Rain on my Parade in Current Events

I caved on Saturday and went to the office. I missed my kids too much.

I can’t be still. I am robbing myself of the present. I get a deep sinking feeling whenever I try. I have to be internally restless. Then I externalize it. After three decades of high, long-term stress, I don’t know how to exist without it. I was going to take today to find my way to the moment but now I have to share the moment with my roommate. All signs point to her taking today off. Instead of finding stillness, I will be filtering out distractions.

Today, the big idea was to sit still in a safe environment and just let myself be shell-shocked and stunned.

I’m not one of those sad little gremlins who suffer from loneliness. I need it. I am a masker, I need the time and space to take my mask off. I need to let my stims run rampant. My ADHD needs to stretch its legs. I need to go to my mind palace. I cannot afford to be mindful of someone else for a second during this sacred me-time. I count on my object permanence here and let the whole world slip into oblivion.

I replaced my content addiction with online shopping. My roommate is a trigger. I conditioned myself to be able to sit through a movie without needing my phone but I cannot sit through a conversation with her. We spent yesterday together. I didn’t blow a big hole in my budget but I could not stop window shopping. The more she talked the more I cleaved to my phone like I was applying an anesthetic. We’re almost forty, why are we still talking about music like we are in our twenties? We can’t talk about adult things because she gets so unhinged. After all, that is what she does when she doesn’t understand something. She is a forty-year-old woman who doesn’t understand anything.

My whole day is thrown off now. Where I want to do yoga, she will put on Love Is Blind. Where I want to clean, she will make a mess. Where I want to meal prep, she will want to snack and cook. When I try to hyperfocus, she will want to talk about herself. It will be even worse if she takes the day to mope and be depressed. It’s like an overcast when it is supposed to be a bright sunny day. I’ll live.

My blood pressure is higher than normal. I was diagnosed with a thyroid condition. I need to find a way to zen the fuck out. Today I was going to attempt to map out that journey but miss people-who-take-stress-leave-are-pathetic-and-not-qualified-for-their-jobs needed a day off. She is free to do so. Nobody is being selfish here but I’m going to sulk about it anyway.