Tag Archives: Singing

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Healing

It’s been helpful to tell the story about my former sister-in-law’s murder to people who care about me or love me. I also completed an intake with my department’s employee assistance program last week and they’ve matched me with a therapist who can provide Eye Movement Reprocessing Desensitization (EMDR). I was able to sing with friends last night too, which was lovely.

EMDR uses techniques to engage both sides of your body with noise, light, your hands, etc. and the therapist has you talk about what happened and then you feel your feelings about the event or events. I know that sounds trite. “Feel your feelings.” However, people are more likely to numb with alcohol or drugs or play hours of video games. They also may sleep or read for hours shutting out the world instead of thinking about the event. Some people don’t remember the event at all!

In EMDR the therapist or clinician also takes about your safety and coping in initial sessions with resourcing for you. That way, if you’re really triggered about the event, you have something that you can rely on in the session and after the session is completed. I’m looking forward to it.

In another entry I’d written about the appeal that I have with theater, music, and movement for trauma treatment. Well, last night we had one of our singalongs that we do at my best friend’s house. My Boss came as well. We also had a man there with a thick accent that sounded like Arabic or was influenced by languages in the middle east. However, he said his name in Polish, so I’m not sure where he is from or how many languages he speaks. I would imagine it’s three or more.

He could play a box drum and later in the night he played a tambourine. It was very cool. He didn’t sing and called himself a percussionist. We had two ukuleles as well. My best friend played two songs on the guitar, but mostly played her ukulele. I have no idea where my guitar is! I’ll be living like this in my house through Monday night because of the painting.

We sing by request from the group. I learned a new song that was in my head this morning when I woke up. It was sweet and fun.

There was this time when we were singing and playing “Greatest Love of All” that I started to cry a bit. No one noticed and I was able to quickly stop. I was thinking about in 2021 when my sister-in-law got out her guitar and was playing songs and her kids were sitting with her on the floor. My son was listening, and my wife was singing some. I didn’t sing, but was so impressed with her playing. She could remember without any music so many songs and then later she got out some music from her closet and sang more.

My brother-in-law was hovering and going in and out of the room. Finally he started complaining about “bedtime.” It was the only time that I heard my sister-in-law use a curt tone with him. She said that she didn’t know how many more songs that she would be playing, but it would be a few. He stomped off.

I’m looking forward to starting therapy on Tuesday. Music last night was healing too. I want to be functioning better than I am right now in two weeks. However, I am so lucky to have resources and friendships as I work through this event.

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Gorgeous

Yesterday was so nice. I think that the high was 76. I did all the pet duties in the morning and then texted around with friends to ensure that I have some plans before I go back to my two other jobs. My new mentor: a journalist and an author, and I will grab dinner on the 24th or on August 14th. I can’t wait. She’s an East Coaster and probably 5-10 years older than me. She has two long-term partners who get along and is best friends with her ex-husband.

I only have two long-term friends who are lesbians. They’re six-years apart and their birthdays are just days apart. I had lunch with one of them at a Brewery yesterday and I’d seen the other to climb. I love talking to both of them. And, I’m glad that I’ve kept a couple of women who are romantic with women in my life.

I hadn’t had lunch with my friend since I had most of a week off in April–she always forgets that I have to be at work every weekday with the exception of June and July. Actually, I work the entire week of the 31st this year for training which is less than half of my per diem and that’s ANNOYING.

The last time that we had lunch in April she recommended “Attached.” After I read it, the nice guy from work read it, and now my best friend from work has it. I didn’t get book recommendations, but we really caught up. She has had to replace a knee and will have to have the other replaced. Surgery sucks. I haven’t really been around anyone who does very well after surgery. One of the servers was really friendly and had body work that was based on Miyazaki. My friend wanted ice cream, so I had the server take $10 in cash after I forced her to take it and she went down the street and returned with two chocolate cones. One for my friend and one for her. It was really cute. When I meet kids like her, I keep hoping that my kid will be like that when he actually has a working prefrontal cortex.

I came home with just enough time to let the pets out, return texts, and then my son came climbing with me. He got 3/4 of the way up a route and I was about 6-feet higher than I was yesterday. I feel so shaky with I’m not on belay with a partner, but on auto-belay. However, I can climb any day that I want until Halloween because of the way that auto-belay works, and this outdoor wall is set up. That’s good news, and I just need to get comfortable. My hands are somewhat torn up because the handholds and footholds are outdoors and get marred. However, I don’t like gyms well enough to spring $120 a month. I’ll just climb on this wall June through October and then boulder until the following June.

My best friend had her friend host music night last night. I had never been to her friend’s house. She is a really good dancer and a clinical psychologist. She can also play violin. There were very few women there. I had my teammate come to music night and she had fun. She’s a really accomplished musician, and has a great voice. Finally, the nice guy and his dance teacher showed up. He lead “Rivers and Roads,” and we layered the harmonies. It was beautiful. He’s going to Portugal with his Dance Teacher tomorrow and then next week, he’ll leave for Brazil to study with a Master Samba Teacher. We played another spiritual song and sang it, but I can’t remember the name of it.

Now, I’m off to Zumba and then yard work at the house. I need to make lots of progress, so I’ll probably drag my son and take him some of the distance north to his girlfriend. My Boss is a really good dancer and is dancing with us today, so I’ll try not to get too intimidated.

Image by Shaun Stanich from Pixabay
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Sigh

I was texting with the realtor a little bit and then I finally texted our group text with her and the Caretaker. She had the sofa sleeper that I found–I guess that the word is sourced, which I learned from the Realtor–and a check. All of which were in her new apartment. She also took a picture of the bedding that I bought her too. I’ll buy her a blouse and a table when I have money from the sale of the house. I had a huge sigh of relief when I realized that it’s finally over and she has a better sofa sleeper than she would have had she moved the one that she was going to move, and also some money. That at least shows that I had the ability to wait them out until they did something for her.

The company and their subcontractors resume work today and I’ll have to go over there with my son and our two weed whackers this weekend. The soil had been amended for many, many years so it retains moisture with days of 90 to 100-degree heat. Some of the prickly lettuce are 7-feet tall. I need to turn on the cooler too so it’s nice in there, but I don’t want to do that until I’ve done a final walkthrough with this terrible company. For now, I need to get those yards looking nice, which will be a ton of work. I dug out some bindweed yesterday in my own yard, but it was fairly hot, so I only worked about an hour. It’s cooler today and tomorrow, but I can’t get over to the house today to weed whack because I have to take my dogs to the vet and want to stick around here after that appointment.

The nice guy texted me on Tuesday about doing karaoke tonight. He and his dance teacher are obsessed with the new venue. It’s not new to me, because a colleague of mine has been going there for awhile and she and I went for the first time together in April, but we really only like to go on Monday. I have a theory that Sunday through Tuesday would be less packed and I should test my theory in July. I love singing there and definitely sound better because of the acoustics. I’ve been pushing myself to sing things that I’ve never sung outside my house or car. I am going to do that tonight too.

Last night one of our teammates wasn’t there for our bowling league and I don’t know why she wasn’t. I got my friend to sub for her. I’d not seen her since around Halloween. I have the best time with her when I can see her, but she’s not a person to initiate us hanging out. I need to make an effort to text her seasonally so we can do things together. We have a ton of fun and she’s very chill. And athletic. We all bowled really well with her there. She is just a lot faster than me, so it’s kinda hard to hike with her because you feel badly when she’s dusting you and you’re holding her up. However, she learned to belay years ago, so now I don’t have to navigate a weird friendship with Vegan or wait for the super busy climber to actually remember and follow through to make plans with me. I know with the latter we’ll do something, but I would be SHOCKED if it were more than an annual outdoor climb. I think that she’s in Pakistan or France right now climbing, and will likely learn about it in the next month through my son.

I talked out all the things that have been weighing me down with my best friend. I talked about my son dancing at the climber’s house now, which will likely be what he does going forward. My son danced from the age of 6-10 so he is still has some moves wired into him, and just told me that he needs to work on being less stiff, but he had a great time. I talked about the hug and my sustained crush on the realtor. I talked about feeling like I threw the Caretaker to the wolves with what the contractors did to her and her cat. I feel so much better today. Friendships matter. Some people, if they’ve known you years, are better than a therapist when you talk to them about what is going on, and today I feel sated and solid.

Image by Bansi Patel from Pixabay