Back here again....this can't be good.

 It's been a long time. I haven't even re-read any of my old posts. I'm just diving right in. It's totally normal to sit and type to no one, right? I mean isn't that kind of what social media has become anyway? Everyone using it to see how many likes and comments they get but not giving two shits about what other people are up to. I never thought I'd say this, but I think I miss how things used to be.....as in the days before we got to know what everyone was up to with the click of a button, what they were thinking, how they voted, how religious they claimed to be, back when some things were off limits. It's stranger though, how religion and politics used to be off limits and now with social media, they are just out there, but yet everything is still so superficial. I don't like superficial, I like deep and meaningful, that's probably why I have like 3 friends. They can't hack that I'm not always willing to just sugar coat where I'm at. Don't ask me how I am if all you want to hear is "fine", just assume that's the case. With so much focus on mental health, you'd think people would be more willing to listen. It's ironic the amount of people who "share" posts about "You aren't alone, I am here" I call bullshit. People are there until shit gets real. No one likes real anymore. They like fake happy family snaps and holidays and that life that is posed for the camera. Well, I'm not overly photogenic and I don't have time for that shit. 

So, why am I back here typing on a long forgotten blog? Who can remember what they were doing on this day 2 years ago? Anyone? Well, 25 years ago today, I had a job interview. I was taking a weaving test. Sounds kind of dumb out of context. Basically I had applied for a job at Longaberger Baskets and I was taking a hands on test to see if I would able to follow instructions. Fun times. I had called off work at my other job so I could take this test. I passed, then I went back to my new apartment (I had moved just two days before) and got out a piece of left over Dominos pizza. I was in the process of eating that when I heard a car pull up out front and saw it was my mom and aunt. I knew immediately something was wrong. Long story considerably shorter, my dad was dead. They didn't know that. Well, I actually suspect my aunt may have already known. Anyway, we drove to the hospital, they stuck us in a tiny room and then had my GP call to talk to us (he was also the coroner). My mom was in hysterics so I took the call and he confirmed what I already knew. My dad was dead. He had a massive heart attack and died in his truck in the parking lot of the grocery store. It's strange how that day is so in focus, easily recalled, but yet so many pleasant memories have drifted away. I have this knack for holding on to the negative I guess. 

So 25 years ago, I lost the most important person in my life. I didn't know then that five years later I would lose my sister just as suddenly. I didn't know that I would start having panic attacks and I'd be pretty much non-functional for a lot of years, effectively wasting a good chunk on my life with worry. But here we are. 

Why am I back here again? On February 8th, my husband had a heart attack. He came home from school drop off and said he had had this weird chest tightness and a sensation in his throat and shoulders. I was instantly transported back to that day 25 years ago, getting that call, having that hindsight that those pains my dad was having in his arms, both arms that were heavy and achy, were actually a symptom of his impending heart attack. At the time we had heard about pain in the left arm, or feeling like you are getting hit in the chest with a sledgehammer, but not both arms, not heaviness or aching. My dad was a factory worker and down played it as heavy lifting and the job he had been working on. So here I am transported back, dealing with a man who is also downplaying it. He said he was fine and not to worry. He looked fine. I remembered when my dad helped me move into my apartment two days before he died, he was sweating a lot, he down played it. I remember asking him if he was okay, it was the 28th of February and it was cold in Ohio, and I said "Are you okay? You're all sweaty and it's not hot" and he was like "It's not hot for you, you aren't doing anything". Touche. My husband looked fine, not sweaty, not out of breath, maybe a little tired but he isn't a great sleeper and so he's tired a lot. I let him convince me he was fine.  I went back downstairs to work and kept coming to check on him. Eventually he finally agreed to go to the hospital and while there he had a heart attack and they indicated the other episodes he had that morning were probably other heart attacks. Within three hours, he was flown to a hospital in Brisbane. This scared the shit out of me. Being a medical typist,  I know that they don't usually just fly people straight there. He didn't want me to come with him. I had kids to pick up from school and things to attend to. It felt wrong letting him go alone. I came home and just tried to exist. I didn't know what was going to happen and naturally I tried to prepare for the worst. I was just in shock. I couldn't really get my head around what was happening and then on the other side of that was this feeling that I'd been here before. I started thinking in numbers. My dad was 51 when he died, Trevor had his heart attack at 57. My mom was 45 when my dad died, I am 44. I was 19 when my dad died and my daughter Emma is 18. My mind was drawing parallels and scaring me even more.Trevor had a stent put in and he came home a few days later. I've been walking around like an overly helpful Stepford Wife Zombie. Trying to cook the right things, making sure he takes his pills, doesn't overexert etc etc. Everything feels off though. I feel off. 

I imagine if I saw a therapist, they'd be banging on about compound trauma and association and "stuffed feelings".Yep to all of the above.

Now my mind is going in circles. For the greater part of the last few years, I had this goal to pay off my mortgage early. When I have a goal, I get very into it. There were times when Trev wasn't overly happy at jobs he was at and he ended up leaving one of them without having a back up plan first and I just got mad because it was interfering with my goal. Not once did I really stop to think about how he must be feeling to just quit a job, all I could think about was my goal and how it was going to take me that much longer to achieve it. I spent a lot of time being angry. So back towards the end of January, we paid the mortgage off - 25 years early. I had achieved my goal. Do you know what I felt? Absolutely nothing. Not relieved, not accomplished, not happy, just nothing at all. So fast forward to February and my husband has a heart attack and all I can think, besides the parallels between now and 25 years ago, is how much time I wasted being angry about achieving a goal I didn't even get any joy from. What a waste of fucking time that was. I mean, yeah it's great in theory but in the end it wasn't worth it. Then there's the whole compounded feeling of how we aren't getting any younger and time is flying right on by. Perhaps my midlife crisis has arrived.

Just know that if I ever upset you and you want to make me feel guilty, don't bother, I can assure you I remember every shitty thing I've ever done and I have punished myself endlessly for it. So now, I'm stuck in this rut. I feel like I'm in the bottom of an empty grave reaching my hand up for someone to help pull me out, and people are walking by throwing handfuls of dirt in, but their other hand is holding their phone and they don't see me because they aren't paying attention. I get it. We're all busy. That's cool. But please for the love of my sanity, do not pretend that I could've talked to you if I was struggling. I can count on one hand, maybe even three fingers the people outside of these four walls that I know for a fact I could talk to and they wouldn't make me feel crazy or stupid, and they wouldn't bring up something I said to use against me or make me feel stupid at a later date. OMG that happens so often. Waxing poetic about you being available is kind of just bullshit.

It's all coming back to me now.

Thought for the day: Surround yourself with people who "get" you. I'm happy to say that I have a small collection of people in this world who totally get me. These people get my sense of humor and they appreciate it. They can talk to me and not at me. They can listen, really listen, without having to say anything. I, in turn, listen to them, and if they ask for my advice, I'll give it. If they don't ask, I don't feel obliged to comment. Of course I realize everyone is different and that's totally awesome, but there is something equally awesome about having people in your life who make it possible  to say anything or do anything you want to do without being judged, without risk of them being offended because they know you and they know your intentions and they know when you are joking and when you aren't. I like being able to be me without fear of judgement or ridicule. The list of people may be small, but I wouldn't trade them for anything. Physical distance is nothing between awesome friends (and family).

Walking on a tight rope. Oh shit, where's my safety net? That's right, I don't have one.

Some days I feel like I've been thrown into the deep end of the swimming pool. Guess what folks? I can't swim. I could probably stay afloat if I didn't panic, which I would, so if my metaphors were real, I'd drown. Luckily for me, I'm not really being flung into a pool. Interestingly enough though, that doesn't stop this overwhelming feeling I have lately that I'm sinking. Treading water isn't easy for all of us after all.

I think it'd be safe to say that I don't manage my stress well. Frankly, I don't manage it at all. It manages me and it does a mighty fine job of doing so. I find it hard to cope with a child who seems to have some kind of invisible remote control that is directly wired to me. She pushes the buttons, often. I'm a reactor. I yell. I yell a lot. It doesn't do any good of course. It just makes my voice hurt, really. It's a vicious cycle I'm trying to break, I'm just having a bit of trouble in the success department momentarily. Also, I seem to be grumpy like a lot. I'm not going to lie, I believe I was born grumpy. Baby comes out, look she's destined to be a super grumpy bitchface. Yep, that's me.

Stress brings out the worst in me and I seem to bring out the stress without any real need for it. I'm an overanalyzer. Example: If someone tells me how lucky I am to have my husband (yes, this happens frequently), I hear "You aren't good enough for him". It seems to be a pattern though. When I was 6, my neighbor who was the same age as my oldest sister, told me that the following day we would lay out and get a tan (Yes, its bad for you now, but no one knew that then), and then we'd go down to the Panther and get ice cream. That was some pretty exciting shit for a six year old. So the next day I got on my bathing suit, and put my clothes on over the top and headed next door to her house, let me tell you, I was BEYOND excited. She answered the door and told me that she had decided she was going to do all those things she had promised to do with me, with her boyfriend's sister instead. Yep, I was no longer invited. What did I hear? "You aren't good enough". In 1st or 2nd grade, kids at school went for some kind of testing and some kids got to get put into TAG (Talented and Gifted). I wasn't one of those kids. "You aren't good enough". I tried out for cheer leading in second grade, I didn't make it. "You aren't good enough". In sixth grade, I got sick, I had to take steroids and my face ballooned up bigger than anyone would've thought was humanly possible. Most of my friends quit talking to me. "You aren't good enough". I auditioned for show choir and of course I didn't make it. "You aren't good enough" Do you see the pattern?

I have a problem with negative thinking. I know this. I know that I over analyze everything that is said to me. I over analyze things that aren't said to me. Hell, I even over analyze things that will probably never ever be said to me. It's what I do.

I started this blog a couple of weeks ago and didn't have time to finish. Interestingly enough, the things that were stressing me out then are now kind of a non-issue. I wrote a song about it and moved on. Maybe I'm stronger than I thought.

Of course now, things have gotten really weird. I *think* I made up with someone who I figured I'd never speak to again. That was nice. It made me feel like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. However, what ended up opening up a dialogue box with this person (after zero dialogue for more than two years), was being screamed at by some assface posing as a human. A very shitty Eeyore type mumbling human, but a human nonetheless. Dude thought he could verbally abuse someone I love (we'll call her Betty) without me commenting. He must be a dreamer or an idiot too, because that was never going to happen. Of course, Eeyore then turned on me and continued to say horrible things to me. So anyway, long story considerably shorter, I had to contact She Who Must Not Be Named (yeah, that was my nickname for her when we had our falling out, I'm a Harry Potter nerd, after all) and ask her to do me a favor, well a favor for *Betty*, but still, it opened the dialogue and so that was good. The fact that this massive ass hat tool dude decided to verbally abuse me seemed to spur *Betty* into action to finally drop the dickhead from her life. Except that didn't really end up happening. It was talked about, it was assumed, and then it didn't come to life. So, now I have a new person I'm not speaking to, *Betty*. Weird. The reason I'm not talking to her is because I cannot be subjected to the kind of stress that dealing with the ass face tool dude brings. I refuse to allow myself to get sick and have a Crohn's flare up, which unfortunately is already starting to happen now thanks to the stress of it, so if *Betty* really wants to talk to me, she'll have to get her shit together.

As much as I respect that *Betty* is a grown ass woman and is fully capable of making her own decisions, I also know I don't have to accept or agree with those decisions. I respect that everyone makes choices in their life and her choices are her own, however the choice to stay with a dead beat piece of shit jerk directly impacts my health. That may sound dramatic but it's true. Imagine having someone you love constantly putting themselves in danger by staying in an unhealthy toxic environment with someone who has proven time and time again that they can't be trusted. Imagine also having a chronic illness that flares up under situations of stress. That's what I'm dealing with and I refuse to have anything more to do with that toxic situation. When I got verbally abused and screamed at that was the turning point, or so I was told. Then the excuses came, "I've still got to do this and then I'll get out", "once I've finished with this, then I'll go", "I hope to be out by Friday". Except, you know what I hear? He said horrible mean things to you and I'm choosing to overlook that for whatever reason because "You're not good enough".

And this time, I'm not falling for that shit.

Breathe....something I keep forgetting to do.

This song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKO-5u2z4EQ That is all. I need to remember to breathe.

Songs from my youth. Plus Bo and Hope

I'm pretty sure my mom shouldn't have watched so many soap operas when I was a kid. I blame soap operas for the craziness of my youth. They were on TV and by default, I watched them. As a result, I always wanted to fall in love. I blame Bo and Hope on Days of Our Lives. They were always so darn happy. (You know, when one of them wasn't dead or being controlled by Stefano). ;) I can remember laying in bed when I was pretty young (I'm talking like 9), just day dreaming about falling in love. Yeah, it's safe to say I was a very odd child.

This brings me to the Title of my blog. I've been trying to write this song about a specific series of events from my youth. It made me think about all of the songs I used to identify with during that period of time. So, I thought I'd post the ones I can remember. 

Without You by Motley Crue. Yep, this was on a loop for a while. The guy I liked was just not that into me. I'm sad to admit that Motley Crue ever did it for me. What an annoying voice that dude has. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3QhVeHr-gM

King of Wishful Thinking by Go West. I have no idea if this is the original video or not, but if it is OMG that was the lamest thing I've witnessed in a while. It's equally lame that I was so obsessed with this song. I've always had a thing for meaningful lyrics. This song was my pep talk. Sure, I'll get over you, assuming I don't die a horrible death. (yes, I was dramatic even back then). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaZaTlcbYxw

Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough by Patty Smyth and Don Henley. This song used to depress me, but I loved it so much. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdzbjUWu2VU

I Can't Make You Love Me by Bonnie Rait. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW9Cu6GYqxo I spent so much time when I was younger trying to *make* people love me. I was like, "DUDE, I'm here look at me, I'm totally awesome." I always liked this song but refused to believe that the guy I liked didn't really love me. That was Bonnie's problem, not mine. 

I was absolutely convinced that the guy I was madly in love with (at 11, 12, 13, and 14, probably even 15, 16, and 17 too) would one day love me back. I knew it like it was a fact. I never had a doubt in my mind. Even when I got sick with Crohn's Disease and the doctors pumped me full of steroids that made me hideous, I still believed that one day he would see how much I loved him and he would love me back. I don't think during those years that it ever occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, he really just wasn't at all interested. Seems almost conceited now that I thought that way. 

Having grown up and moved on many years ago (I won't say how many because that makes me sound old), I would think about my youth from time to time. It wasn't until I started writing this song that I had my epiphany that I had fooled myself into believing during my entire pre-teen and teen years that the Bo and Hope style romances of Days of Our Lives were actually real. Having read a condensed version of their love story, I can safely say "Fuck all that". lol  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Brady_and_Hope_Williams

Anyway, I'm glad that soap operas and fairy tales aren't true because reality is much more exciting. I'm also glad that I had the experiences I did because they made me into who I am today. Let's face it, I'm pretty effing cool. 

An Old Friend

An old "friend" decided to make an appearance today. My initial thought was to run screaming, but I knew I'd be followed. I just sat down and observed. Well, my "friend" got bored and left. I'm sure it will come back and visit again, and I might not be as ready next time to rebuff the visit, but at least I know I was able to this time. My "friend's"name is Anxiety.

Ah yes, I have a blog.

So recently someone came across my blog and asked me about it. I'll admit I felt slightly cyber stalked. I felt this way mainly because I had forgotten I had a blog and when I Googled myself looking for it, I couldn't find it which told me a little bit of "Cyber Digging" was probably done.

I haven't written here for a very long time. I suppose I've been busy. More likely though, I haven't felt like "sharing". A lot has changed in the past couple of years. Up until a year (close to two really) ago, I still felt like Ohio was home. That's not to say that this didn't feel like home, but I always referred to Ohio as "back home". It doesn't feel like home now. It feels like some foreign place I lived in a million years ago in another lifetime. I'm not that person any more and I'm cool with that.

One things I've learned about moving away is that life goes on. Seems pretty simple and enormously cliché, but it's really true. People have their own lives, but moving has excluded me from their lives. I'm off the radar, out of sight out of mind -- so to speak. Absence doesn't make the heart grow fonder, either.

I keep in contact as much as I can with the people who are interested. The numbers seem to dwindle more and more as I stay away. I'd be lying if I said that didn't bother me a little. I guess what bothers me most, though, is the reality that I'm probably never going to see most of these people again. I'm not so naive as to think that my friends and family are going to disrupt their lives to come and visit me. I'm also fairly certain that unless I win the lottery, I'm not going to be rushing back for a visit either. Truth be told if I did win the lottery, Ohio isn't the first place I'd go. I'd rather meet my 5 friends, mom, and any interested family members in Hawaii or something.

I have no idea where all of this came from. I sat down to try to find the blog. I found the blog, and thought I'd write about being cyber stalked, but somehow it's turned into this. Maybe I'm feeling a little sad because one of my friends is getting ready to move away. It's with that sadness that I've possibly reflected on the fact that when she moves, I'm unlikely to see her again either.

Well, there's always email. We know how well that seems to be working out.

Oh and to my cyber stalker.....please don't read into my "tone" too much. I'm merely thinking out loud. ;)