Chilly morning...

The temperature in the apartment finally got down to 20 degrees Celsius and it hasn't been that low for a long time. I've still got the top windows open and there's cold air coming in, but next week the weather is going to improve for a while, so it will get warmer in here again.

I'm sitting here in a tank top and my pajama bottoms, totally inadequately dressed, of course, but I do like the cool air on my skin, because it seems I've been too warm all summer. It's nice to feel chilled now and have cold feet and cold arms and hands. It's like swimming in cool water in an outdoor swimming pool.

The alarm clock goes off at 7 am no matter what day it is, but I take great pleasure in shutting it off on Saturdays and turning over and sleeping some more. It is the nicest thing to do, because I really have that weekend feeling, although Saturday is not really a day off at all. I still need to do things, but they don't seem as pressing as they do in the rest of the week.

I really need to go to the store to buy more milk, but if I'm careful, I can make what I have last until Monday and I much prefer that, because I'm still not in the mood to face the grocery store. There used to be a little shop around the corner where I could buy milk, but unfortunately it has closed, and now the only place to buy milk is the supermarket. You can imagine that it's very busy on Saturdays.

I again fell asleep on the sofa last night while watching television and I woke up at eleven o'clock. I thought I was in the mood to turn the computer on and made myself a cup of decaf, but when I sat there, I realized that I just really had to go to bed, because my mind was woolly and no single sensible thought came out of it. I had all sorts of conflicting emotions and I was too sleepy to deal with them and luckily not stubborn enough to stay up and try to sort them out, although I may have attempted this in the past.

When you're in a sleep mode like that, you're not fit to deal with what is going on in your mind, because it makes no sense whatsoever and it will lead you down a destructive path if you try to make sense of it. The best thing to do is to go to sleep and sleep long enough for your mind to straighten itself out and in the morning you are brand new and fit to regard your thoughts again. You will find that most things have been resolved and that everything that seemed so complicated the night before, isn't anymore at all.

So, sleep it is and it's one of the best medicines. I'm not tired during the day anymore and never take a nap. At least, I don't remember taking one lately. I'm sure that's because I don't take that awful high dose of tranquilizers anymore. It's amazing how well I do on just three tablets of the lowest dose. They do their job just fine. I do notice when I've taken a tablet, so it's not as if I don't feel the difference. Things do get easier with them. My anxiety drops away and I feel very much at ease, but I don't feel like a zombie and under the influence.

In the meantime, I've gotten dressed and walked Jesker. Amazingly enough, the sun is shining now and then and, except for the wind, it is actually nice outside. Well, I should say, if you like that kind of weather. It would be nice to sit at an outdoor café now and have a cold beer and watch the people walk by, although I still think that not enough good looking men walk by and that they must be hiding out somewhere or that they must not exist here. Maybe they only come out at night and I come out at the wrong hours, but I'm not about to change into a moth instead of a butterfly.

If you stop and think about your life too much and start to analyze each bit of it, you'll start to doubt every aspect of your existence, so it is better not to do that and accept the whole package as a done deal and then only change the bits that bother you the most without delving into the whys and wherefores too much. If you tinker too much with the reality of your being, you will find that there are no basic answers to the key questions and it is that way for everybody. A lot of things you have to accept as basic truths and facts and learn to live with, as long as they don't cause you grief.

The things that you change are the things that hurt or the things that are major stumbling blocks on your road to a comfortable way of living. We are usually our own worst enemies and that what hurts us the most is what happens in our own heads. It's our own thoughts that sabotage us and slowly kill us and we can head for our downfall all by ourselves, without any body's help. When we live amongst people, it seems that they are the cause of our trouble, but when we are removed from them, it becomes clear how the trouble lives inside of us and how we need to tackle that within our own selves in order to be comfortable and at peace.

We carry the results of many experiences and disappointments inside of us. We always speak of those as internal scars, but I like to think of them as wounds that haven't healed. We need to do a lot of caring and loving deeds in order to heal them, but the problem is that we are often unable to be caring and loving to ourselves, while we are the ones who need it the most. We need to be taught how to do that and to learn that we are not responsible for the existence of the wounds. For that we need to forgive ourselves, because we are so convinced that we need forgiveness. We are so harsh for ourselves.

So, if you are going around actively hurting from your wounds and being in pain because of them, try to forgive yourself for whatever you think you have done wrong, even when in reality you were probably in the end not the main responsible party and the responsibility can be spread over numerous people and events. Try to understand your deeds in the context in which they took place and find extenuating circumstances that soften your judgment. You will find that you don't need to judge yourself as harshly as you thought was necessary and that your relatively small part in all of it is easily forgiven. You are merely a human being doing the best you can. More can not be expected of you under any kind of circumstances.

I hope you all have a fabulous day and that all things go well.

Ciao...