Wanting to Work

I checked out a local jobs site for the fun of it, and saw where one of my old freelance clients is hiring a full-time writer for the suburban beat.  It’s so tempting to think about applying.  I’m tired of not working already even though I’ve only been out of work two months.  But I just don’t know if I can handle full-time work or not.  That’s not true actually. I know I can’t.  When I tried teaching three classes last fall, I failed miserably and felt miserable the whole time. ANd soon we’ll be busy with school stuff again and I will feel better.

I just wish bipolar disorder had never happened to me.  I think about how well I was doing in my career before it did and I wonder what I could be accomplishing today almost ten years later. Occasionally I just want to kick myself for letting it all go and not trying harder to keep working.  But I don’t know what else I could have done.  I was trying to pivot to writing creatively full-time, but I just didn’t really have any success.  Hopefully this MFA program can bring that to fruition.  I need to get over my writer’s back for that to happen, though.  We’ll see what happens once classes start.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!!

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Slowly Getting Back Up To Speed

I doing laundry now and cooking, so I am slowly returning to normal activity. Went to church last night and enjoyed that–my first trip back since my surgery.  I picked up the little one from camp yesterday and she slept so hard last night she didn’t wake up at 6 like she normally does.  BUt she said she had a good time, so that was good to hear.

School for her and the middle one starts one week from today.   SO we still have a lot to do to get ready. But it wil be fine.  It’s the little one’s last year of elementary school–next year she’ll be a middle schooler and the middle one will be a senior.  So a lot of transition coming up in the coming years.

My mood has stayed pretty stable through this month.  I’m still excited to start school myself on the 20th.  I start teaching my homeschoolers on August 7, so I have that to look forward to as well.  I drew up their assignment lists yesterday so I will have that ready.  I have my readings and my books ready to discuss from so I feel prepared. It’s just a fun class giving them a taste of creative writing in four genres–nothing too serious.  I don’t do a grammar lesson, etc because They’re supposed to be juniors and seniors in their curriculum before I get them, so they should be fluent in that already.  So we just have fun.

Dreaming II

SO I go from exquisitely detailed dreams that would make good stories to two nights in a row of disturbing dreams I don’t want.   Not scary or anything like that, just disturbing.  Wondering where THAT came from.

I wish i understood my dreams.  For years I dreamed I was back in college, but it was always with a nasty twist–I didn’t know my schedule.  Or I forgot to ever go to one of my classes.  Or I couldn’t get myself out of bed to go to class.

Other times I dream my mom is back in my daily life bossing me around like a child.  I’m thinking in the dream, “I am forty-some-odd years old now.  I don’t have to do anything you say!”  But I never say that.  I just listen to her yell at me some more.

Or I dream abut moving to a new house–another repeating dream.  It’s either huge with lots of corners to explore–or it looks just like our current house until I discover a whole new wing we didn’t know existed.     .

Hopefully I can go back to not remembering my dreams if they stay in the current mold of disturbing.  All I can do is not let it bother me in the real world.  We will see.

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Music

Music is so very evocative to me.  I spent a lot of money and time getting a copy of an obscure Christmas album that my parents owned onto CD so I could play it and remind myself of when I was young.  So I associate powerful emotions with music a great deal of the time.  That why if I ever want to remember what mania sounds like, all I have to do is pop in INXS’ “Greatest Hits” CD.

I had ordered the CD before Katrina hit Mississippi and received it once the mail started delivering again.  I was captivated by it and played it over and over and over again–at home, in the van–just about nonstop.  Its themes fit in perfectly with the obsessive thoughts I was having at the time about the young man who stayed over in the hurricane with my husband’s family.  “Need You Tonight” was particularly resonant to me.  As was “Suicide Blonde” and “Beautiful Girl”.

I wrote my first novel while listening to that CD.  TOok me about four months to finish it. Wild times.  I was in the throes of unmedicated bipolar disorder and wrote with manic determination and intensity. When I decided to go back and revise it, I went right back to playing INXS as I wrote.  It sent me back to the time I was writing it and rebuilt the manic energy i thought I needed to write well.

I play it less and less as the years go by.   I make sure when I do play it now, I’m in a good place mentally so that it can’t bring those thoughts back to me.  I don’t necessarily avoid playing it–I still enjoy it for the music itself.  BUt whenever I do, i remember how the mania felt and sounded during that time.  It’s a powerful reminder of where I’ve been and how far I’ve come.

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Freedom Soon

Tomorrow I’ll be able to drive again!  I’m so excited. It’s not like I go anywhere much but NOT driving has had the effect of sending me a little stir crazy some days.  Of course, that also means I’ll be doing housework again too, but I’m even a little excited about that.  It’s amazing how much I actually do to keep this place running.  So I’ll be able to start that tomorrow too.  We will see how it goes; I don’t want to overdo the first day.

The little one is at camp part of this week so today is very quiet.  I managed to sleep pretty late and am having a late start to the day, but that’s all right.  Probably needed the sleep if I took it.

Reading the poetry books for my class this fall.  I have five to read and one more novel. I’m going to read the poetry and save the novel for last because it might take a while to get through it. SO I want to get as many others done as I can before I start on it.

HOpe everyone had a good week. I seem to be in a really good place right now, so I’m looking forward to a great week.

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Nothing New

It’s just same old-same old around here at this point.  I still can’t drive so I am pretty much stuck in the house until next Tuesday.  He little one goes to camp tomorrow and we will see how it goes for her.  It’s her first church camp–she’s been to Girl Scout Camp a few times bur it was at a camp very close to home.  This time is her first time really off somewhere without us being very close by/in communication.   So we will see.

I may have FINALLY seemed to stopped bleeding.  I’m going to reserve judgment on that until it continues to be clear for a few more days.  That is very exciting to think about–that I can finally go without wearing pads every day of my life again.  I just wish it hadn’t taken such drastic steps to stop it.  But that’s the way it is.

Mood is pretty good today despite being up some last night.  It was free tea day at McAlister’s Deli and our middle daughter brought us some home for supper.  So we were wide awake come ten-thirty, which is very unusual for us nowadays.  I slept some but not a whole lot.  I” need a nap this afternoon, I think.  But maybe not.

Hope everyone has a good weekend!

Dreaming

Woke up with a perfect story in my head.  I had a dream and it supplied plot, a zany cast of characters, setting, and other wonderful things to include.  I’ve been having dreams like this recently but this one was really realistic and entirely plausible.  (Well, except for one part.  But I can leave it out and not hurt the essential story.)  It’s based on my bipolar episodes and will be told from the point of view of the detective assigned to find out exactly who the bipolar character is after she rolls over her car in his jurisdiction.  I wrote a synopsis this morning and can hopefully hold on to the magic to start outlining. writing, etc. tomorrow.

Anyway.  I feel much better today.  I’m still under restrictions but really feel about back to normal after my surgery.  So we will see how I can make it next week when the restrictions loosen up.  The little one goes for the first time to church camp and we’re hoping she has fun/  It’s been a busy summer, but church camp ends it.  Then it’s time to get ready for school

The big girl gets to go back to work today after her stomach bug and the middle one is at band camp for all day except lunch, so they will be busy.  We will see how everything goes for them as we wind down the summer.

Hope everyone had a good rest of the week!

Bad Night

Had a bad night last night.  Bob stayed up later than usual on the computer, and then he couldn’t  seem to settle down to sleep.  I woke up early this morning with reflux that did not want to go away.  I finally got up and took some medicine and ate crackers to try to settle it down until the medicine kicked in.

Still no appreciable pain from my hysterectomy–I’m so blessed to be able to recover so well.  I just need to get another week without driving or doing housework then if I feel like it I can start back up where I left off.  And I think there’s going to be a whale to do. My house is a mess.  My laundry is a mess.  I’ve so overwhelmed just looking at it.  But I have a few days to myself next week while my youngest goes to church camp next week.  So we will see.

The big girl is off work because of a stomach bug, and we are all trying to avoid it.  She’s back able to eat real food today, but she still has not hear the results of a test telling her whether she can go back to work Thursday. I think I will suggest she call this afternoon and check on it.  But it is making llife interesting with her back underfoot in the house sick like me.

So hopefully today will become a better day as it goes along.  Hope everyone has a good rest of the week.

No Pain

(Hm.  I wrote a post this morning and now it seems that it didn’t publish.  I suppose I will start over again)

Not having any more pain today.  Still some bruising and a little spotting that is so much less bleeding than I have been doing.  Hopefully that means I am well on my way to recovery.

Finally resolved our issues with the wifi–the computer guy took out the stick Bob installed and installed a different one, and it ran fine, according to him.  So we are taking the other one back since it didn’t work properly.  I don’t know what was wrong with the one Bob bought, but the computer guy also cleaned out 10 gigs of malware, adware, spyware, and other garbage on his way to resolving the problem.  So that was good, too.

I need to get started reading and writing again.  I think I will start with my poetry books since I cracked open the novel I have left and it really, really looks bad.  It’s about the time just past the Civil War in Arkansas and looks just bad.  I hate that because the author is a professional acquaintance of mine, and I was hoping for better from him.  We will see.

Doing Better

I’m now going without pain meds and am feeling fine.  I’m still bleeding a little bit but it seems to be almost gone.  Which was the whole point of the procedure.

I’m trying not to overdo.  I know I feel fine, but I don’t know how much I need to try to take on.  I’m just walking around the house some and laying down some. I still have a lot of bruising around my incisions and am just going to have to wait that out, I think.  It looks like a tattoo gone terribly wrong.

My moods have been good.  That’s a  plus.  Of course, I’m not stressing about anything.  Everyone is taking good care of me so I don’t have anything to worry about.

I’m ready to get started on my coursework for school.  I’m excited about it and the days until it starts seem to be dragging.  I still have books to read for the residency class–I’ve been waiting for all the painkillers to get out of my system before I tried reading so I would remember it. I’ve got the historical novel and four books of poetry left. I should be able to finish those off soon.

ALl In all, I couldn’t have asked for the recovery to have gone any better  THanks for all the prayers and support.  Hope everyone has a good week.

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