Phone call at 8:30 a.m. to husband:

“I had a rush of fear that you are cheating on me. You aren’t cheating on me, right? It’s just my brain, right? You love me?”

Text message (paraphrased) to both husband and good friend, around 11:00 a.m.:

“I have a scratchy throat and feel achy. I am worried that the cold I had is trying to come back. Other people have colds that come back, right? It doesn’t mean my immune system is bad and I’m dying, does it?”

Phone call at 12:15 a.m. to husband:

“Honey, I’m not losing my mind,am I? How has my memory been? Have I been forgetful? Do I seem like my brain is degenerating?”

Seems I’ve had coffee today….Racing thoughts and borderline paranoia about health and relationships.

I tried to not have coffee for two days, and quickly slipped into a state of increased pain, fatigue, and melancholy. With coffee (spiked with organic hot chocolate) my energy is tripled, my esteem increased, and my mood one of mostly happy, (when I’m not obsessing about my health or abandonment issues).

I got a lot done this morning, with the help of aforementioned caffeine and sugar combo. I feel satisfied when I get things done. I feel guilty when I’m a couch spud—which I am when my pain and fatigue is at its peak.

I’ve been working to find a balance, a careful ratio of just enough caffeine and not too much. I’ve been trying combinations of green tea and coffee and chocolate.

Everything in my life seems to be dependent upon balance and ratio. I’m often at one extreme or another of something, some experience, or some thought.

Everything and everyone affects me at some level.

A new day is never easy. The act of waking and moving takes enormous energy. Not the opening my eyes part, but the actually being alive part.

I’m not depressed, not normall,y and I’m not lacking esteem or joy for the day ahead. In fact, I like my life. I love my family. And I find great happiness in the world I’ve created for myself.

Waking up isn’t hard because of what is ahead of me or what’s on my proverbial plate of opportunity. What is difficult about rising to a new day is the fact that I have to move, I have to think, and I have to make decisions.

Someone I know recently said, “Let’s face it. We won the lottery in life when considering where we live and the comforts we have.”

Those words have been ricocheting around in my brain for quite some time. I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t agree. I think the lottery of life is based on one’s mindset and on the way one handles and forms his or her thoughts. Yes, fresh water, food, shelter, clothing, and love are important, but just because one has all those basic comforts does not mean he or she is at peace. A mind can produce a living hell regardless of one’s physical comforts.

I think, more important than any outside factors in one’s life, like what exists in the physical world, are the inside factors of what exists inside the mind.

For me, peace of mind, circles back to my intelligence. I think too much and therefore I suffer.

My thoughts exhaust and cripple me.

Some days, as my husband can testify, I am immobilized for hours on the couch, because the thought of having to make one more decision is too overwhelming.

Upon awaking, right away, thoughts bombard me.

For example: What is the best way to approach my day? What is the meaning of the best? Who established the best? Why are the establishers right? When will the best approach change? What are truisms and what are lies? What is the base of reality? Who am I? Should I relax? Where is the balance between giving and taking? When am I taking too much? Am I present enough, available enough, loving enough? I need to let go. I need to relax. I need to just be. But how do I turn off my mind? What should I create? What should I do first? Should I shower? Should I move across the bed, around the bed? Straight to the bathroom? Am I too loud? Should I rest more? Did I get enough sleep? And on and on and on.

I awake to my thoughts, and my thoughts exhaust me.

I have managed to weed out most of the self-doubt and negative thoughts about myself. This is a great accomplishment. I have managed to interweave positive self-talk and positive affirmations into my day. This is helpful, indeed. I have managed to find release through creation of art and writing. This is a comfort. I have managed to understand myself in great depth. This is useful.

Yet, I have not managed to decrease my intelligence, my ideas, the bombardment of what is, what isn’t, and what is mystery to be uncovered.

And with so much going on in my head, somehow my brain has forgotten to dissect and digest the basics. Perhaps this is the executive functioning part of the frontal lobe of the brain misfiring or being disconnected at some level. As the basics, the what would seem easy aspects of thought, become lost to me. The fact that the day of the week is Tuesday slips away. The capacity to memorize times, dates, faces, places, names, and the like, simply isn’t there.

And so I have complex thoughts. I have the slipping out of common facts and knowledge, and then too, I have the classifying/organizing need. Numbers are constantly on my mind; how they add up, where they show up, what they signify, how they can be shuffled and ordered. With the numbers is previous data I’ve collected of the supposed rights and wrongs of how to be: the rights and wrongs of how to be a community member, a friend, a mother, a neighbor, a daughter, a lover, a wife, a cook, a writer, a shopper, a driver, and so on.

I have this ongoing list of how I am supposed to be alongside an ongoing voice of how no one really knows how anything or anyone is supposed to be because everything is self-created, perceived, and rejected and/or accepted.

Simple things aren’t simple. The task of buying shoes for myself can be excruciating. I have the guilt of being able to buy boots when others cannot afford them. I have the questioning of whether or not the boots are saying too much about me or too little, e.g., Does it appear I am trying to look young or am I looking foolish? Am I represented by this boot? Or is this a false projection of who I am? And who am I?

And then I am sad, as I stand there alone looking in the mirror, wondering why I can’t just see boots. Why I have to see so much more.

Today, bombarded with thoughts, I forgot the day of the week. I went to my acupuncturist and he wasn’t there. I called him and said, “I have written on the calendar that my appointment time is Tuesday at eleven. I think I might have made a mistake. I’m here and you are not. Please call me.”

He was quick to call me back, and very polite. He said, “Yes, I have you written down your appointment is at eleven on Tuesday.” Then he inserted a long pause, ample time for me to process. In response I digested his words, and soon a light-bulb of recognition went off. Yes, indeed it was not Tuesday, it was Monday. I was quick to respond then: “Oh (giggle) I thought it was Tuesday. That’s what’s wrong. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I hung up convinced I was going senile or out of my mind. How could I know so much and think so much but not know what day of the week it is? And then the guilt, the embarrassment. Followed by the positive self-talk and forgiveness of self. Followed by the analysis of self-talk and praise. Followed by the wondering if I did the self-talk right. Followed by the thinking about thinking about thinking.

My husband told me today that I am amazing. That he is so blessed to be married to me. He praised my intelligence, my genius.

I am happy he sees me as so. But there are times, like today, I just wish it was really Tuesday.

~~~~~