“Your blog doesn’t talk about you being gay anymore…” My blog was not originally intended to discuss just that part of my life. Like my sub-title says…I’m more normal than you think.

“You should talk more about being gay…” My sexuality is part of my life yes, but that is not what makes up my entire life.

Why don’t you just redo the whole thing then, you would do better. You pose a great question that I do not care about and I will write about what I want to write and what I feel I should.

I have had a fairly interesting and information filled week this last week.

• I got some criticism from people about my blog
• I got positive feedback and joy from some of my readers
• I learned that my family member count will be increasing
• Work has been stressful in the middle of it with a lot of potential that I am working on not freaking out about
• A friend of mine is starting a business and I have been heavily involved in this and the pace is picking up
• my mind continues to look forward to the fact I will be moving at the end of the summer
• My mind, as mentioned in prior blogs…just keeps running like the damn energizer bunny

I did not have a meltdown again, thank heavens!

I did have a passionate, fully emotional blow out. I had gotten a lot of information in a short amount of time that I was not really prepared for and I had plans to be a social person this particular evening. So I take all this information and I take it and the energy and feelings and emotions behind it all and put that in the car with me.

I send a few lovely voice messages to my friend and we converse in this way for the drive. My emotions running high and my friend responding in a way that I love, she feeds my energy yet allows me to express it then we sort it out and sometimes, as I have done this for her as well, we call each other out on our overreactions.

My friend had done just that…one of the longest voice messages she has sent me and she just laid into me that I am being a big baby, I need to take a break for a few days and just take time to process and be distracted. This is why her and I are friends…sometimes we make an executive decision to tell the other what they need to do…and usually that works out pretty well.

So I took a few days to really just worry about only the immediate necessities that needed my attention.

Sometimes this means that I legitimately am fully whispering to myself what my next thing to do is. “sit up in bed,” “grab your water and get a drink,” “put the water down and stand up,” etc etc…sometimes for me this is necessary to refocus myself that the things I am worrying about are not as important as what I need to do in that moment.

There are a lot of ways people describe this process of taking time for yourself,.

R&R, Recharge, Refuel, Refill, Re-center, Self-Care, Mental Reset…whatever the action may be…it is all the same. Biggest difference is that the result is the same the execution is not.

I commonly use one of two ways to talk about this type of process. Battery Recharge, or Bucket Refill. Both analogies work to explain my result though also work differently.

The battery recharge is one that I feel many of us can relate to a lot more than we think.

Our phones are our life-blood to many of us, without it…lost or dead….we feel lost. So when we get that warning or see that the battery is low…we sprint, dive, yank, dig, yell, scream…all sorts of things to make sure that we get them plugged in ASAP so we do not lose them.

Why do we not do this for ourselves as intently? Every person has a battery…others feel they have more…or categorize their battery power into smaller battery segments…regardless there is always an outward flow that is usually greater than the input.

That being said I am reminded of a meme that I saw that showed two individuals with batteries above their heads. One has a battery 4/5ths full. The other has 1/5th in battery and another 1/5th in their hand giving it to the person with a much fuller battery.

Just sit and process that. for a second…

If we are talking phone batteries…the person with the 2/5ths total would not have any reason or desire to give of their battery life to someone with a greater/more fully charged one.

This should be the same way for everyone else. Boundaries need to be set, time needs to be taken to charge your battery/batteries. Even further, as each device has it’s own cord or specialized port for charging…only that one cord can charge a battery.

Since there are various battery categories that others have; social, mental, intellectual, work, family, educational, etc etc…there needs to be a way to recharge each one. And for me, each one has a different way to recharge. Sometimes I read, other times I play a game, sometimes I just sit and watch something that I have seen and could quote many times over.

My friend had made the executive decision to not talk business stuff with me for a week. I knew we had a work meeting so I let her know I would agree to that as long as we still had the meeting. This meeting did get pushed due to other factors so I legitimately have a break from business talk for a while and not to say I am relieved, I kind of am.

My friend reads this blog so she knows who she is and that I am honest here. the relief comes from that I know I can take things in and then think about them nonstop for extended periods of time, so the phrase from my friend to say no, stop it, shut up, agree to this…needed to snap off that connection for a time.

The other analogy that I like to use is probably some story or legend or whatever from somewhere. Regardless, the story rings true. There is a man who walks a mile every day to a well with a yoke and water buckets on each side. The mile to the well both buckets are empty so the walk is easy, The walk back buckets are full and the walk for the man is harder.

The story is not about the man…but about the buckets.

One bucket has a small crack and leaks water every day the whole mile home on the side of the path. The other bucket does not. The leaky bucket complains to the solid one a lot about how they are useless and do not provide as much water as the solid bucket.

The solid bucket shuts that thinking down real fast and reminds the leaky bucket that they are both the same size, they both carry and deliver the same amount of water. The difference between the two is that the leaky bucket begins doing their job of watering the flowers along the side of the path the moment they become full, every day, the whole mile home. The solid bucket is able to provide water for the home.

I mention both analogies for multiple reasons and you can determine how you want to interpret them as well. Sharing our battery or using our battery to help charge others is never a bad thing, as long as we are not giving more than what we have.

Leaking water from our buckets is also not a bad thing as long as we know that the water we are leaking or giving out in small amounts is doing good.

Daily recharge like out own phones may not be needed is some of us have really slow draining batteries, or do not always use some batteries every day so they last for a while. But we ALWAYS need to find ways to recharge, refill or even if needed reset our thinking to see what our energy expense has been able to do.

Never should we determine our worth based on of how we are able to fill others when we ourselves are drained.

I would rather a friend tell me that their battery is empty and they need some time to recharge than for a friend to fake it, and suffer worse for it. I am not the best at doing this as I know I am all to often the one giving of the little that I have remaining to fill someone who is still already more full than I.

We all have the need to recharge, however you do that is up to you. For some it is a long hot bath listening to music, others it is a night out at the club dancing the night way with friends. Others meditation, or reading, or a movie, or drawing, or writing, or just cuddling up to their significant other and feeling safe while the other watches a movie or reads.

Whatever that activity or activities you have in your arsenal (I recommend a variety to choose from as the same thing over and over and over again can get old for me) When you make that happen…dive in 100% of the way. Let everything else fall away for a time, your brain will still process things, but in the background, subconsciously where you will not really know it is happening. Then when you return…you are able to look at life in a healthier, and hopefully clearer mindset.

I know for me I have those moments where I need to understand my actions, thoughts, feelings are a bit over the top, I am a Leo after all. Sometimes I see this and voluntarily take action to correct this and realize my batteries are dying or are dead and I need a recharge…or its someone telling me I need a reset, when they explain why I usually do not deny it (still not perfect at this) and take some refill time as it is.

When we run on empty, we cannot and will not be capable of doing our best or seeing things in a way that we can appropriately process and respond to the world around us.

What are some of your favorite ways to recharge? I personally enjoy the show FRIENDS, a good fantasy novel, or blasting music. This provides a distraction that I need to process things in the background and helping put things into perspective.

Wouldn’t the man just replace the leaky bucket? If you think about it more, the man very well could have known that the bucket was leaky, saw an opportunity to continue to use it, and did so. Nobody is the same and our output matches that. Our output may not be beneficial in one way but is in another, this takes time to see where our output is valued, so when you need to make a change, make that change happen.

Recommendations on battery recharge for someone who hates being alone? Having alone time does not mean that you are entirely alone in the location you are in, the only living being present. Sometimes alone time can happen in the same room as someone else. You are both there, both present, you each know the other is safe. You are each doing your own thing and still having your solo time.