15 november 2021
Doing a fair bit better today. Distancing from some people and how often we talk to them (no one here, it's folks we know in other places) has helped at least a little bit, and partially indulging not masking yesterday kind of helped too. I wish we could take that farther safely. Sometimes I wish we could be semiverbal or nonverbal, or let ourselves not give a shit about social norms and just exist. Again, we're failing at seeming normal no matter what we do, so might as well. It's just anxiety-inducing because of some very bad past reactions.
Knocked out the whole week's classwork, so we have some time for much- needed stress relief. I'm hoping the wind doesn't kick up so we can go on a bike ride today. We need the exercise and the weather hasn't been cooperating.
Freezing up a lot today, don't know why. Guess we need to keep taking it slow and being gentler. It's annoying to have to struggle to start moving again when we stop for more than a second, but oh well. We've dealt with it before and know how to get ourselves out of it. "Move a pinky" works well. It's like when we stop moving, our train of thought stops too, and we get detached from our body and surroundings and silently stare into space for anywhere from a few seconds to twenty minutes until we can knock ourselves out of it by moving literally anything voluntarily, which is harder than it sounds. There's a reason we go for a pinky instead of an arm. Also helps if we just force ourselves to keep moving something at all times when we get like this because as long as we're moving, we don't freeze. It's just frustrating on days where this happens because we lose a fair amount of time just standing there because we can't make ourselves move and keep losing our train of thought or thinking nothing at all. It'll pass within a few days like it always does. It's a stress thing, I think. We've been feeling strained and raw inside lately and that tends to bring this on. So does pushing ourselves too hard and passing the limit of how much we can take. I guess our brain is in power saving mode, haha.
One of the kids has been more active lately. Everyone here has, really, but one of the kids in particular has been coming out and writing about things that happened in the past that are bothering her. Someone else is mad that she's doing that, and it's a whole mess. And I've been around less because of stress, so the others have been picking up a lot of the slack in daily life. I think Kaz is happy to have more time out at least. We're in a rougher state than usual though and I've been hesitant to admit it because the implications scare me. Don't worry, we'll be alright and we're in no present danger. We're just struggling right now and trying to deal with things we haven't let ourselves think about because they hit like a truck.
Oh, you guys might like this- we have a tiny moss garden in our room :D It's lovely.