Return of the Prodigal Poster

I know. I went away. Some of you noticed and sent distressed emails and made me feel loved for a bit. The rest of you were silent--I'm assuming because you had not, for whatever reason, saved my email address at the top of your Favorites list and, since my domain disappeared and then was taken over by one of those blasted advertising sites, no longer had the helpful "Email Me" button to click.

I'm back.

I left--or rather, faded away and then simply allowed the custom domain to expire when I received the increasingly distressed emails inquiring whether I'd like to renew and it really doesn't cost much, please just click on this link--because I felt completely bottled up with my writing. Having a blended family of this complexity and, well, challenge made it very difficult to write anything. Can't vent about that person--she might read it...Can't vent about that child--this or that former spouse may read it, or someone he/she knows may read it and then send it, or even show it to the child...Can't write about how I really feel about various complicated situations because of sensitive legalities and various whatnot.

Privacy issues. That's what it boiled down to.

And it still does, really, which means I won't be posting as much about my crazy complicated family as I might otherwise.

However, I need to write. I've been feeling an ache for several months, needing this blog, needing the outlet, needing the audience. I am fragile and raw these days as I work through decades-old pain and current crises. I'm stuck in an old bog, really. I looked back through my posts from yesteryears and realized that what I'm trying to do now is what I was supposed to do almost two years ago and didn't. I didn't push myself through the barrier and the pain, and frankly neither did that therapist. In fact, I stopped seeing her a few months later. Our sessions just weren't going anywhere, and our schedules no longer meshed.

So. New year, new therapist, and I have to do the work this time or I might not make it through intact.

I need to write, and I need an audience in order for it to be real, and my lame attempts to start other anonymous blogs died in the birthing.

This blog has served as catharsis before. Perhaps, if I can pour my pain and record my joys on these electronic pages, I can face the dragons again.

Maybe, just maybe, this time I can win the fight.

My Mind is Smushy. Much Like Pumpkin Puree.

I haven't done one of these in ages, but it sounds about right today. Quick takes are about the only kind I have energy or time for, and hang the dangling preposition too.

-1-

My brother, DorkMaster B, turns 25 today. This is impossible, as he is still 8 years old. At most, 9. Of course, there are compensations for his annual flaunting of my increasing decrepitude. He's much more useful than he was--erm, is?--at 8. Not to mention much more fun with which to play games (take that, preposition!). Still. A quarter century? Next thing you know I'll be turning 40 or some such sh*t.

-2-

My Daddy will be spending the weekend with us. The children are all in transports of joy--well, at least the three younger ones. The Padawan is being very cool about it. He is thirteen, after all. I am quite happy about it, and hope that his puns and gentle humor will help shake both me and MTL out of our funks.

-3-

You know what it's like when you know you're partially at fault for something but don't really want to admit it because dammit you also have a bit of your own point, but at the same time if you keep being stubborn about it you'll never come to peace with the person you love most, but at the same time you are miffed that he's being a stubborn--um, something--himself, and mostly you just want to curl up in his arms and forgive and be forgiven but stupid responsibilities like work make it impossible and you know that it's a conversation that needs to be made in person rather than over gchat or email?

Please tell me you do. Because it sucks. Par for the course for October this year, though.

-4-

I am not good at admitting to faults and hypocrisy. I do not like being Wrong about something, dammit.

-5-

I made pumpkin muffins last night, and they were delicious. The Padawan was delighted. The Widget was delighted. I was delighted. I don't know if anyone else is delighted or not, since I have not witnessed them eating any as yet. Here's the recipe (as I made it, properly modified for a Food Sensitive Household, adapted from Allrecipes.com):

• 1 1/2 cups canned pumpkin puree
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 2 cups raw sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup almond flour
• 1 cup sorghum flour
• 1/3 cup tapioca flour/starch
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 3/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg or allspice
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cloves

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line muffin tin with muffin papers.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the pumpkin, oil, sugar, and eggs. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves; stir into the pumpkin mixture until well blended. Fill muffin tins.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 30-35 minutes.

OR double the recipe above, grease and flour three 9x5 inch loaf pans, and bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour. The top of the loaves should spring back when lightly pressed. 

-6-

We keep saying that we're going to save money towards a minivan, and each month somehow there's no money to save. We need to figure this out. I suspect the children. It's always the children.

-7-

I have so much grading to accomplish this next week that I feel like my head is likely to explode and my hands be worn to stubs. My students keep pointing out that if I wouldn't assign work, I wouldn't have grading to do. They have a point.

And if you want to read something more interesting than my fatigued babble, go check out Jen!

Weak and Weepy

I've never been particularly good at admitting my weaknesses. The sorts that can be deprecatingly laughed about, like my lack of self-control when it comes to shoes or dark chocolate with raspberries, my obsession with the numbers on radio volume control, my tendency to twitch when I see apostrophes used for plurality...fine. Those are the sorts of weaknesses we fondly call "foibles," those little quirks of personality that transform us into special little snowflakes, possibly just a touch flakier than the next one over.

But real weaknesses? The sort that require trips to therapists, medication, incredible patience on the part of those who live with us?

Not so much.

I spent at least three years mired in high-functioning postpartum depression because I couldn't bring myself to ask for help. I was so good at hiding the despair poisoning my soul that most people made all sorts of admiring comments on how Together I was, what a SuperWoman I was...Ha. It didn't help that the one time I did tell The Ex that I thought I was depressed and in trouble, he told me to suck it up. I kept my mouth shut for another six months after that, and by then I had fallen so much further that I almost didn't make it back out.

I've come a long way since then, but I still struggle to admit that I'm, well, struggling. I have the few individuals who are "safe": DraftQueen, Heidi, Amy, and of course MTL. I don't fear judgment from them, in part because they have all Been There in one way or another, and because they love me for who I really am rather than who I would like people to think I am.

And...I just realized I'm doing a very good job of avoiding what I came here to say. You see what I mean?

Enough stalling.

I struggle with anxiety and depression. It's nothing like what I once experienced, especially the depression aspect, but I deal with anxiety on a daily basis. I'm even (gasp) medicated for it (shh, don't tell anyone) (because we all know that people who have to take medication for that mental crap are nutjobs and shouldn't be trusted), because panic attacks have a nasty way of interfering with one's ability to get through the day.

I have a feeling I always will. For one, it runs in my family, on both sides. For another, studies have shown that highly intelligent women are also highly prone to anxiety, because we overthink EVERYTHING. Mother Nature giveth and she taketh away with the other hand, the stingy bitch.

Oh, and I do kind of have a stressful life, despite the many delightful compensations.

I've been struggling this week. I've been a good girl and taken my little pill every morning, and I still find myself short of breath, my arms burning, my heart racing. I haven't had a full-fledged panic attack (thank you, pharmaceuticals), but I've come close. I keep telling myself and others that I don't really have a good reason for it, but I suspect I'm lying.

I've dealt fairly well with my grandfather's death. After all, he was old and in pain and he passed so peacefully. It's the way to go, you know? BUT. He was the first of my grandparents to die. And watching my grandmother face life without her beloved...I think that struck too close to home. I can't stop thinking about what it would be like to have to keep going without MTL.

I struggled with that reality last year, when something made me realize that I had allowed MTL to get closer than anyone else in my entire life. This meant that I also had opened myself up to incredible pain, because losing him would be like losing a part of myself. I remember weeping one night and finally confessing to him that I was terrified of letting him in that much, because it meant that one day he would die and I would have to deal with that pain.

He didn't tell me I was being silly (though he would have been fully justified in doing so), rather telling me that he understood my fear, but that we couldn't allow our fear of death and losing each other prevent us from living life and loving fully.

He was right.

So I'm not falling apart over the thought now, but that fear and anxiety are finding other ways to make themselves known. And let's face it, I'm not good at dealing with this.

What do you do about your anxiety? What works? Because I'm asking for help.

Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light

My paternal grandfather, who is 93, is in the last days of his life. We have no real idea how many days this may be, but his edema and congestive heart failure have transformed into a vicious cycle feeding each other, and the medication that was supposed to help the edema instead shut down his kidneys, so now he is on hospice care.

It's the long, dark tea-time of his life. Only less dark and more light, because if there's anything his decline proves, it's that he is wealthy beyond imagining in what matters: family and love.

His five surviving children have gathered from hither and yon, including my father, who flew back from West Africa on Sunday evening. I took the day off on Monday and drove him up to Saginaw, where he joined his siblings in caring for their parents. I spent several hours there as well, more so to comfort my grandmother, who is too frail to care for him physically but is still emotionally tied as ever to her beloved husband of seventy-one years.

I know it seems morbid, she confided, but even though I don't want him to go, at the same time I don't want it to last too long...

I understand. It's incredibly difficult to witness the painful decay in my grandfather, the more so because he has always been such a strong man. He is a fighter: he will not go gentle into that good night.

I come from sturdy farmer stock, German Mennonites on both sides who traveled from land to land fleeing persecution for their pacifist beliefs. All four of my grandparents are still alive, still independent, still in compos mentis, though age is taking its toll on them all. This grandfather is the oldest. Five years ago, at age eighty-eight, he re-sided their house and put in new windows. Up until a year ago, he could still be found in his basement workroom, crafting the gorgeous woodwork that graces all our houses. Picture frames, clocks, jewelry boxes, bookshelves, rocking horses, detailed classic automobile models...all his children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren own beautiful pieces that will be handed down from generation to generation. That was his hobby, the work of his hands and heart at the end of his days working the land or overseeing factories and warehouses or doing Master electrical work. The delicate curves of the clock on my mantel, the enormous bookshelf against my wall, the jewelry box on my dresser, and the incredible wooden rocking horse in my children's room: they each declare all the love that my reticent grandfather struggled to put into words.

I'll admit that witnessing this final fight has struck me to the heart; even more so, witnessing my grandmother's grief and my grandfather's determination not to leave her side, this woman he has loved for longer than most people have been alive.

I don't even know how to put into words the fear that is triggered by this. I just found My True Love recently. I know the chance of getting seventy-one years with him is somewhat slim, since we met in our thirties rather than our teens, but I want as many years as I can get. And the reality is that my family is longer-lived than his. How horrible a person am I to want to go first, when my time comes? I don't want to be in my grandmother's place, facing the loss of her life companion, the one she loves best in the world.

I have hope and faith in a life hereafter, but I am a creature of this world. Each loss leaves it a dimmer place, caught in the shadows of sorrow and death.

Blog? What Blog?

Holy crapola. Really? It's been that long since I posted anything? I feel like I'm failing you all.

Life. Is. Crazy. Which is why I'm back on crazy pills, because when I started having mild panic attacks I figured I should get some help before they developed into not-so-mild panic attacks and I end up rocking back and forth in a corner somewhere. God bless modern pharmaceuticals.

My therapist and friends all agree this was actually an indication of how far I've come in the last few years, considering I asked for help BEFORE the crazy became The Crazy. Just sayin'. Also: I love my people. There's nothing like a time of high anxiety to bring home just how awesome a support structure I have these days. Not the least of which is a very, very beloved and supportive MTL. The hurricane winds may be blowing, but the foundation is holding firm.

So. My seniors are gone.

Excuse me a minute while I go do a happy dance.

[Insert holding music here]

Whew. They're gone, they're out of here, I managed to get all but two out the door to graduation, some squeaking through by mere tenths of a percentage point. One huge load is off my shoulders: only several dozen left to carry!

My juniors and sophomores have been very patient the last few weeks as I've neglected grading much of their work in order to focus on the seniors. Now I have time to wade through their essays, including their massive term papers (seven to ten pages for sophomores; ten to twelve pages for juniors: EACH). I have exams to create, quiz and test grades to enter, and a classroom to clean and organize. I can do that in the next eight school days, right?

Right.

Dammit. I left my meds at home.

Probably the biggest source of stress (now that the seniors are--GLORY HALLELUJAH--gone) is the impending shift at home. I can't go into all the details here, but there have been massive changes chez MTL's Ex, and the girls are moving in with us.

And there's an element to the situation that I can't discuss--yet--but suffice it to say: DRAMA WILL ENSUE.

So. Yeah.

Nothing to be anxious about. Nothing at all.

OH! There is one lovely new addition to my life! Are you ready for this?

I. Got. A. Smartphone.

Oh yes. I, the phone-technophobe, have officially Grown Up and gotten a phone that's more like a hand-held computer than a phone. A Droid X, to be exact. And I just may be in love. MTL says that I'm acting like a kid who's had her first ever taste of chocolate.

Angry Birds? Check.

Words With Friends? Check.

Sudden addiction to apps? Check, check, and absolutely check.

Hmm. You think they have a support group for that?

Shadows

I'm at a point where I'm internalizing so much stress that I'm no longer trusting my reactions or judgment. I feel like a volcano bulging with pent-up magma, ready to explode at the slightest fracture. My neck and shoulders are bunched up, my throat aches, my head throbs, and acid burns down my esophagus. It would only take one wrong word for me to erupt in rage, tears, or both.

It's no one thing. It's everything. It's the buildup of all sorts of stress and fears and worries and hopes and aggravations. It's the fatigue of the year drawing to a close. It's the frustration of senioritis. It's the lack of sleep, the lingering effects of whatever respiratory plague attacked me last week, the sense of dread as wave after wave of bad news and potentially disastrous now-we-wait-and-see news rolls in about loved ones and politics and money and everything else in this seriously fucked-up world.

I don't always deal well with stress. Okay, fine, I rarely deal well with stress.

MTL thinks I need to take a mental health day. I hate to do that. I have few enough sick days left, and I tend to hoard those for truly necessary sick leave (mine or, more likely, kidlets'), as I know all too well the financial impact of unpaid sick leave when those days run out. I do have a couple of personal business days I haven't used that will vanish if they aren't used, but I have to request those at least three days in advance, and anything further out than Thursday just isn't possible. I have senior project presentations, junior speeches, senior exams, and then the rest of final exams filling every available slot.

I'm just so TIRED. Not just physically. Mentally. Emotionally. Spiritually. I can't even focus much on the wedding, because everything else takes up my attention. I can't look forward too much to the honeymoon, because a part of me dreads the possibility of having to cancel due to financial or other reasons. I don't want to have my heart too set on that in case it's pulled out of reach.

It's as if there's a threatening cloud looming over everything. I'm struggling to find the light through the shadows.

What Dreams May Come (Dammit)

I rarely remember my dreams these days. I will wake with a vague impression of what has been spinning through my REM sleep, but even the wisps of memory remaining slip out of reach within a matter of minutes. My friend Heidi experiences lucid dreaming, for pleasure or pain, but other than a few youthful recurring dreams that, well, no longer recur, I don't recall what I dream.

I do know, however, that I dream. I'll wake with the emotional remnants of my sleeping experiences, most strongly when I am working through anger or sadness or, most especially, anxiety.

Ah, anxiety dreams. There's nothing quite like stumbling through one's morning routine with a vague sense of impending doom. It adds a certain murky spice to one's coffee.

Last night I had anxiety dreams: more specifically, financial anxiety dreams. I'm a worrier, and I have become hardwired to worry about money over the last few years. When we first moved into our townhouse and were wading through the changing finances of combined households and moving and the start of school, I had financial anxiety dreams resulting in restless sleep and (according to MTL) distressed mumbling. He had to wake me up a few times and reassure me that we were not, in fact, about to be consumed by an avalanche of arrears.

I don't think I was mumbling last night--certainly MTL shaking me to wakefulness had more to do with hitting the snooze button too many times than sleep talking--but I've been stumbling through my day with a weight of disquiet on my weary mind. I'm a zombie today. A zombie with a bank account that mutters dour reminders that bills are impending and rent is due in a few days and groceries have not been bought and, oh yeah, there's a rather significant function occurring in just over 108 days (according to that oh-so-handy and also slightly intimidating countdown clock at the top of this page) that requires saving money to cover the balances due in a few months...

We are by no means destitute, and I openly acknowledge that our problems are what Heidi likes to cheerfully call "first world problems." Food makes it onto our table, our children are clothed, we can cover our bills if we maneuvre things just so this month, and we have two incomes.

BUT. I look at my debt, which is high regardless of the reasonableness of its existence (student loans and the like). I look at our vehicles, which are both old--MTL's is no longer reliable for long distance travel--and neither of which are large enough to contain our entire family. I look at our credit rating, which is not high enough to get the kind of loan we need to pay off a certain debt that ties me too strongly to The Ex and the millstone of an upside-down mortgage for a house I don't even live in.

I wonder if perhaps we are foolish to spend this money on a wedding and honeymoon. There are those who think we are, whether they say so openly or no.

AND YET. We are spending less on the wedding and honeymoon combined than many people spend on just a wedding dress or wedding flowers. We certainly aren't spending irresponsibly in that regard. And there's a part of me--the part that is emphatically winning--that says it is somehow important to celebrate this event, that a courthouse ceremony isn't right for us, that we are not unreasonable to gather family and friends and show that YES, we love each other this much....

I don't know.

I'm tired and the Michigan skies are moistly gloomy today. Add that to the anxiety and depression of being told by The Powers That Be that my peers and I are somehow simultaneously Too Essential to be allowed to strike/negotiate/be heard and also Too Despicable to be treated with respect and human (ha) decency....

I suppose I'll take anxiety dreams over panic attacks. Brown paper bags aren't the most glamorous accessory.

Cravings

I've been "turtling" lately: pulling my head and limbs back inside a protective shell in an instinctive effort to avoid being overwhelmed with Everything.

I don't even want to get started here, as it's all or nothing for me. Either I'm silent or I'm ranting. I normally have fairly low blood pressure--lately I can feel my heart pounding and my face flushing as a matter of course.

What's happening in this state, in this country, to educators and the regular government workers (not the politicians themselves, of course) and the middle class in general....

I'm sick to my stomach.

I need to find a career counselor. I've never had a back-up plan because, quite simply, ever since I discovered teaching I've never planned to do anything else.

What DOES a thirty-three-year-old woman with a Bachelor's in English Literature and a Master's in the Art of Teaching, with certification in English and Speech/Theatre have as a back-up plan? I'm eminently qualified to do exactly what I do. Who else is going to be knocking down my door to receive my services--especially for a wage that will continue to pay back my thousands of dollars in student loans and the other debt that I've incurred as a responsible citizen? None of which, mind you, is credit card debt or the like.

I can feel the rant rising.

We're short on "extra" money right now--not that there really is such a thing in our household lately, since pretty much every extra penny is being set aside to pay for our quite modest little wedding and honeymoon. MTL's car broke down last week and required a bit of money to repair, even though he did the repairs himself. His machine at work has also been broken, meaning his hours have been trimmed back a bit. We had a dual birthday party on Sunday for The Widget (my baby is FOUR!) and KlutzGirl (MTL's baby is EIGHT!). In three months the remaining balances are due for our ceremony and reception sites and for our honeymoon.

With all that financial stress bearing down on my mind, I can feel an age-old destructive stress mechanism kicking in. I want to buy things. I want to buy fun things, pretty things, wonderful escape-from-reality things. I want to buy books and clothes and shoes and art. I want to buy gifts for my bridesmaids. I want to buy all the accessories I want or at least need for my wedding day. I want to buy it all NOW.


I didn't give anything up for Lent this year, but I'm reminded of when I gave up chocolate a few years ago. Despite what you may think, I don't normally crave chocolate every day. I can even go a few weeks without thinking about it. Shocking, I know, but true. But when I denied myself that luscious substance, the days dragged by. I woke craving chocolate. I went to bed craving chocolate. I nearly cried when I realized that my (then daily purchase of) Cafe Mocha contained chocolate and therefore was verboten.

Impulse buys and non-necessities are off my shopping list for now--and likely for some time--and so I'm craving what I cannot have. Perhaps after a few weeks I'll find the craving wanes and leave me feeling freer, just as I did during that Lent years ago.

In the meantime, I'm staying off Etsy and Amazon and Victoria's Secret and Old Navy and every other website that urges me to indulge, treat myself, think It's only a few dollars. I have my tiny list of five necessary items which I will take to the grocery store this afternoon, and I will not buy anything except those five items. I pinkie swear.

Oh, Hello

I have been notified today that apparently some of my beloved readers are concerned about my lack of posts. So I'm here, although without much in the way of Wonderful Words of Wit and/or Wisdom.

I'm okay.

But I'm tired.

I'm tired physically, with not enough sleep at night and not enough sunlight as this long and dreary winter drags on and on. I don't care what the calendar says, IT ISN'T SPRING. Not here in Michigan, at any rate. We get hints and teases here and there, but I've long since learned not to get my hopes up. Not until after Memorial Day, really, and that's a good couple of months away.

I'm tired mentally, because it's that time of year and I have seniors (oh dear God give me strength) and am teaching three core classes including one that has a brand new curriculum and please shoot me if I ever agree to do such an idiotic thing again.

I'm tired emotionally, because the grim reality of politics and society in this state and this country and this world has me threadworn.

I need a break. I need some solid time filled with rest and laughter to give me the wherewithal to fling myself back into the fray. I'm hoping I'll get some of that this next week on Spring Break. The boylets are in Florida with their father (and have been since Sunday) and won't be back until the 10th. While I do miss them, I have to admit...I can use the break from mommying as well. The Padawan will be at his mother's during the next week as well. The thought of DAYS (and nights) with no kids around at all has me and MTL doing the kind of happy dance that most parents would understand.

So...yeah. I don't have a lot to say on here right now, but I am okay. Hopefully this time next week I'll be at least good, and by the weekend I'll be great.

In the meantime, I'll keep obsessively reading the archived stories over at Etiquette Hell, alternating between horrified laughter and paranoid fear.

Carry on.

Ugly

It's one of those days--a day when I wake up in a ragingly foul mood and little can shift it during the course of the day. Thankfully, they aren't too frequent, but when they do happen, the best thing I can do is shut myself away from the world so that I don't turn into the Queen of Hearts and stomp around calling for mass decapitations.

I could not get restful sleep last night. I had odd dreams that I cannot recall but that nevertheless disturbed what little sleep I did get. I woke every hour or two, unable to get comfortable. MTL was also restless, and at times I couldn't tell whether he had woken me or I him. DramaBoy came knocking on the door at Dark Ay Em to report that The Widget was crying in pain with his ongoing bout of Unmentionable Difficulties. I soothed and medicated the poor boy, then crawled moaning back into bed.

By the time MTL and I dragged ourselves out of bed this morning, bickering over who should get up first to get breakfast going before the childrens filled themselves up with cereal, my temper was at DefCon 4.

Coffee (brewed by me) and a scrumptious breakfast (cooked by MTL) eased me temporarily. So did an indulgent session with my latest obsession, creating treasury lists on Etsy.com. But then I had to oversee the boylets in taking an overdue shower, an experience that never fails to frustrate me. And then there were the dishes to wash and the kitchen to clean. I bit my tongue the entire time, knowing full well that if I opened my mouth, whoever was nearest would suffer its lash regardless of cause. MTL finally paused in his own cleaning to ask what was wrong, and I nearly burst into tears. Scratch that: tears there were, though muffled and suppressed.

He, lovely man that he is, hugged me, reminded me that he loves me and that everyone else in the house loves me too (though sometimes I wonder), and suggested that perhaps I needed to hole up in the bedroom and rest.

So here I am. The door is firmly closed. My Emptyself station is playing on Pandora.com, I created another treasury list on Etsy, I chatted briefly with DraftQueen before she abandoned me for a trip to the fabric store, and now I'm pouring myself out here for what few readers I still have in these days of infrequent posts.

MTL is right--it's better that I shut myself away for a while, because the alternative could be ugly. It doesn't matter, though: I'm still fighting with the guilt. I can't help but think of all the things I probably should be doing right now. I can't help but be angry with myself for being in such a horrible mood in the first place. It's not like I even have a decent reason for it, other than a bit of sleep deprivation.

Argh and Grr. I need a real vacation.

Inner Child

I was, by all accounts, a bright, outgoing, bouncy, extroverted child. I was the chubby-cheeked darling who toddled up to another child, whom I had never seen before in my life, in some European airport and flung my arms around him as though he were my long-lost bff. I was bright-eyed and adventurous, making friends left and right with people young and old.

It changed around age four or five. It all blurs in my memory. The timeline fuzzes over and I can't remember whether certain things happened before or after or during kindergarten. I don't know which events slammed me first and set me up for others. I don't know when the walls started going up, or how fast I built them, or all the reasons why.

My therapist wants me to create the timeline. She wants me to through it in my mind, step by step. She also wants me to find out what else might have been going on in those years, aspects of my environment that may have had more impact on me than I know: the sort of things that would be internalized by a bright, emotionally sensitive child and become a part of her without anyone ever dreaming she even noticed.

What is it, she asks, that convinced you so long ago that you would never be good enough?

I don't know how much I can dig. I'm aware of certain elements, and facing those are hard enough. I'm not sure whether I even want to know what else might have been going on, what else might have happened. What I do know is that when I think back to those years, I'm swept away by a wave of grief and anxiety.

I've been talking a lot to my closest friends lately about the nature of my relationships. It's anything but coincidence that I do not have a close girlfriend who lives close enough to be a part of my daily life. I have a couple who live within driving distance, but such is the nature of life and metropolitan suburbia that we rarely see each other and mostly settle for chatting on the phone.

The three girlfriends who are currently my most intimate friends? The closest lives an hour away--forty-five minutes if there aren't cops around--and the other two lives states away. One I've only seen face to face once in our friendship. The other I haven't seen in fifteen years.

It's safer that way, you see. Let someone be intimately close AND be a part of your daily life and the emotional risk becomes too great. If something goes awry in the friendship or someone moves, there's a deeper loss. And even then, be careful what you say. Be careful just how much of your naked, raw, and oh-so-tender inner self you let anyone see. Keep everyone at an arm's length, for protection.

MTL is the first person I've let all the way in.

I knew it would be a risk. I knew that if I was going to let him in at all, it would have to be all the way. All or nothing. He wasn't going to settle for less. And deep down, I didn't want to either.

I didn't know how much of a risk it would be. I didn't know how unprepared I am, from a lifetime of walls and numbing myself down and disconnecting myself emotionally, for both the joy and the pain. Because it turns out that when you love someone enough to let them all the way in, everything becomes brighter and stronger and sharper. It means when I hurt him and he hurts me, whether intentional or otherwise, the pain is agony. It also means that the joy is bigger and deeper. Thankfully, the joy far outweighs the pain and is far more common, but...

But.

Here's where I'm flung back to that five year old self. Here's where I sit and realize that deep down, despite everything, I still don't believe I'm deserving of love and joy. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. I keep waiting for him to wake up one day, realize that I'm not worth it, and walk away.

Because deep down that little girl is huddled in a corner, whispering that everyone leaves. And they leave because that is what she deserves.

I don't know how to talk to her. I don't know how to face her pain. I don't even know all the reasons she's there.

*****************************

"little girl"

little girl
sit quiet in your corner
veiled in plain sight
shield yourself from
anyone
who might see what's there inside
know what's inside

little girl
put on all that armor
fend off every look
protect yourself from
anything
that might break through to your heart
might break your heart

it's pain that teaches you to hide
fear that teaches you to run
never reaching out
never reaching in
always in flight from the unknown
that which you can't control

little girl
who tore out your heart so long ago
and told you you'd never be enough
for this world
who made you crawl into
the walls of your own mind
the armor of your own skin
the shield of invisibility
for those without the will to see
and they never get to know

this little girl
little girl
with a heart full of possibilities

and now you're grown
and still hiding
still building walls
and donning armor
only allowing those you choose
to climb over
and behind
and into your world
little girl
with a heart full of pain

So Much To Do, So Much To Say...*

'Cos here we have been standing for a long, long time
Can't see the light
Treading trodden trails for a long, long time...*

I haven't been writing much of anything anywhere lately. It's not due to being silent; in some ways, actually, it's due to speaking a great deal elsewhere. I'm back in therapy, focusing on deep root issues that have spread their tendrils throughout almost every area of my mind and life. It's very much like after facing down depression and divorce and those dragons, others wormed their way up from the depths and waved. Hello, still here. Wanna play?

They don't play nicely.

I'm talking, yes. Talking and wringing hands and, apparently, digging my nails into my skin until the morass of red crescents becomes raw enough to realize what I'm doing. It's hard work, this therapy. Then when I leave the War Room of my therapist's office, I dive into processing and digging deeper in my own mind. And talking some more: with MTL and with my dear friends J and A and H, spread out from coast to coast of the country though they are. Thank God for email and g-chat and phones, I say.

Elsewhere, with other people, however, I find myself silent. There are ideas I have to process, issues I have to solve, emotions I have to face before I can open my mouth and speak. My therapist agrees, by the way, with this instinct. And I find myself thinking of the words of Solomon, who wrote in his time of struggle, facing dragons of his own:

1 For everything there is a season,
      a time for every activity under heaven.
2 A time to be born and a time to die.
      A time to plant and a time to harvest.
3 A time to kill and a time to heal.
      A time to tear down and a time to build up.
4 A time to cry and a time to laugh.
      A time to grieve and a time to dance.
5 A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones.
      A time to embrace and a time to turn away.
6 A time to search and a time to quit searching.
      A time to keep and a time to throw away.
7 A time to tear and a time to mend.
      A time to be quiet and a time to speak.
8 A time to love and a time to hate.
      A time for war and a time for peace. 
--Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (New Living Translation, emphasis added)

For now, in some ways, it is a season to be quiet, to be silent, to be "mindful," as my therapist says.

But oh, Dear Readers, how tired I am!

Add to all this hard work of the mind the busy-ness of the end of the Marking Period, and Parent Teacher Conferences last week, and fighting off my fifth? sixth? seventh? urinary tract infection of the year...Oh yes, I know that's not a good thing at all. And I'm sorry if it's a bit TMI, but hello, I Have A Problem. I'm scheduled to see a urologist on December 1st, because when someone (aka ME) is averaging between six and ten UTIs per year for three years straight, something is going on.

Granted, I don't take care of myself terribly well. I've been working on that recently: drinking water much more throughout the day, even at work; heading to the bathroom much more often; avoiding an overabundance of sugary junk at work instead of real food. Hopefully that will also help.

But I seem to have reached the ceiling, so to speak, with the heavy-duty antibiotics. My body is building resistance. I've been on Cipro for almost a full week, with no missed doses, and I'm still developing fevers and experiencing discomfort--including, the last couple days, an ache in my lower back that makes me nervous about my kidneys.

So I'm headed back to the doctor this afternoon, and I'm dragging myself somehow through the day and trying not to think too longingly of my bed (oh lovely bed with your soft pillows and fluffy comforter) when I'm supposed to be teaching kids about sonnet forms and the consequences of overweening ambition as shown in Macbeth and the abuse of authority as demonstrated in Oedipus Rex and dramatic irony and the emptiness of the American Dream when lacking solid foundations as shown in The Great Gatsby and oh yes, the historical context for all of those texts and let's not forget vocabulary and grammar and dear God what was I thinking when I said I'd take on three preps this year? Oh right, helping out the department because we were losing teachers.

Also, I'm trying very hard to be grateful for having a job when so many others do not, trying hard not to be bitterly cynical about politics (and losing that battle rapidly, may I say), and trying exceedingly hard not to panic about the upcoming contract negotiations which, hey, may become moot anyhow if The Powers That Newly Be in this state have anything to say about it.

I will say this, though: I'm deeply--bone deeply, really--grateful for having friends with whom I can talk so rawly and honestly; for a partner who is my best friend, and who loves me even when I'm dragged down by it all and being infuriating, and who loves me more because of than in spite of my moments of batshit crazy; for the strength to even face this all in the first place. Even when, on days like this, I feel like doing nothing more than crawling into my very own padded room and staying there for a while.

Or taking a holiday from my Self. Just for a little while.

I find sometimes it's easy to be myself
Sometimes I find it's better to be someone else...*

-----------------------------------------
*From Dave Matthews Band "So Much To Say":

With Three Toilets And Four Males In The House, I Should Be Better At Clearing Clogs By Now

You know what's been bothering me? he asked, and I waited expectantly, because he is wise in many things, my love is.

You have this blog, and it's basically an online journal for you, and it's an outlet that you need. And here you don't even feel like you can be yourself there anymore, and so you're missing that outlet! I mean, I get it. I understand why you're hesitant these days. But it's not right. I think you should do something about it. Either start a whole new blog or stop the email thing. Think about it.

He knows it's part of why I've been agitated lately. Just a part, but it's there.

And, you know, he's right. This blog has gotten me through many a day, helped me process, helped me work through thoughts and feelings and bad times and good times and has been ME. Especially for the last year and a half. But you see, like many semi- or non-anonymous blogs, there's the little catch: you know some of the people reading it.

Lately, this hasn't necessarily been all that good a thing. For various and complicated and valid and sometimes only semi-valid reasons, I have been censoring myself here, frequently to the point of silence. I can't or won't lie. I won't be someone I'm not on this blog. Instead, I've stopped blogging much at all.

But I need it. I don't journal privately well: I am the sort who will write a page or two, an entry or three, and then forget. I do need that sense of audience. So as I've been dealing with a whole new phase of my life lately, one that unfortunately has elements that cause tension and controversy with a few people, one that makes me very happy but is also full of stress because IT'S LIFE, people, and....I can't tell you how many blog posts I've composed in my head that have never even made it as far as the keyboard. I feel constrained and silenced. My choice, I know, but also, well, because I don't like conflict and don't like making people uncomfortable.

Well. Here's the thing. Ages and ages ago certain much-loved people asked me if I could have my blog posts emailed to them. For varying reasons, it's much easier for them that way. Blogger has a little formatting doohickey that will automatically email posts to indicated addresses once I publish them. It's marvelous....Unless. You see, too often the idea that people will automatically receive those posts, rather than coming to my blog to read them, makes me hesitant. I hold back. I overthink the potential effects my words might have. And my anxiety over this has become such that I would rather just not post.

And my outlet becomes closed to me.

Maybe it doesn't make any sense, but if I'm just posting here and people are choosing to come read a post, I don't feel that same sense of silencing.

So. Given the choice between shutting down this blog and starting a new and actually anonymous one, or simply disabling that email feature....I'm choosing the latter.

This is the last post that will automatically be emailed to anyone. Please...if you are one of those people, this doesn't mean I'm effectively banning you from my blog. That is not my intent. I just need to unclog the flow. I need to be able to be myself here again. It may very well be, with some of you, that what I write makes you uncomfortable. I suppose I'm sorry in advance, but I can't keep on like this. I need this.

It comes down, I suppose, to why I blog at all. It's not so that friends and family can keep up with my life, although I know it serves that purpose for some. It's not so that I can connect with people online, though I cherish and value the connections I do make (and hey, I'm still a comment whore! Some things never change.) Ultimately, this is my voice. I have other outlets, other venues, other ways in which to connect and vent and process and be heard, but I need this one too.

So I'm taking my blog back. I may not be changing diapers any longer, but there's still plenty of crap in my life. And I may be facing different dragons, but they lurk in their lairs, waiting for battle, nonetheless.

It wouldn't be life, otherwise.

While I'm Waiting

Some days are more frustrating than others. I've had a couple lately. Today I'm stuck inside waiting for a repairman who is supposed to appear sometime between the hours of nine ay-em and six pee-em. Oh yes, peoples. I was given a NINE HOUR time span in which I must roam the rooms of my (fortunately wonderful) new home and wait for someone to show up and replace a hose on the washer that was installed incorrectly a week ago. And since we're renting the appliance from some national appliance company, we don't dare make the repairs ourselves in case they then decide that we have voided the rental agreement/warranty/whatever. They're only showing up today instead of next Tuesday because I begged.

I just love those impersonal national companies that don't even have a clue where you're really located when you call them. Oh, you're in Detroit? the representative asks after pulling up your account, not even using your own phone number or address because it's kind of through the rental complex.

No; West Bloomfield, Michigan, you reply.

Oh. Well, I have a lot of S---------- Villas listed here, he says, apparently unable to figure anything out for himself. And then switches you over to Customer Service where, you hope, they train the representatives to think for themselves marginally more.

The new representative assures you that there is someone coming, but no, she can't pinpoint the time span any more than the NINE HOUR one already given.

You can always just let the leasing office know and give them permission to let us in if you need to leave, the new representative tells you in a cheerful voice.

Because you're so comfortable with letting people in while you're gone so they can do who knows what and then feed you some bullsh*t about nothing being wrong and that leak being part of the service, isn't that lovely? It's a new feature! when you call to complain that you still can't run the clothes washer without flooding the utility room.

No thank you. I guess I'm stuck here.

It's been over four hours now. And we all know perfectly well he/she/it will show up at 5:55 this evening, right?

Face it, I'm grumpy. I'm feeling a bit guilty about that, because really I shouldn't be. I have so much to be not grumpy about.

The move went well, thanks to the invaluable assistance of ten other people, including five former students, who helped us move everything on Saturday and Sunday. I've been working steadily since then to unpack and organize everything, and overall it's gone quite well. There are only a few more boxes and smaller pieces of furniture to move out of the garage and into place, and I'll wait for MTL's help this weekend for most of that.

I love our new home. It's roomy--oh so very roomy!!!--and comfortable and feels like home already. The next door neighbor is very friendly and sweet and turned out to be the mother of one of my students who graduated last year. She and I have already exchanged numbers and spent time chatting, and it's lovely to feel a friendship developing.

At the same time, however, other stressors keep raising their uncomfortable heads. MTL started a new job last week, and although he's happier there and earning a bit more money and closer to home, he's coming home exhausted because it's more physically demanding than the last one. We've been very tight financially this week due to moving costs. We have a growing list of things we need to purchase, some more urgently than others.

With my personality, not being able to finish setting up the house and the kids' rooms bothers me. The fact that I don't have picture hangers so that I can spend my copious hours stuck inside by putting photos and art on the walls bothers me. Having to wait until next week to get the kids registered in school bothers me.

And not having had Just Us time with MTL in weeks bothers me. I've become a bit spoiled, I know. A bright, shiny silver lining in having Exes is getting fairly regular time to ourselves without kidlets around. Summer alters the schedule, and the various events of the last month have further mucked up arrangements. We haven't had real time to ourselves since we went out to Saugatuck the week after the Fourth of July.

Here's my confession: as much as I really do care about The Dark One and The Padawan and KlutzGirl, I'm still adjusting to becoming the stepmom, much less monitoring five kids. And reality alert! Working with teens in the classroom is a very different thing to working with them in the home. Especially when there isn't a bell that lets you kick them out the door after an hour or so.

What makes me feel rather small and petty are the occasional feelings of jealousy I have. Jealousy at having to share MTL with so many others, jealousy that their mother shares something with him that I can't, jealousy that my boys as well as his children sometimes would rather be with their other parents rather than us (and yes, I know how paradoxical that is considering my need for Just Us time with MTL).

I know this is pretty normal and that I need to get used to it and develop a thicker skin and all that, but yesterday was just Hard. My back was hurting and my allergies were so bad I felt cotton-headed and dizzy. I had KlutzGirl, DramaBoy, and The Widget with me all day. They play together quite well, but their noise level and the occasional need to referee quarrels were wearing me down. MTL arrived home exhausted. And then a minor difference in opinion between me and MTL on the issue of late-night snacking topped it all off, and I fell apart, leading to a rare argument between us.

The reality is that blending families is hard. We have it a lot easier than many, I know: both of us are amicable with our exes, our children like each other and us, and we generally have very good communication. But no road runs smoothly, and there are and will be issues that have to be worked out. Sometimes they seem to be minor, but the solutions aren't necessarily simple.

For example: I don't give my kids sugary snacks (or really, much in the way of snacks at all) later in the evening. They both tend to get a little hyper on sugar, especially DramaBoy. MTL's children don't react the same way, and he's never worried about their snacking, especially since he doesn't usually have much junk food around. But then we come up against situations, like last night, where I gave The Widget a graham cracker, but KlutzGirl wanted something else, and MTL gave her a little packet of Fruit Snacks (you know, the gummy thingies.) What do we do in these situations? Suddenly change the way things have always been for his kids and tell them they can't have what they've been allowed to have before? Deny my boys what the other kids are having?

It also goes to deeper issues, of course--and I'm not telling you the whole story, as there are aspects that are better left between me and MTL. But overall it does come down to blending two families into one, and we each are bringing in somewhat differing practices and expectations and parenting approaches. Sometimes that means we offer each other alternatives that are better than what we've done before individually; sometimes we don't see eye to eye. Add in two strong-willed individuals who have become used to doing things their own way, and we end up having to battle our own selves to find a way to compromise.

Our overall goals and desires for our children are essentially the same. What isn't always identical is the path we take to get there, and that is what makes the road a bumpy one. There are some very strong, solid foundations, however, that make it worth the work. We want to raise strong, independent children. We love our children, biological and not. And we love each other, enough to talk through the anger and the hurt and reach for the understanding on the other side.

Just...some days are a little tougher than others.

I'm not really asking for solutions here (and definitely not asking you to take sides on the stupid snack issue), though if you have practical experience in blended families, I wouldn't mind hearing what has worked--and what hasn't. I just needed to get it out, vent, throw the words out into the universe before girding my loins to return to the task at hand.

I think I need to go find that book on Stepcoupling I've been reading. I think it's still buried in a box somewhere.

And I still have four hours of waiting on that repairman to find it.

O Man! Who Knows Thee Well Must Quit Thee With Disgust*

--1--

Yesterday when I picked the kidlets up from school, DramaBoy discovered a fuzzy little caterpillar on the sidewalk. He pounced on it immediately like it was his long lost best friend and let it run all over his hands.

It took all my motherly fortitude to respond to his delight with a Oh wow! That's so very cool! rather than squealing like the girly girl I can occasionally be. I then informed him that he could NOT take it into the car as a pet and that it would be happier in the bushes.

Apparently he now plans to check on his little buddy every time we enter and exit the building.

If he becomes an entomologist, I'm going to have to make him bathe in sanitizer before he ever steps foot in my house.

--2--

This morning I was checking in homework with my first hour junior class. One student checked his in. About five minutes later another student walked up with a paper to check in. I looked at it and immediately recognized it as the identical paper (not even a copy--THE SAME PAPER) that the first student had shown me, just with the second student's name on it. They both received zeros--the second student for trying to pass it off as his work, the first for collaborating in the attempted deception.

What pisses me off the most? They thought I'm stupid enough not to notice. Now that's just insulting.

--3--

Today is the unofficial Senior Skip Day.

It makes me angry every year.

Seniors get out two weeks earlier than everyone else. They have final exams next week. Final projects are coming due as we speak. What on earth makes anyone think it's okay to simply not attend school at this point in the year?

What makes it worse is the parents who readily excuse the absence.

When I tell my students that my own children will not be allowed to do this, nor be allowed to run off to Mexico or Florida or other such hedonistic destinations for Spring Break during high school, I'm treated as though I am violating an essential human right.

Today during my Myth class, which has a heavy contingent of seniors, students will be doing a participation-based activity. Those without hospital notes or court papers will receive a zero. Want to challenge that? Check the attendance policy.

Being a Righteous Bitch Teacher: I'm doin' it right.

--4--

MTL and I keep overhearing people who are upset about the recently enacted law here in Michigan that bans smoking in most public places. These people keep complaining about how the state is violating their personal rights and that the government has no right to try to make them quit smoking.

They don't get it. The government isn't trying to get them to quit. Cigarettes are still legal. They can still smoke. Just not where MY personal rights (and lungs) will be violated by their cigarette smoke.

They keep saying it will hurt the economy, too.

Oddly enough, the neighborhood bar where I had pizza last night was just as full of people as it usually is on a Thursday night.

Go figure.

--5--

Fifteen years ago as a high school senior I dated a junior boy very casually for a couple of weeks. Then we broke up, but stayed friends. I received a letter from him a few months after I started college. It was six pages of explicit horror, describing things I'd never even imagined, much less (in my naivete of the time) heard of before. He ended up getting in big trouble with the school administration because of it. It took me three years to stop shaking when I talked about the incident.

Two years ago when I began using Facebook, he tried to friend me. I ignored him. This morning I found an email in my inbox notifying me that he had friend requested me again.

What on God's green earth makes him think I want to have anything to do with him? I don't care whether we have 92 Facebook friends in common or not!

Guess who's getting blocked on Facebook today?

--6--

I should be legally divorced by now. I should have been divorced as of ten o'clock yesterday. The idiotic judge decided to make us jump through one more (unnecessary and ridiculous) legal hoop and therefore adjourned the trial date to June 8th. If I wanted to jump through hoops, I'd take a gymnastics class.

On the silvery side of things, The Ex and I haven't been this united in a very long time. Both of us just want to be DONE already. We were positively friendly in the wake of our joint disgust over the situation.

--7--

My tenth graders are reading Elie Wiesel's Night right now. It's an amazing book, well worth the prizes it has earned, but it's very difficult to read. Not in language, but in detail.

I struggle with stories of the Holocaust. Whether in movies or books, there is something about that horror of human history that stabs me to the core. I've been struggling not to weep during our discussions.

This morning we talked about what happened to the children. The infants flung into the air as target practice for Nazi guns. The babies ripped from their mothers' arms and bashed against walls, then discarded like broken dolls. The tiny bodies tossed into the furnaces of Bergen-Belsen, Auschwitz, Birkenau like so much cord wood.

My body revolts against the images in my mind. My lungs strain for air. My eyes well with tears. My voice hitches, halts, stumbles on.

My students are still, visages stone as they struggle to comprehend the inhumanity of Man.

My sorrows run pale and shallow in the face of the words I read.

---------------------
*Lord Byron, from "Inscription"

mea culpa

i find myself welling with anger
so easily
so quickly
the snap of a finger at a single word
no patience left
the well is dry

"i see stupid people"
he writes
and i can only agree
yet wonder if perhaps i see them
through a glass tinted darkly
my own shadows taint the light

the road has been long and weary
and although it draws to a close
uncertainty clouds the finish line
not in whether it was the right road to travel
but whether the end lies as close as it seems

so much could go wrong
still
concealed tripwires
unseen holes
camouflaged stones that may yet bruise my feet

i am worn
yet taut with strain
counting the hours
while knocking on wood
fearful still of Murphy and his thrice-cursed law

so find myself snapping
stretched thin and angry
throttling the words that threaten to erupt
from a throat raw with tension

forgive me
even though i know what i do
extend me grace
beyond what i have given you

and perhaps
tomorrow
perhaps
perhaps

Insert Snarky Joke Here (It'd Be Better Than What I've Been Coming Up With, Anyway)

So I'm stuck.

With words, I mean. I have been gaining a little weight lately, but no, I am not calling for help over the ether because I've somehow gotten jammed in the doorway and happen to be carrying my laptop.

Besides, you never are really alone around this place. There's no doubt whatsoever in my mind that should I ever be in an awkward and embarrassing situation in this building, the students who would be most likely to make fun of me and never let me live it down would be the very ones to round the corner in the next thirty seconds.

Speaking of which, I was out running errands with MTL last night at Walmart, prepping for our Memorial Weekend camping trip

(Yeah, we're both planners. This means we have both literal and mental checklists and are collecting the required items gradually as finances permit. He is My Kind of Person, yo.) 

(And yes, that would include a sizable dose of dork, thankyouverymuch.)

and who should be standing in the checkout lane next to ours but H., my own personal busybody student? Heh. She's the student I have to fend off every day because she would really like to know as many details about my Personal Life as possible. She's also the one student who has now managed to run into me twice, both times when I was in MTL's company. You should see the glee in her eyes. It's a good thing she's harmless.  Just sayin'.

Anywho. About being stuck. You may have noticed I haven't written many posts lately. That's where I'm stuck.

I've written nearly a dozen posts in the last two weeks that have either been scrapped entirely or left to languish in my draft list. Prose, poetry, humor, pathos: the topics and tones have ranged all over the place. Not a single one has been worth publishing. For Pete's sake

(By the way, who IS Pete? And why are we always doing things for his sake? I wonder about these things. Again, DORK. Yes. I know.)

the only reason I even published that Mother's Day poem is because I felt I really needed to post something, and that was the best I could do. It's okay. Just...not what I really wanted to get out there. Not what was in my mind before I started typing.

That's the issue, you know. The words echoing in my brain aren't making their way onto the screen very well. I've tried using topics and memes suggested by other bloggers. I've tried writing on paper first. I've tried asking for suggestions from friends and coworkers. The results? Pretty much linguistic scat.

Here's the other piece: the posts I've really wanted or needed to write don't have a place here, or are ill advised due to timing, or would hurt feelings. Or all three. So those words remain unwritten. I say them, mind you, to that special group of people who are my constant support. It's a bigger group than I always realize, you know. Certainly larger than it was this time last year. It fluctuates a little, depending on the topic, depending on the time. There is a consistent core.

I'm not alone. I'm not depressed. I'm not freaking out.

But I'm stuck. And it's damn frustrating.

To Tell The Truth

Okay. Perhaps I haven't been as honest as all that. There's some angst. It's just angst I don't feel like I can write about much. You know. The Big D. And money. Evil, nasty, wish-I-had-more Money. And the whole What Does The Future Hold? thing. And hot water. And mailboxes.

Um, yeah, about those last two. The house hasn't had hot water for two weeks now. The kidlet's father has been great about handling it, but it's been a nightmare. The hot water heater is broken; the Roto Rooter guy keeps misdiagnosing/lying-about/whatever it; Sears apparently doesn't feel that keeping stock in, well, stock is anything very important; and two weeks later we are on our third diagnosis, second part being shipped, and impending fourth visitation from el Roto Rooter dude whenever it is that the all-important (and please dear God correct) package arrives.

And no hot water.

Then today someone decided to take a detour off the beaten path and obliterate the mailbox. As in smashed to smithereens, metal bar twisted and awry, wooden slats and muddied mail spread about the road. That someone was kind enough to deliver the remains of the mailbox to the front door, along with its damaged contents, but was not kind enough to leave a note so that we could have it replaced via his/her insurance. Which is, by the way, what happened three winters ago when the ex lost control on the icy curve and took out four mailboxes. WE left notes with all our insurance information and explanations for how to file claims at each house's front door.

Because we are Good People.

And yes, I'm judging him/her.

Life is not horrible or even bad, but as my chiropractor said, I am under stress. And as well as I am handling things in general, as happy as I am in many ways, that stress is still there. I think it's bubbling to the surface this week, what with money being extra tight, so many things going wrong (aren't they supposed to be limited to threes? I think we're on five or seven), and the switch from my regular routine.

So tonight? Tonight I'm tired and anxious and lonely and just a touch sad.

And that's the truth of things.

Release

I lay there as she stretched my limbs, easing them back until the tight muscles groaned then released in submission to her inexorable persuasion. She returned me to rest, then had me ease to my side. Her strong forearm pressed with increasing firmness on my hip, slowly grinding her elbow into the stubborn knot at the joint. I winced and turned my head into the pillow.

Breathe, she murmured.

I drew in a deep draught of warm, incense-scented air, then let it flow slowly from my lungs. The knot tensed a moment, then twisted loose and vanished. The pain ebbed into a delicious ache.

For this side, she said softly, I need you not to try to help me at all. I don't want these muscles to seize up again.

I consciously relaxed my muscles further and lay limp, unresisting, as she eased my leg up and back, one hand braced on my lower back, the other supporting the weight of my limb. My ankle rested on her shoulder as her strong, sure hands smoothed the taut, corded muscles and ligaments until they, too, surrendered. The pain that had been screaming along my nerves all day retreated. I remained pliant as she gently returned my leg to rest upon the bolster.

It was all about trust. Trust that she knew what to do, that any pain she caused would be for my benefit, that when she was done I would be able to rise from the table and walk without the limp I'd had all day. It was all about releasing control and letting someone else bear the weight for a time.

My life, too, is full of knots and strained nerves. There are days when I can barely lift the lightest of my burdens without fear of causing myself injury. Still I cling stubbornly to the illusion that I have control, that I can Do It All Alone.

Perhaps it's time to let go, to trust, to let others carry my burdens for a time. Perhaps it's time to let the control rest in Someone Else's hands.

[im]patience

patience is a virtue
true
but i'm not that virtuous
and instead sit gritting teeth
clenching fists
eying the heavens to ask
when?
it doesn't seem much to ask
just a deadline
not even an hour
just a date
june 21st
for example
and then i can exhale and say
all right
i can hold out until then

i'm sure this is all very
character building
this uncertainty and fear
lessons i sorely need
in patience and reliance on others
and yes
i know i need to
let go let God
release it all and
take it day by day
all those old cliches
and aphorisms
and maxims
that are rooted in truth

but knowledge
and application
are two different things
i think i may be lacking the gene for patience
so i asked a friend to pull in her contacts
and see if they could splice me one
you see?
i'm already asking for help
and that's better than i used to be
when i thought i had to do everything on my own

maybe they'll earn a nobel prize
for genetics
by decoding a patience gene
and helping me out

until then
i sit here on the couch
remind myself to breathe
think a bit
pray a bit
and quell the urge to catch time by the throat
and throttle some certainty out of it