Archive for the nablopomo Category

A New Adventure

I wanted to be a rock star when I grew up. There were a few other more attainable career goals I had which changed as I pursued them. For instance, I began college as a pre-pharmacy major. Then I took zoology and realized I could not handle dissections. Then I took college chemistry and realized I didn’t really like it. Well, I didn’t like learning the theory at the time. Of course, getting a concussion the first full week of my first fall semester didn’t help with anything. So, I fell back to my previous desire to be a programmer and changed my major to Computer Science. Assembly language and discrete math happened, so I switched majors again to Industrial Technology concentrating in manufacturing. After graduation, I joined the Air Force and built a career in another IT – Information Technology. After getting my master’s in IT, I decided that when I thought I wanted to be a programmer, I really just wanted to play games.

A few years ago I decided I was going to change career fields. I got an associates in Human Services and absolutely LOVED it. But I kept doing IT. And then I got back into debt and felt stuck. But after 28 years I took a leap and sold my house to move back to my childhood home and start all over.

Where the house was. Now overgrown with kudzu at its summer peak.

The plan was to get the kids in a rental house or apartment and get a job to pay bills while building a woodworking business and turning my 40 acres into a self-sustaining farm. But things haven’t gone according to the plan.

It took me 2 months to find a job making less than half what I was making. I at least like this job much better. It took my youngest 4 months to find a job. So by that point all the savings was gone, all the money from selling the house was gone, and the credit cards were maxed out again. I got most of the material bought for building a woodworking shed, but circumstances happened so that my cousin wasn’t able to work on it with me – one of those being the ridiculous heat.

This whole adventure has been unbelievably hard and humbling. I don’t want to have to rely on anyone for help, but while I have a job, I don’t make enough to cover the debt and expenses even while living off grid. So I’ve had to ask for money, for supplies, and for food. I think about getting a second job and then remember that’s what the business is supposed to be. Now that it’s getting cold, I have to get more hardened shelters up for us and can’t work on a temporary shop. One of my cousins brought over his camper the other night before the rain hit so we wouldn’t freeze. That was an absolute Godsend.

I’ve had quite a bit of help from family and friends. All I have to do is ask. But that is the really hard part. Because running alongside my need for help is the narrative my dad gave me as I was growing up in which I can hear him saying, “See, I told you that you are stupid and irresponsible.” What I actually am is ADHD with a TON of trauma and probably some autism. (Comorbidity is a bitch for sorting out why you are the way you are and do the things you do.) When you’ve been given an identity by a primary caregiver since birth, it is deeply embedded and takes a lot more than positivity and self-talk to overcome. Heck, it’s taken a ton of 12 Step work and therapy just to identify. The thing is, when you’ve heard it from a parent, you are going to automatically assume everyone else thinks the same thing – “You’re stupid and irresponsible.” – and when you are raised in a culture of Social Darwinists, you believe you deserve all the bad/negative consequences of your bad choices because “You made your bed, now lie in it.” So, I keep my fears and pain to myself, and try to dig out by myself, but the hole just keeps getting deeper, and the shame piles on higher making it even harder to dig.

I’ll never be the rock star I wanted to be growing up, and that’s fine. I’m doing IT work in a factory so I’m finally working in my undergraduate field. I chuckle about it, but I think my undergrad advisor was on to something when he advised me to concentrate in manufacturing. I like to make stuff and build stuff and I feel almost at home as I walk through the plant to work on an issue. That’s why I’m still going to work toward my other dream of woodworking. I’m still going to work toward a dream of a self-sufficient farm – a farm that pays for itself so that I am less reliant on store-bought food. It’s frustrating that it’s going to take much longer than I thought and with a lot more outside help to get going.

I didn’t set out to share quite as much as I did in this first post in months, but the words were ready to flow so I let them. Perhaps that vulnerability will help me social media beg for supplies and money later. Haha! (Laughing like I’m not serious.)

If you made it through that mess, thanks for stopping by and reading. I’ll add links somewhere at some point for help with expenses and necessities. Peace to you!

This would be a clever title if I wasn’t so tired #NaBloPoMo

This might even have been a post with substance if I wasn’t so tired. But alas. I am only even putting up a post so I don’t miss a day of NaBloPoMo.

First, I am going to share some things I find amusing. Like my WoW character. Her name is on the pic, but I call her Fartfancy.

A few funny (to my 12 year old sense of humor) interactions have happened within the game.

My first guild, Gay Lady Coven. It was mostly guys. I think I was 3rd female. Also I am significantly older than all of them, one of them being Chad.

We are Midnight Court now. I pretty much do nothing with them, and am more of a novelty being “Clock’s mom.” Also since starting school, ain’t nobody got time for WoW. But I have several quests I need to do that are dungeons so I will have to stay up ungodly late sometime and do those with the guild. Assuming any of them are still playing.

This should be my next tattoo:

Except saying “Drop the rock.”

I found this pretty funny:

Culture wars and agendas #NaBloPoMo

I was going to start this off by saying that I think fighting culture wars are a colossal waste for Christians. But I sat long enough to come up with some cultures that are worth the time and effort to fight against, such as racism, rape culture, patriarchy, fascism, and the like. You know, cultures whose primary aim is to control and harm others. I am wholeheartedly for fighting for justice for the oppressed and the marginalized. There’s a few commandments throughout the Bible to do just that.

So really, what I find the colossal waste is the agenda wars. These so-called “agendas” are touted all the time by the right. I’m using the right rather than the left because I was part of the right wing for so many years. I not only heard the rhetoric, I spoke it. I was all in with it, and looking back, it’s because I never really thought the ideas all the way through. After all, you don’t have to think it all the way through when you are in an echo chamber and your adversaries are largely abstract epithets.

I wish I could say that one day my eyes opened and I could see the propaganda for what it is, and it is propaganda, but it was a gradual awakening that took a few years. I also cannot take any credit for the change in thinking. Additionally, I still have a long way to go, because I go from 0 to 88 mph when I get outraged. Like Matt Walsh tweets popping up in my feed TWICE today. To be honest, I mostly agreed with one of them (which is rare!), but his smug tone eclipsed his moral stand.

Anyway, I was listening to a sermon the other day, and I could not finish because of the presentation. The use of a particular culture’s “agenda” killed the message, and not in a good way. Harping on a secular/any type of sexual/atheistic/liberal/conservative agenda in a way the presents it as a threat turns the members of the target group into an enemy, first by stoking fear, then by demonizing which dehumanizes an entire group. It caricaturizes people making them objects to be fought against rather than fought for. While this method of preaching gets a lot of amens, I’m sitting there wondering, where is Jesus in this? How would He have us engage these groups? How do these menacing portraits of others equip us to reach them with the Gospel, literally, the Good News of Jesus Christ? If we are presenting these people as abstract entities with agendas that threaten our comfortable way of life, how are we going to “Go, therefore, and teach all nations?”

Yes, we are to be counter-cultural, but we aren’t counter-cultural when we just want to preserve our way of life and/or we fear God’s wrath. That makes us just as worldly as the rest of the world. Instead, if we are going to truly follow Christ, if we are indeed his disciples, we will be counter-cultural because of our love and kindness to our fellow man – even those who hate us and want to kill us. Because we serve a risen King who has already won the battle. Satan isn’t just at work in the world, he is at work in the church as well. Jesus warned about tares among the wheat. He warned us about laying up treasure on earth rather than treasure in heaven. “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.”

New blog series #NaBloPoMo

I am considering a series for November for National Blog Posting Month (NoBloPoMo). Every November for the past few years I have said I’m going to blog every day in November and I never get beyond 5 days. This would also be the perfect time to work on my fiction that I just left hanging. But life happened, and then school happened. Now I’ve got bunch of papers and projects to do between now and semester’s end, so what better time than now to commit to something I probably won’t finish. Haha!

I’ve probably mentioned this before (possibly more than once), but over the past few years, I have spent a lot of time revisiting all the Christian doctrine I was taught. I was taught some contradictory stuff, though it wasn’t much and most of that was my parents teaching something different than the official doctrinal statement with the caveat, “It’s not a hill to die on.” I still find it out of character for my dad to have a point to argue about, but to not find it important enough to argue. Because he seemed to love to argue. But I digress. My point is, I had to own my faith as an adult by reevaluating what I believed by asking myself, “Do I believe this just because it’s what I was taught, or is this really what the bible teaches.”

But this series isn’t going to be me picking apart denominational doctrine. It’s going to be more cultural and political, but that many American Christians have conflated with the Gospel. I’m going to look at some issues from the standpoint of, “Where is Jesus in that.”

And maybe this will turn out to be more than just one post.

Dreaming #nablopomo

I tend not to put too much stock in dreams. I blame my parents for dismissing relative’s dreams. Plus I have really weird dreams, and they are usually vivid so I often remember them. Back in the spring I had a dream that was so disturbing, I had to call someone about it to stop dwelling on it. Just last week I had one that I had to tell another friend about. I wasn’t so disturbed after waking up, but I was pretty disturbed in the dream.

But then there is the dream Chad had back in May. He said to me, “Hey, I dreamed that Granny died.” I told him that she had been sick and was in the nursing home for rehab, but that she was going home the next day. 2 days later she died.

I have had several dreams about Mom since she died. I dreamed that I was packing up her stuff, and had most of the truck loaded, but then there she was in the kitchen, and I panicked as I thought, “What’s she going to do when I have all of her stuff?” Another dream, I was home for the funeral, and on the way to the funeral home, but she was actually still alive and in the hospital. Still another, I went home for the funeral, and at no point did I find it odd that we were in the house in Morrilton, but then Mom was there, and was asking me where her car was. I remember feeling angry that she couldn’t remember I had the car, and then guilty that I was angry because she couldn’t remember. (I think maybe that’s something I haven’t really worked though yet.)

The other night I had one of my typical “out there” dreams. For some reason I had to fake fight Rachel from Friends in order to fight some dude that I think I know, but all I can think is that he looked like a cross between Danny Bonaduce and Sammy Hagar. Took forever to choke him out, too, but he finally tapped out right before losing consciousness.

Following this, I was feeling like honey badger, and decided to go tell Mom who was on the porch. I walked out and said, “Mother,” in that same way that Jamie says it to me. Mom was sitting in Aunt Becky’s green chair with Aunt Pearl. Aunt Violet was laying on a bed beside them, only that woman looked nothing like Aunt Violet and more like Aunt Dude. Granny was sitting beside the door, and I woke up before I could assess who else was out there. Essentially, I think I was on that porch with a lot of my deceased aunts plus Mom and Granny. Just so odd, but neat.

There’s a fire! #nablopomo

This is part 2 of a story. Click here for Part 1

The sentries sat playing cards as they had done since their watch began before dawn. Every half hour they would get up and scan the countryside for anything unusual, but there was never anything unusual around Honorwatcher Outpost. Hutt laid down his cards and said, “That’s it, Femo! Ale’s on you tonight!” Femo replied, “I suppose you are getting tired of buying mine all the time.” They laughed, and gathered up the cards. “I suppose it’s time to work,” Femo said. They got up and walked away from each other along the wall of the watchtower. They each wondered to themselves, “What’s the point,” but the commander would have them cleaning the privies if they didn’t at least go through the pretense of carrying out the watch.

As Hutt scanned to the south, he noticed smoke – lots of smoke. “Femo! Come look at this!” Femo came running, saw the smoke, and said, “We need to report this. Now!” Femo ran down to the commander’s study. Commander Shai was reading some paperwork, and looked up annoyed at the interruption. “Since when do you deem it acceptable to barge in unannounced, sentry.” “I beg your pardon, sir, but there is a large fire to the south.” Commander Shai looked at Fema thinking this was a tale sure to be a manifestation of too much ale the night before. However, it would do him good to get away from requisition orders and inventory reports.

Fema led the way quickly up the watchtower, and Hutt snapped to attention at the commander’s approach. “Sir, it’s getting larger!” Commander Shai looked and indeed the smoke in the distance was immense. It was probably just a forest fire, but it did appear to be very near Pitmerden village. “That does appear to be a large fire. I will send Lieutenant Jaim with a squad to investigate. Good eye, boys.”

Commander Shai headed to the barracks to find Lieutenant Jaim, and informed him of the smoke. “Take a squad, and see what’s burning. Be ready to lend any aid to Pitmerden,” Shai ordered. “Yes, sir!” Lieutenant Jaim answered, and mustering his squad, he headed south toward the smoke. It was an 8 hour march to Pitmerden, and they were not going to make it before dark. None were looking forward to dealing with a fire after dark, but they were all willing to do whatever they had to do to keep the fire from the village. After all, protecting the citizens of Saveteron was their sworn duty, and their honor rested on it.

They marched along the river so as not to walk into the forest as it burned. By late afternoon, they all began to see from the position of the smoke, that it was not the forest. “Men,” Lieutenant Jaim said, “it’s looking like the fire is much closer to the village. They do not burn their fields this time of year, so be on your guard.” Everyone was poised to battle thinking that perhaps pirates, or a neighboring kingdom’s faction made a run on the village. It was very good farmland, but that was all. Lieutenant Jaim could not fathom why anyone would attack such a small village, if that was what had happened.

It had been dark for about 2 hours when they spotted the village from the river. It was now clear that the village itself had been burned. Each mad drew his sword, and prepared for a fight as they cautiously approached. As they reached the village edge, there was no sound except for smoldering buildings. As they silently crept in, the light from the buildings was just enough to display the carnage. Every living thing had been slaughtered, and all of the buildings burned. “Remain alert. Whoever did this might still be here. See if there are any survivors,” Lieutenant Jaim ordered his squad. They spread out in groups of twos to search the village, and Jaim held out very little hope of finding anyone who might have survived. He had seen few battles, and his men fewer, and never had he seen anything like this.

“Lieutenant! Over here! I found someone still alive!” Jaim rushed over, and found a young man bloody, but still alive, if just barely. As they examined him, they assessed that he needed serious care, and they did not bring a healer. The squad all reported back finding no other survivors. Lieutenant Jaim said to his squad, “I want to investigate the area before we head back with this young man. We’ll make camp by the river, and tend to his wounds tonight. As soon as it’s light, I will send most of you back here to look for any clues. Let’s move!”

They made camp as ordered, cleaned the young man up, and dressed his wounds. They held watch in 2 hour shifts with half the squad on each watch to get some rest. They would need it for their search, and to head back to their outpost. They needed to get the lone survivor to a healer soon, but needed answers, too.

The next morning, as soon as it was light enough to see, Lieutenant Jaim led most of the squad back to the village. As bad as it looked the night before, it looked even worse in the light of day. “A senseless massacre,” Lieutenant Jaim said to no one in particular. As they searched the village and surrounding area, they noticed prints heading back towards the mountains. No doubt that was where the attackers came from. “Sir, do you suppose those old tales we’ve heard are true? That cave creatures really do live deep in the mountains, and they did this?” Jaim wanted to dismiss that question as foolish speculation, yet he was asking himself the same thing. “I don’t know,” he answered, “but there aren’t enough of us to go searching the mountains for caves. Maybe if the survivor lives, he call tell us what happened here.”

The squad hurried back to their outpost as quickly as they felt they could safely move the survivor. They arrived just before midnight, and Lieutenant Jaim gave his report to Commander Shai as his men took the survivor to Laicha Sharna, the healer. “Men, women, children, and even their animals. Slaughtered. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Jaim reported to Shai. Commander Shai stood silently looking at the fire, but with a look that told Jaim his thoughts were hardly on that fire. Finally the commander spoke, “I will send word to King Loll immediately of what we know, and will send scouts right away to track our killers. In the meantime, you and your men need rest.” Lieutenant Jaim replied, “Yes, sir,” and went to the barracks for a fitful night of sleep. It would be some time before he would rest well.

Laicha looked over the young man, and said “I can’t believe he is still alive. I think I have all of his wounds patched up, and I’ve applied enough herbs to regenerate a horse. But if he doesn’t awaken in the next day, he isn’t not going to make it. He’s lost a lot of blood, and needs to drink.” The young man looked deathly pale, and Commander Shai said to Laicha, ” I keep expecting each breath he takes to be his last. Poor lad. If he does wake up, he’s going to get a fresh blow when he finds out he is the only one of his village left.” There was nothing left for any of them to do but wait. Wait on the scouts, wait on word back from the king, and wait and see if their only eyewitness will live.

To be continued
Click for Part 3

A new chapter #nablopomo

fotheringhay-wm

Yesterday was kind of a big deal for me. I have not attempted to write fiction since I was in elementary school and we would have to write a story using each of our spelling words. I hated doing that. I can’t tell you why. I really have no idea. I can’t remember if it was being constrained by having to work in specific words, or if I lacked imagination. Having typed the last part of that sentence out while somewhat thinking back, it wasn’t lack of imagination. So it must have been the word constraint. Regardless, I thought most everybody else’s stories were better than mine. Who knows if that was consistently true. I certainly don’t remember any of my stories let alone any of my classmate’s.

That short cliffhanger I wrote was supposed to be 1) easy and 2) more detailed. For the past 2 or 3 years, I’ve been working out a story in my head. I have the main story line worked out, and so I thought it would be a very simple task to knock out the beginning of the story for yesterday’s NaBloPoMo post. However, the whole story was largely visual. My characters didn’t have names. My towns and villages didn’t have names. The mountains and river had no name. Thank goodness for name generators! At some point my creatures will need a name.

I ended up rushing the end so I could get it posted and still get to bed at a semi-decent hour. The destruction of the village needs more description. Oh, I think I have a way to work that in as I continue it. But, I digress. As I was getting ready to publish it, I freaked out a little inside. “What if everyone thinks it sucks?” Because in a weird way, writing fiction feels more vulnerable than anything else I’ve ever written. Including poetry. Not that I’m going to go dig around to find the poetry I dabbled in when I was still a teen. And certainly not my songs. In fact, those songs really need to disappear forever.

Back to the story, since I hadn’t really thought out details, I’m now all excited about where it might go. Because it’s one thing to have a main story line, but the steps to trace that line are what makes or breaks the experience. Or rather it’s like the difference between reading a book and watching a movie based on a book. Take Stephen King. When I started reading his books, I had already seen a few of the movies based on the books. But then I reached a point where I had read all the books up to a certain point in time, and then watched the movies, and the movies sucked. The Tommyknockers is the perfect example. The book scared the crap out of me. To this day, I have nightmares about my teeth falling out that I didn’t have before reading that book. The miniseries was atrocious despite starring my boyfriend Jimmy Smits.

There has been largely no point to this post besides existence as a daily post that’s over 500 words. But, I am looking forward to writing more of yesterday’s story.

The beginning – the end #nablopomo

“Come on, get up!”

“I don’t want to!”

“Yes you do. Let’s go!”

Brele finally managed to open her eyes.

“It’s still dark!”

“It won’t be by the time we get there! We’ve been planning this all week. It was your idea!”

Tesho was right. She had been planning this outing all week. She was finally old enough to go to the river to fish with Tesho. He had been going with his friends for a couple of years, and none of her friends liked to fish. Actually, none of her friends liked to do anything involving slimy worms and fish and mud. Brele had always wanted to do everything her big brother was doing, and for the most part she did.

Tesho adored his baby sister as much as she looked up to him. They had been nearly inseparable since birth until Tesho reached 12 and could go beyond the village with his friends. Truth be told, Brele could defend herself as well as Tesho, but their parents stuck to the rule that all parents in the village enforced. There had been no trouble around their village for centuries, but tales of a dark past still hung over Pitmerden.

Pitmerden is a quaint village in quiet valley between the Qruhz Mountains and the Mylahst River. Small cottages surrounded by fields cut out of forests to the north and south. Ruins in the forest to the south give rise to tales of long forgotten battle with an evil race of cave dwelling creatures bent on destruction. Rumors of adventurers from Rockhorn (the ruling city of the Saveteron Kingdom) searching the hills for mythical caves full of treasure fill the imaginations of the young.

Brele stretches and yawns, and proceeds to get dressed for her first fishing trip with Tesho. Emerging into the main room, her parents sit quietly over tea before their daily routine of farm life. “Tesho, I need you to help me plant the rest of the barley,” their father Xem said. Tesho replied, “Yes, father. We will be back before midday. The fish always stop biting a couple of hours after sunrise.”

The siblings stepped out of their cottage, and headed east toward the river. A very faint glow could be seen on the horizon signaling that dawn would be breaking soon. There was a slight breeze which added to the early morning chill. Each carried a pole and a small bucket of grubs they dug up the day before. The village roosters crowing were the only sounds besides the wind in the trees, and the soft padding of feet hiking along a well-worn path. As they neared the river, the birds were beginning to sing, and the sky was a warm pink signaling a clear sky.

“Looks like a perfect morning to fish,” Tesho said, breaking the reverie Brele had settled into as they walked. Dawn was breaking, and they soon had their poles in the water. As the eastern sky grew brighter, turning from pink to gold, Brele watched with awe the magnificent change just before the sun peaked. “I’ve got one!” Tesho yelled, but Brele attention was transfixed by the peek of the sun as it emerged. So enamored she was that she nearly lost her pole with her first bite. “Oh, I’ve got one!” she cried.

As the sun continued to rise, bathing them in warmth, they caught fish almost effortlessly. They joked that the fish were biting so well they were wasting their time baiting the hooks.By midmorning, they had a substantial bounty of fish, and Tesho decided it was time to go as he had promised their father. As they walked back to the village, they decided that this was looking like the best day they had ever had.

Then they heard a scream.

A cold chill ran down Brele’s spine, and her vision of a perfect day was shattered with a deep sense that something unimaginable now lay before them. “This is bad. This is really bad,” she said to Tesho as he looked at her with deep concern. Suddenly, multiple screams pierced the valley from Pitmerden.

They both dropped everything and ran toward the village with no idea what they were about to find. Then they saw it. Hundreds of creatures with clubs and crude swords indiscriminately attacking the villagers – men, women, and children – slashing, stabbing, and bludeoning. For a moment they were both frozen by the sheer horror of what was happening before them. “We have to get home,” Tesho said to Brele. “We have to get Father and Mother.”

As they ran back along the outskirts, they were spotted. Brele cried, “Tesho! They saw us! We have to run!” Tesho replied, “We’re almost there!” But they were already too late. Their cottage was burning, and the creatures were gaining on them. They quickly glanced at one another just as a group emerged from the field in front of them. They stopped and looked at each other knowing they had nowhere to run.

They joined hands as the creatures closed in, and Brele felt the blow to the back of her head just a moment before all went black.

To be continued…
Click for Part 2

Here and not #nablopomo

outofbody
photo credit: Fundacja Wersja Źródła ciała via photopin (license)

Sometimes I can feel so absolutely alone. Almost disconnected from the rest of the world. Surreal. Like no one else exists even when I can see other people. Almost like I’m invisible.

I wrote that nearly a year ago. I was sitting outside at work, and technically I was alone in that no one else was outside with me. But I knew I wasn’t really alone and there were several people inside, plus people driving by and such.

That was not my first time having an episode like that. It’s just the first I recorded. I had a somewhat similar episode Sunday evening while washing dishes. I was fully aware that I was washing dishes, I mean, I was washing knives so I was very conscious of what I was doing. Yet at the same time, it was as if I was outside of myself observing myself. It wasn’t an out-body-experience, and yes, I have had one. (The DragonLady had a few weird trips on laughing gas at the dentist when she was a kid.)

I shared this with some people in a private Facebook group who have similar backgrounds as I and might relate. Lo and behold, I am not the only one who has this little dissociative bouts.

It’s kind of funny how your childhood coping mechanisms come out at odd times as an adult. These things aren’t frightening typically. Now when I have episodes when I am driving where I cannot remember anything that happened for several miles, that’s a bit disconcerting. But much like that out-of-body experience and hallucination at the dentist as a kid, I find it curious rather than scary.

Prompting the brave #nablopomo

I signed up to blog every day in November with every intention of making myself actually do it. I remember how I did this 2 years ago as well, and I think I wrote maybe the first 4 days. It’s day 2, and I couldn’t come up with a topic, but I joined a Facebook group that promised a writing prompt every weekday.

When was the last time you did something brave? What happened?

I also remember a few years ago when Petra did a writing topic challenge, and we kept getting loaded questions. We made it 3, 4 posts? So here I sit with today’s writing prompt, and it’s a loaded question. Earlier today, it wasn’t quite so loaded and I started to write about seriously entertaining the thought of a career change. Not only thinking on it, but mentioning it to a few close friends.

As I thought about expanding on that, I got very anxious. I’ve also talked about my anxiety with a couple close friends in the last few days. I haven’t had a bout with prolonged anxiety in a while. Not since my first 6 months or so sober. I wasn’t concerned so much about my recent anxiety because I know the pattern of high stress followed by anxiety followed by depression. Since it’s been going on a few weeks, I let my some of my inner circle know because I haven’t gone through the entire cycle completely sober and without an antidepressant. I need other eyes on me so I don’t start isolating.

Well, turns out there was something else behind my recent episodes of anxiety which explained why today nearly turned into a full blown panic attack. I’m not going to go into any detail whatsoever as to what the trigger was. But I just about flipped out initially with the full manifestation of the mental chatter I’d had all afternoon. That chatter is dangerous for me because I know how to silence it. No, I know how to temporarily muzzle it.

I remembered that I have a tool chest. And I used it. I first resolved not to do anything rash, and then I called someone. Ok, I texted her, but she told me to call, and I knew she would. And you know, the mental chatter stopped. The old me would have gotten drunk. Maybe not today, but it would happen soon because it always seemed like the easy way to take care of my issues. Keep the feelings stuffed and suppressed.

Today, I faced my feelings, and I didn’t isolate. For me, that was brave.