Morning visitor

I reached out to get a breakfast plate out of the drainer and Hello – here was this little guy. Click here for the big version – you can really see his cute little face. And fingers! Love the froggie fingers.

My recently stated intention to start posting more photos is still in effect ... I'm working up to it. I did finally get a new phone, and this one has a camera, so I'm taking a lot more pictures again now. What I'm finding is that I do love having a nice, higher-end camera for planned shots (or unplanned ones, if the camera happens to be within reach as it was this morning), but the images I most enjoy capturing are the fast & dirty ones I used to take so many of when I had my first SpyCam – the one that only runs on Windows 98. I loved that thing ... back in 1999! I can't even find a picture of it online, or a description of the original one, although the company appears to be still making things like that. It's basically a toy camera, with no display, viewfinder or flash – you just point the pen-shaped object at something and surreptitiously click the top, and then, when you get home and download the images via the highly proprietary software, hopefully you will have gotten a picture of something good.

I used to have (probably still do have, somewhere) a whole small collection of these weird little toy digital cameras, including a purple and green one made by Nickelodeon that I got for $5 on the clearance table at Best Buy or some such place a bunch of years ago. They do not produce museum-quality photographs, but I love the grainy, distorted quality of the images they do make. And it's kind of exciting to have to wait to see exactly what you're going to get, until a little later ... almost like how cameras used to be, when you had to load film (remember film?) and take it in to be developed. Anticipation is half the fun.

Maybe I'll see if I can find those old cameras again, now that I have a computer that's up to date – there must be some kind of adapter that will let me get the photos out of the camera without Windows 98. When I plugged the new phone into the computer it automatically started iPhoto and let me download them without a hitch. I love that about Macs.

One question, however: What is up with the Blogger photo upload utility these days? It's so slow! I have to set the image size to "small" or it takes forever to upload – in fact, it never does upload. Must investigate.

O Vanity

During my last several weeks of stress I did what I always do under similar circumstances – jettisoned every task and activity that wasn't absolutely necessary. For me, this includes shaving my legs. I haven't been much in the habit of shaving them anyway, most of my life – I did it for about two years from ages 14-16, and then again once or twice in college (one of those times, I remember, I did it in the sink in the lobby bathroom of my dorm building, when I was 18 – my boyfriend assisting, first with electric buzzers and then with copious amounts of soap, water and disposable razors). I did it for one spring about six or seven years ago, as a birthday present to my mother ... and then, two years ago, for some reason I started doing it again.

But I don't like doing it. It takes too much time, too often, and then within another day or so, there's stubble. Still, the month or more it takes to grow it out from the prickly and itchy stage, through the sticking out in all directions stage, and finally into the soft, organized, laying-down-flat-and-smooth stage – is unbearable.

Since I was so distracted by anxiety anyway, I hardly noticed the first two stages. And then, since it was already too long to easily shave, but not yet long enough to be comfortable, I decided, "Why not get it waxed?"

Normally I don't go in much for any kind of beauty ritual that requires maintenance. That's why I hate shaving so much, and why I rarely wear makeup or do my nails or even use moisturizer on any kind of a regular basis. It's why I wear the same clothes over and over again, and eat the same one or two different things for breakfast almost every single day of my life. Not having to make a new decision every day about small things like this helps me keep my mind calm and my energy available for other things – things I enjoy and want to be engaged with. I like my routines. And the ones I like the most are the ones that have to do with Not doing things.

So I liked the idea of Not shaving my legs for six weeks, while at the same time Not having to deal with prickly, disorderly leg hair. Two "not"s in one!

It's true that it hurts. The aesthetician was super nice, as such women almost universally tend to be – powdering my skin and giving me a little leg massage to relax the skin before she started. The wax was pleasantly warm but not hot enough to be uncomfortable, and when she rubbed the little cloth strip into the wax, to get the hairs good and embedded in the wax – that was pleasant, too. Then – rrriiiiiiipppp!

I've heard people say that that first rip always brings tears to their eyes. That wasn't my experience, but it did hurt more than I expected it to. The first few strips were the worst. After that I knew what it was going to feel like, and I just laid there and endured it. Doing the bottom half of both legs, plus knees and feet, took about a half hour and cost just about a buck a minute. More than worth it in terms of the time I hope to save over the next several weeks.

So far, a mere five hours later, I'm happy with the result. The skin on my legs still feels a little warm and tender, but she said that will pass by tomorrow (I took some ibuprofens to help with the inflammation). There are still a few hairs left, the ones that are too short to get caught in the wax. I will either shave those myself later, or live with them for awhile just to see what happens. Maybe I'll go in and do it again when they get long enough.

A new look?
While I was in there I decided to do another silly, vain thing: have my eyelashes dyed. I had it done professionally once when I was in high school, and during my 20s I used to do my own – very dangerous, the official sources said, with a very real risk of causing blindness! I never had that problem, but it was kind of a hassle to do. So for another twenty bucks, I let her go to town.

When I used to do my own I always used dark brown dye, since black (I've always thought) is too harsh and domineering to wear on the face, for someone with my coloring. I should have mentioned that to this woman today. When they were done she squealed, "Ooooh, you look goooood! You're gonna loooove this!" and excitedly handed over the mirror.

I held it up to my face and saw ... well, not exactly Alice Cooper, but wow – I was suddenly deeply validated in my belief that heavy black lashes are just a little too much for this particular face. She did a good job of it, though, much better than I ever did – the color goes right down to the lash line and even stains the edges of my lid where the lashes meet the skin. If I went in for that kind of thing, I would be very pleased.

Luckily, eyelashes grow fast – so I'm not stuck with this look for long. Maybe a month. In the meantime, I got out my old metal lunchbox full of drugstore makeup when I got home and have been playing around with eyeliner, kohl sticks, shadows and a bunch of other fun stuff I'd kind of forgotten I had. Maybe tomorrow I'll actually go back to Long's and pick up a few new items to try. Black nail polish? Blood-colored lip glitter? Gothy white foundation? A little spiky leather jewelry? Do they have that at Long's?

Come to think of it, I do still have quite a bit of leftover spiked jewelry from college, and a beat up old 25-year-old motorcycle jacket I'm finally small enough to wear again. Maybe a brief 80s revival would be just the ticket!

Anyway – I'm enjoying feeling back to myself again enough to care about such frivolous things.

There is no mouse rescue

These were Mr. A's words when I told him, almost (but not quite) a little tearfully, about the baby mouse whose life I tried to save last night by the side of our road.

The sun was going down and I had both dogs out for a leisurely stroll – the evil, insanity-inspiring winds having finally died down long enough for the world to grow warm and pleasant again – when Tater, ever the kind-hearted Samaritan, stopped to aid a soul in peril.

It was a tiny baby mouse. He picked it up in his mouth, then set it down gently at the base of a clump of poppies and looked up at me like, "Well? Are you going to take care of this?"

I couldn't resist picking it up, even though I know it could be riddled with parasites, diseases, Hanta virus, etc. etc. It was so cute, and it was obviously in distress, struggling to hide in the grass but unable to get very far. It kept looping around in a circle, listing to one side. It looked like one of its arms was broken.

Anyway ... long story short, I stood there breathing on her for awhile, trying to help her get warm again (she was a little wet from being in a dog's mouth). Then I put her back down. I have a long-standing policy against intervening when tiny wild things appear to be dying, because I've learned that trying to help them usually only prolongs their suffering. With creatures like that, they either get well and go back to their lives, or they die, and nothing I've ever tried to do has seemed to make any difference at all in which thing happens.

We walked to the end of the road and saw that there are three new horses in the little oak-dotted meadow where the wildflower preserve begins. I also saw two rabbits sitting upright nibbling leaves, two brown doves cooing on a telephone wire, and two deer standing chin-deep in a beautiful field of grass. We stood on the rocks where the creek bank fell away in the flood two years ago and looked into the creek – already dry. Two ducks flew over our heads, quacking softly to each other as they looked back and forth at something on the ground (maybe us?).

Suddenly it was almost dark. Walking back home, I couldn't resist checking to see if the little mouse was still where I had left her. She was. I picked her up again, determined to take her home and will her back to health ... walked about fifty yards, then realized ... even if I could make her well again, what then? I don't want a mouse as a pet – I'm always trying to get rid of mice around here! I considered taking her back to the field and letting her go, but as I watched her becoming more animated as she snuggled into the warmth of my hand it occurred to me that maybe she wasn't being flooded with relief and gratitude for my concern and good intentions – more likely she was terrified (she was a wild animal, after all) and trying to get away. So I walked back and left her where I'd found her.

On our walk this morning I knew before we even left the house that I would look for her again, but Tater beat me to it. He went straight to the spot and started sniffing. I saw the tiny little dark shape under the leaves and knew she hadn't made it. She was lying curled up on her side right where I'd left her. This time when I touched her fur, she didn't move at all.

I've had experiences like this all my life, starting with an injured robin who died in a shoebox in my parents' bedroom sometime before I even started school, but it still somehow always surprises me how different a body feels when it is alive, as compared with when it's dead. Having contact like that with a body that no longer has anyone living inside it really makes it clear that I Am Not My Body.

With all the physical torment my body's been through in the last few weeks, that is somehow kind of reassuring to remember.

Tonight I was telling Mr. A about the mouse, and lamenting my inability to do anything to help her. I told him about my policy, then immediately started questioning myself. "It's not like I think you should never try to help," I said. "I mean, if I found a baby fawn, I could call fawn rescue."

"There is no mouse rescue," he said.

It reminds me of a teaching I read last year that struck me ... I don't have to like everything that happens, but accepting the fact that sometimes I don't get to choose what's going to happen, and stopping fighting with myself about wanting things to be different than they are – that makes all the difference. Just because I don't like what's happening doesn't mean I have to struggle against it. I can not like it, and accept it, all at the same time. Grant me the serenity, etc. There is some peace in that.

Happy anniversary, dear pancreas

Just wanted to mention that today is the one-year anniversary of being officially diagnosed a diabetic.

Diabetic! It's sort of bittersweet to remember what that word used to mean to me. It meant, "No candy." It meant, "Insulin injections." Skinny, sickly people with pale and clammy skin, or fat people with swollen, purple legs and missing toes or feet. It meant passing out or going into hysterics if some thirsty co-worker had drunk your emergency orange juice out of the break room fridge, or walking with a cane and a limp because you'd stubbed your toe two weeks ago and it just wasn't healing.

Now, a year into my own "diabetes journey," mostly what it means to me is that I have no more excuses for not taking the best possible care of myself. And with this latest recurrence of my anxiety disorder (as distinguished from my usual garden-variety anxiety, which is irritating but not disabling), I'm realizing that yeah – everything I can do to be good to myself, is worth doing.

So maybe I will still have a spoonful of ice cream every now and then, because pleasure is the most healing force I can think of. The worst thing about clinical depression – one of the worst things – is that it takes away the ability to feel pleasure, and that just makes everything even harder.

After the ice cream, I will walk on the treadmill, or run, or ride my bike, or possibly even dance around the living room for awhile. Burning up all the extra adrenaline feels good, and it brings my blood sugar way down, too.

About the panic – I had forgotten what a physical experience it is. I only took two of those pills (one on Friday, and one on Saturday), so I know it isn't that. It's just my body, trying to get back to itself. Super-surges of adrenaline in the mornings, and lots of intense muscle tension in weird places, like my arms and stomach and throat. I can feel my muscles twitching and trembling as they try to relax. I'm sleeping better again though, and could concentrate well enough to write a really kick-ass promo piece tonight, and as of right now have gone two whole days without crying. So I think I'm on the mend.

Maybe I should explain about the crying, for those who've never experienced a thing like this. It's not like normal crying, which usually happens for some kind of reason. It's more like ... well, it feels almost like I imagine it might feel to have a seizure. My nervous system just takes over and goes a little crazy for awhile. It's not "because" of anything that's happened, and there's no way to soothe it or comfort it. It just needs to run its course. And it's distressing while it's happening (not only to me but also to anyone who has the misfortune of being around to see it), but I've learned to just let it flow, because I always feel so much better when it's done.

It's weird to write about this in public. It feels so vulnerable ... and I don't want anyone to think there's something "wrong" with me. Even though there obviously is! I guess I'm just putting this out there because it's made a difference to me, especially in this last year, to read about other people's experiences with illness and suffering, and how they made it through – or even just what they're thinking as they're making it through – or not making it – and I feel like being willing to talk about my own experiences is a way of helping to clear away the stigma that makes people feel so desperate and alone when these things are happening in their lives. People need to be able to feel safe talking about this stuff.

P.S. I've had a couple of dreams in the last few nights that have illuminated some possible reasons why the events (actually, the mere contemplation of possible events) of the last month or so have knocked me for such an unexpected and apparently incomprehensible loop. It's kind of disturbing information ... but at least now I'm clear about what I need to be looking at.

And exercise too

I should also mention the treadmill – that thing has been saving my life this week. On days when I'm too nervous and exhausted to ride my bike (i.e., most of the last two weeks – plus, it's been so windy!) I have still somehow been able to drag my ass out to the garage and put in some serious time walking, jogging and even running at speeds of up to 4.5 miles an hour (yes, this is pretty amazing for me) while listening to music or podcasts, or even, tonight, a double feature of Julia Child hacking up enormous fish with a frighteningly large pair of shears and an even bigger cleaver to make bouillabaisse, and then assembling an inspiringly and very gently beautiful salad Niçoise.

It seems pretty weird, even to me, that anyone could actually be afraid to go out in the wind and ride a bike. And I've learned from my recent obsessive reading of anxiety blogs that this is how agoraphobia gets started (by indulging in avoidant behavior, which only reinforces your fears), so I'm not planning to continue on this path for long ... But until this wind stops, I'm sticking with the treadmill. Working up a good sweat and keeping it going for awhile really does make me feel a lot better, fast.

About all these anxiety blogs – wow. Last time I went through an episode like this, not so many people were blogging yet. There were a few, including me ... in fact, I first learned about blogging (it wasn't called that yet, I don't remember what it was called) by reading an article about living with bipolar disorder. I emailed the author to tell her how much I enjoyed her piece, and when she emailed me back, her signature included a URL. It was an online journal that documented her experiences with mental illness, and it totally blew my mind. She taught me how to do the code, and within a couple of days my first blog was born.

Anyway. It's heartening to see so many thousands of people giving and receiving support online now. That wasn't happening just a few years ago. Having access not only to so much information but also to connections with other people who know what it's like to live like this ... that's powerful.

And I am feeling a lot better. Maybe I won't really crash and burn this time, after all; maybe I caught myself in time to pull it back up before things really go haywire. I'm still feeling shaken and vulnerable, though. I've found out I'm not as strong and stable as I thought I was.

Today I finally got a meeting scheduled with the Job #2 people, to talk about what I can still do for them. That will be happening tomorrow. No doubt that's also part of why I'm feeling relieved; I'm almost back to where I feel comfortable, or at least reasonably functional. And I've gotten there without totally avoiding the entire situation – I'm still going to be involved in the work, I'm just not quitting my job to do it. And maybe it is sort of pathetic that "Not Running Away – At Least Not As Far As I Wanted To" feels like any kind of victory to me ... but for now, I'll take it.

Drugs to the rescue

Isn't chemistry amazing? After what feels like an eternity of near-constant panic and drenching anxiety, a tiny peach-colored pill has proven itself to have the ability to bring me, in under 30 minutes, back to a state very closely resembling normality. I can think. I can eat. I can laugh. I can stay up half the night writing a two-page paper I've been sweating over (literally, sweating) for nearly two weeks, and end up reasonably satisfied with the result.

I still hate it that my brain is like this, that it breaks down so easily under conditions that would hardly phase a "normal" person. But as much as I wish things were otherwise, and as hard as I've tried to convince myself that this happens to me only because I'm a weak, lazy and in every way substandard and unacceptable person ... I really can't argue with what my body is doing. Because it really is my body that's doing it. It's not me, trying to get out of doing something by feigning illness ....

The fact that the pills work is strangely validating. If I were faking it because I'm lazy and a terrible person, then they probably wouldn't make any difference. But they do. I feel like my normal self again.

So now I have three tasks before me.

1. Get through the meeting at which I rescind my agreement to quit Job #1 to start Job #2, and make my offer to continue working for Job #2 on my own, strictly limited terms. My hope is that this will happen on Tuesday. I already spoke to one person from Job #2 about it (withholding most of the unpleasant and unflattering details) and she was so kind and reassuring that I'm feeling a lot less anxious about telling the big boss. I am allowed to take care of myself, she reminded me. To them, it's just business. To me, it's my life. This part, however, is now the least of my problems.

2. I also need to get my brain out of this tailspin of freakedoutness as quickly as possible, and settle my chemicals down again to the point where I can throw out the rest of these pills. Because as great as it feels to feel like me again, I feel even better when I know that the feeling is coming not from a bottle but from my own healthy, happy, and well-balanced brain.

3. Finally, and this is the part that may take some time ... I need to try to figure out a way to have this Not keep happening again every few years for the rest of my life. Part of it, the doctors say, is "constitutional" – it seems to be just the way I'm made. But I really believe, too, that part of it is also because of the way I react to certain kinds of stress. I hope and believe (or at least really, really want to believe) that if I can learn better ways to behave – things to DO – in these situations, I can keep the stress from escalating to the point where my mind goes "sproing!" and all the gears and springs and sprockets go flying across the room and scattering to all the corners, and I have to spend the next few weeks or months or even possibly years crawling around on my hands and knees gathering them up and painstakingly assembling them again into some semblance of a functioning piece of machinery.

If the tiny little pill can help me do that, I'll take the help. But if I can figure out how to keep it all together in the first place, that would be so much better, wouldn't it?

What do you do with the fear that you feel

My boss said I can stay. Now all I have to do is tell my friend I've changed my mind about working for the center ... which also terrifies me, but not as much as the thought of going through with it. I know I'm doing what I have to do, but I still feel fragile and shaken, and ashamed of myself – for letting down my friend, for having put myself in this position in the first place, for letting it go so far, blah blah blah.

Looking for some comfort and reassurance I found myself bawling over some old footage of Mr. Rogers on YouTube. He's just a face on a screen, for godsake, and yet hearing him say me he's proud of me, and that he understands how tough it is to look with hope and confidence on the months and years ahead – it made me feel like I might be okay after all.

I like these lines from one of his songs about anger. I'm applying them to the intense, overwhelming emotions I've been dealing with, and the feeling that it's too late to save myself from the events I've put into motion:

"It's great to be able to stop when you've planned a thing that's wrong, and be able to do something else instead... I can stop when I want to, can stop when I wish, can stop, stop, stop anytime. And what a good feeling to feel like this, and know that the feeling is really mine, know that there's something deep inside that helps us become what we can...."

It is a good feeling to trust yourself, and to stop when you're in the middle of something that feels wrong. Not that I think there's anything innately "wrong" in the job I was contemplating ... but it clearly feels wrong for me.

Anyway. I'm hanging in there. And tomorrow I'm going to the doctor to see about getting my brain chemicals back in order. I do not want to let this spiral any further.

Mind like the weather

Changes every five minutes. I have succeeded in making myself so sick over this job decision that tonight, with Mr. A's compassionate and insightful assistance, I finally decided to undecide. Tomorrow morning I am going in early to ask my boss to please NOT submit the change form ... I want to stick around.

I'm also seeing my doctor AND a new shrink on Thursday, in hopes of getting my brain back. Symptoms (if only to remind myself in future years that I really am not making this up):

1. Profuse sweating
2. Racing heart beat
3. Anxiety-induced diarrhea
4. Anxiety-induced nausea
5. Inability to eat
6. Inability to sleep
7. Inability to think
8. Inability to speak
9. Inability to ride a bike
10. Uncontrollable crying for no apparent reason
11. Shaking and trembling
12. Nightmares
13. Staunch belief that I am a complete and total loser
14. Skyrocketing blood sugar

This last one is what finally convinced me this has gone too far. I'm waking up 30 points higher than usual, and it's not because of food – it's because I've been flooded with toxic stress hormones for almost a month. It feels like a super-soaker blasting red-hot adrenaline against my solar plexus all day and all night long.

One good thing I've learned: I'm getting more out of my current job than I had realized. As Mr. A pointed out when I was berating myself for my "tendency to not go for it," I have sacrificed a lot and made a big effort to create a very simple, stress-free life, and the work I do now is part of what makes that possible. The comfort and stability I feel in my routines – even though everything I've said about the situation is still true – has real value, and it's okay to need that. It doesn't mean I'm lazy, stupid, boring or a slacker.

Somehow I guess I was so successful in eliminating major stress that I forgot why I created this life in the first place. It's because of feeling like this. Paralyzed with terror and dread. Sick – really, physically sick. Sick with fear, like I might die. Prone (oh, so prone) to drama.

I don't want to forget this feeling in a few months, when I'm back to beating myself up over how boring I am. I don't want to put myself down or feel guilty for passing on this opportunity. I'm doing this because I need to take care of my health. And if trying to make this change is affecting me this severely, it doesn't really matter if the feelings are coming from inside or outside, past or present, accurate or inaccurate perceptions, or even if they are "appropriate" ... the first most important thing is to do whatever I need to do to get back to a calm, safe and functional state of mind.

I also need to get over my fear of disappointing everyone who encouraged me to go for it, when I was presenting this idea as something I wanted to do. I was trying to convince myself, I think .... but I saw through me.

To be clear: I don't freak out like this with just any kind of change, even very big ones. I've been through some very tough times and not flipped. I was scared and depressed, but not like this. This particular brand of crazy only seems to happen when I'm trying to force myself to do something I really don't want to do, like marry the wrong person. It happens when I believe I'm about to commit myself to making a huge and life-altering mistake. I'm trying to learn to trust it, and not hate myself for being "too weak" to just "push through" those fears.

I think when the right opportunity becomes available, I'll be able to give it "the big YES" I've been waiting for here. I won't be dragging my feet and secretly sobbing my guts out in the bathroom between meetings.

I am beyond exhausted. I hope it isn't too late to Not Change Anything – which is what I really want to do – and let the new job be the part-time, freelance gig, if they really need help that badly. That, I would be comfortable with. That, I think I would actually enjoy. That, I could say Big Yes to. So that is what I will propose.

Now that I've decided this, and written it down in flagrant violation of my policy against writing about things like this online, maybe I can finally get some sleep.

Eleven minutes

Re. the oatmeal: I've timed it the last couple of mornings, and I can get from opening the cupboard to taking my first bite in about eleven minutes. Not only that, but while waiting for the various steps to be completed I also got dressed, put on moisturizer, checked my email, brought the garbage cans in from the road and gave the dogs their breakfast. Minutes 3-7 are the only really crucial time – you have to watch the heat so it doesn't boil over. Otherwise, the timing is pretty forgiving. Just don't let it boil too long unless you like gloop (or that crunchy crust it gets on the bottom if too much water boils out).

Here's the breakdown:

Minutes 1-3: Boil water.
Minutes 3-5: Add oats, put the lid on, reduce heat, and bring to a boil again.
Minutes 5-7: Simmer on very low heat. Our stove is electric so I usually just turn off the burner and let it sit. Either way you do it, it's crucial to leave the lid on – only take it off if it starts to boil over!
Minutes 7-10: Take it off the heat and let it sit (still with the lid on). This is exactly the amount of time you need to boil more water for tea or a little French press, if you like.
Minutes 10-11: Put it in the bowl, add your assorted embellishments, and walk out to the picnic table.
Minute 11: Dig in.

Is eleven minutes too long to spend preparing a beautiful, delicious and ridiculously satisfying breakfast? Some mornings I think it is. It sure makes me feel good to eat it, though. And if I'm really in a hurry, I make eggs – those I can have done in under five minutes, including tea.

Hot breakfast! On real dishes and napkins, eaten outdoors if you can possibly swing it. It's my new favorite thing about getting up in the morning.

A fist full of oatmealor Oatmeal à la Me

What better way to lighten the mood (because even I get tired of all this drama, doom and despair eventually) than with a recipe for delicious food? Waking up drenched in sweat and adrenaline every morning is not pleasant or fun, but if you have to wake up in the morning – anxiety or not – it helps to know that there are four little wide-mouthed pint jars in the cupboard just waiting for you to haul your ass out of bed, down the hall, and into the kitchen to make

Oatmeal à la Me

First, the jars. They contain rolled oats, those big black chewy soft raisins that taste like prunes, dark brown sugar and pecans or walnuts. There is also a jar of milk in the fridge – get that out now too. So you have your five jars lined up on the counter. Take a look. This is about to become your beautiful breakfast.

(I use these little jars because I only buy about a week's worth of food at a time, from the bulk section.)

Get a small pot with a tight-fitting lid and bring to boil one cup of filtered or spring water (we filter our tap water before drinking or cooking to get rid of the heavy chlorine taste ... nasty). Along with the water, put in one fist full of the raisins and give a little stir. They'll plump up as the water comes to a boil. You can also add a tablespoon or more of bran or wheat germ if you feel moved to do so. When the water is boiling, stir in a half cup (for me that's one great big handful) of the oats, put the lid back on, and let it come back up to a boil. Turn the heat way down and let them simmer – careful not to overflow the pot! – for about two minutes. Do not stir. Then take them off the heat and let them sit for about three more minutes, absorbing the water and the steam and getting all plump and flakey and delicious (as compared with the gummy, gluey, sticky or soggy version you get when you boil the oats too long, or stir them too much).

When you take off the lid, all the liquid should have been absorbed. If it hasn't you have two choices. If you're like Mr. A, and like wet food, you can leave the extra liquid in. If you're like me, and think extra water detracts from the delicious flavors you're trying to focus on, you can drain it out.

Next, dump the oatmeal into a beautiful bowl or soup plate. Because you haven't been stirring it while it cooked, all the raisins will be on the bottom – so when you dump it onto the plate, they end up on top. Pretty!

After this there is one more ingredient I haven't mentioned yet: butter. It's optional, but good – especially if you use the brown sugar, which I highly recommend. Just put a little sliver of butter (or a big one) on top of the hot oatmeal, and when it starts to melt, sprinkle the brown sugar on top of that so it melts down into the melted butter and starts to drool down the sides of the mountain of oatmeal.

Then dump a handful of pecans or walnuts on top of all that. I like to toast them first and chop each nut in half (the walnuts in the photo are raw, and I was out of raisins). In my toaster oven this takes about the same amount of time it takes to make a regular piece of toast – but I do have to watch them as they toast, because every nut is different and if the oils in the nut begin to burn the flavor goes south fast.

Finally, take the milk and pour it very carefully, in a thin, thin stream, all around the edges of your island of oatmeal – not on top, and not in the middle! That would dilute the buttery brown sugary goodness. The milk should surround the oatmeal like a moat, not a lake. Unless you like wet food, in which case – go wild.

I make this exact breakfast almost every day and have not gotten tired of it yet. If you don't like raisins, you can substitute any chopped dried fruit, or use fresh fruit like bananas or berries. Sometimes I sprinkle a little cinnamon instead of brown sugar (if my morning blood sugar was high). It's way more satisfying than a bagel or a bowl of cold cereal, and it doesn't drive my blood sugar sky high the way those things do.

I'm accepting that job, by the way. I took a sick day from work today to just sit with the decision and try to calm down, and I think it really helped. I ate breakfast in my new special spot by a wall in the sun, and read my book, and took several different naps, and ate a yummy lunch salad with olives and goat cheese (maybe I'll write that one up tomorrow), and thought about how I see myself, and my work, and my place in this community ... and I realized that even though I'm still nervous and scared, and will probably wake up in another cold sweat tomorrow, it makes sense to do this and I am going to do it.

Brief update

I think it's going to be okay. Yes, I am still scared. I'm also glad I now know that being scared isn't necessarily reason enough to Not do something that might be good for me. A few years ago I didn't know that.

I've also noticed over the last couple of days that a big part of what was bothering me was the feeling that my fear seemed all out of proportion to what was actually happening ... a feeling that seemed eerily and unpleasantly familiar. Does a great big fear like that mean I'm overlooking something important? And that I should postpone taking any kind of action until I figure out what that "something" is? Could I possibly postpone my entire life that way – trying to figure out what I'm so scared of?

Yes, I think I definitely could.

What I realized in talking with Mr. A the other night was that the great big fear is actually about something else entirely – it's about the memory of how in the past, feeling that scared has always been an early warning sign that I was slipping into a major depression. It's been long enough now since I've been through an episode like that, that I had sort of forgotten that the way I usually live – as low stress as possible, minimizing change, taking plenty of time to make important decisions and not putting undue pressure on myself to meet other people's standards of "achievement" – that this way of living is not just something I thought would be cool to do, but a deliberate coping strategy, a way to keep my slightly broken brain from cracking again.

It's possible the doctors who told me I would always be at high risk for livelong recurrences of major clinical depression were wrong, and that I'll never have another one. That's what I hope, and I kind of think I'm right; I think a lot of what I went through in the past was at least in part a result of my bad decisions – choosing to stay in highly stressful situations (bad jobs, a bad marriage) for so long that finally my body's stress-mitigating machinery just couldn't handle it anymore. I like to think that if it's true that I had a hand in what happened – that it wasn't purely because of faulty brain chemistry – I might be able to take a hand in making sure it never happens again.

From that perspective, it makes sense that feeling pressure to make a big decision about not only how I make a living but how I spend the majority of my time and even (although I wish this were not the case) my identity as an artist or worker, how I see myself and value my own work – that that would stress me out a lot. And it has been. I've been waking up too early again, not being able to fall asleep, feeling highly adrenalized and scatter-brained, trembly and often on the verge of tears ... it's kind of awful.

Awful, but not necessarily anything to be afraid of. As a good friend who saw me through my last "episode" (almost ten years ago now) reminded me, yes it's not fun, but I got through it before, and if it happens again – not that it will, but if it does – I'll get through it again. I have friends, I have support, and this time it's actually happening for a happy and fulfilling reason – a positive change, an interesting opportunity ... Change all the same, and still stressful, but with the potential to put me in a better position than I've been in for years.

So it ain't over and decided yet. But I'm moving in a good direction.