Storytime: When will this pandemic end?

Hello and welcome to my blog!

So I tried this themed thing and I think it has pulled the plug on my creativity and originality and spontaneity.

My impulsive nature is a bad thing when it comes to problem solving and conflict resolution, but it comes in handy when I’m writing.

I wanted to get this post out there before midnight so I’d have posted it on Wednesday, so I’m just going to type until almost midnight and click publish and I’ll edit and add the tags and categories afterwards.

I’m tired. I’m exhausted, but I just had to get in 1 more episode. I watched 5 episodes of gilmore girls today. I do that when my brain can’t stop spinning. It’s my escapism.

I was supposed to be reading blogs but my head was about to explode. Lebanon is a mess right now and my husband is a worrier on good day. The more he worries, the more he goes into his cave, the move I try to reach out, the more he pulls away.

When will this pandemic end?

I’m trying to make myself happy with my books (I’m trying to read but it’s so hard with a 6 year old at home) and my tv shows and meditation and exercise but I need out. I need to go and see the waves. I need to see the snow. I need to smell the flowers.

This pandemic sucks. I’m really trying to be positive but seeing my husband devastated over the economic situation and not having anyone to talk about it to is awful. I vaguely remember having friends. Where have they gone? Complaining or venting doesn’t help anymore so I withdraw.

I had a friend I would call every Friday and talk for 2 hours. She’s too busy to even text me. My sister used to call everyday, but now she’s too busy. I had a best friend but now she’s busy with her new job and her new friends. Everyone else I know is either too sad to talk or too busy.

Am I doing this wrong? Am I supposed to keep myself so busy I don’t have time to talk to anyone? Am I not supposed to have the urge to call or text anyone? Am I not supposed to crave human connection?

When will this pandemic end?

I’ve been spending a lot more time with my son. For a long time, I struggled to spend 10 minutes of uninterrupted time with him. Now I spend up to 3 hours of quality time with him, playing ludo, uno, scrabble, pretend play, arts and crafts, and storytime. But then I feel the need to pull away and I start yelling at him when he wants more quality time because I need alone time or adult time and I’m not getting adult time.

My husband is withdrawn on himself (not all the time if I’m being fair, he has moments of normalcy where he is my dear loving husband or when he plays with our son but they’re rare and far in between) and I see my family once a week and I haven’t seen friends in a year, except for 1 friend whose phone is ruined and can’t converse with me on a regular basis.

It’s midnight. This was a good vent. I’m open to suggestions and validation and whatever thoughts you had while reading this.

Good night

• Poetry Friday: Like the Titanic
• Throwback Thursday: Anxiety and Depression Self-reflection
• Storytime: I learned something about myself today
• Motivational Monday: Feel the magic in the air
• Self-reflection Sunday: Deep conversation topics part 7
• Poetry Friday: If I’m okay
• Throwback Thursday: My Likes and dislikes (a pointless ranking of items that many people despise because, well, why not?)
• 21 techniques to increase your productivity
• 10 things you can do during the 1st 10 days of Dhul Hijja
• Happy Tuesday Humans

Storytime: I’m fine

Nobody:

Absolutely nobody:

Me: In case you’re wondering how my day is going, I just broke down into tears an hour ago during my son’s French class because the teacher asked him a question in French, he froze, and I kept telling him to answer, and the teacher could hear me, and he kept looking at me for answers and I kept telling him that I had no idea what she was saying, and she could hear me. What’s more is that after I broke down into tears, my 5 year old asked me to stop crying, while he was hugging me, and told me he needed to focus on class. So I told him to go focus on class and I continued crying. Then a minute later, he left class to get me a tissue. This stopped me from crying for a minute. A few minutes later, he came and told me that the teacher was talking in French and he couldn’t understand what she was saying. I told him to tell her that he couldn’t understand but he was too shy to do so. So I had to tell the teacher in front of the whole class that my son couldn’t understand what she was saying and I don’t understand French so I can’t help him. So she ended up repeating each sentence in English, which in my opinion she should have been doing from the beginning, just for my son. My son however, kept drifting off and not paying attention and she had to ask him several times if he understood her before she got a response.

So here’s the thing

My son is bored of online learning. I’m frustrated from my son not paying attention in classes, then floundering like a fish out of water when the teacher asks him a question. He does answer correctly more than half the time but I’m a perfectionist. So what am I going to do now?

I’m going to eat a big bag of chips while watching This is us

Because #selfcare

Storytime: Day 3 of total lockdown

It’s day 3 of the total lockdown and I’m telling you it’s hard. Not because I’m not getting much of my goals done. Not because I can’t leave the house. Not because I’m moody and keep trying to tell myself “I am calm and in control of my emotions”. But because I have to walk on eggshells and one wrong move and all hell breaks loose.

That’s the thing with anxiety. I may look fine on the outside, but on the inside, I’m analyzing every movement, every word, and for some reason everything feels like an attack against me.

In my heart I know I’m just overwhelmed because of everything going on in the world and so is everyone else, but it’s like each person is expecting the other person to “tread lightly” and absorb all the negative emotions without being affected by them, but here’s the thing. I can absorb only a certain amount before I get soaked and then I need to squeeze myself and let it all out.

Anyway, I’m watching This is us, my current escapism. I’m forgetting about my goals for the day and focusing on coping techniques and just trying to keep absorbing as much as I can without getting soaked. I’m so glad I only have 1 child because I swear sometimes it feels like I have 2 and sometimes I feel like I’m the child again and life is too much responsibility and who thought it was a good idea to leave me responsible for a husband and a son?!

I will not blame my anger on anyone but will turn my anger into compassion and cut myself and others some slack

On the bright side, my mom called and we had a nice chat. I’ve also been talking to my sister daily on the phone and my brother called last night so it’s good to be in touch with family so I don’t feel like I’m in a bubble…

Are you in lockdown?

If yes, how are you doing?

Any tips for me so I stay zen?

Storytime: Looks like we’re stuck with e-learning

Hello 👋 reader and welcome to my blog!

How are you doing today?

Do you have any kids who are e-learning?

How’s it going for you?

I’ll tell you how it’s going for me.

IT’S GOING FREAKING GREAT!

I’m being sarcastic, of course.

I do understand that learning online is better than not learning at all, and it’s the being stuck at home that is more frustrating for me and for my 5 year old than the actual online learning, but let me tell you my main 3 issues with the online learning:

1. My son has trouble paying attention to the teacher when his toys are in the next room, and keeps getting distracted by the pictures of his classmates. He usually focuses on who is wearing what and who has their camera on and who is singing in the background and who has a cat and who has a baby (the other kids like to do show and tell during class).
2. I don’t get a break. Besides me having to keep making sure my son is paying attention and not making too much noise and staying in the room (today he went and cleaned the toys room because he was looking for a toy during english class. He missed the entire class), he calls me every 5 minutes and usually when I’m in the bathroom.
3. He retains none of the information from class and I have to review everyday with him because he wasn’t paying attention enough in class.

So as much as I feel online learning has its benefits, it’s exhausting, especially when you have a 5 year old who would rather clean his room than learn, in addition to him not being able to let off steam by playing with the other kids (what he would do if he was actually going to school but understandably because of COVID-19 he can’t).

I understand that this is the best option at the moment and I’m grateful that he gets to learn and for everything we have, but it looks like we’re stuck with e-learning for a while and it sucks.

I’m trying to take things lightly and let some things slide, like if they’re doing revision of things I know he has the hang of, I let him play with a few toys quietly, as long as he stays in the classroom, answers when his name is called upon, and keeps an eye and an ear on the teacher.

On a lighter note, the things he does are funny stories I get to tell my husband and family, like the time his music teacher was playing a tune on the piano and he went and got his toy piano and started playing along. Or that time he started playing legos in english class.

Finally, to the teachers who are putting a lot of effort into preparing and teaching the classes:

The psychology behind the flinstones and other shows

There are a lot of shows that I used to watch as a kid, sorry as a teenager (my parents didn’t let us start watching tv until I was 13) that I used to love. Looking back, I realize that most of these shows are messed up.

Disney, for starters, is not suitable for children. There are a lot of hidden messages and dirty jokes and insinuations. Cartoon network has a lot of messed up shows. Also, I used to watch Full House and it was one of my favorite shows. A few days ago, I decided to watch Fuller House, the new show on Netflix, and I was shocked at how appalling the show was. There were a lot of inappropriate jokes and hidden messages that I picked up on, in addition to the poor humor. I didn’t laugh once, despite there being 100 laugh tracks in 1 episode. There is this girl who is invasive and they make fun of her. They let her cross boundaries and then make fun of her behind her back and she pretends she doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. I only watched 1 episode and I was cringing the whole time. All due respect to whoever liked the show, but I’m just sharing my opinion here, not facts.

There are so many other shows I used to watch that I am shocked by. The Jetsons were mentioned in a blog post I was reading and I just had to look it up on youtube and rewatch an episode (I also used to watch it). I was shocked by how the father takes out his daughter’s song that she wrote for a competition and put in her little brother’s secret code instead in order to gaurantee that his daughter loses. His daughter wins anyway and when the little boy confronts his dad for sending in his secret code, the father just brushes it off.

And then there is the flinstones (which was designed for adults but ended up being a children’s cartoon). My, oh, my. There is so much to unpack here, so I will leave you with a video I found that explains all the things wrong with the flinstones. I mean the theme song is nice, but this is not something I’d want my son to watch.

Did you watch any of these shows?

Blacklisted

I had an anxiety attack today. Then I did meditation and felt better. Then I had a panic attack. I started shaking and crying and I couldn’t breathe and my heart was pounding in my chest. I’m still suffering from the remnants of the panic attack. It drained all my energy, though, and now I don’t have enough energy to spend time with my son. I need to be alone right now to recover but I can’t.

The reason why I had these attacks is personal. But let’s just say that certain people who already give me anxiety tried to meddle with my life today. I stopped it in its tracks because they crossed a boundary, but since I couldn’t stop it directly, my damage control caused some damage for other people.

I wish I could erase these people from my life. They think they’re all high and mighty like they have everything together and they need to fix mine.

1st of all, if anyone is going to run an intervention, it has to be someone I trust and value their opinion, someone who really wants my benefit, not someone who just wants to point fingers at me and tell me how to live my life. I understand I’m not perfect but this was a degree below low, and I was having such a great day today and they just had to ruin it.

Okay rant over, but I still don’t feel better yet. I need to make sure this never happens again. I have to strategize. I can’t argue my point of view. I won’t be heard. I know it.

Guess who just got blacklisted?

Blacklisting is the action of a group or authority, compiling a blacklist (or black list) of people, countries or other entities to be avoided or distrusted as being deemed unacceptable to those making the list. … As a verb, blacklist can mean to put an individual or entity on such a list.

Happy Monday 🙃

Good morning!

How are you doing today?

I have a migraine as usual. I’m trying so hard to to go with the flow, not planning, but believe me this week has been bizarre and part of the reason I think is because I’m trying to be spontaneous and not plan. I feel like “who am I if I’m not a planner”? Do you know what I mean?

Anyway, so my efforts to let loose haven’t been so great. I was still using my to do lists some days, and I still have this application called Habit Bull that keeps track of how often I brush my teeth, read Quraan, read from a book, exercise and shower. They wouldn’t let me put more than 5 (if they did I would obviously).

I just finished drinking coffee and eating pancakes. I enjoyed them very much.

I can’t force inspiration. I want to write several blog posts but I keep procrastinating. I had time yesterday but I didn’t have the positive inspiration to do so and I keep getting migraines even though I’m going to sleep early around 10 p.m. and I’m waking up at a reasonable time, like today I woke up at 7:30 a.m. but still I feel I’ve been walking around for the past 2 days with a brick on my chest, so to speak, and I have come to the realisation and hopefully the acceptance that I will never be happy in certain aspects of my life because this is how my life is and I can’t change it.

I know that contradicts with everything I normally say but it align with the serenity prayer:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

Reinhold Niebuhr

Seriously, there are some aspects of my life that I can’t change, like I can’t control the economic and political situation in Lebanon. You might argue that I could travel but I can’t travel because my husband doesn’t want to travel, so I’m stuck here.

I’m stuck in a life that I don’t want but must learn to appreciate and I have to make myself happy however I can, through writing, reading, watching tv shows, drinking coffee, eating carbs, etc.

So I’m going to do the little things that make me happy since the big things don’t make me happy. There you have it. I have to go now. Have a nice day.

I don’t understand daylight savings 😕

Last night I was still awake at 11:54pm. A few minutes later, I checked my phone and it said 11:02pm.

I don’t know about you, but when this happens, my biological clock gets all messed up and I’m unable to sleep. It took me hours to fall asleep, and the few hours I slept were intermittent. I’d wake up every 15 minutes with a jolt.

I woke up in the morning at 7am, and I was fine until 11am when I started a migraine. By the time it was 2pm I was struggling to stay awake. I think I napped (it’s usually very difficult for me to nap) at around 4pm and woke up at 5pm to find out the sun had already set.

It’s really weird. It usually takes me a week to adjust to the new timing, and I didn’t write a blog for 2 days because Saturdays and Sundays are for family, but the daylight savings didn’t help.

My son who already gives me trouble with bedtime is going to need some time to adjust too.

I’m just so tired and I feel like the day passed so quickly and I don’t feel like sleeping but I’m exhausted so…

Does daylight savings mess you up too? Do you prefer long summer days or long winter nights?

Pros and cons of wearing your heart on your sleeve

To defer to a classic idiom: It’s a day to wear our heart on our sleeve. We use the phrase casually, to mean exposing our true emotions, making ourselves vulnerable and letting it all hang out. We all want others to see us happy, partly because society is unacceptive of mood swings, associates them with craziness, and partly because we want to spite our enemies. But we aren’t happy all the time, are we? Some people have a negative mindset and find the problem in every solution, and some have a positive mindset and find a solution to every problem. That’s not what this post is about. This post is about vulnerability and expressing emotions. Do you wear your heart on your sleeve? Or are you more gaurded and secretive?

Contrary to popular belief, wearing your heart on your sleeve is actually a good thing. Many think wearing your heart on your sleeve is dangerous, risky and most importantly, the easiest way to put your most vital organ in jeopardy of getting severely injured. That is true, if you open up to the wrong people. Some people can fool you. They can appear to be kind and benign and so friendly. Some people have that magnetism where theyare really good listeners and they know how to get you to open up. Then once they get to know you, out of curiosity for the mystery that is you, they either leave you hanging or sell your secrets, or they just ghost you. You served their purpose. They were curious about you and then you gave them what they needed and they move on to their next victim. Some people will only talk to you when they’re bored, to try to find out what’s going on in your life. Some people only talk to you when they are feeling down, try to find out your problems and the drama going on in your life so that they feel better about their own lives. I’ve dealt with all kinds of people, enough to want to isolate myself and never open up again, so I open up on the blog instead. Ironic.

Wearing your heart on your sleeve shows courage. Anyone who says that wearing your heart on your sleeve is a sign of weakness is likely to be someone who has a fear of expressing their emotions — even to those they hold near and dear. The thing is, many people don’t know why they do the things they do. They live on autopilot, unaware of the damage they leave in their wake. I’m too aware, of the damage I do and the damage done to me, it gets too much sometimes. Which is why I decided not to open up as much anymore. It’s not working though. Basically I’m avoiding the people I don’t want to open up to entirely. I feel unable to hold a basic how are you conversation while keeping it light. I can’t tell a story without going into too much detail. As a result, I either bore the listening ear or reveal too much or say the wrong thing.

You wear your heart on your sleeve, which means your emotions come deeply and quickly, leading to possible last-minute decisions based on your feelings. You allow your heart to guide you through life, which means you don’t think much about your choices – you just allow life to happen and respond to it. That’s pretty much the root of all my problems. Feeling everything so deeply is both a blessing and a curse. It helps me process my feelings and work on self improvement, but it exhausts me both physically and mentally. Hopefully it makes me more emotionally intelligent.

In order to hide my true feelings from the certain people I don’t want to open up to, without ghosting them, I will try these tactics I found on Google :

1. Place your tongue on the roof of your mouth. ‘This is an exercise used by audiologists and speech pathologists to relax, and it’s also a yoga exercise used to center and calm. ”
2. Watch where you’re leaning.
3. Relax your mouth.

Sounds like mumbo jumbo but I have nothing to lose, right?

October 17th, I got all the feels

My heart is constantly heavy. I’m beyond the point of trying to be positive. There is just so much going on around me, my feelings can’t keep up.

Today was the 1st anniversary of the Lebanese revolution of October 17th 2019.

The world is on fire and I just can’t cope anymore. Everything keeps getting worse and I can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. Everyone around me is stressed and I need to stay put together but I can’t. I’m afraid my son will suffer emotionally from this. I can’t absorb anymore negative energy. I’m tired. I can’t sleep at night, and so I’m cranky all day. I want to be the best version of myself, not wait for these circumstances to end 1st. I can’t do this anymore, but I don’t have a choice. I don’t feel like I’m being a good mom or wife. People are still judging my parenting, causing me to take it out on my son. People still expect me and my son to be perfect. I don’t want to see anyone anymore. I can’t handle isolation, because my son will drive me crazy. I want to be left alone. Leave me with my books and movies. I want to escape reality. I don’t have the mental energy to write the posts I want to write. I’m physically tired and stressed. I’m not okay, but at the same time I’m fine. But I’m not really, and I can’t explain, because I don’t want to vent anymore. Venting doesn’t help anymore. Is there going to be war? Are we going to become poor?

Grateful for food, shelter, health, a husband and son. Grateful for God, family and friends. Grateful for words and books and movies and my blogs. Grateful for love, even though I’m too overwhelmed to feel it. Grateful for hope, even though it’s slipping away.

Time is passing slowly. This year has felt like a decade, and it’s still not over. Don’t want to be a cynic, but Lebanon is falling apart, and all I can do is watch, and hope I don’t get buried in the rubble.

Will Lebanon fall? Or will it rise like Phoenix from the ashes and become something greater than it ever was?

And what can I, a helpless citizen, do to help?