Another step…another stumble

Another day, some small learning’s. Most of these are about my own internal state as I relate t a world that seems very ordinary, but turns out to have ripples in it that I don’t notice at the time, or can’t quite fathom. Perhaps I was always this dense…I hope not. The bruised brain does funny things, I think.

Time is a major area of the confusing life. Time…for a guy who always needed to be early, and who lived by his watch. Now, I mix things up. “It happened today. No? Yesterday…OK.” In my last post I gave the clear impression that I had read scripture and prayed in worship at the church in the morning. Not a chance. I did both of those things during the afternoon walk, on a Sunny street corner, with small crowd around me. I know this because Beatrix told me. My response: “Oh…really? I gave that impression?”

Now this is a small thing, but it raises the question about how much of my internal time sense and memory gathering can I trust right now? On the one hand, I know the memory is terrible, forgetting instantly what happened a second ago, but trying to act confident about knowing what I’m doing. I knew I had read…shakily and with much practice from a gospel I know almost by heart. I didn’t know just when I did it. I thought I knew…I didn’t have a clue.

Had coffee with Z again yesterday. He’s been downloading material from the website I gave him, and from my perspective it’s the wrong stuff for him…I feel out-of-control in the guiding process. As an old-hand therapist I know that’s a normal phase or time in the process. But it makes me feel shaky now. The discussion got more personal today, and more about the impact of considering deep changes may have on hi personal life. He’s beginning to realizes that one change…a theological one, leads to other changes¬=…the potential loss o community, even marriage.

It was a harder conversation for him, less stressful for me. No sweaty armpits, no buzz in the head. I did feel a deeper anxiety elated to me friend. I want to help him, to provide s holding environment while he struggles, and I fear my own in-accurate perceptions and uneven psychic strength.

One thing is remaining constant, however. Here it is2.35 AM, and I am awake and writing. Sleep comes espy the daytime. Once bedtime comes, I am awake. I had to endure church Adler on the radio, he of the ego-inflated “Adler Nation, He is always insensitive to things I care about, I=and I listen to hi as I wait for the Long Ranged and Gunsmoke and Boston Blackie. You older dogs will know what I mean.

But then comes 1:30 AM, or 2:00 AM, and here I am ready it meet you all in of you the dark and share my little triumphs and failures of the day. Saturday AM I rose quietly and made my breakfast, took my ½ Xanax, and went back to bead. I was astounded when it was suddenly ten o’clock

OK!. I know the doctor said spend lots of time in bed, but the best of the morning? I wan to change that. I know I am not zoned our in the evening. Maybe I have to leave reading and +TV then, and the lying down after dinner.

I am so utterly dependent on routines to smooth my way through life that I get turned around when they don’t work or I can remember them. The feeling is like being 7 in the story, and not knowing where the peas are that I have to get for my mother, and failing to find then raises my anxiety…I will be punished for being late. At east scolded. And for me me, in wartime, with only one parent to cling to, that’s traumatic. Perhaps that’s one of the triggers Donna! Thanks for the hint. No “blah blah blah there at all. Just stuff for me to ponder.  I continue to need good friends, and I have not been good at cultivating friends, Too many of them were annoying. Look who’s annoying now! This friend.