moldybacon

[moldybacon]

Hey, it’s me.

I think it was maybe 3 or 4 days ago, I asked my grandma for a picture of turkeys to show my kids for the following letter of the week. The conversation went like:

Me: do you have any pictures of turkeys in the yard?

Me: or grandpa?

Her: don’t have any of turkeys but I can send you a picture of grandpa.

And she sent me the cutest picture of my grandpa. Of course I meant does grandpa have any pictures of turkeys. But nonetheless I sent the conversation to my friends and they saw the picture of my grandpa and went on about how cute he is. Like a puppy way cute. Not like a weird cute. So I zoomed in on the picture and I immediately felt anxious. Tears welled into my eyes, I felt my throat closing, my heart started to race, I just waited for the hyperventilating to start. I knew it was coming. I sent a message to my friends and said isn’t it weird like how you realize time hasn’t stopped and it keeps moving forward not for you, but for everyone else, too? In my opinion of course I know days and years are going by but I never stop to think about everyone else. My grandparents are getting older, my mom is getting older. Then my anxiety spiraled. How am I ever going to live without my mom? What if she dies and I’m not there? When I tell you anxiety is a fucking speed train into hell, this is what I mean. From turkeys to my mother dying. Makes sense the connection is logical.

Let’s jump back maybe 2 weeks ago. I work with small humans who of course are still learning how to deal with big feelings like anger, sadness, extreme happiness, loneliness, etc. So I have 2 boys in my class: A, whose father speaks perfect English and self regulates impressively well and I have R: who is so smart I think this is a future genius in the making. Anyways, A and R both have their strength but their strength is the others weakness. Naturally, they often play together. I’m watching the boys and I are R become angry. When he becomes angry it’s like the whole world is blurry and all I see is this bright, burning, red light. I call the boys over, ask what’s wrong. Moral of the argument R said A couldn’t play with S but A wanted to. Typical 3-4 year old problem. So I send A off with S. There was no need to intervene because no hitting or bad words were involved. I just reminded him he’s in charge of him and he can play with S if he wants to. R does not control him. So R sits next to me. He plops down crosses his arms and makes the ‘Hmph’ sound. Here’s our conversation:

Me: “Still angry, huh?”

R: “Yep.”

Me: “Who are you angry with? Me? A? S?”

R: “A and S. And a little bit you..”

Me: “Yeah it’s ok. I get angry sometimes when my friends play with others, too. So it’s ok to feel mad. And even though you’re mad you didn’t hurt A or say mean things to him, so I bet he still wants to play with you.”

R: “Hmph!” then turns away from me.

Me: “Well, its a beautiful day, I’m going to go play. If you’d like to join me you can. Otherwise I’ll give you 3 minutes and come check on you. If you feel ready before then please go play.”

And I walked off. 3 minutes later my timer goes off. R is still sitting on the step but his body posture tells me he’s a bit more calm.

Me: “How are you doing?”

R: “I’m ok.”

Me: “You ready to play?”

R: “No, A is still playing with S.”

Me: “R, we only have 5 minutes left outside. You do not want to use your outside playtime being sad. You’ll only be more angry when we go inside.”

Just then C runs by.

Me: “Hey, C! Can R play with you?”

C: “Yeah, R, come come! Let’s play octonauts!”

R: runs to play.

Going back to my post about my mom and my grandparents in the beginning of my panic attack I thought back to what I told R. You only have so much time, don’t spend it being _________. I took a deep breath and avoided the panic attack.

I am trying to find a silver lining in everything so here’s mine..

1. I have technology that allows me to communicate easily with my family.

2. My grandparents are healthy and remind me regularly they are proud of what I’m doing.

3. My mom is healthy and proud of what I’m doing.

Yeah, I think that’s it.

Just a forewarning my posts won’t always be so ‘love life, be amazing, etc’ shit gets hard too.

Stay safe ❤️

[moldybacon]

My obsession with Starbucks came to an abrupt end when I was given a breakfast sandwich. Inside this breakfast sandwich was moldy bacon. So, that’s where it starts. Welcome to moldy bacon.