Sometimes the World is Overwhelming

[oak]

Snoring Dog!

Though we’re 500 miles from you, we got it all once: I could taste, smell, and see it at 6 pm, while I couldn’t detect it two hours earlier.

The sky was this nauseating gray.

It suuucks.

[snoringdog]

"Sending you some love..."

[oak]

SnoringDog! I hope you are doing well, and that your week is going well.

Regarding atmospheric smoke:

I hope your skies are non-smoky.

While this is not The Suffering Olympics, our current skies are definitely hazy/a nauseating light brown-green, but nothing like your photos from a few weeks ago.

And let me stress: even this less/fewer smoke suuuucks.

It profoundly sucks.

[snoringdog]

Hello Oak,

I hope your skies are non-smoky.

Hmm... I've been in the Detroit area since the weekend for a niece's wedding and the haze started a day or two ago. Not Mars-red-and-weird like before, but you can smell it and feel it in the back of your throat.

Our return flight to NY was cancelled this morning due to weather and airline disorganization, but we have a couple of free days, and I'm sleeping at my sister's house rather than in the airport like some of the poor schlimazels we're hearing about... (been there, done that!).

Going to the wedding and being back in the town I wanted to get away from so long ago is somewhat disorienting, and when I'm in the netherworlds on either side of a deep sleep, it's agitating. So many thoughts and memories come to mind, and I need to corral them so as not to get sucked into a depressive spiral.

I've had some good conversations with my siblings about our past, their lives, and our family dynamics, and I'm glad I came. But it takes mental energy and is a little disorienting (as travel can be anyway) and I'm looking forward to getting home, but continuing the conversations.

And I'm going to pull out my little voice recorder and start using it again. So many thoughts come thru all the time for me, and it's a burden. If I can't let them just pass, I've found that "catching" them is often helpful and that upon playback. they're not as heavy.

Hope you are well.

SD

[Mental Fairy]

Hi SD

What is the age gap between yourself and your siblings?

[snoringdog]

Older sister is one year ahead (we're closer to being "Irish twins" ). Next brother is maybe five years younger, and then down from there, maybe a twelve year spread or so to the youngest.

I left the house at 19, so I missed their high school years, and then some of the later goings-on. (We weren't "cut off" by the group I was in, but the age differences, distance and my different mindset separated us).

Looking back, I see how depressed I was, and not able/wanting to fit in with what I saw around me. (Upper white middle class suburbs, in stark contrast to the mainly black and denser-populated city)

Mentally settling down a bit today (flight cancelled a second time!), but I still sense the disconnect and alienation that I did so long ago...

[Mental Fairy]

Hi SD

That is interesting, there is ten year’s difference between me and oldest. I don’t call him my brother as I’m ashamed to even has DNA with him. Seven years between myself and Aaron. Very proud to be his little sister.

Aaron and and I tiptoe around conversations of the past. They are either blanked out completely or too painful to talk about.

The depression we both waded through still sticks to us through unspoken words.

[snoringdog]

Hawaiian town totally destroyed by fire...
Thousands dead in Morocco from a major earthquake.
Thousands drowned in Libya due to heavy rains and two dams bursting.

And this is only recently.

And yet, life goes on. People laughing, smiling, raising families.
Why do I have trouble reconciling all this?

Gotta keep busy. Can't spiral....

[Mental Fairy]

Just saw the flooding on the news, we never watch the news for the reason of feeling overwhelmed. Don’t think I’ll watch it again.

[snoringdog]

That's the conundrum. How to be aware, but not overly affected.

I don't watch the TV news because it's so short-form and disjointed with the obnoxious commercials. If you don't have ADD, it'll surely induce it.
But even "staid" radio stations like the BBC or NPR are difficult sometimes.

I get news and commentary mostly online and in newspaper and magazines. Easier to control the flow.

The real problem though, is being conscious and aware...
It hurts, living and moving through the world.

(And I often feel guilty that I don't have *real* problems.... just those in my own head).