Part I
Nightdark Savings Time
3.13.23 – I guess I picked a good day to start this journal. Group’s only been telling me to do it for, what is it, three weeks now? And I think it’s gonna prove to be productive. Especially today. Today, it’s really hard to control the anger.
I was sitting out on the deck, reading the news, when I realized how unusually dark it was. I felt like the sun was supposed to be up, but it was only just peeking above the horizon. That was when I saw the article: in the last funding appropriations bill, some asshole in Congress slipped in a rider that not only abolished Daylight Savings Time, but replaced it with a reversed procedure that adds an extra hour of darkness to the day. My phone auto-syncs, so when my alarm went off I didn’t even realize what had happened. Now I have to wake up in the dark all spring? What the hell’s up with that?
I hate the dark. Hate hate hate it. Definitely an anger trigger there.
But I need to remember that that’s what the therapy is to help me with. I can’t get mad the same way I used to anymore. That’s what drove Heather away, after all—that’s why I can’t see the kids. I’m still frustrated by the government’s attempts to meddle in our lives, but there are constructive ways that I can deal with those feelings. At the very least, if I can’t keep the feelings from being destructive, there are skills I can use to step away from them.
It is really weird, though. “Nightdark Savings Time?” Who voted for that? There’s a bunch of fresh meat in the Senate now, maybe it was one of them.
Oh well. As long as it doesn’t spike my taxes, I’m sure I’ll survive. What’s a little darkness? “Life goes on,” after all, as we say in group.
I think I can beat this anger thing.
Half the battle is just a few deep breaths…
