How to be vulnerable?

Share it all. Just do it. Go out on a limb. Take a risk. Pick your audience. Learn from it. Do it again. Go out on a bigger limb. Show weakness, it’s seen as strength, feels like weak, sounds like weak until it is heard by someone who felt weak once too. But was really very strong. Vulnerability is strength. Share and care and care and share back? Right?

Usually after I share some of my biggest vulnerabilities. Or share some of my most difficult stories. I hear nothing back. I know that I don’t have to right away but just never anything back. I’m not very careful about choosing my audience and deciding who I feel is worth sharing my story with. I just share. I want to care. I share even more when someone starts it. But usually I’m the one who does. That’s where connection comes from?. Just share. Then they share back. Then you. Then them. Then everyone has shared and feels shared. Heard. Then over shared then cared for. But I fear. I also over share hoping someone might care. I want to care the most so I share the most. Then fear the most.

It’s a huge fear of mine. Being attacked after sharing a vulnerability. An even worse fear is hearing nothing back. At least being attacked gives me room for open unproductive discussion. Defending my story to someone who didn’t relate to my story. Someone who shouldn’t have been chosen to hear it. Even worse fear is that someone heard what I shared and cared.

I still fear sex. Not intimacy, but sex. It’s too powerful. I panic of the pain that will occur. And it will or or could because it always has. I cringe at the thought of pain. The problem with this is, it doesn’t change the desire for sex. It has always been associated to someone having an upper hand. It has been said. The harder you fight the worse it will hurt.

It’s my biggest weakness. Maybe not a weakness but my most vulnerable story I know. Sharing it makes people leave. Sharing it with the right people even makes them leave. They care when I share but they may fear as well.

I don’t get into why because it is also too painful. Pain is pain. No matter how or why it is pain. A paper cut will hurt some the same as a deep knife wound to others. I just have a story that I own that I don’t share. I don’t want anyone to care about this share.

I am where I am right now. I need others. I didn’t and don’t usually but I just do now. I struggle to tell them I do. Everyone has their own lives and I have mine but I need them in mine a little more than normal. I still worry I’m not ok to go into the woods alone. I fear I will never come out. I have bought an extremely expensive gps communication system to navigate for me. It also boasts an sos button for just in case. I will use it likely when I don’t or shouldn’t. Sharing where I am so someone will care where I am. No real emergency other than come find me. This was a terrible device to buy but I’m too afraid to be on my own.

I am too afraid of myself right now. Maybe that’s not quite right. I am just not myself right now. I’m mad at the world. I am struggling to work. To eat. And to breath. For no reason other than grief and loss, no real good reason. Others struggle for real and I’m just struggling for not real. I should be able to do this. Be who I am. Be ok with who I am. Again. I’ve done it before and I can do it again. I’ve been this lost before and found my way back without a fancy gps. I’m going to lose it or break it or never figure it out. Right now I struggle to get it out of the box. It’s still in the box. I will probably visit my outdoor store multiple times making the guy show me how to use it over and over while I don’t listen but look at his one eye with a color blob in it different than the other eye and struggle even more to listen with a mask muffling his instructions. I did this with my camp stove. I couldn’t fold it back up and kept going In and making him do it. Just to have company sometimes I think. Sometimes I just want to take him with me and make him be my guide. Plus I really just didn’t want to fold it right. It’s just too many steps for such a small thing.

My daughter with special needs isn’t sleeping and she is overly concerned with me. She left our apartment one night when I quickly ran outside to meet some friends who needed to bring me money I loaned them. She panicked from her sleep that I wasn’t in the apartment and then left and walked right into my neighbors apartment then told her I was on a trail hiking. When I’m not with my kids that is what they know I do. So my neighbor is panicking now. I’m found and I find Her in about 3 minutes. 3 minutes from hell. She does not like not knowing where I am. She can’t sleep unless she knows I’m tucked safely in bed. I have goals for her to live independently that she doesn’t share just yet. In her mind I will always cover her up and cook her food. In my mind it’s safer if I do but I want her to. We will someday share this same goal, as soon as I get her to think less of me and more of her.

I’ve developed a friendship with someone who is here for me right now. It’s so out of my norm that I panic with every conversation that it is the last. Luckily he reminds me it’s not and to relax. I need reminded. Maybe always. I don’t like to be told what to do but my reality is that there is a handful of things I have to be told what to do. Relax, stay calm, breath, breath deeper. Breath again. Sit down, try to sleep and have a good day. Maybe eat sometimes too. Not usually,but grief has been making me feel like I have an eating disorder and I have never had an eating disorder.

Fear has consumed me once again. I have shared things hoping to open the door for vulnerability back and it didn’t happen. I shared with someone new and it did. Now someone seems to care and remembers things I say. It’s confusing from years of not. It feels like it’s wrong specifically because it’s right. I give then you give then I do again them you do again them sometimes I have to a little more when you can’t and sometimes you have to when I can not. So my fear is that I am sharing and receiving back, it’s more fearful than nothing back. It means someone cares. I share and care and you care and share and then I care and share and you share and care back.

I was too optimistic. I let it slip for a day. To be optimistic for a day and not not optimistic. Not so much pessimistic but realistic. For one day I wanted to believe everything would be fine. Just not be positive but trust the universe to do what is right. Even if I don’t agree. I will be angry and sad again when he dies. But I’ve been certain he would. And uncertain he won’t. I didn’t want to say remember that time you died from a deadly contagious virus during a global pandemic after surviving so much.

Will I feel relief you are joining dad and your parents? I wanted to say. Remember that time you survived a contagious deadly virus during a global pandemic. After surviving so much.

For a day I wanted to believe that it was all in the cards. That it is what it is. That a slightly realistic but bordering on an optimistic level would welcome some relief but not feel pessimistic. Just for a day let go. Forget. Give up. Whatever I feel letting go is that is supposed to offer relief and not holding on so tight to an outcome that is both certain and also not. It’s uncertain certainty.

What happened? Did he just come home one day and say, not good enough, not enough. Too much, too hard. Too all things and not enough at the same time. When will I get past this. I had days like that. Days I just couldn’t do it but I did.

Why I jumped from two such different topics is likely a result of my accidentally taking my sons rittilin and not my Lyme disease antibiotic.

Every night I put that antibiotic by my coffee pot and every night my daughter with special needs gets up and puts it away. She doesn’t like things not in places. I don’t have a regular medicine so this bothers her out. Every night after she sleeps I get it back out. And in the middle of the night she gets up and puts it back away and I even hear her saying . No not mommy’s, coals. My sons medicine. In her mind I don’t have medicine. This, is why I don’t sleep. I can’t sleep or she does things like this. I can sleep but she will do these things like this and I won’t know. Which is worse?

My eyes are way open. In fact I think I took it even last night. I remember thinking it was odd I only had one pill left when I remember there being more that morning. My ears and nose feel odd. I had to take my cdl test to renew my expired license. I can’t buy wine with an expired license or go into a Casino if I wanted to. They let me in. I didn’t really want to be but was curious. They should have looked harder. That license could have been anyone’s. Anyway. I tried to buy a bottle of wine but the lady said my license was expired which I pointed out the whole country shut down and she said well you had 30 days and I said it was still shut down then. Then she said I could now and I said I know I haven’t had time. She looks at me with her eyes and her covered mouth I can’t tell if it is telling me she isn’t budging. I study her and say you know most your staff don’t even card me and sometimes they enter their own birthday instead of actually looking at mine. Take that. Then we stared it out and I set the wine down and was just going to leave and the lady behind me was like I will buy it and then her license was also expired but didn’t make the machine not allow it. So I have my bottle of wine that I don’t even really want.

I was able to get my license renewed finally today after a nice 4 hour wait on the drivers facility sidewalks. I stayed optimist through the entire wait. Cheering every small move forward as if we made it to the moon. Taking on gazes and glares from on lookers as I shouted out my optimistic outlook on waiting in 300 foot long lines so I can not have a stare out and have unnecessary discussions with grocery staff about anything ever again. I never felt the feeling I was about to lose my bonkers waiting. We wait now. It’s longer and it’s longer lines. It’s harder and it’s even more harder. The man in front of me danced and pranced in his pants and nearly left after he was almost there. He was on a bike to get just an Id. He didn’t even want to drive. He was testing my new declaration of optimism with his own stance on not.

I never want to go to this facility again, But I may need to someday have to use this license or maybe get stopped and I just needed this loose end tidied up. Next loose end. Taxes. I have a lot of coronavirus shutdown loose ends to tie up.

How do you describe the scent of a man? It’s easy to describe a women. Or it can be. Floral, citrus, like magnolias. What about a natural scent? I bought perfume worried i smelled just like a person and nothing interesting. Now I smell like a person with green tea and pear sprayed on me. I wrote once about how he smells. As soon as I could find the words. And the smells. It was like the woods after it rained but was just hot. Wet hot woods. But sometimes like dried mustard or a dried something, almost earthy like dirt but not like dry dirt. I said you smell like a man but that isn’t a thing. Men have all kinds of smells sometimes just from what they eat or do for a job. Sometimes they may smell like flowers and citrus and magnolias too. The scent of a man and a woman know no gender. We want to smell like what we want to smell like or we just smell like what we smell like.

So sad story. My daughters fish is missing. Likely in the tummy of the cat. Or I just have a beta fish lose in the house. She thinks you can get a fish out to play. She got him out and put him in the tea kettle to have tea with her. But she left him in the little tea kettle and then we ran an errand and now the tea kettle is void a beta fish and my cat looks suspicious. My cat looks fed. Acts fed. I don’t want to find this fish someday not eaten by the cat so I’m sort of hoping it was eaten by the cat.

I feel like I shouldn’t need a no fish out of the tanks rule but I may need a no fish out of the tanks rule. I have this kind of kid. Same kind of kid as her mom. I let birds out. I didn’t like them in cages and was always letting our bird be out and take showers with me and be in the kitchen on the counter when I was doing dishes. Putting soap suds on his little head and letting him shake them off. Once falling asleep with my parakeet suffocating if with love. I just thought birds had more to do than fly around in a cage. I let my bird go once. Out the door with news delivered of its uncertainty to survive without the food we bought it. It spent too many years in a cage and now would have an uncertain future because of me. But what kind of life is in a cage? Wouldn’t one last amazing flight in the open sky be better than days of banging around a bell on a swing? I would be a liability/risk to have as a zoo worker. Don’t let me know how to open those doors I would say in my interview. Wink wink. They would not get the seriousness of the joke they think I am telling.

I want to remain optimistic. I am not ready to give up on my brother in law. All the machines say they are supporting him not doing it so much for him. When my dad died the machines did things for him so we can tell him it is ok to go. I didn’t give up on dad I gave him the permission to go. He wasn’t fighting to hang on the machines were doing it for him. He was reassured we would be ok and mom would be ok then we had to let them take the machines away. I can let go and let the universe take care of things. I just don’t agree with the outcome because of the pain and suffering I feel it burdens me with. But I’m not the one suffering. It was my dad. Artificially being kept alive so we could have a minute to chat. It was the most selfish I have ever felt. I let it happen for about a minute then I couldn’t handle watching him hang on, just for us.

In my head I’m not giving up on my brother in law so that even when he dies I didn’t give up on him. I’m just going to let what happens happen. Let it go. Give it to the universe to control and let my self feel a little relief again today. I just can’t do it anymore. Try to make everything come out ok. When it is just going to come out. Ok. Let the uncertainty be certain or the certainty by uncertain. But just let go.

I haven’t written as consistently as I have been. Or should be. I’ve been with company. So I spend less time with myself. Just writing out things from myself to myself. I’ve had to rely on my hand written methods to slow some things down. To really write things out. I am in turmoil that is so unfamiliar I have to think of words to even write and then have to spell and then have to look up. I have to write in cursive so I don’t forget how. I’m worried someday someone will make an app that allows our typing to look like cursive. Connecting letters for us. We can’t even string together letters to make words to relay thoughts to tell stories. We have things to do it for us now. I don’t want to forget how to.

I know what kind of eggs I like. I don’t know why I don’t tell anyone. Poached. I like poached eggs. If asked I would prefer poached eggs. They are hard to make. Ask in a restaurant. They almost never do it or get it right. I could make great poached eggs. Just done enough that I had a little runny yolk for my toast. I had a pan to do it in. It was bent in places that made the water boil up and over the top and into the little dishes that held my butter and eggs. But we made it work. Me and the pan. Now the pan is gone, someone got rid of it that didn’t know it’s importance to me. It was my dads pan. For poaching eggs then given to me when he got a new egg poaching pan. I fought once over poached eggs and this pan. Only to then find it was thrown out. He said it was bent and he threw it out. It was bent, I just didn’t put an egg in that third spot that water got into too much. I am not over this poached egg pan business. I haven’t eaten a poached egg since then. I’ve eaten them all the ways everyone else likes them. Sometimes I don’t even like eggs. If I think of it as a baby bird all eggs are just off the table. But given that I can sometimes not think of eating baby birds I will say. Poached. But have never until now. I need a new pan.

I had to make everyone’s eggs for so long I forgot what I liked. I would make egg sandwiches and make one for me just so I also got to eat something. I don’t really like my eggs all stirred up and mixed into egg scramble. But if scrambled I like them with cheese to cover the fact they are all scrambled. I don’t like fried eggs from the crust made from grease. I don’t like them boiled into eggs. I like the long complicated process of poaching them.

Who came up with poached eggs? I am not going to look this up. I actually did but I am not going to read what I looked up. I’ve ungoogled. I will regoogle this Im sure at some point and know more about poached eggs than I need to when I go to buy a new egg poaching pan I will go down an egg poaching rabbit hole.

My brother in law is surviving coronavirus. He wasn’t supposed to and now he is coming back from almost dead. Slowly and likely painfully but coming back. He needs to hurry my sister is getting bored. She is shower curtain shopping and has drawn me right into it with her and I don’t need one. But now want one. You google a shower curtain and the possibilities are endless. You view one and it shows you several more to view. It’s not boring at all. It’s addicting. I could easily buy 12 and just change them out all the time. I have one I want. Who doesn’t want an octopus shower curtain? Who reviews shower curtains? Lots of people. People who buy the wrong length for their shower. People who don’t like the size of water droplets on some materials. People who don’t like that it’s not as white as the picture. It is not as bright as the picture. Why did I read shower curtain reviews until it was time to wake in the morning?

I’ve been enjoying having company. It’s not just company it’s good company. I have a list of things that have never occurred for me. I’ve never had my hand kissed, my head kissed, my skin lightly touched and told it was soft, been told I smell like flowers when I should smell like not flowers, been held and not me holding onto, eggs made for me, told to sit, driven to see fireworks, taken into a casino just to see what it is, put my feet into a giant muddy river, told to say what is bothering me not told to not let things bother me, asked what is wrong, asked where I am, then found, told to sleep well…the list is long. It’s also uncomfortable. To even have such a list after all this time. I should have had this list years ago. It is frightening me to be taken care of in any way.

I saw fireworks for Fourth of July. I didn’t think I would this year. My dad loved fireworks. Not like overly loved them but he sat and watched them. My dad sits so little. Sat. I saw them right on the big muddy Mississippi River. From all over. Then kissed right on the river with fireworks. It’s a Fourth of July I will never forget because I thought it would be one I would. There were so many fireworks that the air was thick with the smell of fireworks. No fireworks turned into the most fireworks I’ve ever seen in one place.

I want to be like others so much sometimes. Just be more something. More calm. How can some be so calm? I drank an energy drink today. I see a girl I work with do it and thought I could. She is never calm and I wondered if that was a way to get calm for her maybe it would be for me? I forget the last time I did. My eyeballs floated and felt full of water. I peed a lot. I didn’t sleep for an entire day. My heart felt like It was going to explode. So see, now I can come back to here and remember I don’t need an energy drink to try to feel calm. Or to feel anything ever. I never need an energy drink. I wonder now why she drinks so many if she is always so full of energy or is she always full of energy because she drinks them? They are bad for you. The heart I think. Or they are bad for my heart. Mine didn’t appreciate the unnecessary increase of beats to move blood but my body wasn’t moving to meet the increase. I was confusing my heart. I added energy but didn’t actually feel more energized and didn’t move more except to pee more.

I have to get up in half and hour and I woke at 11. Then stayed up as per my energy drink allowed me to. Anxious people shouldn’t try things to give them energy. I can’t even try things to take it away. It is fueled no matter what I feed it. My anxious is hungry for things to fuel it.

I am still not eating. I can’t yet. I throw up my Lyme disease medicine usually. I found a little relief by taking that nasty chalk pink pepto bismal. It coats my tummy then I take my medicine with a little food. Then it stays mostly down. I am almost done with the medicine and hope I am cured of Lyme disease. I feel better except for the vomiting from the Lyme disease medicine. I am still not eating because my dad died. Im not grief eating. I’m barely eating. It feels still hollow and also heavy in my stomach. I’m hoping the Lyme medicine is mostly to blame but I know this is not true. When it is done I will just vomit no more. But my appetite will not increase. I want it to and am completely aware it is not happening and can’t make it. I am a good eater. Its both my least favorite and favorite compliment I ever got. I usually eat like it’s my last meal. I usually eat for two when I’m just ones I usually eat for 3 and 4 if it’s chilli dogs and tacos. I can eat for 6 if it’s a snickers ice cream bar but right now I’m eating for maybe a half. I’m too full of sad.

We attract where we are in life. This is why and how I am in my present company. This is why I am not in the company of others I once was. I’m not there anymore. Is this just a place I am right now? My dad is gone and I don’t know who I am without him. I may never. I don’t know. I don’t want to know is the problem. He was the one to encourage me and get me through things. Now I have to do it not on my own but just without him. I can do it but I don’t want to. Then he is gone. And I am on my own.

I want to sleep. He wants to sleep. We both want to sleep but seem to sleep better or not sleep better when we are both not sleeping together. Which didn’t make any sense. I’ve slept the best knowing someone is there. That also seems to know they sleep when someone is there. Someone to tell me it’s ok to lay on them. Someone else who wakes with nightmares and sweats. Its comforting knowing I’m not the only one. Even though I knew this anyway.

He told me to take a deep breath. I forget to. I forget to even shallow breath. I took a deep breath. It’s science that this is supposed to help. There are studies and journals written about the benefits of deep breathing. It’s just hard. I assume it’s my last so I make it really good one. I’m not sure what studies would say if I was deep breathing to relax and calm myself but my mind was saying it could be it. This is the last one make it count. Studies probably still say it is beneficial. It’s not just about the mind. It’s about fully taking in oxygen to exchange it for carbon dioxide. The benefits of deep breathing go beyond the mind. There is science involved. But the way I see it is the more oxygen I get to my brain the better thinking I have. You make better decisions when you are fully oxygenated. You are also just more alive.

Who is he? I know who he is not. Like some I don’t recognize who people are if they are not what I only knew. So just because I know who someone isn’t doesn’t mean I know who they are.

My mom said he was sent here from my dad. What ever helps her get through her day. Whatever helps me get through mine.

I don’t want someone to make me poached eggs just to know that is what I like. I can make them. Maybe. Without the only pan I’ve ever made them in I will have to make them new again. I will have to try to make them again. After I buy a pan and research the history of poached eggs

I can’t sit still this morning. My daughter is acting weird and anxious. She asks me the same questions on average 25 times. In a row. I don’t answer sometimes because she still asks to confirm the answer to the question. So why answer. Eventually she answers for herself. She knows the answer. I have to wait for it. Where we going? Oh, to Molly’s. She says after 25 times. Supper? Oh, cheeseburgers. Maybe? I say. She says maybe back then asks again. And I agree so we eat cheeseburgers about 25 times a month. To avoid the questions. If I say fish she says. Not fish, cheeseburgers until I agree.

She wakes most nights so I don’t sleep most nights to make sure she doesn’t burn down my building or leave it. She is extra anxious without a consistent routine. Coronavirus has caused her extra anxious times. She is uncertain of her fate and her meals.

I will own a new shower curtain soon. How can I not. I should have one that I picked not one that someone picked for me. I didn’t need one but I want one. It’s in fact an octopus to match my imagination that I grab onto people like an octopus and never let them go. After reading the reviews that say I should measure properly I have one on its way. Like in a day. Now I want matching octopus mats and towels. And an egg poaching pan to make my eggs in.

No Fourth of July this year. Not the way we are used to it. No big groups of fireworks. This is my holiday. I love the displays in the sky. It will be another new normal. Life is changing and rearranging.

I will venture off to somewhere no one is. I need to sit more. Not walk more. Sit more. Just for awhile. I know I can walk so I know I will do it again but I am not always certain of my sitting abilities. I’m sitting now. But thinking of reasons not to be. I have a mix of things in my head making me heart want to jump out of its chest so I’m forcing myself to sit to sort.

My mom isn’t taking care of herself. She shouldn’t be either. Her husband died. Her person. Not her other half her other whole. She isn’t cleaning up after herself, she isn’t eating well, she isn’t sleeping right. I am going to have to do these things for her for awhile. She will again. But she can’t right now. She can’t at a time I can. I’ve been preparing in my mind for dad to be gone for so long I’m surprised he didn’t a long time ago. That’s how I am wired. You have died if I don’t hear from you. You could die anytime. In my mind you already did. Then when you don’t Im relieved. I can do these things for her and help her sleep and eat right. I promised him right before he died that I would take care of her. I don’t break promises.

Im letting someone care for me. I am breaking all kinds of rules I have for myself. Moving and rearranging boundaries to meet my needs and someone else’s. It is the scariest thing I’ve ever done. Life is changing and also rearranging so I have to as well. I don’t want to do everything on my own. I can and I will if I have to but it’s not my first choice. I’m extremely independent and even someone with me will likely feel like what are they even there for? Unless it’s someone exactly like that. Or unless it’s someone who just is there and is stepping over my carefully laid out secure boundaries and I’m allowing it. It’s a choice.

One day at a time. I’m a time traveler in my mind. I’ve gone into the future many times. Right now I can’t. My brother in law is dying. I don’t want to travel to a time he isn’t here. It could be today. I don’t even want to travel to today. I have already pictured being told today and not being able to handle it. I will have to be taken home. I won’t be strong enough because I’m already not because to me, he already died.

I heard my dads voice for the first time since I talked to him the night before he died. My mom had a memory come up from 2 years ago on her Facebook page. It was my dad teaching my daughter the words and hand claps to a song. I’ve played it over a hundred times now. I sent it to myself and now I have it forever.

Where will everyone go? What will everyone do? I’m worried about the heat and the dry land and people trying to do pyrotechnics on their own. They shouldn’t have sold fireworks this year. People are going to go bananas with them and be hurt. It seems like they could have figured a way out to do fireworks in places. We aren’t going to be able to stop this until a treatment or vaccine is in place. We are not likely going to be able to control it. It seems part of a new world order.

Caves are closed everywhere. Not all caves but most are closed to protect bats from humans. We spread a disease apparently to them. We don’t cohabitate well at all. I talked to a biologist about the bat disease when I called to ask once about them. He did entertain me by calling me back. He loves to talk bats. He has a key to the bat cave with the prison bars. He knows things about bats no one does. He is a Batman. He made me want to be bat woman. I imagined us both in costume hiking through the woods to go to the cave to see what the bats are doing. Except he actually has to wear a hazmat suite and be extremely careful not to make the bats sick from whatever bat things we give bats. I’ve had 4 dreams about bats since this bat cave call.

All this is making me want to do is go in the caves I’m not allowed in. To see why I am not allowed in. I’m relieved the bars are so strong and so permanent yet they look so out of place when coming upon them in the woods. It’s a little sad we take such extreme measures to protect something when we should just protect them by knowing we should protect them. I can keep from going in if I’m told why. It doesn’t lessen the curiosity it increases it but I can keep from crossing the lines. If laid out.

When my brother in law dies I will have to help my sister. She is a small version of my mom. She helps others and forgets herself. All of us girls are like this. I will do it too. I will get caught up in helping mom, her and all the new people I’ve seemed to collect that I’ve determined need my help. They aren’t all new friends just people that seem to need my help growing. They are weak like I am in my head. One girl walks around saying she looks up to me leaving me feeling confused. I told her she has to quit walking around saying it then told her to take her band aide off her knees and let her ouchies breath and get a little dirt on them. I give terrible advice. I pretend I’m in worm holes when I’m pulling weeds and that I’ve discovered a new planet. Want to come? Leave this planet. Just follow me and crawl through these worm holes. On the other side is a new world. There is no order. Same as this world. We don’t get to have order just chaos.

My anxious mind doesn’t do calm. It can’t recognize it. It tried to but it stirred up the anxious more. For a second I thought I felt it then I questioned it like my anxious does.

I haven’t been able to try weed. My mind says not to inhale smoke and things that aren’t air. I worried yesterday I could have inhaled a tick. I just aspirated it right into my lungs and not into my tummy. Something flew into my mouth and I swallowed. Ticks don’t fly but they drop from trees and the angle could have been just so that I somehow aspirated this bug instead of swallowing him. Could he survive in my lungs? At least for a tick life span? It’s air in there right? So if it makes it to the lungs she could live and could have been pregnant and had her family in my lungs. I would get pneumonia from aspirating a tick? That’s what happens if food gets in there.

I was told to inhale a second time to try weed. I want to just try it and know. Can I feel calm? so I did. Too many times. I’m sure. That’s what I know. Too many or not enough. I felt something right away. It’s taken me a few days to digest what I felt. I felt anxious. More anxious and also less for a second. But more because my anxious was trying to be controlled. Anxious is a vicious cycle. It says, calm? What’s that? How do I feel that? Is this it? Why? How? Am I calm? Where am I? The questions multiply when we try to remove them.

I felt afraid to move. Confused about how I got to where I was. I would turn my head and the views took too long to catch up. Then I was concerned about how I got to there. And where I came from a second ago. Time took too long. It was maybe a half hour and felt like an eternity but also about 6 seconds. Time made no sense making me question time. Everything was too funny. Making me question why everything was so funny. There was a mess on the forest floor of like two things but seemed like the biggest mess I had ever seen. I was super anxious and afraid.

I tried to lean into the feeling. Like my therapist says. You know what you can’t do when you are high? Control your leaning into things feeling. You can’t control anything. So there is no leaning into it. Because I couldn’t. I didn’t feel out of it just not with it. I would not describe it as calming. I was for a second less anxious once when I noticed the birds. But I notice the birds under my normal self. That’s why I take myself to such isolated places. To find the quiet to hear the noises. Quiet myself so I can listen to other selfs. Like the birds. They usually annoy me. But sometimes they are wonderful and I imagine what they are chatting about. That it’s a little conversation high above my head. One I am not part of. But want to be. I noticed them but then immediately went back to where I was and how I got there. The birds were just up there doing bird things but I was somewhere I didn’t know how I got to.

I can not be calmed. I’m uncalmable like I’ve always thought. Shouldn’t I just embrace this in me? I crave control of my mind and fear loss of it. I’m never trying to escape my thoughts. I’m trying to get them to stay still. To be quieter so I can hear something else. I don’t want them gone I want them to do what I say. They are a minor annoyance at best a major annoyance when I need to be able to listen.

I slept. I am certain that is what did it. Weed helped me sleep. It could have been the quiet woods. It could have been I had company I felt safe with. But it was not. I think it made me so anxious I slept from over anxious. I fueled my anxious and wore myself out not calmed myself down.

My daughter no longer sleeps in my bed. It’s been years. I’ve been trying to get her to sleep in hers for years. I knew this day would come. She had a new tablet for the first time ever to be able to watch shows on. It’s requiring some moderation and rules but now she has taken ownership of her little room. She needs me less. Right when I need her more. It was comforting to have someone else there. Now it’s empty. I can barely handle it on weekends when they are gone now it is daily. I don’t want someone in my bed just to have someone in my bed but I want someone back in my bed. It’s ridiculous. With that comes someone in my room, my bathroom, my kitchen, my space, my life. They would have to wake up and do things they do while I do things I do. We would collide. I would have to adjust my time I wake to write. I would be up at like 2 to accommodate someone in my space. Which means I would almost never be in bed so I need no one here.

But I want someone here. It’s not because my dad is gone. I’m not trying to fill a void. I am but not. I’ve wanted someone here since I had no one before. I’ve had to work through all this alone after being not alone but sort of being alone. When I had someone he was rarely there. But he was in my bed and in my space. I got used to this. Then it was gone. I don’t miss him I miss his presence. It’s what I signed up for. To have someone till I died or until he died. No matter what. Neither of us died and the no matter what came. I had to bail to protect myself. He put me in a position to break a vow. I had to be the one to do it. He said. I will keep seeing others and you will just be here and have the house and I’ll pay the bills. It was the most absurd thing I ever heard. But for a second I thought it could work. Except what about me?

I met a guy once who seemed to like to collect women like my ex did too. He told me he loved talking to me and wanted to find a way to keep doing that even though he had a wife and was also seeing his nurse. I agreed. That’s how lost I once was. It was hard to do what I did. Leave my ex and be on my own. I made this choice to protect myself and then found it too hard. Like my ex said, “oh, I see you want to do things the hard way?” And I said yup. But then it was too hard. I forgot when I did this I had no one. And didn’t know how to find anyone.

For several years every man I met had someone he didn’t want me to know about. It was like I had become the other woman in my own marriage. How did this happen? Because I didn’t know who I was?

I do now. I am very self aware. So self aware I forget there are others around me. My self aware can seem like selfish to others. It can even seem like selfish to me. Even though I know it’s not.

Now I have met someone. Or it seems I have. Someone who likes to spend time with me. He says. I said why. Or i say nothing back. I can’t figure out why he would want to. I know why I would want to but not someone else. I don’t recognize the reasons. He said he likes to no matter what we do. That didn’t help. So no matter what we are doing you like my company? That’s just crazy. To me. My mind goes to he also must have others he likes to spend time with and just wants to make sure he can keep spending time with me too. This is normal? Or just me thinking of all the other times? People can spend time with others and me. I’m not selfish. It’s just the way he said it that sounds like he means he likes time with me in different ways than he does with others. That his others are friends and I am maybe more.

Im overthinking a little. Not a lot as I’m a moderate over thinker now. Just a paragraph of over thinking will do. Meeting new people just presents a lot of questions that have no answers. My worst nightmare. Since I’m so self aware I will with draw out of confusion and doubt. Leaving them to wonder what went wrong. I will say nothing. I will do nothing. I will go back to my own mind and be fine with it. I don’t need someone in my bed I wanted it. Which is both. Right now it’s both. I do want someone to battle over the last cup of coffee with. I do want to pack someone’s lunch again while I pack mine. But what I want is for someone to do something back. Sometimes pack mine. Sometimes let me have the last cup. Sometimes touch me before you go. Find a reason to. Sometimes think of me during the day. Sometimes say you need more. Sometimes don’t. Just sometimes be there. So I don’t have to always be there for myself. Sometimes I just want someone again. But I need someone to know I won’t recognize any of these things.

It’s been several days since I could write anything. Nothing made sense and nothing still makes sense. Someday I will look back at these stories and see how I made it through something I don’t think I can make it through. That’s something right? That through the woods I see an out. And once I’m out I see how I came about to where I am. So I can do it again.

I went on a hike I had wanted to do for years. It’s not a big hike, just a little 20 mile loop through the Irish Wilderness. I love the wilderness. Not just the woods and the forest but I love that some places have wilderness as their name. It’s a little more wild and untamed. Less rules but also more because of its wilderness title. It has a law protecting it. From people.

The Irish Wilderness is rich with history. Of the Irish. I won’t go into the history as I don’t really know much other than it’s rich with history of the Irish. That’s enough for me. I make up the rest. Or imagine the rest. Walk through the wilderness and pretend I’m an Irish settler for the first time on my horse looking for water. Or a place to sleep. I know where water is. Since Irish settlers already found it and I also didn’t bring a horse. But your imagination goes where it goes.

Long story short but likely will still be long, I never finished this loop. I don’t read reviews of trails. I want to go in unbiased. If I read reviews I go in and think. So and so said this would be hard here, or some BJakwoodslady said it was poorly marked and not to even try. I have to go in with a blank opinion. No preformed opinion. This trail. I wish I had read that I should go counterclockwise. And then actually have done it. I tend to go the opposite that most go. So I don’t have people coming up from behind me. I like to come up upon people then pass them and we go separate directions.

I can barely explain what went wrong. I left the trail to follow a sign that promised caves. 1.5 miles away. The caves were supposed to also be open. They close caves during times of bat things, to avoid and protect bats. Which is also a long story I don’t know. I just know, caves closed because of bats. We get there and it’s closed. Not just closed but prison bar closed. Like they are really protecting the bats. It says it should have been opened April 30. That the bats would be done doing bat things that need them protected, we as people can explore their bat place. People and bats don’t cohabitate well apparently. We give each other diseases. Or we spread them?? I don’t know. I don’t really have a bat opinion either. I think it’s cool they hang upside down.

I was a little frustrated. A lot actually. It was a harder than it had been hike to this closed cave. I turned us around and went back to what I thought was the main loop trail. Even the map said I might have been right. Only because this little juncture with a cave sighting wasn’t even on the map. I thought it was a surprise. We ended, like literally ended a couple miles down at a really cold and wonderful spring with a little camp spot and fire ring. The trail just stopped. There were social trails headed in every direction out of the little camp spot but all ended to me just bushwhacking through the woods. My map said we were suppose to be up on the ridge we were down below on. I can read a map. Except that cave wasn’t on it throwing the whole thing off.

My new hiking partner decided he is tired. I am not. I am more determined than I’ve ever been. I set up the tent and he naps, and I bushwhacked a couple of hours in the woods and climb up vertical hills to try and find our trail. This hill was like cliffs so I wasn’t planning to climb climb. I went back and filtered water. Like all of our bottles full of fresh spring water. There is nothing better than getting to a place to filter water. I planned to take it home with me. Drink fresh spring water from the Missouri wilderness for days. I collected rocks in the dry creek bed I found while bushwhacking. Then I gave up. I couldn’t make us walk aimlessly in the woods at night. I was stuck in my head. Early in the evening to just do nothing. No walking at all.

I think I pouted for about an hour. Then started collecting wood for a fire. I was exhausted from walking and thinking. We were staying 8 miles in the woods then walking the same way back out the next day. With my heavy rocks and water. I don’t like to see the same thing twice. I even remember a little cedar tree we saw on the way back. It was so out of place. Growing in wet soil surrounded by plants who love water. He didn’t belong.

Something was just weird about that cave trail to me. I talked about it the whole way back how it was so odd that they made us walk up to that then turn around. But in my head I knew I turned around mad the cave was closed not because the trail ended. I knew that’s where we were supposed to keep going. We had walked up that ridge through the switchbacks. We were way up there to see that cave. If we had kept going we would have been up on the ridge over looking the spring we camped at. I was now even madder I knew this is what I did.

I read reviews on the drive home. There weren’t many as this trail is a light traffic trail. Everyone of them that went clockwise said the trail just ends. One said he bushwhacked and headed straight west and met back up with the trail a few miles later. Everyone counter clockwise said to make sure to go this way so you didn’t get off and head to the spring where it would just end.

I called the park. They should fix this right? I explain what happened and she says, yay that’s a common problem. I said maybe put the caves on the map. It would be super helpful. She said yes it would. Then laughed. It must be an inside trail map making forest wilderness joke. I ask about the caves. She said they close them for the bats. I agree but say should have been open after April. She doesn’t know anymore. She said maybe they forgot to open it. Then laughs again. Inside bat cave joke? Then I ask if there is someone who knows. She transfers me to a recreation supervisor. Who will likely not return my call. I won’t be able to let it go. It can’t be closed just because of the coronavirus. That doesn’t make any sense. Even if this virus is a bat thing it shouldn’t mean we can’t go in caves. But right now everything is because of coronavirus.

I am lost. I will be for awhile. That trail was proof. I can read a map. I can use a compass. I can bushwhack. But I wasn’t paying attention after that cave was closed. I was too mad my dad was dead. I am too mad at so much that I can’t pay attention to where not to turn. Or if to turn. Or not to turn. Or where to go. Bushwhacking through the woods would have ended badly. Sitting and staring at a fire with company was not terrible. It was just harder for me than walking though the woods blindly not on a trail. I had to sit. I had to talk. I was asked questions. I felt trapped. Trapped in the most beautiful peaceful place I could find. I walked us miles from somewhere to get to nowhere to be away from everywhere. And was frustrated about it. I wanted out so I could know I can still get out and through things. Because right now I can’t. This was proof to me. That I can’t get out of this. And I know why. Because there is always an answer to why. If I make one.

Im supposed to sit with this. Sit through it not walk through it or get through it. Just sit with the it. Because it’s too hard to. That’s how I know it’s right. I can’t in my mind and also don’t want to sit with my sad. Or my mad. I want to get through it. Not sit and stare and think. That’s too hard. To hard to feel him gone not here. If I walk I don’t feel him gone I feel him still here telling me to go. Right now I’m not listening to myself and am to others. I’m too afraid to listen to what I have to say and am taking advice from all the wrong people.

He said just sit. Like that. Sit down. Confused I sat. He said to. So I did. Like a dog. But also I needed to. I was having trouble holding myself up. So sit. Then I did. For hours. Or like a half an hour. But this is hours for someone who can’t sit. He sat. I sat. It wasn’t terrible. It was hard. It was right. I don’t need to always go and get out. I don’t sit enough with myself. I don’t even sit enough with others. I just don’t sit enough at all.

I am not a dog but for a second I thought this is what a dog feels like. But dogs need to be told to sit. If they are standing too long? Or just to see if we can get them to. Why do we make them sit? They look fine standing. They have 4 legs so it’s less work than us with two. The weight is distributed. But someone said to sit and I just did it.

I didn’t give up. It felt like it before I sat. Then I thought, this is what was supposed to be. It was so quiet. Just birds and tree noises. A deer close to my head sniffing around while I woke from sleep I didn’t see coming. It was calm I don’t recognize because of all the noise I make myself. It was not peaceful right away because I fought it and questioned it for awhile. Then it came. Sleep. On cold hard ground. Sleep. After just sitting.

This was the way this walk was supposed to go. To sitting. With myself and my company. I was meant to sit through something not walk through everything. It wasn’t the way it was supposed to go it was better. Because it was harder. If it’s too easy it is likely wrong. Advice from my dad. I need to be taking advice from my dad and myself again. Not others. Not people who don’t know I need to be told to sit. Like a dog.

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?

My daughter is seven. She woke yesterday and thanked me for keeping her alive this long. So sweetly. It shocked me a little bit, my first thought was, it’s been tough. Then I thought, she knows how tough this life can be. She loves me too much some days. She and I are as close as my dad and I were. Are. She worries when she doesn’t know where I am. She told me once she thought I died when I had to have her grandpa get her one day. She was also this close to her grandpa. Once I picked her up and not him and she said, did grandpa die? He has been like a father to her.

We are taking his boat out for the day. It needs to be boated. I need to boat and boat others.

I don’t know how things work. I feel like I just wish someone would try for me once. Just once I wish someone would fight for me or pick me. Dating in this age is difficult. I don’t connect through social sites so I’m not in the loop. I am disconnected from others for so long I don’t know how to connect.

I thought someone liked me. I think he did but it is so confusing that he also likes someone else at the same time. We are in different places. I don’t compete for people. He said it isn’t a competition. Except for her it was. She was drilling me for information. I offer information without thinking what it might be used for. She is younger, like him. I can’t compete with younger and available. I am older and not.

I thought it was going to be so great to have someone to hike with. But we pushed past a boundary that makes the fact he shares time with others awkward for me.

I keep waiting for my Lyme disease medicine to make my stomach hurt like I was told it would. I have the weakest stomach I know. I’ve not eaten with the medicine. I barley drink water with it and so far nothing. I drank a protein drink and then promptly threw it up. It felt like a rock landed in my stomach. I can’t figure this not wanting to eat thing out. I don’t have an eating disorder. I never struggled with weight. I can eat. Except right now I can’t.

I wanted to just be the chosen one I guess. It’s silly girl things. So I backed away. I can’t risk it. I would be opening up not just me but my kids to potential heart ache. I’m their safe place and I was once my safe place before my dad died.

My dad died making me feel like I need someone. And I do. And I don’t. It’s both. I found someone else who was in the same place. From the beginning I knew it wasn’t right. The reasons to be around each other were wrong. I also ignored all kinds of flags that said not a good idea. I worked through and negotiated reasons and came to conclusions of why none of them mattered in order to fill an empty void. With empty voids. I filled an empty space with more emptiness. Now I just feel more empty. More lost. More confused.

I nearly allowed him in my space. Almost. Part of me assumes he also didn’t really want to be in it too. My space is super full. I have a lot of space full of other people who will sometimes need me more than anyone else including me.

I am more upset than I should be. It was like a month. But the longest anyone had spent time with me. No real date. You can’t go eat anywhere or watch movies or really even date. Yet he did those things with someone else. Then spent time driving across state lines with me. It’s just weird. It’s also how it is. I don’t need one single person in my life I need someone to say hey I’m also spending time with someone else. Just say it. I heard it from someone else. Someone who likes him too. I don’t need an exclusive thing I need to be told it’s not so I can do the same. Now I know, I suppose. In a junior high like manner.

Being told to have a good day means something to me. It came out of the blue. Why would he say it? Who says this? I have to some but in hopes of hearing it back. Is that why he did it too? I said it the next day first. Then it was said back. Now the entire thing is just done. I messed up? Tried to hard?

I will try to hard. Except then I don’t try at all. I wait to be tried for for once. I have so much to offer someone yet get so little back. Then when a little is offered back I panic why. I don’t make any sense to myself let alone anyone else.

I think I need to make sure I can get out of the woods. I’m so deep into the dark unknown woods in my head that I can’t see a single direction.

I don’t need to use drugs and weed. I can’t. I don’t want to drink. I don’t want to try a bunch of strange things. I can’t be controlled in my head. I have to have control of it myself. Getting it and maintaining this takes all my free time. Take a lot of space. I can’t explain to someone how and why anymore. It’s exhausting.

I knew a month ago I would be at this place. I saw it before I saw it. I felt it right away. I put too much into something I knew straight away meant nothing to the other party. Maybe even me. Until he told me to have a good day. Because it worked. I did have a good day that day. It was maybe the first day I had a good day in months. Now I have to have a good day on my own again. Like today. Today is boat my kids around in dads boat day. It’s I have a new comfy supportive bra for the first time in over ten years. It’s going to be a good day. Because I said so.

Have a good day.

Lyme disease is the worst for someone who is anxious to have. Actually any disease or thing with the word disease attached to it is worse for someone who is anxious. Lyme in itself has not been bad. I likely caught it early by knowing I go to tick infested woods, had a tick on me that I gave nice showers to for 2-3 days then developed a rash right where this tick was washing and eating daily. I had a dull annoying headache last night. Enough I didn’t sleep. Then I couldn’t breath either because I was anxious about a bug disease trying to take over my body or I couldn’t breath because a bug disease was trying to take over my body. My heart beating increased with each labored pained breath. I was making it worse by wondering if I was about to die. Then got up and ate a sandwich so I wouldn’t die on an empty stomach. So they could see I ate a sandwich at 1 am. Not that they have a reason to look at stomach contents but just in case. So it’s notes when or if they look that I followed the directions and ate something with my antibiotic. Then I sent a message so someone had a last message from me before I die. Even though he would always have a last text message from me before I die no matter when I die. It is the importance of the moment. I thought of you, right before I died. Here is a map of where I wish I were going instead of being dead.

I could have a headache for so many reasons. It could be just my pony tail was too tight today. Or i could have a brain tumor. One or the other. Likely the other. The first one. But maybe the other? I could be mildly dehydrated. I could have squinted too much. I’m not supposed to even be in prolonged exposure to sunlight with my bug disease antibiotic. I could have stress. I could have a cluster headache form my new perfume I bought so someone thought I smelled good not like just me.

I am spending time with someone I likely shouldn’t be. And I know it. Just so I have company. I am keeping a distance but it’s getting strained I can tell. I’m starting to become curious about things that I don’t want to be curious about. I will grab and hang on too hard and too tight with my feeler like tentacles like an octopus has. I find someone and when I do I never let go. I fall fast and hard and I hang on for dear life. In case it’s about to end. It’s the saddest and most romantic thing sometimes at the same time. It is also my biggest shame I feel. I try too hard to keep people in my life that the universe just plopped in to show me one thing then be done. I don’t listen to anything well let alone the universe. Which is really me. And when I talk to myself it says hang on forever and ever. I can’t talk myself out of this, I fight the universes plans.

I’ve read about letting go. I can’t read about it. It feels like forgetting and giving up. I hang on. What if I was holding on to someone over a cliff edge? I wouldn’t let go. These are the images I have that come when someone says let go. I hear. Don’t hang on. I need to hear how to slightly hang on and encourage the other to never be over the cliff edge or don’t hang on so tight take care of yourself. If you say let go I think of my daughters movie frozen. I sing the song in my head while ai picture dropping a human off a cliff. I feel no freedom from letting go. I feel I forgot or gave up still even with an encouraging song of feeling lighter and being who you are.

I’ve become obsessed with would you rather questions. Just finding them to ask someone. I won’t ask anyone. I learned what happens. Not just once but lots of times. People don’t like to be drilled like they are being drilled. But it says these questions are great ways to start conversations. How else do people start them? How can you have a conversation if it doesn’t first start with a question and why do I struggle with this concept in general?

I want to hike alone. I wanted to not hike alone for awhile but now I want to again alone. I don’t want to say I want to hike alone. After saying I want to not. I contemplated lying. I don’t lie and won’t but I literally thought of a lie and then decided I don’t lie I tell truth. But I avoid telling it if it’s too hard when it comes to my personal boundaries I just barely have set for myself.

I am not letting some bug bite stop me from going back to tick infested woods. It’s the cost of the business of backpacking. I share the woods with the creatures. If I can eat them they can me. It is a mutual bond. We love the same places. I won’t be anymore careful. I won’t learn anything from having Lyme disease other than I should check myself more thoroughly daily for ticks. I don’t even know if I can get it again if I currently have it. Will my antibiotic also act as a bug repellent. I won’t taste as good? I haven’t googled it enough. I googled the images of the rash enough to know I had a tick like rash and then I turned google off and let my imagination take me over the edge. I don’t need google to.

My sister and her husband have turned the corner of the corona. He is getting better but picked up additional illnesses in the hospital. She got worse then got better. We were all so focused on him that she is the one who actually got worse. I said out loud what if she dies? What if we all focus on him and she just dies? Why would I imagine my sister dead? It just happened. I stopped it quickly. I know it’s possible and not thinking it wouldn’t stop it and thinking it won’t stop it. But thinking it and if it happens gives me relief that I thought it. It’s a vicious cycle to live.

Would you rather have whatever you are thinking appear above your head for all to read or have everything you do live streamed daily?

Easy. No way anyone could keep up with the thought bubbles above my head for all to read and see. No one could keep up. Maybe that would be better then? Maybe I would want this. What if someone tried? What if someone said, oh I get it. Or no wonder she can’t sleep. Or no wonder she is so quiet she is trying so hard to listen to what she is saying or sometimes is so loud. She can’t hear herself over all that noise. No wonder she is so busy. She is so busy. Busy like a bee. Maybe that’s why bees are so busy. Their business is not what does it it is their little bee minds. Keep me busy because it’s all too busy up here. Let me go from flower to flower to collect so I’m collecting and collecting and not just thinking and thinking. Ok not easy. I chose, then talked myself into a story about bees. I actually didn’t even chose one.

It’s scary to like someone. To want to know things about them. Then you know things about them. Then they go. I don’t know that I feel abandoned or that I feel everyone goes but you know, they do. I’ve never been asked on a second date. I’ve been stood up 6 times. I’ve been what people call ghosted. This all happens to everyone I imagine. But I don’t like the feeling of it. Then I hang on to it. Real tight with octopus leg number 7 and never let go of the feeling that everyone leaves. So that when someone new comes along I raise arm 7 and remember the last time. So I bite my tongue of the questions to ask. The desires I have. The feelings I felt and the desire to know more. To be with someone more. Leaving them feeling abandoned.

I know I’m doing it. I am doing it right now. I want to spend time and yet I am avoiding it. So I don’t accidentally suffocate who I am spending time with with leg number 8. It’s the last empty one I imagine. I don’t have room for more than 8 things to hang tightly to. I avoid anything else so I don’t let go of the other things. I’m an octopus in my head today. I don’t know why they need so many arms or legs. What do they grasp to all day long? Or are they just for show. To let the other sea creatures know. I have enough legs and arms to smother 8 of you. Back off. Are they tentacles? Not legs and arms like people have since they don’t need them like people do? Maybe it’s to help them float and swim only. To ride through weird sea currents below water quickly. Shooting through the water with their tentacles arm legs things back. I sort of want to braid them. It would never work. 8 isn’t divided by 3 equally so I would have two braids and two left out. Also I bet you can’t braid an octopus, too slippery.

This is not where I imagined my thoughts to go this morning. Imagine reading this above my head all day. And night. Live stream thoughts of braiding an octopus.

I dreamt of you. It wasn’t night, like dreaming is supposed to be it was day. I day dreamed and day slept. I was too weak to even walk today. You were giving me directions to pick my kids up. You said take a left then a bunch of rights. I said. Won’t that just get me back to the beginning? You said everywhere gets you somewhere. Then you were on a basketball court and I kept screaming at you “are you even there, dad. Dad. Can you even hear me?” Then woke from a daydream sweat that wasn’t a night sweat. I woke in tears. I was angry at my day dream. Angry I can’t hear you and you can’t hear me. Angry that m’y somewhere and everywhere feel nowhere.

Where did my purpose of life go?

I don’t know how to tell people how I feel. I know how to tell them how to guess how I feel. I don’t know how to ask for help. I don’t like to ask for help. I am even weaker now. Not just sad weak but now I’m Lyme disease weak.

Being in the places I have with him should be more like what people do after awhile. Maybe my standards are different . I need to know early on if you can walk miles, or drive across state lines with me to walk miles. It comes so easy though. Either I am making it that easy or it’s just naturally occurs as easy.

I asked him questions. I told him I had lots. I always do. I can ask like a toddler. It will feel like you are being interviewed if I’m not careful. I’ve been told this. I did speed dating once. Literally once. It was a fifteen minute slot to get to know someone. This should be my thing. I went in with thousands of questions ready to know someone in 15 minutes. Ready to determine my soul mate in a quarter of an hour.

It began. In my head a buzzer went off. It didn’t so you know. This wasn’t like a game show. Except in my head it was a competition. I needed to start quick. Then he stares at me. Like through me. Into me. I look away. No one gets to look into the depths of my soul without a little warning. I have questions first. I begin. He answers a few. I’m excited and go faster. He laughs. He is laughing at me, not with me. I’m not laughing. He would be a giraffe if he could be an animal. His biggest fear is snakes. I cringe. It’s also mine. How would we handle a snake scenario together? He loves surprises. This doesn’t match with the snake thing. They surprise you. They are sneaky like that.

He tells me I ask a lot of questions. I say. We only have 7 minutes left so… we need to keep going. He laughs and says. I just thought we would gaze into each other’s eyes and maybe share a little kiss. I say. I don’t think that’s how this works. He said, a light touch is enough for him. I am mad now because it’s also enough for me. Too much. That gaze into the eyes is right into them. I don’t want to look that deep. I wanted to surface scratch first. I wanted to know his dreams and goals not feel them. Hear them. I say, I have to go. He tells me time is not up yet. Except it is.

I asked him my first question and was presented with a follow up question. This confused me. I asked what animal he would be and he asked me if he had to worry about poachers. I hadn’t prepared for this. I said no of course not. Any animal is safe from harm in this scenario. He choses a gorilla. Because they are so beautiful. I tell him Jane Goodall is a hero of mine. No one knows this. It turned into a conversation of books. It lead to deeper things like fears. It lead to him saying some things are too personal for texting. I agreed. I hadn’t intended for my questions to take us down a serious path. It just did it. I didn’t stop it. Then I did.

When I asked what he would do with one day left to live, I guessed it before he said it. We had sort of talked about it once. Sugar gliding like wings off a cliff. He just thought it would be fun. This was his choice when given a last day. It’s a thing that seems to not be fail proof so likely would end in death. But you would fly until then.

I think I would take all my favorite foods and find myself a place at the Grand Canyon and sit and watch the sunset. I think if someone said, tomorrow you die. I would wait for it. I don’t think I would not. I don’t wait well but I picture sitting there and counting it down and waiting for my last breath. To see what the last one might be like. Also to see if this person who tells me tomorrow is it might be wrong. Who are they to say when I die? Would I get frustrated and stand up and catapult off the cliff. No? I might not die and then I would lay broken and in pain until I did. I probably would spend most of my time finding the perfect spot to sit. Or looking for rocks. Or wondering the trails. I wouldn’t be able to actually sit. I would do me things until then. I would pick at my food. I would likely wonder so far away from my things that I wouldn’t eat. Die on an empty stomach. Too busy to even eat. I would write people. I would put the letters in boxes and bury them. I would talk to the sky. Hope that my words travel to somewhere. Bounce off the cliff sides. I wouldn’t wait to die. I would plan to wait then get tired of waiting.

I intended to write about Lyme disease but steered right away from it to questions. I have felt off for several days. Weak in places I’m not weak. Legs nearly impossible to move. Stiff neck. I thought I was getting strep throat. I thought I was so sad I couldn’t walk. I had to be taken home. I sat in my greenhouse and cried. I got home and slept for 6 hours. Dreaming of my dad. He couldn’t hear me and I woke in a drenched sweat and a fever. Now I’m worried I have coronavirus.

I had ticks. I had one that no doubt was on me for several days. I must have washed him even for a few days. He just kept right on working on my tummy. I finally removed him three days after my trip when my mole looked bigger than I thought. Because it wasn’t a mole but a swollen full of blood tick. A few days later I developed a rash. I googled. It didn’t look like anything to worry about. Except I knew it was something to worry about. I waited a few weeks then when I couldn’t walk I finally went to the doctor. He said. You have Lyme disease. It’s likely early enough to be treated completely but we will have to wait and see. I will take a ridiculous strong antibiotic that when I read the side effects sounds like I will have Lyme disease as a side effect. I already felt these things. It also said to avoid prolonged exposure to sunlight. What?? I prolong expose to sunlight for a living. And for fun.

He said I don’t present with classic symptoms. The rash is unusual but it is in fact a rash at the site of a tick left too long. Including the swollen glands, my immune system is working super hard to fight it which makes this tick disease work harder. I know my immune system and so does my doctor. I will move into Lyme disease stages quicker than most. I don’t know how to do anything slow. Like meet people. Or have bug diseases.

I woke this morning with pain in my spine and my ankles. And under my armpits. One arm feels like I can’t put it all the way down. My rash is itchy. It hasn’t been but now it is.

I will have to eat with the antibiotic. I don’t want to eat. I am not eating well. It is something my doctor brought up. You have lost a lot of weight lady. Weight you can’t afford. You need to eat. I know I need to eat. I don’t want to. Last night I force fed myself a burrito. I choked. Then I was chewing and bit into something like a tooth. It was a tooth. My tooth. It broke. I hadn’t been able to go to the dentist because the whole world shut down a week before my teeth were supposed to get fixed from grinding them and breaking them. Now it broke and I panicked and I swallowed it. So now I can tell my doctor. I did eat. I ate my tooth. Calcium right?

I don’t want to talk about eating. I don’t even want to eat let alone write about it. I can’t sort it out. I feel ache in my tummy becasue it’s hollow. It’s empty like my chest feels with the void of my dad gone. I am a big void of empty things. I don’t know what to fill anything with. Nothing sounds good. Not even cake. I know I’m not ok when I don’t want cake. I’ve been eating fruit. That’s it. I ate so many grapes one day I felt pregnant.

I talked about being sad. I’m not depressed he said. I’m sad. He knows it. A loss like this is sad. To follow what I feel and feel it no matter where I am. To stop when I feel it. To go when I feel it. That masking it won’t help he can guarantee this. We both know my history with medications. I’m not one to medicate. I have to sort no matter the price and pain involved. Numbing it confuses my mind. I fight it. They medicate more. I fight harder. Then I am nothing. Again.

I feel again. That’s what I like. I was told how to feel. If to feel. When not and that I shouldn’t. Now I get to decide what is what. I decide I’m sad. Then show it. Then feel it. I decide I want to feel good. Then feel it.

I am relieved I was not so compounded with grief I couldn’t walk. It’s instead a bug disease. I am relieved I knew I had a tick bite and went and said so. If Lyme had progressed, without my knowledge of the tick who knows what they would have thought was wrong with me. I would have been tested for coronavirus 3 times. Like my dad. They wanted it to be coronavirus so bad they didn’t see or find what he really died from. They were blinded by corona. Everything was corona. He had unusual symptoms but maybe they are just new ones to share with the world. Maybe mine would have been. They would have said. Yes it is corona. Yes her tests keep coming back negative but we think now the test is being tricked by these new symptoms she presents. Just look at this rash. It’s like not other symptom the world has seen. Then I would have died. Like my dad.

I’m having unusual dreams. So far just three nights of them. Last night I was looking for jewelry. I had lots of necklaces. They were all a cameo necklace like the one my ex gave me that I kept. The one single thing he gave me that I couldn’t get rid of. A mother with a child cameo. My children. The one thing he gave me. Well. 4 things. He gave me being a mother.

I need my purpose of life back. It feels gone and empty. I have such a huge void in my life that I don’t know what I’m living for anymore. This doesn’t feel like I want to die it feels like I don’t remember what I was here for. I have felt this before. Lost. Is what I feel not lifeless. Not wanting no life. Just wanting unlost back.

I think it’s ok to wonder, wander? A little lost sometimes. I have before and was fine. I wondered so far off trail, I found new places and things while lost. I found I could get unlost. I found that lost wasn’t easy. I found that I didn’t just say oh, here I am, and bend over and pick me up and put me back. I found that I found me specifically by being lost. I got off that ferry from Isle Royale that first year and hopped onto the ground lighter from throwing away my heavy loads. and thought. I was right here and there the whole time. I was everywhere and somewhere. Unlost.

Everywhere gets you to somewhere.