Time, Anxiety and Airports

Dear Reader,

How are you? I’ve been better, honestly. It’s been a particularly stressful week full of all sorts of stressors- work, home, pets, health...I’m tired. We’ve been super busy- lots of late nights coming home, and scrambling to take care of the basics. I’ve been trying to find time all week to write this post, and I’ve been utterly failing. I didn’t think this post was going to happen, but here I am prioritizing it for my Friday night!

Anxiety Relief

In addition to being really busy this week, my mind is being overtaken by an all-consuming worry. It’s a personal health issue and a potentially major concern, I’ll share more once I get a better idea of what is going on. I’ve been worried about it all week; however, I’ve been super busy and haven’t really had much time to acknowledge it.

Tonight is Friday, though, and I’m by myself while my husband is off working. Plenty of time to think...and worry...and obsessively worry. I’ve been combating my thoughts with a couple of things: planning my trip to Walt Disney World in January and listening to a playlist of my favorite Disney songs while doing my evening chores (and writing this post, right now it’s “Colors of the Wind” in case you were curious).

The Disney playlist serves two purposes. The upbeat songs lift my spirits and energizes me. I never think it is going to have much of an impact on my energy until I turn it on. The second purpose is that the emotional power ballads allowing me to feel my feelings. The emotions are bubbling on the surface, and when a sad song or an emotional power ballad comes on, the tears flow. Acknowledging feelings and feeling the feelings is actually a very important tool for getting rid of them and feeling better.

Planning the first day in Animal Kingdom!

Central Florida Trip Report (Part 2)

Day One

The evening before the morning of our trip, we discovered some skin lesions on Mama Meredith (one of our cats). We called the vet and arranged to drop her off on our way to the airport. My in-laws were babysitting the fur children, so they were going to pick up Meredith that evening after she was treated by the vet.

We left from the Charlottesville airport. Out of all the airports we visited on our journey there and back, Charlottesville was my favorite. It was my first time flying out of Charlottesville. I’ve done plenty of dropping off and picking up my husband there, but I hadn’t been inside myself. The airport is tiny, organized and super clean. It was so easy to navigate. There was a bit of a wait for the TSA line (less than 5 minutes) and my husband said that was the first line he’s ever encountered there.

Breakfast at the CVille airport.

We arrived with plenty of time, so once inside the terminal, we grabbed breakfast sandwiches at a cafe and sat down for a bit. We got some snacks at the little store and I refilled my water bottle at the “hydration station”. We also walked outside on balcony to view the air strip and our plane. It was an excellent start.

Looking at our plane.

CVille airstrip.

I was nervous, though, the last time I had been in the air I swore I’d never fly again. I had a really bad cold, and I couldn’t pop my ears. I was in so much pain the entire time. I don’t like flying anymore...not because of the height, or any kind of fear of dying in a plane crash. I don’t like flying because of how cramped everything is, how rushed everything is, how close you are to so many people, how people have to wait for you to sit down...it’s an anxiety nightmare for me.

This plane is too small.

Thanks to airplane logic, we had to head north to go south. Our layover was in the Philadelphia airport. I was excited that the layover was long enough for us to not feel rushed and to even stop for lunch. We walked a good distance to our connecting terminal and then found a table service restaurant called “Chickie & Pete’s”. It was not a good decision. The staff was disinterested in serving us, the service was super slow (like 25 minutes for a cheesesteak slow), the sandwiches came with no sides- not even a pickle, and there was no option to add chips or fries. They got my order wrong...well, half my order...I got two ½ a sandwich I ordered and ½ I didn’t. The food was expensive and not even remotely tasty. I would have been way more satisfied with my value if I had gone to the Popeye’s instead.

Out the window at our lunch table at the Philly airport.

Time Management

My struggle with time this week- and not having enough of it- has inspired me to more diligently pursue learning how to manage my time better. Last night, I watched some YouTube videos on the topic, and I’ve settled for trying a new round of “time blocking” this week. One thing that I came across during my research is that time blocking can be like a food diary. Food diaries prompt change because they force you to be mindful of what you are eating. Time blocking forces you to be mindful of your time. I’m opting to do the time blocking in my bullet journal since I’d like to see two timelines- my planned/expected day and my actual day. I feel like I may get some useful information from the comparison.

Today’s timeblocking attempt!

What is time blocking? It’s basically just making appointments for all the things you plan to do. You create a bar of all the blocks in a day (or use something like Google Calendar) and fill them in with your expected tasks. At first, it should be a bit challenging and overwhelming, but I think it is supposed to get easier as you get more practice.

Here are some of the videos I watched:

Also, this blog post: https://bulletjournal.com/blogs/bulletjournalist/daily-plan-bar on the Bullet Journal website.

Blue Llama County, Level Up Life, & a bit about my dad

Dear Reader,

How are you? I’m okay- and that’s good. I’ve had a bit of a stressful and exhausting (physically and emotionally) couple of weeks. I will get into a bit more detail in just a moment. I had hoped to find time to write a post last week, but travel and my emotional brain state did not allow for that. Thank you for your patience, and we will now return to our previous schedule.

I hope you are doing well. But if you aren’t- this feeling will pass, things won’t always be this way, your feelings are valid and people do care. Believe me- they do.

Central Florida Trip Report (Part 1)

An introduction to the situation...

Last week’s lack of a blog post was because I was down in Florida! It wasn’t a vacation, though. I would never vacation in Florida in September- that’s way too hot!! I melt in the sun. I traveled down to Florida to handle my deceased father’s “estate”. I say “estate” like that because...well, it was only a small storage locker that was half-full of nothing of (monetary) value. Still, it needed to be handled and I was his closest living relative.

My father and I had, at best, a complicated relationship. We’ll definitely explore that more at some point in the future, but for now a short summary. He fell somewhere on the narcissistic personality spectrum, he lacked empathy, and was a pathological liar. I don’t just mean he fibbed occasionally- he manufactured completely different personality traits, preferences and histories depending on whom he was around. He claimed grandiose things such as he worked for the CIA and climbed Mountain Everest (both definitely not true). After my mom divorced him, he traveled around the country mooching off of other women. He needed help, and I still have a layer of guilt for not recognizing this sooner. His way of living led him to die alone and in poverty, entirely unexpectedly.

In my adulthood, I was aware of my father’s manipulative tendencies and I always kept him at arm’s length. However everyone else, eventually (after he got what he wanted), ended up abandoning him. My sister and I were the only two who kept in consistent contact with him. Since I’m seven years older than my sister, my dad kept me loosely informed of some of the realities of his life. So, I was aware of the existence of his storage locker and its address. I also was the one to receive the contents of the room that he rented- a couple of bags of items.

He died three years ago. Since then, I had been putting off the handling of his storage locker. It was emotionally challenging. Not only did I lose my father, I had an overwhelming sense of guilt associated with the situation. I hadn’t understood the reality he was living in (mainly because he lied about it) and I struggle with not having done anything to help him. In addition, the last few years I’ve been dealing with anxiety and depression, and I just couldn’t get up the courage and motivation to handle it. It was also far away, and I didn’t have the money to do all the necessary travel and paperwork.

I finally decided it was time this summer and I arranged a trip down to central Florida for the end of September. I was down there from Wednesday to Sunday of last week (4 nights). I have plenty of fun things to share about the places we went and the food we ate. But...I think it may take several posts! Umm…I also have a very embarrassing story of an anxiety meltdown at the airport, which I will share here in case it will make one other person feel less alone.

Level Up Life (Part 1)

Several weeks ago, I discovered this app called “Level Up Life”. It’s been around for awhile and it doesn’t seem like it’s getting much attention from its developer these days. Still, it’s got a great idea, so I’m going to use it anyway, and I’m going to take you along on the journey with me.

Level Up Life gives you a series of goals or missions to complete that will help you make your life better (in theory). Goals are divided into several different categories, and they are assigned an experience point value as well as some associated character attributes. The idea is to earn experience to increase your level to unlock new missions and make your life better. While the app definitely has room for improvement, I like the idea.

My profile at the start:

I’ve selected two goals for this week:

Read one chapter of a book- I’d like to read more. You can log this activity on the app up to once a day, so I’m hoping to check off this goal several times this week.

Go to bed super early- I’m not sure what I’d define as “super early” yet. But I’m trying to improve my sleep habits (and I’ve had a few weeks of very little sleep), so I’m going to try to do this once this week.

Blue Llama County (Tabby Rose, Part 1)

Sunday

Hello. My name is Tabby Rose. My parents and I moved into a new neighborhood yesterday. It’s a new section of the county, and it seems...well...lacking in people. I hope I meet some neighbors soon. I’m already feeling quite lonely here! I am a bit nervous when I think of going to a new school. I’m not sure if I will fit in or make any friends. I’m not very good at being alone.

My new school sent me some homework in advance, so today I spent the morning completing that. I’m a little nervous about the workload too, if they are sending me homework before I even start! In the afternoon, I went to the local library with my mother to access the computers. My mother was going to work on her jokes- she’s a comedian, and I wanted to practice programming. I’m learning to code. It’s pretty entertaining, and I know it’ll be useful for my future career plans.

I met some people at the library and I introduced myself. Everyone seemed friendly, but I didn’t really connect with anyone.

When we came home, it was time for dinner. I set the table while my mother cooked Franks n’ Beans. For dessert, we had brownies she made earlier in the day while I was doing my homework. She’s taken an interest in baking recently. I’m glad she’s found something new to be passionate about.

Well, she’s pretty passionate about my father, but I don’t like to encourage their already abundant PDAs! Although, I must confess that while I do make faces when they smooch in front of me, I actually think it’s adorable. I love how much they love each other. I just don’t let them know that, of course.

We don’t have many interesting things in the house just yet. Wait, let me rephrase that...interesting things *to do*. My mom has an….eclectic...taste in decor, so there are interesting things in the house, just not much to do. So, the three of us watched some television (comedy shows, of course!) before bed.