Seesaw

It's been a bumpy winter. I've had phases of depression so deep I could barely say hello to my housemates and I've slept in until noon or 1 pm virtually every day. There was one day that was the worst I'e had since I checked myself into the hospital over two years ago. But as I am no longer in denial about how my untimely death would affect those who care about me, I am no longer in danger of blithely harming myself.

Then I've had days where I have noticed the sun was shining outside, days where I've spent time with good friends and I've smiled and laughed and felt all would be well. I am in such a mood today. Will it last? I don't know: I never expected the deep depression that has held me hostage for most of the last few months.

Being without work or income is hard on me. So is being dependent. And as much as I care for Griffin and Sabine, it is their house, not mine, and their ways are not my own. I am not made to be so quiet.

One of my best friends and her husband invited me to start spending weekends at their house. Inside their house are they, their teenage daughter, a dog, two cats, and a bunny. In their house are noise, cheesy horror movies, and laughter. They are my tribe. I think that having a break from G&S will be good for me and for them so we can live differently for 2-3 days a week.

When I was getting my hair cut yesterday, my stylist and I spent quite some time talking about what we want to do for a living and how we want to live. She and I want very similar things in how we live and work: flexibility, variety, and freedom. While I will continue to seek work in the high-tech industry, I'm doing so only to keep my net wide so I can find some work, but I've realized that I no longer care about the high-tech sector. I no longer want to document software or internet applications. I want to do something that matters more. And I think that doing something more useful and/or meaningful than documenting things that few people will use and fewer people will read about will make me happier in my life, even if it won't pay as well as writing said documentation.

Therapy Hangover

Sometimes, when going through therapy, a person can experience what some call a "therapy hangover." This feeling can occur from extreme emotions experienced during therapy, from reaching a deep place during therapy, and from intense realizations or epiphanies reached during therapy. Usually this feeling doesn't come during or right after the therapy session, but a little while later.

I think that today I experienced a therapy hangover.

Today's therapy was good. I was feeling disappointed with myself for not achieving the goals I set at last week's session. I've been feeling disappointed in myself for not putting more time toward my freelance job and being behind in reaching my deadline. Those were the feelings we started off the session discussing. Fairly simple and normal stuff.

I tend to approach my sessions in a freestyle, stream-of-conscious style. I lose track of original points as some new thought or memory comes to mind and I chase after that. I've told my previous therapist and my current therapist about this tendency and given them permission to control the session more, but both of them have basically let me follow my paths and tangents.

Today, in particular, I think this tactic was useful. I went from being disappointed in my not reaching my goal for the week to disappointment in myself regarding work to having developed the feeling over years that I'm going to disappoint my employer eventually, so I might as well get it over with right away. (I tend to feel this with friends, too, but forgot to bring this up during therapy.) So I tend to do something that will disappoint: I take a sick day early in my employment, I change plans suddenly (such as not coming in on a day I was scheduled to be in the office, saying I'll work at home instead), and I don't always work as hard as I feel I should and can. I'm not just in the process of disappointing others — I'm disappointing myself.

Ideas and memories and feelings kept coming to mind as I spoke, such as my parents' insistence on straight A's, even though they couldn't do the work I was doing in school and they had no understanding for how hard math was for me, for example. I told my therapist that I'd tried not to internalize that mindset, but that I had anyway. Perfection is hard to live up to.

Confidence Falls

Y'know, when I first set out to move back to Seattle, I was full of confidence about finding work back in high tech. I had a long history of high tech and I'd done a lot of extreme editing of scientific materials and I'd broadened the types of writing I've done with my various projects in Houston. Fantastic, right?

So now I am in Seattle and I've settled in and begun networking and looking for work. I've joined meetup groups in Content Strategy, Information Architecture/User Experience (IA/UX), general technology, and so on. I've gone to their meetup events. And my confidence has been pouring out of me like blood from an open arterial.

For example, last night I went to a Content Strategy meetup with my friend. The first presentation was fairly basic and I didn't really find it that informative or interesting, but the presenter was pretty excited about it so that made it okay. The second presentation was exciting, entertaining, and … confusing. I may have taken in about 10% of what the guy was talking about. The fellow to my right, an engineer and writer, had the opinion that the presentation was fairly content-free. I felt like I was too stupid to understand it, because everyone else seemed to really like the presentation. On the way home, I expressed my feeling and the other guy's opinion to my friend and he asked me what points I was confused about or what questions I had because maybe he could answer them. I only had one basic question because the rest of the presentation didn't make enough sense to me for me to even have questions I could articulate. I know I've been out of the high-tech biz for a while, and that things that used to be just what tech writers did are now their own professional niches with their own jargon, but I expected to be able to understand a hell of a lot more than what I did last night!

Secondly, I am not getting responses to job applications, other than the one where a friend submitted me via his company's employment referral system, probably because I've been out of high-tech for so long. There's a lot of jobs I'm not even applying for because of not having a few of their Required qualifications: specific programming languages, specific tools. I'm very happy to be here, but maybe I'm too out-of-date, too old. But if I'm not writing and editing, I don't know what else I can do. And honestly, I need to be working a professional job in high tech to be able to afford a decent apartment now and a decent house someday in this area. Besides all the other typical living expenses.

Yes, I have found a part-time freelance job, or rather, it found me. But it's taken me three weeks (okay, three part-time weeks, but still) to truly get up to speed on the information and how they want it presented for this first project and I've just been revising the existing stories written by someone else. I haven't even begun to write original text yet and I'm as nervous as my housemates' cat about doing so. What if I can't do this anymore? What if my work sucks?

A Body at Rest Tends to Stay at Rest

Inertia. Newton's First Law: a body at rest tends to stay at rest, unless a force is acted upon it. And I haven't been enacting any force upon myself since I arrived in Seattle. Well, not much.

As a result, I've lost the muscle tone I'd gained by doing exercises in the apartment. I have barely blogged at all. I haven't even been doing my therapy work, and I did my therapy work in Houston even when I was at my least functional! I have disappointed myself. My confidence has ebbed even lower than when I was in Houston.

However, I've had one phone interview for a full-time job and have another scheduled for next week. (According to my friend who works there, they screen very thoroughly so they get people who will work well with the team.) I think I have a shot, as long as I can convince them I am technical enough.

I've also acquired a part-time freelance job! They contacted me out of the blue: they'd found my profile on LinkedIn, then through that found my web site, which was unfortunately unchanged since Houston and they could only access one link to my work, but they still contacted me and by the time we talked in a two-hour meeting, they had decided upon me. It pays lower than a for-profit company would pay, naturally, but the work is very meaningful, challenging, and varied. Not only can I feel good about my contribution to this organization and the work they do, but I will not be bored and I will be stretching myself. Just for your info, this organization facilitates collaborations between researchers at small to large companies and institutions with other institutions and large pharmaceutical companies to address neglected diseases in the developing worlds and poor populations the world over. These diseases are not high-ticket items in terms of money-making, so the big companies don't pursue them. But the big pharmaceutical companies who have joined this consortium are committed to providing information — even about their compounds — and expertise to other researchers in this sphere. It's amazing!

So, this week my new therapist and I addressed my inertia. She asks good questions, such as when did I live my life more like I wanted it, when was I happier, when was I more active. We went all the way back to childhood for the answers. Among the answers we found was that I need to create for my mental health. I used to write and draw and paint all the time as a child, and even in my 20s. It began to taper off in my 30s, especially as my depression worsened. I developed the thought that I needed to write toward publication, rather than simply write the stories I want to tell. After taking my Scientific Illustration courses and doing beautiful work, I seemed to feel that I could no longer just mess around with my drawing and painting like I did before, but that I had to create at that same high level, so I stopped drawing and painting at all. And I really haven't crocheted a lot since creating a very intricate and difficult doily for my Grandma (which I now have framed).

Irrational Thinking, the Scarcity Mindset, and Cognitive Therapy

I am afraid. I'm afraid of many things, few of them rational. Some of them even have names. One of the things that most occupies my fear at the moment is that I'm going to run out of money and have no options. This is called a Scarcity Mindset. It's a little rational to think that I'll run out of money because I'm not working and the inheritance will last for only so long. But it's not rational to the extent that I fear it. I'm almost paralyzed with it.

It doesn't help that, for almost two years, I've been almost incapable of holding down a job. I worked at that contract job and called in sick way too often, just out of the stress of working and commuting when I was still recovering from my grief.

I'm capable of working a regular job now. I'd rather work freelance, but I think I can work something more normal. It would be best if it could be on a contract so I could get paid by the hour and extra for more than 40 hours a week; I don't want to work all those extra hours without extra pay anymore. I'm too old for that shit.

So here I am, looking for work on craigslist and the freelancer's association job list and LinkedIn and not finding anything or at least not getting even any messages back and I'm thinking maybe I need to find an office job (not like there aren't already enough office workers looking for work out there) or a retail job or something just so I can earn some money. I need to find work. I need an income. And I'm terrified that I won't find work and that I'll end up stone-broke. 

But this is something that cognitive therapy is designed to work with.

Falling In and Out of Love

My love affair with Houston has been waning, as many of you reading my blog have already surmised. I don't have many friends here and none of them are close friends. I don't have work. And it gets too hot and humid for too long for my taste in the summer. And it has giant roaches.

That being said, I have a terrific therapist and psychiatrist. I am involved with an interesting non-profit for which I do both volunteer and paid work. Rarely is there snow and ice in the winter.

I know that the friends part is due largely because I haven't gotten involved in a lot of things. I have gone to professional meetings and networking lunches and met a couple of women there, but they have drifted away. I'm involved with the non-profit and enjoy the people I know through there, but only a couple of them socialize with me and that is rarely. So I guess I have tried.

I think I'm noticing this more since my trip to Oregon. I got to see several friends (and was perhaps busier than was necessary for a vacation). I got to see the ocean again, which I love. I even imagined the sound of gulls my first morning back in Houston. 

Wasting Away in Anxiety-ville

In the 90s there was a movie called Tremors about gigantic worm-like monsters living under the ground. You knew they were around when you felt earthquake-like tremors and they knew you were around because the could feel the tremors of your walking or of the sound of your voice. They ate anything animal, as far as could be discerned. When one of these monsters (christened "graboids") came around, everyone froze and became silent. 

My anxiety, which is mostly generalized anxiety disorder probably, is a lot like the graboids. As it grows, I feel interior tremors as well as exterior ones: I feel fear and I freeze first; then I fidget, my feet move, it seems as if there are little bugs crawling on my skin.

My anxiety even reaches out to my media consumption. If something is more suspenseful than some internal threshold indicates, I can't watch it or read it without lots of breaks. If then. This aspect makes watching Leverage very difficult. I think I got 20 minutes in, maybe 15, to the first episode of the 4th season. I had to read the end of Sue Grafton's V is for Vengeance before I could finish the final third of the book.

I can't take any more anti-anxiety meds: I'm maxed out. And therapy is slow. Doing my little cognitive exercises work on some things but not everything and they are time consuming as well. Just one more pill, I think to myself. Or maybe a nap (my naps are 2-4 hours long, more escapes than naps).

I got anxious watching the Olympics! 

Telling Stories

So, my therapist loved the two posts and all the comments and we talked about whether or not my perspective has changed ("not yet") because of telling my story from a stronger point of view. She also loved that Lora called me on using more passive verbs ("got through") rather than more active, stronger verbs. I'm working on that.

So this form of cognitive therapy seems right for me, because I am a story teller. Telling my stories with power and strength to overcome my feelings of powerlessness and weakness seems right up my alley.

My biggest problem is just that I am so anxious I don't think to do this. I don't think to do any of the other cognitive therapy I've learned. I don't think to do anything other than to hold onto myself so I don't fly apart into bits and hold onto the ground so I don't fly off into space. Because that is how I feel most of the time anymore.

I'm Rambling Blue Today

Today I have no umph. I don't care about much, I'm not particularly hungry but I was craving ice cream and cookies before lunch (peanut butter and butter on english muffins). There is a dark chocolate bar in the fridge but I don't have any real compulsion to go get it. I feel vague and kinda numb.

I'm feeling depressed.

Nothing specific I can think of, except that I am still struggling and needing therapy and meds (and the meds are probably forever, at least some of them). 

I even woke up feeling kinda good because my mom was in my dreams and it was her voice saying the kinds of things she would say (I think we were shopping). It felt nice waking up with her voice in my head.

But since then the day has gone downhill. I keep saying I'll go to the farmer's market on Thursdays (3pm to 7pm), but I don't want to today. I don't want contact with strangers. I want my mom, but that aside, I'd like to be with one of my close friends. Maybe they'd hold my hand and stroke my hair and tell me it's all going to be okay, because I feel like it's all going to be bad and just fall apart.

What Have I Accomplished?

My BFF tries to help me be more positive and become healthier. He worries, oft times for good reason. Right now he wants me to put together a list of all my successes and I'm having trouble doing it. My list of accomplishments seems so short for having lived 51 years. Some of the things on my list are that I've crocheted some beautiful doilies. That just seems like I'm reaching for the bottom of the barrel with that one.

This list has two purposes: 1) remind me that I can accomplish notable things; and 2) help decrease my anxiety over being able to accomplish things ever again, or basically, my anxiety over everything.

There are things I'm very proud of that I think are quite notable, such as teaching myself to ride a two-wheel bike when I was five years old, or buying my first house all by myself and with all my own money when I was 33 years old.

Then there's the doilies. They are pretty doilies, but not exactly notable.

Part of the problem may be that I generally think that if I can do it, it's not such a big thing then. It's taken me the over 3 years that I've (mostly) lived in Houston to accept that my just getting up and taking off for destination unknown IS a big deal.

A sub-purpose of this list is to help me regain my confidence and lose my anxiety over looking for and finding work. It was so nice to be working and making some money. I feel so worthless when I'm not making money, because I don't want to end up having to depend upon others to get by.

So, I'm having difficulties putting together my list. My BFF said he'll help me brainstorm and as much as he gives me crap a lot of the time, he does think very highly of me. 

He may even think that the doilies count. Not that he wants one.

How do you build your confidence? Do you know what your successes are? Share a few here!

The Persistence of Blueness

The blue ain't gone. I used extra-strength color remover and went the maximum amount of time. I should have known. I still have about 50% of the blue I had yesterday.

I've texted my supervisor to let her know so she won't be surprised.

My only hope to look conservative and all that is to fold the blue bits back under the more normal-colored hair. I'll let you know how that works out.

Guess whimsy and creativity don't want to let go of me.

Feeling Blue

I'm feeling blue because I can't be blue. How does that make sense? Simple: I have to remove the blue streak in my hair for my job.

I always swore I wouldn't compromise myself for my job — my hair, my nails, my clothes (other than having to wear the level of professionalism required). But I've never been in a position where it was so hard to find work. It's harder to stand against such compromises when you are staring down the face of unemployment or continued severe underemployment.

No, they (my supervisors) didn't threaten to let me go. They just said, "we're giving you ownership of this job and you can't have the fun colors in your hair because the client is an oil and gas company and they are very conservative." Straightforward and to the point. And a bummer because I just got this particular streak put in my hair. 

Where Was I?

So much has happened since my last post, written that innocent day in mid-August when life seemed so much simpler. Full of work to do, yes, but not as complicated as it was to become. I'm very glad I didn't know the future!

Where do I start? I added a week to my two-week stay so I could finish all the tasks I needed to finish. Two days before I was due to fly back to Houston, I had an emergency appendectomy. Luckily for me, I finished all the main things I needed to finish and had sequestered my own things in one place. Sure, a few small things went missing after that, but I hadn't gotten around to sequestering them, and who needs more than one copy of the key to the lock on the storage unit? Only those of us with OCD issues about losing the remaining key.

So I had surgery. And no home to return to: it was being readied for the estate sale. But people offered to let me stay with them, and I was and remain grateful to them for this. My realtor/friend was more nurturing than my mom's friend, so it's good I stayed with my realtor first. Plus, she had no animals, which made my time there very peaceful. I entertained her and her husband, even when I wasn't looped out on Percocet; later on she told me that, during a rather uneventful visit by her nephew, she and her husband looked at each other and said, "I miss Skye!" Aww. They want me to stay with them the next time I visit.

But there went another week and a couple of days before my doctor said I could travel.

Then my friend Steve from Seattle drove down and took me back to Seattle for a much-needed visit. Not only was I not entirely recuperated enough to be sent home, I needed to be with my friends there to distract me from the anniversary of my mother's death. (Actually, I think I did my grieving as I lay in pre-op, realizing that my mom couldn't be there for me then and wouldn't be there for me afterward.)

Finally, five weeks and two days after I left Houston, I returned home. My car, parked under cover at the Park n Fly lot, started right off. For only the second time since surgery, I drove; I got home fine, but I was exhausted and my tummy was sore. And the apartment was just as messy as it was when I left it, unfortunately. Where are those house-elves when you need them?

I've rested a lot since I got home — I can only go so long before I simply fall over, and so long isn't that long. I gave myself the first three days to lie around in my pjs and do nothing. 

I've accomplished things, I've left the apartment, and yet the place is still virtually as messy as before. Tomorrow, my mom's — now my — RAV4 arrives in Houston, driven by a couple of very generous friends. Soon thereafter, they drive away in my Subaru, taking it to its new home. Change, change, change, change. Dammit.

I have projects promised, I have been offered an insane work proposition, and I have a lot of people to reconnect with. But I'm taking it slowly, because my tummy still hurts and my mind is still swirling from the point when everything flew apart and I just haven't landed yet.

I have some posts started when I was still in Oregon that I'll finish and post, later. But I wanted to catch up to the present, before reaching back into the past. I have so much to do, and so much I want to do, that I wanted to at least settle onto the hard-packed earth of right now. I lost my footing. I need to ground myself so I can go on.

So here I am: crazy and tired and swirly and wanting to work and so much less sure of things than I expected to be at this point. I keep reminding myself: this is not my true natural state; this is an artifact of the way my life has been for over a year. Slowly perhaps, I will make my way back to the focused, fun, highly capable, and cheerful person that is me. My current state is transitional and temporary and I'll sweep it out the door just as quickly as I can.

With that, I bid you good night.

Don't. Want. This.

I have agreed to go along toward a sales-type job because a) I don't have anything else going on, and b) I want to eat. The thing is, I really don't want this job. I don't have that "this is a bad idea" feeling in my gut, just butterflies. But I have such an aversion to it! Not only that, but I feel they basically manipulated me into giving up the names and phones numbers of some friends for me to "practice" on, and the person who arranged to meet with me to talk about this job was the person who called them to arrange it. (I also emailed these people to let them know why they would get a phone call and that it was only for practice, not for my really selling to them. At least that's how I view it.)

Maybe it's that "manipulate" thing. First it was "write the names of at least twenty-five people you know." Then it was "how many of them would you call if you had a flat tire?" Then it was "these are the people you are going to practice with as your first times out." Actually, what I got first was "only three? are you sure?" (As if I wouldn't be sure?) Well, most of the people on that list don't live anywhere near Houston, so that let's them right out. And he's asked me again to think if there is anyone else I could add to that list.

When I first talked to this guy, I got the impression there were several positions, and I thought that a financial services company might need writers and editors. Well, there don't seem to actually be several positions. In fact, it seems to just be a wholesale "hire lots of new agents" program. There were a bunch of people coming out of training as I was going in for a conversation.

Here I was, being talked to by first one and then two guys about this great company and how much money you can make working for it. And how much you can make if you only sign-up one new client a week! When my brain kicked in later, it said "and how the hell do I find that one new client a week?" By being a salesman and pursuing clients. This is not what I am meant to do in this life; if I am to be in sales, it's the kind of sales where people come to me and I get to sell something I'm completely passionate about, like Mac computers or Subaru cars.

I told both guys what my barrier was: the sales thing. They persuaded me  to try it out for 90 days. I'll go through training in life insurance in a couple of weeks, but so far this guy has lined up 2 of my 3 friends for practice this week, after an evening training (I think) session tomorrow night. Tomorrow night.

When you ask the Universe to help you find Mr. Right, you are obligated to date each one it sends you, but you are only obligated for one date. When you ask the Universe to help you find work so you can achieve solvency, you have to check out each one it sends you. What I'm wondering is: am I going too far just by deciding to train and attempt this? Or am I being a whiny baby?

I guess it comes down to two issues: a) I'm not a salesman, not at all; b) I feel manipulated and conned, and stupid for allowing myself to be manipulated and conned. It's so simple and subtle that in hindsight I can say "oh, there's where they set up the connection, then the reciprocity thing," etc. But should I back out just because of those things? Because there is still nothing else going on, and I still like to eat.

Can't find it in the classifieds

Wanted: Help. 

Help with bringing order to my apartment. Help with finding work. Help with paying bills. Help with not getting so consumed with anxiety over these things that I simply pop.

I have a couple of small projects coming up, but not with anyone who can afford to pay me full price. Yes, I do have a sliding fee scale. Extremely small businesses and individuals get a break, because they have very little spare cash. And that's who I seem to be working for right now. When I work.

The money I had left from before, plus the money my mom gave me, plus some of the other is shrinking much too quickly. It was a lot of money, but between me and the estate, it's going, going. 

Health insurance is just about prohibitively expensive for me. If you take even one medicine routinely, you can't get individual health insurance; you have to buy it from the High Risk Pool. Which is far more expensive in Houston that it was in Oregon. And I have a much higher deductible. I'm thinking of doubling the deductible so I can lower the monthly cost. The cost went up significantly when I turned 50. Lucky me.

My rent is not cheap, but it certainly is not the most expensive around here. If I want to go significantly cheaper, I'd have to move into a unit that is too small for my stuff, or even for an actual dining table, or I'd have to move to places that I don't really want to live.  And rent is going up at the end of my lease in a couple of months.

I have credit card debt, because I've been unemployed for a long time, except for bit and pieces, and I've had expenses. 

If Mom's house doesn't sell soon, or if I don't get some real income soon, or if I don't win the lottery soon, I'm going to be hurting big time.

I am one scared kitty right now.

The Texas Skye in Summer

I'm living in the land of summer. The land of sunshine and heat. The land of warmth in temperature and warmth in people.

The land of tropical storms and hurricanes and killing levels of heat and humidity.

I worry about summer here. I worry about August and September, which are supposed to be the killer months, the months that could send me running for the PNW without so much as packing my bags.

I mean, it's not like the temps will faze me. I've been happily roasting (in limited amounts) in 97-degree weather (heat index 101-103). I walk outside from the extremely cold newspaper office, where I have to wear a sweater, and toast myself until I feel warm. Then I walk back into the ice cube of work. And about half the time, I don't turn on my AC in the car, preferring to warm myself as I drive (once the 140-degree heat leaks out thru the open windows, of course).

People are amazed by my tolerance and joy in the heat. They know where I've been. And I've dealt with 100+ degree weather in Eastern Washington (a LONG time ago) and occasionally in Seattle or in the Willamette Valley. Last year May, it hit 103 for a freak weather day in Lincoln City.

But the humidity: I worry about tolerating 110 degrees with 98% humidity for 2 months. I worry about the fact that I have things in my apartment that I want to keep. I worry about the fact that I bought a really nice couch last weekend (to be delivered next week) and would need to move that sucker if I fled.

Then there are the storms; it is now officially storm season.

I worry that maybe I can tolerate neither the NW nor the South, but I cannot afford the northern California coastal or near-coastal areas. (Because that would be the ideal climate for me.) I've made a couple of friends here. I might be on the way to making one or two more: this is so quick for me! :) What if I feel the need to leave?

I worry about money: unemployment ran out and I'm now living on my savings, which represents all the money I have in the world. Well, that and the bit of money I make at The Tribune, which pays for my health insurance, plus a little more. Maybe dinners out.

I don't mind being alone so much anymore. A friend from back "home" asked me how I was when I was a child, what did I do when I was alone. And I remembered that I was mostly solitary as a child, too.

So what did I do? Solitary things, things that occupied me; I rarely felt lonely. I read books. I wrote, I drew, I painted. I rode my bike around and around the cul de sac when my mom wouldn't let me ride out of it. I skated around and around, too. I played with my "dangerous" things: Fun Flowers when I was a child, a toy that could burn you pretty good and that I never had adult supervision when using, never hurt myself with; and my chemistry set when I was a little older, ditto for supervision and never hurting myself (even when I broke a test tube). I climbed a tree and I made my own detective kit to pretend with.

I guess it's time to let myself free of expectations. And just enjoy me, enjoy my life and the sunshine and the heat.

And to create: I've started a creative crochet project (picked up a couple of books); I have a painting sketched out and the supplies ready; I am working on not one, not two, but THREE novel ideas; I have a blog (obviously), and I have a website that desperately needs Search Engine Optimization (SEO) so that potential clients can find me---my site doesn't come up in the first two or three DOZEN pages when you search on "Houston writer/editor" or "Houston freelance writer" or "Houston technical writer." That has to change. And I need to add some other things to my site.

All and all, there is no reason for my solitude to be difficult.

Only the summer heat, and the summer humidity.

Only the expectations and fears floating around in the Texas Skye.