Goodness Gracious.

Great Balls of Fire! Where did the day go? It is almost time to go to bed and I am still sitting here recovering from a date with my google reader and when I was all done with that, I realized there was already a second helping of newer posts, so I just gave up and I'll save those for tomorrow.

I really don't know what happened to today. It seems like I have been up for hours and hours, but don't ask me what I filled them with, because I don't have a huge long story to tell you.

I woke up at 6 AM, which is really too early, because I can tell I'm not done sleeping yet by the half defeated way I sit behind the computer with my coffee and cigarettes. I am trying to be cheerfully wide awake, but I am only fooling myself, but of course, I think it is too late to go back to bed, because I have to walk the dog and do ten other things before I go to ergo therapy.

It's just a bad habit, waking up at 6, and I must snap out of it. Tomorrow I don't have to go anywhere and I will go back to sleep if it is the last thing I do.

Ergo therapy was fine. Hardly anyone was there for some reason and we had a very mellow morning, although there was the usual round of How Are You and What Is Happening In Your Life. It's not everywhere that you get to sit and tell what your week has been like and what sort of emotions and moods you've had to go with that and what you have learned from that and how you are not going to repeat some of those things again.

Well, needless to say, I don't have to explain here what I talked about there, so I'll make short shrift of that. Blah, blah, blah...

I came home to a happy Überhund who wanted to climb into my armpit and nestle there. I am afraid he is a little bit too big for that and I can't quite tuck him under my arm.

I had a quick cup of coffee and we went for a walk, all the while expecting it to start raining, because the sky looked threatening and there was a wind blowing. Luckily, it stayed dry and there are so many leaves on the ground now, masses and masses of them and it is fun to walk through them and hear the noise your feet make when you do. Here and there big piles of them lie about and the Überhund pees on them as he marks his territory. He has a very busy life.

In the mail there was a letter from the Tax Office saying that I had to pay back all of the subsidy money that I had gotten so far, no explanation as to why. I called them up and asked them what the meaning was. I was put on hold and then told not to worry about it now, because another letter with another decision was on its way to me. I am absolutely not going to break my head about it, because they are absolutely wrong and I am sure that the next letter will say so. That's all I'll say about until I get the next letter. Bah humbug!

Then I laid down on the sofa to watch the afternoon news and the next thing you know it is two hours later and I was completely off kilter and had no idea what day it was and what time of day. It took me a little while to get myself back to normal.

For some reason, I was so discombobulated, that I thought I had done something wrong that I should be ashamed about and I was trying to remember what it could have been and what the last couple of days had been like and what I had done. I used to have this feeling quite badly every time I woke up my whole life. It was a built in feeling of shame and guilt for something that I thought I had done, but never had. With it came an ever increasing feeling of self hatred, which became unbearable to live with and it made waking up a complete hell. I have outgrown it now, but every once in a great while, little bits of it come back.

Anyway, from that point on things become a little foggy to me. I don't know rightly how I spent the rest of the day. I didn't do anything that was of any importance. The time just slipped away and somehow it became evening and I had forgotten to walk the Überhund, which I then did. I think I took my medication, but I'm not sure. Like I said, it is a bit foggy.

I know that when I have a hard time mentally, I zone out. I mean I tune things out and stop paying attention to what is happening around me. I stop noticing what time it is and if the sun goes down and if it is dark outside and if it is raining. I don't notice the animals. It's a coping strategy. I have been known to do it for months at a time. That's when I was severely depressed. I only stayed in bed then.

I am not tuned out anymore now, although I am having a little bit of a hard time coming back to earth. That's why I am going to stop writing now and take some time to sit and pet the animals and come home to myself.

Ciao...