11 minutes

I have 11 minutes to write, which is when my oven timer will ding and my tofu will be done. After which I will feed myself a fuller dinner than the snack-sized one I ate with my kiddo at 4:30.

Nothing feels right to me right now. Nothing makes sense.

I adopted this wonderful dog, Otto, he's truly a good pup, but now I worry about the added stress that having a young pup in my life has brought into our home. I worry about my senior pup, Nelson, who has a hard time getting up from lying down because his hips are so arthritic, and the way that Otto bulldozes over him. Nelson then retaliates with pee on the kitchen floor, which I then get to clean.

But this pup is so good, for a puppy. And EB loves him. And it was such a thrill to be able to get this dog for my child. Just say to myself "yes. this dog. I'll adopt him. I'll give him a home." 

This is a thing that I do. I can be impulsive. 9 times out of 10, I listen to my gut and it is right. I know that the universe conspires to help me move in the direction of my yearning, but sometimes I just think that I'm an idiot, my life littered with bad decisions. 

I know that's no way to live, beating myself up constantly, but that critical voice is always in my head, dormant, until something stressful happens that triggers my central nervous system into a fight/flight/freeze response and then I think, "you brought this on yourself, you idiot." Don't worry - I'm working on that negative self talk in my coaching and in my own mental health practices. Truly, I'm fine, but damnit, my brain can be a real piece of shit sometimes. 

These messy thoughts just need to get out, need a place to live other than inside of my head, and in my text thread with my beloved. 
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Glennon Doyle, one of my spirit guide mamas, started her writing career by doing just this: setting aside time every day to write out the messiness in her head. I'm going to give that a try, too. I don't know that I'll get up at 4:30am like she did (although the dog has me up that early anyway, so maybe?) but this is what's happening: I'm going to write, and hit post, and then not worry about what becomes of it once it's out there. I do hope that my messy brain can help your messy brain feel less alone, though.