Organisation! Whiteboards! MAGNITZ. And stuff.

I have been marginally more organised recently than previously. We bought magnetic whiteboards (oooh!) and whatever I can find has been stuck to it; a birthday party invitation, details of library lending times and when the books are due back, (Oh. They're late. Well, you can't be organised at everything.) term dates and special occasions for kindergarten. And a calendar hanging up above it, which I hung up in November and have continued to ignore until now when I have just realised why I put it there. The kindergarten dates have all kinds of indecipherable stuff on them like "Pfingsten" and "Gründonnerstag" but TBH all I need to know is whether they are supposed to be there or not. And I have a meal plan (this week, ignored due to a shopping mistake) and a long-term goals list.

It feels good, not perfect, but good. It took me a while to get back into the swing after new year but I feel like I might be there. And now, I have realised, I need to meal plan again.

This is something which helps: Planning out what will happen and when. It can't be too routine, I despise the idea of routine. I created a document to feed into my RandomStuff DOS program to help me make the meal plan. That kind of geekery, and randomness, pleases me.

Similarly, breaking down long term plans into manageable tasks is helpful. That's something I got from here: an article about how to beat procrastination. (Wait But Why is probably my favourite thing I have ever found on the internet.) No faffing about fancy ways of doing it. No spending hours on research or working out complex time scales. Put that research in as a step. Now break the steps down, write them in a list, and tick them off.

2015: Year of Future Planning.

So before the new year, I was ruminating on new year's plans and future plans in general.

I've alluded to this before on this blog but I've been feeling over the past 2-3 years like I've just been surviving or living week to week or day to day, very short term. I've spoken a lot online (probably in posts waiting to be finished and go live - more on that soon) about the importance of planning a future and having goals and things to work towards, but I haven't been doing this myself. I've wanted to speak to my husband and plan real futures together but haven't made time for it.

So. Anyway. A discussion tonight lead to this realisation being voiced and we tossed some ideas around and I got a little bit excited again. How can you grow as a person if you don't have anything to grow towards? We need our "sun". I can see a chink of it through the clouds, finally. And again! I'd forgotten that once I did have future plans and I had felt excited and eager for them.

He made me realise that I don't need to be able to picture myself doing something or imagine it, if it feels exciting then we are probably still young enough for it to be possible. He has also banned me from asking for help on open forums (I say banned, he's asked me to try without that first, to see what I come up with.) So far I've found some fun career planning algorithm type things online which seem much better than the ones I had to contend with 10 years ago in school career planning (I'm not sure quite why this surprised me.)

So first, sleep, because I'm exhausted. Tomorrow teaching, seeing friends, working out (I am far overdue) and then some hardcore working out of what I want from life and finding my sun again. And then I can see what steps I might be able to take to achieve it. Exciting times!

Last Posting Date

Here's something else I struggle with: thinking things through in advance.

This usually manifests in a boringly normal way; I am late for most things. Routine things are okay now, like work. I got fed up of arriving sweaty and panicked or worrying I was going to lose my job constantly and decided to try and fix that and it works okay for the most part. It's routine, it makes sense. I may occasionally run for the train and suspect it may all fall apart if I ever learn to drive, but hey.

The event that inspired me to write this post was realising, at almost 2 am, that it is now four days before Christmas and hence too late to post any parcels back home. I had sort of vaguely mentioned this to my husband this morning in a sort of "Oh, weren't we going to do that?" manner. He said no.

So how does this happen? Presumably I had some kind of idea that I wanted to send a box of stuff home. So how does it get to this point where I'm suddenly realising it's too late? This is what I've deduced happens. I'm milling around quite happily, living my life, vaguely thinking about sending a box of stuff for Christmas, but Christmas is months away. Don't need to think about that yet! And then suddenly the day draws close. I think about sending a box for more than a few seconds and realise that I needed to:
1. Get an idea of what kind of thing I wanted to buy, either by going and looking around shops or by speaking to the intended recipient.
2. Actually buy the stuff. Could possibly be combined with 1.
3. Buy or find an envelope and/or box of the appropriate size.
4. Pack the items rather than letting them sit in the house for weeks.
5. Post them in time for the appropriate date.

This all seems a little overwhelming when I realise it hopelessly too late. I should have thought about thus earlier, then I'd have time. The steps I'm missing are these two.
1. Work out what all of those steps in the first list actually are.
2. Working backwards from the last posting date, work out how much time (realistically) each step needs and hence when it needs to be started/finished by.

Fine, you think. Now it's all sorted. Except no, because it doesn't matter how long or short this list of tasks and allocated time is, the fact is that I needed to do that second list (the thinking in advance part) in advance. To even conceive the first list I need to do the second and to conceive the second list, I need to do... the second. Great. Thanks, brain! I assume that other people do these things semi-automatically, but somehow when they made my neural circuits that part got short-circuited, leaving me standing there on 20th December feeling crappy that I haven't sent a Christmas parcel to my folks. Well, thank god for internet shopping!

It never rains in southern california

I was talking about emotional abuse and I wrote this, and wanted to share it. 

I feel like my ex robbed me of my chance to be a good mother. I'm sure some would say that is excuses, I left when DS was one so I should have been able to be a good mother after then (and I believe I was a good mother before I left, too.) But I feel like he stole it because if it had been up to my judgement, I wouldn't have got pregnant in that situation or relationship, at that time of my life. He pushed and pushed and pushed until my heart won out over my head and I fell into that dream, of course as soon as it happened, I knew I'd be raising my child alone.

I am angry that he pushed me to make a decision I was doing quite well at saying no to, despite wanting it, and then dropped the ball. I can count on one hand the number of nappies he changed, I remember every one because it was such a drama trying to get him to do anything. He hasn't seen our son for four years. And yet occasionally when my six year old has a tantrum, something in that expression, my ex's face flashes through his, and I have to remind myself "You are not him".

I'm not a great mum. I'm okay but I'm not great. I'm still recovering from that relationship and I haven't had any space to do so, so I make my own space by pushing anyone and everyone away sometimes. You're not supposed to push your child away, but I have to to survive, and I am only just surviving. I am thankful every day that I happened across someone who is caring, who fills both gaps - my gap and my ex's gap. Really, they are both his gaps. His doing. Honestly if I think about my marriage too hard I know that I don't deserve it. I am not a good or easy wife. But I am in some ways forced to be a wife, to share my life and my home with this child, who I love, and this man, who I also love, but feel neither of them get anywhere close to the best of me.

I sleepwalk through most of these years. I have a poor grasp of time. Months and days feel the same, sometimes crawlingly slow but mostly vanishingly fast. My memory doesn't work like it used to, but mostly this sense of time going too fast. It never used to be this bad, before.

It's hard even to focus for a full post. I want to say more, but it's gone. The title is an autocorrect that I accidentally typed in, but it sort of fits. I'm tired - that's another thing, I'm exhausted all of the time. I feel like I could sleep for weeks.

I need to see a doctor, I know, but time... slips away. There is always something in the way and meanwhile months and years go past.

Maybe another five years and I'll be better?

Hiatus...2

And the last post I didn't finish brings my number of drafts up equal to my number of published posts.

I really really miss writing, but can't seem to get into it at all :(

Thank you, Wil Wheaton

So I saw this tweet the other day.

Ugh. Depression and Anxiety seem to have activated themselves without warning or reason. I hate when this happens.
— Wil Wheaton (@wilw) June 27, 2014

It made me feel sad and comforted in equal measure. (Or not because WTF who measures feelings, they're not cake ingredients, you can't put them in a cup. Whatever it's a sentence opener. Yes I talk to my actual brain like this, what?) (ahem) .

I felt sad because I know how that feels, and because I was exactly there, riding the depression train down to the pit and saying "Hey wait, I wanted to -" but you can't get off because NOPE this is a one way train and the only way is down and it's going too fast for you to notice, normally. So I felt that. But I was more selfish, because the first thing that I felt, the first thing that always hits me when someone admits their depression is relief, and there are two levels to this relief. The first is "Thank God I am not alone", and I do honestly think that that incredibly simple sentiment can mean so much. It does to me, anyway. When I hear someone say "You are not alone", and I can tell by their words or their eyes or the way that their voice intones that they know, and they mean it, that helps most of all. Nobody talks about depression, not really and not relating to themselves. It is shameful or embarrassing. There is a fear that nobody will know how to react and will feel awkward. It's especially rare for someone in the public eye to speak out.

The second level is different. You can know intellectually that depression is an illness, a fault in the brain wiring or hormones, or a reaction to an unimaginable situation, but the way that the beastly thing is designed overrides any kind of logic or intellect with an overriding sense of "You suck. Everything is all your fault. Especially the way you're feeling right now. Oh, you know what, just this. It's a much better explanation than I can do and it has funny pictures.

Anyway. To see someone like Wil Wheaton, who is extremely funny, clever, talented, kind and successful all at once admit that he also suffers from depression is like a revelation. He has all these amazing things - an awesome job, bags of talent and fun, his own TV show, a wife who he comes across that he genuinely adores and has fun with, great kids he loves and is proud of, he has all of these things and he is still depressed. That means that (although you knew this before) it's not you. It's really just NOT you being useless and pointless and a waste of human space. You could be awesome and you would still get depression. Look at these awesome people who are stuck on the stupid train with you. It is just an illness, and it doesn't need to define you. In the meantime, maybe we can party on the train. Or at least sit around and play sad music and hold hands. Does anyone have a guitar?

I am 26

I have just turned 26.

I have a five year old son who I often struggle with but who is starting to show his true personality and that awes me completely.

I am married, have been for around 6 months. My husband is great and I could not imagine life without him, but he is in pain and he doesn't like to talk about things which hurt, and I worry that I am not noticing enough.

We want to start trying for a baby but there are medical issues which need to be discussed first. This is one of the things my husband is struggling with.

We live in Germany, where neither of us are from. I am working as an English teacher and really really love it. I should be taking both German and driving lessons, but I am taking neither.

Our flat is tiny and we have to consciously work out ways to get space from each other (it means taking turns to "walk the child" and sticking to bedtimes, in practice. And headphones. We have an abundance of headphones.) We want pets but we don't have the room, or the money or the time at the moment.

A lot of our friends are stunningly rich expats (or so it feels) and we are just about hanging on financially. (Although better off than we were in the UK.) But we are here and that is a thrill in itself. We did it.

I feel like I am teetering on the edge of a quicksand pit of depression and I am trying to block it out because I have been in that pit before and I don't want to get stuck in it again. I am surrounded by beautiful buildings, skies and mountains and a beautiful boy and kind people (who all feel like strangers, but that is because most of them are) and I'm even feeling a lot more confident in myself these days but still it is there, and I'm trying to ignore it and I don't know how to get away.