In the Land of Eternal Headaches...

Again with this bloody headache! I don't know what to do for it. Every day I dose it up with as much stuff as I can take and it might sometimes think about easing off for a few hours but it never stays gone. It's like a tension migraine: the too tight scalp combined with the sledge-hammer throb in the right temple. I've been chewing on promezathine like candy to keep from vomiting and it mostly works - mostly. I'm so tired of the constant pain though. I am to the point where I can barely function through them. I had all the best intentions of shutting off processing and just doing what needs to be done and while I have partly succeeded, I have not done so with areas that matter. I have shut out the poor-me and turned off the don't-think-about-this-because-it-hurts parts but I can't get past this headache and if I try to get up and do anything, I end up throwing up.

I remember there was a time when my head didn't hurt all the time but even though it hasn't been that long, I can't remember what it feels like to be headache free. I have called and made an appointment with the neurologist but the appointment isn't until November 12th (which is actually VERY quick for this guy!!) so what do I do in the meantime? I have hit it with everything in my arsenal and I am out of heavy-hitters, actually, I am out of all narcotic pain medication of any kind. WAH! I want to go to bed and stay there!!

(was going to include the lyrics to or a clip of the song Pain by Three Days Grace until I went back and listened again and it's more about preferring to feel pain than nothing at all - kind of the opposite of of what I'm looking for right now...)

Reality Check

Okay, so doom and gloom isn't the answer and happy happy happy makes people nervous. So it's all about portraying a balance. I think I have a game plan.

Step One: STOP FEELING Since I haven't been able to convince myself to believe the good and stop dwelling on the bad, it's time to turn off that switch altogether. I know how to relax into things that don't feel good. I know how to count away the scary things. I know how to breathe away the panic attacks. It's time to put everything together and stop feeling. Shift the focus from trying to fight the bad or feel the good and onto the specific activities that will show I am OKAY.

Step Two: MAKE LISTS of everything. Plan out the thoughts and the activities and prepare the responses to the questions. Prep for the possibilities that don't come up often but might. Line up back up to create a seamless transition between auto-pilot and disaster recovery so that even the worst won't phase me. Write down the things I need to do and when and how to do them then just follow the list.

Step Three: PULL BACK If something comes up that I don't know how to handle, just pull back a little and transfer to auto-pilot. Don't fight anyone on anything. Just do what is being asked. If the thoughts and feelings try to out, pull away from them just enough to not let them hurt me.

Step Four: STEPFORD ACCOMPLISHED If I can short-circuit the thought-feeling connection, I can do whatever I need to do. I will be able to be who and what people need me to be and I don't have to hurt any more. It is the ultimate "fake it til you make it" and I can make this work...

This really is the best way to go. I can't keep going the way things are and this plan will work. I've already established that I am only still here because I can't hurt people by leaving so it's time to put my money where my mouth is. Live for those people I am trying to protect... it's going to be okay!

Thoughts I'm Supposed to Think

The sun is out today and fall is everywhere. There is that crisp smell in the air and the trees are turning a myriad of colors. It is Kid-4's birthday today and we will be celebrating at a restaurant with family tonight. Last night was Chuck E Cheese and all the kids really seemed to have a good time. Things are going well.

NaNoWriMo starts this week and I am trying to get ready for it. I have my premise down and am trying to work out the details. I suppose I ought to do some kind of a scene list to keep me going and give me an idea of what I am going to write, but it'll be okay without it. Part of the fun of NaNo is the bravado of winging it on a whim and prayer anyways!

So far so good this week on the shrink front. I haven't done anything to hurt myself all week, except for fighting with the cut on my wrist because it won't heal up right and is annoying the heck out of me. LOL I have come to the conclusion that I can do the things on his list. I can do what he wants me to do. I just need to relax into it and stop fighting against it and every thing is going to be just fine. Now that I know what is expected of me, I can do it.

My guardian angel is coming for a visit next week. I'm very excited as it's been long time since I've seen him and it's going to be a great time. He's bringing his sweet little dog and we're going to go to the park and hang out for a while. If it is too cold or the weather is unfriendly, we can always retreat to a restaurant or I can have him over to the house if I get it cleaned up in time. It would be great to have him meet Craig and the kids, but only if the house isn't a humiliation! LOL I shall have to work on that this week...

I'm not sure what to do about Baby. I am hoping she will be gone by then but if not, I will either bring her with me (doubtful) or leave her with Craig. I had completely forgotten about watching her on Saturdays, every Saturday, so that Baby-Mommy can go do her thing. She thinks she will be done by 1 o'clock which is still later than I had hoped for but Craig keeps saying it isn't a problem to leave her with him and, of course, I trust him completely.

Overall, things are going just fine. If I concentrate on the things I am supposed to be thinking and feeling and doing then I should be able to keep myself together. After all, it's all about making sure everyone is okay. A well-prepared smile, a laugh at the right time, a focus on providing what people need to see from me... I can do this. Focus on showing people that I am doing good and that I am healing and growing and getting stronger and it is a win-win for everyone. Indulging in dark thoughts doesn't help anyone and there is a good side to everything. If a good side can't be found than at least whatever it is isn't as bad as it could be. I am a very lucky person, blessed with many gifts and circumstances. I can do this. I can be who I am supposed to be...

"You're never fully dressed without a smile!" (Annie)

Thoughts I'm Not Allowed to Think

Maybe after all this time and all this fighting against it... maybe it's time to reconsider bipolar disorder. Although I remember very little of it first hand, it's pretty obvious I was manic for a while. (And I kinda liked it, truth be told. From what I hear and what I do remember, I had energy and enthusiasm and saw the good before the bad overwhelmed me. I had a take-on-the-world attitude. I smiled and laughed and took things in stride. Sure, there were bugs crawling on my skin and I had a tendency to go with 1-2 hours of sleep and I kinda skipped town without telling anyone... but hey - actually... None of the bad stuff has changed except my attitude towards it. Hmm.) But far as up as I was then, I am sinking equally far down. I am tired, so so tired, in my soul and in my bones. I am back to having to force the positive thoughts and not really believing them even when I drag them out and tell myself they are what I should be thinking. I am back to not letting people know how I feel because they want to here that I am okay or better and I'm just not. The black thoughts swarming again. So if I went up and now I'm going down... should I revisit the bipolar thing? Or was it a medication screw up?

I just don't want to fight any more. I don't want to swim against the current. I don't want to try to stand back up every time I fall when I seem to be falling every single time. I feel worthless. Actually, less than worthless - I am taking up resources that could be used by better people. I stopped fighting the memories. Maybe this is a major factor in all this. I remember way too much. How did I forget this stuff in the first place? I don't have details. Just nagging little "remember this face? remember this trip? remember this day? remember?!" and I wish I could could lie down and curl up and give up. How could so many things not tied together have happened to one person unless it was the person themself causing them? Unless it was my fault or something inherently bad about me?

I watch a lot of television. Part of it is because I don't have a lot of choice. The tv is on always when Craig is home. But I have my own set of shows that I love and obsess over. Mostly because they are a reflection (albeit a somewhat distorted one) of current trends and thought patterns and partly because they are an escape into a world I wish existed. I like my tv shows but I know how unrealistic they are. I mean really... a shrink who would go to a patient's house to check and see if they are okay? I can't even get mine to call me back in a crisis. Shrinks can't afford to get too invested in their patients. They would become overwhelmed and burn out like the return descent of the Columbia. All it takes is one panel damaged by an innocent piece of foam insulation...

Another thing... why do authorities on television always tell victims they did great just by surviving? It's not really like they had a choice. Believe me, if it were possible to *will* oneself to die, there would be a lot fewer victims out there. And yet the people on tv always take such heart from it, gain perspective and decide they can face everything after all. Tell me, really, what is the alternative to surviving?

So many things come down to choice or even the appearance of choice. I had a choice. I always had a choice. He rubbed that in my face all the time that I had a choice, that I was deciding to those things, that He would stop if I just said the word. Even now, I have the choice to feel better, right? I just need to think happy thoughts. Obviously I am choosing to stay sick. I must like the "sick martyr" role for the attention. Or I'm too lazy to do the work. I do have choices. Lots of them. I don't have to be here. I have enough drugs in the kitchen to make sure no ventilator could help. But I choose to stay around because of my family and a few other people that are almost family. I know this is a choice, but it doesn't feel like one. I want to say screw you to everyone and just give up. Take the pills and quit fighting and or just plain shut down, shut everyone down and give up. But I can't. I'm not allowed. Not even allowed to think it... so of course, I'm not, right?

Let me ask this though. When a child loses a parent to a car wreck or cancer or even murder, it's horrible and devastating, but the kids get over it and move on. Even if they were driving drunk, wrecked and died, it doesn't destroy the kids. If the experts are so bent on insisting that depression is a disease, why does death from it generate such awful stigma and permanently traumatize children?

I want to do NaNoWriMo this year. I have a plot, a cast of characters, and a setting. But I also have a life. And writing 1700+ words every day is not a luxury I have. Again with the taking care of other people. I guess that's my role in life - protect everyone... from ME. Will I ever be free? Will I ever live my life in a way that *I* want instead of what's best for everyone else? No, not that I can see anywhere in the future. Because the kids will always need me and once they don't their kids will...

How can the day be so sunny and beautiful, the children so happy and cheerful, my own dear birthday boy be so funny and sweet and everything around me be so perfect.... and me just want to curl up and hide? How can so much depend on me being alive and happy and all I want to is to disappear? How can God be making so sure that I stay here and yet all I want is to go home?

I hate me.

My Place in this World

Right beside the age-old question of "Who am I?" is the tandem concept of "What Am I Doing Here?" (I know there is a Douglas Adams quote to fit this but I'm not taking the time to go find it. Maybe I'll update later, maybe not...)

So many people in the world don't know who they are, what they want, what their purpose is, whether or not they have a purpose and whether or not they even want a purpose. I am most certainly one of them.

My whole life "I" have been whoever I needed to be to fit the situation. When asked to tell about myself I list off the things that are relevant to the context. For anything to do with the kids, I am a 31 year old, happily married SAHM with 4 kids and full-time babysitter for my best friend's baby. I am Kid-1's mom, or Craig's wife, or Mom/Dad's daughter. Online, I am usually TheSV, writer and SAHM of 4.5 and I run a couple of writer's groups. To my doctor's I am the patient with [insert ailment here] complicated by [insert other issues or complications.] To the wold at large, I am invisible or if not invisible, at least insignificant. Left to hang in the wind without context I will call myself a mother first and a writer next and then possibly a lover of all things to do with the human mind.

I am told that I should know who I am and what I stand for. Everyone from my shrink to my horoscope say variations on, "Know thyself." I have never seen a problem with being whoever was called for in the situation but apparently this isn't a healthy attitude. Okay...... how do I reconcile "who am I?" with "who do I want to be?" and balance that with "who do I need to be?"

Sometimes I think about who I would be if I were not me. I have so many and yet so few answers for this. There is obviously some reason I'm here. I've tried so many times to leave and it hasn't happened so there must be a reason for that. But what? Where do I belong? Where is my place in this world?!

Michael W. Smith: Place in this World


I chose this particular clip to embed because it is translated into Spanish throughout the song. It feels like the words and the answers are there but I just don't understand them...

Here are the lyrics (in English):
The wind is moving
But I am standing still
A life of pages
Waiting to be filled
A heart thats hopeful
A head thats full of dreams
But this becoming
Is harder than it seems
Feels like im

Looking for a reason
Roaming through the night to find
My place in this world
My place in this world
Not a lot to lean on
I need your light to help me find
My place in this world
My place in this world

If there are millions
Down on their knees
Among the many
Can you still hear me
Hear me asking
Where do I belong
Is there a vision
That I can call my own
Show me im

Looking for a reason
Roaming through the night to find
My place in this world
My place in this world
Not a lot to lean on
I need your light to help me find
My place in this world
My place in this world

WTFO (or Power to the Little People)

My stand on politics has never been in question for me. I am a little people. My opinion means nothing to THE POWERS THAT BE. My vote is so insignificant as to be hardly worth casting. I follow some of the politics but most of it is so far removed from my sense of control that I leave it to those who know more, care more and are more interested. I have no power over the government and therefore try to stay as far away from involvement in it as possible.

Several weeks ago, an environmental activist group guy came through the neighborhood. The guy was nice, friendly, well-educated and persuasive without being aggressive. (Not that he had far to go as I am already in favor of pursuing renewable energy sources and supporting those would make them accessible.) He peddled his cause and I smiled indulgently and listened, waiting for the inevitable moment when he would ask for money. And he did... BUT, he was more interested in gathering participation in their letter-writing campaign.

"Write a letter to our councilman Tom Smith," he says. "It doesn't have to be long, just let him know you support our cause," he says. "Put it in an envelope, addressed to this address and tape it to your door. We will gather them tonight and send them to him," he says.

Okay, yeah, whatever... But I do support their cause and so I scribbled out about 5 sentences admonishing the councilman to look closer at renewable and alternative energy sources and support for them. Then I signed my full name, included my telephone number and the names and ages of my children, shoved it into an envelope, addressed it and slapped on a return address label. But I couldn't find a stamp. Nevertheless, I taped it to the door and left in a rush - late for family birthday party. Let the group decide whether to use it or not. I had to stay in MY world, where making it on time to a birthday party was real and councilmen were in someone else's world. When we returned, I vaguely noticed the letter was gone. And the two worlds slid apart easier even than they slid together.

Tonight, at twenty minutes after eight this evening, I got a call from COUNCILMAN TOM SMITH!! Him, in person - well, on the phone - and he knew my name and referenced something I'd scribbled into my very short note to him. He thanked me for writing and told me that, while he didn't know what he could do about it right now, it was on his radar and he would be looking for ways to support it.

Um... WHAT?!?!

Okay, let's recap: I scribbled a hasty "pay attention" note to a government guy, one note among hundreds, and me a complete nobody... and he read it? Not only did he read it, he followed up on it?

W (what)
T (the)
F ("heck")
O (over? - think amateur radio)

Now I have to rethink everything. My entire foundation that I, as a member of the little people on upon whom the POWERS THAT BE stand but never touch, am not involved or responsible for "that world" has just been ruptured, possibly shattered. How can I hide behind the (apparently) illusion that I have nothing to do with this "government" thing when something I did created a reaction in one of those very people I swear don't even see me? Where does this put me in the political food chain? I'm still a little people with no name or money or influence but something I did was noticed. Does that mean I have to stand up and pay attention? Do I have an obligation to *do* something? Do I have to do something more than vote and write an occasional "pay attention" letter?

Then there's the whole issue of why me?!?! I'm not important. I don't have money or connections. I have one little vote in a great big world. Why me? Because my letter was short and to the point and included contact information, making it easy to "deal with" in a "look at me, paying attention to the little people" kind of way? Because what little I said was said in a powerful way? By random "grab 10 out of this stack and call them to look good" chance? Was it divine intervention, a wake up call that politics are more important than I have given it credit for? Is it referring to politics as in my involvement in the government or in the other sense that I have avoiding doing more than coping with for fear of anything else?

I don't like change. And I don't like having my foundations shift underneath me. How can I decide what to make of this?

"Truth? You can't HANDLE the truth!" (Col. Jessep, A Few Good Men)

To Do List:

(in no particular order and missing many things)

- Post blog entries... lots of them *rolls eyes*

- Write song... after figured out how to make chords with purpose rather than by accident (no more monkeys typing!)

- Create talking points for drool therapy, make copies

- Sort, organize and input calendar... for everyone

- Create and organize budget... find miracle to make it work

- Edit, print and scrapbook photos... 10 years of them

- Clean house... all of it

- Get different phone... after figuring out which one to get, how to get rid of the one I have and whether or not to figure in a phone for the kids

- Figure out phone for the kids... by compiling available info on prepaid and contract plans, available phones, features and costs to use the features

- Write novel... any of the 4 in progress

- Prep for Nano... after coming up with an idea in the first place *rolls eyes*

- LEARN... everything!!!!

- Read... all 10 books in my backlog

- Find videos and info on favorite shows/books

- Drool-therapist's Bullet list

- Guardian Angel's bullet list

- oh yeah... breathe

By the way.... here's a self-portrait taken and edited a little over a year ago.




It's copyrighted or patented or whatever you do with photos so someone else can't say it's theirs. If you want to steal it, tell me you're going to, just so I know. If you have lots of money and want to steal it, cash check or money orders never refused! LOL

Brad Paisley - "Online"

I hate country music but this song is so "OMG! THAT'S ME!" that I had to put it up here. (Well, not EXACTLY me - I really am a girl! LOL) The first version of this that I found had the embedding disabled. I don't know if this will spaz and not be able to be played at some point in the future but works for now...

Brad Paisley - Online


Lyrics:

I work down at the pizza pit
And I drive and old Hundai
I still live with my mom and dad
I 5'3 and overweight

I'm a Sci-fi fanatic
Mild asthmatic
Never been to 2nd base
But there's a whole nother me
That you need to see
Go check out MySpace

Cause online I'm down in Hollywood
I'm 6'5 and I look damn good
I drive a Maserati
I'm a black belt in Karate
And I love a good glass of wine

It turns girls on that I'm mysterious
I tell 'em I don't want nothing serious
Cause even on a slow day I can have a three way
Chat with two women at one time

I'm so much cooler online
So much cooler online

I get home, I kiss my mom
And she fixes me a snack
I head down to my basement bedroom
And fire up the mac

In real life, the only time I
Ever even been to LA
Was when I got the chance with the marching band
To play tuba in the Rose Parade.

Online I live in Malibu
I posed for Calvin Kline, I've been in GQ
I'm single and I'm rich
And I got a set of six pack abs that'll blow your mind

It turns girls on that I'm mysterious
I tell 'em I don't want nothing serious
Cause even on a slow day I can have a three way
Chat with two women at one time

I'm so much cooler online
Yeah I'm cooler online

When you got my kinda stacks, it's hard to get a date
Let alone a real girlfriend
But I grow another foot
And I lose a bunch of weight everytime I log in

Online I'm out in Hollywood
I'm 6'5 and I look damn good
Even on a slow day, I can have a three way
Chat with two women at one time

I'm so much cooler online
Yeah I'm cooler online
I'm so much cooler online
Yeah I'm cooler online

So... me online:

I'm a great parent and a wonderful wife
I'm a kick-ass writer and I HAVE A LIFE
I run a group teachin' folks to write
And dammit you know it - I'm always right!

I know all about psychology and raisin' kids
And even taught my hubby to put down toilet lids
I'm tall and I'm skinny and I'm twenty-five
And I'm the smartest and coolest Mom alive.

I have a six figure income and I'm living good
All the rights schools and the right neighborhood
My house is my castle and it's as big as one
And the cookin' and cleanin' are always done...

I'm so much cooler online!!!

I'm Back...

I'm back. I've actually been back for a while but I haven't been able to get around to anything. I've had stories running around in my head the whole time. I've had that song stuck in my head wanting to get out. There are a million things I've wanted to blog on here too and yet it never got onto the page.

Maybe part of it is that I've been putting out fires ever since I got back. I had to try to catch up on what had happened and try to fix some problems that had been caused. Then there was Hell Week - that was last week. It started with the van being repossessed. That caused forest fires all over my life from Friday until Wednesday late night. And Mom isn't doing well so I'm quite worried about her. Baby-Mommy's work schedule exploded so Mom and I were tag-teaming Baby. Then came Wednesday. Wednesday started off with Drool Therapy, as always. That was... intense. Thursday, everything that could go wrong, DID go wrong and many things that couldn't go wrong did anyways. Everything from very small issues like slamming my hair in the car door to big things like locking my keys in the van and missing an appointment because of it and everything in between. That includes not sleeping well that night. (I know, story of my life lately, but I really needed some sleep!)

Then Friday came and I was home alone with Baby all day and I probably would have been okay but I talked to the MIL and she said something that totally blind-sided me and threw me into a vicious spiral. I tried everything the shrink has taught me to claw my way out of it. I tried distraction but Thursday had been so pervasively bad that everything I did, everything I thought about, reminded me of something that had gone wrong the day before or related to the trigger point in the conversation with the MIL. The only thing that actually worked was taking care of Baby. The thoughts still circled and hovered but I could focus on the mechanics of caring for her. Then she went down for nap. I had already called the shrink like he told me but he never (ever) called me back. I tried a whole fist full of ice cubes, doing housework, walking around outside, putting salt on my tongue and calling Craig (got his voicemail and didn't leave a message) and some of them helped for a very short period of time. The salt lasted as long as the salt was in my mouth and calling Craig and the shrink had me scared to death while waiting to talk to them but since I couldn't, it didn't last long either.

In the afternoon, looking at the raised scar on my wrist from the cross, I got thinking about scars and never being able to take back the past and I lost it. I ended up burning my wrist along the scar. Well, when I realized what I had done I was so consumed by shame and full of guilt and anger at myself that I didn't do anything else physically harmful. Hell Week ended by the time I got up Saturday to watch Baby and have a very busy day.

The biggest reason that Friday's wrist incident upset me so intensely is because the shrink had given me a list of things to do, things we will be working on to get mentally healthy. And I ended up messing up a huge number of them. And being upset at messing them up was in itself messing one up. Pathetic...

At any rate, I think things are getting back on track. I am taking active steps towards the shrink's list and a corresponding list from my guardian angel and I am trying to choose the healthy options even when they aren't the easy ones and even when they are counter-intuitive. I've been making a point to listen inside my head and try to do what I can to encourage co-operation and give the positive Voices what they need to keep them positive. I'm doing what I can when I can. And yesterday afternoon I took a bunch of photos that indulge the "Photo-Eye" urges in me. Last night I wrote up the SmudgedInk Sunday Homework Discussion and put out this week's Homework. I also worked on my song some and, though I didn't get far, I worked on it. And now... here I am, posting again.

I plan on putting up more posts, trying to catch up on the major points I missed getting in here. I hope to put up both lists, compare and contrast them, talk about some ideas I had for avoiding the whole self-harm thing and describe two of the pictures that came out good from yesterday's photo shoot. No promises but that's the plan...

(In reference to Friday's still-upsetting day...)

"Don't you *dare* come to me for forgiveness, you traitorous Bitch." (Callie Torez to Izzy, Grey's Anatomy)

I'm Writing a Song

Why am I writing a song? I don't write songs. But I'm writing a song. I haven't gotten very far yet and what I have managed to get into the computer is NOT what is in my head, but in my head - I'm writing a song. Do you get it? 'Cause I don't.

Last week I sketched a picture. It's a pencil drawing and I can see very clearly in my head what it should look like. I can tell you exactly why each line is where it is and what each object or line or shading represents. But... I don't sketch. Yet I did. Do you get it? 'Cause I don't.

They are coming. Everyone is back except Jenn, the sheriff and the censors but I can feel they are about to come back. Even now they are edging in on my thoughts, at the peripherals of my inner vision. The nagging thoughts to stop talking, stop writing, stop singing, start acting right and that inevitable final thought: OR ELSE...

Look for them tomorrow, if that long from now. Maybe I'll be able to write again...

Tell Me Why It Matters

I cannot fall apart. We must stand as one to the world because it matters. I am trying to figure out what matters and why it matters.

I can definitively point to my children. When I ODed the last time, the time I nearly didn't make it, someone told me that if I committed suicide my children would never recover from it. My whole life I have been trying to find a way out that would not destroy the people I am trying to protect.

And I guess it doesn't matter that I want out. I guess it doesn't matter that I never wanted in, except perhaps InBetween, when I chose to return to this time and this life but I don't remember that. I guess that doesn't matter because now that I am here, I cannot speed up this incongruity of dying. I can't make it at my time or on my terms.

Because what matters is everyone else. As a child I did things to protect the people I love from myself and from others. As a teen, I lived because I didn't know a way out that wouldn't hurt my parents. As a mother (for the was no time in between being a teen and being a mother) I am duty-bound to protect my children from harm that I might cause them. Not by abusing them or destroying their bodies but by not putting them before all else.

Because protecting the ones I love is what matters.

It matters because I am the one who put them in the situation they are in - I made two people parents, I made many adults uncomfortable, I made four souls children. Protecting them MATTERS.

Along the way I have done a few other things, stumbled onto and through them. In the hospital after the OD, I talked at length with one of my suicide-watch sitters about her soul, her purpose, her God and her family. I helped her see that she could put herself exactly where she wanted to be. As a child, I kept someone else from getting hurt because I was there instead. Often I have been the shoulder upon which my mother has leaned and possibly the only reason she has to live, according to her words. I have created children that have touched the lives of others in many ways. I once wrote a story that made sense to a little girl I will never know. As a teenager, I kept 3 different people from killing themselves. I brought a feeling of unity to a group of kids that never quite had any label to wear at school. I showed a college girl why the man she thought she loved was not the man she thought he was.

I have made many small differences. Do they matter? Is that WHY protecting my loved ones matters - so that I can make many small differences? Do small differences matter to anyone besides the person altered? Do they need to?

There has to be a reason that my body repeatedly betrays my mind. This is most often heard from the weak, fragile or dying when their minds and souls are vibrant but their bodies are decaying. I am the opposite. I could have died a million times. I tried to die countless times and invite death consistently and my body always heals, never quits, never has the worst case scenario. I wish it would. Soon. NOW. But my body betrays my mind and I must protect my loved ones. Because that is what matters.

But, please, tell me WHY it matters. I will never be more than one of the million for the 1 in a million to exist. I don't want to be a placeholder. It doesn't feel like I matter. So why?

Tell me why it matters.

"You can't handle the truth!" (Jack Nicholson in "A Few Good Men")

What We Want

Random Thoughts of things I want with a conscious refusal to explain

I want to be someone's most important person.

I want to have an ability that is special, unique, above and beyond what others can do.

I want to be the one person that someone who wouldn't notice everyone notices - and likes.

I want to want to clean.

I want to write a story that changes a life.

I want to be the recipient of a hopelessly intense and moving romantic speech.

I want to be dead.

I want to be skinny.

I want to believe: in God, in me, in fate, in hope, in the ability to change and be a better person.

I want to buy all the Barbies in the toy store.

I want to ride a pony every single day.

I want to trust without getting hurt.

I want to trust smarter.

I want to sleep.

I want to not have a conscience.

I want someone to write a song about me, preferably NOT "You're So Vain"

I want someone to notice when I'm hurting even when I say I'm not.

I want to be held tight and told everything is going to be alright.

I want everything to BE alright.

I want to disappear into my head and not care what happens as a result.

I want to be perfect.

I want to be everything to everyone.

I want to run away forever.

I want to live in a toy store.

I want someone to want to take care of me.

I want to make myself feel what I tell myself to feel.

I want to play in the sprinkler.

I want to travel Europe.

I want to live at DisneyWorld.

I want to be a student forever.

I want to think of me too when deciding what's important.

I want to be a superhero.

I want someone to say all the right things without me having to tell them first what those right things are.

I want to feel safe.

I want to feel loved.

I want to be someone's Merideth, someone's Juliet, someone's Arwen, someone's Rose Tyler, someone's Princess Buttercup, someone's Lois Lane...... someone's eternal someone.

I want to be a good person.

But most of all,
I want to want only what I am supposed to want......

What is the Meaning of Time?

It's been a while. Or so the numbers say. The ones that mean the date, that's what day it is all over the world. And the numbers say it's been a while, for me, at least. I write a lot. I write here about the things in my head and in my heart. I write on my pads about daily things like grocery lists and notes to the teachers. I write in my binders, each a different story, one that is all the little stories. I write in my notebooks a little bit of everything which then get thrown away, stuffed into a pocket, sent off to school, or filed in a binder. I write a lot. Different people write different things and I write a lot of different things.

But not recently. Recently I haven't written any stories, have been scattered about my lists and forgot two important teacher notes. (I had to make phone calls for those.) Sometimes I choose to stop writing. I say, "I am NOT a writer!" in this big, puffed up voice and then I proceed to stop writing stories and stop talking in my computer groups. Sometimes I even stop writing here. But there are always lists and letters and emails and the stories that I write all the while pretending I'm not really writing them. Or knowing I'm writing them but holding on to the idea that just because I am writing them doesn't make me a writer.

But not recently. No stories, no notes, no letters, almost no emails, mandatory group stuff only. I wrote a rather detailed homework assignment for SmudgedInk but I just copied it from my binder ("Jenn's Writer's Notebook", "Ideas" tab, 6th paper). I just haven't written.

It's strange that I haven't written because all sorts of things have been going on in my head and in my world. Normally there would have been 2 or 3 posts a day with this stuff. But the words don't seem to be presenting themselves and even this post feels oddly out of place. All of me feels oddly out of place though so perhaps that is it.

My point is, it's been a while. It's a matter of TIME. Not - "I don't have the TIME to write a post!" but rather the entire concept of it. It seems to have stopped being linear. There is a great Doctor Who quote about that. Something about wibbly-wobbly I think. Maybe I'll look it up. Maybe I won't. At any rate, I remember now things that have happened tomorrow. And later on, I will remember things that happened earlier. Sometimes I know things that are happening now. And all of it kind of scrunches up together like a knotted ball of yarn.

This coming week will be interesting. I have the week off. This means Baby won't be here. It feels like I have the week off and I can remember tomorrow morning after I get back from errands after dropping the kids off to school, standing in the kitchen thinking, "I have the day off today." It's a rather strange thing for me to have thought because I still have kids to get to and from school, errands to run, bills to pay, appointments to keep, Mom's Taxi to run, clothes to wash, rooms to clean and all the millions of things that have to be done all of the time. And yet the whole of the week has been encompassed by the thought that "I have the week off."

I could read one of my books. Or watch a movie. Or go shopping alone. Or sleep. Or write a novel. Or play a video game. Or gather everyone in my head together and write down what they have to say. Or go swimming. Or talk to the cats. Or take a bubble bath. I could do anything because "I have the week off."

One week. Does it take a week to take a bubble bath? Or write a novel? Or clean a house? Does it take an hour to cook a meal or read a book or do the dishes? Can I take a nap in one week? Pay the bills in one day? It's this TIME thing again...

I want to write about the price of freedom. Not war. I hate war - don't understand it, have no feeling of connection to it. I mean the freedom to speak what I want without the censors. And the horrible feeling this is creating. Who would ever have thought that a jail cell could be the safest place in the world - or in my head actually, but that doesn't fit the metaphor. Maybe I will do that this week. Can I write a post on freedom of speech in one week?

What is the meaning of TIME anyways?

We Are Borg!

I've been Borg-ed!! My new phone came to day and it has the Bluetooth interface-thingie-whatever. So I trotted my little self over to Daddy's house and he had a headset he isn't using and he set it up for me. So now I'm BORG! This is so totally cool I cannot even tell you! I've been playing with it and for a complete and total Mind-Fuck... call my on cell phone while using the Borg in one ear and the calling phone in the other ear. IT IS SO TOTALLY OMG!! I don't know how to describe it. It's like having my own voice ping-ponging inside my head. Now, I'm used to Voices ping-ponging in my head, but not from OUTSIDE. It is so whacked!! I had to do it four times just cause it was fun. I cannot believe how totally cool this is!

"I am 7 of 9." (Star Trek: Voyager)

Don't Fall Asleep, Don't Turn Around and DON'T BLINK

They're pulling and pressing and fighting to pull me back but I won't go. I'm happy and this is a good thing. I can handle the responsibility. It's manageable. Four kids all on my own is tougher than I thought. And no one will help me - they've cut me off. I'm trying to remember everything we always talk about so I can keep facts straight. I never paid much attention to those little things. Not my problem, you know? This is so totally different than I thought, even watching everyday forever.

Did I mention the headache? I think my head is completely going explode right off my scalp! And I'm getting tired. But I can't fall asleep or the damned censors will regain control. I feel like that totally whacked out episode of Dr Who. with the angels. I can't take my eyes off this situation for a second or I'll totally get sucked back into her head and have no say anymore.

We were so freaked out about what to say to the shrink and how to say it without freaking out and I was all excited - so sure he would so proud of me! So I guess I kinds trumped the confusion and panic and now I'm happy. I'm gonna stay this way!! Details can be learned. I can do this if I can just get the rest onboard.

What's Wrong with Being Happy?

So I had to pull some major strings and call in a couple favors to get to my drool therapy session but get there I did. And it was so totally cool! I cannot tell you how awesome it is to be able to look him in the eyes when I talk and say what I want and BE HAPPY! I told him all of it, almost. I told him about the obit and about Mom and about the cemetery and about the NOTHING and I told him I'm happy. I told him I had it all figured out. I told him that I know now that the whole thing - it was NOTHING. Absolutely NOTHING! Obviously that means it never happened. Maybe certain memories got corrupted and I was reading more into them than was there because what was there is NOTHING. And that makes me so totally HAPPY!

But noooo, the shrink freaked out. He doesn't believe me. He thinks I was acting strange just because I prefer to sit on the floor and looked him in the eye and used my hands and talked fast and kept saying we instead of I. But he's like totally freaked over nothing. So what if I had trouble remembering the facts and dates and times of things? I can learn those. I can learn to know them off the top of my head.

I'm here! Why can't they let me just BE HAPPY?! I can play games with the kids and have fun with Craig and I am happy. I just want to be happy. I'm here and I'm staying! Everyone keeps saying they want me to be happy. I've spent years trying to get people to listen to me. Suffering and hurting and wanting to die and making everyone worry and hurt? And now I'm HAPPY like they wanted me to be and no is happy. I totally don't get it.

Just let me be happy! I can learn the rest and no one will be any the wiser. Just let me be happy!!

Long Day Not Over

About two hours south of my city is a tiny little place called Fountain City. To get there, one has to cross Boundaries Road and Bluff Point. At the very edge of Fountain City is a small, unassuming funeral home. A little over three years ago someone I don't know was there, presumably with family and friends to mourn over Him. He liked flea markets and working on small engines. He was a retired truck driver for FedEx, married for 12 years and living in small-town USA.

I was told this man was buried in a cemetery near this small town so I disappeared for the day, left after dropping off the kids, back before they got home. I was looking for a man that I did know. I found neither. I found the cemetery and could not find the grave. I called the funeral home again but the person I needed was unavailable. I returned to the funeral home where the man drew me a map to find the grave. I went back again to the cemetery and, despite the map, could not find the proper grave. I sat upon the grass in the shade of a tree and thought. I tried to talk to God but my own thoughts were too loud to make any sense of his reply, if any. Eventually, I rose to go back to my car and return home, confused and disappointed.

Then I saw it. I saw the headstone marked out by the funeral director. But it was not that of the man. It was his wife's and she was buried with her first husband and under his name. Unsure of the meaning of the trip, the lack of findings and the sheer frustration of it all, I returned to the road to make my way home. I put in a call to the director yet again, to tell him of my findings. Only then did he remember the man that I know to be the same man I knew yet this different man that died there. Apparently, he cremated remains were returned to his native Canada.

I find that out AFTER I drove all the way down, searched for three hours and had to make the return journey empty-handed and still confused. What was the purpose of my journey? Why did I make that quest only to come up empty? It felt so right. I could even trace the things going on around me to elements of The Hero's Journey, which simultaneously gave me the creeps yet led me to believe I was on the right track.

Perhaps it was never about finding where a dead body lay. I have always believed that a body is not a person. It ceases to be a person as soon as the soul moved on. Perhaps the journey, the quest, was about being willing to face a reality different than I expected, different than what I had been so certain of. The Hero's Journey is always a metaphor for life, a reflection of our psyche and the way it affects every one of us. Maybe this journey was more of a metaphor than I realized. In which case the Elixir I returned with is the acknowledgement that things may not have been as I have always believed. And my Master of Both Worlds is the willingness to explore both the Old perceptions and the new ones.

"For the symbols of mythology are not manufactured; they cannot be ordered, invented, or permanently suppressed." ("The Hero with a Thousand Faces", Joseph Campbell, pg 4)

I'm Going

I have to see it. I'm going to find him. I have to see it for myself. I think I half expect to see him sitting on a headstone waiting for me. I'm going to ask him why.

I told mom. I told her he is dead. I showed her the obituary. And she cornered me and I told her he hurt me. She lost it. I hurt her so badly. I can't think why I would do that!! I hurts me so much to know I caused her pain. Even more to know that He was right. He said she would be mad if she found out. He told me she'd get so very upset that I waited so long to tell her. He said she would say, "What's wrong with you?!" to me. He did. If He was right about that - what else? How can people tell me He lied to me when He was right every time I've been able to prove?

Today's Quote is the entire lyrics from Animal I Have Become:
Animal I Have Become lyrics

I can't escape this hell
So many times i've tried
But i'm still caged inside
Somebody get me through this nightmare
I can't control myself

So what if you can see the darkest side of me?
No one will ever change this animal I have become
Help me believe it's not the real me
Somebody help me tame this animal
(This animal, this animal)

I can't escape myself
(I can't escape myself)
So many times i've lied
(So many times i've lied)
But there's still rage inside
Somebody get me through this nightmare
I can't control myself

So what if you can see the darkest side of me?
No one will ever change this animal I have become
Help me believe it's not the real me
Somebody help me tame this animal I have become
Help me believe it's not the real me
Somebody help me tame this animal

Somebody help me through this nightmare
I can't control myself
Somebody wake me from this nightmare
I can't escape this hell

(This animal, this animal, this animal, this animal, this animal, this animal, this animal)

So what if you can see the darkest side of me?
No one will ever change this animal I have become
Help me believe it's not the real me
Somebody help me tame this animal I have become
Help me believe it's not the real me
Somebody help me tame this animal
(This animal I have become)

Another Song That Grabs Me - Breathe In Breathe Out (Mat Kearney)

Here is yet another song that has grabbed me and captured my attention. Predictably it is off the Grey's Anatomy Season 3 Soundtrack. Breathe In Breathe Out... Some days that is all I can do and I would gladly stop doing that if I could find a way to do it without destroying my children. I think the song has a haunting mood to it, like someone on the edge of grabbing a hold of life and running with it, or letting it slip away like sand through his fingers. That is probably just because that is how I feel but the song, even without the lyrics, produces that mental image for me.

I'm embedding the actual music video (courtesy of youtube, as usual.) The lyrics are after it... (a tip you all probably know but i just figured out... if you click the picture, it will open a window and play the clip AT youtube. but if you click the little play button at the bottom it will play it directly here. y'all prolly knew that, but i just figured it out. *embarassed smile*)



Breathe in, breathe out
Tell me all of your doubts
Everybody bleeds this way, just the same
Breathe in, breathe out
Move on and break down
If everyone goes away, I will stay
We push and pull
And I fall down sometimes
And I’m not letting go
You hold the other line
Cause there is a light in your eyes, in your eyes

Hold on, hold tight
If I’m out of your sight
And everything keeps moving on, moving on
Hold on, hold tight
Make it through another night
In every day there comes a song with the dawn
We push and pull
And I fall down sometimes
And I’m not letting go
You hold the other line
Cause there is a light in your eyes, in your eyes
There is a light in your eyes, in your eyes

Breathe in and breathe out
Breathe in and breathe out
Breathe in and breathe out
Breathe in and breathe out

Look left, look right
To the moon and the night
Everything under the stars is in your arms

Cause there is a light in your eyes, in your eyes
There is a light in your eyes, in your eyes
There is a light in your eyes, in your eyes

Looking through these lyrics, the song is about holding on, having someone to help him hold on, a lifeline. The desire to keep going but the plea for help to keep doing it. It's not about making a choice to fall down, it's about having help to keep going. But it has a romantic side to it. Someone he cares about romantically is the one he is asking to help him.

I couldn't ask him to help me. He has too much fear and too much anger. He would want to know specifically what he should do and if I knew that I wouldn't have to ask for help. And, of course, there is always the large faction inside that doesn't want help, that wants to give up and go away, physically or mentally, just quit fighting. Because every breath in and every breath out feels like a fight. Just breathing shouldn't be so hard, should it?

There's no light in his eyes these days. He is tired and stressed out and I haven't exactly been initiating intimacy and the house is a mess and money is a disaster and everyone is running everywhere at once. Then add problems with our extended family and it's no wonder he loses his temper. It's no wonder there is no light in his eyes.

And I did that to him. There used to be light there. He used to be happy. *WE* used to be happy. We would laugh and joke and play and goof around. We didn't have to go anywhere to have fun and we didn't have to get intimate to have fun and having fun is usually what led to being intimate. At one time, being intimate with him was often a good thing. And we had fun. There used to be a light in his eyes. I took that from him and I don't know how to give it back.

So, for now, I guess I will "Keep Breathing" and "Breathe In and Breathe Out". I think I should do a post on why breathing is so important to me. But not right now. Right now I need to go take care of Baby.

"And all I can do is keep breathing"
"Breathe in and breathe out"

Now I Know - What?

He's dead. He died unexpectedly on June 21 of 2004 of a heart attack. He was 62 years old and had been married for 12 years. He has grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He lived less than 90 miles from here. According to the obituary, he enjoyed small engine repair and flea markets. FLEA MARKETS? He sounds like a nice old guy, not even old really.

What if I'm wrong? What if nothing ever happened and my imagination has run away with me? Maybe I had a bad dream and seized it and manufactured the rest. No wonder, then, that I don't remember stuff. I haven't made them up yet. Maybe he really was like everyone said he was: a big kid. He loved to have fun and wrestle and play hide and seek and no-tag-backs. Maybe we really did just go to restaurants to celebrate him getting back from a trip and maybe he gave me presents because he could.

What if I'm wrong? Maybe it was just a nightmare. Nothing more than a dream...

What if I am wrong?

"If we shadows have offended,
"Think but this, and all is mended,
"That you have but slumber'd here
"While these visions did appear.
"And this weak and idle theme,
"No more yielding but a dream,"