Please, Make My Head Stop Hurting.

This week started with a crushing amount of stress.  Familial… difficulties that I’m unfortunately not at liberty to expand on out of long-standing wishes, etched in stone and enforced with stern will.  Suffice to say, my world was fifteen minutes from changing irrevocably, and even as I write this, the needle has swung from “less dire” to “dire again” a number of times.  This see-saw is going to break me yet.

Upon receiving strong news, my brain goes into a survival mode.  This is something that took me a long time to identify and learn how to harness to keep myself from going overboard (can you say “bye-bye childhood memories”?).  I distract myself thoroughly and allow my subconscious (I call it my “hind brain”, like in a dinosaur tail) to sort out and absorb the information, figure out what best to do with this info, and keep me from losing my shit.  I always said that if I had to name a singular talent, it is my capacity to take things apart — myself included — figure out how it works, and how to put it back together better.  This is a side-specialty of that.

I’ve thrown myself into some home projects that I’ve been working on… measuring, cutting, sanding and painting are fantastic for occupying one’s thoughts thoroughly.  I’ve gone practically obsessive, bordering on manic, and while that’s fine for things that only involve my immediate surrounding, it’s not so good when it involves others in the world.  I suspect I may have done some damage to some possible new friendships by coming off all “Cable Guy”, and being a little more boisterous than normal (hey, I like making new friends… and these folks are cool as hell).  I may be projecting that, though… but I worry about these things sometimes, and until I get to know folks better, I try not to tread on toes — and fail spectacularly on occasion.  Apparently I still have some work to do on my survival mode tactics.

I have mostly kept everyone at arm’s length, because I was already feeling like I had a wet towel wrapped tightly around my head, and the last thing I needed was to feel like I was smothering any more.  I love my friends dearly, and I do support and accept their support freely, but I needed — absolutely required — time to myself to digest what I knew first, without having to recount the tale repeatedly.  I needed to be locked in my own head for a while, without being drawn out.  Trust me… I’m not staying in there, and I know when to open the door again.

What a fucking week.