Saturday, February 3 2024

Saturday, February 3 2024

   

Unlike last night's deep, long sleep, tonight's was a nightmare. I was consumed with thoughts of things going wrong that I didn't know how to fix. Most of my problems involve interpersonal relationships- issues that can't be worked out easily. I didn't have that problem with Mike. It's not that we didn't have differences. It was generally thought he was the more controlling of the two of us. I was more flexible and found it easier to do things his way than he found it to do mine. Some issues remained unresolved, and we had to live with differences in each other. I found that doable.

  When I first considered Mike my long-term partner, I thought, "I can live with this man the way he is." Truth be told, if that thirty-three-year-old man walked back into my life now, there is no way I would be able to accept him – I think. Perhaps something more profound would have made it doable- the way he loved me. The way he looked at me when he greeted me and the way he let me love him. Maybe that would still be enough.

  The wind was strong this morning, and it was freezing cold. I managed to walk with Elsa but was afraid that something would blow into her eyes.

      I had an appointment with Doreen for a private Gokhale session. I dreaded getting into a bathing suit in this freezing weather. I wondered where I could set up the warmer Zoom meeting. The open-air lanai was out. I set up in the small bedroom on the east side of the house. It was always warm in there, uncomfortably warm on hot days. I turned over a storage container Jean had brought over, set the computer on it, and pulled in the metal folding chair. The setup worked better than the one I had used the last two weeks.

   The Twins of Mama K's crew were not up at 8 am when I signed on to Zoom. This is a recent change. They used to get up in the wee hours of the morning. They're becoming pre-teens and need their sleep. I worked with both of them on memory. With Twin E, it is just getting her to trust her own mind.

    Judy called while I was setting up for the Zoom meeting. She worked a shift at Costco yesterday. Her doctor prescribed a painkiller for the nerve pain in her back, made worse by standing and cooking food for the Costco customers. Patients were advised to build up a tolerance for the medication, taking one pill at a time for a while before taking two. Hoping it would resolve her acute back pain, Judy took two pills. Before her shift was over, she was high without any good feelings. She was disoriented and unfit to drive home. She got off work early before she threw up. Her husband and sister went down to pick her up.

   This Gokhale session was on the neck position. I am disappointed with the 'private' Gokhale sessions. They're not personal. They are the standard group presentations. She even tells me to remember to do something when I am doing it. I have to ask if I am doing it wrong. "Oh, no. I'm just reminding you to do it." It reminds me of when I would refer to my mother as Mommy and his mother as Mommy when Damon was young. He would have to say, 'Which mommy?" I knew I was in the wrong. I don't think my personal trainer does. The Gokhale method is amazing. I'm sure Doreen knows a great deal about it. However, she doesn't have a clue how to teach a private where she has to address individual needs. I would have gotten more from a group session at half the price.

   I had Dash go back to letter naming, hoping he would at least see if the word he said couldn't be right because the letters were wrong. This poor boy struggles with anything to do with memory. He will miss a word he decoded in the previous sentence. It's hard for me. I have to remember he's stuck with this problem.