From about a week ago. Look at that sweet face!
Well, my friends, yesterday was not pretty. I was short tempered, everything was making me angry, Don was making me angry, I felt my blood pressure going up. I finally realized that my tamped down anger and rage over the election results had finally emerged – full blown. It had taken me a while to realize that it wasn’t just ‘being in a bad mood.’ Far from it.
That rage took over the day and I couldn’t fight it off. I finally told Don what I thought was happening. I apologized for being tough on him. And I asked for help. Asking for help is not easy for a perfectionist like me. But I knew Don would understand and wouldn’t judge me. (Heavens, I’m lucky!) He talked me down a bit, and he also realized that I was most likely spending too much time scrolling through the news on Threads. He was right. I was enraged. I am enraged. But I can’t stay in that place because it’s not healthy. I finally read a bit right before dinner. After dinner, as we settled down to watch an old movie, I ditched my chair and the heating pad and sat right next to Don. He put his arm around me and halfway through the movie, I fell asleep for a bit. I felt all of the turbulent emotions of the day leave. And I slept well last night.
Today, I’ll do my best to just be, here at home, with Don. In our safe space.
It’s perfectly fine to let those emotions out, even thought I was in an uncomfortable place all day long. In the end, I felt like I went through a purge, a cleansing, something that was necessary to move forward and resist in a healthy manner.
Advice of a sort: let yourself feel it all. Then you can let it go and be productive.
It’s a little less cold today and the skies are sunny. I might be able to remove the tarp that is currently sheltering my porch plants. I’m hoping for at least another week with them.
Stay safe.
Happy Saturday,
Glad you and Don can comfort each other during tough times. You are such a loving couple. Hope the work with your dollhouse and some quiet times with Don will help you get through this. I’m hoping for Frump to fail as he has done so many times before. I’m hoping for moderate Repubs to step up for once and Democrats to stay strong. All we can do is hope…
I’m hoping he will fail, too. Neither he nor his gang are very smart.
Stay safe, Ellen.
The trouble is that some of them are very smart indeed like Vance and the terrifyingly terrible Steven Miller.
Yes. But not smarter than us!
Stay safe, Margaret.
It’s been a hard time for a lot of us. My emotions have been all over the place, and I can get angry at the drop of a hat…as well as cry. I just can’t seem to control my emotions. I can sleep for about five hours at a time, and then I’m awake again and stewing. So, yesterday , I dove into a project with my husband yesterday, that involved a lot of moving of heavy boxes…I thought it would keep my mind occupied so I wouldn’t dwell on our country and that man. And it did work to a point…but now I have a sore back. But…it was good work, and needed to be done.
I’m glad you found peace last night…and I’m very glad you have Don. I know I would be lost without the emotional support of Jim. These men are treasures. Enjoy your day! ;)
I’m sorry you’re having a hard time, Donnamae.
You’re right. These men ARE treasures.
Stay safe.
glad you let some stuff out and got more sleep, and that you and don have each other … so important!
hope you are pleasantly surprised and get at least another week to enjoy the porch plants before winter-y temperatures set in.
i love winter and feel better at cooler temperatures, but there are some things i don’t like about the cold. like finding a sign that someone has been in my car without permission (i park it outside, on my parents’ driveway) … a kernel of dried corn was wedged in between the louvers of a vent on my dashboard. argh! so now my car smells like a weird mix of peppermint rodent spray, dryer sheets and lysol. hope it helps.
basically finished the cross-stitch project for my brother and sister-in-law yesterday (all i need to do is add a heart, my initials and the year). that feels good! and this morning i will pick up live-cut wreaths (ordered through my church) for family members. won’t put the wreaths up until after thanksgiving, but these things remind me that Christmas is coming soon. :)
hope you all have a wonderful, peaceful weekend and stay safe. xo
kathy
Oh, sorry about the car!
Have a lovely weekend, Kathy.
Sorry to hear you had a tough day…but glad things got better! That sounds like the Glad Game from the movie Pollyanna! Unfortunately there are so many things with this upcoming administration that we have no control over…which brings up so many different emotions. I’m trying, like you, to find things I can control and make me feel good…book reading, fun tv shows or movies, cleaning, purging, bird watching, etc . This rollercoaster is going to last for a while.
Yes. How many people will die because of this ass and his cabinet choices?
Horrifying.
Stay safe, Barrie.
Claudia, I am soooo with you. Still trying to come to grips with what has happened. I did come across a column by Garrison Keillor which I found very funny (may say a lot about my twisted/perverse sense of humor). Can’t figure out how to put the link in this message but if you do a google search for Garrison Keillor’s The Column and “one last word about the election” (it was written Nov 15th). May not be to everyone’s taste, but made me laugh.
Enjoy your weekend with your sweetie!
Elizabeth
I’ll google that, Elizabeth. Thank you.
Stay safe.
I think we just have to protect ourselves at this point. I am trying to avoid the news. When I end up hearing something he’s done I end up dwelling on it and it only hurts me. I can’t do anything about it.
I’m also avoiding being with people who voted for him. Maybe later I’ll be more accepting but I’m not ready yet. I’m sure there will be some huge problems ahead that I will have to deal with but right now I’m concentrating on knitting, reading, and weaving.
I don’t want to send him any more energy.
Love you,
Eileen
I know. I’m laying low today, cleaning and doing laundry and reading a good book.
Love to you, Eileen!
I thought I was doing pretty good and then I started watching some news yesterday. It didn’t take long to feel angry and anxious again…and he’s not even in office yet.
I’m glad you are feeling better and got some sleep. I think we really have to focus on positives in life…like Don and his apple pie. I think I might start a gratitude list. I need to start walking every day again, that seems to help too.
I hope you have a peaceful weekend. Take care
I haven’t watched the news since the election. I have a lot of anger about the media.
Stay safe, Marilyn.
It’s good to let it all out, acknowledge your anger and rage against a situation which makes you feel powerlessness but them you must distract yourself with things that encourage your well being.
Hope this raises a smile, growing up in Northern England and long before he was on anyone’s horizons, the slang for ‘passing wind’ is trump!
Happy Saturday
LOVE this! It does make me smile.
I just told Don and we’re laughing out loud.
Stay safe, Dee Dee.
dear Claudia/Don — sorry for your meltdown — I feel it too, but have not reached a stopping place — still raging here — don’t think will ever go away for me — this not the first time my vote was lost but it is totally insane what all of us are gonna have to live with — stupidity REALLY bothers me. hope you all have a good day — stay safe/healthy
Oh, I still feel rage. I just have to pull away from it at times because it isn’t good for my mental health.
Stay safe, Linda,
I’m enraged too!
I feel like frump has stolen my joy…
Trying to get it back.
I totally sympathize with you!
Thank God for wonderful husbands, I have one too.
They sure help in times like these!
Stay safe.
Claudia I am right there with you. I can’t believe what this man does to people. How did this even happen? My reaction was I slept all day today. Trying to escape the reality. I have never done that before. I think my body needed the rest from all the rest. His cabinet….what a freak show! I don’t know the answer to get through this, but glad you have Don.
Deb
Oh, yes. I’m sleeping a lot – naps during the day, falling asleep in front of the television at night.
Stay safe, Deb.
So glad you had a safe place to fall, Claudia, and Dan was able to comfort and calm you. tRump seems to be focusing on Elon Musk instead of his vice-president JD Vance. Alarm bells go off in my head every time I hear his voice. Hope cooler heads will prevail. Hugs, Elaine
I hope something can be done. The stakes couldn’t be higher.
Stay safe, Elaine.
Thank you for sharing that Claudia!
You’re welcome, Judy.
Stay safe.
I hear you. I just feel anxious and depressed with this. That feeling of doomed. It’s beyond rage, it’s numbness. I try to avoid most of the news and in some ways it helps (the continual harping gets redundant) but in other ways, we need to know what’s happening so we can ‘gird our loins.’ I had a lot of conversations this weekend with like-minded people and we are all a bit befuddled at how this could happen in the first place, although it has been brewing for some time. Were we too optimistic to believe people are really that stupid?
When I facilitated youth grief groups, we had an activity room with punching bags and battikas and a lot of the kids dealing with anger as part of their healing process would beat those things like crazy. We worked with them on other productive anger methods — finding an isolated spot to scream, pounding pillows. I loved it on Grantchester when Mrs. C. gave “Cathy” a set of china to break periodically. I used to have plastic dishes for the same thing years ago! Now the only dishes I break are accidental, but it was useful at the time!
I’m glad you two have each other. We will get through this. We must. I just hope it’s within my lifetime.
It’s sad to acknowledge, but the number of low-information, willfully ignorant people in this country is shocking.
I’m trying to find a balance between protecting myself and being aware of the news. It isn’t easy.
Stay safe, Jeanie.
I had a very interesting conversation with a poll worker this past weekend. He was in a large area that served three precincts in a largely, but not entirely, upscale suburb of East Lansing (Okemos). He told me that in two of the three precincts, the lines were orderly and fewer voters, all relatively well dressed (not fancy, but tidy), and more in the 40+ age bracket. (Much of this might be equated with early voting and absentee ballots, too.) The third precinct area had very long lines of younger people (20-30s), more men, lots of expansive tattoos, younger women with two or three kids and strollers, less tidily dressed, and much more “unruly” and slightly argumentative at times. He said it was an eye-opener. And yes, a huge generalization. But, he noted, it fit all the post-game commentary from the polls of the demographics. And I suspect it fits your description of low-information, willfully ignorant people.
Very interesting!
xo
Hi Claudia
Just read the last two posts and, yeah, been there too. It seems the past week I just get my feeling under control and he appoints another idiot to his cabinet. Just keeping on avoiding cable news and trying to only read – briefly – the Post and the Times. Always been a big newspaper reader so can’t give them up.
We still have five pots going strong on the back patio. I haven’t even made any effort to cover them, it has been that mild here. And rainy so haven’t watered them at all. I’ve been concentrating on the upcoming holidays and family. Both sons were born in November so we not only celebrate Thanksgiving but have a big birthday to do as well.
I’m so glad you were able to work out your emotions. You have a wonderful partner to lean on in Don.
Take care,
Kay
We desperately need rain – in fact, today’s post is about that. Hopefully, some is coming on my birthday later this week.
Stay safe, Kay.
I went through the exact same thing, Claudia. It was hard to distinguish where the emotions were coming from because there were other things in my life going wrong as well. But I finally cracked, and after days of crying realized how much of my emotions were indeed because of the election. Because I try to look at everything with a positive mindset (even very difficult things), I wasn’t admitting, even to myself, how devastated I was over his ornangeness and all his cronies being in power again.
I hope you can stay in a place of health and peace, Claudia. Don’t let him take those things away from you.
I won’t, Jenny. The same goes for you.
Stay safe.
I find myself saying “How did this happen?” I am disgusted, angry and so very, very sad. I am a retired special education teacher (behavior disordered/emotionally disturbed) I am so worried that these kids are going to loose out and the hard work that went to get all kids with special needs educated in the public school is going to be lost. This is across the board with all those who been marginalized over the years. I do not have to list the rights that will be lost, you know them. I lost my temper the other day and my behavior was mean. It was short lived but it was hurtful. I hope I do not behave like that again..
I am sorry this was so long.
I wish you and Don peace,
Kaye
I know. My nephew is disabled. He has cerebral palsy and we are very worried about what might happen.
This is an intolerable situation.
Stay safe, Kaye.