I woke early to try and wrap my brain around all the apps and online ways I now have to pay. Places closed or demanding you pay virtually. I’m still a check writer. Because I’m basically 18. Maybe 19. Except I’m 42. I’ve successfully managed a checking account for 2 years. That’s all. Before that I successfully managed nothing. I just managed. Barely.

My electric company never remembers my password. I use the same one whenever I can except for the various variations some require of a number of special character. When you go to create them I like to know up front the rules. The password rules. I like it when the rules turn green and check off that I’ve added one upper case, a number and a symbol. I like it when it says it’s strong. That no one will ever guess it, including the app that knows it. And myself. I keep my passwords in my notes. But they always say I’m wrong. So I reset it. Always. Then a change it to the same thing and it says it can’t be a password I’ve used before. This program is a little too smart for its own good. Just a few minutes ago it didn’t accept what it is now telling me it was. So I change the character. Then the next time I can’t remember which character I change it to. You only get 3 guesses then it locks you out with red flashing warnings around your password telling you you don’t remember anything! I reset it again.

I don’t want to pay bills. I don’t want to be a first grade teacher, or a special education teacher, an occupational therapist, or speech therapist. I want to be mom. One single day of getting a first grader to do math was enough to make me miss work. She did it. But it’s on an app and I navigate apps like a first grader. We are learning together. Who is teaching who here?

My daughter with special needs just kind of wonders around waiting for me to remember she isn’t supposed to be at home all day. Don’t I know she is supposed to be at school. She asks over a hundred times a day when she is going to school. It never lessens. She asks more each day. She loves to be out in real life. In her community adding things up on her calculator in the store and socializing. She isn’t a virtual navigator. She touches screens with people on them to see if she can pluck them out and put them next to her. Making the screen change. Where did all her people go?

My son sleeps. Just all day. I actually felt relieved that someone else told me his teenager is doing the same thing. I’m not failing. He will correct it. He has before and he will again. He had his first heart break and when that happens it’s the most important and only heart break he will ever feel yet just the first of hundreds to come.

I felt panic coming on. Like the knot in my throat panic. I knew it was coming. My heart said so. I didn’t sleep. I was too worried about a deposit that for no reason shouldn’t be going in to my account but my mind managed to create a scenario where it didn’t so I checked my account too many times through the night and eventually my account said I had checked too many times and exhausted it. My bank app needs to rest at night apparently. By 2 am it hadn’t gone in. I surrendered to a miserable sweat burdened sleep and woke and it had magically appeared at some point.

Now I can’t pay bills because I can’t remember all my passwords. Or they don’t recognize them. I tried to set one up and failed at the robot questions. I panic over these silly squiggle numbers and pictures in boxes that want to know if I’m human. Is that a crosswalk? It seems to be the corner of one. Should I select it? That’s a taillight of a car there? Does that count as a whole car? Why didn’t they clarify if they want to know about whole cars? Who makes this program? A human or a robot? Maybe we should test them? The squiggle letters are just as nightmarish for me. I will just turn off what I’m doing and avoid trying to guess if it is a capital t or even a t at all because it’s too close to the z and it looks like it could be a lower case l with the z making me think it’s a t. I’m not human? Or maybe I’m too human?

I haven’t googled the news or even googled. But I need to shave my cat so I googled. It was funny that when I started to type will the hair grow back…the top search was for a cat. So I went down a rabbit hole about cat shaving. People have actually asked the internet if cats enjoy this? One site told me to start with a calm cat and to whisper reassuring soothing noises to him to make him calm. Cat whispering. They all cautioned about the thinness of cats skin. That’s why they have hair. Will she be cold? Should I get her a sweater for when this is done? Her hair is matted so bad it is hurting her. Why did it mat so bad? Am I not properly grooming her? Isn’t that her only job as a cat? To groom herself? It says I should be. I’m not a cat whisperer. I’m not even a whisperer. Or a groomer. My cat would panic if all of a sudden I held her and whispered sweet nothings to her. She would think something is about to happen. Which it is. I’m going to remove all her matted hair and expose her too thin skin. Without cutting her skin and puncturing vital organs inside. I’ll just tell her that.

I liked that the tools to de-Matt a cat are called dematting rakes. As I’m reading this she is laying on my legs purring softly. I’m going to rake my cat. Is that what proper grooming is?

I shut down google before somehow cat dematt raking lead me to the virus somehow. That’s how a rabbit hole works. It doesn’t.

I can’t do anything today but first grade math. That’s it. I can’t get any bills paid! No one is open to let me pay. No one knows my passwords including me.

Once the universe aligns herself this will level out. There will be signifiant loss. There will also be significant gains. How? How could we possibly gain? From loss. Did the universe start to feel a shift and a pull from so many. Many trying so hard to shift and pull her. She’s fighting back. Shifting and pulling back. I’m not sure why she is a she. The gain will be balance. More will live with intent and purpose after such an astronomical loss. This is a wake up call if we listen closely. Instead of saying what we think we should be listening. Me too. I was shifting and pulling too much. Trying to take the weight from the world. Weighing me down.

Lessen the load. Give it back. It’s not yours to carry.

This doesn’t remind me of this specific story but it reminds me that I know to calm my anxious mind I can write about something. And for me it’s like that lottery ball thing where they ping all around and spit out number. I never know what I’m going to get. Or is that bingo? No it’s the lottery ball thing. A random number.

I can’t start from the beginning of my second trip to isle Royale without starting the story of my second trip to isle Royale. I’m not there yet. It’s still tumbling around in my mind as a place I was that still feels a little like I wasn’t. Do you know what I mean? When your adrenaline is high and you ride the roller coaster or do the hike and then it’s over and it feels like a dream. Or it feels like it’s gone. I tend to replay over and over something until I’ve exhausted the story or myself to the point that once it comes out I can finally lay it to rest. I write so my thoughts will die. I think to keep them alive. It’s an annoying balance of life and death that should just be simply filing away a memory. I don’t file memories well. My file system is messy.

I met a guy on my second trip to Isle Royale. Not really met, I crossed paths. My first trip to the island I didn’t really connect or meet or even want to. I felt like I walked with blinders on or my head down, sometimes it felt like I never walked it at all. Yet I know I did. I have the scars.

I was walking along the shore of Lake Superior, the Rock Harbor Trail. I had just left Daisy Farms where I slept after meeting two very interesting men whom I will write about later, we planned to meet the next day at Rock Harbor. The Rock Harbor Trail(RHT) was an a-hole. Of all the trails I’ve done on this island this one was the most heavily used and it showed it. It kicked my ass mostly because my ass had been kicked from the previous 50 some miles across the island. It’s also where the island drains to. If it rains it all runs down to this mud slop path. I was so sick of it after just a few minutes. I had to wear my boots again after my river sandals of 20+years finally broke. I had been wearing them for the last day to give my feet a break. It was sort of annoying because I kept squashing little baby toads that hopped up on the planks. I became very aware of my feet when I thought of all the tiny toad bones I had scrunched.

The RHT had rocks plopped on it. In it? People who didn’t want to walk through mud put rocks down. Or was it staff. To dissuade meandering off to the sides and disrupting the vegetation. You are supposed to stay on the trail. Go over and under obstacles, not around. Go through, not around. This trail will most likely be planks all the way. I was cussing out the park staff unnecessarily. Annoyed they hadn’t addressed this slop. But then annoyed, I was annoyed. I had to get off this trail. My plan, per my map, which I had, was to leave the RHT walk up to see Mount Franklin,turn around and come back down and then go to what was called the Tobin Harbor Trail(THT).

I get to Mt. Franklin to make some tea. To rest. I wanted to boil some lake water and drink tea as a little celebration of finding water on an island surrounded by water.

I came out from using the restroom, i.e. peeing in the woods, and I was shocked to see an entire group of people. Several of them. It’s like the whole end of the island where the lodge is woke up at the exact same time. They were heading up to mount Franklin. Would I like to walk with them? It must be amazing for all these people to be heading that way. I sat back down. I’m not going to follow them. I waited a little while. Then a man came up. A man in a blaze orange sweatshirt. Why blaze orange? Maybe it’s his favorite color? Did it have sentimental value? Did he have a recent loss? Maybe his year was full of grief of a father lost and this was his fathers favorite sweatshirt he wore hunting? This was all he had left of him. Maybe he lost everything in a fire. His whole house burnt down and this remained unscathed in his truck? He had to get away. To an isolated island to think. He was like me? Hé came hère with all he had left. He will be very seen. I’m all for the obnoxious colors but in the woods it tends to say. “Don’t shoot me, I’m human.” There is no hunting here. But maybe he is a hunter and is just used to needing to be scene. To avoid gunfire.

Why did he have so many bandana’s? He had 6 or 7 tied to his shiny new? backpack. He looked stuffed into his pack. Like he needed help getting it on. I looked at my own pack on the ground. Did I look this stuffed? I had just my two bandana’s. One for what I call kitchen, one for bathroom. Both of which eventually I tied around my sandals to try and keep them on my feet to let the swelling come down a little from wearing my boots. Maybe I should pack more? They say we pack our fears. Was this his? Mine is water. And sometimes protein. But why cloth? I can think of many things to do with bandanas in certain circumstances. He just had a lot. Like a collection. Each a different color. Each crisp and new as the day.

In the front of him between the chest strap and the hip strap was a little poofy pouch. Like outlined shapes. His sweatshirt was bulging here. Not a pocket just a bulge. Were they snacks? A map? Tools? I thought this is genius if true. I am often twisting and bending in ways I didn’t know I could to get to things. I had to ask. But…

He started talking. I hadn’t even spoken yet. He just started like a little kid non-stop. He was divorced, taught English to Chinese kids online, he loved audio books, he started listing books, he asked if I had heard of several but never let me answer. He was frustrated with his weight and eating habits. Did he have Twinkie’s and hohos in this secret bulge? He had never backpacked. He was staying at the lodge. I was starting to wonder to much about what his sweatshirt held to listen to what he was saying. Finally I said “what’s in there?” Pointing. I had sat on my thought for too long.

He says “oh that? That’s my stuff.” And pats proudly. Did I hear a crunch? Was it food? Then he kept talking about Chinese kids and English. He didn’t explain his stuff. I notice he is sweating like crazy. Why was he still wearing his pack? Did he need a rock or tree to help get it off? Should I offer? Just specifically to see what falls out of this “stuff” pouch. His teeth are really yellow. He tells me he is going up to Mount Franklin to get on the Greenstone. Then he just stopped saying his plan; back to books he liked to listen to. Then what? He was going to what, turn left or right, come back down? Did he have a map? I was him once. He looked packed for days yet it sounded like a day trip. Should I offer a suggestion? Ask more questions? Run? Walk? Wipe his sweaty brow? Now I’m worried he should be accompanied. Maybe I should walk up with him. Might be entertaining, he talks all the time. I wouldn’t have to at all. I also might find out what stuff he carries in his blaze orange sweatshirt.

He reminded me of a large kid. Like a kid who joined boy-scouts late in life. Excited but with little knowledge. He would be the one lost, the one to fall out of the boat, to get stuck, or left out. I never got to say anything other than asking what was in his sweatshirt. I told him I had to go. He left. I sat back down long enough I hoped he would get to whatever plan he had. He seemed so unsure of himself. Was this me last year? He seems like he won’t make it to the top to his next trail. I don’t want to find him on the side of the trail, but I don’t want to stay on this god forsaken rock harbor trail! Maybe I will find him sitting eating twinkies he pulls from the inside of his sweatshirt? Maybe I will never see him again?

Mount Franklin turned out to be just a view of the tops of tops of trees. It was by far the least interesting view I had had over my hike on the Minong Trail. My views along the Minong were worth the effort it took to even walk that trail. The “harder trail” I had been told the year before. I drank my boiled lake water tea and headed back down. I came across so many from the lodge. Freshly showered and pressed khakis and white tops. My dad always tells me to wear a white long sleeved shirt but I know for me it will last one single wear as true white. So many asked, what is the view like? I would just say. Amazing! Encouraging them to trek on. It will be amazing for them. For me I added a weird 3 mile walk to Rock Harbor.

At one point I came across a man and his son. The dad was telling the boy they were at the top of Mount Franklin. The boy looked 7. I lie to my kids when we walk too. I say yup almost there, when we still have a few miles. All parents do it. But this man was certain he was there. He told his son to write in his journal. What does a 7 year old write in a journal? His fears of being lost? His doubts of his father? His love for him? How strong and certain he is? Does he just draw a Pokémon? Or does he write at all? I kept walking. I worried about these two. Maybe even still do. The kid looked terrified. Could I bring a child here? One of my own? I idolized this father. He is braver than me.

I saw the guy with the stuff later that day. He was walking around by the lodge with a beer in his hands. The can looked too big for his hands. Again, like a big kid, holding a can of soda. He saw me and stopped and said “oh I saw you earlier but it seemed I hadn’t seen him but now I did!” Did I?

Along the Tobin Harbor Trail I saw my first moose. My first serene image of a moose. I imagined before I ever came to the island of seeing one in the water just doing moose things. You know, being a moose. But for the most part of both my trips to this island I had been ran off the trail by overprotective momma moose more than I had human contact. They were dirty, clotted with mud, loose tummies from delivering babies, and pissed off. This time I saw one because a couple was stopped in the middle of the trail and shushed me. They pointed. Literally feet to my left was a moose. I could have almost reached out and touched it. I stopped. Froze in fear. Did they not know how dangerous these animals were? I got behind a tree. I found a tree to be my safe place. I watched as the moose did moose things. Then, she stormed out of the water across the trail. Shaking her muddy scug all over us. I have no photos of moose. No time. I bought a post card with one and was jealous of the person who got the shot of a serene moment that I had imagined. The patience.

Marathon.

I ran a marathon once. Not a full one just a little half one. That’s 13.1 miles and not the full 26.2. So really I should say I ran a half marathon once. I have no car sticker to prove it, just a picture of me jumping to the finish line. I don’t even know why I jumped, it was more of a big leap over. I remember right before it and seeing the clock say 3 hours Or almost 3. I wanted to at least finish before then.

It was hard but not as hard as I thought. Not as hard as others said it would be. I also didn’t train. I had decided just a couple of months before to do it and hadn’t ran since high school track. I was a good runner then, but I also didn’t have 4 babies and had grown by twenty years. I googled how to train for a marathon in two months. Google said basically, to go back In time and decide sooner. It didn’t say it was impossible though. It didn’t say not to.

I finished this half marathon in the same amount of time as runners finishing a full one. I never walked, never even thought I wanted to give up. I was actually mad I had to go left when the full marathon runners went right. I wanted to know what was that way. What would I see that way? What would I be missing? Would I want to quit? Would I need to walk? Would I die? I doubt I ever run a marathon again. But who knows. I know I can.

I found myself bored. It was physically hard, but it lacked interest to me. The most exciting part of the entire thing was staying in the hostile and meeting the other runners and hearing their stories. And my amazing pizza the night before from a little place down the road from the hostile. I was in Indiana, so I wasn’t going into it with a lot of glorious view expectations but I was hoping for something.

The most frustrating part was the time change in Indiana threw me off and I arrived way to early at the start line. Like the first one there. I helped set up barricades because I was bored. I had parked over a mile away at a Walgreens parking lot to avoid paying parking fees. I needed Tylenol for pain from my exposed root from a tooth that had broke the night before. I went in and asked the lady if I could park there and she said yes, because I had asked. Plus I figured a good walk back to my car would be in order after running so much. This proved to be true. What I wasn’t expecting was my legs to give out on me after then sitting in my car on the way back. I got out to get gas and buckled to the ground skinning my chin and elbow.

What I learned from this was. Nothing? I won’t be doing it again. Maybe. I just couldn’t figure out what all the hype was about running one so I think I needed to run one to see what it would be like. I ran in used shoes. Someone else’s shoes. I could have afforded new shoes but didn’t have time to break them in. So I figured a pair already broke in would be about the same. It is not. A broken in shoe from another persons foot is not the same as a broken in shoe for your foot. It may even have been worse than new shoes. They were heavy and one was too small. Actually my one foot is too big. Almost an entire size bigger than the other. I bought them for just a few dollars at my favorite thrift store. I usually have a rule about shoes used. I broke the rule to meet my deadline of a broken in shoe.

I found myself extremely overwhelmed with the amount of people who came. I stood by the little heat warming mechanism they had set up. Slowly watching the street fill with thousands of people. Are there this many people who run? I met so many from all over the country. Just little random chats. “Oh you have a blue bib, you are running the full? You are braver” “ Or crazier” he says. “We will go with braver .” I say back.

Then it all of a sudden seemed like too many. It was what drained me in the end. I didn’t just run on my own I ran with thousands of other peoples energy. I watched every runner I passed. Wondered what brought them. Some talked with each other as the panted. Why? I could feel the struggle for them. I would hyperventilate if I tried to talk and run or bite my tongue. Or fall. Or maybe even just miss a step and fall off the edge into water. Would there be water? I watched so many with shirts that said who they ran for. Their cause. Others run for others? Like a fundraiser I suppose. You collect money then run, then the cure is given? Or it’s closer to a cure? We have so many causes to run for and so many causes to run from. I wanted to be running for a cause not from a cause or for no cause. I needed a better reason to run.

I felt dressed wrong all of a sudden, I had no names or sponsors or teams. No one would be cheering for me. It was touching to see. People need other people to just be for them. You run for me. I can’t run. I want to but I can’t. I’m fighting a different battle than you. Run like the wind. Runners love to run. It’s what it means.

At the end I leapt. For the reason I said. I thought it would save me a few seconds. I imagined how I would cross the line. Would I fall, trip? Would I even make it? I passed people who didn’t. And were picked up. I worried about them. Would I pee right at that moment? Who will pick up all the cups from people drinking?So much litter on the streets. I carried water so I didn’t have to grab any water. I didn’t want to add to the work load of the streets department I know will have to clean this up. All the cups and pee from people who just run and pee. Do they? I watched. For people peeing.

I crossed the same time as a fellow coworker running a full marathon. I saw him at the end. He told me not to sit down. He is a triathloner. He runs for fun, for causes and no reason at all. He runs little 5 k’s in his spare time for training for his big ones. Which also were what he ran in his spare time. I had no one to cheer or be there in the end. So many did. I was there for myself, did that count? Does it count if you are your own cheerleader? What would it be like to have someone cheer for me? I have no idea. It would confuse me. Why are they there? Here? Who are they? How did they know I would be here? Who told them? Who did I tell? Is it motivating me? I don’t know. I’m too loud to hear them cheer. Maybe they are here for someone else. No one is usually there for me. This sounds sad. Except it’s not. It just is what it is.

My advice for anyone planning to run a marathon is to plan ahead. If the marathon is say, in 2 months. You could just decide next year giving you more like 14 months to train and buy and break in shoes.

Or.

Just do it. In your own shoes.

What do people say when they aren’t asking questions? What do they think about? I dreamt all the way through a story I don’t recall. It was one of those nights that I woke and tried too hard to remember my night. The ones that scare me. The ones that I wake confused I’m alive then relieved I’m not dead. I breath in deep. It hurts. Then again to the next one. It is too hard. The breath is squeezing through a tunnel that just hours ago was big enough for air to move through peacefully. Now it’s too small? Each breath feels like the last. Because I can’t seem to get it to my lungs. Maybe something is wrong with my lungs? There feels like a knot stuck in my throat. Is that why I can’t breath? Am I actually choking? On what? I was sleeping? Apparently soundly enough I don’t remember if I’m dead or alive. The kind of sleep that’s supposed to rest you. Leave you feeling rested. I was tired enough to fall for it. I breath again. And again. And again. Ok, not dead. Not choking. Awake. And alive. Again. I’m lucky.

This world has gone bat shit crazy and I have left it for my own little world. Literally crazy. Everyone is consumed with the virus. They have it and they aren’t even sick. I have not watched the news for over a week. I can’t. It’s the same news. Isn’t there other news to be newsed? Are there still people shooting each other and murders to be solved? Are they worse because the attention is off so many who do these things? What about a good tornado? Or other catastrophic event? What about a birth? Or a wedding in royalty? What are the kardashians up to? Plane crash? No one is flying right now? Probably not. No one is anywhere right now. Do people even still wonder about the kardashians?

My dad is dying. I feel like I’ve lost hope yet I’m not sure I’ve ever understood hope. He hasn’t been himself for some time. And now he is in the hospital getting worse and not even from this bat virus. I’m sure he isn’t. I can’t even type that with certainty. I am also sure he is. Because he will. We all have to. Maybe he is tired of the fight to be alive. His body says it can’t do it. He won’t stop talking and it makes his oxygen drop. So his mind seems to say keep going. He is apparently aspirating and that’s why he has pneumonia. They also have said he has had other things and that’s what he had. They don’t know. So he needs to be quieter or he isn’t going to get air to his lungs. We can’t visit him. I think Hope is just not hopeful. I can say it. This is my hope. I’ve done this. I look at plants and think. Here is my hope? I take a breath and it fills my lungs and I think. Here is hope. Will I be able to again? Am I hoping to? It happens. Should I let myself feel hopeful they continue? What if they don’t? Then did I lose hope or never have it? What if I go to sleep and he dies while I’m sleeping? What if I rest and am hopeful he won’t but then he does? I didn’t lose hope. I rested. If I can quiet my mind enough to fill my lungs. I can relate dad.

I always cry when people sing Happy Birthday to me. It’s just such a weird day. I am happy I was born. I suppose. I’m not unhappy. I know how difficult the birth was so my mom should really get the cake not me. I did nothing but try not to be born. Too afraid? I once had a job where on our birthday we had to bring doughnuts for everyone. It was the weirdest tradition. I never did it. I actually kept it quiet I even had a birthday to avoid anyone breaking out into song. I will never understand required days of celebration. Any of them. I have created some of the silliest lies over the years about magical mystical creatures who break and enter to steel teeth, leave gifts, lay eggs all over and eat our cookies. I am exhausted with the Not truth. I would love it if they were true and maybe they are. But not even my kids bought it. As soon as my kids can ask questions they went straight for the truth of these people who entered our home.

I hope, see here is hope, someday I can write and it be just a nice fluid story. I keep thinking if I write enough it will get it all out. I will untangle what’s tangled and the space will be filled with what? Just my brain? I know I don’t have a tumor. Actually I don’t really know know that but I don’t have a good reason to believe I do. Like a headache, or blurred vision. I’m not even sure I know how I would know if I did. I have always thought maybe I have a little extra brain. More than some. That’s why I was so difficult to be birthed. My head was too big. But for now my stories are so broken up they make sense just to me. I miss my dad, it’s the day I was born, I’m lucky to be alive and need to quiet my mind so my own lungs can breath.

I am reading a book about anxiety. I’ve read a couple actually. I also can’t read them. I can skim them. They cause me too much anxiety for the person I’m reading about. I skim to what I hope is a reason or an answer to help. Or an unsolved mystery revealed in the end to cure my panic. It’s not there. I skim through their nightmare of medications, meditations, medicinal plants, various vitamin and minerals, coping strategies, therapies and realize, nothing.

Acceptance of who I am? Love who I am? Then I’m supposed to attract those who accept me. Thus allowing more acceptance of ones self? When? Am I just not there yet? I’m not looking for a fix to this chaotic thinking. I’m looking to know I’m not the only one who thinks it, or even better that most do. I write about this so often if feels like I’m afraid I’m alone. Or that I’m not. I’m both. I said thus.

I’ve tried medications to try and alleviate my anxiety. I can’t think on them. I felt like I was in a tunnel and everything was just beyond my reach. People were talking and I couldn’t tell. I couldn’t hear anything sometimes. At least when I’m not listening I can hear the chatter but this time I was trying so hard and just saw lips moving slow. Slurred speech. From me or slurred hearing? Maybe I’m the one talking slow, or am I hearing slow? Everyone’s arms even moved too slow. My eyes felt like they couldn’t go from one thing to the next. Like my brain had to play catch up to the movement of the eyes. I saw myself from outside and looked in and saw my eyes move but the image not. Writing about it feels like a dream. Like there is no way it could have happened. I lost so much during that time. I also gained myself back.

I fought medications too hard, my mind fought for control of itself, I complained and it was increased. Not once was I asked how I was responding to these medications. I seemed to be the one to say first I am fighting it too much, That might not even be true. I just don’t remember. I couldn’t store anything. I just know I would say, it’s not working, then the answer was, more. Thinking back, I was looking for someone to say I should be taken off. That I can’t be medicated. That I really crave the control of my mind. That I know it can be chaotic but not consuming. I had to find that out myself. Annoying, right? It’s a critical step in self love and acceptance. Learn who you are. Learn what you can handle. Learn what you can’t. Learn to self advocate. Learn to love the things you learn you love about you.

My sleep medicine was like I had died. That’s how sleep is to me anyway, when I actually sleep. I wake panicked that several hours are lost and I don’t know where anything or anyone is. I have to access quickly. But on medications I was there then I was not. Now when I sleep I can feel the torture of thoughts and little movements on the inside of my eyelids rocking me to sleep. I welcome the vivid dreams, I welcome the lack of them. The nights I wake and fall back asleep. I welcome waking and shaking off a feeling of something about birds??? Like a weird dream because it was. The kind of sleep where the brain rests. I think that’s odd. That a resting brain makes up such fun little stories then says, “sorry you don’t get to remember that no matter how hard you try, I had an adventure without you.” Wake up.

With sleep medications it was lights out, like I had been strangled quickly. Then, it gets worse. I walked around and did things with just vague memories of doing them. Cleaning with dangerous solutions, cooking with out cooking then eating raw chicken, cooking and not removing food from the stove, throwing up in the shower, walking around outdoors and waking to myself in a wood shed, make up on, clothes on and back in bed, all while trying to also manage my kids. I am lucky I’m still alive.

I have taken Xanax. Once I took it and was also on multiple other things, neck injections from a backhoe accident, anxiety meds, sleep meds, pain pills from my injury. I had also just had anesthesia from a little wrist injury and I was driving to get to a court date on time for my order of protection, for said wrist issue(whole other story) I was driving my daughter to daycare and swerved and hit a mailbox, which was always leaning way too far anyway. Then got to the daycare and passed out. I was out until I got to the hospital. Where an officer appeared to say something about a DUI and to sign here and what did I take? I blurted them all out. I listed all the drugs given like a grocery list. Once I was stopped by the doctor who protested my list by saying he didn’t show Xanax in my system. Well I took it I declared annoyed and stubborn!! My dad says ”stop talking” I was furious. I apparently metabolize some medications very quickly. Like Xanax. It’s not extremely helpful info to know about yourself. No one knows what it means. For me it means Benadryl=hyper and antsy. Mountain Dew=sleepy. I’m opposite. I have been told twice by surgeons how difficult I am to sedate. Once he said “like a big strong burly man!!”That I wake and move and toss around like a fish out of water. Is this a compliment? Can I use this on a dating profile? Does not sedate well? Will I attract an anesthesiologist as a challenge? Or attract drug users who will drug me to a point of no return?

I am the same with alcohol. I learned I am not an alcoholic. I was told to do classes for my DUI, so I sat with people who are. I made some amazing connections in this program. I still think of so many that I worried might not make it through. I sat and listened to the stories of so many people I wanted to help. That, was my problem right there. I wanted to help everyone in the room but me. It’s easier, right? I wanted everyone there to better their lives and wanted to be the one to show them how. I at one point started to think I had been forgotten. I didn’t get as many of the one on one as the others. Was I not as broken? Should I drink? My therapist there said, you girl are just not an alcoholic, you are a very strong willed woman, very curious, brilliant. She shocked me with this. I’m not complimented. Especially with brilliant. Was I? She said I had a high metabolism. That I should learn my boundaries, set them for myself and from others, that I had been through a lot and seemed to be looking for a way through, not out. You don’t want to check out, you want past it. I see that you don’t want to avoid or cover it you want to move forward and are stuck. Like the wheel stuck from the training wheels holding it back. That one wheel that can’t make contact with the ground. The wheel stuck in the little dip in the road and your peddling and you can’t get them all to move together. I have too many wheels? Take those fucking training wheels off and ride. She was confusing me with her bike story. Actually I was confusing me with her bike story. She basically said I was stuck. I created an entire story of training wheels. She said just take them off.

So, I bought a bike. Not just a bike, a mountain bike. I know that’s not what she really meant but I took it that way. I have battled more of my fears riding my bike through the woods than any other method of ”therapy”. I hadn’t ridden since I was a teenager. They say it’s just like riding a bike? Is riding a bike like riding bike too?

Do I remember? Do I remember riding no hands? Do I remember the training wheels? Did I ever have any? I think I remember tossing my bike down in frustration with the amount of wheels. But I’m likely recalling what I believe the memory would be based on what I know of who I am now.

Freely, with no hands? Balancing with what? I remember riding to places. I remember crashing while trying to also walk the dog we had. But not walking her, I was riding and her leash got tangled and I had it wrapped around the bars and I tumbled down. I remember crashing into the side of my school once. I crashed in lose gravel, dry and wet pavement, once trying to ride on the old railroad tracks. I remember crashing riding to my paper route. I’ve picked asphalt from my knees. I remember it falling over getting it out of the garage. I can’t seem to remember being on it a lot. I remember that Meg Ryan dies in City of Angels, maybe could have been avoided if she had worn a helmet? I’m not sure what she died of, maybe internal bleeding. It looked like a horrible crash. Although the story wouldn’t make sense if she survived. She learns to find a deeper meaning beyond herself, that as a surgeon who is she fighting against? She seems to find this then dies. Peacefully? Then forcing him to feel pain, which was love. A city of angels 2?? Just saying.

Am I good at riding? Nope. Do I give up? Nope. Do I love riding In the woods fast? Nope. I can’t do the things I do. I can’t see the things I need to see. I can hardly even do it. I can’t think or I fall. I have to think of every intentional movements to stay upright. Then I have to keep doing it to program a part of my brain to make it second nature. I have to fall to get back up. No one just stays on. I leave my bike rides bleeding, bruised, and exhausted. I’ve hit trees. Fallen off the edges of bridges. Braked hard while trying to go over something, making me catapult into my handle bars, I’ve fallen off the sides of ramps. I’ve braked in a panic on hills and then walked my bike back up. I hyper extend fingers. I have carried my bike through the woods too mad at it and unwilling to leave her. I’ve kicked my bike. I pushed it over the edge once. I yell at it. I’m a terrible bike rider. I’ve never broken any bones, knock on wood. But man it’s liberating. To let go and trust myself and my little busy mind.

I had no idea this would take me to my bike riding. It’s funny where your mind takes you when you let it. I haven’t really written about my medication issues in a very productive manner. I’m not certain it was very productive it just kind of flew out of my mind through my hands onto the keys to the screen to the world. Out of my mind. One more yarn untangled.

When I was little I wanted to change my name. I wanted something no one else had. There were just a few Heathers in my school but it seemed to not really identify me. Actually as a child I wasn’t looking for an identity I was looking or less confusion with the 3 Heather’s in the school. Why do we not all have different names?

I didn’t want to be a new name really. If I think back I thought it was simple. Change your name. Just make people call you a new one. Then you are a new person. As a grown up, there is legality to it, confusion, explanations, cooperation. In the end I’m still me.

Being who I am I prevailed to no end to make this change. I added just a letter to it. I added a P. To the beginning. Except it was silent. I was questioned by my teacher with her circling in red my name spelled wrong. “This isn’t your name. Please spell it write.”What I heard was you aren’t who you want to be. Who you say you are.

I continued to do it. It annoyed me she was grading who I was. Who I wanted to be. Who is she to decide how my name is spelled or if I even have one at all. Maybe I will have no name?

Today if you don’t put a last name on some forms they are not taken. The asrick and the whole line blink red, not complete. Please fill in or you aren’t a real person, just a half. Maybe not even half. You can rarely ask anyone this question when filling out forms. I wonder about people who don’t have a last name. How do they fill out their taxes? Do they have an accountant who knows the way around this? What if they don’t? Do they just put their first name twice? Do they make one up? Why should they have to. Do they just not fill these forms out? Maybe they just identify as no last name but really everyone does. Except Moses? How would Moses register for school?

Once I was called out about it by the teacher in front of everyone. I turned beet red. I do not like to be talked to in front of others. She told me to please correct my name. It did not start with a silent P. Then I was teased and called feather. Making me feel light and useless. I imagined I was one. And a light breeze came through and blew me away. Lifted me silently over the top and out the door.

In the end I gave up. I was angry and frustrated that my teacher was unimaginative. She was actually an imagination crusher. I would have decided on my own to own my name. I don’t have a great story of how it was picked. My dad just picked it and that’s what it was. He didn’t have a special feeling that’s what it should be. It didn’t come from a family member or famous person. For all he knew it was one hé over heard from a soap opera. But I was supposed to be a Nathan David. If I had been a boy. My poor dad, has no boys, just girls.

Today I wouldn’t change my name. I don’t like it or not like it. The process is too difficult. In my mind I will always be an Aspen. With all silent letters. No one knows. But me. That I’m an Aspen. My roots are spread all over as if I’m one big colony. I don’t feel as small as I once did. I feel like I’ve died off here and there and sprouted new growth. I feel bigger in a smaller world instead of too small in a big world. Just normal sized. I shrank the world by paying closer attention to just mine. Focusing on just my roots in life. Once, a massive storm came through. Wiped me completely out. But never uprooted me. That’s how aspen grow. Like a mat of roots. Their life is deep and below in a grid like pattern. It can’t be destroyed. It will always make new life. That’s me. You can’t destroy me. I can’t even destroy myself. I’ve tried.

It takes a long time to believe you have value. People can say it, it’s easy to say, easy to hear not easy to believe. It has to be felt. Value is a feeling. Or it’s a cluster of feelings. Like love+validated+strong=value. It’s a math problem.

You get these additions of feelings from others. The world is just made up of math no matter where I go. Something always adds up or is taken away. Divided or made into more by multiplying.

Do they make all natural shampoos just for people who believe they want it? For those who don’t want to use harsh chemicals to wash there hair and body. Is a sulphate harsh? What about parabans? There are hundreds of them with it in it. So it can’t be harmful. Is it what makes the suds. Is that pretend clean? I’ve tried both. No chemicals felt like my hair was being cleaned with mayo. Which is apparently good. But it’s food. My hair felt greasy and heavy. From my life or from the paraban and sulphate free soap.

I’m a dirty girl. I work in dirt, literally. I am likely just a harsh chemicals kind of person. I’ve gone days without washing on backpack trips and when you are done you wash twice. Once to clean and once to clean again. Did they find that these chemicals are bad on pipes? Eating away our storm sewers and drains from all the dirty people. Is there just an abundance of natural products needing used. Are we running out of parabans and sulphates? How will I get clean hair?

What makes people decide to switch? Is it the packaging? They always catch you with packaging. Pantene has looked the same since it was made. But the new ones show fruits and beautiful scenes and hope of a wonderful life and feeling of cleanliness in the form of joy from a bottle. With the added bonus of not destroying our sewer systems? Or saving the whales? That’s how I buy my tuna. With the understanding no dolphins or whales or other Sea creatures were trapped in the netting. Just the poor tuna fish.

I’ve been ruminating. That’s the word the therapist uses. I like to use rock tumbling. Two words with a shiny outcome. Plus, it takes weeks. Ruminating is what cows do. It makes me think of pasture grass all chewed up and hacked up then swallowed again, I’m not even sure if that’s what they do, maybe they throw it up and eat it again? Or maybe it’s just churned in their tummy forever, I don’t know. Ruminate that.

I hadn’t looked at an insurance policy until just about a month ago. Like my cars. I just get what they say and half listen to the words of deductibles and premiums because it’s boring. I’ve been likely paying for way too much coverage for way too long. My car is worth my deductible for one. My car if stolen by a Tornado or a tree falls on it can be replaced at its value. Not even enough to buy a car. I’m not convinced I need this comprehensive coverage and can’t ask the person who’s job it is to sell it and so much more to me. Insurance agents are probably more packed full of fear than me!! Always preparing for what may never happen. I could see him now. Your car could not only get stolen but then the guy who stole it could hit a deer then park under a tree that falls on it, then a tornado will sweep it away and launch it through a hail ridden wind straight into the River where it will flood. Or even weirder crash onto a boat. What does that fall under? Wouldn’t that be covered multiple times? It is all the scenarios for comprehensive coverage. What do they do if I’m in a regular accident of my fault but then I’m waiting for the officers and someone steals it? Which coverage is this? What if I crash into a car but catapult into the River and the car floods? Which one then? Maybe I should sell insurance.

If i came with a warning label what would it say?

Would there even be enough room?

Would it be photos of what not to do? Or how to do it right? Like Warning I always eventually do the right thing. That’s not a warning. My warning label could be little fragments of what I’ve learned the hard way. Isn’t that what they come from? People testing boundaries, people going over the line, under or around or through. Too much or not enough. Don’t hold down, don’t step here or push that. So many rules you almost can’t breath.

Mine would really be simple?

Warning I need space because I’m full of warning labels?

I like to think about once my grandma telling me worrying is like rocking in a chair. It gets you no where fast. It’s likely not just my grandmas wisdom I’ve seen it in many places. Like in a dish towel once even. Calming sayings on our linens. Although her rocking chair nearly catapulted me and my first born right off her porch once. I had fallen asleep and woke to a feeling I was too asleep, waking to the very edge of the porch, my feet dangling over the edge. The thing with her rocking chair is that I wasn’t rocking I was resting. Not letting worry consume me is what I have to do. That chair moved forward because I stopped worrying and let it move me. I was resting.

1. Quit trying to belong and just be.

2. Look everywhere to belong.

3. Quit looking.

4. Try too hard for too long to belong.

5. Quit trying so hard to belong to everything.

6. Sign up for everything to belong to.

7. Quit belonging. Un-sign up.

8. Ask everyone where to belong.

9. Why don’t I belong?

10. Go back to step one.

11. Stay where you belong. See step 1

12. Repeat as needed.

Yours truly.

Belong sounds like be-long if you say it enough. It sounds like it because it is it only with a dash. Same word only thought of differently when the added dash breaks it up into two words. Just Be-long. Take the dash away. Be long. Longer than short? Or just flexible. Was I not long enough? Being enough? So now I must be longer?

How did those two words shoved together make some doubt so much? What about so much? Put them together. Somuch. It’s not a word. It’s even underlined to warn me it’s not. It’s bothering me underlined. So why did be and long get brought together to make us feel like we are part of something. When we don’t need to be.

I can’t remember holding my dads hand….

I wrote that thought several days ago then hid my devices I wrote on. Too afraid to finish the path it was taking me on. I wanted to write about my stomach, my nervous stomach but my hand wanted to write about something too painful to make my stomach write about.

That’s where my other brain is. Or that’s where all the fearful thoughts drain too. My stomach. I have nothing wrong with it except it talks too loud. In a quiet room I am certain everyone can hear what I’m afraid of by the rolls of noise coming from my gut. I don’t have a leaky gut. Or a real medical reason for any of it. I just lost an organ.

I had scopes up and down. I once had a colonoscopy at an age that I had to convince my insurance I needed a colonoscopy. The only thing that came from it was that my doctor discovered how difficult I am to sedate and the nurse said I chatted about hickory trees while out. My doctor noted in my report “excellent prep.” I felt sort of proud of this. Like a star colonoscopy student. Yet I was furious I had a clean bill of health. I wanted a reason for this noise. They did find I have struggled with hemorrhoids and fissures from years of constipation unreported. I was told to increase fiber. To control what I ate? Which created the opposite problem for me. I felt back to square one.

I went to my primary once again for neck and shoulder pain. When describing my pain he said “oh, classic gall bladder issues.” Just like that, I felt certain to resolve. I did have issues with eggs. I told him. Not digestive issues, I didn’t know what kind I liked. I did have issues with hot dogs. Yes. Hot dogs. They make me nervous with their uncertain ingredient rumors. But I didn’t actually have issues with digesting either one. I was promptly referred for testing.

My gall bladder test showed I had a lazy gall bladder. Sluggish. Full of sluggish gallbladder sludge. It was taking my bile and taking its dear sweet time emptying! I needed a new one? Or just not one? Why would I have something so lazy? Could I change my diet and demand it to hurry? I knew the answer, I have the willpower of an unsupervised child with watching what I eat. this was why I was so constipated? Or why I couldn’t eat as much?

My gallbladder was removed. It was apparently difficult to remove, it was stuck way up in the liver. It didn’t want to be removed. Hiding from us all. I was due for work the next day for interviews so I had no time for a proper recovery. It was just a few small holes in my stomach. And one less organ.

I miss my gallbladder. Every time I eat. I want a new one. The doctor seems to take them out without much hesitation maybe I could get one of those? One that worked faster? Get a used one. Is there a place they take them? Do they study them? Where did mine go? Just the land fill? That’s gross to think of.

Why was mine so lazy? Was it my mind all along not digesting properly. I wasn’t flushing out the fear at a rapid rate. Holding it all in. All stuck up in la-la land. Maybe my brain was what was sluggish? Maybe someone should have looked at my brain? Maybe I should have?

I’m convinced my gall bladder was fine. I’m convinced that every pain I ever had was nothing but my busy mind stuck in its busy-mess. My skin hurt. My bladder hurt. My hair hurt when I laid down. I couldn’t be touched. My eyes felt like they hurt. My heart hurt and felt I couldn’t breath. I’ve been scanned and looked at thoroughly. Nothing hurt. And everything hurt.

I notice now my stomach. I listen to it myself. It has a lot to say. For starters it also misses the gall bladder. Now, my bile has nowhere to go. Except straight into the intestine. Moving things way too fast. I don’t even really know how to watch what I eat to avoid the creation of bile. Finally, this thing recognizes I’m typing bile and not bike. It took 3 times to type it to get it to quit thinking I meant bike. Now it is confused because I keep typing bike and I have to switch it from bile….who types bile it’s thinking? Just people who miss their gall bladders I say back?

Sometimes I tell my stomach to just miss it. Just let it out and say the things I need to. Not out loud. That’s crazy. But softly to myself if I can I think. “Shhh, it’s ok. I miss it too. Now we won’t really ever know if eggs and hot dogs were a problem. Now we will never know. “ I think if it was still in there I could have helped it move along. I am finally able to move this all along. I was to blame for its removal. I could have motivated it. I am certain. I just needed to find out how.

My fears are draining not the bile. Maybe that’s what bile really is? Fear. mine was stuck before. It was not stuck in my gall bladder, it never made it to it. I didn’t swallow it all the way. It sat for days in my stomach rolling around waiting to get out. Now it does. I demand fears to come and go. Have them then get to the next. “Afraid of that.” Next. “Afraid of this” next. Next next. Keep moving. Line needs to keep moving to get them through. Checking them off one by one. They don’t stop. I don’t get to the end until it is certain death. Which, isn’t always a fear. It’s a certainty. It’s the thought that makes me step back like being stung. It’s the one that says. “You can’t beat it so don’t be afraid of it, live your life until you die.” That’s why the other thoughts have to move so fast. To get to the one that motivates me. I can’t be stuck in scary viruses right now. It’s just not that scary to me. I had the thought and now I’m passed it. I digested it faster than eggs!

I’m more regular than I ever have been. After a baby once I couldn’t go for 6 days. It was the most horrible thing I remember this morning. If I have a quarter glass of white wine it is like a laxative now. Hot dogs, eggs and anything from our Thai house. Same. I have a day of the week I’m more afraid than others and have to be certain I al never far from a restroom. I miss my gall bladder when I first tried Thai food. I think it would have been an important organ for this moment of self discovery. I’m not huge on opening my sinus cavities with the food I eat and it’s also a terrible first date. Snot and tears and tummies running….

Do cats have gall bladder issues? Or even the organ at all? I woke in the middle of the night to my cat making that noise that should be an alarm clock noise. I just knew she was also on my new sofa. I went back to sleep. I was in the middle of a bizarre dream I felt I wanted to try and fall back into. Which I did. Which I think is weird. I woke and shouldn’t have been able to just pick up back where I left off. Or is that good sleep? Maybe I didn’t wake? I know the cat threw up because it was on my sofa.

I haven’t been able to write a single thing since that sentence way up there. Just in case. I wrote it just in case I needed to finish it I think. Then I paused and focused on the life I had in front of me. I am out of routine so the days I can’t follow my routine I make a new one. I sleep in a little. I allow some flexibility on the order I demand of my bed. I make big meals. Sit and play games. Walk for miles with the kids in the rain. Take a nap. Talk on the phone. Avoid the news. I can’t wake and follow my routine then just shut it off when I can’t follow my routine. I changed it.

My tummy is loud today. I miss my dad. He isn’t even gone. Just sick. He has a new liver. Not even new anymore. Just one that he got from someone else and it grew into his new one. He was born with a disease not found until he was grown up. He lacked a protein that was needed to protect his lungs. His liver was supposed to make this protein. So he was given a little piece of liver from a lady who said she had always wanted to donate a piece of an organ. She doesn’t have issues with missing her organs like I do. She is braver?

He does not have this new virus. They checked. It took 2 and a half days. I was told I would have to quarantine myself and kids for two weeks. What about all the people I had been around that I didn’t want to be around but they were just around. What about the Walgreens lady when I needed Tylenol? The people in my apartment who do laundry and touch railings that I do? Who will get me milk and supplies? Do they even k ow the answers to these questions? Should I even ask them?

I was given a warning about the census. A notice telling me I had to do it “by law?”What law? Are there people counting laws? I don’t even remember getting any other notices to count us? It probably looked like a scam or junk mail. I don’t get a lot of mail. My daughter also tends to through mail away. Shouldn’t they maybe wait to do this people count? Until this ends. Or maybe that’s the rush to do it? To get an accurate loss later? I just think there are bigger issues than seeing how many people live in the world? Too many are dying. Will they come here? How will they get in? It’s a secure building. Will the police let them in? What if I’m quarantined? Will they know? Then the people counters will be quarantined and we will never know how many people live in the world? I know the census is important but I didn’t know it was by law important.

I’ve always been this way. I miss him if I don’t know where he is. I’m really kind of like that with everyone. And everything. Like sluggish gall bladders.

Sometimes anxious isn’t always about being afraid, or nervous. Sometimes it comes as being neither of those things and panicking about not understanding the new feeling presented. Happy, calm, less afraid…more focused.i can get more anxious just by feeling less?

I try to even make myself panic. I am trying to go back and something makes me stop. It’s me of course, but it still feels like an uncontrollable force that can’t be reckoned with. The same as the one that used to consume me. Maybe my nerve endings are repaired? I had such frayed nerves I often felt like I’d been in a grinder or being pulled on. Stretched beyond my stretch. What repaired them? I tried drinking mushroom powder for several months out of the claim it could do this. Not hallucinating mushrooms, just ground up lions mane. In my coffee every morning. I imagined it going straight to my nervous endings and straightening them out. Mending what I couldn’t mend myself. I’m to the point I can’t drink coffee without mushrooms in it. It gives it an earthy like taste. Like I’m drinking potion. It’s just one big gulp at the end of the cup of grit. And it’s just how I like my coffee now.

Why doesn’t Starbucks sell this option. This addition to coffee. It seems odd to walk in and say you want a triple shot of espresso with a dash of healing soothing mushroom grit. You could ask and the lady would say I’m sorry we don’t sell healing powers just triple mocha, frappe mint, with an extra tall whipped something. I can’t even think of the way to say a drink when I go. I’m not a drink orderer. I can barely handle the pressure of being the one who has to insert my card to be read. I never know when to pull the card out or even when to put it in. Did I accidentally pay for all the drinks on the line? Did I pay at all? Did I mess up the entire system when I pulled the card out to quick? Why won’t she look at me and give me proper card instructions? I have intentionally pulled too far away from windows to even allow myself to reach. I will make weird noises as if it’s extremely difficult to reach. I can’t stretch that far I’m sorry, I’ve been stretched too far too many times. Here’s my card.

Even worse give them cash. I almost never have it but it creates such panic stricken looks from so many when they have to enter to tender change. The machine does all the work so it shouldn’t be difficult. What will happen to all of our cash if we get rid of it? Will it go in a safe? Will we cash it in for not cash and never see it again? It will be a national treasure someday. A place to view the way we worked. Just a room full of money behind a locked door. Would it be a savings account in a way? In case we run out of currency in the form of magnetic waves and strips on cards? Why am I even thinking about cash right now?

I can’t panic so I’m trying to? I can’t get myself to be worked up about a very serious problem. Because I can’t. It’s frustrating me that I read that people who aren’t taking it seriously are selfish. I’m the least selfish person I know. Who gives this person the right to deam that true? Does he know all the people? I am taking it seriously. It caught me in the middle of discovering who I really am and accepting it. It’s a challenge to me. 5 years ago I would be so afraid to leave my house, like they want and just never live my life. I’m taking it very serious i say again. I am just not letting it make me afraid. I don’t have time. In case I die from it.

I found that the calmest I can get is that I recognize I can get to calm. Then I get there and worry I won’t get out of it. I will let my defenses down and get hurt. All my insides and parts are exposed, like when I sleep in the woods. There is no side to turn to to feel safe. I’m a sitting duck. Naked. In the lake and waiting for what’s to come. Except. I don’t think what’s to come is scary. Or what could happen could happen. The duck just does his duck thing and swims and dunks under water, and flies occasionally. He isn’t sitting there waiting to be dead. I don’t know, maybe he is, did anyone ever ask this sitting duck?

We are all so divided. This chaos is creating more chaos in everyone’s already chaos. We couldn’t make a decision agreed on under the best of conditions let alone the worst. My real fear is the lost lives specifically because we are not a United a nation anymore. We are ununited. There is no universal language anymore. We are too many of too many different kinds that no one can see clearly that there is one. Love.

It can be spoken by all, felt, heard, and seen. It’s the one thing that is something everyone can belong to. What if one person says it loud enough for others to hear? What if one person shows or? The feels it, then touches it. It will spread? Where does it stop? Why does it? It can’t seem to spread the way obnoxious viruses do. We are told not to touch and be close so we don’t get sick. But we also can’t feel what we are lacking.

When I spray plants for insects that cause damage I’m also killing the ones who don’t. The insects who eat insects. Even when it says it might not kill them I don’t want to kill them. I shouldn’t get to decide this. But I do. I decide who gets to eat what and who gets to live or die in my little world of growing plants. It bothers me more than it should. I don’t want an insect to suck the life out of my plants and can’t always assume that a beneficial insect can keep up, can control. So I kill. To save my crop. I demand control and I manipulate plants to achieve what I want. It gives me a sense of control in a world that can’t be. I never win. I never get control. At best I sustain a “healthy” crop to only then be put in places that the same vectors I tried to control are welcomed back. In general most insects don’t kill plants they just eat pets of them. The same fungus I managed under a controlled environment is present when the environment is left to its own devices.

So why do I grow plants? Because I love plants. They love me back. It’s a simple relationship that requires a simple relationship. Its a simple love story to me. I can find that universal language I understand. Love is easier to understand when it doesn’t hurt back. When it doesn’t talk back. When it really doesn’t feel back. It’s really a very broken part of me. It is really a place I can’t expose to anyone well. I really am like a sitting duck waiting to be hurt. It’s not a place I can expose all sides of me. It will hurt. How do feathers dry so quickly? When they get wet they seem to dry fast? What happens if you use a blow drier on a duck? Do feathers get frizzy like hair? When they get oily from oil spills it’s difficult to get out. What are feathers made of? Just feathers right? Do they change colors as they get older like our hair does? Or just fall out? When a duck gets wet it just looks smooth not wet. Can they see under water? The same as us. Do they feel like we do? Are they afraid? Why am I thinking of ducks so much? The more I think of ducks the more I think of ducks. Then I don’t have to think of anything else.

Intense, excessive, and persistent worry and fear about everyday situations. Fast heart rate, rapid breathing, sweating, and feeling tired may occur.

That’s what the wwweb says anxiety is. It’s normal to feel this occasionally they say, but when it is obsessive and all consuming it then become a disorder. Can it resolve itself? Be cured? Not just treated? I rarely feel tired as it suggests. I am the most tired after being around too many bodies. People are full of various energies they don’t understand. I somehow seem to pull it all from them as if I’ve stepped right into them and feel what ever they are feeling.

Say you have a speech, you are anxious about it, then it’s over and that anxiousness goes away. But what if it doesn’t? I have replayed the anxious feeling of things from years ago. My brain doesn’t seem to want to file them away. I’m like an unorganized index. All the drawers are open and files are all over the place. Some are upside down, some go in and fly back out. No one showed me how to file my things?

I’m sure we can all pull a memory of a time we were anxious. But I don’t pull the memory, I pull the feeling. When a current event comes I should be nervous about I pull up the most active feeling of when I was in a similar situation. Sometimes not even similar.

I was so nervous speaking in front of hundreds of people when I was in the junior miss pageant. I’m not even sure why or who or how I ever did this. What made me want to be a queen?

I was made fun of because of my smile, my big cheesy smile because of my jaw and teeth not being aligned right. I was made fun of for this little glow that was on top my white blond head when I was little that looked like a halo. I was made fun of for pulling my socks up to hide that my legs that were way too long for a little girl.

My grandpa used to call me an angel because of this halo my blond hair gave off. Others said it looked like I colored my hair or got into bleach, both believable had I not been ten. I don’t know what I saw or believed. Who was right?

I think of the flushed cheeks and hives creeping up my neck when I speak. The way my stomach talks. The sweating, the vomiting. Fast heart rate. Choked breathing like I’m stuck in a turtle neck made of plastic wrap. These are my nerves talking. They are active loud talkers. I specifically pull the times my nerves were too loud and think of it. I can’t think of the actual speech of the moment. Every time I recall it it gets more vivid, more clear as if it happened instead of what I’m about to do.

What would I think of right before giving a speech if this was gone? Nothing? Not possible. Would I say over and over to breath and stay calm? Would it work? Can I talk over theses loud noisy nerves? Would I fuss over something like a dry plant I noticed and distract myself enough that I didn’t have time to panic. Or would I miss the speech from being distracted? No time to feel that creeping crawling choking panic can’t give a speech must tend to plants. Aren’t I self soothing by having these vivid loud arguments between nervous and calm. Enough to be able to convince myself to do it? I must be loud enough.

What do people think of when they aren’t panicking? Does everyone panic? Are just some able to say so and show it? I used to think my biggest fear was that no one thought like I did? Second biggest was that everyone did? Now I think? Now they are replaced by I am afraid of who I am when not afraid.

Are the calmest people really frauds? Or in control? Loud enough to shut themselves up? Should I not be proud of my blushing and embarrassment, show that I’m afraid but I’m not afraid enough to not do it. Show my stubborn jaw is set with determination even if my teeth are grinding when I talk not just as a sleeper, my legs are long but strong, my blond halo is my grandpa looking down on me. Saying you got this. All of this. Or is it just me?

I think it helps to just recognize that I am anxious. To be able to tell the difference between a simple Im nervous or a more difficult one for me is Im afraid. They are not anxious. Anxious is my body responding to the thoughts that consume me, not a specific definition of me.

When I am nervous I can feel it. I am a little antsy, more chatty sometimes and sometimes very quiet and focused. I don’t sweat I become almost hyper focused on what I’m doing to keep me from getting anxious really. I don’t like it when things are loud or phones ring or I have to listen.

Afraid. I’m still working through this. Afraid for me is doing things. All things I am afraid of. Very few things I do with no fear. In fact I can’t think of something that I am not fearful of. I am afraid of falling in love, I’m afraid I will love scuba diving, I’m afraid of jumping in the deep end, I’m afraid to say no, afraid to feel, to not feel, afraid said so many times sounds like I’m frayed! Like I’m unraveling at a seem. I still do the things I’m afraid of. Some more than others. Some I haven’t. Some I am too afraid still. Some I will never. Fear doesn’t stop me. It motivates me.

Anxious is when these things become too much. Or if there are too many at once. Or too many to process. Or processing isn’t working. Or a phone does ring, or someone tries to tell me to listen. Anxious sometimes happens sitting totally still and working and all of a sudden my heart tries to fly out of me. It is overwhelmed. I catch this now and make myself think about what could have possibly made my heart need out? It’s usually that I am not listening to myself. If I take focus off of me and onto someone else my mind tries to consume me like a disease while I’m not paying attention. I remove myself and sit.

It’s easy to say just change your thoughts. In fact I can do it. But all day and night I’m changing my thoughts like seconds in between Im telling myself what to do. That’s why I can’t listen to others. I have to listen to myself.

I know I’m starting to get anxious when math sounds fun. Or when I say things like math is always right, math makes sense, math is great, I love math!! This is when I’m not listening. I’m busy doing math. I am too much so I just do math. Nothing hard like long division or solving some equations that solve the world, no algebra, no physics. I’m not a math genius, my math knowledge is about a junior high student who quit listening when they added letters to numbers. So sixth grade math. Just some basic adding up license plates or making the numbers on the clock equal a certain number. I will sometimes do my budget in my head. Running numbers like a cash register.

Occasionally they dance, these numbers. Math is actually kind of too loud and boring. So I make them wiggle around and dance or sing. I’m like a kindergarten math class poster. My numbers have faces with smiles and blinky eyes. It’s just more entertaining.

I’m rarely listening to others. I am busy. I don’t even listen to the lady programmed to give directions in my car. I frustrate her. She is always rerouting me and confusing me.

I am often given instruction to places and hear half to none of them. How to fold a camping stove? I have returned to the store twice to be shown. How to operate a backhoe? I will just need to try it and be shown again? How to tie a shoe? I can only imagine how hard it was to teach me to tie a shoe. To this day I still think it’s wrong. I change the way I tie my shoes like some change their socks. Daily. I just think there has to be a more secure way to keep a shoe on. People do lose shoes. I don’t know how but there is often just a single shoe somewhere. Did they walk right out of it? How can you lose just the one? Was it not tied at all?

Im always worried the world is full of people who don’t listen. Leaving me to wonder who else isn’t getting places I’ve told them to go? Should I have drawn a map? Are there lost people because I didn’t know to use my hands more to direct them? Explain further with a little visual aide?

I need to get back to my routine. This is all going to be ok. I found one single positive outlook from someone and will hang onto it for dear life. Its a choice to make. I can follow the rules. I can also keep living my life at the same time. It’s just a basic change in the path. I was on one and then it had to change. I had to turn off a path that isn’t charted yet. This will require a map. It may not even have one made in your head yet.

Once a trail I was on was closed. I even asked if it had any closures. The guy said we don’t but the other entity might. He told me a story about bats and the rules and I didn’t quite listen. This land changed hands somewhere in the middle of the trail. The other entity didn’t know of a trail closure but said the other one might. No one seemed to know who did what in this place. But the bats were safe.

I was about half way through and it was just gone. They were removing dead Ash trees at a time of year not to disrupt bats. I found this thought comforting enough not to panic. I was going to have to navigate the woods to find the trail through about 11 miles of my trail missing. Piece of cake. I found water in the map. And followed it. It reconnected me to the other side of my loop. I had my map but once I found my little creek I didn’t seem to need it. It was one of my most adventurous trails I ever went on. Funny because it’s called the adventure trail.

This is just my new anxious adventure trail. I have navigated these things before. Easy-peasy.

I’ve been anxious all last week. I slept weirder than usual. I didn’t do anything I should have. I left routines behind because they are telling us what to do right now. How to feel. To be afraid. I am afraid, just not of myself.