It’s the very last RTI racery event and I have bitten off more than I can chew… but I always do.
I took yesterday and Monday off - I needed some time to myself and I’m not that busy at work. Plus, it’s the first four days of The Final Battle and I figured that I would cap the first four days.
I had the bright Idea that I would run a mile for every day that Russian has been in Ukraine and donate $1 for each mile. (117 by the end of the event.) I had it planned out perfectly: Four caps would put me at 60 days. I could then cap the final weekend as well, which would push me to 90 before I ran a single mile on a workday.
Well.
I capped yesterday and today… I have not felt like a functional human at all.
I bite my nails. I always have. All the way down to the quick and sometimes a little extra. When I’m super stressed, I always manage to rip the entire nail off one (if not both) of my pinkies.
I saw a hypnotist. I’ve talked about it in therapy. I’ve worn false ones.
And I even bought this shit that was practically guaranteed to keep my fingers out of my mouth. (Oh. My. God. It was absolutely disgusting… But. It didn’t work.)
Several years ago, I had a great epiphany: I self-harm.
Still haven’t figured out how to get people to understand why I consider it self-harm, but the end result is the same.
Still haven’t figured out how to stop it either.
(Seriously! I saw a fucking hypnotist, I was so desperate to stop doing it. Apparently, I’m so fucked up that they couldn’t figure out a way to help.)
So anyhoo…
In 47 years on this earth, I have never seriously hurt myself. (The pain of a missing fingernail dissipates rather quickly when you’re used to it.)
Well, Thursday night I wound up in Urgent Care.
Managed to rip off my thumbnail and get an infection.
My thumb was swollen to twice it’s normal size and there was a little spot that had turned green.
It was the first time I’d ever been afraid of what I was capable of.
I suppose, in it’s own way, it’s not that much different from a blade slipping and cutting a vein or something.
Of course… in the car Friday morning on the way to the grocery store, I managed to chew off the remaining nails on that hand.
(All that to say I didn’t get in a cap today because I had a bad reaction to the antibiotic they prescribed me.)
This has been on repeat today… I’m not sure why, but it fits my mood perfectly.
I watch too many horror movies and my husband is The Chicken is Boba Fett. There. That’s a thing you know now about my private life.
I’m done.
Just when I thought I couldn’t be any less motivated to run…
RTI just settled their lawsuit with Warner Brothers, which loosely translates to WB just killed a group that is filled with people who love their intellectual property so much that they band together under the name and use their combined energy to do #somuchgood.
Yeah.
The Potterhead Running Club is closing up shop.
And because the PHRC basically funds all the other RTI clubs, Whovian and Fandom are closing down as well. They hope to keep the FRC Fan Domain group active, but no more medals. No more Racery events. Some of the PHRC groups (like Book Club, Transfiguration, etc.) are spinning off and will continue to operate under different names with volunteers to keep them alive.
But it won’t be the same.
The Tower has always felt like home to me… but it’s lost its magic. Literally.
There’s no other way to put it.
I’m not OK with this.
Seriously.
I’ve been crying since the news broke.
I’ve needed the consistency and the friendship and the sense of family the clubs were filled with.
And now it’s going away.
And I don’t know what to do with myself.
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I joke all the time that I’m not all that great at the social part of social media.
But let’s call it what it is: I collect people and then I barely interact with them. That’s why I have like 75 or 80 Facebook friends and most of my newsfeed is either (Ukrainian) bands or RTI groups. Anything more is overwhelming.
Shit, I haven’t spoken to my best friend, my little brother from another mother for two years now.
I’m just not good at it.
I keep coming back to the therapist that asked me why I don’t let people get close. Why I don’t let them help me through the Dark Days and The Ick.
I hate me during those times. I definitely don’t want to subject people I care about to that… which is why I am SO FUCKING HAPPY that my husband has been able to tolerate it.
We’ve been together since 1998 and got married in 2002. He’s a fucking saint.
A. FUCKING. SAINT.
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We’re doing a Stand with, or Support, Ukraine 5k locally tomorrow (whatever, I can’t remember the name). Proceeds are going to the Ukrainian Red Cross. I know they’re having problems selling the race, so who knows how much is actually going to Ukraine, but it’s still… something.
My tryzub sticker is on my car. We went shopping for shelving today and managed to fit it in the car. (I HAVE A TRUNK AGAIN! I might have started jumping up and down in the parking lot screaming my joy… have I mentioned my husband is a saint? Yup.) My Deathly Hallows is also on my car.
The only thing I’m missing are my race stickers. I can’t decide if I want to put them on now and add the marathon after, or do all four after and see if I can find a Dopey sticker.
Just a reminder… Harry Potter and his friends won that war. Avada Kedavra!
As I’m doing my quick run through of Facebook, I stumbled upon a video of Святослав Вакарчук (lead singer of Океан Ельзи (Okean Elzy) - probably Ukraine’s biggest rock band.) just jamming out on a piano in front of the Lviv train station.
Taken out of the context of the war, that would be the coolest thing to stumble upon.
The set list was awesome. It’s interesting how, when put together, it’s very obvious the message Slava was sharing with the crowd. Oddly enough, it was all songs that I love that have a special meaning to me. The majority of them I’ve used as anthems as a sort, too, while fighting with the worst of the bipolar. (I’ve cut and pasted my favourite lyrics thanks to Lyrics Translate - any mistakes cutting and pasting the Ukrainian are mine. Any English errors are not.)
1) Без бою (Without a fight) - Я не здамся без бою (I won’t give up without a fight)
2) Еверест (Everest) - Шум і тисяч їхніх слів, часом приносить біль. / Та дощ із хмари темних стріл не потрапляє в ціль. / І ми продовжуєм нести свій прапор, а не хрест. / Ми продовжуєм іти на власний Еверест. (Noise and thousands of their words, sometimes brings pain. / But the rain from the cloud of dark arrows doesn’t hit the target. / And we continue to carry our banner, but not our cross. / We continue to walk on our own Everest.)
3) На небі (In the sky or In heaven) - А часом / Коли я сам не свій / І в голові дивні думки / І на душі сумно... (Once in a while, I feel so blue / So many thoughts rush through my head / And in my heart sorrow)
4) Не питай (Don’t ask)- Не питай / Де я був коли тобі було так солодко / Де я був коли тебе таку незайману / Підіймали вище неба / Тільки сам на сам / Хіба не там (Don´t ask / Where was I, while you felt so sweet, / Where was I, while you, so untouched, / Were raised higher than heaven.)
5) Не твоя війна (Not Your War) - Бій на світанні. Сонце і дим. / Мало хто знає, що ж буде з ним. (Battle at dawn. Sun and smoke. / Few know how it will end.)
6) Місто весни (City of Springtime) - Бентежне століття загоює рани / Ще до повноліття тут всі ветерани (A turbulent century is healing its wounds / Even before coming of age, everyone here is a veteran)
7) Обійми (Hug Me) - Коли настане день, / Закінчиться війна (The moment the day comes / This war will be over)
8) Все буде добре (Everything will be OK) - І все буде добре / Для кожного з нас. / І все буде добре, / Настане наш час.(Everything will be all right / For everyone of us / Everything will be all right / Our time will come)
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As is the norm lately, too much in my head. Too much I won’t write about here.
The balance between blogging publicly and keeping certain things private is never ending…
I’m running out of icons and pretty colours on my little sidebar.
I’ve decided to scrap the third draft and start over again…
Welcome to draft 4, which is already filled with random notes like this one.
TBH, I don’t know which one of us was completely shitty when that was written, but my money’s on me. Beka seems like he’d be straight-edge. (When he’s not statutory raping a fucking 15 year old, that is. KEEP IT IN YOUR PANTS, BEKA.)
Yeah.
So much shit on my mind and instead, I’m tearing apart a story that I’ve already written three drafts of to play with new point of views and - hopefully - get them to keep it in their pants. I DO NOT WRITE KIDDY PORN, GODDAMNIT.
At this rate, I’m going to have to age them up… and I hate that. I like AUs, but that’s totally not the story I wanted to tell.
Yearning. Slow burn. A love story spread over three years.
That’s the story I want to tell.
And the one I am completely incapable of telling.
Oh well. The 4th time’s the charm, right?
- - - - - - - - - -
I’m trying to keep myself distracted.
The pending war in Ukraine. The new job. Life in general.
I’m a big ball of stress right now.
So, of course, the Sims released a new game pack today.
By all accounts, it is buggy as fuck, even despite being held back by a week. (And wasn’t that a week - the short version is, EA self-censored and refused to release the game in Russia. All hell broke loose. EA backed off and held the release a week to ensure that the game would launch globally at the same time. A whole lot of stupidity ensued.)
Still bought it. Haven’t even bothered playing yet.
I probably won’t get a chance until the weekend.
Maybe EA will patch it by then. (Or not. We still have bugs in the game that are several years old and well known by everybody. Like, there’s no way the SimGurus don’t know about them. Why they aren’t being fixed is anyone’s guess at this point.)
Also not helping is the fact that the 2023 NHL All Star game is being held in my backyard. At that place. That I used to work at. Before I got fired for being bipolar.
I’m torn between wanting to go and staying home. I don’t know which option is healthier.
I’m just glad that life is starting to become closer to normal again… I have a half marathon towards the end of March and I just signed up to run a 5K in early March. I have a Boombox concert to go to, and I might head to Universal on my birthday to see Gavin DeGraw.
reminiscin’ this ‘n’ that ‘n’ havin’ such a good time… oo-de-lally, oo-de-lally, golly, what a day
I’m in a few Disney running groups, but my favourite is, hands down, #runDopey. The people are so great in there. It’s truly one of the safest Facebook groups there is, everyone is friendly, and there never seems to be any conflict. (Can you imagine that? A Facebook group without the token asshole? I KNOW!)
So anyway, a while back, they created an offshoot, called DFF. One of the mods has had some pretty debilitating depression lately. He’s so open about posting it that it breaks my heart. It hurts to hear what he’s going through because I’ve been there / I am there / I know I will be there.
Behold: twelve years of psychiatric care records.
I haven’t had the heart to go through them - I had them sent to me when I was going to pursue an EEOC violation against that former employer. I didn’t, in the end. The money I would win from the lawsuit (and I was told I had a textbook case) wasn’t enough to justify keeping that wound open for however long it would take to go through the EEOC process and subsequent legal bullshit. In all honesty, I don’t know how much would have been enough… No matter how you slice it, it wouldn’t give me the closure I still so desperately need. I’m not sure that’s attainable. I’m always going to be bipolar. I’m always going to carry that stigma. Getting fired because of it was unavoidable considering how fucked up that job made me. So yeah.
It is what it is.
Acknowledge. Move on.
But, to circle back to the DFF… we may run hills on Tuesday and flex on Fridays, but Mondays are mental health days. So many people unload their issues and we all reach out to comfort each other / share coping skills. It’s beautiful. I’ve been pretty open there. Even more open than I am here sometimes, because they understand in a way I’m not sure you all can. (I don’t even check my stats… I could be screaming into the void for all I know.)
They give me hope when I’ve lost it. When I don’t know how to talk about the noise in my head, they sort through it for me. Nobody tells me I’m crazy. Nobody tells me I’m broken. Nobody tells me it’s all in my head and I should get over it.
Depression is a bad-ass motherfucker and I don’t mean it in the ‘good’, Samuel L Jackson, way. Lately, I’ve been struggling. A metric fuck-ton. That group is my safe harbour. That group reminds that depression lies. That I am a bad-ass motherfucker, in the good way. (I mean, fuck, that man could teach me a thing or two.)
It’s good to find those places online - anonymity is awesome. People just know me from the little bit I share in the group. I love it. Face to face therapy does me more harm than good, because they want to dig, dig, dig until all my wounds open and I bleed out all the defences I’ve built over the years. Plus, half of them want to change my meds right off the bat. Um, no.
I don’t know… I guess all those words just to say that I love my DFF family. They keep me sane when no one else can.
