Successes Week 1

This week has had many small successes. Looking back, I find it is better to look at the things I have done, rather than the things I have not done.

            Too often, I have found myself reminiscing on my day or my week, thinking, I should have done more. Monday was a turning point for me, this week, and I am proud to be able to say, today, on Saturday, that things have gone well, overall.

            This week, I saw my psychiatrist and my therapist, both. I have follow-up appointments with both of them. I returned everything I needed to, to Securitas. These things stand alone as successes for me, because I accomplished them.

            I colored one of my drawings and scanned it, but it came out as a .PDF. Still, the picture is complete and I can now use a library scanner to get a .JPG image to upload to Patreon. It will be my first new drawing posted to Patreon and it stands as the start of my work life as an artist.

            Furthermore, I fed my daughter this week—perhaps not for every meal, but I did contribute—and I contributed to cleaning the house. I also went grocery shopping and organized the refrigerator.

            So, what are my next steps, you might ask? I’ll tell you…

            My first priority is to make sure my phone stops dying in the night, so I can get up before everyone else does in the morning. My next step is to begin an exercise regimen that I complete on a daily basis. I need to do this in the morning before people wake up because when Randy gets a job, it’ll be on me to take care of our daughter without help. Having a morning exercise regimen will begin my day with purpose and success, which lends motivation and leads to movement, rather than sitting around, for me.

            My next priority is to create and foster an environment within my home that will best suit my daughter, who is a young child and deserves to feel respected, independent, and confident in herself. This will be a much more difficult task and that is why it is not my absolute first priority. After all, I must begin my day with purpose and momentum in order to achieve the movement needed to work with my child in my home.

            Already, Persephone shows interest in cleaning. She uses baby wipes to wipe down surfaces; she grabs the broom and tries to sweep with it. She wants a clean and tidy environment that she can manipulate to learn and develop. My resolve is to provide that for her, no matter how difficult it is or how long it takes to achieve the ideal environment.

            I have the whole summer to work with my child and my home while Randy finds a job. I have the whole summer to get everything together, including my transcripts for The Evergreen State College. Until September, I have the opportunity to greatly improve my health and wellness and develop a system within my home wherein my daughter can freely grow, learn, and develop.

            There is no way I can know at this time whether we will be able to purchase a home or need to rent a house. Either way, I know where we are going and I know what we seek in a living place. There is no way I can know at this time when Persephone will go back to a childcare facility, but knowing that Evergreen has a daycare on-campus sets me at ease because I know I don’t need to spend time during the day searching for just the right place for her to go.

            I’m going back to school. I thought about looking for a job, today, because although I’ve done well this week to remain positive, the voices of mania and anxiety speak to me and tell me that I need to do something that is immediately reasonable and of a regular income. They tell me that Randy will never find a job and I’m the only one who can do what it takes to provide us with the income required to purchase a home in August. This has happened to me so many times I cannot count them, but the difference this time is that I’m aware they’re false thoughts.

            Randy is perfectly capable of finding a job between now and August. However, if he doesn’t, I now recognize that it isn’t the end of the world. If he stays at home, it frees me up this summer to spend a good amount of time at the library, to and from which I can walk. At the library, I can work on my art and my writing to post to Patreon. I can scan my pictures the moment I finish working on them and I can sit in a quiet place and write my heart out until a story emerges.

            Owning a home has been the “end goal” for a while, but it’s time to change that because owning a home is not the end-all, be-all of life and it will not inherently change the way we live. It is much more reasonable for me to set smaller, shorter-term goals and work towards owning a home when it is absolutely possible, even if that means next year or the year after.

            I’ve felt like shit because my peers are buying homes and I feel like I’m behind them. I fail to see, in those moments, my peers who are just like me or worse off. I fail to truly look around myself and notice that I am in a stable place, if not the most ideal, and I have time to get to where I want to be. My greatest revelation on Monday was realizing that I have time.

            So, I’m going to use it.