The blue lawn chair
In our bathroom, there's a blue lawnchair. I know that's a strange place for it, but it's there so that if we want to hang out and talk while the other is getting ready, etc, we have a place to sit other than the lid of the toilet or the side of the tub. Actually, that's not why it's there. Or at least it didn't start that way, but it's evolved to have that purpose in our lives. Sometimes. The other purpose though... The original reason there's a blue lawn chair in the bathroom, is because sometimes the bathroom becomes an escape. An escape from a sensory overload, an anxiety attack, an argument, dysphoria, the dark thoughts and feelings that run rampant sometimes through our fragile, insomnia addled minds...
I'm there now. That blue chair. Sitting in the dark, comforted slightly from a sensory overload and the feelings of inadequacy that followed when he needed my physical touch and love and comfort, and I couldn't give that to him because my nerves were zinging through my brain with electric currents that burned and itched and screamed. So after laying in silence for a while, I retreated so that I could reset.
The rough front edge of the seat is pressing into the backs of my thighs, but it's balanced by my right toes rested in the soft, plush, black rug in front of the shower, and my left toes on the cold tile. Hot and cold balanced in my toes. Smooth and soft balancing the rough. The dark, cool room.
I'm exhaling as much of the overload as I can. Breathing here so I can go back out there and function again. It's so silly, the comfort we find in such odd places. For me, it's a blue lawn chair in the bathroom.
