FIVE DAYS

This is important.

Reading psychology/mental health articles and self-help literature leads to heat. In my face. A heaviness in my chest. Shame prevails. What gives?

Words like “anxiety,” “low self-esteem,” and “depression” have a highly negative connotation. My brain looks for these words, because like any animal, my brain scans for danger to maximize survival. For realsies! The shadowy aspects can thus pop out more like predators lurking in the bush. These same psychologists–and Buddhists–claim placing one’s attention on x will magnify x. If x is something already loaded with negativity, then of course I’m going to experience a heightened state of negative emotions!

So I try to cope by looking at things that pique my curiosity about the external world. Science and spirituality. Art and literature. Nature and shared spaces.

I’m naturally introspective. One of my earliest memories is being very, very small, sitting on the toilet, and being struck with a very clear thought: who is Missy? Then I shuddered. Many more questions followed but none as articulated as the first. Who was this person that had this name? How could a name hold anything so complex as a person? How did others know me? How could they ever know me? How did I know myself?

After thinking, I go back to participating in the world. I do. And I pay attention more to the touch, smell, and sounds of my environment now. I’ll literally smell whatever flower my 16-month-old daughter plucks and extends to me with her outstretched hand. I’ll sniff the air like a dog and notice baby powder scents from the products my husband uses.

Also, I assign meaning. Such as, I’m the heroine of this story. It’s a redemption story. To do so I combine all three: The external world, my introspective nature, and the moments of life meandering path. Currently, I’ve taken on a new project just for moi: Connecting my daily mood to the moon’s phases. (Hence the image above.) I’ll have a mood rating from 1-10 for the day, which I will chart with the moon’s phases. Perhaps there will be a correlation!

So for yesterday, March 14, 2019, my mood was a 2. According to this chart, at 3:27 am on March 14, 2019, the first quarter moon phase began, i.e. half moon.

Yesterday I felt hopeless. I sobbed over the phone and started a fight with my husband. The moon may have been half dark, so I saw the glass as half empty.

It was also half light. My husband and I did kiss and make up by the end.