Damaging My Defenses
When I was writing my upcoming email workshop (launching later this month), I asked my sister to be my lab-rat. She agreed and ran through the lessons and exercises, discovering a way to turn her negativity about her job into passion for a long-term blogging plan. Before she’d even finished the workshop, she’d launched Urban Panther (quickly joined by the Urbane Lion).
And being the sort of person my sister is, she researched what needed doing and set up a plan to do it. As a result, she’s just a few months into blogging, has become very popular, and surpasses me in regular comments (and likely daily readers).
I’m extremely proud of and happy for her (especially since she discovered the passion through my workshop). There is, however, more than a smidgen of envy and even a touch of highly negative jealousy. Yes, that’s right, Self-Pity-Alex managed to sneak back into the personality zoo and started running about yelling, "It’s not fair! She’s only been at it for a few months! I’ve been blogging for two years!"
Wise to Self-Pity-Alex’s tricks, Realist-Alex pointed out that the Urban Panther went into blogging with a plan. I dove in two years ago without thinking, and other than (more or less) regular posts along consistent themes, I’ve been just mucking about.
Lazy-Alex stepped in to defend Self-Pity-Alex with some mutterings about how much work it is and shouldn’t my writing skills be enough? That drew the rest of the personalities into the fray, causing a near meltdown in the shower this morning.
Fortunately, Realist-Alex called everyone’s attention to the hole in the confidence fence that surrounds the zoo. "But what caused the hole?" they all asked, some of the more dramatic personalities fearing asteroid impacts or dinosaurs. "It’s simple," replied Willpower-Alex, "We’ve fallen off the no sugar/no wheat wagon at high velocity and knocked a self-pity sized hole in the defenses during the landing.
Don’t worry though, Realist-Alex has frogmarched Self-Pity Alex out of the personality zoo and Willpower-Alex has committed to repairing the breach and standing guard in the meantime.
Someday Lessons:
- Growth never goes in a straight line – expect a few hairpin turns that seemingly take you in the wrong direction.
- Don’t let surface thoughts control you – examine them (on several levels) to find out the root cause of negativity.
The Return of the Victim
Poor Raul. He’s had to put up with so much during my Someday Journey, and he hasn’t even been aware of most of it.
Remember how last week I thrust Raul into the role of master to my butler? (Get your minds out of the gutter people!) That prompted me to think about what other roles I’ve been making the poor man play unwittingly.
For those who’ve been around since the beginning of this blog, you might remember Victim-Alex and Self-Pity-Alex. While I was looking the other way they’ve managed to unite and slip in unnoticed. How long they’ve been there, I don’t know, but today I gave them the boot.
Most of my life I played the victim and felt put-upon, but with Raul I have no reason to. Habits of a lifetime are hard to change, however, and I realized this week that over the past little while, I’d pushed him into the role of aggressor without meaning to or really wanting to.
How did I do that? By feeling…
Insulted: When Raul states an opinion I see it as an attack. He’s not the only one I do this to. My friend Cate once said to me "Shorts on men are ugly." I love wearing shorts (and think a fine pair of calves are super-sexy), so thought she meant that I was ugly. It doesn’t matter though what she (or anyone) thinks about shorts. I like them and that’s enough.
Resentful: I’ve talked about this one already. I spend more time at home than Raul does. He works a job that he really doesn’t enjoy and that exhausts him. I end up doing more of the day to day stuff around the house. It just makes sense. And yet I end up having "discussions" with him in my head when he’s not here about how I do things. I get all fierce in my internal dialogues telling him that if he doesn’t like it, he can forget about me ever doing anything ever again. When he comes home and thanks me for whatever I’ve done, I’m already irritated and put-out so all I think is: "You better be, mister!"
Jealous: Raul adores me. I adore him. I trust him with my life. And yet if he talks about a new friend, or mentions that someone is hot, I get all insecure, sure that he’ll wake up soon and realize how little he does adore me and go running off with some guy who speaks Spanish and is so much more together than I am…
Waah, waah, waah!
When reading over the blog recently I noticed that some of this self-victimizing had leaked into the blog, but I’ve figured out their game now and have expelled Self-Pity-Alex and Victim-Alex from the personality zoo. I can act like a normal human being again. Unfortunately given their knowledge of the inner workings of the zoo, I don’t think they’re gone for good.
Someday Lessons:
- We may think we’ve changed our ways, but old habits die hard and we have to stay vigilant against the return of unwanted behaviours.
- Negative emotions are insidious and often we don’t notice them until they start causing problems.
Self-Induced Anger
Saturday night started with a glass of light port on ice then we toasted our anniversary with a glass of Cava Rosada and just before we left to go dancing, we threw back a shot of peach whiskey. A recipe for a fun night, surely.
Not quite so. My mood started out great. After all we were celebrating our one year anniversary and going to San Sebastian’s Pride Party (where we met last year). A good friend and his new boyfriend had come over to celebrate with us. As we sat down to eat, however, I felt that Raul’s attitude had changed. He had started to make little digs at me – insulting my lack of Spanish, ordering me about and getting snarky when I pushed back at his orders.
Arriving at the party, I decided all I wanted to do was dance. Otherwise I wanted to be left alone. As much as I knew Raul wanted to be affectionate, I could barely tolerate his touch – it forced me out of my private dancing world. Also, as people moved about the dance floor, they kept banging into me, jarring me further out of my world and disrespecting my right to dance uninterrupted!
I tried to ignore them, tried to have fun shaking my booty to the beat, but as person after person pushed past me, my shoulders cramped and my spine creaked like an unoiled bike chain. How dare they bother me! I was here to have fun, not to get pushed around by a bunch of drunken idiots with no respect for personal space!
At the point just before I retreated to a corner where the walls would have protected at least two sides of me, I realized that it wasn’t the party-goers nor was it Raul. It was me. I was in a FOUL mood which fortunately was beginning to fade, letting sanity return.
I grabbed Raul, gave him a huge kiss and said (in Spanish of course): "I don’t like alcohol. It puts me in a bad mood." I then spent the rest of the night overcoming this chemically produced anger through sheer willpower.
Someday Lessons:
- If the entire world seems lined up against you, check your attitude – maybe it’s just a case of a twisted perception.
- Being self-aware doesn’t just mean aware of your mind – it includes your body too.
Recommitting to All of You
I wasn’t going to post today, and not just because it’s Lazy Tuesday. This week I’m marathon editing my novel, as well as working on another project. I had thought that blogging would divert my creativity from my other projects but then I read a post on the Problogger site about The Dip – the posting-fatigue every blogger experiences.
I set up my weekday themes specifically to avoid the The Dip. If I take a break for a few days to write other projects then I’m setting up a bad habit of giving up the blog whenever I want to increase my productivity in other areas.
So, no unplanned breaks (except for the occasional Friday) and no Dip. I have some thoughts on how to spice things up and I’ll be rolling out these new ideas over the summer.
Stay tuned!
Someday Lessons:
- Habits of inactivity are easier to create than habits of action.
- Periodically reexamine your reasons for and approach to doing something to confirm your continued passion.
Staying Quiet, Staying Productive
At the beginning of April, I learned not to talk about my goals, that for me, talking about goals reduces the likelihood of achieving them. Since then, I have been working on a new project and I’ve talked about it to a grand total of three people. I’ve also mentioned it very generally to my online writing group where we support each other’s weekly and daily writing progress.
And know what? Not talking has worked. The project is reaching the point where I can talk about it because it’ll be written and ready to send out to the world. I won’t say anything more yet because it’s not quite done and I don’t want to stop working on it because I’ve over-hyped it.
All I will say is this: it’s the next level of Someday Syndrome, helping you get rid the somedays in your own life.
Someday Lessons:
- Learning something new means nothing unless you look back and measure its success.
- It’s very easy to get overexcited and to start celebrating successes before you finish them. Guard against that.
Taking the non-Plastic Plunge
I spent most of the day thinking about abandoning plastic – thanks for all the comments for a great day of productive procrastination! I’m definitely going to start making yoghurt, especially yoghurt cheese. I also read an article on fresh (tap) versus canned (bottled) water, so I’ve decided to go back to tap water, only drinking the bottled stuff when it’s rained really hard and they’ve added more chlorine to the water.
I’m not sure, however, that I’ll implement taking my containers to the butcher. And why not? Because it’s different and no one else does it.
Say what?!? Alex embarrassed by being different? (Can you feel the chill of hell freezing over?)
I usually shop at the supermarket because I can pick my meat and vegetables I want without having to talk to anyone. Perfectionist-Alex won’t let me talk when I’m out in stores because since I can’t communicate well, I won’t communicate at all.
Completely idiotic, I know. And now that I’ve written it down, I’m totally going to start buying my meat and veggies from local market stores. And yes, I’ll talk to people and I might even take my own containers.
Someday Lessons:
- Telling others your reason for (not) doing something is often enough to prompt a change.
- Don’t let your perfectionist self take over – you’ll never get anything done!
Stolen Sense of Peace
Today someone stole Raul’s wallet. It had no money, he noticed within an hour, and he canceled all his cards. There was absolutely no gain for the thief and yet Raul didn’t find the wallet anywhere nearby, discarded for being useless.
The only outcome is inconvenience for Raul. He had to go to the police station and he had to call the bank. He’ll have to take time off work to replace his national ID, health and social security cards. He will also have to spend a long time regaining a sense of security about the world.
All for nothing on the part of the thief who only takes away from the world and yet doesn’t gain anything for himself.
Someday Lessons:
- What might seem like an easy win often turns out empty.
- Trust can be broken in the blink of an eye.
Why I’m Angry All the Time
Two years ago I decided to give up being merely comfortable and to ruthlessly pursue happiness, which I’ve pretty much achieved. I’m with a man I love doing what I love in a place that makes me swoon every time I look out the window.
Yet I spend a good deal of my time unreasonably angry with the world in general.
My pursuit of happiness is not comfortable, safe or easy. It’s scary. Turning my back on comfort and relentlessly chasing happiness means taking risks which involves a whole lot of fear. Evolution wired human beings to be afraid of the unknown – which has saved us a species many times – but fear often produces anger and because I’m an overly-polite British-Canadian, I absorb that anger. I intellectualize my responses and feel like vomiting if I irrationally snark at someone, but then I feel like vomiting because all that anger has to go somewhere or it will give me an ulcer.
So what to do? Time and time again I’ve discovered the answer and yet time and time again I ignore it completely. I need to walk more. When I go for an epic two hour walk the endorphins soar and the anger that chews away at my stomach lining shrinks.
In fact I’m going out for a walk right now. See ya!
Someday Lessons:
- A rigorous pursuit of happiness involves more risk than many people are willing to take.
- Never underestimate the power and positive value of endorphins.
Too Polite for My Own Good
This weekend, friends visited from Catalonia (hence the lack of posts Thursday and Friday). With my recent stomach problems and resulting bad moods, four people in a 200sq ft apartment can feel a bit cramped (pun intended). In an effort to refrain from snapping at people, I kept my distance most of the weekend. The emotional distance also helped keep a physical distance from all the bad-for-me food that the others consumed over the four days.
Unfortunately the emotional distance ended up taking a toll on everyone with one guest trying to push into my carefully delineated Alex-only territory. Yesterday she decided to cook – paying us back for our hospitality. And even though I’d explained my dietary restrictions several times over the weekend, lunch ended up having garlic and pepper in it (Raul managed to stop her using white wine). Given the tension in the apartment, I decided just to eat the food without a fuss. After all, the garlic was still in its skin only flavouring the food - I wouldn’t actually be eating the stuff directly. I’d be fine!
Wrong!
Yesterday afternoon my stomach started to rebel and I got a wicked headache. I went to bed at 9:30 and slept almost ten hours. Today I feel like I have a stomach bug and I’m majorly regretting my I-so-nice-of-course-I’ll-eat-your-food-that-is-bad-for-me Britishness.
Someday Lessons:
- Health issues supersede politeness every time.
- Listen to your gut (pun intended again). It knows what’s good for you.
Resisting the Peanut Butter
I’ve always believed that I lack willpower. I just can’t make myself do things I don’t want to nor NOT do things I do want to.
I have all the things I need for super success in whatever I do: ambition, drive, talent (modesty) - everything except willpower. I’m not as successful as I could be because I lack willpower. It’s inherent and unchangeable.
(Un)fortunately that’s a complete lie. How do I know that? Because I’ve discovered I do possess willpower over what I eat. With my severely limited diet, I could cheat easily. No one would know if I bought a donut or devoured a bag of potato chips. I simply choose not to because I remember the nine years of pain I used to live in and was beginning to feel again.
Yesterday for example I had a terrible craving for peanut butter and Ritz crackers, my mainstay childhood food. I could taste the smooth sweetness of the Kraft PB, the buttery saltiness of the Ritz. I felt the cracker snap and flake as my teeth bit into it, the peanut butter sticking my tongue to the roof of my mouth.
Later in the day I walked past a bakery and decided I would be willing trade my soul for a soft, chewy peanut butter cookie that would coat my mouth with floury goodness.
I managed to resist both, however, without much drama. I have no desire to live the rest of my life in pain, so denying myself sweets and processed foods for six months every five years is easily doable.
So yeah, I do have willpower - when I find something important enough. Does it mean then that I find very few things important? Or that I’m just lazy?
Someday Lessons:
- Willpower is not inherent - it’s a choice, like almost everything else in life.
- Pain and discomfort often motivate change better than anything else.
Why Don’t I Have Healing Powers?
With the help of medication and a bland diet, I’m beginning to feel better. I can still taste stomach acid, but it’s not so all-consuming like last week. Unfortunately Raul is still sick with laryngitis. He’s been at home for a week now and bored out of his tree.
As a problem-solving person, I want to DO something to make him feel better. Of course I can’t. I can only do things to make him feel more comfortable. I make sure he’s warm. I feed him fresh crepes with chocolate sauce and whipped cream. And of course I give him lots of hugs and kisses.
Through all this, I feel like I’m not doing everything I can. I should be able to fix this. Everything should be fixable. And I take it as a personal offense that it’s not.
Someday Lessons:
- Don’t beat yourself about things that you don’t have the power to change.
- Learn to accept that sometimes you can’t do anything to help others.
More Detox (Not Fun)
I discovered this week that I needed to detox from the high-fat diet I’d been consuming recently. What does that mean?
Pain, messed up sleep patterns, random emotions jumping out at any moment, and a general feeling of disconnectedness.
I can only hope this passes more quickly than the last detox two months ago.
Someday Lessons:
- Life is spiral: things repeat, but never in quite the same way.
- Sometimes you just need to wait out the storm, trying to stay as dry and warm as possible.
Speaking Different Languages
Tick, tick, tick… What’s that you hear? Something waiting to explode? Oh, that’s just a tired Alex mixed with a tired Raul.
Last night we stayed up until after 2am watching the season premiere of Spanish Pop Idol (www.OperacionTriunfo.com), so slept only four and a half hours. When we have too little sleep, Raul gets aggressive and I get defensive (can’t you just hear the bomb ticking?).
Needless to say, midmorning we tripped the detonator despite Raul thinking that he was holding back much of his aggressiveness and me certain that I had destroyed my super-sensitive ego.
The problem? We talk too much. We said much more than was necessary and ended up covered in the debris of a miscommunication and hurt feeling bomb. Fortunately the bomb was small and we cleaned things up quickly.
Someday Lessons:
- Relationships require much patience on both sides.
- Good communication skills include knowing when to shut up.
A Perfectionist Tigger
I used to think that I was a Christopher Robin, a kid with a grand imagination, but slightly outside of it all. Recently I’ve realized I’m much more of a Tigger. I bounce. I discover something new and say “ooh Tiggers like that!” and then dive right into without thinking it through or bothering to learn more. I’ll learn as I go.
However, I’m a Tigger with perfectionist leanings. I want to do whatever I try perfectly. Doing things perfectly first try is very rare, next to impossible actually. So, when I discover I can’t do whatever perfectly, I get bored and look for the next new thing that will make me bounce.
I’m at that point with my writing. Over the past two months I’ve been working hard on my writing skills. I’m improving greatly, but I’ve also realized how much further I have to go. This would be the point where Tigger would leave, where he’d say “Tiggers don’t like writing” and find something new.
Fortunately I’m not fully Tigger. I can resist the temptation to bounce away from a little work. As much as I hate learning that I’m not the best natural writer in the world, I won’t give up. I know that I’m a good writer, but like anything, real skill comes from practice.
Someday Lessons:
- Don’t let your inner perfectionist stop you from pursuing your dreams.
- Equally, don’t let your inner Tigger bounce you away from something you love just because it’s not easy.
Resisting Raul
I’ve spent my life pretty much alone. Our family is loving but a bit disengaged (it’s a British cultural thing). We live at a slight distance from the world. As a child, it was also for self-protection. My childhood friendships were about who would betray others first. My adult relationships have all been about remaining distant. One relationship was an attempt at engaging, but it turned out that his strong emotions were actually just another way of disengaging.
Raul’s not like that, and that why I love him so much. However, it’s hard to cope with sometimes. He asks that I live in the moment, that I consider him and that I get out of my own head more than once in a while.
That’s a scary prospect and I’m totally resisting happiness because of decades of being disengaged (and self-protective). I’m not fearful, but being that vulnerable represents a huge shift in attitude, mentality and action. I’m not there yet.
I will do it, but I just need to resist the idea a little longer. For me, growth happens when I’ve fought against it for a while like a baby fights sleep.
Someday Lessons:
- External change is much easier to accomplish than internal change.
- Just because we know what needs to change, it doesn’t mean we’re capable of doing it.
Information Fraud
So, last week my cousin in France sent me a message saying that I had a registered letter from the Spanish government. I assumed it was a confirmation of my destruction of Fleur, so told her to open it and if it was anything important to let me know. She had someone locally translate it (because of course it was in Spanish) and told me it was a fine for speeding.
I got her husband to scan and email the documents and it turned out not to be my car. I asked Raul to look it over and not only wasn’t it my car, but someone had declared that I was the driver of their car when the photo radar snapped the picture. Me driving a Citroen at 4:45 in the morning? The only way you’d catch me driving at that hour would be if I wanted to fall asleep at the wheel. That’s way too late (or early) for me to be functioning.
This morning Raul and I went to the local traffic office where they told us that we had to write a letter to Province of Bizkaia because that’s where the fine originated. We had to ask for a copy of the original fine to figure out who the hijo de puta who named me was and we had to declare that I had no idea who the owner of this Citroen was.
One of the office workers suggested that I pay the fine anyway and then wait for a refund, but fortunately her coworker told us not to, which was good because there was no frickin’ way that I would have paid that fine.
So now I’m at a loss for how this unknown person got ahold of my French driver’s license information. Here in Spain, the only people who have that information are the police (from my accident at the beginning of February) and the free WIFI service at the local mall (I had to show ID and they used my info on my DL for the account information).
I guess it’s now up to the owner of the car to prove that he or she knows me and that I was driving that night.
The whole fine thing doesn’t bother, but the whole invasion of privacy does bother me. How the frick did this person get my info?
Someday Lessons:
- Even when you are careful with your private information, it can be used by others.
- It pisses me off that the actions of others can so easily disrupt my life.
You’re Not As Happy As You Could Be
I don’t mean superficially happy, like “I’d be happier if Bones came back on the air soon,” or “I’d be happier if I got the mirror in the bedroom hung.” I mean soul-deep happiness. I mean the happiness that Gretchen Rubin talks about in The Happiness Project.
Right now I’ve never been happier in my entire life, and yet I’m not has happy as I want to be.
I would be happier if I were published. I would be happier if I didn’t have to worry about my diet and resulting pain when I ignore it. I would be happier if I could support myself purely from writing fiction.
Those are concrete things. They are things I can works towards. Do you know what would make you happier? Most people don’t. Most people go through life comfortably unhappy or merely content. Most people think that true happiness is beyond them, that it’s for idealists who don’t live in the real world.
Are you one of those people?
Someday Lessons:
- What would make you truly happy? Do you know?
- Don’t live a comfortable life. Strive for a happy one.
Pain Is Not Fun
It’s time for a cleanse.
In 1994, I was misdiagnosed with fibromyalgia. For nine years, I lived in constant pain, with energy levels what fluctuated from Superman-high to corpse-low. Then in 2003 I went on an anti-yeast diet and was pain-free within three weeks. I didn’t last on the diet the full year that I was supposed to do, so I didn’t totally get rid of the yeast overload. Instead I have to manage it.
Spanish people love their sweets, especially bread-like sweets. So do I. Plus I have a bit of a cheese addiction.
I’ve started waking up sore, and my energy levels have been making me a bit manic – super happy one day, super low the next. Before things get too bad, I’m going to go back on the restricted diet and buy myself some anti-fungals from the health store.
The only question is how much willpower do I actually have and how long will I be able to last?
Someday Lessons:
- Something that provides short-term happiness (sweets) might deny long-term happiness (being pain-free).
- What are you willing to give up to achieve long-term happiness?
Losing My Language
I speak English all day long. I read English. I write in English.
Raul speaks too quickly in Spanish and has troubles speaking slowly, so he speaks to me in English.
I insist, however, on speaking in Spanish to him, but I’ve noticed that I’m losing my comprehension skills, which were never that high to begin with. I can still speak it okay, but I don’t hear enough Spanish to feel comfortable with it. I know that it takes a long time to understand a language, but I’ve made it harder for myself with all this English around me.
Raul’s mother gave me some Spanish workbooks. I’m going to start reviewing them, especially listening to the CDs that accompany them. Hopefully that will stop some of the language erosion.
Someday Lessons:
- Skills are learned once – they need to be practiced.
- Life may try to interfere with goals – make sure that doesn’t happen.
Alex the Ass
On Saturday night, we had people over for dinner and the combination of steak and wine did not sit well with me. I ended up napping before we went out to watch the wandering drummers for the San Sebastian festival.
I made the mistake of thinking it was warmer so wore only a light hoodie.
Once at our first destination, I found out the purpose of the night: to wander from bar to bar outside as we followed a group of men dressed in military garb or chef’s outfits play the same five songs over and over.
I wasn’t having any of it. I pronounced the whole thing ridiculous. I announced that Canadians don’t have traditions like this then emotionally, intellectually and (later) physically removed myself from the event.
At 2am, cold, tired and with a very upset stomach, I went home.
In my self-absorbed pompous state, I completely forgot that to people from San Sebastian, this night is one of the most important of the year. It’s the day they celebrate their city.
Normally I would have gotten right into it as the boyfriend of another friend did, but no. I decided to be a pretentious jerk and proceeded to offend everyone around me.
It took Raul two days to forgive me.
Someday Lessons:
- The fastest way to hurt someone is to stay inside your own opinion.
- A bad attitude makes for really bad experiences.
Long Day
Today is my long day. I left the house at 7am and am back at 11pm. I did have two hours free this morning and another hour now, but overall it’s a pretty crazy day.
In other words, my brain isn’t functioning beyond: I am, you are, he/she/it is…
And I’m sure you don’t want an English lesson.
Someday Lessons:
- I don’t like this working-for-a-living thing.
The Stairs
So far I haven’t been very good about doing the stairs thing. I usually go up and down the stairs four times a day, but not all at one time.
I have done one repeat a few times (404 steps in the 1010 goal), at the end of which I’m wiped. I could do a third, but my body whimpers and I give in.
Of course, now that I’ve written this, I’m immediately going to go do three trips.
Bye!
Someday Lessons:
- Mental and emotional inertia is one of the biggest blocks to action.
- I know I’m not the only one procrastinating about something. What aren’t you doing?
Twenty-One Reasons to Feel Homesick
- Six piece sherry set from 1957
- Five watercolours painted by Dad
- Four stuffed animals from my childhood
- Three piggy banks from my former collection
- Two fancy (i.e., professional and sharp) kitchen knives
- One quilt hand-stitched by Mom made with childhood shirts.
Someday Lessons:
- Things that make you happy can also make you sad.
- Things ties us to places. Take the things from the place and we disconnect from it.
Discovering Patience Revisited
A few weeks ago I decided that patience was a matter of living in the present, not the future. Last week I discovered there’s another form of patience that I was not understanding.
Our recent IKEA purchases included some LACK floating shelves. You know the ones. They look great, but they are a real pain in the ass to mount.
Eager to prove myself a handy guy to Raul, I dove right in, measuring, drilling, being a total do-it-yourselfer. You can guess what happened. My measurements were off, the holes weren’t deep enough and we destroyed five screws (and gave ourselves blisters) getting the shelf mount back off the wall to correct the problem.
Can you also guess the lesson here? What are the key words?
You got it: “eager to prove myself.”
I didn’t take the time to prepare the work area or to ask for help. I didn’t want to appear like I couldn’t do something. Of course, by being impatient, I did exactly what I didn’t want to do.
Someday Lessons:
- No one needs to prove themselves to anyone.
- Impatience is ego-driven. Destroy the ego and find patience.
Have You Seen My Serenity?
I’ve lost it. Last year, while in France, I carefully cultivated an even temper. Bad things happened, good things happened, but I stayed calm the entire time.
But now, I’m having trouble adapting. I’m swinging from extreme highs to extreme lows.
This weekend, Raul and I spent four fantastic days in a few Moorish cities. Raul wanted to show them to me because he wanted to share more of his life and his loves. I, however, by the end of the weekend had a wicked crying fit. Two of Raul’s friends joined us and as much as I enjoy being with people, it drives me nuts that I can’t contribute, and not just because of the language barrier. I don’t get cultural references either.
And I hate not knowing things.
Fortunately I didn’t let my bad mood get in the way of enjoying the weekend.
No Lessons today. I’m on sinus medication and it’s making me dizzier than I usually am.