You Are Most Welcome

I try to keep  things at an even keel as much as possible. Lately I am on a teeter totter with my hands gripping my side of it, white knuckles bared against the barrage of bullshit that is getting piled on and off of the other side.

I have decided not to ride the wave that moves with the whims of incompetent and unintelligent people. I threw a  written Molotov cocktail into the situation, bringing fire to what was already simmering. Fire can be good. Fire can be cleansing. I feel better already.

There was just one thing I didn't include in the world's longest email to the world's most oblivious person: You are most welcome. Maybe it was that I had rage fueled vision and wasn't feeling magnanimous. Maybe I just had too many other things to say and couldn't fit it in. Or I just couldn't slip the words over the furious lump in my chest.

Today, they move like liquid fire.

You are welcome for the years of my life I altered without looking back. You are welcome for the daily care of your precious cargo. You are so welcome for each breakfast made, dish washed, shirt folded, blanket tucked, lunch packed, carpool driven, girl scout meeting held, craft created, hair brushed, appointment made, bill paid and dollar stretched.

Because you never had to.

You are welcome for each rule set, each tantrum settled, each fight with a grandmother who didn't see the need for grounding. You are welcome for each sports uniform, school clothes, camp payment, sleeping bag, bug spray, whistle, and worried last look when she would walk away, even if only for a few hours.

Because you never wanted to.

You are welcome for sleepless nights, fitful dreams, fear of  strangers, palpitation of the heart  in a  near-miss crash, glance to the backseat to see that she was still there, smiling, unaware. You are welcome for the embrace that held a crying child, scared, upset, unsure...when she didn't understand where you were. How to reach you. Why you wouldn't answer. You are welcome for the tears wiped, the ones she is careful to never show to you.

Because you had better things to do.

You are welcome for the vision I keep, the one of a 4 year old girl, playing with her dolls, acting out a comic book scene. Only in all of hers, there is a mother missing. One that will come and save the princess. Or that needs saving and the superhero always finds her to reunite with her little girl. You are welcome for the heart I broke watching that scene play out over and over.

You are welcome for the tears I held back when she asked if I would come play the game along with her. Of course I did, as I knew the script and I knew my part. I was always two people in the scene- the villain and the hero. I had to play those two so that her little voice could be both mother and daughter, one in peril and one desperate to help. I took the role of both the person who would do such a thing as take the mother away, and the one who would help to bring her back. She took the role of a little girl trying to come to terms with her life, and deciding that something dangerous and awful must be the only reason you couldn't be with her. I've always said how smart she is.

Because you were in a danger of your own making.

You are welcome for my cordial manner, my professionalism and my lack of emotion when in your presence. You are even more welcome for the fact that I have never spoken ill of you, I do not answer for your decisions, and I have covered for you this last nine years. You are welcome for the distraction we have provided from your antics, situations, lies and inconsistency. But the veil has fallen and my mouth has dropped open. Likely in awe of how stupid you must be and how stupid you must think I am. Uterine cancer? Just stop already.

Because you don't seem to know who you are dealing with.

You are welcome for my protection, my intelligence and power. You are welcome for my education, my ideals and my income. You are welcome for my health, my sense of self and my standards.

Because I will use them to protect what I love. And to keep you firmly in your place.

A Letter I Can't Send

I can write you a letter

I'll make it so you can see

I'll write it so things look better

And hope that you never read


I don't want to show you

I'm not sure I can go there

I don't think I can take it

The pitying stare


I've written these letters

They never go out

They hold all the secrets

And fill me with doubt


How will you see me

When you really can see

What will you think then

What will it mean?


When you see what I'm made of

When you know what I am

The dark steals the light

And it's all that I am


When the curtain is lifted

And I step on the stage

You'll know what was missing

You'll know my real name

Spiral

If you have ever lived in the fear-shame-hate-disgust tail-chasing spiral that is a seething depression, you know that there are moments of despair.

Moments where you are not sure if you ever lived outside of the spiral, you start to think maybe you were born there. Maybe this is where  you will die. These moments wrap around you like a blanket but with all the comfort of a cactus. Once the needles settle in, the pain becomes normal. You get used to it. And you know that pulling them out would casue pain, whereas sitting where you are is the devil you know.

Sometimes, (if you are lost in the fog that is forgetting who you are), you stare off into space.

This can be one of the only useful things about a depression. Since you are devoid of the ability to track time, you can mosey through the spiral at your own pace. If there is a break in the action, you can always peek through the thinning layers and find yourself thinking about things the way a counselor might lead you to your own answers.

I thought to myself:

I am afraid.

What of? it asks.

Well, of not being good enough.

Good enough for what?

As good as others who have gone before me and who have done what I hope to do.

Why do you think they are better?

Because they got it done.

Maybe they were afraid.

Maybe. But they did it.

How?

Well they had more resources. They did it earlier, it was easier, cheaper.

So? You could make the changes and do the things necessary to make it happen. You are resourceful.

I just never have any time....Wait...well...because I fill it......with things...to busy myself...so I can't attempt this...because I am afraid to fail....

I shut that show down with the practiced hand of someone who knows just how dangerous that line of thinking can be. Its hard to keep pushing yourself up when the other half of you pulls down.

One of my arms rows the boat one direction and the other arm rows the opposite. The spiral stops sometimes, but only because I'm at war with myself. I can see the entire thing in action- I am afraid (fear) I am not good enough (shame) this is impossible (hate) Other people can do this and I can't (disgust). I can't face this kind of change (fear again). And around we go.

The taste of giving in must be what heroin feels like to an addict. It is desirable beyond compare. The reason I do not give in is that I cannot breathe, and I keep pulling up for air. Each time, it takes a bit more away from the grip. The spiral is not won with heroics, it is won with survival. If I could live without breathing, I would still perish.

Who Turned Out The Lights?

I want you to know that I am not well
But apathy is quiet so I cannot tell

I want to climb this hill, to scream and shout
Reclaim what I am (if I ever find out)

Someone has turned out the lights.

I am being  pulled into a well, I am trying to yell
But the words aren't coming and no one can help

There is an emptiness now where my thoughts used to live
There is a stranger living here - one that takes but won't give

Someone has turned out the lights.

I know this is not the way I used to be
I need to do something to make it leave

But now there's no pain, the agony is a memory
The dull is not an ache, more like a quiet melody

Someone has turned out the lights.

I think I like it here in the dark
I'll make it my home and give it my mark

It's more comfortable, really... I like it this way
Now leave the lights off, close the door. Go away

I have turned out the lights.

The Best Job You Can Imagine

One time I wrote here about my horrible job (one of the twenty or so times, really) and to lift my own spirits, I also listed what I thought were among the best jobs. I now realize that I set the bar so very very low, and I am here to rectify that situation.

This blog got its title from the numerous lists I make all the time, and sometimes I bring them here for show and tell. Today is one of those days. Let's not make a list of the best jobs there are. Let's make a list instead of the best jobs you can even fathom. The best there could be. Open your mind to the possibilities of getting paid for...well, anything! That is the measure of success, is it not? To find yourself being compensated for doing that which you find pleasurable. To work and get paid at doing something that you find energizing and fun, or at least being wildly over-paid for something simple and easy.

What if the job did not have to be something found in your high school guidance counselor's guide to getting your life together? What if you could determine what you wanted to do, then get paid for doing it?

Let us have a go at it. In honor of now having a job I do not hate, I'm sure we can come up with something better than mattress tester:

1. Wealth Manager for Leprechauns
2. Unicorn Rancher
3. Puppy Play Date Manager
4. Grass Hill Rolling Quality Control Supervisor
5. Cloud Shape Deciphering Technician
6. Rainbow Construction Foreman
7. Nail Polish Namer
8. Baby Lamb/Hippo/Elephant/Giraffe/Pig Nursery Monitor
9. Travel Photographer (I know, but who doesn't want to do this?)
10. Actor/Actress- my all time (I hate making lasting decisions) favorite. You get to play at being everyone.

Get out your favorite bottle of something lovely and let's dream up new lives...

Dizzy

Lately, an interesting thing has happened. Well to be fair, it started a long time ago. Then it came back. That is really the theme of this situation in the first place.

Like most people, at some points in life, I have experienced deja-vu. I'll be standing at a sink washing my hands, or I will be getting out of a car, looking at a book on a shelf, it makes no difference where I am or what I am doing when it hits. So far so good. Then, sometimes, the deja vu feeling takes on a very strange aura. I feel like I have done this before,  but then the memory of that time comes into focus. I start to see where I was and what I was doing, and I can see it in my mind, it is slipping away and I try to reach out mentally and grasp at it, to get it in my hands so that I can tell why this is making me feel this way and BOOM.

I'll get hit by the freight train of memory and synapse firing that takes me to the floor... I have to let go of trying to figure out what I see in my mind's eye or the swirling rush takes over. Once I let that out of focus and put it out of my mind, I can settle down the spinning room and get my equilibrium again.

The first time this happened was most likely many years ago. I remember a few instances that made me feel awful and one that sent me to a school nurse. But they are distant memories, and it went away for so long. Then about 8 years ago, I went on a vacation. I dreamed about the place we were going to be staying and I saw this wonderful back deck on a house overlooking a beautiful wooded green area. It was a great dream and I was excited for the trip. Then we arrived at the place. I went out to the back door and outside to the deck. Next thing I know I am on the ground. I KNOW in my heart I have been here before, done this before and that this is the exact same as I saw it in my mind. How could that be? I had to let it go and not try to find out, so I could get my footing and go splash off my face.

I felt woozy for a few hours after that. Then it went away. For a few years. It has come back a few times, always dangling some interesting memory in front of my consciousness, never allowing me to grab it. I've talked about this before, and I think I write about it as a way of putting it out there, trying to understand. More than anything I want to know what is on the other side of those shimmering visions that I cannot grab. I would allow any amount of dizziness and spinning to just get it in my hands.

There is a white rabbit that lives in my mind. He beckons me to follow him down the rabbit hole. Why can't I go?

Spin Cycle

I have established on this blog before that I am not in good physical shape. That being said, I am not a monstrous behemoth, roaming the landscape snatching up trees to quell my hunger until the next herd of buffalo comes along.

I thought for sure that I was overweight. Close to obese, maybe. I knew that I needed to work on things, carve out time for myself, stop drinking so much, cut out the empty calories. I've read books. I know what the problem is.

Much like with all exercise starts and stops in my life, I went into the fitness center at my old college with gusto. I had it all figured out (again). Classes were the way to go. Left to my own devices, I will wander the area, pick up a few weights, run for a bit, do a bit of some random machine and then lose interest and wander back to my car. What I needed was a class. Where I was accountable for 45-60 minutes of real exercise. Those were the times I felt like I got a work out. Spin class scheduled for 5:30 pm? That cannot be a coincidence. That is the one for me.

Our instructor showed up ten minutes late, made jokes about people in the class, did not give any instruction on how to use the bikes and had a Manti Te'o meets frat boy vibe about him. Those are the things that went well.

I hustled myself onto the pencil eraser, ahem, bike seat that was perched atop the stationary motorcade to hell. I readied myself for some physical exertion. People said exercise was good for stress and I had a boss who perfected the vice grip. This would be a great day.

Turns out our instructor was into sado masochism and had us 'do hills' for a while. As I was new to this level of exercise, he pointedly asked me if I was alright when my face turned a shade of beet that us Irish do so well. The whole class looked worried as if I might cause a scene involving paramedics. I was determined to show them.

In the end, I made it through. I finished the class. Victory was mine. So was this bike, because I couldn't get off of it. While I mentally calculated how hard it would be to take it down the stairs with me, I was rescued by my husband who had finished working out and knew a problem brewing when he saw it.

We went down the stairs, me leaning heavily on him. I couldn't bend at the knee and I couldn't use any muscles in my legs. No amount of drinking water during the class had stopped the lactic acid build up and I staggered about like a broken ballerina doll to the car.

I don't think I need to tell you that it was the last spin class I went to. I don't know who is more relieved about that.