Working On A Quirky Graph

Woke up yesterday dreaming my face was superimposed by my skull. Not in the traditional Calavera for Dias de las Muertos, but something clearly pulled from the ground, with dirt in the crevices and that slightly tinged coloring you will see from something sitting in the forest floor for too long. I kept looking at a mirror trying to reconcile what I was seeing with what I was supposed to be seeing when my alarm started going off.

The subconscious is a funny thing. And honestly the brain being this complex working system that sometimes gets the basic signals mixed up which I find baffling and humorous all at the same time. It is terrible for those with serious disorders and will completely suck when I can no longer laugh without my bladder taking that as a reason to join in, but at the moment it is the interpretations it takes that makes me smile at how it works.

My alarm goes off on my watch. It is a vibration that pulses to gently wake me up, and my brain recognized enough to communicate in my dream that my watch was going off and needed to be turned off, but when I would hit my wrist in my dream it wouldn’t turn off the alarm. That isn’t how you snooze the alarm currently (smart of the developers cause I would never get up if that were the case). To snooze or even turn off the alarm, you have to hit one of the buttons on the watch. I have no idea if I was actually hitting my watch in my sleep, but what translated in my head was that the watch was broken and would be going off forever and I would have to get a new one. I was still distracted by what I was seeing over my face, or but conscious enough to realize that having to shell out money for another watch isn’t on my bingo card for the year and I needed to resolve the vibration on my wrist.

The dream shattered, the button was pressed and now I’m left wondering of all the random images that flit through my brain, why that would be something my brain has to work through. I’m not sure I want to trip through my own psyche so I’ve left it mainly alone for the last day. I had work, after all, things to distract me from other things I should probably do; cleaning with the ever present dishes and vacuuming, an Afghan to frog since I missed a whole row and had to pull out 26 rows to rectify and training I should have done but procrastinated on. Truthfully my screen time for the last few weeks has been abysmal, but I’ve been working toward doing more. Just jogging the will power to even show up in my day to day is always harder than it looks and the damn thing is so elusive. Sometimes it will be in bed under the covers, other times, it will be hiding in the basement with the weights where I least expect it. Sneaky thing.

Plus, it is a holiday season and people are feeling nostalgic and want to reconnect or meet up for coffee, a tour through a park or maybe even a meal. I have been feeling very firmly reclusive, satisfied with being holed up in a room, notched in a couch, a little heater on me while I try and read and crochet at the same time (I still cannot figure out to do it but my brain needs the stimulation). It helps, which honestly doesn’t sound good now that I’ve said it out loud, that I haven’t been feeling great. Whatever illness that is sweeping the city has had passing glances at my house with constant headaches and my insides declaring war against my sanity. I’m glad I work from home because I don’t believe my immune system can handle the general public any longer, and it would take some months to get back up to fighting speed.

It is a new year, however, and I have been racking my brain to determine where my goals should land. What do I want to focus on more this year? Should I worry more about what I want with the house? And if I’m going to do that, then I have to worry about money, if I’m happy or if I should shuck the paycheck for something that will give me more satisfaction day to day but make me incredibly nervous when paying back all these loans? What about health? I understand what it will take to get my energy up, food -what a shock, however, when I eat I put on weight without exercise, even if I stay under a basic calorie count. And while I’m working towards finding exercise regimes that don’t annoy me, and are something I can follow along with aside from my trainer once a week, that pesky will power is still MIA and doesn’t always pop up when it should I know that if I have an appointment I have to be at, or if I have a commitment I need to fulfill (walking a dog) I am more likely to go ahead and do that exercise thing, but if I’m relying on myself to push it, then I’m not getting out of bed an earlier than I need to make it happen. So, it I’m being honest, that will have to be the first really hard behavior to change. I have to view exercising in my basement like an appointment I’m making with myself.

The other things to worry about this year, in no particular order, will be setting myself up for the future, stabilizing my income and the foundation for the house, putting up a fence and garage and perhaps, maybe, getting a pet.

And later, for when I’m feeling really neurotic, I can worry more about why my brain was picturing my inevitable future and pasting it on top of the immediate uncertainty I see in the mirror.

Perhaps when I can settle on a direction I will feel more confident in what is going to happen, in those next steps and the results I can expect.