Day of rest

I don’t do simple sentences. Not yet and maybe never. To explain what I need, I have to really explain. Offer clues and context and descriptions of a word or feeling I am looking for. It’s a challenge to see if some can guess it correctly. Few can. I also may say nothing. Making people just guess or maybe give up.

“Oh, you mean you need space.”

Yes, that’s what I was trying to say by not saying anything at all. Or by saying everything at once.

“You need more? Less? Nothing? »

Why didn’t you just say so?

I don’t know how. These words aren’t there yet. They are not even complex sentences. They are stories untold even by me to me. So it can not be told to anyone else.

I apparently don’t like to write my thoughts out on Sunday’s. It’s a day of rest right? Except I don’t rest. Except I did. I woke and thought of writing about how complicated I am to tell others if I need something from them. It’s where it all went wrong you know. I didn’t say I needed more and I didn’t say I couldn’t do more. I didn’t say I couldn’t be more. I just couldn’t be. But neither could he. It is a shared blame to me. It’s also not a blame at all anymore. To me. I forgave myself. I am who I am and I also am who I didn’t know I was and am too. I can’t explain things well or I can explain them too well. Or I don’t at all.

I need very little. I was raised that way. I am not broken by not needing someone for every little thing. I am not even sure anymore I am broken. Or ever was. Just hurt. I spent the past few years taking care of myself. I also spent all the years before doing the same plus one. I just couldn’t find everyone’s things anymore. I need people to find their own things. Deal with their own things. So I can keep dealing with mine and keep finding mine. I have a lot of lost things. A lot of my own things to find.

I did rest. My legs are sore. Mostly my knees. They are older than the rest of me from doing all the things. I take life out on my knees. My feet are just the first impact. It vibrates in my knees. I squat for hours. Bent at the knees. I walk and move the knees for miles.

I went to work and I let my 6 year old fertilize plants for me. Remote learning. Remoteless. She pulled flower heads off plants so they can use their energy for roots. Biology class. She doesn’t have school right now so I’m in charge of what she learns. As I always am. I just sat and watched her learn. And rested.

We took the turtle out for a day trip. It was take your child and turtle to work day. He looks so bored, just banging into the corners of the tank all day. So we tossed him in a bucket of water and buckled him up in the car. Which is ridiculous. If I crash he goes flying out of the bucket. No way to buckle a turtle. He walked through my plants. He walked through the greenhouse. He hung out. He had a day of adventure while I had a day of rest. Like God says to that day. The universe said stop for a day. My knees said stop for a day.

I remembered an entire recipe. I don’t remember some things. I lost some chunks of memory from trauma and medications for a small amount of time. My brain froze it all to deal. Now it’s thawing. Recipes are melting right out of my noggin. I just got up and decided what I wanted to make then thought out the ingredients I would need and then realized I hadn’t been able to recall this recipe for so long. I’ve even tried. I couldn’t remember half and kept trying to make it and kept failing. It’s written down somewhere in an old life but even then I just knew it. Now I just know it again. Except I forgot pimentos like I always did.

What else will I recall? I know there is more, I know some will hurt. I don’t remember if it did or not. Maybe it will hurt less since I just hurt less? Maybe it will be easier. Maybe my brain has had some days of rest to rest to recall.

I woke one day years ago and just didn’t know where I was. Why I was in someone else’s house? Where my chairs were? Why I had blood soaking my wrist? I had apparently moved us to get away and didn’t remember. I didn’t know where he was? I was worried about him? I always know where he was and is? So I knew where not to be. It’s fuzzy. Because it seems ridiculous to recall. Like it didn’t happen but it did. I have the scars. I have the messages. It was all real but it didn’t get properly put in my head so I could properly recall it after days of rest. It is just gone.

Maybe that’s ok? Not to remember it all? Maybe it’s ok to sit here now and want to try so hard my face is squinted to see what else I can remember. I want to and also don’t. I don’t have the energy anymore. I tried and when I looked down to try I see I am wearing a shirt with a giant grease stain on it. From pizza. Right on my right breast. I just don’t care about what I’m trying to care about. I don’t think it matters to where and what’s next.

I am a little more anxious than normal which means I am a lot anxious. I can feel it in my neck. My heart is beating in my neck loudly. Almost to my ears again. I can also tell because I had an entire glass more of wine than I normally do before bed. I couldn’t get relaxed. I read all day an entire book I downloaded and then made dinner and cheesecake. It was relaxing. Or it was not? Because then I laid down and wasn’t worn out enough to sleep. I was too up. Then I chewed on all my fingers when I started to hear the interstate and all the background noises. I couldn’t get tired. Now my fingers are bleeding and healing from a night of unrest after a day of rest. It’s unfair. I want both. For the same reasons. I can’t just run myself to the ground just so I can sleep well? Except that’s how I sleep well.

A day of rest has created a monster this morning. I am unrested. Not irritable but just anxious again. I will have to nest and move today quickly to get back to a place I feel rested by not being rested. I did push ups. I can’t do push ups. That’s not the kind of strength I have. I also can’t do sit ups. Im also not that kind of strong. I was hoping I would get tired. I did not. I hurt from trying to do exercises I haven’t done since grade school and couldn’t even do in grade school. I just don’t have a lot of reasons to do push ups and sit ups. I never did. I don’t have core strength. I have leg strength.

I’ll undo this. I did it. So I know how to undo it. I know my limits with a single glass of wine and went one further to try and calm my thoughts. Then lost control of them. Then worked myself through a fitful uncontrolled thoughts sleep. Researched(obsessed)reasons I haven’t gotten my stimulus, googled deadly corona viruses, tried to find when the IRS would open again, tried to learn to French braid….Then ate my fingers till they bleed and tried to recall terrible memories so I wouldn’t feel them again. But would so I won’t feel them again. Then tried to do core strength exercises for no reason. Then gave up and figured I might just have to feel them again. For now recipes is all I’ve got and little core strength.