My car would not start tonight. A month or two ago, it wouldn’t start and I charged it overnight with my battery charger (after talking to my brother about it). He said that I should start it every few months or drive it twenty minutes every few months to keep the battery juiced. I tried it a few days ago just to make sure it started. I was meeting a friend for dinner tonight–and the car would not start. All the lights were lit up like it does when the battery is dead. My friend came to pick me up (the restaurant was only two or three minutes from my house), and when I got back home, I called put my car on the charger.
Then, I called my brother to tell him what happened. He immediately said that I needed a new battery; I was morbidly glad that I had properly diagonosed the siuation. But, then a weight settled on my shoulders because I hate doing car shit. Especially since I have a hybrid, so it’s a bit trickier than if I just had a gas car. Also, tomorrow/today is Friday. And I am single, which means I have to just do it myself. Or call my brother to help me. I don’t like to rely on him too much, though, because he’s very busy.
Oh, and the reason I was checking to see if my car worked was because I want to get one of my meds before the weekend. Sigh.
My sleep has been terrible the last two nights. I went to bed earlier for me, and I got three hours and four-and-a-half hours, respectively. Maybe closer to five the second night, but that’s still not enough. It’s so frustrating to actually try to do the right(ish) thing and still not get enough sleep. I’ve been snoozing on and off while I’m “awake”, which is very frustrating.
I need to get more than six hours of sleep tonight, but with the car woes on my mind, who knows?
I don’t think I’ll finish this tonight. I’m so tired, and I keep nodding off. I’ll write more tomorrow.
(Written the next day.) I managed to get over seven hours of sleep last night, so I feel a bit better. My car place wasn’t open past ten a.m., so I did not get to talk to them. But I was able to start my car and went to pick up my meds.
Still. I’m feeling pretty down for a variety of reasons. Some big, some small, but it’s just all adding up to me being pretty unhappy at the moment. And still exhausted from getting shitty sleep the last couple of days. I’ve been nodding on and off, and never feeling awake, really.
Plus, I had Thai last night from my local restaurant. It’s usually a good meal, but it’s left me feeling gross and bloated last night and tonight (after eating the leftovers). I did not eat a GlutenEase last night before going, so I chalked it up to that. I ate one tonight before eating the leftovers, but still got a bit of diarrhea more than once. Which means it’s not gluten–it’s something dairy. Or my irritation with garlic/onion has gotten worse. Or, for fuck’s sake not, it’s something new that is irritating me.
I’m doubtful it’s dairy because there isn’t much (if any) dairy in Thai food. I really do not need yet another food allergy/irritation/issue in my life.
I wish I could have a better relationship with sleep. I feel pretty defeated, though. Like a child, I fight against sleep. When I don’t, fight sleeps against me. It’s as if I can’t actually get a good night’s sleep until my body is absolutely exhausted. I don’t know why that is, and I don’t know how to fix it.
I’m trying not to mentally browbeat myself for my sleep issues because that will help nothing. It just makes things worse if I slip down the shame sprial. In addition, if it helped, it would have done so by now. Because I’ve berated myself for countless things, and it’s never helped. I’ve never said to myself in the middle of a beatdown–“You know what? You’re absolutely right! I will do that right now.”
Also, it’s not as if I don’t know what’s wrong with me–I do (well, mostly. There may be a flaw or two I refuse to admit to, but they’re in the back of my mind. Do I have flaws that I’m not aware of at all? Well, obviously, I can’t say because if I do, I don’t know about them! But for the most part, I’m painfully aware of my flaws). It’s not as if I haven’t enumerated my flaws to myself endlessly–I have. It’s not as if I haven’t tried to fix my issues throughout my life–I have.
Ruminating on my flaws doesn’t help. Trying to fix them sometimes helps. Taiji helps, but that’s more in general rather than specifically. Therapy helped to a certain extent, but, again, more with life in general than with any specific issue.
Taiji is the thing that has helped me the most. I went into it because I wanted to be able to defend myself if need be. I knew it would take some time, but I had confidence that it would help in other ways in the meantime.
I could not know how right I was. It helped with aches and pains. It helped with my ability to walk through crowds without feeling like I was being smothered. I still didn’t like it, mind, but I could “see” (more like sense) the holes and make my way through them.
The most unexpected benefit was that it helped me with my relationship with my parents (and, yes, I think of them as a unit rather than as individuals). I won’t say much about my relationship with them pre-Taiji except to say it was really bad. So fraught and terrible, and every conversation with them left me depressed for days. Sometimes, I felt suicidal as well. This was in my late twenties and early thirties. Those were the darkest of my very dark days, and I have a hard time thinking about them without feeling sad again.
Sigh. I’m going to try to go to bed in less than an hour. We’ll see if I actually make it.