Outofthedarkness

Blog For 1-27-2023

I have to change my writing for my blog – I am still going to challenge myself at the end of each blog, but I need to turn my blog back inward again.  My ‘dry spell’ for my writing and my blogging isn’t the lack of things to write about or share… it isn’t the writing really at all.  Anyway – I am just going to write and see where this all ends up.

3:06        I wake to a brain zap that I can feel go from just behind my right eye, all the way down to my great toe on my right foot.  Brain zaps are remnants of side effects of a medication or maybe the current medication that I take – although I am not currently taking anything.  I don’t get them as often as I once did – and they can present at any time… they are kinda wild.  Basically an electric shock sensation that can make my body stiffen and go board like for just a second.  Its painfilled and, while they only take a second – they certainly do demand my attention… BUT I WAS SLEEPING!

So now I am laying awake, hoping that I didn’t awaken my K.  I don’t think I did cuz I can hear her in with that kinda snorty sleep that one has when they are fighting a cold… At any rate – I’m laying there… eyes closed, trying to imagine myself back to sleep – my ADHD brain doing its thing.. taking my thoughts to the network issues that I need to solve for our connectivity issues to my shop, to the fence line of our property and “I know it isn’t straight – but does it really matter?”, to my aches and pains from my osteoarthritis and my aching back and hips from what is or isn’t there, yada – yada… and the clock ticks by.

3:36        I might as well get up and take something for all this… I kinda climb/roll/hobble out of the bed and move stiffly to the cupboard to dig out something for back and muscles, something for nerve pain, something for this, something for that… roll the handful of whatever it is into my mouth and gulp down a large glass of water…  I know I better make a pit stop on the way back – (What goes in has to come out…).. and I’m back to laying there…

3:41        I lay there and feel a sharp twang of something in my foot, a dagger like feeling in my right hand along with some sliver feelings in my fingers.  This is nothing new or exceptional… every day all the time kinda stuff that is there… but these sensations certainly do distract me from being able to just get back to sleep.

I don’t look at the clock – It doesn’t really matter – all these thoughts boil into my mind.  A bunch of them are negative – “Intrusive thoughts”.  Not healthy thoughts.  Some of these intrusions have some truth to them  Yup, I am overweight.. I wouldn’t say that I was gross, but I am overweight… but the words flooding into my sleepless mind are Fat, Gross, Ugly.  I manage these intruders with what I know to be truth and not the opinion of my “Inner Roommate”.  There’s all sorts of words that flood in… Useless, lazy, moron, stupid, idiot… maybe some of them are true – I KNOW that most aren’t and I try to deal with those in the same way – facts over fiction… Its like I have a 21 century cable news network playing crap in my mind – sifting out the fiction from the facts… My responsibility for sure.. .but its an incredible barrage of bullshit… well, most of it anyway.  Another zap… change of the channel…

I don’t know what exact time it is right now – I should just get up… I can kinda feel that the nerve meds are starting to come onboard… along with the reduction in twinges and panges, there’s also a “kind” of drowsiness.  Not really sleepy, just not super alert.  My brain is firing from one idea to another, from one issue to another.  Some of the “issues” really do need to be addressed.  Most of them are “slid in the mail slot” by my Inner Roommate.

I suppose that I am not alone in this… I do some of my very best thinking and “me work” in these wee hours of the morning.  I sift through “stuff”, work on trying to figure out what’s valuable and what’s not… sort of like sifting through the boxes of “bits and pieces” I’ve collected from my fathers stuff, well some of it, and my K’s father, dad – dynamite boxes filled with some junk, some tools that would be difficult if not impossible to replace, some hand made tools dating back to my maternal grandfather… different planes and coving tools.. spark testers, bearing tools, unique screw drivers… the stuff that I understand and appreciate… Some of the other “stuff” is tougher to recognize the value in.. A tin filled with 3/8” nuts, washers and bolts… “Where the heck would I ever use those???”  Assorted – well – junk… but it’s all there – tucked away in those dynamite boxes… just waiting to…

My life and my experiences are a lot like that stuff… some of the experiences I’ve had are truly priceless, some are just junk or trash…  I haven’t thrown them away… I’m not sure why – but it seems like I just can’t through stuff away… I’m a mental packrat.. (a “stuff” kinda packrat too) I keep packing them with me… I’ve tried lots of different ways of trying to “sort through them” from writing them down on page after page of ramblings – then burning the words and the paper to “free myself” from them.. That works for a while – but the stuff keeps coming back… Another way I’ve used to manage this “Stuff” is to select a random coin sized stone that I can keep in my pocket and when this negative “ick” comes poking around or flooding in – I rub the stone – very much like the idea of a worry stone – except – at the end of the day, I through the stone as far away as I can – so that I can’t go find it again… and that works some of the time…  These experiences are permanent pieces I suppose…

My family unit went through some real ick this past year.  I can’t explain because its not mine to explain.  But it sticks to me, it colours my approach to my days, its more stuff that I need to sort… and it goes on my pile… the inbox.. and guess who’s there – snooping through my mail… my Inner Roommate… (I wish I could ditch it…)  Anyway – along my way through this past year I got another tattoo… nothing extravagant or crazy… its just the words, in my hand “I am enough…” on my left forearm, and “I am worthy” on my right foot.  Permanent reminders.  Won’t wash off… dark, crisp, lines… some days – like today – these words are reminders… some day these words are proclamations, some days these words are goals – things to strive for… but every day – they are the truth.

Sometimes – like today – saying the words brings tears to my eyes… All the “intrusive thoughts”, all the roommate stuff, makes it really, really hard to truly believe the words… but I have purposefully written them into my skin so that the words are there…  There’s a line in the Game of Thrones where the newly crowned king “Brandon the Broken” says to John Snow – “You where exactly where you where supposed to be.”  Well – I am going to take some of that and add a little of my own twist…

I am exactly who I am supposed to be.

I 100% get that this post is all over the place.  I’m 100% all over the place – but I know….
I am enough…   and I am worthy…

Today, if your into it, I’d like to challenge you to give yourself a little space.  A little space to see that you are worthy of all the gifts your experience lays before you.  A little space to know that you are enough.

That’s it – I challenge you…

I also understand that this is a massive challenge! One that I continue.

Kevin