like I didn’t know what else to do. I saw my doctor awhile ago about a possible ADHD diagnosis and she gave me a trial prescription. I don’t know if I have ADHD or am just hopelessly bad at life. At any rate I was feeling incredibly overwhelmed by anxiety and by my to-do list and it seemed like taking something maybe would be an idea I hadn’t yet tried. So we will see if I am back in several hours, insomnia-riddled.
One thing I’ve been practicing lately is reading. I know this sounds silly. But I feel like I used to have a much longer stamina for reading, and I believe it, like anything, is a skill or a muscle that can atrophy. I think between being a busy mom and being hooked to my devices and notifications, I’ve gotten bad at concentration and like it’s something I want to actively work on. Just doing one thing at a time. Not listening to an audiobook and playing solitaire (though I do enjoy this). But there are times when one thing is enough. It feels a bit like meditation to me. Concentrate on the breath. Bring your thoughts back when they stray. Instead of following them down the internet rabbit hole. Don’t get me wrong, I love the internet rabbit hole. But sometimes it’s good to be brought back. To find the center once again.
I need to work on my to-do list, or I will not get anything else done. I don’t think I like this George Benson version of “Oh Darling”. It’s too calm, not enough dynamics, too smooth. Some songs do well to be covered and some songs really only exist in a canonical version. I had to cleanse my palette with the original.
Are some people satisfied sometimes? Do they ever stop at the end of the day and think “that was a job a well done. I did enough today.” ? Because I don’t think I ever do, or have. I’ve always felt this tug of fear and indecision, paralyzing me for parts of the day, operating in spurts, getting enough done to feel like I did what I needed, but always always regretful, always upset with myself for not doing “enough”. Not performing to my potential. How do I know I have potential if I’ve never reached it? If I don’t have data to support what it looks like when said potential has been reached? Feeling like I’ve let myself and others down. Or, if I haven’t, I did things too fast, not carefully enough, not well enough. I did enough in terms of quantity, but the quality was sub-par. Some people would probably say I am being hard on myself. I probably am. What I’m wondering is, is if that is also what others do. Or do they not have the beat-yourself-up part. Do they just feel satisfied. Can I feel satisfied?
I wonder this a lot, about everything. Because I very rarely feel satisfied, except for when I eat. And when I cook. Probably because there is a pretty clear metric of success, and because when you’re done cooking, you’re done. There’s not more you could’ve done, usually. You followed the recipe and then the finished product is there on the plate.
I am now listening to Supertramp’s “Oh Darling” which I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard. And somehow I got from there, via “Oh Darling” by Ashboyo, to “$300” by Soul Coughing.
Back to satisfaction. Like I wonder if I just can’t be satisfied, if I am maybe just a person that cannot feel happy. This is just a personal failing of mine and nothing that can ever be “solved” and like, would it help to stop trying? To stop seeking? But also my perpetual seeking is kind of what makes life worth living? I don’t know. Also does it matter if other people feel this way? What would I gain by knowing if I’m alone, or not? How would that help my situation? I complain a lot that my mom can’t be satisfied, that no matter what she does or where she lives, she will be miserable. So why would I think that I might be different? I try to hide it under a veneer of gratitude, I try to complain less than she does, but here we are in my journal. I guess the thing is, K is perpetually dissatisfied and doesn’t particularly try to fix it. He assumes that things are bad, they are always going to be bad, and bad is just how it is. We share the perpetual dissatisfaction but while he approaches it from this place of inevitability, I approach it as a constant challenge. I am dissatisfied and I am going to fucking FIX things. I rarely do, to my satisfaction, but it makes me a much more dynamic human than him.
He’d be the first to corroborate this, it’s only because of me that we ended up in Seattle, or that we ended up in the house we are in. I am nothing if not a seeker, looking to the next place, the next job, the next opportunity, the next activity. I think this drew him to me initially; he may now find it exhausting. I sometimes find myself exhausting. I also see injustice and want to do things about it. I don’t do enough, let’s be clear. I am not trying to paint myself as a tireless activist. But I do something, and it infuriates me that he does nothing. Even more so now that we have a kid, because it’s one thing to do nothing on your own, knowing it probably won’t have an effect, but I think it’s another to show your kid that doing nothing is an option, is the option.
Something I think a lot about is how different my parents are from who I thought they were. I suppose all kids go through this, you grow up and you begin to understand that your parents aren’t all-knowing, they don’t actually control everything. My parents were super young when I was born, and so more than some people, I grew up along with them in a way. I spent a lot more time with my mom than my dad as a kid, and as such her view of him colored mine for a long time. He was a “fuddy duddy” who didn’t like to do anything, she said. But that was never true. He used to play volleyball in an adult league, he served on the board of the neighborhood association, he facilitated publishing a neighborhood newsletter, he used to do science talks at my school. He just didn’t do what she liked to do. He was the one that actually interacted with other people, whereas I don’t really think she did, if it wasn’t completely necessary. She didn’t serve on the PTA, she didn’t volunteer, she didn’t really make friends with neighbors. That was my dad.
They are a lot different now. I think life has weighed hard on my dad, and I see that moving here is not really what he wants to do. At the same time I think he could use a break from the intense burden that is the care of my mother. I think he could use help and some distraction for her. Something for her to focus on and a way for her to feel of use. My mom used to seem so strong and capable. She seems frail and damaged now. I don’t know when it happened exactly. She still makes herself up every day, still looks impeccable, still has a lot of charisma, still is constantly learning, but something in her has given up. I had hoped my parents would be active as they aged, more like my grandparents who were traveling the world up until around 80, but they’re not. They don’t travel, they don’t exercise, they don’t do much of anything. It makes me sad. I am hoping that by coming here, they become more active and engaged, but I don’t know. I can’t make them do anything, they have to want to do it.
This really went off on a lot of tangents. I suppose it’s time to get back to that to-do list.
I hope I feel better later on. Enjoy my musical rabbit hole links, fictional reader. I know I will, when I come back to this someday.
