Happiness looks like

Today I had fun playing with next year's holiday card,


Cooked delicious and indulgent food, than ate excessively,


And had quality time with my peoples (Hubs and dawgter). Life is pretty much exactly what I ever want right now. My peoples. :)


Random fyi- microsoft clipart seems to have same-sex parent images available. So if anyone needs to do a powerpoint on same-sex parents for ASA- you can rock the clipart. Also, if my Marcia ever adopts her Chinese baby, I know the image that's going to go on her congratulations card! Just kidding- like I'd ever make you a card. No actually, I never finished your Congratulations marriage card, so yeah. But it was gonna be really cool. Totally. (And it did not involve clipart).
Awww!

Making Peace

I was raised to be a good girl. When my mom went back to work, and back to school, I spent hours and hours with my grandparents. You know how it seems like one parent is just a bit more "high class" and one's a bit more "low class". This was the higher class side of my family.

They were the protestant work ethic incarnate. Sober, respectable, and hard-working, even if not god-fearing (that's another story altogether).

My grandpa was a stern man, who knew how to lecture rather than converse. As a young girl we would sit for hours listening to him, trying to find a point where we could sneak away. When my grandfather found out about this, he was really sad. Which makes me really sad, because I appreciate so much the time he devoted to us, even though he didn't understand how to interact with us.

But the point is, I was taught to be a good girl. Stay quiet. Smile. Don't cause trouble. Be NICE.


Thus it's extremely troubling when I am forced to face the reality that not only am I intentionally uppity at times (I like that), but that sometimes without realizing or choosing, I am not very nice. It's difficult to make peace with that. Because I was raised to be good. Good, good, good. But we can't be all good now can we?

Thus I have been thinking a lot lately about that dual nature to the individual. And there's two quotes that arise to reflect upon this:

One is by Solzhenitsyn:

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

This quote is a bit harsh, perhaps because he spent some time in the Gulags.

Here's a kinder and more contemporary one by Ani:

maybe the moral higher ground
ain't as high as it seems
maybe we are both good people
(who have) done some bad things

I forgot how much I liked that song...

Making peace with ourselves, ALL of ourselves. All of it.

Sunday Sunday

I've been leaving the house a little more. Going to a coffee shop for a few hours to work on the big D, or getting in a grocery/craft store shopping trip that isn't completely necessary.

I really like grocery shopping when it's not bare-cupboard-necessary. It's so much more relaxing when you know you only really need a few things, and there's no pressure. I have to drive to South Philly to get to the good grocery store, so that makes it super annoying when I forget something important. But what is that thing they say- don't sweat the small stuff? It's amazing how well I can fixate on little things. I think I have literally cried once over spilled milk.

But this getting out thing is lovely. I come back in a better mood, which puts hubs in a better mood I think. Yup I think it's the way to go. And I just might get my dissertation done this way. Or at least get it a little frickin closer to being done.

The amount of neglect I've given the dissertation is embarrassing to me, and I have to remind myself that ANYONE in the program who could be tempted to judge my progress (and I have no reason to think anybody has lately) is undoubtedly completely free of the kind of stress that I've carried daily for years. Therefore, of course, they would be oh so wrong. But it's a tough thing learning not to internalize the opinions (even imagined opinions) of others.

I feel kind of like those teenage girls on Maury Povich sometimes, yelling to imaginary accusors: "Whatever! You don't know me!"


Also I've been thinking about the addictive nature of the blog. I'm not the only one who's commented on their uneasiness with the public exposure of the blog. The soul-bearing freedom that makes us wonder why the hell we wrote such and such that was just so personal.

But it really is a catharsis. To get out the words in our head, that would otherwise be bouncing back and forth at increasing velocities, bruising that delicate cerebral tissue. Or to aspirate the wound, relieving pressure and allow healing.

Of course my first place to talk is with my husband, who I love more every day, even with the uber-stresses that lead us to continually discover new levels of conflict, and subsequently, new levels of conflict resolution. So he's my first place for airing out the chattering that goes on in my brain.

But there's still some left over after that. The scraps, the memories, the fears, the bits and pieces that I'm trying to put together like a living puzzle, to make sense of my daily existence. And that's where the blog comes in.

And, since last Spring when I started this thing, I've changed- in many ways through the blog. The reflection of the thing, the finding of the writing voice, the bouncing back and forth of ideas between bloggers, has served to crystallize in a way my present identity. This me. Because of course we keep changing.

My sister told me on the phone the other day that I sounded different. I didn't say it, but of course I am. This past year, the past 6 months- time changes us. The question is can we partly direct that change. Can we know who we are from one wave to the next as they crash over our heads. This blog helps me know myself, almost as much as it helps the random strangers of the world know me (gulp!).

And then there is the value of sharing experience. (Ideally I would do this with the friends and I do have friends- I swear- but I almost never see them). Because god knows one of the most consistent and universal human emotions is loneliness. Especially at times of hardship and change. We all can feel terribly isolated, and utterly miles apart in difference from anybody else. But we are all so similar in our distress. And it makes no sense to live in a bubble. That's a great way to foster neurosis too. You gotta air it out!

So that's why I'm still blogging. Or one of the reasons at least. It's a lifeline to many things, and we all need that. I know I do.

So happy Sunday. I hope everyone out there wakes up this morning (or afternoon, whatever) wanting to get up out of their beds and do something enjoyable today. May we all have a day worth living, a love in our hearts for ourselves, and a smile for the people we care about. Namaste ;)

Simpsonize

So my sister just emailed me this jpeg that she did with this online thing she found. It's supposed to be me. Only my hair is long now. And I don't wear skirts, actually, ever. But it's sweet of her to waste her time doing that eh.

Although now that I look at it again, my hair did used to be an awful lot like that... And there was a time when I could be persuaded to put on a skirt. Hmm.... It's like looking back in time, as well as through the Simpsonize dimension. Do you supposed there's a parallel world where we all exist- only as Simpson's characters? I like to think so. I like to think so.

29 going on 60

Now that lilacs are in bloom
She has a bowl of lilacs in her room
And twists one in her fingers while she talks.
"Ah, my friend, you do not know, you do not know
What life is, you who hold it in your hands";
(Slowly twisting the lilac stalks)
"You let it flow from you, you let it flow,
And youth is cruel, and has no remorse
And smiles at situations which it cannot see."
I smile, of course,
And go on drinking tea.
(TS Eliot)

I used to feel like the tea drinker.
Now I feel like the twisted old woman
twisting flowers...
29 going on 60.

This Evening

Cable show of the evening: Modern Marvels: Fast Food Tech


I was inspired by the fryin!

I forgot how goooooooooood fresh homemade fries are!

This Christmas, Next Christmas

We're doing nothing for Christmas. This just wasn't the year for anything but getting by.


My mom called from my Aunt's suddenly concerned that I wasn't okay for the holiday. Probably paranoid, since as a counselor, she knows suicide spikes during the holidays. This is so not a problem. Not even on the radar screen.

But also now that my mom-in-law came up and did my laundry when shit was tough, now my bio mom suddenly feels compelled to do so too- to prove (to herself) that she's doing her job. "I want to come up and do your laundry!" (followed by a semi-imaginary childlike hrumph and stamp of the foot). I refrain from telling her that she didn't do my laundry when I was nine, so it makes no damn sense to do it when I'm twenty-nine. Really, I'm not sure she knows how... Well that's not true. But you get the point.

Anyhow, so this secular Christmas was basically killing time till things get better. But whatever. Hubs felt bad about my non-holiday but I didn't really mind. I'm just glad we're on track and entering the last semester of dissertation work after which we will leave this chapter of our lives for the one where a salary is involved. We'll be able to say we survived 4 years here with grad school and health crisis- doing the impossible really- and made it on to phase 3. Which should be way better- way better- than phases 1 and 2.


And can I say it again that every new crisis just makes me cooler. I know you guys worry. And so do I of course when things are bad. But do you even doubt us?! We are so f***ing tough by now. We're some hardcore adults if I say so myself. We're pretty awesome, human though we may be.

P.S. I'm starting to research D.C. suburbs and places where a cheap but safe neighborhood may offer a sweet house to rent. Any insider advice on neighborhoods in the area or anything would be oh-so appreciated. I think mm's out there, and Lance (my Belmont buddy)...

So happy secular Christmas y'alls.

Also, the Christmas card was canceled this year, but I'm using the design for next year and it will be twice as good Go'damnit! And if you haven't seen it, my Hanukkah card was awesome. And if you don't think so, it's the crap lighting in the photo. I swear, it's freakin cute!

So yeah, best wishes to everyone out there for the holidays. :)

Who me?

Though I'm sweet
with a great big heart;
a thousand watt smile
that makes old men beam-

Don't think that this kettle
don't blow off some steam.

The truth is that I can be cruel
With words as cold as steel
I can curse a man with words that cut
I can wound instead of heal...

I can be cruel
I don't know why
Why can't my ba.ll.oo.n stay up in a perfectly windy sky

The truth is we all have a breaking point, where we, desperate, resort to desperate means.

But if I told you the good along with the bad, it would be TMI and a little obscene. A lot obscene :D

This Charming Man

A prediction that always comes true:
If I go to a coffee shop, I will definitely hear The Smiths before I leave. Not that I mind.

Sick

"We work from a life course perspective and identify several reasons to expect age and gender differences in the link between marital quality and health. We present growth curve evidence from a national longitudinal survey to show that marital strain accelerates the typical decline in self-rated health that occurs over time and that this adverse effect is greater at older ages. These findings fit with recent theoretical work on cumulative adversity in that marital strain seems to have a cumulative effect on health over time- an effect that produces increasing vulnerability to marital strain with age. Contrary to expectations, marital quality seems to affect the health of men and women in similar ways across the life course."

Umberson D, Williams K, Powers DA, Liu H, Needham B. 2006. You make me sick: Marital quality and health over the life course. Journal of Health and Social Behavior 47:1-16

He says

He says I'm being a bitch.
That I'm queen of our goddamn castle.
He says I make him more sick.
That I'm less support than hassle.

He says that I'm too damn proud.
I can't admit when I'm not right.
That I either ignore him or talk too loud.
God why do we seem born to fight?

Doubt

This is the trick.
If you always trust your own instincts, observations, and feelings, then you risk not being open to all the ways that we are frequently wrong, blinded, or narrowly interpretative, and you never learn or move past your many false preconceptions about yourself, life, and the world.
However, if you don't trust your own observations, then you may allow yourself to be led somewhere that you shouldn't go.
What if I trusted my instincts a long time ago? What if I wasn't a confused little girl who didn't know which way was up? What if I valued myself enough to put my foot down when things happened that shouldn't?
Then I wouldn't be the person I am today, but I don't know whether that's a good answer anymore.
I might not have learned things the hard way.
Given my confusion, my insecurity, my neediness in my youth, I guess there was no avoiding pitfalls. If I hadn't been led down one bad path, I would have been led down another. So is regret appropriate?

If I didn't trust myself then, I need to trust myself now. I need to believe in myself and my own feelings. I can't afford to doubt myself any longer. Mistakes may be fatal.

No more

I won the battle but lost the war.
My heart is gone.
I hope no more.

The birds up in the tree have froze.
There is no song.
Harsh winter blows.

The truth is I'm a broken shell, only imitating life.

All about me

I'm uncomfortable suddenly with the disclosure in this blog. Not suddenly actually, for about a month. I think it's like when Paul Simon sung, that losing love was like a window in your heart- everybody sees you blown apart. The absolute striped down vulnerability that occurs in times of desperation and (potential) loss is made all the more visible when blogged three times a week. That very net of support that helped me through the most desperate time, makes me a bit uncomfortable after the fact. I don't know how many I've bared my soul to, how many have witnessed my pain.
Maybe it's because there is no easy answer to this pain. The dangerous period has been survived, but the same stress continues to exist, even characterizing or at least indelibly marking, our lives.
Do I wish to keep this emotional window open to every Tom, Dick, and Mary (sic) in the blogosphere?
This question is made even more pressing because the content of the struggle that is feeding my stress and my own personal challenges is not my own physical health but that of another. Thus I need to desist a bit. Now that we're out of the fire I feel the exposure is too much.
I need to thank the lifeline of support from those sending out prayers and support, while trying to put that place behind us, and trying to live a more "normal" life, or at least one with more peace and less fear, frustration, and desperation.
C'est la vie.

So I need to try very very hard to keep this blog about me. Little ol me in all my glory.

Word

Trying is the word of the day.
Trying.
Trying.
Trying.

Secrets

Check it out, I figured out a secret. If you figure out how to treat your partner really well: respected, loved, encouraged, et cetera, then they'll be way happier. And guess what? When you're not fighting all the time over dumb shit, you get more time to be sweet to each other. Oh my god! Duh!
Oh, and meditation rules! It's not exactly meditation per se, but it's something involving meditation and bath salts and lots of journaling and stuff. It's easier to keep up than, say, going to the gym or laundry. But it will fall to the wayside if I don't tend to it consciously. But it is way way awesome, and just seriously great.

You know what else is great?

I have cable TV now, and there was just an ad for new episodes of Shin Chan!

I do have to say that the time without internet was in a way cleansing. It helped me slow down and focus. I actually had to use a real dictionary. The real kind- the book. Seriously. It was like that old commercial for the church of Latter Day Saints where the power goes out and the family has quality time over board games. Strangely wholesome. But that's enough of that!

Hanukkah Greetings

Another holiday, another card. I know I put away my craft stuff, but I realized a little while ago that I NEED this in my life, as sure as therapy, as sure as hot baths, as sure as chocolate. I need my crafts!

This is my Hanukkah card this year. I sort of streamlined the process compared to last year, which means that after carving my stamp, I was able to crank out 19 (randomly chosen number) in a single evening- a big improvement.

I started out with a clipart photo, that I tweaked to make for easy outlining. Then I stuck that image, carved it out, and stamped my little heart out.



Personally I am totally digging this. And I have some GREAT ideas... Each time I figure out a new way to do this, it opens up more possibilities. Plus it helps that I have practice now carving these. I have a few left if anybody is dying for one ;)

WooHoo!

Today we got internet!!! After only a week of ineptitude from Comcast, we are finally hooked up.

I'm too lazy to detail the many screw-ups that caused them to take a week, but trust that they suck (except for like one woman who was awesome).

This is a good example of their mess, although it sucks that the employees are blamed when clearly it is the company that isn't doing their job.


Anyhoo, yay!

Comcast sucks

I won't bore you with the details. Just trust me when I say comcast seriously sucks. I still don't have internet or cable...they just cannot get their shit together. I won't bore you with the details. Just know they have extraordinary suckage. Good thing they've scored a monopoly in town on cable, and are building that horrible building to dominate our skyline so that this city can be marked by even more ineptitude... Major suckage. I need to get me a hammer! :)

Sloth, Repentence, and other news

Well, I just woke up after managing to oversleep for an appointment- I set two alarm clocks. TWO. I don't know how I fucked up that one!
However, I still have to go see my therapist, who is concerned I'm in dire straights after missing her appointment this Monday. How can I explain to anybody when I'm still trying to get a grip on this thing, but I really am trying still the best I can.

HOPEFULLY I will get internet today... Comcast willing. They've already been out once and couldn't figure it out.

On other news, I am doing splendidly. The last three nights I took an hour+ to soak in the tub, meditate, journal (pen and paper- how archaic!), read various self-help books, and generally reflect on the process by which I have been turning into a reactive she-bitch and otherwise destroying my marriage. Seriously, it has been awesome. I'm going to try to keep it up indefinitely. It's incredibly renewing, insightful, and so far has given me three days without snapping at innocent husbands who quite frankly don't need me regressing into patterns I learned from my mom and magnified through my own demons. Awesome.

But now I have to go to make the remaining appointments. This is the first chance I've had to go online in forever it seems (and I only got, what 10 minutes)- but I think if I miss more than one appointment a day (or two a week) I'm going to have terrible appointment karma, or at least my therapist will think I'm on the edge again. And I swear I'm not. Seriously, I'm starting to figure this stuff out.. ;)

advice

I don't like the word "sin" in that it connotes guilt. I don't think that's a constructive emotion, or at least not a very evolved one. I am an expert on guilt. Also, shame. All of those insecurities that can lurk in the dusty corners of our consciousness despite our efforts to be "healthy" or "grown-up" or "over it".

I'm suspecting though that the seven deadly sins are not evil deeds so much as personal pit-falls. And rather than coming down from a fiery god shaking an angry fist, perhaps they can be read more as a maternal or at least beneficient warning of the devils that we can be in our own lives.

They are Lust
Gluttony
Greed
Sloth
Wrath
Envy
and Pride.

Right now Pride and Wrath are creating some real havoc and pain in my life. I really need to heed the warning of history's (or religion's, whatever) wisdom.

level again

Am I becoming manic or what? Somebody told me (a prof friend) that being in grad school is enough to make you manic depressive. I'm not sure about that, but this roller coaster of health sooo will. I'm vacillating between hope and despair, contentment and resentment, love and hate like an emotionally-challenged adolescent. Enough already!

I'm calm again, and trying to stay that way. The thing is that this diagnosis is not typically manifested, and doesn't not have a complete "fix". And it does result in increasingly compromised health with age no doubt...

We need to understand more. Seriously, this is going to be part of my dissertation because it's what I want and also what I need to do. Nothing is more important than this. And I need to spend a couple years working at NIH right where this research is happening! I want to figure this damn thing out- better than what they know!

What's that prayer- grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

And I KNOW I need to get out of the house and hang with some friends, but I just can't seem to make it happen! Rel- are you around? Holler at me kay?

Hey you know what, it could be worse. It could totally be worse. And it's better than it was. And I'm cooler than I used to be, and also cuter too (not that it matters, but I can enjoy it can't I?). And also I'm going to have an internet connection soon and maybe even cable television cause a person can only watch so much Jerry and Judge Judy- not that they're not AWESOME! (not sarcastic), but really.