We flew from Dulles Airport near Washington, DC (USA) on Sunday morning.
It was a brisk 16 degrees Fahrenheit. It is now Thursday, and the air temperature just outside of Panama City, near the canal, is already 82 degrees. We are picking up my son tonight and have booked a 6-hour boat tour that includes traveling through the locks.
I cannot wait!
Today, we are starting kind of slow. It is 10 AM, and we are still deciding what to do. We plan to eat in the City. Beyond that, the day is loose. And I am thinking we will stay slow most of the day.
Well, now it is tomorrow, and we are going to head to the boat in a few minutes.
I’m excited about the trip even though by 7 AM, it was raining. It looks like the Wunderground weather map has the storm stopping soon and picking up again in the late afternoon. And when I look at the itinerary for today, I believe we will be riding out to where we were yesterday. Yesterday on the water, we saw crocodiles, monkeys, bats, and birds.
Now it is Saturday, and the boat trip through the Panama Canal locks is over.
Even with the two-plus-hour trip home, due to traffic, the boat trip through the canal locks was amazing. I learned so much about the lock system and how it works. I assumed that the locks would need to pump in water to raise ships. The trip showed the way it actually works.
Water is allowed into the locks from above, which causes the ship to rise.
There were train tracks for land-based train engines that moved the ships through the lock system. Many of the large ships clear the sides by only one foot. The land-based engines move along rails. Having one on each side keeps these huge ships centered as they rise or descend. As our trip was in the afternoon, we saw ships descending. The operators allow large container ships going towards the Atlantic in the morning, and ships going to the Pacific, which is what we did, in the afternoon.
So, I have described the Panama Canal’s lock system, without describing anything about my feelings towards it.
I was able to explain how it works, but I have avoided writing about how that makes me feel. Now I am almost repeating myself as I dance around the edges of my feelings. Mostly, I am afraid to visit my feelings, My career was founded on suppressing my feelings and finding ways to solve problems within company policy.
Letting my feelings out means letting out both sides, i.e., happiness and anger.
I would love to feel better than just OK. But if I let happiness out, I may get a bit of anger sneaking around the edges. I’m not sure that I am ready for that. At least not right now. I would rather deal with learning to be happy again than dealing with my anger. I understand that my anger is there, but I am not ready to deal with it.
Instead, I avoid facing even the smallest hint of my ANGER.
That is where I am at this morning. I am avoiding my anger while pursuing happiness. Six years after my time in 5 East, I should be better at describing all of my feelings. But here I sit, wishing for one, while hiding from the other.
I’m sure that I can do better.
I have an appointment scheduled in a few weeks with a new Psychiatrist. I have gotten rave reviews from others about his focus on hearing what is being said and then offering concrete solutions. This could be better for me than having a new student psychiatrist every year for six years. I finally figured it out, with my therapist’s help, that continuity can be a good thing.
It could be my medication that is keeping me from my feelings.
And in a few weeks, I will learn if this is really a thing. I am sure there are other medications to try. And while my current team for medicine management is focused on their PhDs, I may have found someone who can see the longer, big picture.
In addition to my therapist, I want to thank my Peer advocate from On Our Own for staying focused on my big picture.
They can see things that I am too close to. While I mostly miss them, each of these experts will make observations that, when I am ready, make perfect sense. Seeing the big picture concerning my medication’s role in my life is where I am finally at. I am really ready to face my anger, as well as my happiness.
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