5:53 p.m. - 2018-09-16
saw my eldest brother today too, he seems happy
So I've lived here for almost two years, and I can count on one hand the number of times I've invited people over (that aren't my parents) because my anxiety has just been through the goddamn roof, every day, every night, constantly, until I went to therapy and through the meditation course, and I feel like I'm slowly, so damn slowly, regaining myself back from the vibrating mess of a human I became.
Last week I messaged a woman who babysat the kids, (and basically raised them while I worked fulltime when they were 1-5, she only stopped being the caregiver because she had a catastrophic September in which three of the fulltime families bailed on her and caused her to have to quit her nearly 15 yr small business of raising kiddos. Which she loved, and was so so good at. Because they found other options but never made that clear to her until it was far too late to find more kids to babysit for her to make ends meet.
ANYWAY, I messaged her and asked her to come over for a visit, coffee and a catch up with the kiddos, whenever she's free, if she wants.
It's been years, and Youngest still misses her terribly. And I feel guilty because my own mental health has stopped me from having anyone over ever. I'm really ashamed of my basement apartment, and really ashamed at my inability to keep it as clean and spider-free as I want it to be.
Ive recently had the kid help with the floors (vacuuming and sweeping) and that's gone well, so I'm slowly going to expand that until we get to a weekly cleaning schedule of all working together to keep this place clean, so it's not just on my head.
Her and her daughter (who also helped raise my kiddos) are coming over tomorrow. After that plan was in place, I invited my brothers over to play D&D and the kids and I moved my kitchen table in from of the couches/chairs that are much more comfy so that we could play for hours in comfort, and it worked really well.
And I could feel that panicking feeling in the back of my throat, but it didn't stop my breathing or make me pass out or start the ball of unendurable pain in my chest, so.. that's good.
I stayed upright for over 8 hours, both yesterday and today. I want to play warcraft, but Im going to put on a movie Ive seen and just lie flat for a bit.
I'm going to take it easy tomorrow, for the most part. Some dishes and a run the vacuum through, two or three 20/10s over the 6 hours the kiddos are at school and that should do it.
I feel alright though, which is good, because if I get this part time job, there will be some weekends that I pull an 8 hour shift for saturday and sunday, and I've got to be able to do that. And I think I can.
So I feel calmer than I have in a long long while.
We found Youngest a perfect spiffy wedding outfit, actual dress pants, a short sleeved button up, a tie that matches both perfectly, and we decided suspenders would be the best for keeping his pants on when he's dancing up a storm, and he picked the gold sequin ones, which are ahmazing, as the bit of flair for an eight year old to wear and get compliments on, but after I opened the packed to take a closer look at them, they aren't very structurally sound, so I will have to see about getting a more robust pair of suspenders when these inevitably explode a cloud of gold sequins.
I feel good enough to also plan to pull out my back dress and see if it fits better than last time (it was too big in weird places, but I've gained weight in weird places due to my sedentary chronic illness lifestyle, so Im thinking it will be fine. Hoping it will be fine. I mean, I have my interview pants now, but I'd like to flow a little free-er for the wedding.)
It was 5:53pm when I started, I wandered off to the bathroom, then the kitchen to grab my phone, then had a piece of toast for dinner (the Good Bread kind of toast) and now Im going to do that movie and passing out thing for a while. I'll come back to reality when it's time to get the kiddos ready for bed, and encourage (sternly ask) them to take showers/baths (wtf is it with 8-12 yr old kids that suddenly loathe all things personal hygiene ???)
It's 6:28pm, and I'm hopeful.
