bloody sun.
Oct. 13th, 2022 09:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
serafaeryLots of tears this morning.
Hopped out of bed to go running before work. Rushed out the door.
As I was driving, the sun came up, blood red. I could see the smoke in the air.
There's no way I'm doing that to my lungs.
So halfway to the track, I pulled a U-turn, and came home.
.
Maybe after work today I can go to the gym and use the treadmill.
It's so devastatingly sad.
I grew up here, in Portland, Oregon. We never had anything like this until about ten years ago. Now it's just constant, all summer and fall, every year.
My world, burning, burning.
My throat has been sore for days. Not from illness. From constant smoke.
On the drive back, a WWF expert was being interviewed on NPR about the fact that every animal group: mammals, reptiles, amphibians, insects, fish, all families of all vertebrates, have declined in population by an average of 70% since the 1970s. (Since I was born.)
Our destructive land use and eating habits are not necessary or sustainable. It is possible to stop the habitat loss and still flourish as humans.
But will we?
I see very little evidence that humanity will shift.
But I keep trying. I keep going to farmers markets and reusing things and thrifting and being as mindful as I can about my food intake and my actions.
While still trying to tend for myself in a harsh environment.
Where empathy among school-age children has fallen by 40% in the last 20 years.
I can't even imagine it being lower than when I was in school. What is that like? How do HSPs like myself survive at all, as children?
*glances at suicide rates among adolescents*
hmm.
.
William Shatner said it really well.
It's sad that he had to go to orbit to feel something that I feel every single day.
But I'm glad someone in celebrity said something. Had an awakening. Is aware. Feels what I feel on a constant, daily basis, bubbling below the surface of everything, hurting my heart a little more with each passing breath.
I came back home and finished my laundry and baked a pear crisp, a blueberry peach pie from fruit and a gf homemade almond flour crust I froze a few weeks ago, and two sweet potatoes for Josh, and cut him up a bunch of local red carrots for his locally made organic hummus I bought for him yesterday.
This is soothing. Caring for another person. Bustling around in a warm kitchen, washing dishes and setting timers and chopping and checking on baked goods and sipping hot fresh coffee. It is meditative and gentle.
But it also makes me cry and cry, because it reminds me of my mom, and how much love she poured into her work in the kitchen every day, and how much I loved her and needed her and miss that warm, safe feeling of being cared for and for there always being fresh, homemade food to look forward to.
I miss the messes, I miss the cats, I miss her loud phone calls and chaos, I miss the laughter and sunlight and silliness.
I don't think she was wanted, particularly. Grandma having her would be sorta like me having a kid. Grandma had four miscarriages before mom including a set of twins. I wonder if it happened because she didn't want any of them. But mom was too stubborn. She was going to exist no matter wha.
I don't understand why or how she isn't still here.
I cannot fight the feeling that I was not worthy of her. I was not worthy of my cat, Lunar, either. They should still be here. Why am I still here instead of them. They earned it. They were better than me. I can't honor them properly. I'm not strong enough, I'm not smart enough. I can't carry on their memory or spirit accurately or enough. I can't give enough to the world to make up for the loss.
Just venting feelings of grief.
I'll be okay.
These feelings are inside of me all of time. Only sometimes do they make me cry like this. I just have to live with it, most of the time. Stay quiet. No one wants to hear it.
But, if anyone ever wonders why I act like a crazy person. Why I am a faery as a profession. Why I dress like a zombie and dance around like a maniac every halloween.
This might have something to do with it.
...
A little of this may have been triggered because of chatting with Steph about this Sunday. We are going to visit Halloweentown together. Her mom is really the reason Halloween became the most magical holiday for me, my absolute favorite. Mom did well with it, too, but Laurie was the best. Laurie always hosted pumpkin carving, and toasted the seeds for us in the oven. She decorated totally over the top, and made the craziest costumes for Steph. She made it a total blast. An otherworldly delight. A feast for the eyes and nose and tongue and heart. And she is no longer around, either.
I don't like enduring Halloween without a little black cat, anymore. Steph had two black cats as a kiddo, Midnight and Samantha. Little magic cats.
Hopped out of bed to go running before work. Rushed out the door.
As I was driving, the sun came up, blood red. I could see the smoke in the air.
There's no way I'm doing that to my lungs.
So halfway to the track, I pulled a U-turn, and came home.
.
Maybe after work today I can go to the gym and use the treadmill.
It's so devastatingly sad.
I grew up here, in Portland, Oregon. We never had anything like this until about ten years ago. Now it's just constant, all summer and fall, every year.
My world, burning, burning.
My throat has been sore for days. Not from illness. From constant smoke.
On the drive back, a WWF expert was being interviewed on NPR about the fact that every animal group: mammals, reptiles, amphibians, insects, fish, all families of all vertebrates, have declined in population by an average of 70% since the 1970s. (Since I was born.)
Our destructive land use and eating habits are not necessary or sustainable. It is possible to stop the habitat loss and still flourish as humans.
But will we?
I see very little evidence that humanity will shift.
But I keep trying. I keep going to farmers markets and reusing things and thrifting and being as mindful as I can about my food intake and my actions.
While still trying to tend for myself in a harsh environment.
Where empathy among school-age children has fallen by 40% in the last 20 years.
I can't even imagine it being lower than when I was in school. What is that like? How do HSPs like myself survive at all, as children?
*glances at suicide rates among adolescents*
hmm.
.
William Shatner said it really well.
It's sad that he had to go to orbit to feel something that I feel every single day.
But I'm glad someone in celebrity said something. Had an awakening. Is aware. Feels what I feel on a constant, daily basis, bubbling below the surface of everything, hurting my heart a little more with each passing breath.
I came back home and finished my laundry and baked a pear crisp, a blueberry peach pie from fruit and a gf homemade almond flour crust I froze a few weeks ago, and two sweet potatoes for Josh, and cut him up a bunch of local red carrots for his locally made organic hummus I bought for him yesterday.
This is soothing. Caring for another person. Bustling around in a warm kitchen, washing dishes and setting timers and chopping and checking on baked goods and sipping hot fresh coffee. It is meditative and gentle.
But it also makes me cry and cry, because it reminds me of my mom, and how much love she poured into her work in the kitchen every day, and how much I loved her and needed her and miss that warm, safe feeling of being cared for and for there always being fresh, homemade food to look forward to.
I miss the messes, I miss the cats, I miss her loud phone calls and chaos, I miss the laughter and sunlight and silliness.
I don't think she was wanted, particularly. Grandma having her would be sorta like me having a kid. Grandma had four miscarriages before mom including a set of twins. I wonder if it happened because she didn't want any of them. But mom was too stubborn. She was going to exist no matter wha.
I don't understand why or how she isn't still here.
I cannot fight the feeling that I was not worthy of her. I was not worthy of my cat, Lunar, either. They should still be here. Why am I still here instead of them. They earned it. They were better than me. I can't honor them properly. I'm not strong enough, I'm not smart enough. I can't carry on their memory or spirit accurately or enough. I can't give enough to the world to make up for the loss.
Just venting feelings of grief.
I'll be okay.
These feelings are inside of me all of time. Only sometimes do they make me cry like this. I just have to live with it, most of the time. Stay quiet. No one wants to hear it.
But, if anyone ever wonders why I act like a crazy person. Why I am a faery as a profession. Why I dress like a zombie and dance around like a maniac every halloween.
This might have something to do with it.
...
A little of this may have been triggered because of chatting with Steph about this Sunday. We are going to visit Halloweentown together. Her mom is really the reason Halloween became the most magical holiday for me, my absolute favorite. Mom did well with it, too, but Laurie was the best. Laurie always hosted pumpkin carving, and toasted the seeds for us in the oven. She decorated totally over the top, and made the craziest costumes for Steph. She made it a total blast. An otherworldly delight. A feast for the eyes and nose and tongue and heart. And she is no longer around, either.
I don't like enduring Halloween without a little black cat, anymore. Steph had two black cats as a kiddo, Midnight and Samantha. Little magic cats.
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Date: 2022-10-13 09:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-10-29 12:34 pm (UTC)