Chew chew.

After I pull off a grand scheme, I often find myself wanting to be a human doing rather than a human being. That question, "What's Next?" can haunt me like my over-compensating psychosis to "Make Something of Your Life."

As my most respected sponsor used to put it,
"On your mark!
"Get set!
"Sit!!!!!"

Sometimes doing nothing is something, after all. Inside my own skin, those quiet, unspectacular reflective periods are where I am able to bring pieces of the puzzle together. I don't always realize those pieces have come together until long after the fact.

So it be for me and I ONLY believe. . .

Continued support while you figure your own, Muji.

U should be proud of how uve coped and got through. Hugs

It;s Sunday, so share the gratitude? One busy day out of the weekend doing what needs and wants dictate is a good weekend.
I like comedians since they usually have a sideways look at the world that makes me wonder if I am the one that's tilted.
J.

that seems the most difficult question, but when i remember it is you asking it? the answer is play your guitar and sing your emotions until you are finished.

I'm in with Lills. Mic up the guitar Muji. Nothing to do but do the do. Hugs J.

Ditto the wise Lilly. You're rocking it, but rocks are tough stuff. Strum and sing sounds like good therapy.

Sorry to hear about what is happening with work.
I echo about music. Singing it out. Yes! what helps you to relax and rest Nourish in a way you enjoy,a good meal or favorite. looking up at the stars and or clouds of the day or evening . telling yourself that though alone your not. we are all connected. Your doing good stuff Muji.

You turned me on to that Grey's Anatomy show Muji and when I get bummed out I crank up the tunes and like the crew on Grey's does? I dance it out! You can for sure rock it out on your guitar or play some uplifting kickin' music!

You are doing great and again, so sad they are doing this to you. Glad you enjoyed the comedy show.

Yeah, I don't have my guitar along on my trip, but I took your advice and cranked up the music in my car in dear departed Tom Petty's honor and went about my Sunday. Letting go of expectations as you suggested, it was an interesting day for an old bachelor feeling acute loneliness for the first time in a few years. It's a real gift not to feel that for years at time. By the same token, though, not having felt it for years I had no idea how to cope. You helped.

Then young strangers around this impersonal metropolis took time out to talk to me on Sunday. At check out from the luxury hotel, the same desk clerk listened to my funny story about how yesterday I called housekeeping because I thought they'd knocked when I was in the bathroom and I'd missed them. I told her how instead they were given the idea that I had been neglected or something. So suddenly what seemed like a "SWAT" team of 6 housekeepers showed up to attack the job of cleaning up my room. The desk clerk got a good laugh out of that. It was nice for this old guy to get a laugh like that from a stranger.

Another was a cashier today when I stopped by the Safeway supermarket for groceries to save money from eating out. She's really ticked off about how her employer is cutting back on her hours to save money so as to offset customer theft in the area by these upscale suburban soccer types. I wasn't invisible to her. She told me all about it. The same went for the hipster barista at Starbucks next door. She saw me and she turned me on to Beck's song "Debra" from last year. It's an R & B song so good I thought it had to be a resurrected Prince singing in falsetto or something. I downloaded it onto my iPod and drove around some more blasting that like I'd blasted Tom Petty earlier.

My desk clerk upon check in here at the other cheaper hotel I moved down to was nice to me, today, too. He's from Cameroon, and respected my coming from Uruguay because once Uruguay's national soccer team played his country's national team and showed its stuff. What are the odds of that, huh?

I opened my email and found a student I had back in 1992 had sent me a long one. I replied. He replied again in real time, telling me he thought I was a good teacher, that he's a teacher now, too, and about his wife and kids. Wow. I haven't had feedback like that for a long time. I realize from recent feedback at my current college that I'm on my way out, that I'm about to be put out to pasture, to retire, that all things must pass. So I'm not as good a teacher now as I used to be, but it was nice to hear that I once was that good.

So I guess that's how it goes. It doesn't take much for me to feel like I've become visible, like I'm not a lonely old ghost. I don't have a wife or a girlfriend, not even a best friend as a traveling companion. I don't have kids or grandkids and because my family and I went separate ways over PTSD, I don't have siblings, nieces and nephews, or even aunts, uncles, or cousins. Just a joke with a stranger here, a story with another there, 5 minute chats one at a time. I asked you "what do I do next?" because I truly don't know how to live the solitary life this independently, with no built in witnesses to it for me. Then you all let me know to live with the question and it's ok after all, one little chat at a time. You're my witnesses.

PTSD makes me hypervigilant about life, I guess, and to worry about what's next too much. Thanks for helping me relax a little for a day. Someday I'll learn to be relaxed without needing lessons. Until then, I thank you every time.

Muji, i am so sorry you were not at home when i responded to this post.

my response to you wasn't helpful for right then. i am sorry for that. i do that with my guitar, always have done and you've shared taht you do too; how you grab one of them and sing out your feelings there at your house.

i know the physical tole it takes - i didn't realise it until i was thru, you don't, but then wow, it really does take a lot of physical exertion to play your heart out that way.

now i'm wanting to come with the glittler sub with the load of us and grab you from wherever you are and have an adventure : ) but you found your own adventure; you're good at doing that.

i'm lately getting better at understanding that lonely feeling. i'm so sorry you are feeling it. the solitude i've chosen and the reasons for it are still valid; i know yours are too. sometimes i'd like to have a way for us, some of us to get together for a brief meet or something : ) because we are not alone, we have one another. more than just on here. truly. and calling on here 'just' is.... wrong i think.

Oh, no problem, Lilly. Not having my guitar on hand was just a detail, I still turned to music and had fun blasting it in my car driving around. I like that you talk about "the solitude I've chosen and the reasons for it are still valid." That's true of me, too. It wasn't chosen suddenly or lightly for me. For me it was about 2 things. First, it came from a long process in therapy concerning the need to have boundaries with past abusers, to have independence from co-dependence. Secondly, it came from realizing I needed personal space in my life for using my present tools for managing PTSD symptoms.

So when it gets lonely, as it does, I don't come online much to complain about it since it's been my choice. Still, we all need support even in our choice for solitude, we're like everybody else that way.