Jenn and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
March 5, 2008
Ever have one of those days. You know. Those days. The kind where you want to hermit yourself and stay away from anyone and anything? If by chance you do come across another human being you will most likely snap at them or (worse yet) cry?
Nothing could go right today.
I was sad.
I was depressed.
I was hurting.
I was angry.
I was so very lonely yet wanted didn’t want to be with anyone.
Nothing made sense.
I couldn’t sit still but didn’t want to do anything.
I didn’t want to talk but I really wanted someone to listen.
I needed to write but didn’t want to say anything worthwhile.
I wanted to reach out but wanted to be left alone.
I looked at my husband and begged him pathetically through my tears, “Please just help me to not feel things so deeply! I hate it so much. Please. Please I just don’t want to feel.”
None of this made sense to me. Why? I was either crying or angry today. And then I looked at the calendar and it all made sense. It is the experience of being a dry drunk. (Or in my case, a drug-free druggie.) Climbing the walls for an invisible fix that I haven’t had for years. Acting out like a user but not using. It’s the timing.
So I am going with it. I am feeling what I feel. I am riding the wave. I am living it as it comes yet not letting it take me down. Today I will cry if I need to. Laugh when I feel it. Be alone when I need to be. And forgive myself for not reaching out when I so desperately needed to reach out.
Tomorrow? Tomorrow will be better. Experience tells me tomorrow will be good.
It is today that I feel unworthy and risk throwing it all away. And you have no idea how close I came. I am just in that bad of a place tonight.
Tonight I think I am going to go to bed and cry. Because I need to. Because I hate being where I am and know I need to not let it simmer inside. I am going to be angry, hurt and sad. But just for today.
Tomorrow I will share with you the Wonderful, Awesome, So Good, Very Big Day. And why I know it will be a good day.
But tonight, I’m gonna cry.
Posted by Jenn @
9:35 pm | |
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Two years and a lifetime have passed
January 6, 2008
Two years ago today, my mother died.
I have no idea how to follow a sentence like that.
I was awake and saw the clock flip from 3:05am to 3:06am. The “official” moment she left this world. It was a bizarre feeling. I cried. I smiled at thoughts of her. I wandered the house. Not really wanting to sleep but not really wanting to do anything else either.
I have gone through every emotion and questioned so much since she died. I have tried to figure out how one goes about living life without a mom and what the secret is to actually accomplishing that successfully.
I miss her. I started to ask myself what I would say to her if we could talk. Something tells me she would do most of the talking at first. I know the life I have “lived” the past two years has been…well, disappointing. She always told me she could never, ever be disappointed in me. I believe her. But I have been disappointed in me. It isn’t all bad. I have learned. I have changed. I have grown and I have regressed. I have learned to say no when it is right and yes when I should try something new and scary. I have also learned that sometimes when you take a rough, tough piece of coal and apply an immense amount of pressure, sometimes it just stays coal. Which isn’t all bad. That, too, has purpose.
Last year I had things to say. Thoughts to share. Now, I am in a different place. A place of pondering and re-evaluation. This year, I am sad, introspective and feel lonely. But there was a strange new feeling, too. I felt something almost like freedom. No, that is not right. Not freedom so much as something lifted from my spirit. I suppose you could say it felt similar to getting permission to move forward.
I have lost so much these past two years. But I have gained a lot as well. The feeling I felt was as if I was giving myself permission to live again.
I will always, always….until I draw my own final breath…miss my Mom. She was my best friend. She was amazing. She was funny, full of life and the perfect person to be my mother. We fit. We were exactly what we both had in mind when it came to a mother/daughter relationship. I will not stop missing her. I will never get over the empty feeling that something hugely important in my life is missing. But I will move forward. I will give myself permission to move forward.
Because of who she was and how she raised me, I am taking her with me. In my laughter. In my sense of humor. In my ability to laugh at situations where it may be hard to find any humor. Because sometimes that is what you and everyone around you needs. She is with me. Always with me.
After wandering my home, I checked on the kids as they slept. When I looked in on my daughter, the dam of tears broke free. There is something about your own children that gives you both strength as well as weaknesses. There was my daughter. A little girl who needs me as much as I needed my Mom. A little girl who I want to look at me as I looked at my Mom. To love me in the unique way I love my Mom.
With tears streaming down my face, I crawled onto her bed beside her and drew her into my arms and just held her as she slept. Her sweet little girl breath softly tickling my neck as she lay dreaming.
I felt the complete circle. Mom passing the torch. And somehow– for the first time in two years– something inside me began to feel healing as I took the torch that was passed to me and vow to honor all it stands for.
For Mom.
For my daughter.
For me.
Posted by Jenn @
5:56 pm | |
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It is what I do. It is who I am.
November 1, 2007
As a woman–a mom– I tend to have this ability to try to carry the burden of others on my own shoulders.
My teen has already had a tough year. We have been ’round and ’round with that ridiculous administrator to the point where I am pretty sure I am going to have to either really go off or homeschool. Neither sounds good and both sound like trouble for me. The point is, my son and I talk. He shares with me when he has a problem. Being who I am, I tend to take a bit of that problem, hike it up onto my shoulders and try to carry some of his burden. It is what I do. It is who I am.
My preteen. He is going through something right now that turns me inside out with my desire to fix it. Yet, I have to go against a lot of maternal instinct and let him figure some things out on his own. But when he hurts, I hurt. When he comes to me with a problem or worry, I listen. I try to help. I offer whatever words of advice or comfort that I can and pray that I have done enough to give him strength to stand strong and figure some things out on his own. However, every time he comes to me with a worry, before I know it, I have hiked a little bit of that worry onto my shoulders and try to carry some of his burden. It is what I do. It is who I am.
My daughter. She is just now at that stage where she is learning that not everyone goes to all of the parties. Not everyone will say nice things to her. And the world just isn’t a perfect place. Oh, how I want to shield her and make the world the princess world of her imagination. Right now, when she comes crying to me over hurt feelings, I can wipe away her tears and have her feeling better in no time. Right now, it hasn’t become so heavy that I struggle with her worries. Yet. Though, with every tear drop that falls on my shoulder, I hike up a little bit of that pain onto my shoulders and try to carry some of her burden. It is what I do. It is who I am.
My husband. He is the love of my life. We are partners in this journey of life. I do what I can to help him along in his career, but there isn’t much I can do. Being in management there are times he just comes home stressed and needs to unload. I listen. I offer what minimal perspective I have on the situation and do what I can to at least make his home feel less stressful. Even knowing there is nothing I can do to make anything that has to do with his work better or easier, before I realize it, have hiked a little bit of that worry onto my shoulders and try to carry some of his burden. It is what I do. It is who I am.
I have to be honest, sometimes it gets pretty heavy. My shoulders may sag a bit. My walk may slow down a bit. My energy lagging. It can take it’s toll on how I feel both physically and mentally. But it is what I do. And I know that given a choice, I will always take any burden I can and help carry it for any member of my family.
And then? Sometimes? Sometimes, I get my feet kicked out from under me with my own burdens. My own worries. My own fears. My own tears. My own stresses. Those things alone? Perhaps I could stand up against it, but the weight of all that I carry suddenly feels too heavy and I drop to my knees. Something that is probably nothing brings me to my knees and keeps me there. Immobile. Frozen. Something that may have been taken in stride suddenly scares the wits out me to a point that I shut down.
Share the burden? I can’t. I couldn’t. I won’t. It is silly. They would think I am ridiculous. My fear is unfounded. They have their own worries. My “probably nothing” is not worthy of anyone else’s time or concern. I wouldn’t know what to say. I am not going to bother anyone else with my worries or silliness. I am over reacting and they don’t need my drama. I can do this alone.
Me? Afraid? Of course I am. So much so. But I’d never tell. It is what I do. It is who I am.
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Posted by Jenn @
1:50 am | |
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Changes can be slippery
September 30, 2007
After the “Unfortunate Incident of 2006″ (otherwise known as the death of my mother and the follow-up falling apart of my life), I have used this space to write when I hurt, laugh when I need to laugh over the funny, and share when I need to know I am not alone.
A very good friend brought up the fact that I seem jaded after events that took place in the last year or so. You think?
I would have to say the first several months I was too much in shock to see the way things in my life were changing or falling apart. Looking back at that time I still try to come to grips with how I feel about a lot of it. I lost friends, a job and a mentor in that time. Sometimes I become so hurt by all of it, I feel my heart will never be the same. Other times I become so angry it colors how I see other situations in my life.
At some point I think I may have become that cynical person I never liked. That is not me. At least, that is not who I have always been. Friends who have never given me a reason to doubt them are kept at arms length. Have I been burned so badly by those who cut bait and ran when things were so tough in my life that I now fear those who actually stuck with me? I don’t want to be that person that keeps her cards held so closely to her chest that she never lets anyone in. I question some peoples’ motivations. (”Why do you want to know that? Do you really care? What is in it for you if I tell you? Who are you going to tell if I am honest with you?”) I guess I get caught up sometimes in a world of in between. Between trusting what I know and hurting from what I thought I knew.
I admit that in certain areas of my life, I have become jaded. At times so angry I don’t know what to do with myself. Other times I want to just cry and beg for an explanation from those who kicked me while I was down and took off. I am not saying I am innocent in changes that took place. I checked out. I get that. I know that there are “friends” who cannot handle that and there are friends who will still be there after everything is said and done. I have learned and am learning the difference.
I have had to learn that some people do not allow you to change. Do not allow you to break down and come back. Hell, I learned that lesson when I got clean. Some will never see that you are doing better. That you have changed and are not the person before, but still good. I will never try to tell anyone I am the person I was before I became an addict. Just as I can never try to convince anyone that I am the same person that I was before my Mom died. I am not. Life kicking your feet out from under you will change you to the core. Sometimes you are blessed enough to find that when you recover– when you are able to stand up again– you are not standing alone. It is a given that some people won’t be there anymore. That is just how it goes. It sucks, but it is life. So, if I know this, why is it so hard to let go and realize that the weakness lies in them, not me?
But the thing is, all that happened, all the hurt, all the lies are in the past. I cannot fix them, change them or make them go away. Yet, here I sit with my stomach in knots if someone brings it up. I doubt people that perhaps I shouldn’t doubt. Honestly, that part is the part that gets to me the most. I miss the way certain things were in my life. Certain friends I could count on for anything at anytime. Now? I don’t know. I truly don’t know. Is it real? Have we changed from friends to aquaintances now? Is it my fear of being burned again or is the underlying hesitation in the friendship real? I don’t know.
What do I know? I know that for me, as an addict, being in this place is not good for me. It is deadly and dangerous. Right now, I am in a bad place mentally but a good place professionally. In other words, changes are taking place that are both exciting and scary. Thrilling and terrifying. Big enough to be life changing. And yet, I am freaking out…and celebrating (albeit a bit hesitantly until all is said and done) that I am finally moving forward with a dream come true.
I stand on the edge of something big. I look behind to see where I have been and what good it has done for me and what harm it has caused. I look at the big leap and wonder what happens after it. Jumping into new situations with new people is terrifying to me. And I suppose my biggest question is this: How do I hold on to the good things that led me here and at the same time embrace the new things where I am going? Is there room for both? The old ties into the pain, but was not all bad. The new is scary and exhilirating.
Change. It terrifies me. And? It exhilirates me! It is the only thing that anyone can count on. But me? I have that whole love/hate relationship with change. I fear it. It shakes things up and makes me feel as if my life is one huge snow globe. I am powerless to stop things and terrified of where things will land after all of the shake-up is finished. Exciting. Scary. Anticipation. Hesitation. Change.
I am not a fan of song quoting blogs, but when it was emailed to me, I thought–I get that. In a whole new way, I get that. I am not going to quote all of the song, but the part that hit me hard was this:
Forgive, sounds good.
Forget, I’m not sure I could.
They say time heals everything,
But I’m still waiting
I know you said
why can’t you just get over it…
It turned my whole world around…
Why can’t I just get over it? I ask myself that everyday.
Why did I write all of this? I have no idea other than the fact that I am in a bad place right now and that bad place takes me there. For just 10 minutes I want to trust that what I see is real. To not be angry or hurt or hesitant. For just 10 minutes I want to feel like I used to before everything– me included– changed. I just want to feel good right now. All I could think about last night was how much I wanted to hit the bottle. For a nice relaxing glass of wine? No. To drink everything away and pretend that I am not in a bad place. If that is not the sound of warning sirens blasting, I don’t know what is.
Sometimes I have to wonder is it my addict mind that takes a bad few days and tangles them all up into all of the bad that has happened in the past year or is that something that other people go through? Do others get burned and move on or does it haunt them later when it comes to new situations? I have no idea. All I do know is that I am in a place where I am struggling just to make it through the day without a slip. And right now, I have no idea who I can talk to about it. No idea where to turn. And that sucks.
Posted by Jenn @
3:26 pm | |
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Shattered vases
May 31, 2007
Every person has their share of things happen in their life that are–for lack of a better word–crappy. Bad things. “Tragic” things. Most of the time when things happen that throw us down, we get up, brush ourselves off and keep going. Let me tell you something if you don’t already know it. I have had my share of “tragedies” in my life. Times when I am knocked so hard to the ground I wonder how I will ever get back up let alone keep going. When things like that happen, people around you tell you how “strong you are” again and again. You nod and want to say, “You think so? How naive! What choice do I have?!” (At least I have wanted to say that at times.)
Each time you go through “the bad stuff” you feel your strength weaken at the seams. That mighty tower that stood the first time you went through the tough times is hardly the same structure. You feel more like a sand castle than a mighty tower of strength. So, what happens when that one thing you didn’t see coming happens? That one thing that cuts you to the core and knocks you flat on your back? What happens after that blow that knocks you so flat that you just cannot get up again? Not one more time. You are broken.
I imagine having a beautiful vase. An antique. Irreplaceable. Vintage. That one-of-a-kind art that once had that new sheen to it but is now a bit faded and chipped. Age, life and being handled has changed not only the look but the feel of it. It is cherished in its own way. Then it gets knocked to the floor. Shattered. Shards of its former glory spread all over. Piece by piece you painstakingly try to put it back together. Hours become days become weeks become months. At last, the final piece is glued back in place. The problem? Part of it is missing. What if that part is in the very center–the very core– of the vase? No matter what you do, that piece will always be missing. Trying to fill it with replacements doesn’t work. Each one just falls out as soon as there is any pressure on it.
It isn’t really a vase anymore. It can no longer do what it was meant to do. A piece of crap now or still a piece of art? I guess this is the point where you decide what is best… finding a new–unique purpose for the vase, trashing it or just letting it sit on the shelf gathering dust and having no purpose; therefore, rendering itself useless? No matter how many times you go back to it and try to fill that missing piece, nothing works. Nothing.
What if you are that vase? Life shattered you. You try so hard to put it all back together, but no matter what you do none of it fits together anymore. Rearranging pieces of your life– friends, work, family– doesn’t make them fit back into place as neatly as they once did. No matter how hard you try or yell or cry or bargain or beg. What then? I can tell you I have been pretty much sitting on the shelf gathering dust. Every once in a while I will see a new way to rearrange things and think they fit, but once the pressure is on, I crack and everything spills out again.
I have been in Houston for a while. Dad had some medical stuff that I wanted to be here for. (He’ll be fine.) But as I have been here I have seen my sister and my Dad and recognized myself– my pain– mirrored in them. I found the one place where broken fits. Where laughing over the inappropriate is standard. Where crying because for the love of all things holy my coffee just did not taste right is perfectly acceptable and not at all uncalled for. A rational act in our irrational world. We’re like the Island of Misfit Toys. None of us have all of our pieces and that is the normal way to be. It is a cozy cocoon. A haven. A place where the broken work together and somehow manage to just get through. Safe.
But this version of safe doesn’t mean whole or unbroken. Just safe– to “live” that way.
How do you rearrange things to work again in your real life? How do you get up from a blow that shattered so badly no one is saying how “strong” you are. You feel pitied, written off or forgotten. Sometimes all three. Sometimes in the places you didn’t count on from the most unexpected people. Moving on. Picking up. Rearranging. Worse…finding the strength and will to rearrange, pick up and move on. That part is the kicker.
As many times as I have been knocked down, beaten down and broken, never have I been shattered to a point where I can’t find a way to brush myself off. Partly because I have wanted to get through and move forward. What do you do when all you want to be is that damn vase before it shattered? What happens when you just cannot stop longing to be that pre-destroyed vase? What do you do when you know you can no longer be that damn vase because that piece is never, ever coming back to make it all work and for the love of god you don’t want to be anything else but that old vase? Forget new purpose and new meaning. You want the original to work.
And it doesn’t.
Then what?
This is where I normally give you a pithy little wrap up and answer my own question. This time? I’ll be damned if I have any answers for you.
Or for me.
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Posted by Jenn @
2:27 am | |
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Fresh starts in old places?
April 17, 2007
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about fresh starts. When I was in college, I loved new semesters. I loved moving. New apartments. New neighbors. Fresh starts. The longest I lived in one place was 2 years and we were so very proud! (More often than not, we signed 6 month or 0 month leases so that I–then we– could move. Married with a toddler, we thought two years was a record of some kind. Two entire years. Of course, the only time we were living there that I was not looking for a new place to live was the 5 months I was on bed-rest pregnant with my second baby.
We have now lived here for 11 years. ELEVEN years. It might as well be eleventy hundred in my world. I think the formula for my living-in-one-place time frame is calculated similar to dog years. Which means I have been here for about 77 years. Thats a long time for someone who likes fresh starts and new adventures. A long time for someone who likes to move. Definitely time to make this house and this town feel like home.
But it doesn’t.
I was talking at length to my Dad and more than once I made a casual comment about “when I can come home” and meant to Houston where he and my sister are not here where my house is. I realized that there are just so many things I never did or tried to do to make this town my home. Many close friends have moved. Others either will or are kept at arms length because our personalities are so different, I leave them feeling more lonely and empty than when I actually was alone. Some I look at and want more than anything to be friends, but after 10 years, you would think it would have happened.
So, I can’t help but wonder, is it possible to get a fresh start in an old place? Can you start over in a place you have been for over a decade or does it take an actual–physical–move to earn the right or ability for a fresh start?
Recently, I made friends with a woman I adore. We seem to have so much in common. And since we just met, I feel like I can have a fresh start. But in this area, at the school my kids have been in for 8 years, do I get to have a fresh start with her or does the old baggage come around as quickly as the gossip train can get it there? And speaking of schools, next year will be the first year I only have one at that school. One who is still young enough that there will be massive turn overs in the parents that I have known forever. Is it possible to start fresh again or am I stuck in the place where “everybody knows your name” but that is about as far as the connection goes?
I know. A lot of questions. And probably few answers. I guess it all stems from the fact that I have been deeply longing (as in gnashing my teeth and crying over it) to move back to Houston and it just is not in the cards for me. (Husband thinks it is important to actually stay where his “job” is. Men!) There in Houston, I have family, friends, friends of friends, a support system and it feels right. Even after 11 years, I don’t have all of those here at “home” and I want them more than I can possibly put into words.
So tell me…can you make a fresh start in the same old place or do fresh starts only come with fresh locations?
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Posted by Jenn @
9:54 pm | |
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It may have tried to kill me, but I am WINNING this war!
March 6, 2007
I almost named this entry “Lucky Number 7” but that seems so silly when what I am celebrating is so huge.
Today marks my 7th “birthday” clean and clear of my need for pills…7 years of overcoming this addiction. (I will pause now for high 5’s and a few Wooots!)
Seven years. Approximately 2,557 days. About 61,361 hours. And if you think there are days when those hours don’t count, think again. There are days even now when I just promise myself to get through the next few minutes, then hour, then night and finally I get through the dark time and am soaring again without having slipped. If you remember, the time leading up to this anniversary always makes me wack.
But I did it.
Today marks SEVEN YEARS since I finally hit rock bottom, had no where to turn and let go (finally) and became clean. And you know what? I am damn proud of it, too!
The past year has been hell in my life. (Like I need to tell you that!) The past few months I have been coming out of this horrific fog I have been in for so long and the best way to describe the feeling is to compare it to someone coming out of a coma after a horrible accident. No longer numb and therefore, hurting like hell. A time when you are begging mentally to numb that pain. Somehow. Anyway you can find. I am not ashamed to admit that more than once I have been jonesing for a fix to just not hurt anymore. To just not feel overwhelmed, guilty or not good enough.
But the thing I can celebrate today is that I DID NOT GIVE IN! I won this year. No one can take back these 7 years. And they sure as hell cannot take back the battle that has been this past year.
And I won.
Seven years.
And though I am all about tooting my own horn when it comes to something like this (because it is a really hard thing to do!), I want to hear from you. Yes, YOU. We all have had to face something in our lives that has scared the hell out of us or been a huge challenge that we didn’t think we could get through it. We’ve ALL been there. Let’s celebrate getting through the hell, the fear and the hard times…together!
Share with me. Either here in the comments, email me or blog about it on your own blog and let me know about it. (I want to do a huge celebratory and overcoming entry where we all can celebrate our victories. Who knows? Your accomplishment may be just what someone else needs to read to get through their own tough times.)
Celebrate with me.
I wanna rock this house, baby. Because Seven Years is worth a party, don’t you think?
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Posted by Jenn @
6:14 pm | |
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Thinking things
February 20, 2007
When my Mom got sick–I mean really sick– I sort of checked out. Checked out of my online “life.” Checked out of my personal relationships. Checked out on being a person, really. When she died, it got worse. I was not living. I was existing. Every now and then I would throw myself into something with a passion in hopes that something would ignite, but rarely did it. And when it did, I didn’t last for long. I was moving through life underwater and holding my breath. Hoping I would emerge on my own and soon.
Now, here I sit, over a year later and when I start to feel like I am emerging, I realize that I don’t recognize much around me. In fact, who the hell is this person and what has she done with my life?
I look around my house and wonder if I just woke up as the house-mom to a fraternity after a kegger. Chaos and a smell no one really wants to identify. Where is my clean house? My friends? My social life? What happened to my job? My goals? My dreams? While I am at it, where is the person my husband married and the mother these kids deserve? Hell if I know.
I feel like I have been in a coma all this time and as I emerge, nothing is like it was. Nothing stays the same. Nothing can. But how in the hell do you not become overwhelmed when you are just emerging and not one damn thing in your life is as it was? Not one person is as familiar as you remember. Not one routine feels right. The passion you used to have for something isn’t there anymore. The friends you counted on had to go on with their lives. They couldn’t stay in the same place with you.
And now, as you look around you wish you never emerged. When you were under water or in that mental coma, it didn’t matter. You were untouchable because “fuck you, my mom died and this shit just does not matter!!”
How do you regain your life? How do you recover friendships? Can you? Or do you just replace them? How do you make up for a year–a whole friggin’damn year– of lost time?? Can you? Do you? How do you fix it?
Well, I can tell you that posing those question to an addict will give you far different results than if you place them in front of a normie. A Normie will find a constructive way to fix this. An addict? Well, she will look at you as if you have gone 7 different kinds of crazy and then find a way to numb it. Or at least try to find a way to numb it. When she can’t, she will be bouncing off of the fucking walls trying to make it better. And you know what? You want to know the horrific fun truth in it all? She will NEVER find a way to make it better or right or normal and that will just make her all the more crazy trying to find a way to do so. Amazing fucked up reality, isn’t it? My world and welcome to it, my friend.
I know I have been going through the motions in a lot of ways. In a lot of areas. With a lot of people. And god help me, I don’t know how to reach through the haze, the depths of this drowning water and grab onto someone I can trust to pull me out. Without lectures. Without telling me how to fix things. Without the “I told you so’s” that make it harder than it has to be. How? I swear I don’t know how to do that. How do people get through shit like this and not leave behind them an inordinate amount of destruction? Lord help me there must be way, but hell if I know what it is.
You want to know the truth? I almost wish to have the drowning back. The coma that left me unable to move forward. At least then I was existing and not feeling so overwhelmed with all I need to do to make life right again. Because overwhelmed does not begin to cover it. At all.
For some reason, as I was surfing in the middle of the night rather than sleeping–as I am known to do– I came across Rosie’s blog. Now, there are not a lot of times I really get her, but this time (though she is referring to Britney Spears) it made me laugh and then hit me in the gut.
many moms -
of kids in ur sons class
want to shave their hair off
and get a tattoo
they dont because they cant
noone is there 2 watch the kids
what would the neighbors say
plus
the pta meeting
would be humiliating
on many levels
real life
can save u
sometimes
u have to - no choice
Real life can save you. Hmmmm….I suppose that is truer than I realized. Real life kept me from sinking under the water. Real life kept me from letting go. Real life kept me from giving into the numb I know is there.
Real life has changed. But it has waited for me. I will admit to not really recognizing it and being scared shitless of it, but it is there nevertheless. And, seeing as it pretty much saved me, I owe it to find a way to get to know it again. For real this time. No going through the motions.
It’s like having to get sober all over again. And trust me when I say the first time sucked enough for a lifetime!
Trust me on that one.
[Update: I got an email asking if I turned comments off because I wanted to be left alone. No. I turned comments off because the last thing I want is anyone feeling like they need to make a comment when they really don’t. This is the kind of post where I certainly don’t want anyone to feel the need to “make me feel better.” With comments on, I know some friends will think they should. And really, you don’t have to! That’s all. No leave me alone sign hanging on this door. Just to be clear.]
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Posted by Jenn @
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If I could just ask her…
November 12, 2006
Today has just been one of those days where I am missing my Mom so much, it hurts. That physical hurt that grabs you by the heart and threatens to rip it straight from your body.
I sat at an awards ceremony with Clint and Gabriella the other night and Gabby snuggled up to me so closely. My heart just melted. All I could think of was the extremely intense way I loved this little girl. I love all of my children so much. My boys bring out a side of me that I never knew was there. But having a daughter and seeing so much of myself reflected back at me is amazing. At that moment, I wanted so badly to talk to my Mom. To ask her questions I will never be able to ask her.
“Do I feel this way because she is the baby and I want so badly to hold her tightly and keep her young and my baby?”
“Is it because she is my little girl after years of having boys?”
“Did you feel this way about me?”
“Will I ever feel like there isn’t a huge part of my soul missing because I cannot talk to you anymore? Because I really, really just want to talk to you, Mom!”
How can this be November? How can I have had 10 entire months behind me, time to get used to this, and yet still feel like I just buried her yesterday? Will it ever not rip me in two missing her?
For my birthday, Clint bought me a charm bracelet. Mom loved charm bracelets. Now both my sister and I have one. We think of them as family bracelets. We put a charm on for each member of the family that we feel will make us think of them and remind us of each person. Yesterday I bought one that is in the shape of a heart with the inscription “The heart remembers.” I had the word “Mom” engraved on the back. I don’t know if that is the best charm or not, but it is the one that I needed yesterday.
I want to stop missing her. But I don’t. I want to be able to look at her picture and not ache to see her smile at me. I just wanted to smile back at the picture and remember how infectious her smile was… and smile back, not cry.
What I really want is to just ask her that one thing…
Mom, did you feel this way about me that I do about my daughter?
Because if she did, I owe her so much more than a charm or tears or a few flowers at her grave site. I owe her everything I am and every good thing I ever do or have done as a mother.
If I could just ask her…
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Posted by Jenn @
9:44 pm | |
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Pondering heart aches both physical and mental
October 16, 2006
Look who is off of computer restriction! Me! Me! See? I am the boss of myself and no one tells me what to do. I decide when to get online and when not to. (But if you tell Clint I was online, I will cut you!)
First, a medical update because that will tie into the rest of this entry. As of now, my heart is looking physically well. It is beating strongly and pumping as it should. My blood pressure–ironically enough– was too low for them to give me meds like nitroglycerine tabs when I was having chest pains. Did you know your resting heart rate can actually be 45 and you can still be functioning? And ohhhhh can we talk about how much I loved the oxygen! And how it makes you actually able to breathe. To breathe. It was amazing. So far the seventyeleven pints of blood they have taken are still not enough and they are bringing me back for me because “Gee, we just can’t seem to test for more than one thing per vial and well, we know you have a lot of blood in there.” The only thing that showed up on this round of tests physically is a lesion on my liver. They say it is nothing to worry about. Nothing to stress over. To consider like a birthmark that has probably always been there. Ummm…okay. So, if or when we meet, don’t ask to see my birthmark. It will totally make you vomit.
What they do know without question is that I am on the brink of a nervous breakdown stress-wise. That 80% of this is exhaustion, stress and probably a bit of PTSD (post traumatic stress) after Mom’s death. They are trying new meds to see if they help. (So, far, not so much.) The chest pains? Still intense and they do interfere with daily life. The dizzy to the point of hitting the ground? Yep. Still there playing peek-a-boo. That pretty much makes this a situation of “avoid all stress you can for 2 weeks while we madly dig through all of our medical journals to figure out what the other 20% of your health problems are.”
Avoid all stress.
Who wants 3 kids? Want to come over and clean my house? Want to come sit down and schedule soccer, girl scouts and gymnastics? Anyone up for cooking dinner? Every damn night? Paying bills? Working? Writing? Editing?
Avoid all stress.
Could someone please explain that one to me? How? I am serious. (I would say dead serious, but with all of the ER visits and chest pains and such that I have had in the past few weeks, I am SO not seeing humor in that.) Suggestions to mentally de-stress?
Which brings me to the blog. No. I am not quitting. How could I? I love writing and love what I have built here. I am not quitting.
I’ll be honest with you, though, when I tell you I wasn’t sure if I was going to come back to blogging anytime soon. But the thing is, I love writing. I have loved blogging. But what is going on out there? You see, when I started to blog, it was fun. I loved the people I was meeting. It was like Camp HappyWannaShowDaLove All the Time singing Kumbaya at the end of the week. And even though that is still out there, it appears to be less the norm. (I am looking for it. Show it to me.) What I see are blogs that are popping up whose only purpose is to criticize and find fault in other blogs. Blogs that are out there to make fun of other bloggers. Blogs that decide it is entertainment to find a blog and decide to randomly rate them and say they are not worthy for whatever reason they deem at the moment. (Don’t like the design. The header was ugly. There was a misspelling. They talked about something the “reviewer” didn’t find interesting.) Or they make it entertainment to just hate on another blogger. For the purpose of hating another person. That is entertainment? Something bad happened to someone so let’s point, laugh and see how badly we can make them feel? Huh?
And then there is the personal aspect. An example would be telling someone you barely know and have met and spoken to for maybe 5 minutes that she is “phony” “is very uphappy and needs help” and that obviously the laughing, happy person was “not the real her.” Why? What inside a person makes them think that this is either appropriate or necessary. Don’t get me wrong. There is a time and place for frank honest discussions between friends. But to barely know someone and say things even more horrifying than that to them? I don’t get it. Call me naive, but I really don’t get it. I don’t understand going behind someone’s back talking about them and then going back to that person and pointing out (inaccurate) faults that you feel you know when you have no idea who that person is in her real life? Well, it is just mean. And, well, more importantly why?
And there is a lot of mean out there right now.
And a lot of sadness.
“Avoid all stress.”
So maybe you won’t leave my blog forever if I continue this short leave of absence. Or maybe you will. (I hope you will stay.) But until we know exactly what is going on with my health, I cannot afford to hang out in Camp ImaGonnaTryToHurtYou. It just isn’t good for me. (We will know more medically soon. I will let you know when I am back in hospital for more tests. Currently I am scheduled to go in about a week or so.) I love blogging. I loved being a part of Camp HappyWannaShowDaLove All the Time. But right now, I am trying to keep my health from getting any worse. Because I am pretty sure that if I hit the floor at Kroger one more time with my teenage son, he will run away from home.
And your comments you’ve been leaving for me? Thank you. I wish I knew a better way to say thank you. Thank you for being kind, my friends. Thank you doesn’t seem like enough, but that is all I know to express my gratitude. Thank you from the bottom of my strongly beating, but aching heart. I love you guys!
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Posted by Jenn @
4:17 pm | |
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