You can't just sit there and put everybody's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just can't.*

The big news around here is that SisterCh is expecting her first baby in the fall - this is very exciting, not just for Woo Hoo, Baby! reasons, but also because she's been trying for a while, and I know she was super worried about whether it would ever happen at all. While I could not be happier for her, I will admit to also having some very complicated feelings around the whole situation.

First off, I'm super excited, as I said. She's a great step-mom to her husband's two boys, and I know she's going to be a great mama to a new baby, even if I really can't comprehend the idea of someone whose diapers I changed physically being pregnant. (This is probably something I will never comprehend.) I'm happy for her, because she was so worried about not getting pregnant, and fearful that maybe that would be a permanent problem. (Even though she has just turned 27, and we all tried to tell her she had plenty of time, that is not helpful if you are in the middle of the worry. It just isn't.)

But besides being excited and pleased, and more than a little eager to see how she copes with a newborn who is not a cat, I am also full of lesser and more shameful emotions for myself. I'm jealous, as I am now when anyone - or as it seems lately, everyone - in my sphere announces they're expecting. That's not something I'm proud of, but I'm also not particularly ashamed of it, since A)it's not the feeling that comes first or strongest and B) why the hell shouldn't I envy people who are experiencing things I want to experience? Should I be pleased that I'm seeing the PT instead of the OB? Because I'm not. To pretend otherwise seems ridiculous.

Which doesn't mean I shout and vent about my jealousy anytime someone with a baby bump approaches me - I have one or two select people who I can rant to about the seeming inequality of someone having triplets, but for the most part, it's happy face ahoy! It's weird, that you can be so excited for someone else, and so disappointed for yourself at exactly the same moment, but it's true.

But there are other issues surrounding SisterCh's pregnancy that keep all the feels creeping up on me. She was recently laid off, and didn't tell me about it. In fact, she continued to act like she would be going to work without straight up coming out and lying to my face about it. When I found out from someone else, I was confused. Then another sister said something about "Well she was embarrassed. And this house isn't exactly good at being positive about things." Which was like: OK. Well. I'll be over here in the corner, positively digging the pieces of this little dagger out of my heart.

 It doesn't seem like a lot, that sentence there, but the whole hiding it and then finding out that the reason she didn't tell us (she kept it from my parents as well, and I don't know if I was the main offender in the "less positive" rationale or a non-able-to-keep-secrets-bystander) was because we're negative about shit - it was an unexpected slap, I guess.

Because I try so hard to be positive that sometimes I feel like I should buy little pom poms and carry them around with me. I feel like I am the cheerleader for every freaking body in this family, all the fucking time! (And wow: this post sounds super cheerleader-y, NTE! Great evidence, all this ranting and raving about happy news.Well, no; but I'm not talking to them, I'm talking to you.) It was like a literal blow to me, sitting there at the table over Easter dinner, because I'm the one who says "You can do this" when nobody else shows up. I'm the one who sends cards that say "This day sucks, and yesterday sucked, but tomorrow might not, so let's find out together." I'm the one who knows you ain't going back to school this time either, but I'll spend three days tracking down the financial aid forms I helped you fill out last time - without rolling my eyes, even, because you need someone to be on your side.  I'm the one who tries so hard to find peaceful solutions in the midst of what seems like a perpetual family tornado, and it was like... wow, so, I guess a) nobody else thinks that I do that and b) why the hell have I been trying so hard for so long, then?


I'm not saying that I'm never negative - Hell, all you have to do is read two posts here to see that isn't true - but, for the most part, I'm negative about Me. I can literally think of only two things in my family that I am consistently negative about that other people are not - my dad (which I feel like I have to be, because I'm the only person who doesn't immediately forgive him for things that are not immediately forgivable, and because I feel like I have 33 years of evidence for believing the worst, plus I am the only one still living here - it is easy to say "let it go" when you don't have to live with it everyday) and my health (which, ditto: I'm the one living with it and all your cheery assessments and 'vinegar cures' in the world are only going to make me want to punch you).

But my family?  Is super negative about a lot of things, just in general - we're a sarcastic lot, by and large; we all make digs about things that happened 17 years ago (I just happen to have the best memory); we all shuffle and sigh when someone tells us they're going to change something we know they have no intention of changing; we'd all rather take a nap than take a walk - but that's just us.
I don't feel like I am a spectacularly negative person, and I feel like I make an extraordinary effort (on an almost daily basis) not to be negative - some people are naturally cheery and optimistic: I am not, and yet I try to be.

So I'm not Little Miss Sunshine, surely, but I do feel like someone you can depend on when things are falling apart, and to find out that at least two of my sisters don't exactly agree with me about that, it really hurt. I still just... can't.


Ok, there's more to this, but it was all sounding very martyr-y, and I am no martyr.  I just ... well it stung, and it was surprising, and it made me feel super unappreciated.  Which sucks.  But I think I'm maybe taking an off-hand comment really personally, and I'm going to try to let it go.  I like being the family cheerleader... I like it when other people are the cheerleaders too, so it doesn't feel like it's something that sits solely on my shoulders.  I realize that that is a responsibility I've given myself, and that I'm really upset by the idea that people can't come to me when they're in trouble because I know that sometimes they just can't.  It is a fundamental flaw in living a life with chronic illnesses - sometimes you are forced out of the loop, into unplug, back into your cocoon.  So I should be glad that they have each other to rely on, and I am.  I guess it's just another - less expected - place of jealousy.

So there you have it: a couple of late-night, green-eyed confessions that make me feel both ridiculous and full of myself - I'm jealous of all the baby-having that does include me (even while I'm totally on board with the additional Auntie-ing that comes along with it), and I'm mad that people don't think I'm supportive enough that they can tell me things and depend on me when the chips are down.  It sort of seems like those two things might be two sides of the same coin?  Maybe I'm not as good at being a cheerleader as I'd like to be.  I know I'm not, since I'm hardly ever rooting for myself, which is a big problem.

Now that I've babbled it all out here, looks like a) my cheerleading skills are not as shiny as I hoped they were; b) everything else is about me feeling left out/left behind.  And that's a sucky feeling.  Gotta work on moving somewhere, anywhere, just so long as I'm not stalled here anymore. 


For tonight, though, I'm off to bed.  Night all. 

*The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Blueberry Pie & Twizzlers aren't much of a housewarming present, but it's all I"ve got

My sister and brother-in-law are moving out today, and I am not ok with that.  We've lived apart before and would have to again eventually, at some point anyways, so it's not that so much as how and when it's happening that is so heartbreaking.  It is, in all actuality, going to turn out to be a positive thing for her, for them: it's a thousand percent in their favor that they would move out of some place that is unhealthy & stressful for them, especially at time where they need things to be as stress free as possible.  I'm three thousand percent behind them, and will continue to try to find ways to make things as stress-free as I can, even if it means hounding my B-I-L for updates bc I know my sister doesn't like to be pestered (He doesn't mind). 

The problem is that I just can't seem to get past the fact that it's so stressful and unhealthy for them (and me) for No. Damn. Reason. Except that people feel like being assholes.  Well, one person in particular, really.  Who is so busy playing the victim in his own mind that he can't seem to grasp the fact that hurting other people is the reason no one wants to talk to him.  Because he's "being nice now."  Like any of us trust that.

----------- 

I have avoided talking to the two sisters who grew up with our parents but don't live here, mostly because, since they don't live here, I usually have to hear about a thousand excuses from them about how his behavior isn't really that bad and I should have some compassion for him.  And it's not even that I don't have compassion for him: it's that he's trampled it all, as well as pretty much every other feeling I have for him, consistently over a long period of time. 

The sisters who don't live here seem to forget a) how much they both hated living here when they did - so much so that one left for 'vacation' full well knowing she wasn't coming back but kept it a secret till she was there so she wouldn't have to tell him in person, and the other moved out as soon as she could manage it.  Three times;  and b) exactly how he behaves when you are in his life on a regular basis.  I suppose if you only have to see him at birthdays, barbecues and/or holidays, or listen to him complain that you never call him anymore once every 5 months or so, then he'd be a lot easier to take.  I don't doubt that that is true; I hope it proves true - for his sake as much as mine and SisterJ's.

 It's my opinion that he just can't give up feeling like he's supposed to be the boss, even though we're grown adults (not to mention that he wasn't really the boss in our family, he just thought he was because he was stricter).  And since he can't be the boss in the way that he thinks he should be - i.e. being able to dictate your 'attitude' or demand the respect he thinks he is 'owed' - he tries to bully people instead. 

And, for a long time, we've let him. 

That isn't to say one or the other of us - or a group of us - haven't stood up for ourselves at different points, or demanded changes in our relationships... it's just that when you stop being vigilant about your boundaries, certain people (maybe all people? I don't really know) will notice that you're no longer guarding things that 'do not cross' lines as closely as you once were and will begin to inch their way back over again. 

And I can't keep letting that happen.

So we've got to figure out a different way to interact with each other, and two things will need to happen (from my perspective) before I could even attempt that.  First, he'd have to take real responsibility for his actions - meaning he has to stop thinking it's ok, just because he's stressed out at work, or with other people, to take that out on somebody and start to make changes in his own behavior.  And second, I'd have to figure out how to let go of some of my own anger and figure out how change my behavior so that he can't cross those boundaries anymore: to just accept the fact that he doesn't have to be happy about it, I'm going to do what I need to do regardless. (This is more difficult than you'd imagine when you live in his house.  And are financially dependent upon him.)  

And since I can't make him do the things I think he needs to do, I'm focusing on that second part there.  I'm definitely not on-board with forgiving, just yet.  Don't know when I could possibly get on-board with that.  But trying to figure out how I can live away from here, how I can turn myself into one of the sisters who just sees him every couple of months and deals with that in a more healthy manner?  That's what I'm trying to work on right now.

And I know, eventually, it'll be what SisterJ works herself around to, too.  She's too big-hearted (even though she'd like to say she's heartless) to not want to figure it out: that's why she's so hurt right now, because she didn't do anything to screw it up in the first place, but it still blew up in her face.  So, yeah, I know her leaving is a good thing. 

A necessary thing. 

And, like I said, in the long run, I have no doubt they'll be much happier there... it's just I don't want to be so far away from her when I know she needs me, and it's not as easy for me as it is for other people to just 'pop' in on her at her new place.  (Obstacles, oh how I hate your ever living guts.  Chronic Illness-related Obstacles: goes double for you.) 

But it sucks donkey balls, and I can't help being pissed off at him for it.  He's just going to have to get over that.

Well, that was fun

So yesterday, my dad called the cops on my sister, her husband, my mother & I.

He called the cops, and told them we were "verbally assaulting him in his own home."

By which he meant, we were telling the fucking truth, in our own homes.

The cop pretty much shrugged his shoulders when he got there - we had done nothing actionable, and it was, in fact his behavior that was out of bounds: I know I never uttered a single curse, and neither did my sister.  My mom did, but that was just repeating what he'd said about her, so that doesn't really count.  And my brother in law, who is the (I can't emphasize this enough, honestly) most peaceful person ever (like, I've seen him mad may three times in the past 5 years, and even when he's mad, he's still pretty calm) had to go outside and stand in the cold to keep himself from ... I don't even know what.

I know what I wanted to do, which was rage and vomit and punch his face in and break the goddamn wine bottle into a million tiny little pieces and cry and curl up into a ball and pack all my shit immediately and move into the cardboard box that is my only other option and scream in his face and drag him to a psychiatrist and tie him into a chair & force him to watch every episode of Intervention ever.  (For the record, I did at least two of those things, but they weren't the fun ones.)

The cops told us "families fight" and told him "if you're an asshole when you drink" (Oh crap, I guess I did curse: I specifically told the cops that he was an asshole when he drinks, but it still doesn't count because I didn't curse at him), "then don't do that anymore."  He did not get the outcome he wanted, (which was them making us leave, I guess), and then kept saying how embarrassing it was that it had happened.

 It didn't just happen: You called the cops because we weren't backing down (again) about your ridiculous, abusive behavior.  You were the one who reacted like an ass because someone dared to question you about your drinking.  You were the one who went on the attack.  I wasn't embarrassed at all, to be honest.  A little let down that I couldn't say "Listen, if he opens his mouth again, I'm going to do something that is worth going to jail for" or "Honestly?  He told my mother to go fuck herself, my sister that she was a pill popping control freak, and me that I was a useless piece of shit: please, just take him with you."

I know I've talked about his drinking here before - about my issues with being lucky enough to be blessed with three alcoholic parents, in particular, so if you've been around, you know it's a problem.*  I probably don't talk about it as much as I should, because - no matter that I have no fault in it, and there's nothing I can do to stop it - it feels shameful, it feels like I should keep it quiet.  And, to be honest, it's a little embarrassing because I can't just move out and put myself in a better environment: I am dependent upon my family, financially. 

I also try not to say things that hurt people's feelings here, even though they don't read it. (And hopefully never will.)  But the truth is the truth, and I'm sick of pretending that this is not a life or death, you are ruining our family type of deal.

The fight last night was vicious.  He has this ability to take out the sharpest arrow in his arsenal, hone it to its finest point, and hit your most vulnerable spot dead center.  Tell my mom she's a drunk (although saying "you're a worse alcoholic than I am" probably doesn't make the point you were hoping for);  tell my sister that she "moved in and took over", because you know she's overly sensitive about having to live at home; tell me that I "contribute nothing but a bunch of dirty dishes", because you know it wounds me that I can't do things around the house to help out.  Make sure you dip all those arrows in as much vile poison as they can hold, before you send them.  That's his way.

And then, THEN, he rants and raves about how he has no place in this family, how he wants to be left the fuck alone, how there are no relationships left for him with us, and how that's all our fault.

It probably is my fault that I don't want to give you more ammunition to use against me.  Probably is my fault that I can't feel safe enough in my own home to come out to the kitchen if I know you're out there drinking.  Definitely is my fault that I've been locking myself in my room at night, because I don't want to be around you, because I know if I go out there I'm not going to be able to hold my tongue, and you're not going to be able to hold your temper, and we wind up right back where we are now: You got to yell and scream and curse and stab at people with your insults, and the rest of us get to wander around dazed and betrayed, stunned that we let ourselves get hurt again.  Yeah: that all seems like my fault.

It's definitely my mom's fault if she's "a cold, unfeeling bitch", because everybody wants to be close to someone who makes them feel like shit.  It's my sister's fault that she's not willing to "forget about what happened before", even though it was traumatizing to everyone (including you), and you made promises that you never kept.  It's definitely my brother-in-law's fault that he had to start shoving all his belongings in an empty laundry basket because god forbid someone should treat him or his wife with love, courtesy or respect, even though they do so much for you.

The thing is, I know, in his mind, that he's the victim in all this.   I know that because he stated it very clearly, over and over and over again last night: he was not going to be fucking apologizing for anything he said, if anything he was owed the apology from us.  Because we started it, we attacked him, and all he was doing was "cooking, drinking and minding his own fucking business."  Never mind that that business included doing the thing you promised us you wouldn't do: we don't have the "right" to hold you accountable for that.  Never mind that once someone did call you on your bullshit you started yelling, calling people names, threatening them, using your place as "the moneymaker" to try to bully us into shutting up, trying to throw us out of the house.   That's all acceptable behavior, right?

He didn't go to work today (he "didn't sleep well"), and now he's wandering around upstairs pouting, probably/I'm 99.99% sure.  That's too damn bad: I don't have any answers for you - you want a place in this family you better figure out a way to fix things, because I am D O N E trying to figure it out for you.  Yeah: I love you.  Yeah: I'll miss you if you have to go.  But you can't stay like this.  Or I can't... One of us is going to have to make some real fucking changes.  And, as far as I can tell, only one of us has done anything wrong.

And it sure as hell isn't me.

Sticking up for myself, my sister, my mother and my family?  Not wrong.
Calling your behavior abusive when it is?  Not wrong. (And not "verbal assault" either, asshole.)
Dumping your precious wine down the sink?  Probably a little bit wrong, but only because I lost my cool there: should've stayed calmer.  The dumping part I'm ok with, because Fuck That Shit.
Ignoring you now, even though I know you're just waiting for me to say something, anything, so you can either walk right in or stomp all over me again?  Not wrong.

Let me make this 300000% clear - to myself, and to the sister who needs to hear it, and just happens to read my blog - WE DID NOTHING WRONG.  It is not ok to say the things he said, no matter if we started the argument - we didn't say anything out of bounds to him, but he certainly did to us.  His bullying is NOT OUR FAULT.  THE END.

Of course, it feels like it could be our fault.  Her fault for saying something in the first place, she says; my fault for not just walking away and letting it drop, I think.  But that's just some textbook Over Developed Sense of Responsibility right there.  Over time, everything feels like our fault - when people are happy, when they're not, how they act because of their mood - all of that is not in our control, but it feels like it should be.

Example: Last night's big blow out (which follows our last really big blow out by only 6 months, with about 3 less major ones in between) came immediately following his vacation, last week.  That's 9 days of holding your breath, tiptoeing around, hiding yourself in your room (or at work, or in the cellar, or at someone else's house: Hell I even stayed later at the HOSPITAL so I wouldn't have to come home) so that you don't accidentally say something to set him off.  He, of course, doesn't see it like that, but the rest of us do.  If I'm going to keep a fight from happening I either have to a)pretend that I'm fine with the drinking and drunk him and all that comes along with that (overly affectionate fakeness, pushing food on you repeatedly, an inability to take no for an answer about anything) or b) not be in the same room with him.  I chose, for as much as I was able, option b.  For nine days.  My sister and her husband ate with him more, choosing lite option A and a huge dose of option B (cellar time ALL NIGHT LONG).  And my mom, well she usually can't get away with B, and even though she doesn't do a good job of pretending (i.e: we can all tell she's pissed off at him), he doesn't really notice, so that's the way our week went.

It was only after all that shit that my sister came home from work yesterday and called him on his drinking (A bit of an explanation first: following last ginormous traumatizing fight, he swore off drinking.  That lasted a week.  Since then he has told us that he won't drink at all.  Then he changed it to "I won't drink when I'm cooking" Then it was "I won't have more than 1 glass/2 glasses/3 glasses a night"  Last night he was at 2.5 glasses when she walked in).  And then spent the rest of the night crying, saying she shouldn't have started anything.

She didn't start it, and I want her to get that.  (Hi.  I know you get it, but you don't feel it.  That's ok, too, but just so you know: I know this wasn't your fault.)  He can lay the blame at our feet - hers for daring to say something, mine for not shutting my mouth when he wanted me to, my mom's for not sticking up for him "while I was being assaulted" - but we all know the truth about where it goes.  This is his fault, and that's all there is too it.

Another sister and I were talking recently, about babies. About how much we want them and don't have them, and are scared it may never happen for us.  (Which, let's not talk about that right now) And she said something about never letting her kids sleep over, out of fear of what his moods would be like, and it sort of killed me (because I love my niece and nephews so much and would hate not to be able to spend time with any of them), and at the same time I understood perfectly.  I want a baby more than anything, but I would never bring it into this house the way it is right now.  Never.

So don't give me all this shit about how you just can just "cook, and drink, and mind my own fucking business",  because it is my business.  Because I love you, and because I love them, and because, god damn it I'm trying really fucking hard to love myself.  And I can't love a person who lets other people walk all over them - or her family.  So, I know you're going to do as you please (who knows it better than me**), but it's not going to be crushing me anymore.  It's not going to be hurling abuse at the people I love anymore.  And if that means that I've lost two fathers to alcohol, I'm going to say that that really sucks.  And I'm going to be horribly sad.  But I'm not going to lose myself just so you can be a happy drunk.

 



*And I'd just like to say that my Mom, whose own issues with alcohol have been pretty intense and troubling, has been sober for almost four months now, and I couldn't be prouder of her.  Yes, it was a decision she made based on medical necessity, but I think every addict's decision to get sober is medically necessary, and she's working really hard on it, which is amazing. 

**My biological father slipped into his alcoholism sometime before I 9, and our relationship was rocky from that point on.  Eventually, 11 years ago this July, it took his life.

In the ball pit

I do this thing where I start thinking - really thinking - about something that's important: Have you noticed this about yourself?  Is there a reason why you have to run your mouth like that/act so awkward around new people/ be unbelievably cranky for no good reason?  And as soon as the truth about the thing starts rushing at me - as soon as I'm starting to get to the meat of the issue, or when it starts to sort of click in my head that this is not a unique occurrence, that I sometimes act like this and maybe it is a pattern... well, when the truth starts rushing at me, I start rushing away.  Is there anybody who needs tending or talking to, or playing with?  Isn't there a show on right now that I can escape into, be mindless with?  Isn't there a book I could read that would take me anywhere but here, facing the truth?  It's such an uncomfortable feeling, this realizing things about yourself, and I would do just about anything to avoid it, I think. 

When it does come, and I have seen the whole, frustrating, ill fitting truth about myself, it sticks in my brain: a large scaly burr just big enough and irritating enough to block out anything else.  I have no other qualities except  this uncomfortable truth - I am no longer a good person, a caring sister, a hard worker - I am only an inveterate gossip, a gigantic fraud, a loathsome individual who feels lonely until she's with people and then wants nothing more than to be left alone.  Even though I know that this is not true - that all the good things I am or do are not obliterated by some newfound/newly understood flaw in my character - it is how it feels, and sometimes how it feels is how it is. 

I have recently come to quite a few uncomfortable realizations about myself, and trying to integrate those things - a certain pettiness here, a confounding inability stick to the straight facts there - into my vision of who I am is proving more difficult than I'd have guessed. I have always known that I wasn't perfect ~ contrary to what others may think, I am well aware that my goody-two shoes image is just something other people see me as - I have never seen myself as such, and wouldn't really care to.  But these inconsistencies in my character - the difference between who I want myself to be and who I really am, these are things I want to fix, to change.  And that means recognizing them first, figuring out how deep they run and (maybe) where they come from, and how to stop doing them.  It's a lot of heavy mental lifting, and, for a person who has limited reserves of any kind of energy - physical, mental, emotional - it certainly seems Sisyphean. 

So I keep looking for low energy escapes - can I ever get my Google Reader below a thousand again?  Is Reddit being entertaining or insulting today?  Is there any way I can get my uncle to have a conversation with people so that they don't think he's an ogre? Let me organize every photo you've ever taken in your whole life! - and then condemning myself for needing these escape routes.  It feels like I'm stumbling around kicking at little pebbles, all the while trying to avoid all the heavy boulders I know I have to move if I want to move forward, but just can't even look at yet. 

It feels that way about everything - about all the work I have to do to manage my illnesses (and the question of when I decided that just 'managing' is enough for me), about all the things in my own behavior that I'd like to change; about all the topics in my family that need addressing, and all the ways we find of not addressing them; about not making time for friends and then wondering why they aren't making time for me; about the world as a whole and all the things spinning out of control in it.  It just feels like there's too many important things that should get looked at, poked at, lifted up and examined, fixed, and I don't want to touch a single one of them. 

A perfect example in the physical world is that my space is still not undecorated from Christmas - oh, the actual decorations are down, but the furniture is still all in the wrong places for every day living.  Thus making it more difficult to do things like get towels, because we moved the cart that holds the towels behind the chair, so you have to climb over the chair to get ready to take a shower.  It's little ridiculous things like that, but also huge life changing things like deciding to call the PT again, and see where that takes me, or actually changing my diet enough to prevent this diabetes thing from happening - and I just don't want to face any of it at all. 

And here I write the necessary caveats that "we've all been sick since Christmas! - and I mean sick sick, like the flu that won't die sick" and "I've just spent two months caring for a wonderful lady, whose head is harder than the stairs she fell down!" and "blah blah blah Chronic Illness, you idiot!" but all of that  - while true and real and just so much - doesn't feel like enough of a reason to let everything else pass me by.  I never feel like I am juggling half of the balls I need to juggle, there's just me, standing with maybe the three or four largest, most fragile balls, throwing them up and catching them (sometimes by the skin of my teeth, but still, catching them), and all the while, the floor around me is littered with a million other smaller balls.... It's basically me, standing up to my waist in the ball pit of Chuck E Cheese, trying to catch all these biggest balls, but knowing I've let a thousand more go.   And not knowing which of those thousand was the next most important - the one that needed me now, and I won't get to it for another three weeks.

I don't know what to do about all that - how to climb out of the ball pit, or juggle better, or even begin identifying the colors of all the stupid things I'm standing in.  I know this feeling will pass, or fade, because it has in the past, but it never goes away... I'm always fumbling something, and I wish I knew how to stop. 

And then I fell over... backwards

If only that title was a movie reference or something. Nope: I literally fell over backwards. About two weeks ago, we took the kids to a local low-key amusement park, I got out of the car and into my chair, put my front two wheels up on the curb, thinking that Mum was right behind me, lifting up the back two wheels - like we do a million times, all the time - but she had turned back to the car instead, and I somehow lost my balance, tipped back, slid up out of the chair a bit & my head and upper back met the concrete in an intense and immediate way. Besides being shocking - What the what??? - and completely embarrassing (although some very nice older gentlemen came rushing to help and made lots of jokes about revoking my license and ha ha, not uncomfortable at all!!!), it was.. majorly painful. "Majorly painful" is, in fact, the most definitive of understatements, but since I can't think of an all encompassing word for how bad I have felt since then, it will have to do.

After a few hours of trying to be in total denial ("I'm fine; let's go play skee ball!!) and downing both migraine & pain meds, I realized that I was in fact doing the opposite of fine, and I got myself all checked out at the ER. Where a snippy nurse tried to insist on getting my weight (No: I do not stand up well on good days, today is a very bad day, screw off, sir and take your "but you look fat to me, so I have to know the number" attitude with you); I got to spend a few hours looking at screwed up wall murals and trying to figure out if if it was me or them that was off (It was them); and a very nice doctor ran me through the CAT scan, pronounced me mildly concussed and apologized for the fact that fibro + fall = major suck, and sent me home.

Where fibro + fall has, in fact, equaled complete and total suckage. Although I was kind of shockingly unbruised, the part of my back that hit the ground has been untouchable. As in, I've been wearing button down shirts backwards and unbuttoned for two weeks, keeping my door closed so I can be a lay around Lady Godiva, because holy hell clothing is not allowed to touch that part of me. I've attempted attacking with every painkiller in my arsenal, but it's not doing much. That's not true: it's helping more now, but those first few days, it was like I was taking baby aspirin, or sugar pills, or swallowing pieces of paper, for all the good it did. I never even felt them. My back/neck have always been my most sensitive spots, but there have only been two or three times the pain has been this bad - mostly when I've been sick or flaring in other ways - and never due to something that I had done to myself. It's not exaggerating in anyway to say that I am not sure how I got through those days. Those first three days, there wasn't a person here - it was all just a big pulsing block of pain - I don't even know.

And then, when the pain had dialed back a bit just enough that I could put my eyes on a piece of paper and focus on them, I took myself as far away as I could go, and wandered through all 40 or so (the ones I have here) of J. D. Robb's In Death series. Started back at the beginning of 2058 with Lt. Eve Dallas and all her cohort, and tried to live with them through the next three years or so of her life, so I wouldn't have to be in mine. I know I talk about reading a lot, and how important it is, and it gets to be all blah blah blah books, but if I didn't have a place to escape to, if my mind didn't have a chance to just shut down and follow Dallas and Peabody and all the rest through their cases and humor and horrors and becoming a family, if I couldn't escape the pain by going there, or to Hogwarts, or to Avonlea, or Concord during the Civil War - I don't think I'd still be around to live through things. And that's just plain truth.
(Also honest truth? If you haven't read the In Deaths, you are majorly missing out ~ can not recommend them enough!)

I'm doing better now, tiny bits at a time - still avoiding shirts at all instances (which is not me-like at all, I must confess, and feels incredibly odd) and popping whatever pills are left in my stock, but bit by bit, getting better. It's still complicated since I can't lay on my back, and I can't normally sit up for too long anyways, and either side has time limits on how long I can lean on them, so it's complicated, but it's improving. Talked to a couple of people on the phone, so they would know I wasn't dead. Checking back in here, and in other online spaces, to see what I've missed. Reading voraciously through my poor neglected Google Reader. Actually turned the TV on this morning - before the noise and mess and lights and all that were too much, too confusing - to find a 98% filled DVR: unacceptable with new seasons starting, missy. So I'm battling back, and I just wanted to say hey!

And to remind everybody about the Disability Blog Carnival, hosted here, by moi, in just a few weeks. Keep me busy people ~ Help me catch up on some posts that I've missed!

It was strange: There was a perverse comfort in inertia.*

So I'm having a bit of a hard time lately, and I'll tell you, it is not becoming. It's one of those times when there's a lot of stuff just underneath , and you spend a lot of your time (or at least I do), measuring your words and acts carefully, because you're sure that what's underneath could come bursting through at any moment, and that it would not be a good thing if that happened.

Some of the underneath stuff is not my own, just mine to figure out how to navigate - all of that fun (and incredibly high-pressure, fast-paced) stuff related to putting together a wedding with a bride who has a bit of difficulty making choices (and then sticking with them); the trying to incorporate the opinions of everysingleperson ever, apparently; and two sisters with a tentative truce and a still rocky understanding of each other who are trying to collaborate on about 400 different aspects of a wedding in a little over a month. So there's that.

And then there's all my under the surface stuff, like the fact that Soon-to-be Sister-in-law sort of decided that it wasn't worth it to bring the kids up here anymore, only she didn't come right out and say that so I'd get up in the morning expecting them and instead find a text saying no one was coming. Although we've renegotiated for the summer, and she told SisterJ that she did it because she thought bringing them up here was burdening us, I was left with a bad taste in my mouth and the feeling that all the effort and time I spend with the kids (because I want to!) is not really worth all that much to her, while here I thought I was helping to raise them for the past eleven years. I guess I am more hurt by that then I let on, even though I know she didn't mean to hurt my feelings, and that - in general - they both appreciate the time we watch the kids.


And, of course LilGirl will be starting kindergarten in the fall, so that means our twice a week commitment with her will be ending anyways, so I was trying to pack as much fun stuff into the summer as I could, because once school starts, we're all weekend sleepovers, and that's just not as much time. LilGirl is not the only one disappearing come the fall - SisterK will be in Iowa to go to grad school in August (right after the wedding), and has been off gallivanting on trips to England and Vermont since she graduated so that I have barely seen her.

I have an uncle, who I am not very close to but still love, who is suffering from cancer and seems unlikely to make it to through the summer, and it also seems highly unlikely that I will get anybody to go up to where he lives with me, (and once there, I'm pretty sure I can't make it into his antique cabin because of stairs). Hell, I can't even get people to walk next door for me to deliver a pie I spent three hours baking (squeezing lemons is not in my skill set), which is another issue simmering underneath everything else. It also turns out that I am eligible for yet another social service program, which might change both my financial contributions to the house and the responsibilities that my mom would have when it comes to helping me out. Unfortunately, our current working relationship is not working out as it is, mostly because she's not been in the best health either (physically or mentally), and it is making it so that I don't always get the help I need. Having this between us, when we are so close, is hurtful, because I wind up feeling both resentful - not that she's not well enough to do something, but that she insists she is and then it doesn't get done - and trapped - we depend on the money my mom makes as my PCA, so if I try to give some of her hours to someone else who could do some of the less personal, errand running type stuff, then I'm taking away money that our family needs; and I assume that she feels pressured and misunderstood, because I am just not ok with the things that are getting left behind. It's very stressful, as you can imagine.

Along with that are some new health issues - not setbacks, exactly, but issues - that have kind of shocked me, and left me unsure of what to do next. It is likely that my body (jokester that it is) is just playing tricks on me, but either way, it's starting to seriously complicate matters, and that is not appreciated. Not to mention, although I hate hate hate the analogy of the biological clock, that certain ticking numbers, including my age and hormone levels (never mind my single & sick status), are making me wish I'd gotten knocked up at fifteen, before I got sick, so that I wouldn't have to worry about it maybe never happening now. (And even just typing that makes me literally sick to my stomach, which is why I am avoiding thinking about it as much as possible.) And of course, every one I know is pregnant. (Well, two cousins, two friends, a zillion bloggers - it just feels like everybody.)

And, if you've been here any length of time, you know that when I'm avoiding things, I take up residence solely inside my own head. Where I can either choose to zombie out - play a few "click a lot and blow things up" games, reread a series full of happy endings, Facebook stalk - or swim in the muddle and try to salvage some sense. Can you guess which choice I have been making lately? If I told you that the Bridgertons are doing just as well as they were the last time I read their books, and that I have a new high score on Big Money, would that help you out at all?

Yes, I've been zombie-ing out, which includes, of course, letting the blog fall semi-silent because "what the hell am I going to say that makes any sense to anybody?" But, as is often the case, it just took me a while to get things into place, just enough, that I could write about them some. So here's some of the stuff that's floating around underneath for me, thanks for letting me vent a bit.

I promise tomorrow's post will be full of ... something else. Hopefully a good something else. :) Have a great weekend you guys.

*Jeremy Groopman, The Anatomy of Hope

(PS - Spell check? If Unreedemed is a word, why isn't unredeeming?)

I spent the week feeling like I was in the middle of an ocean, floating and bobbing along, attempting to eat crackers and drink ginger ale without having them revisit me. That's what I get for trying new drugs. And now that that is starting to truly pass (hey: I ate real, non-cracker foods today... this is a plus! Except do you know what happens to your stomach when you try to put non-cracker foods in it after a week of crackers? It does not take kindly to the intrusion, I can tell you that!), I get to have huge emotional upheavals instead! Hooray!

Seriously. Sometimes I think moving to Australia* might be the wisest choice. I'm starting to think of aliases, see which ones fit me best. I don't want to talk about it again, right now, but suffice it to say that I have both cried and cursed more in the last 8 hours then I have in the last three years. Easily. If you are guessing that the drama is somehow sister related, you would be correct. You would also be correct if you guessed that there was no actual resolution (peaceable or otherwise) /conclusion achieved in the final analysis of the day. In fact, while I think some very important things were said, I'm not sure if any of the important things that needed to be accomplished were accomplished. But I tried. God almighty, I don't think I could have tried any harder, and that's all anybody can ask of me.

By "anybody", I of course mean 'anybody but me ', since I apparently am not satisfied with having done my best, but instead am upset that I wasn't able to achieve miracles and (our little) world peace while I was at it, but that's just because I am kind of a jerk to myself.

I am going to go and find something completely unredeeming to watch on television, or some cracktastic type of book to read, or a computer game that will devour my soul for a few hours. (Or perhaps all three of those things at the exact same time.) Anything to not be me for a little bit.


I'll check back in with you all soon, and hope your weekend is full of bright spots that don't include crackers or drama (unless crackers &/or drama are your idea of happiness, in which case, have at it!)


*Bonus points for all children's lit majors who managed to find the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad portion of today's post.

Postage Stamp Island...

As much as my brother-in-law might laugh at me for attempting to rap (or, more accurately 'sing a rap song',) my current life resembles nothing so much as the line from Grandmaster Flash's The Message "Don't push me, cuz I'm Close. To. The. Edge. (I'm trying not to lose my head)"


My pain has been turning it up to eleven lately, following a couple of infection setbacks and my dumb insistence that I do not need as much down time as my body thinks it requires (because "downtime is boring!" ... So is suffering, you ass). Because of that, I am living with the near constant feeling that my muscles and bones are attempting to burst through my skin, as if I've taken some excess Skele-gro* without the accompanying broken bones. You know how on the Hulk (original TV show Hulk), his eyes would glow green, and then his clothes would start falling to pieces as he just expanded into this terrifying green monster? Yeah, it basically feels like that, complete with bonus "Hulk Smash!!!!#!@!" anger because who the hell wants to feel like that? It hurts to breathe, or move, or put clothes on - I literally cried the other day, when we had to leave the house and I had to put on a bra. (And yes, I know it is beyond stupid to put whether or not you look good over whether or not a piece of clothing makes you hurt so much you cry, but I can't get over it: Leaving the house without my bra makes me feel naked and not in a good way.) Sleep is a joke, because rolling over in bed is as dangerous as rolling through a field of landmines, and the other day I just got up and baked cookies at 2 in the morning because if I laid there for one more minute, I was going to flip out.

This is usually the point where my readers who don't have chronic illnesses say something like "Why don't you call your doctor and tell him/her that you're hurting so much?" And I appreciate the thought, I really do, but here's the thing: My doctor's know. They know, and it's not that they don't care, because they do - it's that they don't have the answer for me. They just don't know it. They keep trying - I am, in fact on my third new medication trial in as many months - but if you don't know the answer, you just don't. So calling them and telling them that I feel like the Hulk, it doesn't get either of us very far. "Give the meds more time to work" they say. Or "Did you take the narcotics I gave you - you don't have to be a hero" Right: because wanting to be present, even vaguely in my own life, is heroic. No - I am medicated to the gills, as much as I can be without just being completely out of it (and I can't guarantee that either, sometimes), but (so far), we just don't know the answer.

So there's that. But it's not just that: I feel near the edge on just about everything.

While I won't be homeless if the government decides to go offline this weekend (as I know some will), if it continues for any length of time I will be medication-less, which, for me is quite a serious condition. (I depend on my government to allow me to breathe: what do you depend on it for?) There's no way I could afford the $400 required for a 30 day supply of one of my medications, let alone the over a thousand dollars that would be their sum total - and that's just for the basics, not the 'optional' things like the stuff I use to treat my allergies or the cream I use when the allergy stuff doesn't work. Financial worries would start building if the government was shut down for any length of time, but that's biting off more worries than I need, at this point. But we're there - at the edge.

I'm at the edge with my family, with sisters who are so hurt and angry and frustrated/ing that I just feel like everything I do is wrong. With my mom who's obviously hanging on to her own edge, but won't admit it. With my dad who's having problems at work and thinks it's funny to come home early and say things like "I got fired." (Hint: it is not funny.) With pregnant cousins and non pregnant me, with sisters moving to freaking Iowa or getting married (with no plans, yet!) in the fall, and brothers who don't see the glory of their own children. With a grandmother who asks you for help picking out her funeral clothes when you go over to visit her, in the same breath that she tells you how well she is doing. ("It's not morbid: it's practical. I'm going to be 94." Well, let's be the opposite of practical, then, shall we?) With best friends who don't call or write, and with myself for not calling or writing.

I'm just so close to the edge that it feels like everywhere I turn, there's another edge. Like I woke up on an island, all of the sudden, instead of a continent. Like there's no place safe.

And yet, between me and those edges are little girls with curly hair who say things like "My tooth is loose, even though you can't feel it move," because the girl down the street got money from the "Tooth Bunny". There's 11-yr-olds who direct their own 60 second movie clips on low res digital cameras, that include such action packed sequences as "Fort elephante & how it crumbled!" There's three derpy fluffy bunnies made out of pom-poms and googly eyes, named KC, Sunshine & Band. There's meringue cookies at two o'clock in the morning, and the fact that I can make them sans recipe. There's the fact that the nurse at Zack's office, the much loved Maryellen, worked for five days to get the approval I needed for this latest medication, even though the MassHealth people were being assholes about it. There's Facebook statuses from people far away that I miss very much. There's the fact that my window is open right now, even though it's freaking April. There's all these words typed into little boxes all over the country that show up on my screen, right here on my bed. There's a lot of stuff that pushes me back, and I try to remember it.

The edges are still there though, and my island's getting smaller.


Print Available Here

*Shout outs** to Harry Potter, the Hulk, KC & The Sunshine Band and Grandmaster Flash in the same blog post? Yeah, I'm complicated.

** Using the term 'shout-out'? No, you're really not.

"... handing tickets out for God"

I started writing (one day last week) about the Jesus Freaks who stopped by with their version of the "Good News" and somehow wandered way off topic and started going on and on about how I used to be a Jesus Freak myself, and therefore I don't mean the term in any offensive way, but more in the way former band geeks talk about current band geeks or ex-goths talk about emo kids: You've been there, so you know, and almost feel a sort of kinship, but you're really glad you're not there anymore. I don't think there's anything worse for a believer than a former-believer: all of my sarcasm and surety that I was made a fool for so many years is always right there, and I'm sorry if sometimes it slips out. I try not to be patronizing - I really am glad for you that you still believe - but when they start trying to convince me, all bets are usually off.

So that's the way the post was going, and then I realized that I'd written that post before - multiple times. Yes: the Catholic Church and I used to be BFFs and yes; I could probably write another 17 posts about that, but that wasn't the post I sat down to write, so it wound up in the draft folder (like a million other posts: seriously - my draft folder is a scary place). And now I'm back, attempting to tell you what it was about the Jesus Freaks that pissed me off .

It took me a while to put my finger on it myself, but eventually it boils down to this: It is the sense of judgment I feel when they're telling me how easy it is to fix who I am.

Here's the thing: Remember in the fall, how when I was living at Grandmother's house, helping her with her post-stroke recovery, things here at home were progressing on the 'build a ramp so NTE can get into the house more easily' front? Well, now we have this beautiful ramp that's slippery as hell in the winter, and takes up our entire front yard but makes my life about 200 times easier. And yet: it is a beacon for the 'people of the Lord.'

While we were building it, a woman walked by and asked my dad what the final product was going to be. When he explained that it was going to be a wheelchair ramp, she said "I'm so sorry," then returned a few days later to drop off some rosary beads and a scapula she thought I might like. I found them on my bed when I came home for a shower that week, and my dad didn't understand why I didn't think it was the 'sweetest neighborly' thing for her to do.

Twice (that I know of) since then, we've had various forms of preachers come to the door: The first time, the guy was Mega-pushy, and I felt no compunction about not letting him in the house or giving him a chance to speak: I kept him on the porch, while he started his spiel about 'those who turn to Jesus will find a way with him,' and how 'putting my feet on the path would help them walk again.' I know that you all know me well enough that I can admit I was sorely tempted to just walk out onto the porch just to see the look on his face, no matter that I would've fallen down eventually, or that it would've hurt like hell: I still am kinda sad that I didn't, because the "OMG: I AM TOTALLY WITNESSING A MIRACLE" moment would have changed one of our lives forever. ( I know, I am damned to hell, so I might as well enjoy it, right?)

This latest preacher though, was a very nice gentleman (and he came with a silent friend), and he specifically said "I don't want you to let us in, I'd just like to tell you some things, if that's alright with you. " Well now, I'm not a heartless bitch, so I opened the screen door and gave him the ok, give me your best lines, preacher-man, and I promise not to laugh. (Again: I'm good with you believing, but once you're trying to get me to believe, I can't promise that I'm going to be able to hide my skepticism.) So he starts off pretty swell, talking about God's willingness to help people, and how it was his job to try to find those that most need God's help and bring them his Word.

And then this well meaning fellow, with his quiet and (I could honestly tell) earnest sense of caring starts talking about miracles, and Jesus making the blind see and the lame walk, and I'll tell you. it took everything in me not to slam the door in his face. I just - can't hear it. I just... I don't even know how to explain how badly that makes me feel, how irritated it makes me just to hear it.

Just to have that experience of - once again - being a person, going about their normal day...I was making breakfast when the doorbell rang, playing with my 1 yr-old nephew and chatting with my sister... when all of the sudden someone interrupts your life to tell you how you are just not right, just not good enough the way you are, just not the way a person should be. I am not saying that that is what he said , because, again, he was kind of a sweet guy, but that is the way he made me feel. I had to sit there and be irritated and frustrated and ashamed, all because - in society's eyes, and I guess in 'God's' eyes too - there was something about me that was just wrong. Something that called for miracles and saving and the power of God.

That me, just being me, requires the intercession of God on my behalf, in order for me to be fixed? Pisses me the fuck off, I gotta tell you. Of course I wouldn't thumb my nose at a miraculous healing, should one decide to take place, but you know what? I'm not broken right now, or maybe I am, but not in the ways that you think I am. And if I am it's none of your damn business... I'm not asking to be saved just by virtue of living as who I am. Just by having improved my house to the point that I can finally get in and out of it on my own, I'm not giving you the right to comment on my life.

It's something I get a lot of, in a lot of random ways: people who see me 'walk' the steps to my chair and tell me I'm not sick enough to the handicapped parking placard, or strangers who tell me they'll pray for me when I'm out in public. When you're visibly disabled, everybody's got the right to comment suddenly. I didn't ask you for your opinion on what I'm eating - the fact that I'm having a cheeseburger is not in fact the reason I'm in this chair, but thanks for telling me all about how you stopped eating meat and your rash went away. I don't have to justify my applying for aid to some arsehole cousin who thinks that all social welfare programs are tools of the Communist Party, and I'm lucky that I get to spend his "tax money" on my "frivolities."

All I am trying to do here is live my life, and as nice as that preacher was, when he left behind a scripture for me to read and "think over with your heart", I was all too glad to close the door behind him. I appreciate his belief that I could use some blessings (because, holy hell, yes, I could use some blessings), but I don't like the assumptions he made about who I am, or the life I live, in order for me to earn his blessings. It feels like pity. It feels like ableism. It makes me feel like less than.

So I know I won't be opening the door to any more preachers, because their blessings tend to feel like curses, and I have enough of those. I'll take all the prayers and warm thoughts and fairy dust you want to send me, but don't assume that I need them because I'm in this chair... I'd much rather have a family that was kind to each other than a body that worked correctly. Or a baby that I knew I could provide for. Or an understanding of how to be happy, regardless.

I'd like to be healthy, sure: but I'm living my life the way it is, and that's not sad, or in need of fixing, or less than anybody elses, so don't make me feel like it is.

Anger.

It's a simple word, but a complex emotion. Something familiar to everybody, but still absolutely unique to each individual. And, I realized quite recently, that it is the main obstacle I've been facing (for the last however long) when it comes to writing anything of substance in this space.

Sure, there's been the holiday havoc, and the shingles before that, and the family members' health crises and the three months away from my own home before that, and about a million other, tiny in comparison, issues that keep cropping up, but I've written through that kind of stuff before - I even sort of wrote through it this time. But more often then not, five years, and a gazillion stories and shared emotions into this blogging thing, lately every time I opened the little Blogger tab on my computer, I would find myself struck - and stuck - with all the things I couldn't say.

All the things I have been so angry about that I can't talk about in person - either because I can't figure out how to say them or because nobody actually hears them no matter how loudly I say it - just sort of clumped up in my brain, letting little drips and drops through here and there, but bottling up most of what could actually be said. And the thing about it was, that I didn't even realize it was anger that was keeping the words from coming until I started to let some of it out. I knew there was something: a wall, a block, a barrier between me and the world - even here in this virtual world - but I couldn't figure out where the wall had come from, or how to take it down.

And I still haven't figured it all out, but over the past few weeks something has been made abundantly clear to me (and probably to those people in my life who are paying any attention at all): I am pissed off.

I am pissed off about so many little things, and so many huge things, and just So. Many. Things. And it has shut me down.

It has turned off the flow of words from my brain to my fingers, so that when I come here to write something, all I can think to say is "Things here are busy/crazy/overwhelming, check back later." But I'm not satisfied with that, so I wind up writing nothing and hoping that you all haven't wandered away due to my inattention.

It's shut down my patience, which I'm supposed to have an unending supply of, because that's what people expect of me - To the extent that on Christmas Day I had to lock myself in my room and cry for ten minutes before I could come out and face people again because they were getting on my nerves so much. And the things they were doing would not ordinarily bother me that much, so I know it wasn't just that they were being assholes (even though they kind of were).

It's shut down my ability to put up with crap: I feel unable to take people's shit anymore, and want them to know and to see it as truth that I Am Done. Even the kids are getting a whole lot more of "does this look like my serious face or my joking face? Because I am not joking and you're going to want to stop it right now." I feel like all of my boundaries have been trampled over and over again so I'm left, walking the lines, retrenching, protecting myself - even if that means being overly sensitive and shooting anyone who comes within sight, deservedly or not.

It's closed of my sense of empathy and sympathy - particularly with myself: I am so upset with myself for being upset that I go around feeling like a heartless bitch and expecting people to treat me as if I am that. (Even though I know I'm not.)

It has also shut down my ability to express emotions with any clarity, in case you couldn't tell from that last paragraph. I keep thinking things like "I'm sad; but why?" or "I am feeling such rage right now, and it is out of proportion to the situation we are in, but I can't tell you why I'm feeling it." And it pisses me off even more when someone says something about it ("You seem tired/upset/not your usual cheery self." No, really: gee thanks.)

'So,' you might ask, if you have made it this far into this unending rant about... everything, 'NTE, why are you so angry?' And that's just the thing - I'm angry about so many things, only a quarter of which I can put an actual label on.

I'm angry with passive-aggressive commentary from my family, the kind that I'm just supposed to shrug off and pretend doesn't hurt me, and I'm angry with myself for making those same kind of remarks to them. I'm angry with my illnesses and doctors and the frustrating lack of ANYTHING that I've been confronted with, yet again, this winter. I'm angry with the ableist/racist/sexist/---ist discussions that take place around me, and that I'm not supposed to get angry at them, because that makes me "holier-than-thou." I'm angry at what a shit year 2010 turned out to be, and all the ridiculous drama that 2011 is already holding for us. I'm angry that I'm not doing more about all the things I know only I can take care of, and I'm angry at people who aren't taking the actions only they can do to fix things. I'm angry that there are situations I can't control, and yet I spend all my time trying to control them. I'm angry about things that shouldn't even enter into my life, on other people's behalf. I'm angry that no one seems to notice I am angry. I'm angry about the fact that nobody else is as angry as (I feel) they should be.

I'm angry with myself, with my body, with my family, with my doctors, with the Internet, with the world. I'm angry at my thoughts and feelings, and the fact that they buzz around in my head and heart and stomach incessantly, but when I try to get them down on paper, they become harder to grasp then vapor.

I'm just angry. Mad, frustrated, ranting, coiled, incensed, enraged, inflamed. All of those. And it's painful to be this angry, and to be keeping it all inside.

So when I finally (and I do mean FINALLY, because I have been feeling this way since, at least September, when my Grandmother had her stroke & I wound up semi-homeless again & my doctor told me that my shingles were stress-related hives instead of Listening To Me)... When I finally realized that this emotion that was bottling everything else up, that was clouding all my other emotions and dulling them to the point where I wasn't even feeling them sometimes, was anger, I decided to let it fly. I'm not keeping it to myself anymore. I'm trying not to aim it indiscriminately or disproportionately, but I'm not keeping it all bound up inside of me anymore.

Which may or may not bode entirely well for this blog and what it might become over the next little while, but I'll tell you one thing it definitely will be -

More honest.

Because part of the reason I haven't been writing all that much is because who wants to hear the ranting of an angry woman, especially if she doesn't even know what she's angry about? Would I keep reading a blog like that? I don't know for sure, and I can't answer it for you either. But I think I would, because it's true. And that's all I ever require in whatever I'm reading... that it come from a true place. And that's all I should require from what I'm writing too.

So if mad is what I'm feeling, mad may be what you get. But at least it'll still be the truth.

Welcome to 2011, everybody, let's hope it gets better from here, and if it doesn't, come join me in being righteously angry... because the only way through it is through it.*


*I can't remember which AA or Al-anon or substance abuse program pamphlet I got that from, and a Google search only shows up random religious theologies, which I know is not where I got it, but it still applies. Or, if you prefer: "If you're going through hell, keep going." Winston Churchill

"...the family disease of alcoholism... made us 'co-victims', those who take on the characteristics of the disease without ever taking a drink"*

Day 14: A letter to a hero who has let you down

I wasn't going to write this letter, but ... I didn't feel that I could skip it, since I'm trying to hold myself accountable for things. And then I thought, well, write about Obama, and how he's disappointed you as president (true), but there was no getting around the fact that if I wrote that letter (which I have composed many times in my head), it would just be a cop out: Obama is a great person, and while I want him to be an extraordinary leader, I've never considered him a hero of mine.

Instead, I decided to go exactly where I didn't want to go, and be glad to get it said here, where (almost) nobody who knows the people involved would read it. There are things I should have said that need saying, people in my life who I wish could've remained untarnished heroes to me.

The fact that growing older means seeing another side to things doesn't always mean you forget how it felt when you were younger. I don't even think it should. It's important that I remember that I once was a little girl who loved her daddy, and whose daddy hurt her very badly. A young woman who trusted that her big brother was smart enough to not stomp on her heart, and who was (unfortunately) proven wrong. A daughter who cared enough about her parents to tell them that they were ruining their relationships with everyone around them, even if those warnings were met with harshness and hurt. A friend who tried to point her friends in the right direction, but wound up watching as they stumbled the other way instead.

However, I'm going to preemptively apologize to you, the actual readers of this letter: It started off as one thing and sort of snowballed into something else. Instead of the one person I had intended to write the letter to, I wound up with a whole lot of heroes who had let me down, and they sort of made themselves known as I was going along. So the tense changes, and apparent contradictions, and utter... incomprehensibility of some portions of this letter are my own fault, but I chose to leave them in, because they meant something to me. I'm sorry if that makes it more difficult for all of you.

Dear ___________,

Let me start with this - perhaps, I understand better now, as an adult, the urge to slip into oblivion. The urge to just be numb, and not feel the pain that is life. I can understand that, and at the same time condemn you for doing it.

I can see now that there are things you may have done or that happened to you in your life that you would rather forget, however momentarily. I can even, with hindsight, see that it was those things, and not me, or my lack of something, that made you turn to the substance of your choice, no matter how it felt at the time.

But I can't ever forget that you made that choice, those choices. That you are continuing to make that choice, regardless of what I say or how I feel. That your choice took you away from me, or that it is putting space between us. An unending space, a gulf that I can't imagine ever being able to bridge or span or ford. And that I can't make you see that your choices are harmful to you and to those around you.

When I was a kid, you were ... everything. Two everythings. Three everythings. Four everythngs. All the people a little girl looks up to, the people who are supposed to do their best to look out for her, that she's supposed to be able to count on. And that four of my everythings would make the same choices, would, one by one, abandon me in a way that was heart-freezingly painful, would pick a substance over me (no matter that that isn't what you think/thought you were doing: it is what happened from my point of view) has been soul crushing.

I don't think I've made that clear enough in person, when I've had the chance, so here, let me repeat it (Yes, in the safety of this space that you will never read it, but at least it will be said): You crushed me.

You each did it individually, and that can not be overlooked, but the group of you together? Each making your own individual choices to turn away from our family and towards something ... else. Well, what that does to a girl, to a young woman, to a woman, you'll just never know.

Did you know it would end us? Did you know that it would ruin everything we had? If you had known, could you have chosen differently? How is it possible that, given all the examples, given the example of each other, you didn't know how badly it would hurt - not just me, but you, and all of us?

If a hero is someone you can look up to, there are still a lot of ways in which you all are heroic to me - your service, your support, your love, your example, your hearts, your willing hands, your quick minds - but it is that one way in which you have let me down that I have talked about today. I could sing your praises in a million different ways, but for today, just for this letter, I wanted you to know just how badly you let me down.


But I still love/d you, tarnish and all.

Love, NTE

*Adult Children of Alcoholics, World Service Organization, Inc.

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Day 01 Something you hate about yourself.
Day 02 Something you love about yourself.
Day 03 Something you have to forgive yourself for.
Day 04 Something you have to forgive someone for.
Day 05 Something you hope to do in your life.
Day 06 Something you hope you never have to do.
Day 07 Someone who has made your life worth living for.
Day 08 Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit.
Day 09 Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.
Day 10 Someone you need to let go, or wish you didn’t know.
Day 11 Something people seem to compliment you the most on.
Day 12 Something you never get compliments on.
Day 13 A band or artist that has gotten you through some tough ass days. (write a letter.)
Day 14 A hero that has let you down. (letter)
Day 15 Something or someone you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it.
Day 16 Someone or something you definitely could live without.
Day 17 A book you’ve read that changed your views on something.
Day 18 Your views on gay marriage.
Day 19 What do you think of religion? Or what do you think of politics?
Day 20 Your views on drugs and alcohol.
Day 21 (scenario) Your best friend is in a car accident and you two got into a fight an hour before. What do you do?
Day 22 Something you wish you hadn’t done in your life.
Day 23 Something you wish you had done in your life.
Day 24 Make a playlist to someone, and explain why you chose all the songs. (Just post the titles and artists and letter)
Day 25 The reason you believe you’re still alive today.
Day 26 Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why?
Day 27 What’s the best thing going for you right now?
Day 28 What if you were pregnant or got someone pregnant, what would you do?
Day 29 Something you hope to change about yourself. And why.
Day 30 A letter to yourself, tell yourself EVERYTHING you love about yourself

"Are you lonesome tonight, Do you miss me tonight? Are you sorry we drifted apart?"

Day 09: So today's topic is about people who drifted out of your life, and I suppose I could mention any number of specific people. People I miss, people I'm not sure how I lost touch with, people who just... went away.

But instead, I want to be as honest as possible here, since that's the point of the whole damn thing, and say that I? Am not good at keeping in touch.

Oh, I pretend to be - or, more accurately, I hope to be: I'm one of those annoying people who has a presorted box full of cards to choose from whenever the need might arise. I have fancy stationary, and pens that I know are good for letter writing, and I sometimes spend entirely too much time looking for pretty, different, or interesting vintage postage stamps on E-bay (don't judge). I keep a meticulous address book, as well as a perpetual calendar with just about everybody's birthday noted in it.

But here's the thing: That address book? Is still packed (it's been over a year, and I can't find the damn thing). The calendar? I don't actually need it, because dates are things that stick in my head. But even with the dates there in my head, most of the time the card never gets taken out of the box and filled out. Where it does no good whatsoever. And I usually don't wind up buying the pretty stamps, because I have no money.

In my fantasy world, everybody I know/love gets a card on their birthday, and a letter when they're sad. They get "just thinking of you" and "cheer up, you can do it!" e-mails, and pop-in visits. They get phone calls that last for hours, and we go out to lunch a lot.

In reality, keeping in touch is a road to hell that is well paved for me. Good intentions abound, but I hardly ever follow through. In person visits are very few and very far between - mostly because of my circumstances (I'm sick; they have dogs; I don't drive; I am hacking up a lung) and the fact that we all have our own lives. Phone calls are ... tricky, because I don't technically like the phone. Which is to say I avoid it if at all possible.

I often say to myself "I should call/write/e-mail this person because it has been forever since we talked!" and then I go about ... not doing those things, and more time passes, and it builds up in my head ---- You haven't called; you are a horrible friend; you haven't seen her or met her baby and it is the baby's fourth birthday! At least send a card, you terrible person you! - until it gets to the point where I realize I MUST CALL NOW or I risk losing some important connection to a person I actually like, but just haven't been able to keep up with. At which point, I usually do not call because I still have a hearty dislike of the telephone, but instead I will send an quick e-mail to say "hi" so it doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me that I have been out of touch so long.

All this is to say, that if people drifted out of my life, and some of them did, I take at least partial responsibility.

And I miss you.

Just so's you know.

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Day 01 Something you hate about yourself.
Day 02 Something you love about yourself.
Day 03 Something you have to forgive yourself for.
Day 04 Something you have to forgive someone for.
Day 05 Something you hope to do in your life.
Day 06 Something you hope you never have to do.
Day 07 Someone who has made your life worth living for.
Day 08 Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit.
Day 09 Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.
Day 10 Someone you need to let go, or wish you didn’t know.
Day 11 Something people seem to compliment you the most on.
Day 12 Something you never get compliments on.
Day 13 A band or artist that has gotten you through some tough ass days. (write a letter.)
Day 14 A hero that has let you down. (letter)
Day 15 Something or someone you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it.
Day 16 Someone or something you definitely could live without.
Day 17 A book you’ve read that changed your views on something.
Day 18 Your views on gay marriage.
Day 19 What do you think of religion? Or what do you think of politics?
Day 20 Your views on drugs and alcohol.
Day 21 (scenario) Your best friend is in a car accident and you two got into a fight an hour before. What do you do?
Day 22 Something you wish you hadn’t done in your life.
Day 23 Something you wish you had done in your life.
Day 24 Make a playlist to someone, and explain why you chose all the songs. (Just post the titles and artists and letter)
Day 25 The reason you believe you’re still alive today.
Day 26 Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why?
Day 27 What’s the best thing going for you right now?
Day 28 What if you were pregnant or got someone pregnant, what would you do?
Day 29 Something you hope to change about yourself. And why.
Day 30 A letter to yourself, tell yourself EVERYTHING you love about yourself

Ching-wah TSAO duh liou mahng

Day 08: Name someone who has made your life hell, or treated you like shit

You can click any of these links if you're interested in reading about the people who have done me the most wrong - my own personal demons, the PeopleUpStairs (AKA PUS). I don't recommend it because it's depressing, frustrating, and rage-inducing. (That last one really sums it up, IMO.)

TL;DR: These people are awful and horrendous, and hurray! Not In My Life ANYMORE!

Instead of dwelling in my past misery, please to enjoy these fabulous and completely not at all related links:

You jaundiced jumped up, vercordiously pusillanimous piffle. Upon reading this, you are probably muttering something like "Ho ho, sour grapes." You have a point. But my rejoinder, vinegar face, is what hope did those grapes ever have while you live and breathe?

How can you be so blindly unaware of the loathing and revulsion you engender wherever you go? I have had fantasies about attacking you with a machete, but I dare not.

Have you any idea how truly offensive you are, have you any idea at all? Do you know what an idea is? Sorry. Unfair question. You have singlehandedly, completely, enthusiastically, maniacally, with gusto and lip smacking delight, stovered any advancements made in the human condition over the last six million years. Congratulations. You must be so proud. If you once had any redeeming quality, it has been strangled and garrotted by your other brutish traits.

Why is it everytime I think of you I think of pus? Sea slugs are scum sucking invertebrae. Land slugs are slimy mollusc-brained cabbage eaters. But you are just PUS.

If everything in this world has some purpose, some grand plan behind its existence, then yours surely is to show everything else, whether it be a slops bucket in a fried chicken stand, or the gunk behind the fridge, how fortunate it is not to be you. This letter has come to end. But it is to my eternal disappointment, my bitter regret, that you have not.

That wordy and wonderful ode to the people who have done me wrong is brought to you by BlueSwami's hate letter generator. You can click and create your own, if you'd like.

Also of interest, (if you happen to be a geek) are these inventive Chinese curses and their pronunciations, should you choose to learn them. If you'll excuse me, I have to go practice saying the title to this post, just to have it in my back pocket.

PS: If you've never seen Firefly, and it's follow-up movie Serenity, I tell you that you MUST.
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Day 01 Something you hate about yourself.
Day 02 Something you love about yourself.
Day 03 Something you have to forgive yourself for.
Day 04 Something you have to forgive someone for.
Day 05 Something you hope to do in your life.
Day 06 Something you hope you never have to do.
Day 07 Someone who has made your life worth living for.
Day 08 Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit.
Day 09 Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.
Day 10 Someone you need to let go, or wish you didn’t know.
Day 11 Something people seem to compliment you the most on.
Day 12 Something you never get compliments on.
Day 13 A band or artist that has gotten you through some tough ass days. (write a letter.)
Day 14 A hero that has let you down. (letter)
Day 15 Something or someone you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it.
Day 16 Someone or something you definitely could live without.
Day 17 A book you’ve read that changed your views on something.
Day 18 Your views on gay marriage.
Day 19 What do you think of religion? Or what do you think of politics?
Day 20 Your views on drugs and alcohol.
Day 21 (scenario) Your best friend is in a car accident and you two got into a fight an hour before. What do you do?
Day 22 Something you wish you hadn’t done in your life.
Day 23 Something you wish you had done in your life.
Day 24 Make a playlist to someone, and explain why you chose all the songs. (Just post the titles and artists and letter)
Day 25 The reason you believe you’re still alive today.
Day 26 Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why?
Day 27 What’s the best thing going for you right now?
Day 28 What if you were pregnant or got someone pregnant, what would you do?
Day 29 Something you hope to change about yourself. And why.
Day 30 A letter to yourself, tell yourself EVERYTHING you love about yourself

"Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory."*

Day 04 Something you have to forgive someone for.

Contrary to the opinion of certain siblings of mine, having a good memory does not mean that I hold a lot of grudges: Just because I remember, very clearly, the time you broke the tiny little gumball machine I had in my dollhouse, even though you were forbidden to play with my dollhouse, doesn't mean that, 20 some odd years later, I am still hating you for it. All is forgiven, I promise.

But there are some grudges I do hold, and some people I will not forgive. If you've read this blog with any regularity, then you know that the atrocities of the PUS (People UpStairs, my former uncle and his family) are things that I am just totally, and without any compunction about it, unwilling to forgive. I've moved past them - cutting them out of my life completely was a big help there - but abuse and mistreatment, terrorizing people and contributing to our family in only a poisonous, vicious manner are not things I'm willing to forgive. Don't need to think about you anymore, thank god, but when/if I do, it won't be with a forgiveness that you never earned.

That said, there are some things that I've been holding on to that I could definitely let go of. These are things that still had a huge impact in my life, but were perhaps not meant to be harmful/hurtful, or were done thoughtlessly, or can be attributed to age/stage of life, that I can honestly say "Yeah: you screwed up there, but I'm going to just let it go."

The major one I have in mind is the way people dropped out of my life when I got sick. I've been dealing with the emotional fallout from that for as long as I've been dealing with the physical ramifications of my illness, and sometimes, the emotional stuff was harder. Because I didn't do anything wrong. But I still lost a lot of people who were important to me. And that wasn't right, and it wasn't fair: It was like I'd been sliced in half, and nothing made it clearer to me that I was different now than the fact that I didn't belong anywhere I thought was my place, not anymore.

But now that I'm older, and now that I can see it from the outside (somewhat), I understand that it wasn't so much that you all were rejecting me, it was that you got caught up in your lives, and mine - which was, by necessity, taking place in extreme slow motion - just fell behind. I know that you didn't mean to hurt me when you let me go, and that's an important thing to remember, to consider.

I also have to remember that some of you were teenagers, just like me, and others of you were younger than me, and what was happening to me was both scary and boring at the exact same time. It must have been hard to try to stay connected with someone who didn't show up to any of the social gatherings that are so vital to high school life. I can see how calling and being told that I was either sleeping or too sick to come to the phone could get old really fast. I can understand that watching me sleep in the corner at work must have been frustrating to you, especially when you had to cover all my classes for me. I can empathize with little girls who thought I was sucking up all of our mom's attention, who couldn't understand why I didn't have to do chores anymore, who hated that I wasn't any fun to be around.

And I can see how, as weeks turned into months, and months turned into a year, and the years kept on multiplying, that you could just keep moving on, while I had to stay behind. It hurts, I have to say that it's surprising how much it can still hurt that so many people just didn't have it in them to stay, but right now, at this point, I can see that it wasn't that you didn't care, it was that it got too hard.

And I forgive you for distancing yourself from me, because if I could have, I would have too.

And I'm glad that some of you came back, when you could. It's been different between us, but we are grown ups now anyways, so how could it not be?

So there: Some of you walked away, some of you ran, some of you just faded out. And it hurt, but I survived it.

Forgiving it - given the circumstances - doesn't seem like that big of a deal, after that.

* Beverly Flanigan


Day 01 Something you hate about yourself.
Day 02 Something you love about yourself.
Day 03 Something you have to forgive yourself for.
Day 04 Something you have to forgive someone for.
Day 05 Something you hope to do in your life.
Day 06 Something you hope you never have to do.
Day 07 Someone who has made your life worth living for.
Day 08 Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit.
Day 09 Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.
Day 10 Someone you need to let go, or wish you didn’t know.
Day 11 Something people seem to compliment you the most on.
Day 12 Something you never get compliments on.
Day 13 A band or artist that has gotten you through some tough ass days. (write a letter.)
Day 14 A hero that has let you down. (letter)
Day 15 Something or someone you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it.
Day 16 Someone or something you definitely could live without.
Day 17 A book you’ve read that changed your views on something.
Day 18 Your views on gay marriage.
Day 19 What do you think of religion? Or what do you think of politics?
Day 20 Your views on drugs and alcohol.
Day 21 (scenario) Your best friend is in a car accident and you two got into a fight an hour before. What do you do?
Day 22 Something you wish you hadn’t done in your life.
Day 23 Something you wish you had done in your life.
Day 24 Make a playlist to someone, and explain why you chose all the songs. (Just post the titles and artists and letter)
Day 25 The reason you believe you’re still alive today.
Day 26 Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why?
Day 27 What’s the best thing going for you right now?
Day 28 What if you were pregnant or got someone pregnant, what would you do?
Day 29 Something you hope to change about yourself. And why.
Day 30 A letter to yourself, tell yourself EVERYTHING you love about yourself

"Monsters are real, ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win."*

This is my third attempt at this post - Damn: this truthiness stuff is hard!

I need to forgive myself for not growing up to be the woman I'd hoped I'd be. In so many ways.

I need to forgive myself for that one time I chickened out - for all the times I chickened out, held back, let myself be silenced; because it could have made a difference.

I need to forgive myself for forgetting important things, because it would have meant something if I'd remembered.

I need to forgive myself for not being truthful when it mattered most, because I hurt myself and some good people along the way.

I need to forgive myself for postponing things I don't want to face, because it always bites me in the ass.

I need to forgive myself for not answering the phone that night, because I couldn't have known.

I need to forgive myself for the times I only live a half-life, because I want to be more, be better, than that.

Oi, I have a feeling the next twenty seven days are going to be a tad more difficult than I had thought.


*Stephen King

Day 01 Something you hate about yourself.
Day 02 Something you love about yourself.
Day 03 Something you have to forgive yourself for.
Day 04 Something you have to forgive someone for.
Day 05 Something you hope to do in your life.
Day 06 Something you hope you never have to do.
Day 07 Someone who has made your life worth living for.
Day 08 Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit.
Day 09 Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.
Day 10 Someone you need to let go, or wish you didn’t know.
Day 11 Something people seem to compliment you the most on.
Day 12 Something you never get compliments on.
Day 13 A band or artist that has gotten you through some tough ass days. (write a letter.)
Day 14 A hero that has let you down. (letter)
Day 15 Something or someone you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it.
Day 16 Someone or something you definitely could live without.
Day 17 A book you’ve read that changed your views on something.
Day 18 Your views on gay marriage.
Day 19 What do you think of religion? Or what do you think of politics?
Day 20 Your views on drugs and alcohol.
Day 21 (scenario) Your best friend is in a car accident and you two got into a fight an hour before. What do you do?
Day 22 Something you wish you hadn’t done in your life.
Day 23 Something you wish you had done in your life.
Day 24 Make a playlist to someone, and explain why you chose all the songs. (Just post the titles and artists and letter)
Day 25 The reason you believe you’re still alive today.
Day 26 Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why?
Day 27 What’s the best thing going for you right now?
Day 28 What if you were pregnant or got someone pregnant, what would you do?
Day 29 Something you hope to change about yourself. And why.
Day 30 A letter to yourself, tell yourself EVERYTHING you love about yourself