I am sitting at the desk. Slight fever. The space heater’s white noise is filling the room. And I notice myself hum. On the exhalation. A single note. And again. Hum.
It’s a D, according to the app on my phone. Too sharp to be properly flat.
It’s as though white noise invites more noise. I used to sing when I vacuumed. I’d forgotten that. “I’m on top of the wo-orld, looking _ down on creation…”
Down by another pill today. Just another two weeks before my moods are entirely my own again. This week B. chastised me (gently) for hiding my speedy days from her all these years. I guess it is because these days she has no choice in the matter. I recognize the ambivalence of needing to be seen and knowing there may be something to hide – something right around the corner at the end of a sentence. Something you don’t see coming until it’s too late.
There is so much uncertainty around whether this or that social filter is functioning, and which are okay not to worry about, with whom. But I don’t have an added pressure that she has: of thinking there is so little time left.
Now. And then never.
It’s fascinating that context really determines everything. Even what is “considerate” behavior. I would have been more considerate perhaps to let her have my manic days as a touchstone for unconditional love. To allow her to have demonstrated it, maybe especially to herself, since I have felt shame, but never fear.
I think I have spent most of my life wanting do-overs. I take that backs. There is the dark side of all the therapy. How can you reframe this and that? How can you find a brighter perspective? Not that anything was ever your fault. You are responsible for your response. But don’t over-think it. Think it differently, though.
Self-absorbed is an amazing metaphor really. A tendril of sponge consuming another tendril of sponge on the sea bed. It is a zero-sum game, really.
- Sea sponge is structured like a jelly sandwich.
- They are described simultaneously as “masters of survival” and as “threatened species” today.
Fun facts.
