saturday, seven august: strength
Today's card: Strength, described as "focus, compassion, self-control" and "mastery of emotions." Well played, tarot deck, well played.
There's a sort of background level of anxiety that happens to me sometimes--it feels like a humming throughout my body, almost--and it's often totally impervious to reality. Like, things are objectively going quite well in my life right now, why do I feel this way? I suppose the answer is "brain chemistry" but I don't like it. I've found a million ways in my adult life to manage this. Sometimes the anxiety is relieved through data. In the spring of 2020, I bought a pulse oximeter, and checking my blood oxygen levels served as a kind of tiny pressure-release valve. (At my cardiologist checkup this spring, I mentioned to her that I'd bought a pulse oximeter and she responded "didn't everyone?" Not sarcastically, either.) When Declan was younger, I was in and out of his room a lot at night, reassuring myself that he was still there and still breathing. (That's normal parent stuff, though, isn't it?) Lately I can't pin down anything that will help this feel better, so I'm soothing it with a lot of dumb television and a lot of even dumber tablet games. (Like, I am actually ashamed of how much color-by-number stuff I'm doing, but the repetition and the completion make a kind of white noise.)
Anyway, in the realm of "things that might cause some anxiety in the year 2021," we're going to be vacationing with family for the next week. I know. I know! The world is on fire and Covid is spiking and I'm taking my unvaccinated nine-year-old out in public, I know. In any event, with everything else going on, I'm putting the newsletter on vacation too. See you in a week!