Thankful for Alcoves

The temple I grew up with is very different now, 

yet eerie and comforting in how little it has changed.  
Entire wings have been added, but some areas remain the same.  

Since I grew up there, even though I had hardly ever attended services, 

I still get a bit defensive when people who have been hired since my leaving 

make jokes about me invading “their temple”...  

It's my temple.  After all, I know all the best hiding spots.  

I even found a new one.  It's an alcove. 

I thought it had an IOU plaque which basically stated that it will be... 

something, but apparently it's just a giant hole for the plaque itself.

It states the new name of the Hebrew school. 

People had spent a lot of money to have random things named after their family 

(and to help the temple)...
I thought it would be a display case, maybe?  Nope.

Well, it displayed a rare, rowdy Rowyn.

I even ignored my own thoughts!

I adjusted early on when someone passed me. 

He was questioning why I was hiding, 

but I assume my “possibly about to take a dump” pose didn't help. 

Thankfully, I've learned that smiling pleasantly tends to make people just smile back

and go away. 

Even as a kid, I was generally avoiding services to go make out with girls in the classrooms,

but I would sometimes sit just outside of the sanctuary, 

or on the stage in the room just across from it all, 

in order to listen to my father sing. 

The room itself, 

the expectations I felt, 

and the “community” environment that I never felt fully a part of 

kept me from wanting to participate. 

I thought “cult” whenever the congregation said things together, 

and I thought “fake” when a person I didn't know would hug me because of who I was. 

I had a lot of trust issues even then, 

and I knew that I was supposed to keep anything I was going through or living with a secret. 

These people weren't going to be my friends, 

even if some may have genuinely cared about me if I had given them half a chance. 

I didn't want a Bat Mitzvah. 

It didn't feel right to have one. 

Going up in front of everyone was horrifying to begin with, 

but add the idea of them all listening to me speak and chant 

when I couldn't even stand to hear myself, KNOWING how strange I sounded... 

How mumbled, quiet and awkward... 

And on top of all this, 

morally, I could not bring myself to lead a service for believers 

when I didn't really have faith myself. 

This is not to say that I didn't believe in things. 

I did. 

I had a lot of beliefs. 

They were just really negative 

and involved the idea of believing in the Devil more than a caring God, 

which is ssoooooo not a Jew thing. 

To this day, whenever I write a story about the Devil, 

he is mostly a victim of circumstance. 

Cocky, but was once a loved angel. 

The fact that I interpreted this character in such a way may say something. 

One day, if I remember, I may write a whole entry for this. 

In any case, “faith” implies something more positive and hopeful. 

It's that feeling of “I KNOW this going to be okay” and I didn't have that. 

I knew that I prayed and I followed the rules and did everything I was supposed to,

but nothing got better. 

In my little child brain, there was no future, 

and so if nothing got better RIGHT NOW, it was never going to. 

(The allergy incident in Israel probably didn't help, 

though the fact that I survived it should mean something.)

My love for temple then meandered to only a love for the camaraderie of my friends

and one for the building itself and all its hiding places. 

Somewhere in there, I did grow a kind of faith. 

It's small and strangely shaped, 

but it has helped me when I needed assistance, 

which means it has done the job just fine.   

My Brain Needs an Electrician

Lately, as my brain has started to attempt to rewire itself, I have more good days than bad.  However, there are still days were "pushing myself" by doing things I know I should be able to do is a harrowing experience.

 I'm almost always on edge, unless I'm just too exhausted to care one way or another.

This whole turning the thoughts off thing is harder to do than I was hoping. 

It's like some chunk of my brain only understands how to function in danger.  When I'm not in some kind of trouble, this chunk just sits and rocks back and forth going "Any second.  It's going to happen any second.  I don't know WHAT but it'll be a big ol' something and it's going to ruin everything."

It sits and scowls and panics and when it spots some other area of the brain having a good time, it pipes up just to yell, "DON'T BOTHER BEING JOYOUS!  IT'LL ALL COME CRASHING DOWN AGAIN!"

At which point, it breaks out the chalk board and goes into excruciating detail about random events in the past year, and throughout my life, which could not have been avoided and CLEARLY I was just helpless and the world was always going to be constantly ending, so why bother enjoying the moments I have?

...I'm aware of how insane the logic is.  I know.  I know and that just frustrates me even more. 

Then the rest of my brain takes off their party hats and starts crying, because of Captain Party Pooper.

A good example is what just happened today.

As you may have gathered by now, I'm part of that "Boomerang Generation" and living with my parents again.  This is not to say that I lost a job or just couldn't find one.  It's that I had my second "WORLD ENDING" breakdown and wound up back home in a heap of pathetic misery. 

So, I try to be helpful wherever I can.

I was told to stir things.  I accepted without a second thought, because I'm an adult and this isn't an issue.

 

Lookit me.  Lookit me bein' all sure of myself.

There was no reason for this moment of "GAAAAAAAAAAAAAH" but I had it anyway.  Knowing I was just being a loon, I kept it to myself until it went away.  

Panic attacks are very rare these days (unlike the beginning of the Summer) so I can mostly just ignore them until my heart goes, "Oh, this isn't an issue?  My bad." 

 

Like I said.  Stirring.  Woo.

And then...

 

Look at me go.  That is some hot stirring action.

It was around this time that I decided it was the timing of it that was getting to me.  I was afraid that I'd forget about it.  ...Then, I thought maybe it was this overpowering sense of guilt.  

I hate feeling guilty, yet I do it to myself for almost everything.  I figured, even if I did everything right, if the food wasn't perfect, everyone would assume it was my fault (they wouldn't) and then I'd assume it was my fault, and then I'd obsess over what I could have done differently.

Right.

 

Sooo I obsess over the idea that I might wind up obsessing, just like I have been avoiding things I want to do and giving myself reason to panic JUST IN CASE so I don't ...have a... panic attack?  

What?  

On Mornings and Happy Depressions

Technically, I'm a morning person.  I wake up without an alarm, unless I'm sick.  When I don't have something to do, I often spring out of bed, wide awake. 

This causes me to get ready and feel really accomplished...

Until I realize that I have nothing to do.

Meanwhile, when I do have something to do, like class...

There is also a third option, now that I've moved.  We have people come over randomly, without so much as a phone call.  I also have a boyfriend who had no concept of foresight or planning.  Now, if I were a friendly person, this would not be a problem.  At all.  ...But I'm not...  At all. 

As such, this is a typical situation:

In reality, these people are generally very nice.  We just have a poor system of communication in my house. 
In fact, some of "these people" are actually my friends.  I just don't do well when startled.  

Like, at all. 

I smile, nod, and sit there trying to make polite conversation, but then I feel drained.  It's left over bits and pieces from a social anxiety.  Give me an office and/or an appointment, and I'm awesome.  Show up and startle me, and I'm just a heap of unhappy.
So, I wind up feeling drained.  Emotionally drained, for no real reason.
As a result, once someone else comes home, I tend to retreat to my bedroom to try to get that private awesomeness I wanted to begin with.  Sometimes, this will last for days and wind up a strange sort of happy depression.

A "happy depression" is the only way I can really title it. 
I go for sometimes a week or so not wanting to leave my room or get dressed or do anything productive other than art-related crap...  But I'm very content. 
I don't want to hang out. 
I don't want to deal with anything ever.
I think about dropping out of school forever (I won't.  Chill.)
I think that I could some how magically draw for a living and just sit there doing what I love instead of ANYTHING ELSE, even fun things.
From the outside, this looks like a bout of depression.
From the inside, I question if it is one. 
But...  I'm pleased. 

These are the days where I either get up at the crack of dawn, or I get up around noon. 

See, there is also this issue of time, when it comes to mornings. 

The hour I wake up has a lot to do with how that day will go and feel.

Sometimes, when I wake up too early, I think, "Awesome!  I can go back to bed for a couple more hours!"

This is terrible.  It never ends well, and yet... I do it all the time.  It's like a dog repeatedly running into an electric fence.  ...Why?  Why do I do this to myself?  Do I think it will suddenly change?

What happens is, first, I can't go back to sleep until I go to the bathroom.  I try to trick myself sometimes into not fully waking up, by not turning the lights on, or not entirely opening my eyes:

But I'm always kind of awake when I get back.  So, I'm either too awake and thus can't go back to sleep, which is better...

Or I go back to sleep, and my body treats it like a nap.

My body hates naps.

Sometimes, I wake up too late (even when I have nothing to do, there is a "too late" around 2PM) and feel like an utter failure. 

Or, sometimes, I wake up at the time I wanted to be up... and then I'm just miserable.  I feel like I've not gotten enough sleep.  Like all that sleep before just doesn't matter and is completely replaced by the two or three hours that just happened.

Getting up in the morning is often helped by my determination to get my boyfriend awake.
He actually has shit to do, and would rather sleep for half the day.
So, I get up in order to pester him relentlessly. 
He's thankful, but he also seeks vengeance in his own way...

He also occasionally makes horrendous noises in his sleep that make me think he is dying and/or possessed.