Tuesday, May 13, 2008

When the Stream of Consciousness Looks More Like Whitewater Rapids

I can't turn my thinker off.

I just took a shower and literally dizzied myself with rapid fire missives.

Thoughts about tonight's walk being so idyllic, stopping in the pastoral open space that will soon be a bustling city park at the edge of the subdivision, basking in the glorious sunset of a sky swollen from giving birth to heavy rains earlier in the day, smelling the cleansed earth, watching the kiddos entertaining themselves by sprinting down the backside of the dyke, the other side of which held back a lake where Charlie Brown was giving the pup his first swimming lesson while Gracie showed off like the seasoned pro that she is. They giggled and chanted out, "Run, run as fast as you can, you can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man," as they hurled themselves downhill. Punkinhead's behavior foreshadowed a future audition for his generation's equivalent to Jackass as he purposefully did faceplant after faceplant in the dust - "But Mom, it's ok I have my helmet on!" :sigh:

For about an hour tonight, time stood still...my only regret was that I didn't bring my camera along to capture the beautiful light and these little moments with the kiddos. Guess I gotta try and come up with the thousand words equivalents, eh?

On the way back, Punkinhead, wobbling on his raised though not yet removed training wheels, began singing, "I can ride my bike with no training wheels, no training wheels..." like that No Handlebars song, as a demonstration of his overconfidence. As he went on, continuing to show off, his concentration on the actual riding waned and safety became an issue multiple times and after several "oopsies," all of which had been accompanied with a precursory warning, Charlie Brown became a bit Homer-esque to Punkinhead's Bart-like antics.

Crrrrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaassssssshh!

That's reality coming back to the night.

Enter the racing thoughts.

We still have a lot of things to talk about.

What did he mean by "Sometimes...?"

Is he going to go out with Prominent Male this week?

He was right Saturday night when he said, "You seem off. You've been off for quite awhile."

Off is code for mentally ill....misunderstood....overwhelmed...and we haven't talked about it since Saturday.

We need to.

Instead, we've made jokes to de-escalate our communications, as I did on Sunday when he kept jabbering while someone was talking at the podium in church and I whispered, "Stop! Don't make me use my 'angry hands!'"

Will my being off be a smoke and mirrors trick for him to skirt his own issues, as it has before?

Or will we rely on avoidance for the time being?

And that is just a sampling. Many more thoughts whizzed by tonight, to the point that I was physically dizzy, on the verge of tears, and close to calling out for help.

Now...it is after 11. He's sleeping, as he should be. I am not. Nor have I initiated anything. It sucks being so painfully aware and yet so paralyzed to take action.



© 2008 Ramblings of a Red-Headed Step-Child. All Rights Reserved

3 comments:

  1. Paralyzed is a really good word. Our RDI lady uses that word. I only can wish you strength for I have no words of wisdom. Plum fresh out of that for I am dealing with my own paralyzes.

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  2. I have no advice for the things you're thinking about, but I do have advice for de-carbonating "fizzy brain" (as I like to call my own stream of consciousness ramblings that keep me awake at night).

    My solution is quite easy, and it works almost every time for me.

    First, get comfy.

    Then, visualize a long spiral staircase. You are at the top and the bottom fades out into the dark.

    Now, silently, start counting backwards from ten-thousand s l o w l y. Nine-thousand...nine-hundred...ninety-nine. Breath in deeply. With each number, take one step down the imaginary spiral staircase.

    I start at ten thousand because I like the rhythm of the large numbers and there's no way I'm getting down to zero.

    Counting backward takes just enough mental effort to quiet the fizzy thoughts and, yet, it's not so difficult it keeps you awake.

    The staircase is a hypnosis technique my mom taught me.

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  3. Hugs. I'm so sorry. I'm really struggling right now, too.

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