Not that it's a shocker, but I'm not so good at being an optimist.
But, I decided that I would try harder to cast a rosy glow onto whatever I could, and keep sippin' on that damn half-full glass o' life (not to be confused with "the Kool-Ade").
[It's all irritating as shit.]
I've spent the last 6 months or so, repeating this to myself:
"be Positive-be Patient-be Proactive!"
Literally every.single.day.
They are my P's of Peacefulness!
I thought it would help me be less stressed. That by surrendering to patience (however violently, ahem.), I would begin to see how change comes in small, but important ways. By taking a proactive stance, I would participate in making my life better and get to where I (and my family) needed to be, but I wouldn't be trying to FORCE life to happen...as is my usual MO.
I would be calm and serene. I would be living in the moment. Appreciating things in their own time.
Friends? I am so not that fucking person.
You know what helps me to get through the day?
Planning for and expecting the worst. Truly, it does.
In doing so, I know what I might be up against, and I have a plan! Or, at the very least, I've steeled myself for battle and will not be caught unawares if calamity is to strike.
Bestest part?
When the worst doesn't happen (which is kinda rare in neck of the woods), or falls below the level of expectation, it's a nice surprise! A breath of fresh air.
SADLY, today, I was caught unawares.
Positivity clouded my judgment!
Damn sunshiney rays blinded me to reality...
We are budgeted to the nickel.
And, to kick off 2011,
we just started paying my in-laws rent,
AND our car payments started up.
So that nickel is all the more teensy....
Positive, albeit, money-draining changes.
Heeeey, though! Turn that frown upside down! We were gonna make it! It'll be fine! Husband's totally gonna find extra work ANY DAY NOW, and that will loosen the belt FOR SURE!
Sure, there was no way that my husband could ever take a sick day on this budget, but that NEVER happens...even when he is a little under the weather, he makes it to work!
Until he wakes up at 4am to have a vomitfest this morning. No work for you, pukey!
Craptacular. I did not budget for this.
Curse you, Freaking Optimism!
Did I mention that we're already counting down the days and the pennies 'til next payday?
(10, in case you were wondering...)
This, darling readers, is why I'd pick my P's to propose:
"be Pragmatic-be Planning-be Prepared (for the worst!)!"
They are my P's of Progress!
They just aid in making life's bitter pills a little bit sweeter....
For Me, anyway.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Friday, January 21, 2011
I'll leave the light on for ya...but it ain't red.
My IL's house had to be fumigated for the 3 days because of termites, so we all stayed in a hotel...
My husband was excited for getaway, hotel style carnality...
He was obviously delusional.
In-laws in the adjoining room? 14-month-old snoring in a portacrib next to the bed? Exhaustion from packing up the house for said fumigation?
Not so sexy...
And a business/commuter hotel room? With ants in the bathroom?
Not so vacationy.
Sorry, Querido.
The baby's sound machine set on "ocean waves" was not an equitable compromise to a beach-side B&B....
But I totally appreciate your imagination and creativity in the matter.
Just not enough to risk an ER visit (and awkward convo with your parents) so we can have sex hastily in the shower. And no, the handicapped-accessible bars in the shower did not make it kinkier. Or safer, for that matter.
I love you though.
Really!
My husband was excited for getaway, hotel style carnality...
He was obviously delusional.
In-laws in the adjoining room? 14-month-old snoring in a portacrib next to the bed? Exhaustion from packing up the house for said fumigation?
Not so sexy...
And a business/commuter hotel room? With ants in the bathroom?
Not so vacationy.
Sorry, Querido.
The baby's sound machine set on "ocean waves" was not an equitable compromise to a beach-side B&B....
But I totally appreciate your imagination and creativity in the matter.
Just not enough to risk an ER visit (and awkward convo with your parents) so we can have sex hastily in the shower. And no, the handicapped-accessible bars in the shower did not make it kinkier. Or safer, for that matter.
I love you though.
Really!
Monday, January 17, 2011
Suitable for Consumption
Remember when I gifted you all with this fantastical blog?
[If you haven't clicked your way into her world, you are MISSING OUT.]
Well, she has written a review of my dinky-little-blog-that-could in her weekly
"Featured Bloggers" post.
Do me a favor, and head on over to read it....Go! Go! Go! Ha!
Honestly? I'm floored by the inclusion. It bought tears to my eyes and validation to my heart.
And I mean that in the most non-cheese ball way.
I respect her work so much, and each of the bloggers that she has featured thus far have been so diversely special. To know that she respects me? That she feels that I need to be shared with others?
Is fucking rad.
As of late, I've really tried to push myself with this blog. I want to be honest. Of the brutal, reaching-out-to-others, staring-down-myself sort. Not that I have ever lied in these pages, but I have omitted and sugar-coated form time-to-time. I have censored myself, not saying things that needed to be said and/or not writing posts that should have been written because I was afraid.
Afraid that I would not be believed, understood, or supported.
That no one would want to hear me. Insecurity and Self-Doubt, reigning supreme...
Mostly, though?
I was afraid of hearing MYSELF. Of facing monsters that I've tried to hard to keep at bay. Of opening up my stores of memories/pain/thoughts/perspective to the light of public view. Because once I did that, I knew there would be no going back. Nowhere to hide and pretend to be what I thought people might want.
But here I am. I have crossed the threshold.
Thank you to all of you who've supported me thus far. I love you all.
Thank you to Kris over at PrettyAllTrue. A Million Times.
Thank you to the new readers who have/may stop on by. Please continue to do so, and feel free to pass me on to others. If you have a story to share, share away!
I will do my best to let you all in...
and let myself out.
[If you haven't clicked your way into her world, you are MISSING OUT.]
Well, she has written a review of my dinky-little-blog-that-could in her weekly
"Featured Bloggers" post.
Do me a favor, and head on over to read it....Go! Go! Go! Ha!
Honestly? I'm floored by the inclusion. It bought tears to my eyes and validation to my heart.
And I mean that in the most non-cheese ball way.
I respect her work so much, and each of the bloggers that she has featured thus far have been so diversely special. To know that she respects me? That she feels that I need to be shared with others?
Is fucking rad.
As of late, I've really tried to push myself with this blog. I want to be honest. Of the brutal, reaching-out-to-others, staring-down-myself sort. Not that I have ever lied in these pages, but I have omitted and sugar-coated form time-to-time. I have censored myself, not saying things that needed to be said and/or not writing posts that should have been written because I was afraid.
of Rejection
of Mocking
of Anger
of Judgment
of FAILURE
of FAILURE
That no one would want to hear me. Insecurity and Self-Doubt, reigning supreme...
Mostly, though?
I was afraid of hearing MYSELF. Of facing monsters that I've tried to hard to keep at bay. Of opening up my stores of memories/pain/thoughts/perspective to the light of public view. Because once I did that, I knew there would be no going back. Nowhere to hide and pretend to be what I thought people might want.
But here I am. I have crossed the threshold.
Thank you to all of you who've supported me thus far. I love you all.
Thank you to Kris over at PrettyAllTrue. A Million Times.
Thank you to the new readers who have/may stop on by. Please continue to do so, and feel free to pass me on to others. If you have a story to share, share away!
I will do my best to let you all in...
and let myself out.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Quarantine has been Breached...
There are times that I feel emotionally compromised.
[More like most of the time, but I like to carry on as as though I'm all stable and Maslow-y.]
Now is definitely one of those times. There's a shitload of factors contributing to my current state, both immediate and historical, but I find myself incapable of forming those factors into coherency right now.
[an attempt from an earlier post]
I hate this shit. It makes me feel lost and and weak and out-of-control, and as a HUGE control-freak, this is more that a teensy issue.
It makes me feel whiny and trivial.
I carry a lot of of sadness and grief within me. A lot of pain. I've been through a lot of horrific shit.
I've been decried as liar, and and pretty much all of my history has been denied, but it's the truth. A whole lotta ugly, ugly, complicated truth.
As true as it may be, I feel like a cliche. A ridiculous, Lifetime-Movie-variety whelpish, sad-girl.
Gross.
But I am a sad girl. A deeply fucking sad girl/woman/human. And frankly, I lose the capacity to handle it properly on certain days.
It PAINS me to admit that. And if we're honest with ourselves? It pains most people to hear it. They don't want sorrow and pain and scars that won't close.
They want healing and positivity and triumph and smiles.
You and me both, world. As such?
I acknowledge it occasionally, and sometimes put my self-awareness hat on, and of COURSE I went to therapy (I mean, obviously) for it, but for the most part?
I just try to keep that shit in quarantine, away from the rest of my metal processes and emotions....
Because it scares the fuck out of me. It's never-ending. It has a profundity that even I can't fathom, and intensity that I cannot control.
Yep, I know what you are thinking: "Gosh, it sounds like you may have depression!" I do! The clinical kind, even! Fun!
In order to compensate for the sads, I tend to turn to anger. Mostly at myself for not being able to cope, sometimes-more often than I ever wanted- at my husband for being terrified/powerless at the depth of it all, and at the "world" I live in for not often giving the struggle any real validity.
Anger is less daunting for me. I'm familiar with anger- it's strangely comforting because at least I've had practice at it...mostly with in being hurled and spit in my direction, but you get the gist...anger and I are on a first name basis.
I can control it. [Right?]
It doesn't run away with my sanity as sadness is so prone to do. I am not to well-versed in sadness. Not in any healthy way. Sadness was not allowed in the environment that I grew up in.
It was mocked and the cause for wrath. No one had the right or reason to be sad except for my Mother. Her sadness was the only genuine and respected sadness. She was the only one whose sadness was warranted and needed to be cared for.
[That was pretty much the Gold Standard for all of her emotions, btw.]
The rest of the world was selfish, putting on, grasping for attention, or being overly dramatic.
Sadness cost too damned much, so I learned "not" to be. Anger was safer. It was easier. I could internalize that shit and externalize a scowl with the best of 'em....it took me a long time to learn it, but once I did, Oh, boy! Did I have the world fooled!
Pssshhh.
Look at me! I'm together! I am a rock. No one is going to break me again! Fuck being sad! Sadness is for quitters! I am beyond my childhood, my abuses, my scars, my traumas, my brain chemistry [Hello?]. I am so completely above that now! I am now well-rounded because I know that!
Oh, Depression, you have such the sardonic sense of humor.....
Therapy, Medication, Religion, Education, True Love, Motherhood--Nothing has cured it. All, at one time or another have eased it, some continually, some superficially, some earnestly, but nothing has wholly absorbed it.
I know that it will never be. That it will ebb and flow through my life forever.
In the stillness of 2am, on more nights than I care to count, I fear that someday I will be flooded and completely taken over by it.
Not in a suicidal way (though I'd be a liar if I said it didn't bring me dangerously close to the dizzying edge more than once in my youth), because suicide is selfish bullshit that leaves your friends/family holding your bag of pain and confusion while trying to deal with their OWN, [so put the phone down] but in that way that depression works best-
APATHY.
When it's done drowning you in sorrow, it just takes everything else. You don't care-no, it's not that you don't care, or won't care, it's that you can't care. It takes away your ability to feel anything but the hollowness of nothing. I have been there for brief (and some not so brief) periods of my life, and it is not pretty.
Being a mother has made depression all the more terrifying for me. I don't want it to affect my son, and I fight like hell to shield him from it, but it would be naive of me to think that I can keep it from touching him at all. It frustrates me as a wife because I am a caretaker, and all I want to do is be the pillar of strength and comfort in my husband's life, and that role is robbed from me during bouts...
That makes me feel like a failure. Which is all part of the tapes running in my head, and the powerful hold of depression in the first fucking place, which I know from a logical pov, but it feels true emotionally.
Failure.
Such an insidious word. It carries so much power. It is personified as the Boogey Man in my closet, under my bed.
And tonight?
Well tonight, it is all I can see.
Depression is a cunning bastard.
Nighttime is when he sidles up the closest. Strokes my fears and breathes the past into my present.
Some nights we dance more than others, but he's always on my card*...
but will not forgive
Rage builds slowly, toward a crescendo in Hate.
(The Chorus Begins)
Anger croons about the smallest of injustices
waltzing with the skeletons in your closet
They sway, taunting, down a macabre lane of memories
fleshing out your demons, giving substance to their grip-
so begins their deceitful dance
Watch, as the dead whirl around the floor…
1 and,
2 and,
3 and,
4.
Mistrust is rhythmic, lulling you into a fury
and as you accept a spectral invitation to the ball,
you forget that the dead can dance Forever…
1 and,
2 and,
3 and,
4.
Listen, as the band keeps playing the same
old
familiar
song.
*For those of you who have never been ravaged by a depressive disorder, here's a tidbit to note:
Depressed people are always depressed. Always. It's just a question of to what degree.
I've spent many of my years with it turned up to ELEVEN.
Because as I intro'd with:
I am emotionally compromised the fuck up.
[More like most of the time, but I like to carry on as as though I'm all stable and Maslow-y.]
Now is definitely one of those times. There's a shitload of factors contributing to my current state, both immediate and historical, but I find myself incapable of forming those factors into coherency right now.
[an attempt from an earlier post]
I hate this shit. It makes me feel lost and and weak and out-of-control, and as a HUGE control-freak, this is more that a teensy issue.
It makes me feel whiny and trivial.
I carry a lot of of sadness and grief within me. A lot of pain. I've been through a lot of horrific shit.
I've been decried as liar, and and pretty much all of my history has been denied, but it's the truth. A whole lotta ugly, ugly, complicated truth.
As true as it may be, I feel like a cliche. A ridiculous, Lifetime-Movie-variety whelpish, sad-girl.
Gross.
But I am a sad girl. A deeply fucking sad girl/woman/human. And frankly, I lose the capacity to handle it properly on certain days.
It PAINS me to admit that. And if we're honest with ourselves? It pains most people to hear it. They don't want sorrow and pain and scars that won't close.
They want healing and positivity and triumph and smiles.
You and me both, world. As such?
I acknowledge it occasionally, and sometimes put my self-awareness hat on, and of COURSE I went to therapy (I mean, obviously) for it, but for the most part?
I just try to keep that shit in quarantine, away from the rest of my metal processes and emotions....
Because it scares the fuck out of me. It's never-ending. It has a profundity that even I can't fathom, and intensity that I cannot control.
Yep, I know what you are thinking: "Gosh, it sounds like you may have depression!" I do! The clinical kind, even! Fun!
In order to compensate for the sads, I tend to turn to anger. Mostly at myself for not being able to cope, sometimes-more often than I ever wanted- at my husband for being terrified/powerless at the depth of it all, and at the "world" I live in for not often giving the struggle any real validity.
Anger is less daunting for me. I'm familiar with anger- it's strangely comforting because at least I've had practice at it...mostly with in being hurled and spit in my direction, but you get the gist...anger and I are on a first name basis.
I can control it. [Right?]
It doesn't run away with my sanity as sadness is so prone to do. I am not to well-versed in sadness. Not in any healthy way. Sadness was not allowed in the environment that I grew up in.
It was mocked and the cause for wrath. No one had the right or reason to be sad except for my Mother. Her sadness was the only genuine and respected sadness. She was the only one whose sadness was warranted and needed to be cared for.
[That was pretty much the Gold Standard for all of her emotions, btw.]
The rest of the world was selfish, putting on, grasping for attention, or being overly dramatic.
Sadness cost too damned much, so I learned "not" to be. Anger was safer. It was easier. I could internalize that shit and externalize a scowl with the best of 'em....it took me a long time to learn it, but once I did, Oh, boy! Did I have the world fooled!
Pssshhh.
Look at me! I'm together! I am a rock. No one is going to break me again! Fuck being sad! Sadness is for quitters! I am beyond my childhood, my abuses, my scars, my traumas, my brain chemistry [Hello?]. I am so completely above that now! I am now well-rounded because I know that!
Oh, Depression, you have such the sardonic sense of humor.....
Therapy, Medication, Religion, Education, True Love, Motherhood--Nothing has cured it. All, at one time or another have eased it, some continually, some superficially, some earnestly, but nothing has wholly absorbed it.
I know that it will never be. That it will ebb and flow through my life forever.
In the stillness of 2am, on more nights than I care to count, I fear that someday I will be flooded and completely taken over by it.
Not in a suicidal way (though I'd be a liar if I said it didn't bring me dangerously close to the dizzying edge more than once in my youth), because suicide is selfish bullshit that leaves your friends/family holding your bag of pain and confusion while trying to deal with their OWN, [so put the phone down] but in that way that depression works best-
APATHY.
When it's done drowning you in sorrow, it just takes everything else. You don't care-no, it's not that you don't care, or won't care, it's that you can't care. It takes away your ability to feel anything but the hollowness of nothing. I have been there for brief (and some not so brief) periods of my life, and it is not pretty.
Being a mother has made depression all the more terrifying for me. I don't want it to affect my son, and I fight like hell to shield him from it, but it would be naive of me to think that I can keep it from touching him at all. It frustrates me as a wife because I am a caretaker, and all I want to do is be the pillar of strength and comfort in my husband's life, and that role is robbed from me during bouts...
That makes me feel like a failure. Which is all part of the tapes running in my head, and the powerful hold of depression in the first fucking place, which I know from a logical pov, but it feels true emotionally.
Failure.
Such an insidious word. It carries so much power. It is personified as the Boogey Man in my closet, under my bed.
And tonight?
Well tonight, it is all I can see.
Depression is a cunning bastard.
Nighttime is when he sidles up the closest. Strokes my fears and breathes the past into my present.
Some nights we dance more than others, but he's always on my card*...
Haunting the Dancehall
In a symphony of things you cannot changebut will not forgive
Rage builds slowly, toward a crescendo in Hate.
(The Chorus Begins)
Anger croons about the smallest of injustices
waltzing with the skeletons in your closet
They sway, taunting, down a macabre lane of memories
fleshing out your demons, giving substance to their grip-
so begins their deceitful dance
Watch, as the dead whirl around the floor…
1 and,
2 and,
3 and,
4.
Mistrust is rhythmic, lulling you into a fury
and as you accept a spectral invitation to the ball,
you forget that the dead can dance Forever…
1 and,
2 and,
3 and,
4.
Listen, as the band keeps playing the same
old
familiar
song.
*For those of you who have never been ravaged by a depressive disorder, here's a tidbit to note:
Depressed people are always depressed. Always. It's just a question of to what degree.
I've spent many of my years with it turned up to ELEVEN.
Because as I intro'd with:
I am emotionally compromised the fuck up.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Crushed.
I've got a lot of things weighing on my mind lately.
(Ya know, because that's new for me 'n stuff.)
Several of these things are topics I want to blog about.
Mostly as a catharsis for myself..in the hopes that if I get it out all on "paper," it'll stop eating at me...
But those things will have to wait. O has a gnarly cold and given the amount of times he's hacked/sneezed in my face, I'll be quick to follow suit.
I'm excited, aren't you?
I know you're devastated that you can't read more of me, soooo, I bequeath* you with a gift:
This GLORIOUS Blog
I have a serious blog-crush on its author. It is one of the few blogs that I truly look forward to daily...
She's frank
Genuine
She's got a wicked sense of humor
She writes about love and joy and life and pain in a way that makes you feel like you're sharing in on her secrets, and you are honored to get the chance.
She's a wife and a mama....but do not mistake her for your traditional "Mommy Blog" 'cos you won't be getting any of those rainbows and gumdrops.
Readers are in for another kind of treat--delicious reality. Mmmm....
She may not be everyone's cup O' Tea, but I adore her, and I think you should give it a sip.
*I am the only one who thinks that the word bequeath sounds a bit "off-color" when you say it aloud? No? Never mind then...
(Ya know, because that's new for me 'n stuff.)
Several of these things are topics I want to blog about.
Mostly as a catharsis for myself..in the hopes that if I get it out all on "paper," it'll stop eating at me...
Nightmares
Money Woes
Family Planning
Fear of failure on an all-consuming level
Ghosts of childhoods pastBut those things will have to wait. O has a gnarly cold and given the amount of times he's hacked/sneezed in my face, I'll be quick to follow suit.
I'm excited, aren't you?
I know you're devastated that you can't read more of me, soooo, I bequeath* you with a gift:
This GLORIOUS Blog
I have a serious blog-crush on its author. It is one of the few blogs that I truly look forward to daily...
She's frank
Genuine
She's got a wicked sense of humor
She writes about love and joy and life and pain in a way that makes you feel like you're sharing in on her secrets, and you are honored to get the chance.
She's a wife and a mama....but do not mistake her for your traditional "Mommy Blog" 'cos you won't be getting any of those rainbows and gumdrops.
Readers are in for another kind of treat--delicious reality. Mmmm....
She may not be everyone's cup O' Tea, but I adore her, and I think you should give it a sip.
*I am the only one who thinks that the word bequeath sounds a bit "off-color" when you say it aloud? No? Never mind then...
Thursday, January 6, 2011
A Hundy! (OR, Hurtling Babies!)
100, that is.
This is my hundredth post. Can you believe that? I've managed to warble on for THAT long? Wow.
I had planned on doing some sort of fun, retrospective-y post for the big 100, but the last few days have sucked.
I'm really trying to stay positive for 2011, but the outlook isn't lookin' sunshiney.
To top it off, O fell down the stairs today. I left him playing with his toy garage for less than 5 minutes to pee, and the next thing I know, I hear a tumble and WAIL. (he's fine, btw.)...
I go flying to see him crumpled on the landing and I immediately start to cry. My heart jumped to my throat. OH.MY.G-D.OH.MY.G-D.OHMYGAWDDDD!
Mostly the fall just scared/pissed him off, but it scared the SHIT out of me. Annd? I feel like the worst Mommy EVER.
Obviously, the barriers we've put up to block the stairs just aren't cutting it anymore.
My ILs were trying to avoid drilling into the walls all this time, which I understand, but the time has come- no more avoiding the inevitable...The upstairs bonus landing and his room are the only real safe places to play in the house...
Now, I feel like the landing isn't safe, but he hates just being in his room all day...grrrreaaaatttt...
but since my ILs are in FL for the next week, we'll have to wait 'til they get back for them to give the okay to install the gate, so in the meantime, O will be attached to my hip.
This week? Gonna be awesome.
And by awesome, I mean NOTSOMUCH.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
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