sleep.

Posted on 21 September 2018 by

bed.

I think I’m doing it wrong.

I know I should try going to sleep earlier so I can get one solid reasonably-long block of sleep. But it just doesn’t happen.

Edited to add: This is not because I can’t sleep. I have absolutely no trouble sleeping. It’s not an insomnia thing or anything like that. I can sleep. It’s just when I do it or don’t do it that’s a problem.

I’m not willing to give up my late night television ritual. Which doesn’t end until about 1:30 am.

The Daily Show | The Late Show with Stephen Colbert | Late Night with Seth Meyers

You may ask… Why not just watch them in the morning? It’s easy enough to do that. But… it’s not the same if I don’t watch in real-time. The magic is lost. I need the magic.

[Aside: My 13-year old son watches these shows with me. And then he has to wake up at 6:30 for school. I am a bad influence.]

But this late night tv situation isn’t the worst part.

My mood is always better at night. I don’t want to sleep through that. So what happens instead is that I get about four hours of sleep… then I wake up and be the mom. After I take the kids to school (two different schools with start times an hour apart), I return home and go back to bed.

That’s the worst part: I have been trying to ‘beat‘ my hopeless, sad, lonely boredom by sleeping through it.

What’s even more pathetic is that it doesn’t even work. It only delays those unbearable feelings. Maybe it shortens how long they last… a little. But usually not noticeably.

I’ve tried so many things that I’ve either thought of on my own or heard from others. I try to keep busy. Cleaning, walking, getting out of the house any way I can think of, writing (fail), taking pictures (I suck). I take the recommended vitamins for my gender/age/issues. I take everything else professionals have recommended. I eat a healthy diet.

In short, if I have the ability to try something, I’ve tried it. If I can afford to do it, I’ve done it.

But here we are.

 

Maybe I need a nap.

 

©2018 what sandra thinks

         

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which way challenge. 09.13.18

Posted on 16 September 2018 by

Hello. I’m back with more pictures for the Which Way Challenge.

The rotary. [That’s a roundabout to many of you, isn’t it?]
A place where I have yelled more obscenities at other drivers than anywhere else. Vehicles in the rotary have the right of way, people!

No, this is not my home/path. On the left is a church. A block to the right is my kids’ karate studio.

These are really exciting, I know. Try to contain yourselves.

 

©2018 what sandra thinks

         

Posted in challenge, photography, writing | Tagged , , , , , | 19 Comments

song of the day. #63 #music

Posted on 14 September 2018 by

song of the day.

I have been waiting a long-ass time for new music from Hozier. Finally… I got some. A four-song EP. That’s it… we get four songs. He’s killing me. But they are good.

[Irrelevant note: in the cover pic, he looks evil. And kind of like he has vampire fangs.]

swirly
Shrike | Hozier

I couldn’t utter my love when it counted
Ah, but I’m singing like a bird, ’bout it now
And I couldn’t whisper when you needed it shouted
Ah, but I’m singing like a bird, ’bout it now

Words hung above
But never would form
Like a cry at the final breath that is drawn
Remember me love, when I’m reborn
As a shrike to your sharp and glorious thorn

[partial lyrics]

song of the day

song of the day

Obviously I am not the owner of any rights to this song, video, or lyrics… just everything else… ©2018 what sandra thinks

         

Posted in music, writing | Tagged , , , , | 26 Comments

which way challenge. 09.06.18

Posted on 10 September 2018 by

I don’t know if this is going to be a regular thing… but I might get my ass kicked if I don’t at least try. Because of the new host. Of course, after this one week, I may be out of pictures…

Since the Which Way Challenge is posted every Thursday, I think that means I have a week to post… as long as I do it before the next Thursday. I’m going with that. So I guess this goes with the Sept 6th post.

This is my first time. If my pictures suck, just lie to me.

Steps to one of the libraries I like visiting…

A path into the corn. [And there’s one of those horrible corn mazes, too. I hate them. I think I might be mildly claustrophobic or something.]

 

©2018 what sandra thinks

         

Posted in challenge, photography, writing | Tagged , , , , , | 30 Comments

writer’s death.

Posted on 5 September 2018 by

workspace.

I don’t write anymore and I hate it.

I used to look forward to having time to sit down with my laptop and write to my heart’s content. Fiction, poetry, and whatever else came to mind.

But that is no more.

Now, when I sit down with my laptop, I am despondent.

First, I scan through my 70 or 80 or more emails. (It varies depending on how many days have passed since I last tried to catch up.) Most of them, I know, I will never get to.

[Aside: I’m sorry I haven’t kept up with all of you. I am trying but failing. Whenever I sit down and start reading, I start to panic. I don’t even understand why. Maybe I should just stop everything. I honestly don’t know.]

Then I try to write. I read through my idea list (which sucks, by the way). I revisit my draft posts. Sometimes I read some of my old published posts. Instead of inspiring me, though, those old posts make me cry.

I used to write. I used to write well. I miss looking forward to writing… happy to have time to write. But I don’t look forward to it. Not anymore. Instead, I have hopeless boredom and no inspiration or ability to write anything. When I could write, I never felt the hopeless boredom that plagues me now. But I cannot find anything inside me. Most days, I don’t even pick up my laptop. When I glance over at it, I feel sadness… almost sickness. Like it’s just lying there mocking me. If it could talk, it would say, “You are dead to me, Sandra. Don’t even touch me.”

I know I have no obligation to post here. No obligations to anyone. I know this. It feels like I’ve already [mostly] lost my little ‘community‘ that I had here. I could just disappear. Some days, I think that would be best. For me, I mean. Because when my laptop mocks me, staying away from it seems to be the best option. But that makes me sad, too. The quintessential no-win situation.

Trying upsets me. Sometimes, being around here at all upsets me. But writing was my way out of my own head. You were my way out. And I need that. It’s not because I feel obligated to write for you. It’s because I want to write. For me. I just want to write. Period.

If I didn’t care, it would be easier. But I want to be able to write again. I miss it so much. Other than the not-really-fiction story I was inexplicably able to write for last April’s A to Z challenge, I haven’t written any new fiction for well over a year… probably going on two years. It’s not writer’s block… it’s writer’s death.

Maybe it wouldn’t be as bad if I had a substitute activity in my life. A substitute anything. But I don’t have anything. Nothing interests me. Nothing excites me. Not like writing used to. I just want to be there again.

Writing was always my escape. Now I don’t have one.

 

©2018 what sandra thinks

         

 

Posted in blogging, life, writing | Tagged , , , , , | 68 Comments

reasons fall sucks.

Posted on 29 August 2018 by

I touched upon this in an earlier post but I felt the need to elaborate. I’m probably not going to convince anyone that I’m right about fall (unless you already hate it like I do), but that isn’t my mission anyway. I just enjoy expressing my feelings… in a bitchy way.

reasons fall sucks.

1. The kids are back in school. My daughter, especially, has been in a ‘mom-phase‘. We spent a huge amount of time together this summer. I’m going to miss that.

2. I have too much alone time. That means my brain works overtime… creating all sorts of worst-case scenarios. That means I am a huge mess.

3. It is not even September yet and the school supplies are already being cleared out for Halloween stuff and Christmas stuff, for fuck’s sake! I hate Christmas. But that’s a whole different list. I think I’ve even made one before. Maybe I will make another one. I’m probably going to repeat myself. Deal with it.

4. Enough with the pumpkin spice shit already! First of all, pumpkin is gross. Does all this pumpkin spice crap taste like pumpkin? Or is it just the ‘spice‘ part that’s in these flavored things? I’ve never been clear on that. But no matter. It has gone way overboard. I already want it to go away. They have pumpkin spice Frosted Flakes now. Don’t fuck with my Frosted Flakes, dammit. Is nothing sacred?

5. My tan is already fading. I know… the sun is bad for my skin. Whatever. I know… terrible attitude. I don’t care… I look better with a tan.

6. At some point, sooner than I would like, I’m going to have to stop wearing sandals. I love sandals. I hate socks. Don’t get me started on socks with sandals. What the fuck is that?? (Apparently, it’s all the rage in middle school…)

But wearing sandals isn’t over yet… since this happened today (yeah, my car thinks ‘outside’ is two words)…

but…

7. The days are getting shorter… and darker. Some say fall is pretty, and it can be. But really, everything is just dying. Including my soul.

…

Okay, I’ll give you this…

reasons fall is good.

1. apple cider donuts.

the end.

 

©2018 what sandra thinks

         

Posted in humor, life, list, rant, writing | Tagged , , , , , | 38 Comments

alone time. plus lunch.

Posted on 27 August 2018 by

Alone time. I’m about to have more of it.

I know a lot of parents are thrilled when their kids go back to school, but I’m not. Being alone is not a good thing for me. Not right now. Especially not during the day.

I, the jobless wonder, get bored. Extremely so. Oh, I can think of things to do… but I am so dispassionate that I struggle to do any of those things. They don’t appeal to me. Nothing does. So I reach a point of utter hopelessness… and I’m convinced I will never feel good again. It’s not the usual ‘feeling down‘ kind of thing. It feels so much worse. Overwhelming. Frightening. And it is unbearable.

It’s not that summer has been a non-stop party. No. There has been a lot of boredom (for me and the kids). And I did get that unbearable feeling… often. But it was slightly (very slightly) easier for me to get through it because I wasn’t alone. Now I’m nervous and afraid to feel it every day while the kids are at school.

At least I will be able to ease into it… sort of. I just found out this afternoon that the first three days of school (this week, Tues, Wed, Thurs) will all be half-days due to the extreme heat we are currently experiencing. Then there is a long weekend.

I really hope I will be okay. But I am worried. Very worried. I hate this. I hate it so much.

dots.

The kids had to go to the dentist this morning. Way to ruin their last day of summer break… I know. That was poor scheduling on my part, I guess. But I took them out to lunch afterward.

I’ve been wanting to try Wahlburgers since they opened. It’s been a while but we finally went today. I find that there are always people who immediately trash places that are even a little bit hyped up… like this one. But I thought the food was great (and the prices reasonable… rare nowadays). I thoroughly enjoyed my burger. And the onion rings were all stringy and crispy and yummy. Just like the little food stand that used to exist in my hometown back when I was in high school. (Man, I miss that place.)

I couldn’t bring myself to order a shake (sorry, I mean frappe) because, let’s face it, if I got one (coffee frappe… yummm), I would have had to get one for each kid, too… and I thought that was a bit much. We were stuffed when we left there.

That didn’t stop me from getting iced coffee after lunch, though. I have a problem.

dots.

It would be nice, I guess, if the end of summer meant I’d be writing more. But I don’t think that’s going to happen. Writing and I have not been on the same page for quite some time. Page… get it? Ugh. Sorry.

I did start to write a post about writing. Maybe that one will see the light of day. But no guarantees.

 

©2018 what sandra thinks

         

Posted in family, life, writing | Tagged , , , , , , | 25 Comments

how my sunday went.

Posted on 20 August 2018 by

Sunday morning I woke up early. No one was awake yet. I didn’t get out of bed, though. I just stayed there. Staring at the ceiling. I started to feel anxious… and a little sick. I tried to close my eyes again… go back to sleep. I was still tired but it didn’t work. I was just… awake.

I tried to fight it, but my mind started collecting worries. Big ones. Little ones. Medium-sized ones. Valid ones. Stupid ones. But all… overwhelming ones. Even the ones that ‘normal‘ people wouldn’t even consider ‘worries‘.

I need to start with a small worry and try to ‘fix‘ it so I can stop worrying about it. Then tackle another one. And even though I know I can’t fix a lot of them, I might be able to fix some of the stupid little ones. But they have me so ridiculously stressed out.

So there I was this morning… no one else awake… lying there crying. Not just a few tears falling. No. This was a full flood of tears. The worse it got… the worse it got. More tears, more worries… and more worries, more tears.

I tried to stop thinking. Like, completely. I couldn’t clear my head at all so I started playing Candy Crush. Seriously. I know it sounds so stupid. But it’s mindless while not mindless. But it only worked for a few minutes. I couldn’t forget shit. I put the phone down.

And then it hit me.

I am never going to have a happy life.

It doesn’t matter what I do. It doesn’t even matter if I ‘fix‘ any of my worries… because there will always be more. It’s just how my brain works. I worry. I worry about things that have already happened that I can do nothing about. I worry about what’s happening right now. I worry about the future… not just tomorrow or next week… but years from now. My mind is constantly creating worst case scenarios. Constantly. Sometimes, they’re totally far-fetched. But they plague me.

I managed to hide all of this from my family. I made breakfast. I wrote the grocery shopping list. I got my son to work on his summer reading project that he still hasn’t finished. I took my daughter out to buy glitter. Got coffee… went for a little drive.

Later, at home, I got bored. That anxious, sad, hopeless boredom. Thoughts started to spiral again. I went to my room to work on decluttering a messy dresser drawer I’ve been wanting to ‘fix‘. But I wanted to put some of the stuff somewhere else. So I had to reorganize that first. But to do that, I needed to reorganize something else. It became this overwhelming chain of organize and reorganize, and I never found the starting point. Brain overload. I was completely overwhelmed and I started crying again.

The thing is… this is a typical day for me. Not the summer reading and the glitter. But the rest… it happens a lot. More than I care to admit… even though I’m admitting it right now. I don’t know that there is an answer… a solution. I don’t think there is. I’ve tried all the things that I (and others) have thought of. Sometimes, something works temporarily. Very temporarily. But I always end up back here.

It scares me. Some days I don’t know how I’m going to make it. But I can’t let it break me because I have to be here for my kids.

But it fucking scares me.

divider dots.

A note because I just made this connection (duh):
I think my little epiphany [that I am never going to have a happy life] is one of the reasons I’ve been so iffy about blogging lately. How entertaining… how enjoyable can reading my blog be to you if this is what I’m all about? Am I really helping anyone? Maybe there are people out there who feel a connection to some of my posts… but am I helping? Fuck knows I don’t have any answers. I don’t even think there are any. But… I’m supposed to be blogging for me… right?

Another note because this has happened quite a few times (and I’m fucking sick of it):
(1) If you are going to respond to this post to tell me that if I find Jesus everything will work out just fine… that if I let God in, he will take care of me… please just don’t. Just. Don’t.
(2) If you are going to respond to tell me that I need medication or need to have medication changed or that medication is not working, please just don’t. Guess what? Medication can only do so much. I’ve tried it all. No exaggeration. So unless such matters are your profession and I am your patient… just don’t.
Thank you.

(above image: source unknown)

©2018 what sandra thinks

         

Posted in anxiety, depression, life, writing | Tagged , , , , , | 24 Comments