mood tracking – Tonotopics

May 20, 2022

A musical thread of joy

On Sunday evening a friend sends me a link to a song, saying that I should have a great week and that she loves me. It is Sunday night and my ears are already out, so I only listen to it sometime on Monday. A Monday where Lisa and I have to go to the doctor as we are all bogged down with some plague, they brought home from school and I want ALL the meds. We are sick and miserable and when we get home our electricity is also out. I am thinking that my day is pretty crap and retreat to my office where I try to answer email before the laptop dies. How quickly we feel sorry for ourselves, right??

Songs are magical things, they can bring up memories in all their different forms, they can hide things or bring things to the forefront. They can teach you something about yourself or someone else, they can dust off a dusty day or enhance something that is already shiny.

They can recall smells and memories of places or holidays or moments. They are endless in what they offer.

I can also more often than not convince myself that lyrics were meant entirely for me! Music does that!!

This song ended up being the perfect gift to me at the beginning of a not-so-great week and it now being Friday already, has been an earworm of comfort.

Another friend is having a hard time. She tested positive for COVID on her birthday and her life lately has definitely been an unconscionable agreement with the “powers that be”. Sometimes things have to be thrown up in the air before they settle. The chaos before the calm. So I offer her this little forwarded message with the link to the song. A little thread being pulled through… She replies with the English version of the song and tells me that this is her go-to song for almost any big emotion.

This little thread of joy just reminded me that we should never hesitate to share something that touched us, something that enhances your life can be the perfect gift to someone else as well. In the times we live in it is so easy and it hardly takes anything to just share a link. And even if it is not needed at that very moment, it may just be hanging around there for another time. It is honestly the least we can do.

October 27, 2021October 27, 2021

The overthinker and the silence

These rambles may have revealed a number of things about me, mostly that I am anxious and that I tend to overthink. Especially if I find myself with idle time… or if someone does not answer my text. Especially ones that are direct questions. I ALWAYS assume that that person is angry with me. And I can ALWAYS think up something that I have done to deserve this passive-aggressive behaviour.

Turns out, however, people are busy, people have lives and the whole world does not revolve around me. Also, some people don’t read and I really do ask a lot of questions. The Engineer has recently requested that I only send one question at a time.

July 28, 2021July 28, 2021

The interruption of loss

I have been wanting to write about this for a few days now, but have not been able to… get it right, somehow. A friend passed away in the early hours of the 12^th of July and as these things go, I have had to go through a few emotions. And although I still want to dedicate a post to her, this is not that post.

Yes, it was sudden. Yes, she was too young. No, I don’t know what happened. She was a little sick, and then became very sick, but it was unexpected. Yes, we spoke every day. No, it is certainly not my grief and loss alone, but the process of grieving has left me lost at sea.

July 22, 2021July 23, 2021

Skaamkwaad – anger born in shame

<i>Skaamkwaad</i> is an Afrikaans term, one of my father’s favourites. It is defined as a reaction of “anger born in shame”. This is also one of my least favourite traits in myself. I am well versed in having this reaction. I have however also become an expert in knowing when other people will react this way. Usually, after I have said the wrong thing. The moment my little sarcastic comment is expelled to the universe I will realise that I have said the wrong thing to the wrong person. Because isn’t that also true? Some people will laugh with you at their own expense because it rings of truth, but some will just… leave the conversation never to return. I myself like to take the “how can you say such a thing” approach and go off on a tangent, usually from some embarrassingly high horse – in an attempt to defend something that I know is actually true. Others, like to take the passive-aggressive approach.

March 4, 2021March 4, 2021

The value of my debrief

If you know me, or you have been following these somewhat random notes of mine, you will know that these come from the mind of an overwhelmed overthinker.

The last two weeks have presented various hurdles, of which I will not go into detail now. Let us just say that having a routine checkup on Tuesday could land you in hospital on Thursday in the midst of work and parent chaos. Also, bad things don’t always just happen in threes… It could be multiples of three. Anywhoo, so I have not had my head attached correctly for a while and thus just doing some chaotic form of crisis management. So my excuse is that I did not have time, while the truth is probably that I was in a funk and did not feel like it.

Silence and stepping away from something do however always bring some time for reflection, self-doubt and avoidance – an ongoing spiral of the overthinker.

This afternoon I finally sat down and did a debrief. The purpose was to just get everything out of my mind and onto paper. Categorise, sort and try again. A lot of the last 12 months have been dedicated to figuring out how to manage my time effectively and juggle various responsibilities. Mostly because I was overwhelmed and this caused anxiety. Many of these little discoveries have been noted on this blog. I started implementing the bullet journal method. Most days this helps me to stay on top of things. On other days, however, things happen that were not on the list.