I do believe in faeries

had kind of a rough day, the moon is full, I am having no luck getting into the shower so I can go dance at the club. I can just go for an hour. I just want to pop in I think. No crazy outfit this week, no crazy dancing, just, be in the space I feel safest for a small while. I can do this. Why is it so hard to move.

I have devolved into a really painful and nonfunctional place psychologically and I'm not sure what to do about it.

In so much pain, and so scared about it. Worried for Josh, whose parents' health are failing in multiple ways simultaneously, and seeing how he can't handle it, and seeing how I am on the same trajectory. He won't be able to handle my decline, either. Neither will I. It's going to get so much worse, and I am so scared.

I think I am still too traumatized from the unbearably slow and unspeakably painful way my mother died to be able to ever feel safe or unafraid.

My brain has not worked at all today.

I keep doing crazy stuff like, grabbing the wrong key for the wrong door, I sat on the toilet before lifting the seat, the voice inside my head keeps calling Avalanche "Willow" (my cat who died in 2011, that Avi sometimes reminds me of, they are the same size and softness and they both trill, but they don't look alike, and Wil has been dead for 14 years, so it scares me when my brain does this).

I have been sleeping since 6pm, I think I just need to go back to bed. I can dance on Sunday instead, it's okay.

I feel very lucky that Brandie texted me about the moon. I am sad that our friendship fizzled, but I appreciate her moon texts, they have been consistent lately. I asked her to do this for me when Madoc died of cancer in 2020, as he was my moon texting friend back then and I missed his messages more than I could bear. You know those people that are just able to find where the two of you meet emotionally, and make space for you there.

had an okay rest of the day. made josh some pizza. got henna on my hair and finally took a shower. walked back to the mechanic to pick up my car which now has new brakes and rotors. A little stressed about the potentially leaking newly replaced battery but I will check in a few times over the next couple weeks and call the battery place I got it from if it looks suspect to me. sigh.

was misty rainy cloudy all day, was really nice actually. was almost cool enough to bake cookies, but I refrained. this time. It will be 100 degrees again next week, so, enjoying this while i can.

failed to do any website work or fold my laundry or cull anything, but I'm also in a lot of pain and happy with what I did accomplish. ate reasonably well. got some cat food after I got my car back.

They washed my car! Bless them. This is literally the 4th time it has been washed in the 8 years that I've owned it.

The inside still needs cleaned, I might take it to the coin-op vacuum place and do that tomorrow while it is still empty. Then I can wipe it down and replace whatever I feel like should be in there. There are certain things I like to always keep in my car: spare scissors and gloves and pens, charging cords, hair ties, umbrella, deodorant, a clean jar for drinks or coffee (I have a pet peeve about disposable coffee cups), water, pillow and wool blanket (for emergency strandedness - this has never happened to me and I hope it never will), packaged snacks, napkins, ice scraper, a little bag for wrappers and such, hand sanitizer. Usually I have a spare hoodie floating around in the back.

I need to re-do my earthquake emergency bin but I should clean out the storage closet before I do that.

I think I might go to bed early again. Back and feet are hurting after 4 miles of urban walking, today.

But hey, my hair is dyed, my car can stop safely, and Josh and Avalanche are fed. All is relatively well.

I started taking collagen consistently after a second doctor insisted I do so, and for the first time, I can see a visible difference, in my fingernails. I am hopeful it might help my joints and other physical areas, too (skin and hair, etc). I am so grateful that Cynthia gave me some in pill form, for the days when I'm not able to do my 2nd morning hot drink to consume the powder form. I found the Vital Proteins Marine Collagen powder at Natural Grocers for a full $12 less than the cost at the other grocery store - it is still $2 more than the fullscript price but comes out to be less overall since I'm not paying for shipping. Grateful. I would take gelatin instead but I can't find the Knott's gelatin anywhere? Except in little individual 5g packets, which doesn't work if I need to take 30g a day.

At least during this phase of perimenopause, it has become clear that I cannot do anything meaningful or serious or important after 8pm. I'm not up for folding laundry, so. Might as well just sleep.

I think the cleaning videos are overwhelming me a little bit, because they sort of are forcing me to remove my blinders around my own clutter piles. or DOOM piles as they are affectionately called in the ADHD community. ("Didn't Organize Only Moved.") My entire apartment is pretty much a collection of DOOM piles, oops. I do not think I have ADHD. I think I have Attention Deficit, but due to screen usage, not as an actual neural type. It's not a disorder, it's an appropriate and expected symptom of staring at screens too much.

Took my car in to get the brakes fixed, walked home from the shop. It's in an unpleasant area so the walk is mostly unpleasant, but the weather is so lovely. It's this soft grey summer light rain overcast morning, there was not enough rain to use my umbrella. I couldn't pass up walking in that.

But my ankle and back were twinging a mile in. (It was maybe a two mile walk.) So I will skip silks again, today. I have Friday off so I can go then hopefully. The Friday open gym host plays generic lo-fi music which is unbearable to try to work out to, everything in that "music" screams "plz sit idle and mindlessly scroll the internet and do nothing else," to me, but I will try to push through and just ignore it. I can bring my earbuds maybe.

I am so sad. My body hurts, my heart hearts, my tummy hurts, I had to just pause and sit with my face in my hands for a minute. I cried on the way home. Walking past the mall that I grew up in and seeing what pandemic did to it can be emotionally crushing. I can't wait to move away from this area.

But so grateful for the soft summer rain.

So far we have been spared wildfire smoke. I know it's coming, so I am just so thankful for every day that goes by that I'm not inhaling smoke.

...

I cleaned out my car entirely before taking it to the shop. I am totally wiped out from doing that. I pulled out enough blankets and sheets and clothing to do four loads of laundry. (Stuff leftover from camping and hiking.) I might try to work through that pile, today.

I also want to do more culling, it is just so difficult and slow-going. I'd like to tackle the bathroom. It seems like there are always more important things to do, but it would feel really good to have one room entirely cleaned out.

I have so many more to tackle, I can't think about it or I get paralyzed with anxiety and overwhelm.

..

I would also love to work on my website, we'll see if I can motivate at all toward that, today.

...

While walking through the neighborhood where we do Thriller flashmob practices every year, I thought really hard about whether I want to do that again. I've been teaching for 12 years at this point, and I just don't want to anymore. I am in so much physical pain, I probably have no business dancing on concrete at all. But also, practicing at the park is awful. Most of my classes only had 3-5 people in them, so we were not enough of a presence to deter aggressive basket ball players from shooting baskets near us (the basketball courts are where we perform every year, so we have been using this as practice space), and I got hit with a ball last year. I don't want to risk a hit that results in injury, for me or for anyone else trying to learn. I hate the sound of the balls too, it hurts my ears, I have tinnitus now and that will make it worse.

We do all of this for free, we have no budget, there is nowhere I wouldn't be embarrassed asking to use space to practice in, since Michael Jackson is such an unsavory character in general. It isn't a celebration of Michael, it's just a troupe of zombies and an appreciation for the song itself and the dance, but many people would view that as condoning child abuse or whatever. I am a child sex abuse victim myself so I just don't feel comfortable even asking.

So, I need to talk to our fearless organizer about this. I am the last of the instructors left, so if I go, the entire thing will most likely fall apart. I feel bad but I can't hold it up by myself, and I don't want to.

Need to refresh my Wednesday dance, in the meantime.

...

erg, the mechanic tried to upsell me an oil change and a new battery. I just replaced my battery in January and my oil change also just happened. I think I will go find another mechanic after this. This is a place Josh found, and I've used them because I can walk home from their shop. I think because my car is filthy, they think I neglect my maintenance. I do not. It's filthy because I take her to the mountains, and don't have access to a hose or shop vac.

uuugghhhhh okay need to get over this anger-induced cortisol burst and get something done. :( might need some breakfast. my cramps are super painful right now and I don't want to eat, but I probably should.

At Emerald City Circus, waiting for Josh's flying trapeze class to end, not much time but just wanted to write a tiny bit.

This Seattle trip has been really difficult. Unfortunately I opened my appts late because of getting ready to leave, and I'm not sure what's going on but I used to get a dozen bookings in the first 24 hours, and this month I have had two. So I am a bit spun out about work, and what to do to fix this, and haven't been able to enjoy anything about this trip really.

To be fair, I didn't anticipate enjoying it anyway, I'm just supporting Josh, because his friend canceled and he has these flying credits and he loves to fly and this is the closest place to do so since Portland has no flying trapeze.

I do love the airbnb. It's so beautiful. I love being in a clean, carefully decorated, carefully designed home. It's lovely.

Seattle is so ugly. I really hate this city, this has all just confirmed that.

It doesn't help that it's smoky up here. It did not even cross my mind to check the air quality. It's not bad, but it's enough to make me feel stressed and anxious.

I have not been able to sleep at all since we've been here, despite the lovely bed. I tried to sleep on the couch last night and just laid awake from 2-6am. I finally got a little bit of light sleep (with the usual horrific nightmares) from 6-7ish.

I cried during flying trapeze yesterday. It was my third time flying, and my third time crying during it. Aside from the moment of a catch, none of it feels in any way fun or exciting or cool to me at all. I did not realize this in Santa Monica, since we were flying on the pier with a view of the beach and pacific ocean. This is just not at all my thing. It scares me so much, it's painful, I can't think when I'm swinging, I don't feel good at any point except when the catcher is holding my hands, which gives me a sense of relief like "thank god that's over."

My body is angry about it, also.

I had this moment after when I asked Josh to fly a bird (L-basing acro), and he likes to balance me in his hands, and when I got into position, he told me to arch.

I am the queen of arching. BUT. I have been forbidden to do so, EVER AGAIN, because of the bone spurring in my back. He forgot. I do not expect him to remember everything about my body and what's wrong with it. But it was a really emotionally devastating moment. My flexible back has been a key feature of all of my circus skill and it has been taken away from me. So. I feel half alive when I work out, and a key source of pride and strength and a lifetime of development remains inaccessible and hidden and I will never be over it.

Despite being careful not to arch, it inevitably happens when I'm out here and it always hurts after. I'm learning to avoid it in silks but at flying trapeze it was a lot harder, with all of the craziness, to control a lifetime of habits. I've been training my backbend since I was ten years old. To my great detriment, turns out.

There are so many thoughts racing through my head endlessly about how much my body is failing me. The bone spurs in my feet make me afraid to even walk, I literally avoid walking. My podiatrist told me to *never* walk barefoot. I realized this means I need to get one of those old lady thick pads for the shower, since that is a hard surface and I go barefoot in there, obviously. All these things, it's all day long every day. My ankle is still messed up from stepping down wrong on father's day. Hips are twinging again. My menopause symptoms are all still raging on top of this - tinnitus, rosacea, eye pain, genital issues, depression, and more than I can bear to list right now.

( cut for weight issues )

Josh is done, time to pack up, I need to write about cleaning and some more morbid thoughts about life at 50 with this crippled painful body and what it feels like it means for my future. Getting rid of all of my things and all of my dead mother's things feels like dying, but I think it might help ease my guilt over having a better quality of life than say, innocent children in Gaza. Right now it's really hard to enjoy the beautiful aspects of my life. I know they are there. I feel like I don't deserve any of them. So I turn away.

I am trying not to completely lose hope in any worthwhile future for myself. I can care for Avalanche and support Josh as much as I am able. Take videos of him while he's flying on trapeze, make him his favorite lunch, drive when he gets tired. That's all I feel capable of at the moment.

I still look for beauty. We visited some trolls yesterday. We did not make it to Jacob Two-Trees, after driving all the way to Issaquah, as there was a bear on the trail on the way there, which turned us around. We realized as we walked back that the park had bear boxes everywhere, so I guess he lives there. Bears are better than trolls anyway, really.

There is a little skinny black 15yo senior girl cat named Nikki at Darwin's shelter in Corvallis looking for a forever home. She looks so unbelievably perfect. I was wondering for a moment if Avalanche might want a big sister. Sigh. They would probably hate each other. Girl cats tend not to want to share their human.

I finally got some groceries and cat food, and a new toy for Avalanche. Natasha's cats tore apart most of hers while they were here, so I've been slowly replacing them.

Josh and I are avoiding each other but being civil. He will go without me to Seattle this weekend.

I ate junk food all day as planned. I'm not sorry.

I would love to do some gentle exercise, a light evening bike ride later maybe, but maybe just rest. I don't feel well. From the junk food and also the emotional stress.

While hiking Neahkanie yesterday, I put a foot down wrong. This is an ankle I hurt on father's day that has not gotten better. ugh. This tends to happen pretty much every time I do any hike or bike ride, and each time it happens I wonder how many more hikes and bike rides I have left. It is so heartbreaking, when that was my reliable way to feel healthy and strong for so many years. Now it makes me feel weak and broken and fearful.

Need to water my neighbor's plants and sweep the floors here. Hoping Josh might make himself scarce tonight so that I can do some cleaning. Otherwise I might just sleep. I'm afraid even a gentle walk would hurt my body, but maybe a sunset walk in the park would be a good idea. I doubt I'd run into my brother, he generally goes in the early afternoon I think. I've been avoiding mom's memorial bench ever since I saw him there, except for a quick spin by on my bike. I have such confusing feelings around her memory, everything from severe childhood neglect (during which horrible things happened to me) and emotional abuse to a desperate desire to have her as a resource to deep painful shame around not being a good enough daughter to her to horror over how much she suffered during her 11+ year decline with Alzheimer's (she was diagnosed quite late, in my opinion; I think she had it for closer to 15 years). I wish so much that life could have been better for her, and to her. I wish having kids hadn't been so hard on her. Wish she could have had the resources to feel safe and protected and keep herself healthy and get support for her mood disorders and addictions. I wish she'd had the support she needed as a mom so that her children did not get brutalized by strangers and caught up in addictive behaviors, so that she'd been able to support us rather than steal from us, so that we in turn could have learned to support ourselves and then be of better help to her when she needed it. She was in the care of the state for the last 11 years of her life and although we did everything we could do help fill in the gaps where they failed her, and spent time with her several hours a week, it could have been better if we'd had more support and resources of our own, to learn how to navigate life better and have more stability and financial security to be able to do more for her. We were all just too far behind to ever catch up.

I feel these feelings amplified with my father, whose ashes were dumped into a nameless stream out of a plastic bag by his second wife/widow while she was stoned out of her mind and sobbing over her dead cat more than over him. I forgive her for this, she was also doing the best she could, and so were we, I just. He deserved better and I feel a lot of inescapable shame over the way he died, too. Too young, too sick, in too much pain.

It's too much to bear most of the time and I still don't know how to move forward, except to pretend that it doesn't hurt, until I can't, and days like this happen, and I don't understand why I keep going at all.

Full day of work tomorrow and Friday, then the weekend to myself thank goodness. I got my order out. Will have scheduling hanging over my head tomorrow but that's okay. Maybe I can work on the websites over the weekend.

It's okay to have down days. Days of no forward progress, wasted days. It happens.

At least I'm stocked up on non-alcoholic beer for a bit.