Literally a 5 tissue post. You've been warned. (YMMV)

There's a lot of things I'm in charge of here that I could not care less about: Making sure NLYNephew (now 14.11 yrs old, thank you very much) takes out the trash is one of these responsibilities.  I hate Thursdays, because it is a constant refrain, from the time he comes home after school until he finally takes the trash out (tonight he did it about 10 minutes ago, a little bit after 9 pm). Not from me - I really only remind him the once, or - if I feel like he's closing up shop for the night and it has slipped his mind - maybe right before he goes to bed (which always earns me a huge groan, no question). He knows it's trash night; his dad knows it's trash night; EVERYBODY knows it's trash night.  Why it has to be a big battle every week is a mystery to me, but somehow it always is.


--

I don't know why I started this post that way.  I really just wanted to say that sometimes things here are still really freaking hard.  Hard in ways I didn't expect - I really miss the jokey, sweet relationship that my nephew and I had before I became the one he has to check with to see if he can run to Dunkin Donuts with his friends after school.  Before I became the one who puts corn on his plate and expects him to eat it. 

Before I became the woman-shaped-person who's taking up space next to the giant gaping hole his mother left behind.

--

Do you ever write other people's stories in your head and try to figure out how they'd sound? Especially ones that include you? I've been doing that a lot lately, trying to look forward and backwards at the same time for the kids so suddenly in my charge.  Trying to use our experiences as predictors for theirs, when I know that won't work, but I don't have any other grand ideas.  Trying to see into the future and prevent their damaged hearts from being crushed, as if by magic.

 I wonder, sometimes, what role they've casted me in, or will cast me in, in their eventual memories.

  Is that a normal thing to wonder? I don't even know.

 But I can't help it: sometimes snippets of things pop into my head and I wonder: Is that the truth of how they see me now? Is that the story playing in their head?

 Recently, I had this moment of - I don't know - disconnect and not deja vu but an equally awkward "how is this my real life?" kind of feeling that left me off balance. And when my niece and her cousin walked in at half past eight, tumbling in all loudness and loopy from their grandparents' house down the road, I had this piece of narration that just popped into my head, as if I were seeing the scene from the outside.


"We were a few minutes late, and I could tell by the look on Auntie's face that she had noticed. She always noticed things like that, especially when you hoped she wouldn't. She was a constant looming presence now, with Mum gone, and seeing her there - usually spread across the couch with her laptop at a right angle, or twisted up as best she could to squeeze into our one, lone armchair: three pillows, a heating pad and the laptop's glow on her face - gave me the jolt every time I walked through the door. It wasn't her fault, really, but she wouldn't have been camped out at our house otherwise, and we all knew it. If Mum were around, she'd be back at Grammy's and our twice monthly sleepovers would still be something to look forward to, a nice change of pace where we played games all day and ate tacos. But here she was, and here Mum wasn't, and just like a switch, I remembered it all over again."



I realize the scene itself isn't particularly charitable to me - although I don't feel it's unjustly harsh either - it's just that sometimes I can see it on their faces, the re-realization, and I h a t e being the impetus for that, the thing that highlights their loss all over again.
 --


 I'm having a rough couple of days here - It's not just me: there's a lot going on in our family that's good and bad and horrible and up-heaving and life-altering.  And I feel a little lost, sitting here on this couch, with my charges in bed - one of them upset with me because I'm making him do chores, the other listening to her TV because she finds the quiet unnerving, even all these months later. My brother, snoring away upstairs as he's been since right after supper, and he'll probably be awake at three in the morning, and off to work, and another day will start all over again.

 And I wish that the end of the day felt like I'd accomplished something more than surviving.  I wish that I was able to make them happier, or healing, or at least not argue with them about stupid shit that neither of us really cares about except Oh My God Why Do You Have To Act Like A Teenager Right Now??? Could You Not Be Jerk To Me For 10 Minutes, Please???

And the thing is, my nephew is a sweetheart, and I KNOW that. And most of the time, he continues to be that - he's a good kid, with a good heart, and he's doing so great and trying so hard.  And neither of us really understands my role here or our new boundaries and ... it's fucking hard.  It's hard for me, and I'm a grown-up woman, who lost her sister-in-law and misses her, but who won't ever understand what it's like to be 14 and have your mom taken away from you so brutally. 

I know he doesn't blame me, but he kind of also does.

Because I moved in when she got sicker, and she just never got better, and I just never left, and I'm the one who told him it was never going to get better, and I'm the one who made him understand that that was her last day and he'd regret it if he didn't say goodbye, and I'm the one who's STILL HERE and his mom is NOT.  And sure, he's 14 and he's smart enough to know (in his brain) that that doesn't make sense, that I wasn't a cause for that effect, but I also know it doesn't feel wrong, because sometimes he looks at me like he hates me, and it breaks every little piece of my heart.

And I can't show it, because I know that grief doesn't make sense, and I know that he doesn't like feeling it any more than I like seeing it, but, god, what I'd give to go back to a time when looking at me didn't hurt him.

 I know he loves me, and I hope - with all my heart - that this is one of those things that time can fix - because I've loved this boy with my whole heart since the day he was born, and yes: I'm the one who told him his mom was gone, but I'm also the one who snuggled with him through every nap-time and sick day; the one who taught him about the joy of pretzels dipped in fluff; the one who showed him the miracle of bubbles; Who gave him sink baths and solar systems and learned the name of every maritime disaster in the last 100 years; the one he used to call when his parents were fighting and he was frightened. 

I know, eventually, he'll remember those things too, but right now, on a night when he looks at me and sees all that he's missing, what I wouldn't give to trade places with his mum, to let him have her back, to let her fight with him over the damned trash.


---
Well, now that I've bawled my way through that... I gotta go turn on the dishwasher, and lock us all up safe for the night.  Hope whoever is reading, wherever you are, that you're safe and sound tonight too. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    My Grandmother's birthday is this month.  This week now.  Sometimes, when someone dies, the anniversary of their birth or death just sneaks up on you, or (if you're lucky) right by you. As someone who's lost (I was going to say a 'fair' number, but 'fair' doesn't enter into the conversation when you're talking about death, so I'll stick with) more than one person I loved, I've lived through loss long enough to know that it (mostly) does fade enough so that some years a birthday or death day will come and all I'll feel is that tug of longing, that twinge of regret that I no longer have that person in my daily life.
    But firsts?  Firsts of anything are ripe old bitches - and I know that I have been not been doing particularly well with my grieving process in the first place, this time around.
    Mostly I feel like everybody else moved on, and I'm still stuck in last summer, holding the hands of a woman whose face I'm trying to carve into my memory as I watch my face fade from hers. 
   I can't explain how powerfully & profoundly that experience has changed me, and yet - nothing else has changed! She's still not here, and I still am: stuck in my bed, in this house, in this life that I don't want or recognize, but lacking the ideas, strength (physically & mentally), and just plain energy to do anything about it. 
    And now her birthday is coming up, and I'm hyper-aware of it.  As in, I usually have no idea what the actual date is, unless I have a doctor's appointment in the near future, but ever since July 1, the calendar has been mocking me.  It's been a constant, in my face, reminder that JULY IS HER BIRTHDAY and HER BIRTHDAY IS COMING, PREPARE TO CRY. The date has been getting closer and closer, and my mood has been getting darker and darker. 
    I think about how, for most people, Friday will have no meaning at all... even in our family, Grandmother's actual birth date was always one of those "Is it the 17th form 1919 or the 19th from 1917 or maybe it's the 21st?" kind of deals. (My family is bad at dates. Also time. Also lots of other things that matter to me a lot, which you can see would be kind of frustrating.) And for me, Friday is a huge, looming, taunting thing that I'm trying desperately to avoid, knowing it's going to come and suffocate me anyways. 
    Because, as I said, I'm no amateur at this whole grieving thing (even if it feels like I am, every. single. time.), I've done my best to keep occupied, knowing that distraction is one of my best coping skills.  I've tried making plans for the actual date - my best friend is in New York, all my siblings are working, Mom says she is up for anything, but lately it's all she can do to not melt into a puddle every time she ventures out into the hot - and I think I've wrangled myself into a kiddo sleepover, finally, but - like everything else this summer - it's complicated too.  No Longer Youngest Nephew (soon to be by the power of two, come to think of it) is 13 now, and .... while he's up for games and stuff, it's as if when his voice cracked, his preferences for spending time with me did also. It's not that he doesn't love me, or that we can't still have a good time together every now and then, but he'd rather be with aunts who drive cars to New Hampshire where he can hang out with his older cousins, or aunts and uncles who let him watch R rated movies and take him to hockey games.  The largely sedentary Auntie NTE is no longer first (or even, honestly, second or third- which would be sitting at home playing video games) choice and, wow does that sting.
    Still, I'll be glad to have them here on Friday, to give me something other than my own gloom to focus on. And - even though I know it is, in part, because of the overwhelming upcoming birthday - Holy Jupiter has this month (/season/past 9 months) been full of gloom for me. Let me just mention this one other thing, real quick, that kind of explains why I've been avoiding this space and writing in general for the last little (ok long) while:
     Along with the gloom, which I recognize as both a normal part of grieving and a truly hideous part of grief, I've also been experiencing something a little bit more troubling, because it dabbles its feet in the "how close are we to the edge of depression here, really" pond, and that's terrifying to me.  It's something that has been growing since before she died, when I felt like it was just me and UJ in the trenches and everybody else was sending care packages every now and then, but had no idea what it was truly like to be waging war against a disease that made you a stranger to the person you loved so much.  And it blossomed once we lost her, and then my sister & her husband were forced to move out, and my mom's depression spiralled downwards, and everybody I knew was fighting their own ridiculously hard battle, and asking for my help, sure, but you can't tell people how alone you feel when they're crying on your shoulder.  And somehow, even though I've tried reaching out, I am left, once again, feeling forgotten and outlived.
     Which is not the kind of thing you can say to your pregnant baby sister, or your other baby sister who moved to the middle of nowhere again, or your other baby sister who you're so fucking proud of you could burst, but miss more than air sometimes - but it's how I feel.  And even though I know that my family is not, in fact, "leaving me behind" (and also that it's not their responsibility to make me feel better about feeling left out, really), but it's kind of hard not to feel that way when you've experienced it so often, just by virtue of being the sick one. First with my high school friends, then when all my college friends started getting jobs and getting married, then when they all had their first round of kids, then their second (and some are now on their third), and this may sound weird, and horrible and selfish, but it recently just occurred to me that this is the first time that I have been the only one living at home, and it makes me feel (ancient and weak and useless and pathetic) a whole boatload of things that I know I am not, but still am feeling. 

And, oh my god, so fucking lonely.
   
   Which is why tumblr has been great, because: So many spoonies! and some of them are old like me! (Because holy jebus, the teenagers.  Talk about feeling ancient.) So, less lonely: here I come.  And a lot of them feel left behind too.  So I don't feel so ridiculous about both loving the sight of my sister's gorgeous baby bump (Seriously? She's one of those adorable pregnant people who glow so much they nearly sparkle.) and still being so sad that it isn't me.  One of my other sisters recently lost a ton of weight by eating healthy and doing an exercise program, and I was so glad for her, and at the same time, I kind of wanted to punch her in the face. Because I've eaten nothing but cardboard for a year, and I've eaten 3/4 fruits and vegetables for the last 2 years, and I still can't stand up without wanting to die.  I miss moving my body and feeling good about it and not resenting everything it took away from me.  I miss trusting it.  (That's one of her big things, this hippie-crunchy sister of mine, "trust your body, it knows what it needs" which is almost so naive as to be cute, except for how my body apparently knows that it needs to lay on the floor a lot and never move, and make me feel like I'm constantly being crushed by the air? my clothes? gravity? So yeah: hilarious.  And rage inducing.) 
    So, yeah: it's been a rough couple of months - not without its rays of sunshine, of course.   In the forms of a family wedding and house guests who like to chat; a baby shower in the making; a couple of kids who grow like weeds having birthdays; a trip to the movies; a birthday trip out for me that included chocolate fondue and a book signing (which - heaven, right?); and even little things like a couple of really good books (a new JK Rowling under a pseudonym? Must acquire immediately!); coming up on finishing a really large (3+years) project; starting some new crafty things; making sisters laugh when they feel like they never will again; a pining Robb Stark (I'll post a picture this week); and learning how to apply makeup correctly for the first time in my life, via Youtube videos.
   
  But this is going to be a hard week, and I'm going to need as much sunshine as possible to make it through, so if you have any, please feel free to share in the comments.  Hope your weeks/months are going a little bit cheery-er, and even if they're not, at least you know you're not alone.  {God everything I'm writing today is like a therapy session: I'm sorry internet.  (I'm not really sorry - it felt kind of good to acknowledge that shit.)}

so here i am

how I've been feeling lately: like pond scum.  like a junkie, only I don't know what I need a fix of.  like a crumpled up wrapper that someone tossed at the barrel, missed and now just keeps getting trod on underfoot, because everybody is too lazy to bend over and pick it up.

so, in general: just awesome.

according to my med tracker -into which I input my symptoms, vital signs, pain map, mood, meds, etc, daily - I'm doing just fine.  I guess that goes to show you that there are limits to what computers can do.

It can't, for example, extrapolate from the fact that my pain levels have been at a consistent 8-10 level for the past....year, that my pain is, in fact, out of freaking control.  (In fact it reports I have been "stable," which makes me want to strangle it, but it is but a website and has no neck to strangle.)


It can't use the data from my latest migraine - pain level: 9, days lasting (so far): three, meds taken to control it: at least 4, ability to move or live a life that requires doing more than rolling over in bed or taking the hottest shower possible; nil - to confirm that I have become some sort of cave troll, who lives in a twilight world where lights can't be brighter than twinkle lights, movements must all be made in slow motion, and noises can't be above a whisper.

It can take my three month mood average of 'okay' and filter it down into 36 days with at least one episode of tears; 5 days of actual, recorded laughter; at least two days when I felt like talking to people was as painful as pouring acid on myself; but it doesn't seem to register that my definition of an 'okay' mood is seriously lax, because I would've included most of those days in the roster. Or that my much lauded patience is at an all time premium - I have no time for nonsense (or only time for nonsense, I guess) - it depends on who you are and what you want, but if it's stupid, I'm outta there, because ain't nobody got time for that. 

It can tell you that my blood sugar's been bloody high - a fact probably influenced by my inability to eat anything that doesn't come in the form of a cookie, potato or cupcake without wanting to throw it back up again. (Don't ask me: carbs are comfort food.) And even then, it's dicey.

It can tell you that my blood pressure's been kooky - per usual, of course - but my pulse has started to join in and beat a crazy rhythm whenever it feels like it. and sometimes I feel like it might just beat right out of my chest, as if it were a separate thing, growing inside of me, its own necessary beat that I cannot control.

Today's a tough day: I know it, as much as I know that these past six months have been hard months, and that - eventually - days won't be so hard, and months will pass without me taking such extreme note of them.

But right now, fighting this maximum migraine and the melancholy mood it has brought with it, everything seems like forever.

As if I am always just those numbers on the stupid chart, and nobody can see past them.

As if I don't remember that there's more to me than those stupid numbers, most of the time.  As if that's what I boil down to, in the end. And what a sad end that would be - abnormal numbers and not a lot else.

All I want is to feel better, and I know that part of that is in my power, that there are things I need to do to make myself feel better, (less carbs, for example) but, when you keep trying and you wind up in the same position over and over and over again - and that position is basically curled in a ball on your bed, wishing there was something you could take that would MAKE IT STOP, just for a little while - it's fucking frustrating, is what it is.

I'm working toward my 19th year of chronic illness, and sometimes I feel like I have Got This Shit Down.  I know it backwards and forwards and inside out.  I can talk to anybody about conserving spoons and living with the ifs/whens and how to fire the doctors that make you feel like garbage and why you should put your pills in those little day packets and why abelism is a bunch of bullshit & you don't have to put up with it, and so, so many other, important, wonderful things.  And I'm proud of all of that. 

But there are days like today, when it feels as if I have learned nothing, where if feels like I've spent 19 years banging my head against the same fucking wall, and only wound up with a cracked skull for my troubles. 

And I just want a break, just want a few days where I can breathe easily, and not worry about what I'll smell and how sick it'll make me.  Where I can move without immediately regretting it or hiding how much it hurts.  Where I can sleep and wake up rested; feel hunger, eat and then feel full; sit around for hours with people I love and not have to worry about where to plug in the heating pad, or whether or not I should take the next pill if I want to stay put.

It's little things and big things, and today they all feel like big things. 

Most of that stuff doesn't matter to me, on an ordinary day, but I guess that's the patience thing again - the person I have the least amount of patience for is myself.

But I know this will pass, so I'm going back to my dark-ish room (even on it's dimmest setting, the laptop is too bright at night), and the soothing voice of Jim Dale as he & I re-traipse the grounds of Hogwarts with our favorite magical trio.

Here's hoping for better days ahead.

You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.

I took a couple of days off there, to deal with the flare from the steroids, and am finally beginning to feel more human again, so I'm back.

And I'm back with a jumble of thoughts (which is so unlike me, I know) and some interesting (to me, at least) revelations. 

While I was gone, I had a rheumatologist appointment, that was basically a waste of time, energy & spoons, but that left me feeling like "why do I even bother?"  The doctor was very nice, he managed to cross another scary diagnosis off my list, but, in the end, as always, he just said "Well, it looks like your doctors are trying everything that we know to try.  Unfortunately, Fibromyalgia is just one of those things were there's not a lot we can do for you."  He did add "which you obviously know," which was a nice recognition to get, but still: in the face of the worst pain flare I've had all year, it wasn't a lot of help (neither was his examination, which I managed not to cry through, only to burst into tears the minute he left the room.  Attractive.)  Anyways, I try to wrangle December into being as appointment free as possible, because of all the other, happier chaos that manifests itself around this time of year, but between the emergency room visit and this rheumatologist, I wanted to cancel ever appointment I have between now and ... forever, just because.  I didn't, because I've got the dermatologist next week (need non-steroidal answers for allergic reactions and eczema, please) and then I'm clear till the New Year.  At which point I have to psyche myself back into attempting physical therapy again, but I'm in no mood to try that yet, so I'm not going to think about it right now.

Speaking of not thinking about things, ahem: here are the revelations I was talking about:

 So I realized a few, kind of important things the other day, in the midst of the flare-that-made-me-want-to-murder-things.  First was that I'm glad I remembered enough from my college cramming days to plan ahead with my NaNo word count.  I managed to pad myself well enough on the good days, because I knew over the course of the month that I would have days when I physically would be unable to write - not to mention that there would be just regular bad "oh my god where have all the words gone" days - to have hit the 50,000 mark a few days before November 30th.

 Which turned out to be excellent, because the 29th is the day the steroids worked their vicious magic, and I have contributed nothing meaningful to the novel since then.  So, Hooray for the paranoid pro-active part of me that remembers that when there's a deadline for things, my body usually has a way of saying "fuck that!" at the exact wrong moment.  (Witness, pretty much every semester of college, ever.) 

The second thing I realized is that the whole endeavor of writing a novel - which turned out to be a overwhelmingly positive experience for me, in terms of creativity and confidence and just the power of setting a goal and accomplishing it - was basically a huge, spur of the moment diversion for me.

That's right, people, let's just take a minute to bask in the glory of this statement: the power of my intense ability to procrastinate is such that I SPEED-WROTE A NOVEL in order to not think about what was actually going on in my life. 

Which is both sad.  And Awesome. 

I had no idea, on October 31st, that I was going to start writing a novel the next day.  I was wandering around the internets, doing my usual Google Reader, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Amazon, Reddit, YouTube, I could major in the internet routine and came across someone else's "I'm going to be writing a novel, starting tomorrow" post and it pushed a button in my head.  I knew about NaNo, of course, and have spend years making the face of someone who wants to write but doesn't understand why you'd pick NOVEMBER, aka smack dab in the middle of the craziest time of the year to sit down and start writing a novel with speed and ferocity.  It's always seemed illogical to me, knowing what a regular November is like around here, that NaNo would be something I could ever participate in.  And, I think, if I had given myself the chance to talk myself out of it, it wouldn't have been something I ever participated in.

Instead, fueled by my profound need to not be where I am right now, not deal with the people around me right now, not feel the way I'm feeling right now, I just plunged right in.  I signed myself up on the NaNo site and introduced myself as a newbie on the messageboards.  I read all the posts about people who'd been plotting out their novels since last November, and shrugged: it wasn't like I didn't have 14 different books rattling around in my head at any given time, waiting to be written: Of Course I could do this!

And, the amazing thing to me is that I did do it: even though.  Even though the bronchitis and the wedding and the house guests and the sinus infection and the allergic reaction to nothing and not seeing the kiddos in forever and Thanksgiving and the crazy ass tension in my house and the family members who still aren't speaking to each other and the worst flare I've had in a long time.  Even though all of those things happened, I still managed to write a freaking novel.  (Or, if I'm honest, 9/10ths of a novel: but, still 50,000+ words, and that was the goal, so I'm going to claim it as my own precious.)

The fact that I was writing, here and with the book, and all over the internet any time I had a free minute, as a way to avoid my house, my family, my health, my issues, my sadness?  It's not that it didn't occur to me at the time, it's more that it didn't feel like a huge deal while I was doing it.  It gave me an excuse to sit in my room for hours with the door closed, clacking away at the computer without having to worry about who was worrying about me, or how things were not progressing the way I wanted them to outside of the computer. 

And the thing is, even though it's kind of sad that I have so many reasons to want to escape the here and the now, the awesome part comes in where I don't really feel guilty about using it as an escape.  I don't feel like taking those hours to myself hurt anybody, even me, and that's a change in my attitude, that "This is my time, and I can use it to write a book if I want, even if everything else continues to crumble."  Me writing the book isn't selfish or passive-aggressive (although I've probably been both of those things lately, in other ways): it's mine.  And knowing that I deserve things that are just mine, even if it is words on a screen and a huge sense of accomplishment, that's new for me too.  It's something else I'm working on.

Now that the flare is on it's way out (thank the lord and hallelujah: may i never have to take steroids again), I'm going to start claiming that time again, just for me.  I'm going to incorporate writing goals into my daily schedule again (less hectic ones, for sure, but still), and I'm going to keep that feeling of "finally: something I'm capable of" flowing, as much as I can.

Without the words to work on this past week, I've also realized just how sad I am.  I mean, really, having to swallow a lot so you the lump that's sitting there doesn't make me start bawling level of sad.  Heading into Christmas without Grandmother, and actually feeling just how much I miss her is overwhelming.  There's a lot of little things, tiny moments during the day where I just get that needle prick of grief, and all the happy, 'let's gear up for the holiday' spirit I'd been cultivating just ebbs out of the hole it leaves behind, like the air dribbling out of a balloon. 

Just little tiny things, like a book she gave me for Christmas that's part of the decorations I'm putting up.  Or how she didn't set her manger up till the 15th, because 36 years ago, she was setting up her manger when my father called to tell her my brother was being born and she left it there, disassembled, to rush to the hospital.  Or writing out the Christmas card to Uncle Jack, and none for her.  Little bubbles of grief come at me, unexpectedly, and then I remember that she's really gone.  I remember how hard those last months were for all of us, how much I wish it all could have been different. 

And I'm still SO ANGRY.  That's another realization that just snuck up on me, because I don't particularly think of myself as an angry person, but I'm so angry lately.

 At my dad, for being an asshole, then, and for doing things like daring to talk to me, now.  At time, for continuing to pass.  At the world, for not stopping to let me grieve.  At my family, for not realizing that I'm still grieving and that it still hurts, all the time.  At Christmas, for coming without her.  At her, or Nana, or other people, for being dead in the first place & reminding me that everybody I love is going to die, eventually. At all of my pregnant friends, (which is basically 99% of my friends, at this moment) because they are, and I'm not.  At myself, for being angry. And sick. And sore. And stuck. 

And then I'm surprised that I tried to escape into a fantasy land of writing a book?  With all these feels, I'm surprised I haven't started trying to learning German or how to play the harp or something equally intensive - anything at all that does not require FEELING ALL THIS SHIT. 

But, here I am, stuck with all those feelings, making it through, minute by minute.  And trying to feel the happy moments as they come, trying to hoard them and enjoy them and make as many of them as possible to just get me through to the New Year.  Being glad that the steroids make my pain flare, as opposed to my anger, because otherwise, I would've Hulked out by now. 

I'm going to go to a birthday party on Saturday, and get a tree early next week, and work on feeling the happy.  Feeling the everything, just a little bit at a time, if I can manage it.  I hope your December is bringing you the happy, too. 

"Isolation is the sum total of wretchedness to a man."*

Day 06: Something you hope you never have to do

Be last.

I have a lot of other things I hope I never have to do, but being the last one left is the ultimate on my "hope that never happens" list. Isn't it on everybody's?

*Thomas Carlyle

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

Let's talk a little

My mind lately seems to be going at about triple it's normal speed. Frantic, speed-brain, for some reason. It's strange, really, because things are relatively calm (or what passes for it in my family anyways), and yet I can't get my stupid brain to slow down long enough for me to grip on to anything. Or - alternately - I get hold of something and just can't let it go.

July started off OK - I even took the month off from doctors, because all the news was bad and painful and just more of the same and I couldn't think about it anymore. But of course it hasn't stopped me from thinking about it: At the very least though, by taking the time off, I couldn't be poked or prodded or asked stupid questions about it anymore.

And then my brother and sister-in-law took the kids to the Cape for a week, and were too lazy to drive them up for a few days before that, and all of the "good summer fun with the kids" I had planned to cram into my month (and my mind) instead turned into "days of doing nothing but sitting around thinking about my life." These days were not nearly as much fun as the ones I had anticipated. Left with entirely too much time to ponder at least two major family situations (one of which has blown over and another that continues on without any solution to be seen), my own non-improving health and relationships situations, and the fact that yesterday was the anniversary of my father's death (not to mention a very rude person who treated it as if, because my father and I did not get along, this anniversary should be pretty meaningless to me); it's been an unexpectedly emotional time. There's just all this stuff, and I feel like I need energy to sift through it, and I haven't got the energy - emotional or physical - that god gave a gnat, so it's all heavy lifting.

It's all heavy lifting.

And I don't, as usual, realize how heavy, really, until I sit here with my fingers tapping away trying to explain why I haven't posted anything lately, or taken pictures of the gorgeous kids or why I've signed up for at least three projects this summer that I haven't even begun to consider, let alone start. Until I sit here and let my fingers start talking, I let my brain rev itself up into a frenzy, and don't realize that not saying anything, not posting anything is part of the trouble.

So here's some more of what I've been toting around, this week particularly -

We've been attempting to clean out Nana's storage: Yes, 2 years is a long time to pay storage fees, but when you roll up that door and the smell - her smell - hits you, I would gladly pay for another two years just to not have to sit there and sift through the contents of her life while my uncle - who is clueless - natters on about "Goodwill" and "Junk" and my mother and aunt try to move as quickly as possible so we can just leave already, and all I want to do is sit there with a box of stuff opened around me and absorb it into my skin. I've been taking pictures and saving things from the scrap bin; trying to hold all my emotions in in case my mom needs to let hers out.

I'm in that tiny little hallway, with it's concrete floors and neon orange doors, watching as box after box after box comes out. When my uncle pops out one of the windows on my grandmother's dollhouse (they're plastic and pop back in), I bite my tongue and control my need to scream about how important it is to fix it Right Away! I watch my aunt take a box of china she shouldn't be lifting and wrap it up so clumsily that it's sure to be in pieces the next time we open the box, but I don't say anything: I just wait till she turns around and slide the box in my direction, re-wrap it when she heads out for a cigarette. When my mom opens a box with baby shoes in it - shoes that Nana had lovingly wrapped in tissue paper, for her 'baby' who died twenty years before she did - mom doesn't cry, so I don't cry.

See, I know that this stuff is not my Nana, and that - in all honesty - she couldn't really have cared about the majority of it: glasses that lived in cabinets, tea sets made of gold that never made it to the table, knickknacks from places she never traveled to, lots of things that said 'grandma' because stuff that said 'nana' was so much harder to find. She wouldn't mind if we tossed all that out, would actually have done it herself if she'd have thought about us having to do it now.

But I also know that there are memories to be found here - not just my memories, but everyones - and so I feel like I have to safeguard them - for my mom, who isn't thinking anything except "get me out of here"; for all the grandchildren who can't be in that dark little hallway with me, and for all the great grandchildren - here now and to come - who never got a chance to know just how awesome a lady they missed out on.

So I sit there, allergies acting all renegade and body too sore to take breaths, it seems, setting aside a porcelain cat for one sister, a rogue leprechaun for my brother, a picture of himself that my cousin has probably never seen. Some of this stuff means something to me, some of it doesn't but I'm determined not to let the "one thing" that somebody would have wanted get tossed in a box for Goodwill. I feel like the only person there capable of remembering that this isn't just stuff, it has value to someone, and they should at least have the chance to say "No, you can toss that" or "Oh my god, I totally remember this!" So I click the shutter on my camera again and again and again, hoping that I'm capturing the something somebody wants, before I repack the boxes and watch my uncle roll his eyes again.

It's just heavy lifting.

And I try to be gentle with myself, try to say: Even though it doesn't seem like right now is a busy time, you are doing a lot of work. But it doesn't always sink in, because part of my heavy lifting is the way I think about myself, the way I don't give myself credit for the things that I do, the way I beat up on myself for all the things I don't do. It's a tricky line, I think - to hold yourself accountable without tearing yourself apart. (At least it is for me.)

I read, somewhere, in a recent blog post of somebody's, that one of the rules to remember in blogging is that your blog is not your best friend. If you feel like you need to vent, pick up the phone, don't complain to your audience or they'll stop coming back. I think that's probably good advice, but I don't know that I can follow it. I appreciate it, honestly, with my whole heart, that you people come back time and again to read things like this, where my head is a spinning top and my heart feels cracked open.

I won't say that I don't have people in my life who would listen, if I started talking, because I do, but it's different to write it here, freer somehow. Saying what I need to say to get my head back on straight is a large part of what's kept me writing for so long at this blog, and - while it may be the reason I don't have a zillion followers - it's also part of the reason that I cherish the followers I do have.

So, now that I feel somewhat normal again, what's going on with you all? I know somebody has a new job (YAY Ms J!!!) and other people are dealing with their own brands of chaos (Hope the bed rest is going well, Laurie!). I hope that you're all enjoying your weekend, come what may, and I promise to write again soon. (And less emotionally jumbled, hopefully.)

Always surviving

Today, my aunt packed up and headed back to Ohio at some ungodly hour of the morning, and after she left, my Grandmother knocked on the den door, came in and sat beside me on the bed. "I just said good-bye to Mac", she said, her voice low and thin.

I put my head on her shoulder, she put her head on mine. A few minutes later, she whispered "I just don't know if I'm ever going to see her again."

She was crying as she said it, and her tears made me want to flinch they were so heavy.

Then her hearing aid whistled at us, and she collected herself, pulled herself back in, saying that she shouldn't be leaning on my shoulder, because it hurts me.

As if I care.

But she bustled out, and I knew she needed to be alone for a few minutes: Because sometimes you just can't cry in front of other people; because sometimes you're afraid you might not be able to stop.

I sat on the bed, in the dark early morning, with the stupid birds chirping away outside the window, and the light trying to creep in through the cracks of the shades, and I thought about what it must be like to have to say goodbye to your child, never knowing if you'll see them again.

Of course none of us ever knows, but we each have our own false comforts of being young, or healthy, or knowing that you only have to wait till tomorrow, or that you're right down the street, or that you've had all your shots.

I thought about how scary it must be to have lived long enough to know that it doesn't matter how safe you are, how old you are, how prepared you are: no matter what, life and death happen. You can't control them.

To have lost everyone who came before you, to know there's nobody left between you and what comes next ? How frightening it must be to be 92 and to know that whatever time you have left, it's not going to be enough.


It's scary for me to think about that, to try to imagine my world without her, but I've scraped together the remnants of my own naive beliefs, and I wrap them around me like a cocoon of denial... it hurts too much to go there.


I can't imagine what it must be like for her, without the comforts -however false - to protect her heart.

After a while, I went out to the couch where she was laying down and I just sat and held her hand. The tears slid from her eyes, backwards toward the pillow, slowly now, but I could tell she'd been crying harder, by the dampness on her pillow.

She apologized for getting me up (again: as if I care).
"I love to see them come," she said, "but I hate to see them go."

And we were both silent for a while, and I can't be sure what she was thinking, but I know that I was thinking about all the people who've gone and never made it back: Three of her children, my father included, 10 years ago this week. Her husband. Her mother, her grandmother, all of her siblings. Nana. Uncles and aunts, cousins and friends.

People you said goodbye to like it was any other day, only it turned out not to be. People you clung to as you said goodbye, knowing there'd be no tomorrows. People you waved away, absentmindedly, only to regret it forever.
People who just... left.

And I thought about how brave you have to be to let the people you love out of your sight, even for a moment. Why can't we all just sit around holding hands all day, every day? (Yes, I realize that we'd all go crazy within 10 minutes, but still...)

She lost her mother when she was six years old, and she's managed to make it through everyday of the next 86 years, knowing how fragile life is, but not being able to do anything about it besides live. I know it's all we can do, but sometimes it seems like SO MUCH, like TOO MUCH. 86 years and counting of risking, and loving, and wishing and lasting, and trying, and fighting and fearing, and hoping, and just ... being.

And surviving - sometimes curled up in a ball, and other times with arms open wide - but always surviving.

Piddle ...

I'm listening to the traffic that follows the 4th of July spectacular here - perhaps you saw my across the river neighbors on the television? - and am glad to have spent this fourth here, at Grandmother's house. I know I've done (more than) my share of complaining about the fact that I am still here (66 days and counting), but that's only because I long for home. My bed, my things, my complete ability to not get dressed for 37 days in a row if I so choose home. The company here is splendid, overall, though, and I'll admit I may just have been in the place I needed to be tonight.

Because, since I've been sick, the 4th of July was something I did with Nana. With the rest of my family moving off to one rooftop or another to try to catch the best view of the fireworks, Nana and I would watch the Pops, mock the line dancers who couldn't hold the beat (could FIND the beat), and shake our heads at the fact that people needed karaoke words for Yankee Doodle Dandy. She would walk away in disgust as acts like Aerosmith "paraded around like pansies" or Big & Rich "screwed up even the Star Spangled Banner". I would tune her out or in, accordingly, waiting till she came back from her latest cigarette to tell her about the doofus with a really tall Uncle Sam hat. And she'd be settled in with her last hot cup of tea by the time the fireworks started, and she - who didn't really understand the point of special effects in movies or anything like that - would be captivated, would gasp and point out her favorites like any member of the crowd. It was something she didn't really enjoy in person ("too much smoke, people & bother," she'd say), but on TV, it made her face light up. It came back to me, all in a wave tonight, that she's not just at home watching without me, that I won't get to watch them with her again. And so, the tears then, and now, as I sit listening to the honking that she would've cursed, because it's still hard to know that.

Watching tonight with Grandmother & UJ was different - UJ was pissed at the people in the street who let their dog run loose, for one thing and so it was a bit tenser than usual - but it was good. It was happy. Grandmother didn't let the fact that she's not a singer stop her from singing along to the patriotic music (like I do), and she appreciated each extra sparkle and twinkle that the fireworks could provide, each time a little painted face came up on the big screen. It was good for me, and I think, good for them (I guess they don't usually watch: which - sacrilege!) I heard the stories of when they used to go to the fireworks, of when Arthur Fiedlder was leading the Pops, of the time my eldest cousin pouted all the way back to the car (because my uncle made them leave early to beat the traffic - I don't get that either).

I miss Nana - all the time, every day - but today was a little bit easier because I was here.

But here's a movie I introduced my Revolutionary-War-Lovin', 5th-Grade-Teaching Nana too, and a song, just for her.

Speaking of fools...

**** Hey Sister of Mine - This is probably not a post you want to read, unless you feel like crying or being pumped full of rage. It's about the PUS. Feel free to skip. (This goes for anybody, of course, but my sister especially). I'd rather not write it, to be honest, but it's probably a wiser option than waiting till one of them comes by and kicking them in the face. Which is what I feel like doing. So; writing it is. ****


The PUS are just about all moved out now, with just their part of the cellar and what the realtor calls 'a few odds and ends' left upstairs to take with them. I can not fully explain how amazing it feels to be in this house and not be afraid of having to leave because of something they've done that will make me more ill. Or how it brings me peace to be able to take Lil Girl outside to draw with sidewalk chalk and not have to worry about someone pulling into the driveway and shooting us dirty looks, or worse, attempting to talk to me. It is bittersweet, to the extreme, to have this house be almost the way it always should have been - ours.


Only Nana is missing.

And she has been on heavy on my mind lately as we move into this final month of our residence here, how could she not be?

Her best friend came over to visit us yesterday. Because she's afraid that we'll move too far for her to come again, the visit was full of unnecessary goodbyes, (as we aren't moving anymore than 30 minutes away no matter what) but she also spent a good deal of time rehashing old hurts: cursing the PUS for all they did to Nana, cursing Nana for putting up with it, wishing she'd been able to convince her to do something about it. It was like listening to my own soul talking, especially when she said

"If we could've found a way, she'd probably still be alive today."

To outsiders, this statement makes no sense, I'm sure. An overreaction, perhaps, or wishful thinking to the extreme. But to me, it is a mere fact --> my grandmother, no spring chicken when she died at 84, would most likely have had a longer (and most definitely a happier) life if she hadn't had to battle everyday for just the air she breathed.

Stress, we all know, is aging. It's detrimental to your body on a cellular level. It hurts physically and emotionally. And my Nana lived in a soul crushingly stressful environment. It wasn't even just stress, it wasn't ordinary familial tension - she lived in a place where she was abused, everyday.

It takes a lot for me to write that. To know that it is true and to know that there were choices we all made - choices that I made - that enabled that abuse to continue.


I hope that in all my life, I will never do anything that I could regret more than not doing what I know was right. I hope that I would be strong enough, now, to know that having her mad at me for calling the cops - over and over again, if necessary - would be preferable to not having her at all.

"She wasn't beaten to death," you might say, "She died of cancer." And you would be right. She did. She did die of cancer, but she also died because her environment was toxic; because her son and his 'family' poisoned her everyday.

By ignoring her. By making her feel worthless and stupid and vile. By treating her as if she were little more than a bank - a bank where loans never had to be repaid and interest was never charged and you could insult the clerks at will. By hurting her heart and allowing their children to say that she wasn't their grandmother, or that they'd never really loved her. By screaming at her and calling her hideous names. By not caring for her when she was so obviously sick, and not caring enough to let anyone else have the chance to care for her either. By bullying her into believing all the wretched things they said about her (or us), and threatening her if she dared to stand up for herself (or us). By treating her as though she was invisible - by showing her that her opinion meant so little it didn't deserve to be heard, that her presence meant so little it wasn't even worth noting. By making it so that no one else could stand to come to her house, since it meant being in their presence, since it meant having to sit by seething while she was belittled or being belittled themselves.

(I would say here, in order to keep myself from becoming completely enraged, all over again, and because I am listening to the Harry Potter books on cassette tape, that she was Dobby, and they never gave her so much as a sock. If that makes sense to you, I think we should be friends:) )

They poisoned her, as sure as if they'd been feeding her arsenic, and 22 years worth is a lot of arsenic to swallow. It's a long time, and a lot of damage, and if every day you're living on a battlefield, using all your strength and energy to fight off poisons, you don't have any extra resources when you need them.

And that's really what happened to her - she just didn't have the resources she needed for that next battle, and it happened to be against a foe she couldn't best.

I'm not saying she wouldn't have had cancer. I'm not even saying she would have survived the cancer, really. I'm just saying that she would've had a better shot at doing so if she didn't have to also survive her 'son' and the rest of the PUS.

You may disagree, and I haven't written it before because, well... it sounds so stupid written down like that, even to me. But they wore her down, they wore down her spirit and her energy and her self, and when she got sick, she needed all those things and didn't have them. So yeah: I think that the damage they've done is immeasurable. And I am damn glad to see them go.

But today, alone in the house, as I heard the footsteps of Hippobeast PUS (the daughter - who's 22 now & who was one of Nana's frequent tormentors) thump on the back steps, I had a moment of "What's to stop me?"

My anger was so clear and sharp and focused that if I were capable of climbing the stairs, I thinkknow, in that moment, I absolutely would have. I wanted to yell at her. To tell her how evil I think she really is; to tell her the truth.

We haven't talked in over 12 years, and I assume that she thinks I am as horrific as I think she is, but in that moment I just wanted to be able to look her in the face and say: "Listen, you need to hear this from somebody, and it sure as shit ain't going to be your fucked up parents that tell you because they're even more delusional than you are. So hear this clearly, and know that it is true - YOU are wrong.

All those things you did, at first because your parents did them, and then later just because you could? The hateful things you said and the punishing ways you acted? Were wrong. Were evil and hurtful and poisonous and led directly to the dissolution of our 'family' and to Nana's death. And you can never make that better.

I can't go back and do the right thing - I can't go back and call the cops when I should've or actually send that letter to the lawyer the way I wanted to, and that will always haunt me. But you can't go back either, you can't undue the harm you did, the hurt you've caused, and I can't let you leave this house without letting you know that I hope it haunts you. Because it should."

It's probably good that I can't climb the stairs, because even as I was thinking about how great it would be to deliver this truth to her in person, I didn't, for a second, imagine that she would just sit there and let me say all of that to her. And that would've pissed me off even more, and things would most likely have escalated. (Although, seriously? Giving her the chance to punch me might have been worth any increase in pain because you know I would've called the cops then, friends.)

And by the time she plodded her way back down the stairs, I had calmed down enough to return to my Harry Potter and plot about how to 'accidentally' aim a Cruciatus Curse at them all instead, but the wanting is still there. Because I know that they still think they didn't do anything wrong.

That they will never think they did anything wrong - that they were the victims of a family that turned their backs on them, as opposed to the perpetrators that caused a family to be shattered.

And that's not okay with me. But I'm just going to have to let it go.

So, even though we still don't know where we'll be, I am definitely looking forward to thirty days from today, when I won't have to see them again. Or hear their false voices again, or suffer under their hands ever again.

And then? I shall have to settle for the Obliteration Charm instead, wiping them from my life once and for all.

Today I gave myself a time out

After a week filled with people coming and going, food that needed baking, children that needed minding (and reminding), nights that needed filling (as sleep was largely absent) and a whole lot of stuff that still needs to get done - and with an upcoming week that looks scheduled to the extreme as well, I came home from my grandmother's house today to find that Dad - who is on vacation this week and can't seem to stay on my good side when it comes to smells - had washed the kitchen floor (with barcolene), put up a new plastic (and odoriferous) shower curtain, and washed all the windows (with Windex!) That's three horrific smells all bundled together, and I nearly threw up - and then I nearly threw a fit.

Struggling to breathe - and not to cry - I decided I had had enough, and went in my room and shut the door. It was a little after 3, which is twilight around here this time of year, so I put some Christmas music on shuffle, the heating pads on high, and my head on the pillow.

I just laid here, in the dark: rotating every few minutes to relieve pressure on the sorest points and get heat onto a few different points, hitting the next key on my remote, during the volume up and down as I willed it. And I thought. I thought about all the things that have gone wrong since this time last year, and all the things that have gone right. I thought about how I don't know where we'll all be next month, let alone next Christmas. I thought about all of the issues that need to be dealt with within my family, and how I just don't want to be the person who has to deal with them any more. I thought about all the excuses, all the explanations; all the avoidances & all the annoyances. I thought about all the things we'd hoped for this year, and all the ways we've failed: all the ways I wanted my life to be different at this point, and all the ways I haven't managed to change it.

Basically, I laid around in a lot of pain, feeling sorry for myself, and figuring I deserved it.

And I did. I deserve to feel badly for all the things that haven't gone right - to mourn all of the losses we've accumulated. It's not out of line to have myself a little pity party when I've just come back from writing thank you notes to all the people who showed up at my uncle's funeral, to a house that's uninhabitable to me and people who get pissed off because they think they are helping when they are so obviously doing the opposite.

It's been a bad year, in a lot of ways. And the bad times? They don't look like they're especially ready to let up. So, ok: lay in the dark and feel sad for a little bit. Roll over and over with tears running down the sides of your face as you listen to songs that are supposed to be cheery. That's OK, that's alright, you're only human.

But then you have to look at all you've got, too: you have to get to the point where you're ready to say "Yeah, that really sucked. And it'll probably still suck tomorrow, too, but you can do it anyways."

And that's OK too. Because I know I can do it. Because as much as the people I love drive me crazy (and They Do. The End.), we're in this together. Because as much as it sucks that I feel this bad, I've felt worse. Because there is, at this very moment, some person in a lab coat looking at my blood and thinking 'WTF?', and a few years ago they weren't even doing that. Because as much as it's true that I'm nowhere near where I wanted to be at this point in my life, I've still got the chance, I've still got time & hope & opportunities.

So I'm going to remember to give myself some time outs in the next few weeks, as the always overwhelming holiday season interacts with grief and chaos to produce an even more stressful time for all of us. And if laying in the dark for a while with my brain shut off *as much as is possible for me* is what it takes to get through it, then that's what I'm going to do.

You think you're ok and then you pour yourself a cup of tea and burst into tears.

This weekend I had my first time alone in the house in, well... forever, really. At least years. Between needing help with stuff and the fact that there's so many of us, alone time hasn't exactly been all that available. (And other people are even more screwed, because I hardly ever leave the house for more than a couple of hours.)

Anyways, I was really, really alone for a substantial amount of time: 2 days, all to myself. I was so looking forward to it... sometimes being 29 and living at home is NOT the adventure it might be advertised as.

Mum & Dad were away overnight, SisterCh went to her boyfriend's for the weekend, there was a PUS or two upstairs, but I refuse to acknowledge their existence, so they don't count. It was just me.

But halfway through the first day on my own, around 3 o'clock or so, I started to get this itchy scratchy feeling, and I just ... couldn't figure it out. I felt ... restless and uncomfortable, and emotional for no reason.

And I didn't really understand why it was I was feeling so weird, at first: I often have time when the house is mostly empty... when Mum & Dad go north for their cigarettes, when everybody is gone to the North End for a feast, or to open houses. So blocks of a couple of hours where it's just me are not unheard of.

I stopped what I was doing, checked for the mail, went out to the kitchen, and made myself a late lunch. I was listening to my radio program, nice and quietly, nothing blasting (because that's the way I like it), fussing with the stupid kettle, because it's hard for me to pick up and pour (at least to pour accurately), and I really wanted a cup of tea.

As I finished making my sandwich and cutting up my sour pickle, I poured the hot water onto the tea bag, the smell of the tea hit me, and :wham: my breath just caught in my throat.

And then I realized what the feeling was, what was so 'off' about my day: No Nana.


A little part of me had been waiting for her to come down looking for her mail, wrapped up tight in her bathrobe, cup of tea in one hand, portable phone in the other, complaining about the cold, or the PUS, or coming over to steal a slice of my pickle.

And I sat there drinking my cup of tea, thinking of Nana (who was all about the tea) tears streaming down my face, as I realized this was the first time I'd been alone in the house, really, truly alone, in a very long time.

And I realized that while I mostly think I'm doing ok, sometimes it just comes out of nowhere - that feeling of "how is this real?", how is she gone? 9 months later, and I still don't believe it all the way... there are still times when I pick up the phone to call and invite her to go shopping with us; times when I hear the fighting start upstairs and my stomach reflexively tightens with fear - will I have to call the cops this time - before I remember she's not there anymore and I don't have to protect her (and they can rip each other to pieces for all I care); times when I automatically turn on her shows before I remember that she's not coming in to watch them and I can pick what I want to watch (and even more times that I watch her shows anyways, because who wants to have to catch up on a new show?); times when I can almost believe that she's at school, or out with her friends, or even still in the hospital.

And I know it's not true, but I'm surprised, still, by how much it can hurt.

Especially because on the day to day, I think I'm doing fine. I think I'm coping with all the crap that's going on, and doing a damn good job of it. But then I'm alone for a little while, and the smell of tea does me in. And I know it takes time, it was just... unexpected.

I don't know that I felt better afterwards, exactly, but I did feel like at least I knew what the problem was, why I was on edge. (I hate feeling wrong and not being able to figure out why.)

------------------------
In an odd coincidence, I finished writing this post last night, and turned on the Tivo. Then I watched watched this week's episode of True Blood (which, if you don't watch it, is very good, if a bit graphic), and the following scene got me started all over again.

It was a deja vu-ish moment for me, I'll tell you.

Spoiler Alert... plot points discussed below, not vital ones, especially, but if you haven't watched this week's episode, stop reading here.

In this scene, the main character, Sookie (who's name is pronounced suck-y; although I still think it should be sue-key, rhymes with cookie)'s grandmother has just been murdered. This is after the wake and the disastrous funeral, and she's alone in the house, with a pie her grandmother had baked. Her last pie. I'm sure you'll see what I'm talking about.



Sometimes, it's just too real.
(Although I can assure you, I do not cry as gracefully as that.)