Peacefulness is permitted too...

I'm sitting here in the middle of the night with a cup of coffee and a cigarette and I'm totally at peace with myself. I don't know how long this moment is going to last, because it may only be a momentary thing, but I'm going to make the most of it while I'm under its spell. 

Some feelings slip through your fingers like grains of sand and peacefulness is one of them. You have to take full advantage of it while you hold onto it for as long as you can. It can be gone like dust in the wind in no time. A feeling like peacefulness is so fleeting. 

I don't want to rationalize myself out of it and will just try to stay in this mood. It's the kindest way to be at the moment, but I'm aware of the precariousness of my situation. Once you start discussing your feelings, rationalizing them is not far away.  It's when the need for logic starts to creep in. 

I saw my psychiatrist yesterday and he told me that my rapid cycling was a reaction to the increase in my antidepressants. He said that whenever there was an increase or decrease in a medication, there would be a reaction like a pendulum that started swinging. It will stop swinging as I get adjusted to the change, because it's not the dose itself that causes the problem.

He also asked me to call him by his first name and for us to say 'you' to each other and no longer 'thee.' We've been very formal up to this point, but I suppose that we've reached that time that we can be more relaxed. It will take some time to get used to and we have to make sure that we don't overstep boundaries, but I think it will be okay. I want to make sure I don't slip into some sort of casualness. 

Today is going to be a completely empty day and I have mixed feelings about it. I appreciate the freedom that I'll have, but now that I feel better, I regret the fact that I don't do anything with it. 

It's early times, though, and I still have to wait for the antidepressants to start working properly, which will take a few weeks. I am really in limbo now and can't make any big decisions until I know what I'll end up like and how much I'll dare do. I have to wait a while for the end result. If there is ever going to be one. 

At least I've got the animals to keep me busy and enough exciting events on the news to keep me occupied. I do watch the news during the day and stay informed of the latest developments. 

I'm doing an awful lot of bonding with the dog and he seems most pleased about it. Sometimes, or a lot of times, he sits in front of me and looks at me in complete adoration. I talk to him about anything and everything and he thinks it's all just great. Sometimes he understands me and his ears perk up. Sometimes he talks back.

Well, it's time to take my peacefulness and go to sleep with it. I will lie in bed and listen to the radio until I drift off. 

I hope you're all having a good night. 

Ciao,

Nora

Cups of comfort...

Since today is Sunday, and truly a day of rest, I will change my bed and do a load of laundry. I will also do the dishes and pay whatever bills there are. Isn't that a great plan for a day of rest? Somehow it seems easier to do those things today and don't ask me why. There's no rhyme or reason for it. I'm full of contradiction. You may have noticed that by now.

It's probably an effort on my part to take the sacredness out of the weekends. I don't want them to be so special anymore. I had my lazy day of indulgence yesterday, when I did almost nothing but sleep (I blame that on the depression and the increase of the medication). But I don't want to have another lazy day today when it is allowed. Today I want to be active.

Of course, it's easy for me to speak in the middle of the night when I'm always quite perky. It's another matter altogether during the day when I actually have to get into action. I have been known to fall by the wayside then. Daytime and I don't seem to get along so well. It seems I'm a nighttime person and have all my energy and spontaneity when I'm supposed to be asleep.

It must be because of those excellent cups of coffee I make. But I have them during the day too and they don't have the same effect then. I probably have an aversion to daylight. It's a mystery to me. I have daytime depression and nighttime perkiness. Well, it isn't quite as black and white as that. There are gray areas.

I mustn't get bogged down in my bipolarity. I'd like to think of myself as more multi-faceted than that, although I am a person of opposites. I do at times walk the middle line. I do on occasion have moments like that. Very often these moments involve the dog and the freedom of boundaries I feel in my interaction with him. There's a total loss of inhibitions when I play with him or otherwise communicate or cuddle. Animals are good for that.

I've had enough coffee now and am switching to cold milk. No doubt that will be a shock to my braincells. The coldness of the milk will shock them into action. I may tell you a whole new story. When I went to get the glass, I bumped my bad knee into the wooden frame of the armchair. That was not such a nice encounter. I still feel the after pain of it. I think that was a bad move.

I didn't stay up to watch last night's thriller because it was on too late. I do dislike that about Saturday night's thriller. I hardly ever manage to stay up and always want to go find my bed before that time. It's only on a rare occasion that I stay up long enough. It's a shame because it's the Swedish 'Wallander' and I do like that series.

It's going to be a partly cloudy day today with the temperature at 64F. At least we'll see some sunshine and that has been a while. Real summer weather is predicted in a couple of days from now and I can't wait. July has been the gloomiest month. I will still wear warm clothes today, but tomorrow it's supposed to be 78F, which is a real improvement. The fact that the sun will shine will be most important though. 

I think I will go back to bed. My brain has been sufficiently frozen into inaction by the ice cold milk and I can hardly think of another thing to write. I will lie in the semi-darkness and listen to the radio with my trusty dog by my side. He's got a new rawhide bone that he will very noisily chew on. It doesn't keep me awake. It's a familiar sound.

I hope you're all having a good night. 

Ciao,

Nora

Itsy bitsy thoughts...

It's early in the morning and I'm sitting here with my second cup of coffee. It tastes very good, even though I didn't measure the coffee carefully when I put it into the filter. I just eyeballed it. It looked right, so I went with it. I didn't feel like putting the coffee into the paper filter with measured spoonfuls. I was too hurried for that. I just wanted a cup of coffee quickly. 

Some mornings are that way. Not because I'm grumpy, because I'm far from that. I just want the coffee because I crave it and I'm thirsty. It also is a perfect accompaniment to my cigarette, which I also crave. I can seldom be accused of being grumpy. Mostly I'm very kindhearted when I wake up in the mornings, unless I'm woken up from a sound sleep, which I rarely am. Even then I don't bite anyone's head off. 

I went to bed early last night and I don't even remember what I watched on television. That's how little impression it made on me. I took two rusk toasts with butter to bed with me and got crumbs in the bed. That was bound to happen, of course, so I had to wipe those away before I could settle down. I was asleep in no time and I don't remember any of my dreams, so they must not have been important and that's just the way I like it. I don't necessarily want to remember all of them. Not all of them are epic stories with great meaning. 

I have two appointments today. One with my psychiatrist in the morning. It will be about the reduction of the medicines and how well that is going. I think he wants to have a good look at me to make sure I'm still fairly normal. Of course, I can assure him that I am, but I would say that maybe even if I weren't. I could be on my way to hypo-mania and claim to be perfectly normal. I have been known to do that. It is a careful consideration. 

I have an appointment with my SPN in the afternoon. She called me yesterday and said that she had gotten over the flu. That's why I missed my appointment with her last week. I was lucky enough that she had an opening today. 

In between the Exfactor will be here to do the groceries and have coffee. I've got to make a grocery list beforehand and check on the cleaning supplies, because I don't know if the domestic helps let me know on time when they start running out. I'm always hearing, oh, this bottle is empty! I'm going to have a look at all of them and see how much is there. 

So it will be a slightly busy day and I don't mind. It will make the time go by quickly and I will appreciate the time off all the more. I do like the pauses in between the hectic times. At least the apartment is clean and the dishes and the laundry are all done. That's one reason to count my blessings. I'm sure I can think of several others if I put my mind to it. 

It's already with some amount of joy that I look forward to Thursday when I will have no appointments or anyone coming over at all. It will be a free day to do with as I please and I do need days like that when all I do is walk Tyke and do whatever chores need to get done. I do like my solitary days. They always give me a little breathing space to get back on track. I suppose people who work have to save that up until the weekends and even then they have a lot of things to do that they don't get around to during the week. I guess it would be hard to fit in solitary time if they had that need.

I hope you all have a wonderful day. I plan to have one myself. It is with some amount of anticipation that I look forward to it. 

Ciao,

Nora