I Don't Know What Made Me so Brazen and Bold at the Time I was Feeling so Wasted and Old

Monday night, a friend died. A musician. The man was always smiling. Looks like flu and then strep that turned septic. He was in his 40s. His daughter is 11. I met her at the hospital the week she was born. Their little family was always on an adventure. They threw the best parties. Everyone is just in shock. I can't think of what to say or how to react or even how I should feel. Mortality comes knocking a little too hard sometimes. I just keep praying for his family and holding a warm space for all of the people who lost him. I'm glad for the company I had when I got the news. I still apologized for crying because I'm still so ashamed of showing any level of softness to almost anyone and it has only been a few weeks.

I don't know how to accurately describe how I'm feeling today other than to say I feel itchy. My nerves are all jangling edges keeping time with the screech of the camelia on the gutters in the wind outside the window. I'm set to go to the gym and I look forward to it. I'm sick at my stomach like Nanny used to get with her nerves too. I'm not sure what to do to settle it, but it sure won't help the workout later.

I had eyelash extensions done again yesterday. A friend opened a lash bar and she says I'm the perfect test subject because I can lie very still for two hours and keep my eyes closed. My natural eyelashes are also very curly, evidently, which presents a challenge in addition to being well-behaved. Pretty sure I took a thirty minute nap yesterday. Anyone who knows me knows how odd it is for me to nap at all, let alone with people moving around and touching me. My literal eyeballs are sore and I'm all itchy.

The forecast calls for snow later in the week. I would like to request no thank you. There are a thousand things I want to do and snow won't embellish any of them in a good way. I've managed to do a little laundry and clean up after the cats since I got home last night after the meeting. I have a long list of things to do, and I should get up and do them. I guess that's where that notion stops. I'm so accustomed to spending my life surrounded by people that being alone in a house feels foreign and demotivating.

I had dreams last night about damage I had done unknowingly that I can't undo and can't deny. Damage to myself in an area of my life that is integral to my self-confidence and self-worth. And boy, did that hit the nail on the head. Tearing myself apart lately and not sure if it's good or self-destructive.

Work has been very busy today. That's the price I pay for taking it easy the first two days after coming back from a long holiday. Or at least taking it easy at work. I've been living life full-tilt. I've been eating and sleeping and laughing and painting and writing and tasting every bite of life along the way. Sitting here alone in the quiet of my house, trying to get a manual to publish to pdf, even that has me scared to death. I have an anxious attachment style and I know it. The combination of that with knowing precisely what I am is incongruous.

I'd been feeling so much like life was on a downward slope at my age. I know, for some folks, that will sound absolutely idiotic. The pattern existed, and one can only follow the pattern to predict future events. I think that's what's hitting me so hard when it comes falling down around me. I'd begun to believe that maybe my therapist is right and life begins at 40. And here I was feeling on top of the world again for a few weeks. I felt like I was 20 all over again in the best ways. I haven't been this happy since Jay Tate. Thank fuck I recognize the patterns that have had bad results for me in the past. And that I see them early instead of just letting the brain chemicals blind me.

I'm having this bag of mixed emotions. I don't tend to be territorial, but I have this deep sensation of crossed lines that I can't quite unpack. You can't have boundaries and expect someone to respect them if they don't know what they are. I guess a hard conversation is due. Feels foreign to instigate the beginning of the end that way. You can't get what you don't ask for and I don't ask for too much, I think. And even if I'm a whole pain in the ass, I'm fully worth it. You better hang on to me, I'm a good one. By the same token, you can't expect someone to give you what you need. You can't expect someone to be what you want. People are who they are until they want to be different. And that's not my responsibility. I'm responsible for changing myself when I see something I don't like and responsible for setting expectations and  deciding what I will accept.

No one can deny the happiness all over me these days. I guess with the exception of yesterday and today. The smile on my face is almost always there now. And it feels good. Of course being that happy means that when I'm unhappy, it's extra-rough. I was quite content with with the before and now I feel like something is missing when it wasn't there before and I didn't really miss it then. That may be all the confirmation my mind needs. All my heart needs for certainty. It still doesn't feel great, I have to tell you.