I’ve been trying to take it easy with digital stuff today. Screen time in general. I watched TV in the morning as I usually do for an hour to wake up, but I haven’t played my Pirates game I usually pop on and off with during the day. Then I have been careful about how much I look at the screen on my phone versus computer. Why?

My left eye is bugging me. I think my tear duct is a lil swollen because when I was looking at it, there seemed a bit of redness. Possibly just from being dry. It’s Winter in Washington (I live above Seattle by 30 min or so), and we have the heater going, plus a small one in the living room since my mom is dealing with walking pneumonia as she’s been battling since last year. I’m sure I’ve mentioned it, but if I haven’t. So we try to keep that room a little warmer for her, but it dries things out.

I think that’s contributing to my eyes being irritated, but more so the left. This morning I put some moisturizing drops and I’ll do more in a little, but I hate the feeling. It’s as if I have something in the corner of my eye. I’m hyper careful around my eyes though so keeping my hands and fingers away. My mom and brother have dealt with pink eye, friends have, and my brother has dealt with an ulcer of the eye from just scratching the outer layer. We have a dog with dry eyes who permanently needs drops to keep from going blind so you can imagine when it comes to eyes, I’m well versed in much of those issues, and that is something I don’t play around with.

The instant I feel any issues (like with my hands) I will baby them up. Being a writer, the hands and eyes are things I don’t play around with. I’m hyper careful. I’m a lil more lax with my head, but now that I’m approaching 40 (August), I am a wee lil more careful. And I do admit I could be better about it. My mother is prone to migraines so I know how susceptible I am to them as well. I’ve had them maybe 3 times in the past few years? As soon as I get that sparkly tinsel lights in my vision and feel swimmy, I get my butt to Aleve or similar, fast.

It’s right after that the roller coaster begins and I waddle to collapse in my bed. Managing my headaches and digital time through the day has kept them down a lot, but I’m careful about headaches now. I have different levels. Most I can still work through or go about the day. Some I might finally begin to really limit anything with a screen. I seem to handle paper editing okay at that point. Then there are those where I know if I don’t back down, I’m heading myself for danger territory, which is the migraine potential. As I get older I will have to be evvveeeeeen better about it. If not, they’ll take me down sooner.

Honestly it’s probably why I don’t get sick too. I keep a good stock (most of the time) on what is going on with my body so if I feel even 10% worse than I did the day before, I adjust my day, my physical activities, everything, so that it doesn’t get worse. If it progresses, I take stronger measures. It may seem at times like I push myself, but I think from the outside people don’t realize just how cautious and careful I am. I don’t rely on the outside world to tell me to take breaks, or to tell me how to take care of myself.

It’s a product of my childhood. Funnily enough, I remembered it’s also a product of the doctor I had as a child. He probably impacted me the most. Telling me straight out when I came in yet again for a bronchitis infection, that he knew it was miserable and that I felt miserable, but there wasn’t much he could do for me. He made it clear that doctors basically sucked at that point because all he could do was treat the symptoms and not cure the problem. Recently I remembered that and I realized that was a huge thing in my brain that I didn’t even realize stuck. It was then I realized for the majority of ailments, no the doctor can’t do much better than we can for ourselves.

When I was a child I suffered from a massive amount of colds, flus, bronchitis, bronchial infections, strep throat. I swear I was sick so much. I would’ve had my tonsils taken out had I not screamed bloody murder, haha. I was not having it. I only had a few more episodes after that time too, then I haven’t since. With tonsils intact. Coincidentally brother had his removed and has been sick more than I as an adult. I don’t remember the last time I came down with a cold or flu, anything major.

I’ve learned very well how to manage the physical so I won’t push myself to the point that many do. Only because as a child and a teen, I suffered far too much from ailments as much as abuse. So I know how much fun the bad is and I like to live in the good, not be halted by the bad. There is admittedly a hyper distrust, but also there is an understanding that there is only so much other people can do. As my previous post (right before this one) mentioned, from the spiritual standpoint and emotional, but as this post points out, also from the physical. Funny with what it going on in the world that I am mentioning sickness in this post. Wasn’t planned! I usually start with whatever comes out in the top of my mind and I go from there. Sometimes based on my story, sometimes me. I’m trying to be a little more open and vulnerable in these posts so that contributes.

Btu a lot of what I talk about with me too? Usually goes into the background of characters. Maybe from a direct issue, maybe from an understanding of what another deals with, and relating it to a character. Or the reverse happens. From understanding a character and where they come from, I begin to understand someone else.

I was listening to an interview with Stephen King on YouTube and someone asked him about the children in IT. They were asking how he did them so well, if he planned it, how he came about the inspiration for them, etc. He was pointing out how it came a lot from his own children. In his life at that time, his kids were about the same age so he simply snooped. Not in a bad way, but he observed them and began to see through their eyes.

That’s a lot of what I can do here when I’m just chatting away like in this post, and some others. This is inspiration for my characters. When I deal with these things, when I have these thoughts, many of my characters begin to deal with similar. Or, I draw later on from these situations. I observe you, and I observe others, and that too will migrate in the blender which is my mind, and go into a character. We are not all one thing. We can’t be defined as one thing. We are a sum of a whole. Every tiny little instance. Every second of our life. Every word, every thought. We are a sum of all of it. That forms who we become. People want to label us, group us, because they think it helps, but it separates. There isn’t a person out there who may not relate to something I say. Something you say. Something another says. It’s not a “white person,” issue. It’s not a, “female” issue. We all relate on some deep level to every single thing we deal with.

We’re seeing a product of that separateness now. They’ve wanted to separate us so much that it’s been achieved. We think, “you can’t possibly relate to me as a man,” but that’s not true. Being attracted to someone who isn’t attracted to us? We will all experience that in some form or another at least one time in our life. Having our heart broken. Things aren’t a me versus you. It’s a me and you. We all relate. Our words and experiences help each other. Maybe to make that one person not feel so alone.

It’s the same with characters and writing.

---

Want just the blog posts?
Sign up to receive them direct to your inbox.