I hate being sick.
I woke up last Friday feeling like I'd gargled glass. This is almost always a precursor to me being incredibly sick, and this time it was definitely a prediction of how sick I'd spend the past week. Yet, I still showed up to work. I was really grateful that for four of my five shifts were management shifts where I could essentially hide in the office because I was not feeling at all comfortable being around people being as sick as I was.
I swear that was dealing with hot and cold flashes along the same intensity I experienced when I was dealing with menopause. It was horrible.
I'm still dealing with the tail end of whatever it was I had. I did test to make sure it wasn't COVID, and thankfully the tests came back negative. I did end up finishing off the last of my supply of Buckley's cough elixir, and I think tonight will see the last of the Nyquil. Thank fuck I get paid tomorrow because my first stop will be the drugstore so I can pick up more Buckley's at the very least.
In other news...I've downloaded Cakewalk so I can start creating my own music. If I can finally get it out of my head and into some form of deliverable product, yay, right? I can download various sound and rhythm packs to get me started, and I'll see where I get with it all before I say fuck it and just hook up my shitty mic to record whatever...man, has technology advanced way further than when I first started my music journey back when I was still in the single digits. And several gaps in those years caused by a variety of life's roadblocks and almost insurmountable speedbumps hasn't helped either.
I'm currently cursing my lack of practice when it comes to my guitar...who'd have known that fucking up my wrist all those years ago and not keeping up with playing back then would be causing me issues now? Well, I guess I technically knew, but I can be rather stubborn and a bit out to lunch when it comes to physical consequences. Sure, I've regained most of the movement and sensation in my right hand and fingers, but the flexibility I had before breaking my wrist and the resulting surgery is, well, just not there. I've been doing hand and finger exercises, but trying to move past the deep ache hasn't been that fun of an experience. And my left hand? Thankfully, I've never had surgery on it, but it's kinda fucked up too. Ugh.
I've also asked my daughter if I can borrow her keyboard as she rarely plays it anymore. She's always been more of a woodwind player, and not much for keyboards (other than when she learned piano for her high school music classes) or strings. Her keyboard was her first major purchase of an instrument on her own back when she was still getting student loans before dropping out of university, and it was largely because she didn't want to lose what she'd learned during high school. But life sometimes gets in the way of shit. *sigh* If she says no, I'll save up my pennies to get my own once again. This time I won't have to worry about it getting stolen during a house party because I never have those anymore, not that the one where my keyboard got stolen was my idea in the first place. Things were kinda fucked up in the late 80s and early 90s, let me tell you.
One thing about being sick is that when I attempt to sing right now I'm hitting all sorts of low notes that I normally have to struggle to hit. I'm an alto - which my daughter maintains isn't a voice register, but whatever - but with practice and enough warming up I *can* hit some really high notes AND low notes, but not as low as I've been getting in the past few days. No, I can't do whistle tones to save my life, not that I'd want to.
Back when I was in high school I took part in a vocal workshop by a guy who maintained that most altos are sopranos in hiding, that we stick to the mid-range due to comfort and fear. Even now, 30+ years later, I can see where he's coming from because that workshop is really the only reason I figured out that I can indeed hit some higher notes to this day. Siren warm-ups - start with a note about the middle of your comfortable vocal range, then go low, back up to where you started, and then reach to your comfortable top note...and work higher and higher with each cycle. Practice, practice, practice.
Now I mostly sing for my own enjoyment. I wasn't able to continue on in choir due to life choices my mother made, choices that essentially forced me to put my dreams and desires on the back burner. And by the time I escaped her control I was so beaten down by what she'd forced on me I felt that it was just too late. But, I've come to the conclusion - at 50 years old, no less - that it's not too fucking late. It's not too late to see what happens when I follow my dreams. The worst that will happen is that I continue to work as an assistant manager at a gas station for the rest of my working life. But at least I will have given things a shot.
Fuck it, right? Fuck normal life expectations. I haven't done a single thing the 'right' way my entire life. Sure, I popped out a kid, but I've never been married. I bought a house with a guy I'd thought I'd have been with for the rest of my life, but that never panned out either. I've owned a few cars over the years - including the 1965 Mustang that an ex bought me for Valentine's Day once and I ended up selling to our neighbour at the time because I was tired of all the fighting over the fucking car. I've got a university degree that I've done pretty much nothing with...Bachelor of Arts, big fucking deal. Can't really do shit with that these days, and despite having two teachables - English Lit and History - I still couldn't get into the Bachelor of Education program. Probably not a bad thing because that whole thing came about during the time that my mental health took a complete nosedive and I had a mental breakdown.
I suppose the main thing I'm grateful for is that I don't labour under the expectations of achieving what entirely too many people - especially my mother - feel is expected out of somebody my age. I mean, I saw my mother never being happy despite achieving everything she thought was necessary in life to be fulfilled. And she used to rag on my about how I've never achieved all those things yet I could still somehow be happy? Yeah, she could never understand it, but she also admitted once during one of her beatdowns that she couldn't function without a man in her life...ugh.
I've been doing a lot of soul searching lately, and examining why I feel and think the way I do. Considering how I was raised it's probably no wonder that I'm the way I am. I'm a huge pile of contradictions walking around in the guise of a semi-functional adult. A professional actress in the sense that very few people have ever seen the real me - the moment I set foot out the door I'm acting. The face most people see is extroverted and outgoing, seeming like I've got everything sorted out in my life. Behind closed doors, however, I'm a complete mess in so many ways.
No, I'm not looking for somebody to fix me. What I'm looking for is somebody who at least makes an attempt to understand me, to listen to me when I want to talk about whatever is eating at me, to listen to me when I'm excited about something, who encourages me to be me. But...I've pretty much given up on finding that person. Any time I think I've come close to finding that person I end up getting my heart ripped out and stomped on.
I'm sorry that I have to build up a certain level of trust before I can bare my heart to you. I have to be sure that you won't throw my words and experiences in face, yelling at me that I'm somehow broken beyond repair. Don't demand that I call you 'Daddy' when all that word means to me is somebody who caused a great deal of pain and lasting trauma...I can understand why Janie got a gun, because I'd have done the same damn thing to the piece of shit I once called Daddy. Don't disrespect my hard limits and be surprised when I fucking sack you. I may not call you out on your bullshit, not right away, but you'll know how I feel when I walk away and stay away.
Yeah, there's still a lot that I'm unpacking. But at least I'm dealing with it. The trauma itself won't necessarily go away, but I'm dealing with how I respond to it. I can still be triggered by certain actions and words, and I can't guarantee how I'll react, but I'm learning. Or, at least, I'm trying to learn. And maybe some day I will be lucky enough to find the one person who is willing and able to help me heal the wounds that still mark my heart and soul.
Wow...that went darker than I expected. But there it is. I'm not going to delete any of what I typed and pretend that I'm not in my feels right now. This is who I am. I'm not always the light-hearted idiot with a grin plastered on my face for all the world to see.
Comments
Post a Comment