Alphabet Soup

the boxes (and bags) OF DOOM

I don’t know what started it, but there has been a trend among my friends to post articles about ADHD.

I’ve already been diagnosed with a few things, with bipolar being the #1 diagnosis - from several doctors, and even a few therapists - so bipolar is the benchmark.

Anyhoo… one of the things I’ve seen several times is the tendency to put clutter in boxes so that it doesn’t have to be dealt with immediately, but it’s removed from sight. And, oh, holy fuck, does that make so much sense. I’ve had clutter boxes my entire life. Once I found out I was bipolar, I decided that this was a symptom of it. I clean during manic phases and I box during depressed ones. What happens when I’m forever depressed? MORE BOXES!

So, yeah. In the spirit of full disclosure, this is about two or three years worth of clutter boxes (and several bags). We painted my office last year and I’m just now finally working my way through the Boxes of Doom!.

Why the Boxes of Doom!, you ask? Because, half the fucking time, they’re filled with memory landmines.

You know, those things you randomly stumble across that rip open wounds that had been slow to heal in the first place? Yeah. Those.

I’ve gone through three boxes this morning and I have cried during every one. My offer letter from the Cats was in one box, photos of my parents and I at Disney World in another… just weird shit that I am not equipped to deal with right now.

And, can we talk about that photo with my parents? The photo is of myself and my parents in front of the castle and we are wearing matching Mickey Mouse shirts. OH. MY. GOD. We were that family back in 1980. We were wearing MATCHING SHIRTS. (I’m pretty sure it was my idea, too.) I make fun of those families now… and I am obviously the one that started the trend. Fuck. Me.

I still have boxes and boxes of clutter - and memory landmines - to get through, but I’m pretty sure this is what the articles are talking about.

I feel both seen and attacked, and I don’t like either.

(I suppose the joke’s on my most recent former employer… I had two clutter boxes at the office and a clutter folder on my desktop and a clutter folder in my inbox. In my defence, those things did not appear until Ida decided to visit Louisiana this year and I was overloaded with minutiae. Oh well. I hope they have fun with that.)

I’m full of contradictions and hypocrisies

I may run at the speed of turtles swimming through peanut butter. But I run.

My Christmas present to myself was the top medal hanger… I haven’t done the #threewords in a long time, but I’ve been using Twelve’s words / the unofficial motto of the Whovian Running Club to guide me. Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind. Sadly, the only thing I’m good at is laughing hard.

We didn’t celebrate Christmas at all this year. Not one bit. No special dinner, no last minute “I feel like I need to buy you something”, not even a bone for the dog.

I don’t know. Neither one of us is feeling it this year. Which is fine.

Everything is fine.

 

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When you’re young, you got time
When you’re old, you built a life
In between you’re just along for the ride
Nothing’s in a straight line, like the wrinkles on your eyes
Try to take it one candle at a time… - Pictures, Matt Nathanson

I’ve been on a steady pace of a new job just about every year and a half, two years for a long time. That’s when the honeymoon period is over, and the bipolar starts to affect things. Which, at this point, is probably a good sign to start seriously thinking about disability.

This job change completely blindsided me. I’d actually been doing well, and was mostly happy, but… there’d been some… hiccups. Definitely wasn’t expecting to be forced to choose between engaging in ethical behaviour and doing what was expected of me. I have a very odd moral code, but the things I believe in, I do not waiver on. One of those things is taxes. I am, apparently, on the side of the government because I believe they should be paid. The owner and I had several differences of opinions, but this last straw was the last straw. I’d already been looking for freelance gigs I could do on the side, and it was easy enough to find a real 9-5, so I’ll be back to normal after Dopey.

But anyhoo… it’s the reason I’m kind of stuck in my head.

We watched Emmet Otter’s Jug Band Christmas, as I’ve done every year since 1977, and it felt different this year.

I’ve been missing my father a lot lately. This year has been a bad one - I’m the same age my mother was when she died, and April 30th was the 20th anniversary of my father’s death - and I haven’t been able to get through it. Not that turning the calendar to a new month is going to make a huge difference in the facts of the matter, but there are no major milestones in 2022 that are triggering. Unless celebrating our 20th anniversary is a trigger… which it kind of is, but we will unpack that baggage in August.

I don’t know anymore. I know I blog a lot about being bipolar, but for every entry there’s a ton of things that I never say. I never really work through my shit here, in real time, and I probably won’t start any time soon. It’s easier to dissect it, in writing, well after the fact. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not tempted to do so.

So with that said… Christmas is hard. It is always hard. This year seems harder.

2022 is around the corner and I can’t be more thrilled for a fresh start.

In the meantime, I’m going to take it one candle at a time.

I don’t need any new voices

current mood

*clears throat*

NO BETA!!!!! WE DIE LIKE MEN!!!!!

Yeah.

I have so much to say and absolutely no words.

Quick recap:

13 days until Dopey.

New job starts on the Tuesday after Marathon Weekend. It was an ethical thing and not a bipolar thing, but I’m not going to delve into the specifics here.

A Sims genealogy challenge is probably not the right thing to do when I have too much time on my hands. I had to make a family tree to ensure that I don’t accidentally have relatives boinking. Again. *sigh*

Apparently, I am also a sudoko master…

...and most likely going to jail if someone sees my search history. (My little fan fic is accurate as I can get it, thanks to The Big G, but the topics I’m writing about are problematic at best.)

Merry holidays, everyone.

I never thought that I could be who I am

this. fucking. show.

Spending Christmas with Matt Nathanson again (a week early). His raunchy Christmas carols are everything. Having access to the Christmas livestreams until the 19th is not going to be long enough. (Seriously, his live shows are awesome… He is absolutely hilarious.)

Probably not a surprise, but I haven’t been training for Dopey like I should be. Because I’m a fucking idiot and 2020/2021 wiped away all interest in doing anything. I even struggled with Racery events…

I had signed up for a 10K/Half combo up in West Palm Beach for last weekend, and I only completed the 10K.

I kept a strong 16:30mm pace and still had enough energy at the end to keep going, so that was really good.

I didn’t even bother going to the half… because of George.

George is the massively nasty, never healing, blister on my right foot. He lives on the ball of my foot right under my big toe. He showed up during Wine and Dine, I took time off to let him heal. He came back for the Turkey Trot… and he came back for the Palm Beaches 10K. With Dopey literally right around the corner, I wasn’t going to deal with him during a 13 mile walk.

I had moved from Hoka Arahi 3s to the Arahi 4 and it made me miserable. There was something weird about the 4s… I don’t know what Hoka changed, but YUCK! I had a decent coupon and tried Brooks Ghosts. Despite being highly recommended, they sucked for me. They didn’t even make it onto the treadmill, but they’re perfect to wear to work. Then, I did more research and decided on the Asics Gel Nimbus. I loved them so much during several Racery events, I bought two pairs.

Only to discover that they’re the reason for the blisters. On a treadmill, they’re fine. Absolutely no problems what so ever. But when it comes to the road, it’s a different story. Stability. Cushioning. Blah, blah, blah… all things that I had researched and thought I got right.

So, now I run in Brooks Glycerins and am no longer a member of Ravenclaw. Because, seriously? After all that, I can’t possibly be one of the Smarts any more. Damn. I’m due for a Puffs the Play rewatch because I’ve been quoting it a lot lately.

I’ve got a Dopey simulation coming up this weekend and it was supposed to start tonight. Of course, I have a super bad headache. I was so nervous about my interview this morning that I skipped breakfast altogether. No caffeine. At all. The headache has been so bad that I napped on the couch for a bit earlier. I NEVER NAP. If I didn’t have such a hot date with Matt, I would have skipped the nap and just gone to bed. That’s how bad it is.

(OK. I AM DYING. Matt just looked up Disappear on Spotify because he couldn’t remember the chord it started with. I still think looking for his own lyrics on google was the best, though. Fuck, dude. That show was the last IRL concert we attended. That’s way too long to go without live music.)

(STILL DYING. He’s totally fucking up Bottom of the Sea now… which he also just listened to on Spotify because he couldn’t remember that one, either.)

Short post, but there’s a lot of noise in my head right now and I can’t focus on squat right now. I also have a lot of stuff to talk about, but there’s also a bunch of stuff I don’t want to talk about, either.