Ta-dah! List

[Beany Boo]

After successfully negotiating my rent last week, my sister nearly broke my brain about my living situation on Sunday. I pushed back but it cost me my reserves of mental strength. Then I injured my groin at Pilates. I think maybe my attention had been shot. Then my neighbors fought through the night last night so I barely slept and had to do breathing exercises instead, to ward off rage/panic. I got up this morning and saw that I’d forgotten to hang my laundry out overnight. It was sitting in a damp pile where I’d left it.

I picked up my phone this morning and called in sick. I think it’s maybe the third time ever I’ve consciously had a ‘mental health’ day? I didn’t call it that but that’s how I’m taking it. It’s certainly the first kind of… regular sick day I’ve called for mental health (regular versus a mental emergency).

Goodness knows what mistake I would have suffered had I gone into work today. I spent the morning suspended over the void and my tinnitus is on all cylinders. But I’m gradually coming back to the world and remembering I’m a human adult.

Anyway the ta-dah! is the calling in sick to save my brain.

My focus for the rest of the day is to be an empty ramen bowl ready to be filled.

[manuel_moe_g]

<BE> that ramen bowl, Beany!

Congratulations on the negotiation with your landlord.

[oak]

1. I am sorry it is one thing after another for you lately!

It sounds like you are going through a katabasis: a sudden drop, if you didn’t have bad luck you’d have no luck at all.

The late, lamented Robert Bly wrote that such a katabasis is caused by spiritual growth: all sorts of tiny misfortunes show up just as we learn/grow. It is no fun.

2. We’ll done for taking a day off. Don’t hesitate to do so again as indicated.

3. I like to think that my tinnitus, activated by Covid in Feb 2020, is in tune with your tinnitus: though separated by thousand of miles, we are connected by a tiny annoyance.

Such is something I like to believe!

[Beany Boo]

Thank you both

It certainly feels like a spiritual turn.

Stuff is low key unraveling.

I more or less feel heartbroken for the whole world. Or it’s a Wednesday.

I’ve got this urge to step out into a life promising chaos, but which seems more sensible than the one I’m in now.

I don’t know, I’m facing big fears, and the sky stays up

Thank you for your time.

[Beany Boo]

I hit a good stride today.

I’d been in a trauma response I realize, since Sunday.

I could only see it as such, tangentially; until today.

It was a male colleague who opened my eyes. There’s a tendency to push even harder when he is under prolonged duress.

I could see for the last few days I had been continuously trying to take my foot off the accelerator. I was feeling distressed that I couldn’t; until this afternoon.

[rivergirl]

May I just say that you are awesome, Beany? That is all. Good night.

rg

[Beany Boo]

Thank you rg

[snoringdog]

"I more or less feel heartbroken for the whole world."

Roger that, Beany

[Beany Boo]

Every Sunday or Monday night, my neighbors fight all out from about 10pm to 2am. The first time I thought someone’s life might be in danger. The 3rd or 4th time I decided it was… recreational? It’s actually impressive. Or it would be if I wasn’t wrecked for work the next morning.

Nothing they say is discernible but the peaks are unbridled and the pace is relentless; they’re young. It’s also more than a little triggering.

It’s been about 5 or 6 weeks in a row.

I feared saying anything. Partly I wanted to stay off their radar. Partly I feared they might somehow be related to my landlord, and my intervention might somehow blow back on me.

Then the night before last another set of neighbors nearby played Zeppelin all through the night making it impossible to sleep.

So last night, as my next door neighbors started to wrap up their argument around 1am, I finally lost any resistance to conflict and did something.

I took a piece of origami paper and a pen and wrote, “Please kindly stop fighting in the middle of the night.” I put the paper note outside their door and weighed it down with a coin (a bribe). Then I knocked on their door and scurried back inside.

I heard their door squeak open. Moments later, lasting silence. Exhausted, I couldn’t sleep. At 4:45am I woke from fitful sleep, still crumby.

As I left for work, I saw a different note under the coin in front of my door. Because of the aggression in their altercations, I fully expected it to say,”F%#€ YOU!”.

Instead, it was deeply apologetic with promises never to make noise again.

I’ll wait and see.

The ta-dah! is the note.

[snoringdog]

Ha! Wow.

Hope you get a good night's sleep.