Every Little Thing

In the evenings before bed, I detail at least three good things that happened that day. This is to remind me that every good thing, no matter how little, is important.

NaBloPoMo Day 8: Sunday Wrapup

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I don’t really have an agenda for writing today. No well-thought out cohesive commentary on the things that are going on in my world. So today, you’re going to be treated to what a typical day for me is like, at least in my head. Here are my thoughts on this beautiful, comfortable Sunday.

  • I love this time of year. The temperatures are finally dipping to the levels that we don’t have to have the AC on all the time (in fact, it hasn’t even been turned on since early this morning, and it barely ran overnight). The windows are open, and it’s a gorgeous day. Both of us are pretty low on energy today, since we’ve been through the ringer trying to adult (more on that word later in this post) over the past few days, so rather than get ourselves out of the house to go enjoy it somewhere we’ve just been sitting on the couch goofing off on the computer while we watched the day go by from the second floor. Rather than having a railing for our balcony, we have a half-wall instead, meaning that there’s nothing we can see out of our living room window except for the second floor and above of the apartment building across the way. It’s days like today that make me wish I were a little better prepared to handle life out where there are people. I miss being outdoors, and I miss being healthy enough to go take advantage of it some place besides lapping our apartment complex.
  • As I said in a recent post, I am a Panthers fan. Today’s game nearly gave me yet another heart attack. We won, but the Packers were DANGEROUSLY close to being able to tie the game late. Little more cushion next week, please guys. My blood pressure thanks you.
  • The financial situation that I wrote about yesterday was resolved yesterday. They reversed the charge so fast it was back in our bank the day we called. Finally, our provider does the right thing.
  • I really need to start talking to my therapist about how to process the events in my past that have exacerbated my mental illnesses, and start learning how to work through them in any situation, even work. It is not a delightful thing to be stuck at home all day with extremely little to do. I miss working. I miss being able to work, to contribute to society. I want to make getting back to that point a higher priority, which means we’re going to be minimizing what’s going on now from week to week and concentrating on what happened back then to lead up to this point.

And finally, five good things that happened this week:

  1. We’re tending toward the use of “adult” as a verb in today’s lexicon. “I adulted so hard,” someone might say. “I don’t want to adult today,” another might complain. Over the past few days, I’ve adulted very hard. It’s been a challenge trying to manage our budget for this month due to unexpected expenses, but so far we seem to be managing decently. Financial planning always takes a lot out of me, since it’s somewhat depressing seeing the blueprint of how all of our money drains away right in front of me, but I persevere through it. To many people, this is assumed to be just a thing to do, no big deal. To someone with mental illnesses, tackling this kind of preparatory exercise can be easily overwhelming, and I needed today to just be, no real agenda or anything.
  2. The Panthers won again. Yes, I’m putting that as a good thing. This is the best start they’ve ever had and I’m excited to see just how good they’ll be in the second half of the season.
  3. I got to follow through on a yearly tradition in the house, that being the watching of V for Vendetta on November 5th. (Okay. So. We started it at five minutes to midnight on the 5th and the vast majority of the movie actually ran on the 6th, but at least some of it happened the day of, right?)
  4. I tend to be a creature of habit when it comes to food. One egg and three strips of bacon in the morning. Two ham and turkey wraps for lunch. A smattering of variety at dinnertime. Recently we tried a new ham and turkey for our wraps. Neither of us were very impressed, myself to the point that I could barely choke down even one of the things. We finally made the decision to switch back to the ham and turkey we know we like and that made all the difference in the world. I’m back to wolfing them down like crazy.
  5. I managed to get through the week without any meltdowns into irrationality. There was some self-doubt scattered throughout the week, but nothing was bad enough to get to the point that I couldn’t listen to reason when it was told to me.

A Change of Sorts

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After some introspection, I have decided to retire the Three Good Things feature of this blog, effective immediately. In its place, I will be looking for no less than five good things that happen throughout my week, and post them on Sundays as part of my regular writing exercise.

This change allows me to still look for the positive things in my life without the pressure of having to find multiple things on a daily basis, something that was beginning to weigh heavily on me, like a chore instead of a celebration. That effectively negated the intent of the exercise. In addition, repetition of content was becoming more and more commonplace, as I would often use my daily blog post to write in detail about something good and then summarize that same item later in the day in a second blog post, something that was feeling more and more like overkill.

I look forward to this new format of sharing the good in my life in a way that allows me to celebrate these incidents once more.

October 9, 2015: Three Good Things

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Today has been hard, especially the evening. Going to try and make this work.

1. Even though I didn’t write it down, I got my to-do list done and then some. I was very productive today.

2. I posted something today to Facebook about how every little decision in life leads us to be at this very point in time, and how the belief that none of that should ever change due to the outcome being wildly different leads to a life with no regrets. I try to live that way, but don’t always make the mark. I have to remind myself that I don’t regret anything I’ve done, and that’s not a bad thing at all.

3. I posted something else to Facebook this morning: a GIF of Calvin and Hobbes dancing, with a reminder that this was a powerful happy, especially when combined with Linus and Lucy from the Peanuts specials. It made me smile and did the same with a lot of my friends.

Bonus: day 12 today. Go me.

October 8, 2015: Three Good Things

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1. I had a good radio show despite the technical difficulties I dealt with.

2. I went to the store and not only didn’t freak out but initiated two separate conversations: one with someone I’ve only met a couple times in passing, and one with a total stranger. This is really not my usual thing, and it felt weird, but good.

3. I discovered my Medicare plan offers free basic gym memberships at a lot of local gyms. Looks like I’ll be researching my options over the coming weeks.

Bonus: Today is day 11, and I got to tell my therapist today that I’m on the longest streak in my checklist completion ever.

October 7, 2015: Three Good Things

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1. I was exceptionally productive around the house. I started in with a to-do list of four items and kept adding to it and crossing things off as I had the energy to get things done.

2. I think we’ve fixed the internet issues we were once having. We’re now regularly clocking 27/28 Mbps down and around 5.75 Mbps up.

3. I made a joke about not having dinner on the table when my wife came home. Rather than panic about the imperfection, I embraced it, something that I rarely do.

Bonus: today is day ten of complete checklists.

October 6, 2015: Three Good Things

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I’m finding it harder and harder to come up with three good things every day, especially when all I do most of the day is sit on the couch and hope my internet connection isn’t going to crap out (spoiler alert: it is, again, and I am not happy). But the point of the exercise is to find the good in a life where not a lot of that happens, so here goes.

1. I’m making good progress on the poem that I have to perform a week from Saturday. I should have it completely memorized by this Saturday, giving me a week to work on perfecting the inflections and delivery. When I finish memorizing it, I’m celebrating my first delivery of the entire thing with no mistakes or pauses with the last cider in the house.

2. I had a serendipitous incident while listening to Pandora tonight. We have a ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic station that plays about 80% comedy music and 20% comedy sketches. Jim Gaffigan was doing a routine on McDonald’s and one of his jokes went along the lines of “Without McDonald’s, how would we know when breakfast ends?” I found that joke infinitely funnier than it would have been around the time the CD was released, because today is the day that McDonald’s rolled all-day breakfast out nationwide and made the joke completely obsolete. The timing was not lost on me and made the whole thing that much funnier.

3. I’ve spent the day in pre-anxiety, with it spilling over full-blown anxiety attacks several times today. Each time I’ve used some coping skill or method of distraction to fight down the anxiety, though I have to admit I did have to take an extra Klonopin earlier in the evening. Today had the potential of being MUCH worse than it was.

Bonus: I’m on track to make it nine days in a row. Yay me.

October 5, 2015: Three Good Things

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1. Despite waking up to some bad news (personal stuff, nothing, uh … personal … the situation is under control at this time) my mood was pretty chipper throughout almost the entire day. My computer is beginning to frustrate me and I’m thinking a clean install of Windows might not be a bad idea, but it’s not anything that’s greatly affecting my mood. Sure, I’m not looking forward to the process, but I think it will improve my computer’s performance. Might start that process after my show on Thursday night.

2. During the walks that I’ve been taking recently, I’ve started to get winded well before the end of the lap around the complex. Tonight, I didn’t get winded until after I’d climbed the stairs to come back home. My endurance is getting notably better.

3. Today my cat was especially social, spending almost the entire time my wife was at work on the couch with me. She usually naps for a few hours in the afternoon, then comes out a couple hours before my wife comes home for dinner to cuddle with me on the couch, and then hops up with me off and on after lunch. Today she was right there from the beginning and didn’t much leave until my wife kicked her out of her spot upon coming home for the evening.

Bonus: today is day eight of the complete checklist streak.

October 4, 2015: Three Good Things

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1. I got to spend a lot of time visiting with my best friend and his wife today. He’s also a mentor for me in the SCA, that historical re-enactment thing I do on the occasional weekend, and so we talked about ongoing projects. It’s always good to see the two of them and we don’t get to see them enough.

2. In today’s edition of Sportsball, my baseball team managed to lose both their game and the division today, and yet still clinched the last wild-card spot in the playoffs. (Any baseball fan worth his salt should REALLY know who my team is at this point.) And in a lovely bonus, my football team won today, and is one of the few undefeated teams left in the league after four weeks.

3. I still have a couple of things left to do, but it’s an almost certainty that I will complete my seventh straight day of completing my checklist, making this my longest streak ever under any circumstances. From here on out, any extension of the streak will be filed under “bonus good things” after I list my three for the day.

October 3, 2015: Three Good Things

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1. I like sports, enough to follow how my teams are doing over the Internet but not enough to either subscribe to cable or go to a sports bar or a friend’s to watch the games. Baseball season is winding down, and the closest thing I have to a team is fighting for a spot in the playoffs. For the last several days, things have transpired exactly as they’ve needed to for them to stay in the division race with one more game remaining tomorrow. (Baseball fans should be able to figure out “my team” from that little description.) Go team! Sports well!

2. I had a friend over tonight for our radio show. We had a good time, there were many hi-jinx, and there was a Kahlua crazy cake, made without eggs or milk, but with a TON of boozahol. One tiny piece, about an inch and a half square, gave me a tiny little buzz.

3. Today is day six of total completion of my checklist. This equals my longest string ever (remember, the only other time I did this was during a time when I had one optional check mark that was completed twice and not applicable four times during the string). If I complete my checklist tomorrow, I will have a solid week of compliance, make it one of my three good things one last time, and then drop it to “bonus item” status, since for the past few days it’s really been “two good things plus the checklist.” I’d like to try and look further than “I did everything I was supposed to” for the good in my life.

October 2, 2015: Three Good Things

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1. I managed to make it through the store for a week’s worth of grocery shopping without getting anxious! (Granted, it was late at night, but it’s kind of hit or miss as to whether it’s busy at our store at the hour we went.)

2. Speaking of anxiety, I managed to make it through the entire day without any anxiety at all today. I was flirting on the edges briefly during parts, but I handled it well.

3. I extended my checklist completion streak to five straight days today!