All living room curtains open. Sunglasses on. Molly the pothos needs sunshine and so do I. We'll see how long I last. I'm doing my best to prevent triggering anything while I sort out all my preventatives.

I glanced at the living room robot for the temperature, since it's so bright out. It could be 40 degrees, I thought, with an exclamation point. We had rain Saturday afternoon that fell harder into the evening. There was a crack of thunder, even. But, I must always remember that a bright sun doesn't mean warmth. It was 18 degrees when I looked. The rain had turned to snow overnight. It could be 40, but the snow on the ground keeps it cold. It sounds like slick roads out there, even with the clear sky. The snow melts, perhaps. The alleged high tomorrow is closer to 40.

But we are in the home stretch. If I consider the start of daylight savings time to be a holiday, there is a preceding notable, mutable date where I remember that daylight savings time exists. That day came at least a week ago, but I didn't look it up until now. Sunday. SUNDAY. A high holiday.

We are in the home stretch.

I started my notebook for keeping track of everything. A new one, better put. It's been some years since I've tried. I don't have a schedule to bullet journal, but I have things to track and notes to keep. I have several apps to help me do this, but putting things on paper feels deliberate. Easier to access. A stronger sensory experience. The act of writing something down makes a stronger memory, I have heard. I feel more involved, more committed.

But I get gummed up trying to figure out what goes on each page, which page to put where, how to lay out a page. Who wants to mess up a perfectly good, nice, new notebook that I bought at least a year ago. So then I don't do it at all.

On a regular paper I listed, "in no particular order," any possible thing I needed or wanted to record. In that process, I scribbled in the margin: there is no wrong way to do this, except to not do it.

I have a lapdesk with extendable legs that I mostly use for my computer. Part of its surface can be brought up to an angle, for reading, I assume. So I put it on my desk and tilted it up, almost like a drawing table. I marked a few pages and set to work on laying out a page of a simple six month calendar for noting headaches and dizziness. For the most part, it was much easier to work on than neck and shoulders tense and hunched over my desk. I'll have to find some additional light though, too many shadows made by my hand. And the bottom of the page was awkward at that length, so I kept dropping the table if the lines drawn needed to be right side up. Numbers, letters.

My laptop is on an adjustable riser clamped to my desk. If I had my fancy microphone up again, the desk would be dwarfed by black metal rods. There's a monitor around here somewhere that, with some adjustment, could probably fit too. I would be thoroughly boxed in. But - we presently have no need for this.

Unnecessary filler notes to replace words about big feelings that were stirred up this weekend about things I can't write here. Many of the feelings were connected to not being able to write about them, speak about them. An unrequested gag order, a probably still fair and reasonable self-imposed NDA about something that affected my life greatly, and still haunts me. It's been suggested that part of the reason I am still haunted is that it's still filed under "secret." No doubt that is true. That, and the lingering guilt-shame combo. But a few real life persons could possibly peek in here at their leisure, and... that wouldn't be okay. And I can't lock up. I've done it in the past and it feels stupid and wrong and not the same place. If I do that, I'm not sending anything out, I'm just throwing it in a bucket where only I can see it, and I have paper and other shit for that.

But it's like... when it's been five years, seven years, eleven... at what point is it my choice? I barely talk to people in other states. I have no desire to share it where it shouldn't be, certainly isn't, my choice. Whether or not anyone already knows is a whole other thing.

But in my own space? I've been told self-forgiveness is the step toward closure you can't receive externally. Sometimes I think I've achieved that, other times I see that it might just be an ongoing practice. What if my doors all have loose knobs?

At what point do I get to let myself out of purgatory?

Anyway, I ate oatmeal for first food. Sometimes I'm in the mood for oatmeal, sometimes I eat it anyway. It's easy, but it rarely feels right in my stomach. Probably carbs for breakfast just isn't the right choice, and it was a bit later by the hours than it should have been... but it's better than having a first food well into the day. It's a start.