I dreamt I kept moving dryers and cleaning under them. Everywhere I went I was cleaning under a dryer. Scraping lint caked with soap and layers of clean dry filth. Why is it so dirty under a dryer? It should be clean with maybe some lint. I don’t think this dream could be interpreted if I tried. It is likely a side effect of my strong antibiotic for Lyme or symptom of Lyme. I worried the tick disease is working on my brain right now. Attacking it. I sat up twice in the night panicking about it moving through my body and causing damage. I don’t even know how it does. My hands and feet burn and tingle when in water. Why? Tick disease or medicine for tick disease. Or something else.
The medication says to avoid prolonged exposure to the sun. What kind of directions is that? How long? Prolonged for me would be staying out longer than 6-7 days. So I went canoeing for my daughters birthday with her. For about 3 hours exposed to the sun. Barely exposed for me. I am fried. It is like my first sun burn I ever had. Like my skin is brand new and for the first time exposed to the sun. It is so red I look like crab legs. It’s red on top of tan I get for years. I over exposed. Avoid prolonged exposure should say. Don’t go outside. At all.
I woke with my arms asleep up to my shoulders. It’s like they were dead. I panicked and threw myself from bed when I couldn’t find my arms. Landing on my dead arms. Now my arms hurt now that they are properly awake. I must have slept if my arms got so comfy they slept themselves.
So I woke from so much turmoil I feel exhausted. I am exhausted from a day of celebrating the birth of my last baby who is happy I kept her alive for 7 years. It has been a rough 7 years.
She said the boat needs boated. My dads boat. His canoe really. She is right. So we boated. It was exhausting to keep her still. It is always exhausting to keep her still. I talk softly to my dad and say how sorry I am. For all the times he had to try and keep me still. Tell me to stop moving, hold still. Then gave up. Some of us just can’t hold still. Someday I will have to give up. Let her not be still. Let her go. Be her. She was basically the dead weight on the boat. She is a terrible dead weight. Sit in the middle and just don’t move. We did not stay still. It’s a boat it moves. I worried she would fall out and sink to the bottom somehow. 7 years was all she got? I know this is ridiculous but the ridiculous is just thought through then it’s gone. She had her floating device on. She was wiggling but unlikely to fall out unless we all tipped right over in a flat calm lake. Not likely to happen. My dad made the boat so I knew it would float and not sink. She is a strong swimmer. I am too. I also just wouldn’t let this happen.
And it didn’t. Like so many of the things I think don’t. But then I’m relieved. I also feel like I helped make sure it didn’t somehow. A tiny simple sense of control when I know I have almost none except for control of myself.
Which gives me a sense of control of myself. I feel less out of control. Like I need to stop the world and get off. It’s spinning too fast and I can’t keep up.
No expectations. That’s advice I was given to move forward with meeting people. It doesn’t seem like good advice. It’s ill advised. It was given as advice to allow me to feel comfortable with no one giving anything back? That I should give and expect nothing back then just be ok with this. What if I give nothing at all? Wouldn’t that be better? Easier? Or harder? I have a lot to offer and also nothing at all in my mind. I keep it to myself. Or, I give it all. I can’t moderate. I don’t know if I would recognize or understand give and take. I can give love but not receive it. It is too confusing. It stems from not just a stem but from roots. Then to stems. Then larger branches. To the whole tree. Then the whole tree was cut down and I had to start a new one.
I should expect something back. I should offer. I should not lower my expectations. No one should raise theirs. It should just work. Right? Once in a review at work of me I was told to lower my expectations. I said. Why can’t you tell the staff to raise theirs? He said. It’s easier if I bring my expectations down. That they aren’t unrealistic but to expect others to meet them would be. I left confused and frustrated. I also didn’t do it. Making him crazy. But I was able to get standards set on plant care like we had never had. A plan in place on long term care. Safety rules followed. Trees protected and preserved. Then I left. I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay at this job for my entire career. It was just a piece of a foundation I was still making. Part of my new tree. To get me to here.
I shouldn’t change who I am for someone else. They shouldn’t change for me. We should change and grow as two separates and accept the change and growth. Make sure it works still. Does your change make mine better or worse? How can we make it work? Or can we? People change. They grow. But they don’t do it for someone. They do it for themselves.
Finally. I blinked enough to get whatever had been in my eye out for the last couple of days. I was afraid it was also Lyme disease or the medicine for Lyme disease. But it’s dirt. Or a chunk of peat moss from my potting soil. Real dirt would dissolve and be absorbed but chunks of peat and bark hurt. I blink and it scratches my eyeball over and over. I might look like I have pink eye or coronavirus. But I just have crap stuck in my eye under my eyelid and am afraid to use eye wash. I close my eyes. It’s an instinct I can’t break. My eyelids are there to protect my eye ball not open and expose them to dangers. They fail me when things fly into them at rates they can’t keep up with. This blob of potting soil came at them too fast. I can’t open my eyes under water. It’s too unnatural. I can’t stick things intentionally into them. When I need corrective lenses I will wear them not insert them. They will be an added layer of safety.
I worried my sister is going to die. That we will all be focused on her husband dying from coronavirus that she will sneak in and die. He is the one that should. Not should but could. He has new lungs from 10 years ago and all the reason why they say he should yet I worry she will die. Because she could. She has coronavirus and could. I could. Anyone could. But she really could. She is worried about her cats. I pictured suiting up in a hazmat suit and going to get them for her. I can’t and won’t but I would if I could. For her. But I can’t do anything for her but worry about her. It won’t change it but it is all I can seem to do right now. I don’t want her to die without having properly preparing myself for the real possibility that she could die.
So if I never expect anything from someone I will not be disappointed. Never get hurt. Never fall in love. Never get hurt. Then never fall in love. Then again and again.
The vicious cycle of love. A broken heart for a lesson learned. Is it worth it? I am worth it. I think. I think someone would value in knowing me and asking me questions for once. Someone who would know that if they ask me one I will be too shocked to believe why they would want to know my favorite color and they would need to know I won’t be able to answer. I would always have a list of favorites. But how will anyone ever know this if no one ever asks me and I also then never tell them? They won’t. I also can’t expect anyone to guess.
I need to get lost. To get lost. From all the lost that’s inside. I’m listening to the wrong people because right now I can’t seem to listen to myself and really if I think about it I’ve quit telling myself what to do. So I’m not listening because I’m not talking. Others are. I require myself to ask questions to myself. Sometimes I ask others and then don’t wait for the answer and offer my answer before they can answer. I have fought this here lately. Waiting several minutes to several hours and even one full day for an answer for someone else. But never does someone say. What about you? What do you like? When is your birthday? What is your dream and goals? Why are you so afraid?
I am worried Lyme disease is bothering my anxious mind. Or the other way around.
I am fighting to answer all the questions I just asked up above because they are asked and now need answers. They are sitting up there unanswered because I asked not anyone else.
I am so afraid because if I am not afraid then who am I?
Aspenleaf 