Intention

[this is what I think of as a self-absorbed “mememe” bit of writing. Oh well. I suppose I can rationalize this by saying that this blog is, after all, an incomplete guide to my ordinary life, so it makes sense that I should babble about me and my life. Right?]

I thought I was living today with intention. I paid attention to how I moved my body when I got up this morning, listened to the ache in my thigh (hip flexor issues, my physical therapist says) that passed after I walked around for a bit, made myself coffee, ate the rest of yesterday’s individual pizza since 10:45 was close enough to noon to call it lunch. I did my first set of physical therapy exercises, with intention, felt the how the movements might be uncomfortable in good ways and bad, made adjustments. I fed myself again, something with protein, baked myself blueberry muffins again because I seem to be craving them, rowed for 12 minutes and 400 delicate strokes to Ani DiFranco, began listening to a friend’s podcast, read another friend’s message and started judging my choice to write on this platform, though I knew of the Nazi controversy a year plus ago, researched it, looked into other blogging sites, waited before I started writing here, made an intentional decision to choose Substack over Patreon and Medium despite those Nazi content rumblings.

I was not as intentional when I overreacted to my friend (who is lovely, moral, and kind), but I was intentional when I decided to take a break from the site where I received her message (this site also hosts some neo-Nazi, nationalist, and MAGA content), deleted the app from my phone, felt stupid for overreacting, did my evening batch of physical therapy exercises (with intention), fed myself again (I have been quite hungry, I think because my body is trying to get used to the existence of a shiny, new foreign hip and is trying to recover from that six-inch long scar that’s healing on my leg), finished my friend’s podcast (it’s lovely. Go listen Much Madness podcast), and thought about how judgmental I am and how tired I am of judging myself and other people.

I really am tired of looking at my reflection in the mirror and wondering why I’m not an activist or a harder worker, how I managed to let my house become almost unlivable, and how that irresponsibility led me into a deep, undiagnosed depression I self-medicated with wine (which I quit three years and seven months ago to the day), why I haven’t been as good about writing the people who represent me on the state and federal level as I think I should be and as I have been in the past, I haven’t finished all those wonderful novels I started writing.

I’m tired of myself judging myself. I’m tired of judging people who voted for Trump. I’m tired of judging leftists who are so rigid that they are incapable of offering grace to people who change their minds and turn back to the light. I’m tired of judging the Democrats in Congress who find it easier to demonize college students protesting the genocide in Gaza than to demonize Elon Musk for invading our institutions and depleting them of funds and people. I don’t want to be this judgy, anymore. I want to allow myself to find joy in writing here and in writing offline and in writing letters in greeting cards in my terrible handwriting to people I love, which I’ve been judging myself for forgetting to do.

It's after 10 p.m., and I did remember to take my aromatase inhibitor, which is designed to keep this tough, scrawny, hungry old body from a cancer recurrence. I’m trying now to decide why I want to move upstairs to my daughter’s former bedroom instead of staying downstairs in her dad’s room (I’m house sitting) when I’m not really supposed to be going up that many stairs yet (too late. “yet” was days ago).

I’ve lost my intention. I’m so tired. I’m so sad, and I can’t continue to scold myself for being ineffective or incomplete or not enough.

I’m fine, and I will figure things out once I regain some energy and remember who I am and what I’m about. And it’s okay for a friend to question my choices, truly. And it’s normal for a woman who isn’t feeling the best to overreact when she thinks someone is telling her she should stop doing something she loves on a platform where she feels most comfortable (the friend did not say that she should stop, not at all, this woman, me, misread).

Did I mention that I found one of those Nazi blogs here? Oof. I’m going to keep an eye on them. They seem horribly reasonable even though they hate everyone but buff white males. They have plans to overtake the culture and shove out anyone who isn’t like them and to become stronger and stronger and to practice their white nationalist MMA active club fights that they can take into the “real” world, though they are careful not to say that explicitly in their writings. I cannot find a way to report them for hate, but I will when I stop judging myself for being inept, too messy, for having dry skin and a messed up stomach (from feeding the hunger).

Oh well.

I’m just human, and I often behave badly. I am, as my mama used to tell me, sometimes quite “fitty.” A good enough reason to shut down for a few days and start to deep clean this house where I’ve been recovering and then to go home and attempt to deep clean my own unlivable house.

And I will continue looking for the light, intentionally.