There’s so much I want to say, and so much I want to protect. I’ll try to say what I need to, without disrupting the delicate balance between the two.

Have you ever felt divinely guided in one direction, and maybe been afraid to jump? Or let me rephrase and say, were you overly cautious about a huge move? That’s where I am, and it’s scary. If you tend to psychoanalyze your decisions, as I am wont to do (to the Nth degree), then it’s terrifying, all while being amazing and exhilarating at the same time. I don’t jump; I’m careful. Until I’m not.

No matter what I do, all signs point in one direction. It might as well be a fucking headline in glaring red. I can’t go anywhere without reminders, either. If you’re into symbology, you will understand what I mean. The signs are in front of your face constantly. If you’re not into symbols, then maybe you understand synchronicity. I’ve pondered things ad nauseum for over five years, now. Around this time, last year, the symbology shifted and I tried hard to ignore it because I wasn’t ready from a mental perspective. I told myself I was being ridiculous. But now? It’s virtually impossible to ignore. It’s everywhere I turn. It’s the Universe saying, “Remember what you prayed for? I’m giving it to you. Be careful with it, but don’t you dare walk away. I worked too hard to bring this to you. This is YOUR magic, and this is all yours. Hold on tight, because this doesn’t happen for everyone. Don’t run from your destiny.” It leaves you in complete awe.

This keeps me up at night, praying for guidance. Guidance is laughing, because I’m struggling with this, and guidance tells me to listen and take what’s mine and meant for me. If there’s anything I hate, it’s me bringing up something completely unrelated in therapy, and allowing it to eat up 20-40 minutes of the time I am allotted every other week. Unfortunately, it ate up time twice in six weeks. I felt stupid bringing it up in the first place, until my doctor said I was doing the right thing. There’s nothing wrong with being cautious, smart, having difficult discussions, and powering through. Essentially, this is also a form of guidance, as well as self-care. It helps me work things out on my own, which is something I did long before I had anyone in my life to play therapist on any level. There’s a lot to be said for people who are capable of doing the work on their own. Let me be clear; none of this work is easy, but you have to show up for yourself.

Sometimes I can focus solely on the work I choose to do in order to improve myself, and other times I need to express myself in a rush because both of my best friends lost a parent this year (One lost both of her parents.), so they are essentially AWOL at the moment. It hurts me not to be able to share this with them, but I also don’t want to dump my drama on anyone. I would rather say something in a year. They can be mad, but I choose to be respectful of their pain and suffering, as opposed to being selfish, self-centered, and/or self-absorbed. That’s not who I am. I’m not a martyr, but am I sensitive to what my tribe members are going through? Absolutely! If anything, I am more self-aware than most people, and this is one of my better qualities.

I know when things settle down, they will be there for me. These are two of my longest friendships, and I know both of them want what’s best for me, no matter what. The same is true in reverse, and it breaks my heart that I had to walk them though these losses, coming from a place of experience. Maybe that was a gift, in a bizarre sort of way. My parents’ losses are felt deeply, but if I can help someone else by sharing how I navigated it all, then it’s not entirely in vain. Everyone reading this will experience loss at some point in their lives, and I hope my words of encouragement will help even just one person.

Navigating the day-to-day aspects of what I am going through right now are harder. I have a lot of late-night discussions and random bursts of laughter. I still spend a lot of sleepless nights writing until the sun comes up. Sometimes I can cut myself off earlier, but this often means taking prescription sleep medication, and I can say this based on my experience with it; it doesn’t always work. It’s never been consistent for me, but there are times it completely knocks me out, and times when it wears off too quickly. No wants a sleep aid to wear off after 2-5 hours. Then you feel like you didn’t sleep at all, and the cycle continues.

I hurt my neck about six or seven weeks ago (which is part of why I am experiencing so much painsomnia.). It initially felt like it was a flare-up from sleeping in a weird position during a rapid weather change, but quickly became me not able to turn my head at all. The pain affected the entire left side of my body. It eased up after a few days and I went to a doctor and had some injections put into my neck. Normally, this settles everything down in a few days, but it’s been a while at this point, and I am suffering terribly, and the injection sites flared up, as well. Any stressful situation or conversation causes my neck to get worse. I don’t even realize how tight my neck is, until I try to move. My doctor told me the entire back of my neck and head are badly affected, so she added some medication to the back of my head, as well. No help.

I touched base with someone recently who is coming off of shoulder surgery due to a pinched nerve which, for ten years, tormented her. She’d finally had enough of the excruciating agony. My doctors decided it was a pinched nerve without running any tests. I’m not kidding; they recommended physical therapy via YouTube and a cervical collar which is SO painful, I am not sure where I threw it one day, but I do know I threw it out of frustration. To make a long story slightly shorter, I now have to deal with a shitty primary care physician in order to get him to go back into my chart when this first started (during the height of Covid), and insist we discuss it, and that tests be run this time around. During the last two flare-ups, they put me on short-term opioids (In May and again in October of 2020), along with long-term muscle relaxers, which made a dent. This time, I don’t even know if they’re strong enough to touch this pain. The muscle relaxers help me temporarily, but I’ve reached my pain threshold and I am worried surgery could end up on the table. There’s clear-cut nerve damage. If there’s something torn, I could be sidelined for 6-9 months. There are parts of my head and face that I don’t feel anymore. My right ear, especially. It seems weird, but I realized it last Winter, and another time when, recently, I was putting a small earring into my myriad piercings. I jammed a sharp earring into a piercing which, for some deeply unknown reason, wants to close up on me. I could understand if I never wore anything in it, but I actually do. Every time I leave the house. I’ve had it since I was about twenty, so I’m baffled by it giving me trouble over the past year or so. I left the house one day with the earring in (along with all of my others, none of which had given me trouble), only to later discover blood trickling down the side of my neck when I reached my destination. I never felt a thing. I cleaned it up with alcohol pads I keep in my purse, but later that night when I took the higher piercings out, it all stemmed from the third cartilage piercing. I disinfected everything and I still wear it, but some days I get fed up and skip it. It’s not worth popping it open, having it swell up, etc. Eventually, I will find out if it’s related to a metal allergy, but honestly, one piercing out of so many seems a bit odd, even to me. Of late, all of them are swelling up, except for one. It’s been an odd, random experience, to say the least.

Obviously, I have a lot of my plate right now. In advance, I would like to thank all of you for sticking with me this year. I have definitely been out of sorts and challenged beyond measure, but I am grateful to walk this website into another year (Which officially starts on the 26th.). I did take a lengthy break from writing over the past while, because I needed it, I was burning out, and my focus needed to be elsewhere. My focus remains where it needs to be. I will revisit what I’ve been working on and forge ahead, but I might focus the next few months on a How-To manual (If you know, you know.). The idea started out as a joke between myself and a mother figure, but I quickly realized I might be on to something. If nothing else, I keep people laughing, and there’s a bonus to that.

If I am not able to write anything more this month, I want you to savor all the good moments. Be it Fall or Spring where you live, enjoy the little things, the big things, and everything in between. You never know when you might be stumbling on something life-changing. I’ve been the dumbest brunette on earth this year (In my bubble of an existence.), but I’m embracing the magic and protecting what, and who, I value beyond measure.

Wishing you all a wonderful remainder to the month of October. 🍁🍂🍃

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