I went on a walk with some 3,000 people to raise public awareness of Mental Illness at NAMI walks MN. And even though the last thing on earth that I really wanted to do was to spend time with people... and I sabotaged myself right and left in an attempt not to successfully make it to the event... I had a really good time. This is NOT proof that I should be an extrovert or attend large functions in general. Here is what made it good: I found the three people (among the 3,000) that I already knew and we sat at a picnic table and ignored everyone else. And we sat far away from the entertainment. And we ate cookies from Costco. It was nice to have a normal conversation about Mental Health Crap with other people who go through similar (but not the same) Mental Health Crap. None of us have the same diagnosis and we all have very different experiences with health care professionals and medications and dealing with the law. But to talk about how it SHOULD be... that we could just discuss Mental Health Crap with anyone the way we would talk about heart disease or diabetes or cancer. Not in a happy fun-loving gee golly gosh isn't this a fun topic... but in a way that is not TABOO. I got a T-shirt at the walk and I said, "Great. Now I can wear this on Casual Fridays if I want to be provocative." And it's sad because it would be provocative and I would feel self conscious. It also doesn't really meet my personal style requirements for casual Friday, but that is neither here nor there. I quit the band. Not the French horn one, but the one where I was singing with the fiddle and the bass. My heart was in the music but it wasn't in the band. I felt more and more stressed as I thought about the time I was devoting to practice and my aversion to our performance model. The guys in the band did NOT say hateful things about me and instituted a policy of having me shunned by the meeting (note: this is NOT a thing in liberal Quaker tradition). I have decided that I am going to learn the songs anyway and practice singing them, but I'm just gonna do it for fun and as part of my "spiritual practice." This makes good sense to learn and study new (old) songs when most often the messages that I have in meetings are songs, so it behooves me to practice. Otherwise I might get a message and have to stand and sing La La La La La. This is a very high-context post and doesn't make a lot of sense to the non-Quakers or even maybe people who aren't at my meeting. But I am too lazy to go back and fix it and the words are all out there now. I stink right now, but I came by my stench honestly. Walked a 5K yesterday and then some. And today I went to the YMCA to try to start working out again. Hammy no longer sore, but running was not a thing. I need to strengthen it I think. So I biked instead. And now I stink. I am working on Romance Novel #1 and will soon need readers I think. I am incorporating editorial suggestions made by someone on the Harlequin Historicals rejection-letter-writing staff. I got a lovely personalized rejection some time ago and now I am putting some of their recommendations in play. They liked my characters and the way I evoked the period (they said it much better) but wanted to see more of the minor characters to flesh out the work a bit more. And now that the work has sat for some time I am able to go back to it. Right. Gonna try to learn to sing harmony by ear too. Not in long rehearsals but in little snips here and there. And I'm gonna learn how to record them. Meds: 200mg lamotrigine 20mg lurasidone When can I call psych NP? I might ask coworkers for pointers. Comments are closed.
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K. BuchananQuaker, teacher, parent, |