Today feels like a happy day. The sun is shining, I know the plan for the day, I think the small person may have turned the corner in his illness, I slept a tiny bit more last night and I want to be happy. It's a good day to be happy.
But I am not.
I want the sunshine to take away the overwhelm of the past few weeks. I want it to render my nervous system regulated, to evaporate my array of painful emotions and to dance away with my negative thoughts. I want to just be thankful for all the positives in my life.
The sun is beautiful, wonderful and powerful but it does not do that. Some days, for a time perhaps, it does. Or perhaps it is not meant to.
Perhaps I am meant to sit, another day, with my companions overwhelm, fear, frustration, confusion, anxiety.
Try to self care, but what does self care need to look like today? Preparing for tomorrow so I am ready and not anxious about what needs to be done? Or investing the time in sensory soothing to try and bring my stress levels down? Calling in sick for tomorrow because I know I'm reaching my coping limits and tomorrow could ask even more of me than an ordinary stressful day at work? Or resolving to go in to distract myself from my brain, to prove that I can do this, because I'm scared about taking time off and because I can't let my colleagues down on a difficult day? Asking for more help, but what do I even want, how would someone help me?
I don't have the energy to figure it out - I don't have the energy to stop, just to keep doing the next thing in front of me (right now that's writing and then doing nothing. I know it's not any of the things that will help but it's all I can manage right now) and hope the rest sorts itself out. At least I tell Mr Peggy how I am feeling and he is there for me.
I try to make space for my new companion, compassion, in there with the old familiars. Compassion nudges black and white thinking and panic over a little, and lets anxiety lean on it. I'm not sure what its wise guidance is today, but I've asked it to join us at least. One step at a time.
There will be more sunny days - maybe the next one will be sunnier. One step at a time.
