From Snow to Sun

This morning has been a roller-coaster where emotions and psychology are concerned. The cold I’ve been fighting finally broke through and I had copious amounts of phlegm pouring out of my head. That might sound bad, but having it stalled inside my sinuses was way worse, so this is a good sign. I’m still ultra tired and clearly I’m battling some kind of bug. My GI system is a wreck and I HATE having to avoid dairy. So I haven’t been 100% compliant on that issue. My GI issue has been happening whether I avoid dairy or not, so I’m going to try yogurt today. Maybe it’s the gut health that is the issue and not the dairy thing itself. Hell, I don’t know.

Drove youngest to school this morning and it clouded over and snow began. I stopped in at Starbucks for a treat as I am so tired that I could curl up in the car and go to sleep. When I was cashing out in the drive-through, the staffer as me if my name was “Moonfire” (not really, but you know what I mean) and I was stunned. I said yes and she told me they got my review and their manager shared it at the staff meeting. Now ALL the staff know my regular order and my name! Her smile and sharing of this story made my morning. I was grinning under my mask and then I got all misty-eyed and proceeded to have happy tears all the way home.

It reminded me about what matters most to me and that is supporting and reinforcing people. I want to do things that help people feel better about their world and their work in it. I’ve come to realize today that’s why I’m dragging my feet on the fast-track way I was trying to set up one of my business ideas. It’s all well and good, but it doesn’t fit with my needs for work. The original idea that my business partner and I want to pursue is more in alignment with my psychological makeup and that’s why it feels like the right thing. This other path? Yeah, not so much.

It’s making me step back and think on what actions I’m doing and what I want to pursue as I move forward. I guess it’s true that you never stop learning as you move through life… not if you’re paying attention. And to be clear, it’s not about being “liked” or getting recognition for something I’ve done. I’m super grateful that the nice woman at Starbuck’s shared that story today because it contained within it a lesson I needed at just that moment. I have been feeling awfully blue recently and my sense of direction was off. Just that one little interaction today reminded me of what is important to me and the why of it. It’s all well and good to say that I want to start my own business and pursue that, but if the business model itself doesn’t align with my values and my best self, then it’s not something I want to use my very limited time on.

So it snowed while my epiphany was happening this morning and then I went into my weekly check-in meeting with my boss today and I got to share that story with her and her reaction to it was just like mine… meaning we were both smiling and teary over it. We’re SO similar and in some ways that’s why we’ve butted heads a couple of times. This morning, as always, reminded me about why we’re such a good team. We work really well together when we work in sync and don’t try to guess what the other needs. Ultimately, the people that I work with are the reason that I won’t leave the job, even if it’s sometimes hard to face the long term financial impacts of that decision.

Now it’s sunny out and the blue sky is bright, with fluffy white clouds puffing along. It’s almost unbelievable to see the difference between this morning and now. Early afternoon looks like an early spring day and I guess that is a great metaphor for how I’m feeling. I’ve been down in the dumps for the last couple of weeks, trying to hang on and worrying that I won’t be able to find my footing in the balance between all my competing needs. Then along comes this one small interaction and the bit of insight I gained from it has brightened my outlook.

I may or may not pull off the business plan. I can’t be on my ADHD meds right now, due to my crazy high blood pressure, so my challenges just got bigger. I’m tired. I’m fighting a respiratory bug and some kind of weirdness in my GI system. I’m trying to be a decent mom, decent girlfriend, good employee, and take care of myself. I’m woefully imperfect and I feel more than a bit dumpy these days, so I’ll give myself a bit of slack and lean on the experience this morning.

And in a final bit of better news, I looked at my social security record this week, plus I pulled up my state retirement account. Things still look pretty bad, but I have a better idea of what I have to work with. Maybe I won’t be able to fully retire, but I may be able to get by with a small supplemental work income when I’m older. I’ll still put time and a whole lot of heart into the business prospect and see if I can’t make that happen.

Ahhh, here go the ducks by my window. I’m down to one female duck and three males, which is not a good flock ratio, so cross fingers that the family farm where we can get female ducks can help us get our flock ratio back to where it needs to be.

Cheers,
Moonfire

Tired Lady

I’m struggling today and it feels like I need to write so I can evacuate it from my psyche.

I need a break from winter. I need a break from work. I need a break from worries.

It’s really never-ending and that pulls me down, today being no exception. These needs are sometimes overwhelming and no amount of counseling or methods for managing my workload or time will lift me out of this sense of being overwhelmed. In fact, I think sometimes that all those “management” techniques really just add to the sense of it all being too much.

I don’t know what to do or how to get a break.

Moonfire

Gleeking and Working

One of my many guilty pleasures is Glee. I’ve got it on in the background while I’m working on these dreadful budget updates. I’m singing along with the songs I know and enjoying the lightness of spirit that comes along with it. I miss dancing. I miss movement and stretching. It’s making me think about what I love in a broader sense. I’ll have to consider that some more.

In the meantime, things are at a stall-point with my startup. Sigh… It just needs money and that is on hold for a month. I think instead of being frustrated with it, I need to look on it as a chance to write out my plan a bit more. It has been about 2 weeks since I updated my plan and reviewed my next steps. It’s hard when I can’t take any concrete action. It feels like I will write things out and then things will peter out before I get to my refunds next month. Dammit. I need my advertising budget or I’m dead in the water.

Augh…. I HATE BEING FINANCIALLY PINNED. Primal scream.

(if you could imagine me running around, arms waving in the air, screaming, you would have an accurate picture of how I feel)

I’d like to shake off that feeling, but it has been my constant companion for years. Maybe instead of trying to get it to pass, I need to just embrace it and accept that I SHOULD be pissed off about it. Our city was just in the news for having the highest rent increases in the nation during the pandemic. Wages are stagnant here. The news talks about how inflation was low in the most recent report, but I feel like that doesn’t accurately reflect the situation that a lot of us face. I have no idea if my daughter will be able to move out on her own any time in the near term. Housing costs too much and wages are too low. Education can’t do anything about the situation with housing costs and the impact it has on potential wages doesn’t really do enough.

But even worse? Every person, regardless of education level, should have safe, secure and AFFORDABLE housing. WTF… why isn’t this already settled and cured?

Dammit. Now I’m riled up and angry. Again.

Well, I have to get back to my job… the one that allows me the gift of being designated low-income according to HUD.

Grumpily getting back to Gleeking and Working,
Moonfire

Queer and Proud

I was hanging out with the straight guys last night. To be clear, Spicy Ginger is absolutely the straightest. Like mathematically perfectly straight. I am not and my family, including X, are not. We are incredibly queer and while we allow for many different subcategories of our queerness… pansexual for some, lesbian for another, asexual… demisexual and a few other things, we all revel in our gender and sexual identities.

So my loving a rigidly straight cis-man is a weird experience for me. I honor who he is because at the heart of my queerness, that is what is key – honoring the gender and sexual identities of others, since that is their own individual truth.

Still, it was a weird feeling being around two cis-hetero men last night who are so incredibly concrete in their perceptions of sexuality. I’ve spent the last 22+ years being around people with a LOT more fluidity. Spicy Ginger is aware of my queerness, but I know that he may not fully comprehend it. I don’t know… perhaps he comprehends some of it? And it’s not that I want him to be other than himself, as I don’t. I think I just hope that he comes to be open to the idea that queerness is simply a state of being… much like left-handedness or eye color. His friend that was over has attempted to argue with me in the past about how queerness is somehow odd given that it undercuts reproduction. I think he’s grasping at something to justify his discomfort with queerness. It’s too bad, actually, because I think he has a lot of intellectual promise but is so locked into his fears that he’s unable to open his mind up.

When X and I split two years ago… and yes, holy shit, it has been two years now… I was hellbent on dating women and breaking out of my hetero past. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to date women back in my 20’s, it was more a case of being invisible in my pansexuality at that time. I didn’t even fully understand my sexuality when I was younger. As I recall, being bisexual back then was coded to mean promiscuous rather than grasping the nature of attraction and the vibrancy of human sexuality. Thankfully, information and understanding are broader now, although both hetero and gay/lesbian folks have a dim view of those who fall under the pan- or bi- categories. There is still that taint of promiscuity and lack of commitment. It’s funny and sad at the same time, since some of the most loyal folks I know are queer pan/bi.

Anyway, fate didn’t work in my favor. The woman I was dating prior to the end of my marriage, when we were poly, got caught in the crumbling emotional wreckage of the end of our decades together. Her world was too chaotic and unstable for me to hang in there while I was going through the breakup, so I had to end it for both our sakes.

I met someone else after the breakup of my marriage, when it was well and truly done, but she was erratic and ultimately she became emblematic of how hard it is to date when you’re a busy, responsible adult.

When I reached out to Spicy Ginger at the beginning of June 2019, I was looking for physical companionship after a long, long time of being alone. It was supposed to be simply “friends with benefits” for two long time friends and former lovers. It turned into something deeper for me, which I suppose is really no surprise given that I have loved him for almost as long as I’ve known him. As for why it didn’t work when we dated when we were young, it’s simply that our phases of life didn’t match and my hopes and dreams for family didn’t match his wants and needs at that time. I knew it and I likely didn’t exactly do a great job of being real about it back then.

So fast forward to the post-marriage time. I neither want nor need another marriage. What I do want and need is a loving partner who enjoys being with me, in all my incarnations. My joy in being with Spicy Ginger is whole and I feel no lack in it… no sense of something missing. When I see him, I feel this amazing light in my spirit and body. Touching his skin? It’s a wonder to me and I hope it always will be.

All I want, though, is to be clear. My being in a loving relationship with a hetero man does not undercut or negate my queerness. Circumstances led to our being together, which brings me joy, but it does not define me. I am, and always will be, my own queer self, with a deep love and attraction to people based on who they are… not gender identity or social norms or some idea of what is “right” according to the narrow-minded people who roam around trying to box us all in.

I am proud of who I am and how I love. Being queer is a part of the light in my spirit and I will always honor that side of myself.

Moonfire

Blue on a Sunny Wednesday

I ran out of my ADHD medication and needed to pick it up yesterday but didn’t. And oof. I felt the impacts today. A missed dose isn’t too bad. Two missed doses? Bad news bears. The blues hit me hard today. Fatigue was already a problem for me over the last several days, even pre-dating my running out of my meds. But today? It was so much worse. It’s an important lesson to learn and I’m glad I figured it out. The fatigue hit so hard that I was almost non-functional. My meeting this morning was a struggle where verbalizing was concerned. It was a fall all the way back to the cognitive mess of last summer.

I know my last posting was hitting on my frustration with the lack of effectiveness of my ADHD medication and after this experience, I think I can safely say that I am wrong. It’s holding the fuzzy-headedness at bay. It’s actually more than that, but I am still tired today and I’m still struggling with something (what exactly it is, I don’t know). What I do know is that the medication is doing the best it can in the face of my fighting brain. Dammit. I wish it was more. I really do.

It’s so freaking frustrating. Even with the medication, everything feels like a battle. Some days it’s not as hard and I look forward to those days like I can’t even begin to express because they are so infrequent. I had one last Sunday and it was amazing. I was functional. I was productive. I felt a glimmer of the person I know I can be. But Monday I was back to exhausted and fuzzy. It’s kind of like the way it was before I got the diagnosis for the fibromyalgia. With that I could do exercise, which was usually my doing a hardcore cleaning binge on my place, then I’d be in pain for days… crushed and almost unable to walk. After I got on treatment for the fibro, I was better but still knew not to overdo it. Everything has to be metered out so I don’t end up in super-pain again. Too little sleep, too little hydration, and too much physical work and down I go.

So when I got the diagnosis for the ADHD, I was so happy. I tried managing it without medication and got no-where. Started meds and felt the difference initially, but over time it was harder to tell that it was working. Switched to a cheaper medication due to my stupid finances and yeah, it works, but not as effectively. Still, at least it’s something until it feels like it’s not helping enough.

What I’m gradually learning is that I’ve still got the ebbs and flows. I’m still not 100% and I’m not going to be. This is it. This really is as good as it gets. In much the same way as my fibro, I can manage things with the meds – both the Adderall and the Guanfacine – but it’s not going to bring me all the way back to 100%. The hormone therapy helps, too, but again it’s only helping to a certain point. So if I’m blue or frustrated, that’s ok. It’s allowed. I’m also allowed to be frustrated over needing these medications so I can work. Without them? Well… let’s be honest. Without them I can’t work. I don’t mean I can’t work at the job where I am now. I mean I would not be able to function in a work environment, period. And I mean that about all of the meds… including the ones I take for my fibromyalgia.

A friend made a comment about “Big Pharma” today and it triggered a response in me… anger. Without my medications I would be disabled. This isn’t hyperbole. It’s blunt fact. The duloxetine is holding off the nerve pain. Prior to the diagnosis of the fibro, I was fading out. I knew that I wasn’t going to make it past 52 at the rate I was going. My mum could see it. When the cognitive decline happened last year, I was in a very dark place. In both of these instances, I was lucky. Medication keeps me together and allows me to function.

I’ve been considering what things would be like without the meds and it’s a scary thought. I could get by without the ADHD meds if I didn’t have to work. I’d need my family to keep an eye on me, but I think I’d be able to at least care for myself. Work would be likely out of the question unless it were something simple with animals or outdoors. Routine work outdoors would probably be fine but forget anything requiring verbal intelligence.

But without the duloxetine? I can’t even consider it. We’ve tried other meds to manage the nerve pain and they just don’t work. Even CBD didn’t help, but I wonder if it would be enough if there wasn’t anything else as an option.

Anyway, the crux of the matter is I need the things that are helping me and that’s simply the facts of life. Yes, I’m frustrated with the cost. I’m frustrated that it becomes a tax on my working in a way that only other folks who have to take medications in order to work can understand. I’m lucky to have connections to other people who are in the same boat I am. Our vacation and sick time accruals are taken up mostly with managing our chronic illnesses. You don’t look at us and see them, but they are there and we have to manage them and we get tired of it.

This week I hit a wall. I’m not always frustrated about these issues and the impacts they have on me. In fact, most times I trundle along and I’m focused on other things. It doesn’t always get me down and often I just take my 6 pills per day and it’s just another day. But this week I’m trying to coordinate getting the transfer of my one prescription over to CVS because GoodRx Gold makes it cheaper there, while juggling getting the Adderall at RiteAid and trying to remember if the losartan hctz has to be moved from Costco to some other place because of the nasty surprise that Costco no longer honors GoodRx for “maintenance” medications.

All of this has been happening while I was out of Adderall and tired. Can next month’s refills be easier?

It feels good to let this out. It feels really good to write it down and see it in black and white and know that I’m not nuts. This is a lot and it’s only one small piece of my world.

I picked up the Adderall today and I took the dose for today even though it was late in the day. Within 30 minutes the fog was receding.

It’s no small thing and it means a lot. All six of the medications mean a lot. So for that I’m grateful and for now that’s enough.

Moonfire

Patience is Hard

My patience is being tested in a big way right now. My dear friend is waiting on news about a job that will bring her back to my town. I’m in limbo on my business start-up while I wait for my tax refunds which will finance my advertising plan. The weather is wobbling back and forth between almost-Spring and still-Winter.

And worse still, my diet is not going well and my ADHD meds are really not helping by a significant amount.

So my brain is rambling around, pinging from one thing to another, like your tongue does when it finds a chipped tooth. It’s really hard to attend with any degree of coherence when the brain wants to flit about. I’m getting work done for my job, but it’s harder than usual. That’s saying something when you consider that my getting standard work done is difficult most of the time, anyway.

I’ve started my other blog and I’ve got mixed feelings about it. On one hand, I need to document what I’m going through. On the other, it’s adding one more thing to do and with the delivery of my first web shop site, I’m already feeling a bit frantic and dithery. Is “Dithery” a word? Perhaps not.

I have so much to do and I’m pulled in many different directions. If I were standing in a late night club with pounding music, a huge crowd of dancing people, and flashing lights, it would approximate the state in my mind right now. Too much input. Not enough down time to process it all.

Good times.

Youngest has been home sick all week and I can hear him struggling with his breathing in the room with me. The Christmas Kittens are playing hard and keeping me smiling. The air outside is wet and cold, while we’re pretty snug inside. I’ve got a list of stuff to do and want to be productive for the remainder of the day, so I suppose it’s time to close out this entry. I’m still not sure how I’m going to balance all the competing needs I’m facing.

Signing off… a very tired Moonfire