Tuesday and Waves in Book Five: Working Through the Maze 2018

Those who read me may not be surprised to know that I hate when I’ve been a bad friend. Even more so when the action (or inaction) was done thoughtlessly. I spend so much of my life re-considering my decisions and making myself sit with consequences for the very reason that I don’t want to do things thoughtlessly. In fact, my therapist is trying to work on getting me to at least “talk” with my gut instincts and gut feelings as I have distanced myself from them severely. Yet… one thoughtless action and I’m reminded why I tend to over-think things. I really won’t go into detail about it, largely because I am too embarrassed by my actions, but… just sucks to realize that a friend was upset or hurting because of my insensitivity.

On the other side of that… I have a few friends I’ve been trying to contact. I meant my birthday wish and… while I know some (like Aoife) will never be on that list of “Call her and chat”… I wanted to reach out to a few people I knew may be more open to the idea. Some of them were great and we easily set up times to meet later this month or later in the summer. Others haven’t been as easy to get a hold of. That being the case, it is hard for me to judge. I was raised with… somewhat competing philosophies. “Never take something personally if there is a different logical possibility.” and “When someone shows you who they really are, believe them.” As those were the two big philosophies, maybe my own confusions make somewhat more sense now. The thing is… two friends. Both of these friends are very busy professional people; one in a law firm, the other in Film editing. Both of these friends have their own established lives; friends and loved ones that already take up their time. Problem is… one I can’t seem to get a response from and the other is quick to say, “Yeah, I’d like to meet up” but is just as quick to say “No, this weekend’s no good. We’ll have to work something else out later.” So, my less than stellar analytical social processes start going over which possibility is more likely. Are they trying to give me the brush off and I’m not taking the hint; or are they really busy and I should keep trying? I’ve never been good at picking up “hints” whether it was “I like you” or “You’re sexy” or “Leave me alone” so… since I know I’ve never been good at picking up hints, I think I’m quicker to wonder if someone’s actions are in the realm of a “hint I’m not getting.”

Last Night I had a new iteration of one of my least favorite dreams. There are some dreams that I have in life that happen, well, often. One of those dreams is the “back to college dream.” There are many iterations of this but the one that happens most frequently is as follows:
I return to UNI to earn a B.A. The timing is strange because it is my current brain, I know I’ve been here before and that this is a return because I did so poorly the first time, but it is also the correct year when I started the first time. I’m often facing some kind of social or academic struggle and realize that I’m screwed and there is no way to fix the problem. Then I wake up.
This time, the dream featured more heavily on the social aspects but included a strange appearance that could never have happened. I attended college from 2002 to 2007. MBFITWW didn’t start college until 2005. However, in the dream… I was taking a tour of the Campbell Dorm. A dorm I knew very well as (in the real timeline) I had lived there for most of college. But this time, I was touring it with MBFITWW as we had decided to be roommates. Along with us was Yoyo. In the real world, she was one of my few friends in college and (in the real world) currently lives in the same city as MBFITWW. So it was one of my least favorite dreams with the twist of having “friendly backup”. The dream itself didn’t even do anything or mean anything. The entire hall was already friends and played video games with each other exclusively, leaving MBFITWW and I to watch Anime and play our own video games. It was weird in that it was a recurring dream but with a new twist.

Breakfast today was 290 calories. I plan on swimming today so I don’t know exactly how many calories that will burn but I’m guessing “many.”

My day was “somewhat” productive. I got my annual registration for my car finished. I wrote and sent a Thank You Letter to my in-laws for the Birthday Check. I went grocery shopping… forcing a compromise between Wife’s request and my own. She wants me to continue shopping at Wal Mart because she is 100% positive it is cheaper. However, we haven’t done the actual leg work to verify and I am not about to just take Wal Mart’s word for it that they are “always less expensive.” However, I do acknowledge (from 3 generations of working in the grocery business) that Hy-Vee does over charge on several categories of items. So my compromise? Two separate grocery lists, two separate grocery stops. For frozen food where the quality may not matter as much… Wal Mart. For fresh veg, milk, bread and things that we don’t want to spoil before their “use by” date… Hy-Vee. Yes… it is irritating as it means that any “grocery run” requires two stops. But… this way has many benefits. First, there will be some cost saving via Wal Mart. Second, Wal Mart’s “freshness” has always let us down, so this protects against that. Third, while acknowledging Wife’s concerns about cost, this still allows me to also shop at a more locally focused store than Wal Mart (at least for some of the items).

And then the afternoon got away from me. I left to go shopping and run errands at around 1. My plan was to get all of that taken care of quickly and then go swimming before the afternoon/evening swim classes started and prevented lap swimming. That did not happen. I didn’t even get back home from the errands until 3:30. Unpack the bags, put stuff in the fridge, and get ready to leave.... time’s up! However… the shopping… the carrying the bags… the going up and down and up and down the stairs… I’ll count that as a bit of a workout. I’m still going to have to do a Two-a-Day tomorrow to make up for it. Swimming in the morning at some time between 10 and Noon. Drylands around 3:00.

So instead of that? I’m doing laundry, trying to clean up the apartment a little bit and responding to my Therapist’s last two e-mails. And trying to catch up on Prosebox. Today just… really got away from me somehow!