Bullet Journal for Bipolar, Pt 2 – Self Care & Routines

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Another way I wanted to use my bullet journal was to help me manage my self care and routines. However, I don’t like the idea of habit trackers. I get locked into filling in the little boxes and I hate getting locked into filling in the little boxes. I just want to be free.

But I do need a way to make sure I’m maintaining the important routines, taking care of myself, and doing things that will nurture my spirit. So I wrote down all the routines that happened naturally over the course of March. I wrote down a few things I would like to make new routines. I wrote down a few things I need to make sure are routines even when I’m low. And I wrote down a few spirit-nurturing things.

I made these into a list – it turned out to be pretty long. I tried to put the list in chronological order, but the things on the list don’t actually have to be done in any particular order. I’ve actually added things to the list since I originally wrote it, so it’s definitely out of order now. Another attribute of the list is that not everything on it has to be done every day (unless it’s super important, like meds or sleep routine). I didn’t make my bed today because I didn’t want to. I felt I was getting too locked into the boxes and this wasn’t important.

But there are certain things that are important or that show if I’m in a downward slide. If I skip my Morning or Evening meds three days in a row, we’ve got a problem. If I miss my regular bedtime and wakeup time, I’m treading on thin ice.

And then there are the other things that happen when I already know I’m at the bottom of the slide. Six days without a shower or three without brushing my teeth. And if nothing is getting filled out, then I’ve lost all will to keep track. Things are bad and I know it. But I’m probably not expressing this to anyone else. But maybe, just maybe, this graph I’ve set up will help me to maintain the routines even if I have no other will to. Or maybe it will help others to help me.

I can use this tracker to accurately describe how I’ve been doing to my doctor at my next visit. I can also do the same thing I did with my Medicine Log. Show it to my mother. If she starts to get concerned, she can look at the Self Care Routine Log and see how the check marks are going. Depending on which ones are empty, she’ll have a better idea what kind of help I need.

When I set up this Self Care Routine Log, I used a page of my bullet journal that I had already used before. I covered up the previous part with washi tape. After I started using the log, I realized I needed a bookmark. I found an easy one on Pinterest that involved cutting off the corner of an envelope and covering it in washi tape (Team Colors by Carrie). After using the log for a few days, I realized I was having trouble keeping track of which column I was on, so I used a strip of envelope (that was still double sided) covered it in washi tape, trimmed it to size, secured the new size with washi tape and put a paper clip on it to keep it in place. It made a sliding column marker. And it looks so pretty!

Problem: my bullet journal is pretty minimalistic. I was intimidated for years by all the fancy, ornate bullet journals folks created. I didn’t realize the Original Bullet Journal was very basic and functional. So, I made a simple version of this page for those who want something easy. I still used the pieces of envelope, but I did not decorate them. I put a piece of white envelope over the washi tape covering the old writing so that the fancy color wouldn’t detract from the basic idea. I’m posting both the basic looking version and the pretty version. Basic first, then pretty. Again, apologies for the poor photography.

For this log, I didn’t use dates, just days of the week. It’s a test-run log. Things will be different in May, so my routines will be different. I want to see what those changes are before I set up the tracker for May. That tracker will be a two-page spread, I imagine.
Basic:

Pretty:

Bullet Journal for Bipolar, Pt 1 – Medicine Log

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I’ve wanting to use my Bullet Journal to help manage my bipolar disorder. When you search for bipolar and bullet journal on Pinterest, mostly what comes up is “mood trackers.” Mood trackers don’t work for me. It works for good, steady months like I had in January, but does not work for actually moody times. Right now, I’m doing well, but for Pete’s sake, I woke up this morning full of energy and ready for the day, then I was so sleepy I took a 3ish hour nap, then I decided I was too spent from a week of leaving my house to go to the grocery store, then I was getting really testy until I took my noon anti-anxiety med. How in the world do you put that into a mood tracker? You can’t. But I’ve been gradually discovering ways the bullet journal works for me.

Recently, I started keeping a medicine log because we’re making adjustments to my meds and I want to know how these affect my sleep, mood, and activity levels. It’s my hope that this log will help me be more accurate at my next pdoc appointment since my memory is not very good. It’s also much better at tracking me than a fill-in-the-blank mood trackers or mood apps. 

Here’s how I set up my log: I put the date above each day. Then I list the meds (and how much) under whether I took them in the morning (AM), at Midday, or in the evening (PM). Although you can’t see it in the picture, I have the top of each page labelled “Medicine Log” with the dates each page covers. 

Since we’re still adjusting my meds, it’s hard for me to have an accurate medical data card in my wallet. For instance, until last Thursday, I was taking half a pill of one med every other day. Then, I started taking the whole pill every other day. That lasted about two doses before we switched to one pill every third day. So, last night, I showed this log to my mother. I let her know that if anything happens to me, this is exactly what I’ve been taking. I’ve even started to add in drugs I don’t take regularly like Gaviscon and Tylenol. It’s all right here in my bullet journal. 

Here’s a picture of the latest spread of my Medicine Log. I’ve blacked out all my meds except for vitamins and my allergy med. Apologies that my photo is not blogger-beautiful. 😉

This is very minimalistic, so I hope it doesn’t intimidate anyone. I hate it when fancy Bullet Journals intimidate folks from the usefulness of the tool! It did that to me for the longest time.

(PS “Hy” is short for hypomanic.)

 

IDK

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At the beginning of March, I decided to try an experiment. I stopped leaving my house. It wasn’t an absolute thing. I have left a few times. Three times were emergencies of sorts (one I had to go to the bank to make an emergency deposit and the other two were runs to the closest grocery store for food for my cats). One was a visit to a friend and the other was a trip to take the same friend to a dentist appointment for a root canal. Other than that, I’ve stayed put. 

You see, February I was low. The kind of low where your muscles are puddles and the memes about people taking three hours to talk themselves into getting a shower sound ridiculous. There is no taking a shower. Or brushing of teeth. Make myself feel better by exercising? Yeah, right. 

February began after a con weekend. The con exhausted me. I was completely worn out. It set the month off completely wrong. Most people recover from long days and late nights after a few days. I didn’t. Then there was another smaller con in the middle of the month. I was okay during that, but it may have thrown me off, too (I can’t remember). The first Friday in March when my mother needed to go grocery shopping for my aunt with disabilities, she was unable to because she was sick. I was feeling energetic (finally), so I and my brother ran the errands and bought enough groceries to tide her over until the next week. I was leveled for the weekend. That’s when I decided to see what would happen if I protected my energies by staying home. I also thought it would be a good way to keep me from getting myself involved in things while I was feeling well that I can’t follow through on when I’m low. 

I feel the experiment has been more or less successful. I’ve been able to help more around the house because I’m not so spent from leaving the house. I’m starting to naturally get into routines and rhythms. I’ve been better about taking care of my cats (making sure I have their meals prepped, feeding them on a schedule, not putting off changing the litter box way too long). I’ve struggled with the side effects of a new medication, which gave me terrible insomnia at night. I still sleep too much during the day, but it’s not that kind of muscle-melting, I-don’t-know-the-meaning-of-self-care kind of tired. I brush my teeth regularly. I still need to work on taking regular showers (last week, I took one every other day! I am so proud of myself!). But things are moving in a positive direction. They can get a little boring. Like today when I didn’t feel like reading or crocheting or being on the internet. I took a recreational nap because my bed was warm and I didn’t know what else to do with myself. (Lame.)

When a friend asked at the beginning of March if I could hang out, I said I hadn’t been well and had sequestered myself for the time being. Later in the month, I had to let another friend know that I would hang out contingent on how I felt. When the day came, I couldn’t do it. Another thing I’ve been struggling with this month is overwhelm. From social media, television, radio, loud noise, etc. I was feeling too overwhelmed and tired that day. I had to back out.

Which left me feeling guilty. Because I was able to hang out with another friend a few days before and the week after. What was the difference? I know that the one friend is much more energetic than the other. But I had still needed a chill pill the morning I went to visit my lowkey friend the first time. So what was the difference? Why can I afford to give my lowkey friend more energy, but have to pull back with my other friend? I love them both dearly and love the company of both. Then I realized I would’ve been out until 11 or 12 o’clock at night with my more energetic friend. I can’t do that anymore without consequences. With my low key friend, we normally only spend a few hours together. 

So the sum of things is that I’m beginning to build manageable routines and sequestering myself is allowing me to acknowledge my limits so that I can set boundaries. On the one hand, my family understands. On the other hand, they are a bit worried. They know this isn’t forever, but still. It’s disconcerting when someone stops leaving home. And who knows what the heck my doctor is going to think when I see her this week.

…

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I feel like I’ve lost touch with my Waiting. I need a job so badly right now. My parents are struggling financially. I’m freaking out and freezing up.

The pdoc and I are trying to fine-tune my meds and I think it’s thrown me for a loop the past few weeks. My focus has been all off.

I’ve also been hanging out with a friend lately that just reminds me that I’m not what I want to be and I’ve realized I’m pressuring myself. It’s hard not to be jealous when it’s been 10 years since you got your Masters and you’re no better off financially (even worse, actually), but your friend who is in her first year of her profession already has a sizable nest-egg. I’m trying not to have that “keeping up with the Joneses” mentality, but oh, God, it’s so hard. And humiliating. Mostly humiliating.

I’ve missed two weeks of volunteering and now I’m in the third week and I haven’t gone yesterday or today yet either. I just don’t want to go. I don’t know why exactly. The first week I was sick emotionally and physically. The second week, the new med had me thrown all out of whack. Now, I just want to stay in my house and not face it.

I don’t know if I want to continue in my profession – which largely pays with what they call an “emotional paycheck” – or branch out to something else just to pay the bills and allow me to save and live comfortably. I kind of just want a quiet 9-5 right now. Go to work, sit in a cubicle, know exactly what I am supposed to do, do it, and go home. I can get meaning out of life elsewhere. I can save up my money and go on missions. I can interact with the people around me and be there for them. I can make donations and smile at people. Genuine smiles are not something people get enough of these days. I’ve probably stopped making sense. Sorry.

I’m trying not to sleep my life away, but that’s all I want to do right now. Sleep and read Agatha Christie novels. My mom is getting impatient. Not in the “you’ve got to pull your life together!” kind of way, but in the “you’re sick and I think it’s your thyroid!” kind of way. Mom’s a bit of a hypochondriac. My thyroid’s already been checked. It’s fine.

I’ve allowed myself to get involved with more than I can handle. I’m trying to stay active while I’m out of work, but now I’m probably too active. But that’s just it. I’m not too active. It’s all little things and none of them take that much time, but for some reason, I’m feeling overwhelmed.

Updates & Illness

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I’ve been doing really well lately. I’m keeping track of my moods and my January days have been balanced with a few happy-happy days thrown in. And since the happy-happy days were usually on holidays or special occasions, I think those were normal. And the weather has had absolutely no effect on my moods. I’ve been balanced on sunny days and rainy days. So no SAD. Yay!

I went a week without one of my meds at the end of December because I couldn’t afford to get it filled. I noticed that this feeling of discomfort I would have after I took it went away. When I started taking it again, the feeling came back and I couldn’t stand it. I decided to stop taking it and talk with my doctor at my next visit (which was soon). She had a name for the uncomfortable feeling and said it can happen if you’re on certain medicines for awhile. So, we’re going to continue without that one for now.

I got my official ADHD diagnosis when I saw my counselor last week. I talked with my psychiatrist about this, too, and we decided on a medicine to try. I’ll start a small dosage this week and see how it goes. I’m hopeful and nervous. I want so badly for this to be what opens my brain up. By that I mean, helps my memory and allows me to more readily connect the dots between thoughts, etc. But I also know that this might not do what I need it to, it may not work with my bipolar meds, or it might have side effects I can’t live with. Blessedly, the medicine just works for four hours at a time, so if it throws me off balance in any way, we can hopefully reign things back in again very quickly.
My brother has an eight minute long video from YouTube about differentials that he’s been begging me to watch. I told him to wait until I’ve taken this medicine. Maybe it will help me actually pay attention to what’s being said! It’ll be a good test, right?

I got sick over the weekend. I started coming down with it on Friday and then it slammed me on Saturday. I slept in late that morning, but managed to get up to shower and eat, then went back to my room and slept some more. I spent the afternoon resting and reading in my room. In the evening, I was able to make a dessert to take to church the next day and watch a movie with my family. On Sunday, I went to church, but wasn’t feeling so good while I was there. I pushed through, though. On the way home, I was feeling worse, so I took some medicine. By the time we got home, the medicine was making me drowsy and I went to sleep. I watched TV in the evening with my parents, but still wasn’t feeling all that great. On Monday, I had a hard time getting out of bed. I had my mom call the place where I volunteer to let them know I wasn’t feeling well enough to come in. Throughout the day, I had moments when I would feel better, but it wasn’t until the late evening that I really started to feel well. By the time I went to bed, I felt better than I had all weekend.
Tuesday, I felt much better. I got a late start, but I was able to volunteer. And when I came home, I was able to get some things done that I’ve needed to do for awhile. Took some things out to the shed, did some paperwork, helped clean up some stuff. I still felt a little weak at times, but on the whole, I felt much better.
I was only sick for three days, but it felt like a month. It was a really, really awful three days. And thinking about this three days of sickness drives home to me how accurate, how descriptive it is that it’s called mental illness. Because this weekend, I didn’t have a virus, or a cold, or the flu, it was depression. The medicine I took on the way home from church was my emergency anti-anxiety med. I didn’t go to my volunteering job because I didn’t have the energy to get up and shower, much less leave my house.
The ways I respond to being physically sick – the need to withdraw, the need to rest, the need to take medicines – are also the ways I respond to being mentally sick. I feel miserable when I’m physically sick and I feel miserable when I’m mentally sick. At various times when I’m physically sick, I wonder how long will I be sick?  Do I need to call the doctor? Am I getting worse? Do I need to go to the hospital? I wonder these same things at different times when I’m mentally sick. 
And I’m having to come to terms with the fact that the bipolar disorder is a chronic illness, so to speak. It’s not like catching the bug that’s going around at the office that makes you miss a few days once or twice a year. This is something that’s inside me, waiting for just the right conditions to flare up. This weekend, it flared for three days. Last month, it flared for a week. What will that mean for me when I have a job again? My last job caused me to go into depression and anxiety-induced withdrawals. But even without a job, they still happen. What if they happen too often when I have a job again? What if I can’t pull myself together? I used to be able to power through bad days, but I can’t anymore. 
My last job – the one that caused me so much depression and anxiety – broke my resiliency. I lost that ability to power through the bad days. The bad days were so much worse than before. Just like when a person who has the flu has to stay home and in bed until they’re well again, I had to use my sick days to stay home and in bed until I felt well enough.
But would a job that didn’t make me sick, a job that needed me, a job I love – would it give me the strength to power through again? On Sunday, I made it through church. Ordinarily, I would probably have stayed home. But I’ve started reading to two little girls after the service on Sundays. They love it and I do to (this is part of my profession, reading to toddlers and preschoolers). We only had time to read one book last Sunday, so I wanted to make sure we got to read a lot this Sunday. And we did. And on the way home, I took my “chill pill” to calm the tossing waves inside my head. But I had made it through the important part of the day. I had been where I was needed, where I loved being, and in a healthy atmosphere. Maybe that’s what will get me through the bad days when I have my next job.

Overcast & Good

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Today has been a good day…and it was overcast. So maybe the week before last was just a blip in the general bipolar cycle thing, not evidence of a whole new problem. Here’s hoping.

Aside from that, a belated Merry Christmas! It’s been a good weekend with my family and I’m looking forward to this week and the new year. 😀

Up and Down

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Last week was pretty rough. I was in a down mood most of the week. This happened just after  I told my counselor that I was stable. This had me worried. Why was I suddenly unstable? Have my medicines suddenly stopped working? Is the low activity of this waiting period starting to bore me? (Now that I know more about ADHD, I understand that I can get “bored,” something I never would have allowed myself to admit before this. “Bored” has always been a dirty word used by people who don’t have enough imagination to entertain themselves. But now, in light of ADHD, I understand it differently.) Then my mother mentioned something that had kind of crossed my mind, too…Seasonal Affective Disorder. 

Up until a few weeks ago, we were in a significant drought. It was sunny all the time. It finally started raining again and it’s been overcast a lot now. I can’t remember the weather all of last week, but I’m pretty sure most of it was overcast. The weekend was. Monday was. Tuesday afternoon was the sunniest in days and… I felt better. There are certain things I didn’t want to think about, but I didn’t feel like I could barely hold myself up. And then yesterday, it was lightly cloudy, but in a sunny way, all day. And I had energy all day and got Christmas shopping done.

My psychiatrist said that sometimes when one problem is taken care of, others are revealed. She told me that when we both kind of noticed that I might have ADHD. Now I’m wondering if this has been hiding behind the bipolar, too. This one would have been hard to see in the shadow of the bipolar, but would have fed its fury (probably like the ADHD hyperfocusing maybe fed it). I’ve been asked about this before – if my depression worsens during the winter months. I always said no, because I had good moods at various times – which I now know to be my hypomanic swings. I do remember sometimes these seemed to be fed by sunny days. They made the sunny days feel sunnier. It was like I was feeding off the sun. But I also love rainy days, so I never noticed if I were particularly down on those days.

My doctor will probably want more evidence than just a couple weeks time. That only makes sense. I’m just…tired of all these things popping up. I want to have all the diagnosing out of the way. That was one reason I wanted to go ahead and get the ADHD testing done, so I could start the new year knowing exactly what I’m working with. I wanted to start 2017 fresh. I’m worried that my doctor is going to think I’m a hypochondriac or something, constantly coming to her with “hey, the meds aren’t working quite right” and “hey, I can’t concentrate” and “hey, the meds are working I think, but I feel like I can’t function on overcast days.” Does it ever end? Is that what my doctor is going to start asking herself?

This poem pops to mind from the title of this post:

Up and down, up and down,
I will lead them up and down.
I am feared in field and town.
Goblin, lead them up and down.

~ Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare

Dream

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I had the following dream this morning. The part that meant the most to me was the part about being in class at the end. It’s why I’m writing it out.

The first part of the dream had been my family at the grocery store and hanging out with some kids who were very friendly.

After leaving the grocery store, I ended up at this weird intersection where I wasn’t sure if I were supposed to go or not. I finally saw the small stop light for my lane and knew I was supposed to wait. Star Wars cosplayers started to file down the road and I wasn’t sure if they were just walking or if it were a parade. More of them kept coming and they weren’t going fast enough to get through the light after it turned green for me, so I missed my green light. More Star Wars folks kept coming, including a truck, so I decided it must be a parade. I think at some point someone got impatient with me and honked their horn right after I missed the green light and I ended up running the red light. Something was said (by who, I don’t know – a person in another car? I was alone) about a cop seeing. I sped down the road and ended up running a stop sign, too.

After that, there was a sequence about a certain (annoying) local radio celebrity throwing a fit about not being able to find his way to a certain location because he had gone to another location with the same/similar name expecting them to be in the same area of town. They weren’t in the same area and he was rude to the museum curator where he ended up and she said one polite, but pointed thing to him that turned his rudeness back on himself. It left him speechless. I left the place to go to walk to a class at college (I haven’t been in college for a long time) thinking about posting the thing to Facebook and tagging a friend who abhors the radio guy, but has moved away and so would have missed his discussion on the radio. (Somehow, I was there for the event, but then was listening to it on a non-existent radio at the end as the guy retold the story.)

I had my bag of prescriptions and I was on my way to a class in college and for some reason I needed to let the resident assistant know and get a signature or give her something… and there was something in there about getting another prescription. Maybe she had it? I started giving her the email address of someone I worked with at my last job, but I had trouble writing it down. I didn’t have anywhere to write it. She got a phone call in the midst of this. I tried using her truck to write it, but it was wet and the pen wouldn’t write. People were filing into class and I was going to be late. She was on her phone and wouldn’t pay attention to me. So I finally just gave up and went into class. There didn’t appear to be any seats left, except for two around the projectors (which were each on the left and right of the room), but I thought those must be for whoever was going to run each projector. No one was sitting on the couches that were available, so I didn’t want to sit there. I realized that one of the chairs was in front of the projector, but since it was a digital projector, it wouldn’t hinder the screen if I sat in front of it (dream logic). So I sat there. 

It was a creative writing class. The teacher was friendly and didn’t scold me for being the last one and a few moments late. Two of my friends from college were sitting further down the row from me, looking older, but happy. The teacher asked playfully if I knew the best part about sitting where I was. I looked at the place and was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to figure out the answer, then realized there was the remote to the projector. I said I could take the slides back whenever I wanted. She said yes (and something that jokingly told me I had control, I think).
Then everyone was working on something, but I didn’t know what it was. The guy next to me was writing and all I saw was that he had written an “m” on his paper with other scribbles that were supposed to be writing. He flipped his paper over to continue writing. There were what I thought must be instructions on the board, but I didn’t know what they meant. When I looked at them again, they were partially erased. I hadn’t seen the teacher move. There were instructions on the other side of the room, too, but they didn’t make any sense either. I wanted to ask the teacher what the assignment was, but I was afraid to. In being late, I had somehow missed the information. I didn’t want to draw her anger, negative attention, or the attention of the class by asking the question now after so much time had passed.

Then, I figured out (somehow) that everyone was working on a mission statement. They were writing down what their objective was to learn from this class. I was happy  to do this, since I felt I had never done these properly in college before. I had been too young and too ignorant to understand how they worked. But I couldn’t find any paper to write on. I had my bags and notebooks and everything on a counter behind me. I went through notepads and bullet journals looking for a clean sheet of paper or even half a clean sheet. I couldn’t find any clean sheet or even a sheet that was half clean that was suitable. I’m not even sure I could find even half clean sheets after I started looking for them. There weren’t even the backs of pages.

And then I woke up. 

Dream

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I had the following dream this morning. The part that meant the most to me was the part about being in class at the end. It’s why I’m writing it out.

The first part of the dream had been my family at the grocery store and hanging out with some kids who were very friendly.

After leaving the grocery store, I ended up at this weird intersection where I wasn’t sure if I were supposed to go or not. I finally saw the small stop light for my lane and knew I was supposed to wait. Star Wars cosplayers started to file down the road and I wasn’t sure if they were just walking or if it were a parade. More of them kept coming and they weren’t going fast enough to get through the light after it turned green for me, so I missed my green light. More Star Wars folks kept coming, including a truck, so I decided it must be a parade. I think at some point someone got impatient with me and honked their horn right after I missed the green light and I ended up running the red light. Something was said (by who, I don’t know – a person in another car? I was alone) about a cop seeing. I sped down the road and ended up running a stop sign, too.

After that, there was a sequence about a certain (annoying) local radio celebrity throwing a fit about not being able to find his way to a certain location because he had gone to another location with the same/similar name expecting them to be in the same area of town. They weren’t in the same area and he was rude to the museum curator where he ended up and she said one polite, but pointed thing to him that turned his rudeness back on himself. It left him speechless. I left the place to go to walk to a class at college (I haven’t been in college for a long time) thinking about posting the thing to Facebook and tagging a friend who abhors the radio guy, but has moved away and so would have missed his discussion on the radio. (Somehow, I was there for the event, but then was listening to it on a non-existent radio at the end as the guy retold the story.)

I had my bag of prescriptions and I was on my way to a class in college and for some reason I needed to let the resident assistant know and get a signature or give her something… and there was something in there about getting another prescription. Maybe she had it? I started giving her the email address of someone I worked with at my last job, but I had trouble writing it down. I didn’t have anywhere to write it. She got a phone call in the midst of this. I tried using her truck to write it, but it was wet and the pen wouldn’t write. People were filing into class and I was going to be late. She was on her phone and wouldn’t pay attention to me. So I finally just gave up and went into class. There didn’t appear to be any seats left, except for two around the projectors (which were each on the left and right of the room), but I thought those must be for whoever was going to run each projector. No one was sitting on the couches that were available, so I didn’t want to sit there. I realized that one of the chairs was in front of the projector, but since it was a digital projector, it wouldn’t hinder the screen if I sat in front of it (dream logic). So I sat there. 

It was a creative writing class. The teacher was friendly and didn’t scold me for being the last one and a few moments late. Two of my friends from college were sitting further down the row from me, looking older, but happy. The teacher asked playfully if I knew the best part about sitting where I was. I looked at the place and was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to figure out the answer, then realized there was the remote to the projector. I said I could take the slides back whenever I wanted. She said yes (and something that jokingly told me I had control, I think).
Then everyone was working on something, but I didn’t know what it was. The guy next to me was writing and all I saw was that he had written an “m” on his paper with other scribbles that were supposed to be writing. He flipped his paper over to continue writing. There were what I thought must be instructions on the board, but I didn’t know what they meant. When I looked at them again, they were partially erased. I hadn’t seen the teacher move. There were instructions on the other side of the room, too, but they didn’t make any sense either. I wanted to ask the teacher what the assignment was, but I was afraid to. In being late, I had somehow missed the information. I didn’t want to draw her anger, negative attention, or the attention of the class by asking the question now after so much time had passed.

Then, I figured out (somehow) that everyone was working on a mission statement. They were writing down what their objective was to learn from this class. I was happy  to do this, since I felt I had never done these properly in college before. I had been too young and too ignorant to understand how they worked. But I couldn’t find any paper to write on. I had my bags and notebooks and everything on a counter behind me. I went through notepads and bullet journals looking for a clean sheet of paper or even half a clean sheet. I couldn’t find any clean sheet or even a sheet that was half clean that was suitable. I’m not even sure I could find even half clean sheets after I started looking for them. There weren’t even the backs of pages.

And then I woke up. 

Car Accident

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I was in a car accident yesterday. Someone came into my lane and hit me. No one was hurt and the damage to my car wasn’t extensive, but I was really shaken up. And I realized afterwards that I had been trying to keep like 6 feet of physical distance between me and the woman who hit me after the accident. Even though she was really nice and I shouldn’t have been afraid of her. I was just so afraid of a confrontation, even though she probably wasn’t confrontational at all. And the accident wasn’t my fault.