'Tis the Season

Holiday season.

As I'm finishing my Christmas gifts it's gradually getting worse.  It seems as if each stitch is the only thing stopping me from completely losing control.  I miss her, so much.  The closer it gets to Christmas the harder it gets for me not to cry.

The most valuable gift I can give is my love, so I suppose thinking of her so much is my way of giving her as much as I can, since she isn't here in flesh and blood.

It makes me lonely. I feel so lonely without her, like someone is pulling my stomach up through my mouth, by a string.  It's heavy.

I've begun the process of lifting the weights off my shoulders, but it's tedious and slow and not without hiccups.  I'm doing the best that I know how to do and I know I'll get there eventually. I've spent far too much time teaching myself how to be at peace to let it all that work I've done to my personality go to waste. 

Things are better than they were, and I will continue to push myself to remember that sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes it's okay to accept defeat.

 “It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.”
-Rose Kennedy

My sanity seems to be at stake. 

Capo d’opera – A masterpiece

My life is an ongoing work of art and I hope when I die I am remembered as a masterpiece.

It's a good goal.

I've been feeling good and taking things easy, that's for sure. I haven't posted for awhile, but my thoughts haven't stopped for a single second.  I went home, home was awesome. How can I even begin to describe the joy I feel from seeing my family? And everyone got to meet Troy, which was awesome.  My dad always says it best:

I'm scared to death everything is gonna be alright.

Good scared for once, I feel better on a daily basis. I'm so proud of myself. Sometimes I wake up and wonder how long I was out for.  

One of the hardest aspects of writing is actually doing it. I used to think that expression meant something different than I do now.

Troy was supposed to have a procedure done on Wednesday, but it had to be rescheduled, naturally.

I have so many thoughts in my mind still, I'm really starting to organize things in my brain. This would be a perfect place to organize that, eh?

I need to keep up better! Either way, at least I'm still writing. And reading. And loving life.

I already can't wait to go home again, and it's coming up. It'll be nice to see the family again. We're also going up to see Troy's family in Indianapolis soon, crazy crazy crazy. With the holidays coming up  I feel like a busy bee. Tonight I'm relaxing and I work tomorrow. Then it's date time. Yay!

Reflections

Today is December 1st, 2012. It's the beginning of the end of the year. Being someone who LOVES fresh starts (in an OCD kind of way), I am very much looking forward to 2013. 2012 went by in a whirlwind. Time is speeding up every year. It's funny how things that happened half a year ago can feel like they are so far in the past, yet I can hardly believe that it's already going to be 2013. 

Recapping the year, it's laughable. Almost unbelievable. The start of 2012 began with a merger/sale of the company I worked at, so that has been a year long and still ongoing transitional phase. The year also started off with my dad's fiance, Gloria, falling and sustaining a leg injury. 

In February, dad almost died. Hearing that the doctor wasn't sure if he would make it through the night, making it to the hospital after 4 hours in the car, seeing him unconscious and on a ventilator, then talking with the doctor about who was responsible for making "end of life" decisions "just in case", spending a week in the ICU worrying, sitting on the bed with him during kidney dialysis treatments, feeling helpless...

I am so thankful that he pulled through. Once they found the right treatment he made a seriously miraculous recovery and was making jokes and playing poker days after the scare. The experience encouraged me to make the effort to text my dad daily, and to visit home more often. 

During the first half of the year, I was working two jobs, roughly 60 hours a week while Ryan went to school full time to try and raise his grades. Even though budgeting was hard, it was worth it because he got straight A's and we learned a lot about handling finances in difficult times. 

Around Easter, Holly broke up with her boyfriend who she lived with, and was essentially "homeless" for a month, living in a hotel near her work trying to save money to get her car fixed and make it up to Minneapolis. Then she moved in with Ryan and I into our little studio apartment until we moved into our new one bedroom. I really feel like Holly and I reconnected during that time though. Before, we had done a lot of grieving on our own. We didn't keep in touch as much. Now, even though she is living in Kentucky, we have both made more of a regular effort to talk over Skype, text, blog, and keep in touch. 

In May, my grandma died. Even though I thought I was prepared for it, it was still difficult. It was hard for my dad, and hard for Gloria. It was within the same month that my mom died (May) and only 3 years later. Of course it was hard after having a scare with Dad earlier that year. Again, it was nice that Holly and I were together to get through it. 

Then there's also the family house which finally got foreclosed on because they refused to work with my dad after he lost his wife and got forced into retirement despite him being a United States veteran who should have qualified for assistance. It's an odd experience when you go to the house you grew up in and see a lock on the door, and basically break in through a window in order to try and gather photo albums and trinkets. In all honesty, I don't think any of us wanted the house much anyways. We did abandon it, because the tragedy of my mom killing herself in that house was too much for any of us to bear. We did save photo albums and get out what we could, but in the end we know that our memories are also safe inside of us. 

In the summer, I left one of my jobs, which turned out to be the right decision as it helped my stress immensely. My sister moved down to Kentucky. Dad and Gloria were unable to get married, but we were able to visit them several times which was good. 

Winding up the year, Ryan's dad, brother, and brother's girlfriend were all hit by a car in October while crossing the street, even though they had a walk sign. Again, so thankful that everyone ended up ok, even though Ryan's dad is still recovering. It was again, traumatic because it has only been a couple of years since Ryan's mom passed away. 

This last week, two of my co-workers were let go, and I don't really understand why, which throws me into paranoia about my own position at the company. In addition, Ryan finally went to the doctor and found out that there is something off about his heart (he's been having a racing pulse and high blood pressure) so he's now on blood pressure medication and has to go back to get a heart monitor that he can wear for 24 hours to find out whether there is something to worry about. 

Oh, and my car's at the auto shop. Again. I think those are the main events of 2012, but I know there are many other ups and downs that occurred. I guess the point of the recap is that it has been a crazy year for emergencies. 

Despite all these traumatic events and emergencies, I am actually doing really well mentally. I have found a bit of a routine for myself. I have become much more proactive. I am taking a class. I spend lots of time at the library, and write more regularly. I get up earlier, I eat healthier, and am more motivated to be active and exercise. Nothing's perfect, and there are many more ways I want to grow, but I really feel like this year has been life changing. Over the year I have started to understand myself and accept myself more. I am becoming less afraid of failure, and of success. I have been more inspired, and more driven. 

I have cared less about money. I have become a coupon queen (last time we went shopping for groceries and toiletries we spent $110 total at 3 stores and I saved us $90 by using coupons. When I did the math, we averaged about $1.50 per item (that includes a 20lb turkey). Learning about budgeting and personal finance has been challenging, but it also meant that we have been controlling our money and not letting money or materials control us. 

I have let myself be sad when I feel sad. Cry when I need to cry. Wallow when I need to feel sorry for myself. I find that when I am feeling blue, if I let myself feel bad, turn on the Smiths, and be in that moment, it feels therapeutic. Even letting myself feel hopeless, or to be in despair. Giving myself a choice, which is sometimes "do I live or do I die" actually gives me the will to keep going, even when it feels like life is too overwhelming to bear. 

I have been practicing the idea that planning is essential, but plans themselves are useless. I have to allow myself to continually change the plans to fit where I currently am, since the present is a constantly changing state of being. Everything that I truly need, I was born with. 

2013 is going to be a good year. 

“To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.” ― Aristotle

I have been thinking a lot lately about what I would do if I had one year left to live. It has been useful while trying to answer the question, "What do you want?"

This question was asked to me back in May, by a therapist. I couldn't really answer her. I mean I gave her a few of my stand by responses, but ultimately told her I didn't know. In the car on the way home, I asked myself the question again, and then I balled my eyes out. It was a good cry, the kind that feels terrible for a few minutes, but then offers you a sense of peace afterwards. 

I had chosen that particular therapist because of a quote she shared on her bio page:

"It is never too late to be what you might have been." - George Eliot

So the first step has been to convince myself that it is not too late for me. Maybe until now I just haven't been sure enough of myself, or have let myself get swept up in other people's passions, or other people's perceptions of me, or maybe I just haven't considered myself worthy enough. One of the reasons that I cried so hard asking myself that question back in May is that I realized just how little I really let myself love me. How undeserving I sometimes feel. Who am I to be loved?

"What do I want?" To answer this, I have been trying to think in terms of limited time. Time sometimes feels too open ended, when really the days fly by. I don't know why, but thinking of it in terms of "You have on year left to live, what do you want?" or "If you had six months left to live, what would you want to accomplish?" is making it easier for me to free myself up for honesty. It's much easier for me to admit that there are lots of things I tell myself I want just because they are the easy responses to give rather than the real answers. 

November. It's already November of 2012. I am 26 years old. On good days lately I feel hopeful. I feel like I can make things happen for myself. I feel powerful, I feel like it would maybe be ok to let myself be fabulous again, if I ever was. 

On bad days, I am afraid. Afraid that at the end of the day, all there will be are these ups and downs and that at the end of the day nothing matters at all. Great happiness or great sadness. I have experienced them both, and does it matter? My mom often said, "Things could always be worse." We say these things to ourselves because we know that really that's just a moot statement. Of course things can be worse, and they can also be better. So what does it matter? 

So I guess I am just spending time figuring it out. Does it matter? I don't know yet, but I am still excited enough by life to want to find out more. One problem is that when I do feel hopeful and ambitious, I get overwhelmed by the longing. I do want things. I want so many things it feels like there could never be enough time to fit in all the exploring and learning and growing that I want to accomplish. 

I am trying very hard to forget everything I think I know, and start letting myself discover the personal truths that are sorting themselves out in me. I am just a hodgepodge in progress. Not perfect, not already ruined, not too late, too old, too anything. I am just me.

Here is a poem that I love for this time of year. Robert Frost is always good for my soul. 

My November Guest

My Sorrow, when she's here with me,

Thinks these dark days of autumn rain

Are beautiful as days can be;

She loves the bare, the withered tree;

She walked the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.

She talks and I am fain to list:

She's glad the birds are gone away,

She's glad her simple worsted gray

Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,

The faded earth, the heavy sky,

The beauties she so truly sees,

She thinks I have no eye for these,

And vexes me for reason why.

Not yesterday I learned to know

The love of bare November days

Before the coming of the snow,

But it were vain to tell her so,

And they are better for her praise.

- by Robert Frost

This poem comes to mind anytime this month that I have walked around Minnehaha creek near the Southdale Library in Minneapolis. The creek is so shallow and calm you can see the trees and sky perfectly reflected, almost like if you stepped in you would really be in another world. There was a time that I hated winter. Now, I don't know if I could live without the changing seasons. The cold coming and everything hibernating and the trees losing their leaves. 

I have tried to write this blog post a ridiculous amount of times. I feel that I have so much to say that I don't know where to begin, and once I do begin, everything comes pouring out and I can't make sense of anything, which makes me hesitate to post it on a blog. 

So maybe, I just need to keep this short and simple. I have been trying to get a grip on what I want out of life so that I can then put a plan in effect to make those things a reality.

In movies, I am a huge, HUGE, sucker for the montage. In particular, the "I am taking charge of my life now and making big leaps in self progress." Movies make it look so easy. An upbeat song and 30 clips that demonstrate what "getting your life on track" looks like. Oftentimes this includes shopping or a makeover and the person finally doing something for themselves. 

Anyways, in the movies this always seems very easy. I mean who wouldn't want to turn their life around or improve things if it only took the length of one pop song? 

Now I am ready to start my own, more realistic montage. Of course the first step in this is to figure out what it is I want. Easy, right? HA!

I am going to leave this post on that note. Rather than sitting here trying to perfect a blog post, I am going to take care of the other item on my list which is to spend some time figuring out what i want to do. What is truly important to me? What matters? I know that I am capable and resourceful enough to get to where I want to be, but I need to allow myself to determine where that journey begins. 

 

Describe home.

Sometimes the most complicated answers come from the most simple of questions.  I imagine myself sitting in a fourth grade class; fourth grade was a good year.  I think I really started understanding books when I was in fourth grade. I didn’t appreciate them until much later in life.  Maybe I was looking out a window, or thinking about the play rehearsal I probably had after school, but I wouldn’t have been thrown with a simple assignment such as an essay asking to describe home. 

If asked to accomplish the same assignment today, I wouldn’t even know where to begin.  My version of home has changed so many times throughout the last few years, and for the longest time I couldn’t even bring myself to acknowledge that the home I knew would never be again.  Like so many times before, and so many times to come, I got caught up in a material meaning of and forgot that home is where the heart is. 

I will never forget the feeling I had the day the abandoned sign was finally posted on the basement door.  We had made a relatively mutual decision not to care about the house, I suppose. We all acted in our own little ways like we were trying, or would try, to salvage what was left of the house.  I still, wish I would have been more proactive as far as emptying the house of possessions, but in reality, none of us tried very hard. 

That’s the thing about sentimental objects; you can only have so many. I treasure everything that reminds me of mom, but I can only have so many of those objects.  I have had to work excruciatingly hard to adjust and honestly I couldn’t have a full room of my past reminding me of her, of my mom.   I still choke up just saying the word.

Mom.

It makes my muscles tense. People constantly flatter me, complimenting me on my ability to turn a situation, to find the good in the bad.  I suppose I figure if I’m crying I might as well do it with a smile.  I accept situations for what they are; you have to change, if you can’t change the situation.  I can deal with situations. I take a situation, assess it with my heart, and take action accordingly. Words are elegant weapons, Words I can’t even bring myself to speak.

“Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts.” Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

My heart weeps.  In my darkest moments I can’t contain the small sobs that escape its chambers.  

I don’t ignore it anymore; I let it weep.  I still use it sometimes as white noise, it’s evolved from a sound I feared to a sound I use to lull myself to sleep, the most prominent evidence that even in death, she remains a consistent and necessary part of my life. 

I’m writing this because of my recent dream.

I mostly remember that Troy and I were at the house.  It was clean and the doors from the bathroom into the master bedroom were open.  It was as if I had seen those sea green walls yesterday.  There were other people walking around too, probably Heather and Ryan.  I opened the door to the basement to find that the stairs were completely missing.  You literally couldn’t even get to the basement.  No one else seemed to notice. 

I couldn’t stop staring at the rats.   There were rats scurrying around a pile of dead rats.  It was disgusting.  It was as if someone had quarantined this part of the house in order to prevent further infection. 

Over a long period of time, I have done the same with certain emotions and memories, which remain well kept in vast vaults hidden within the mazes of my mind. It isn't that I want them gone, I selfishly keep them locked so far away until both my sanity and my memories can live in a civil alliance....and I'm getting there...slowly, but surely.

Adapting

There are some traumas you can’t recover from, no matter the amount of therapy.  Ever since I was a child I have endured family disaster after family disaster.  My family is far from perfect, but sometimes I wonder how it would have been if things were different. If wishes were fishes, ya know?

What if mom had never gotten cancer?

What if I never found out about my ½ brother, Ryan?

What if mom didn’t have to fight depression?

I have so many questions, answers I’ll never know.

I remember the paper I wrote about the day I found out my mom had cancer. The teacher, who I don’t think liked me all that much, made a point about this paper and how it moved her to tears, and I was really proud of myself.  I didn’t know; back then, that less than ten years later I would write a paper about the day my mother died.  I am proud of these papers not only because I aced them, but because they really meant something to me.  Both of those papers moved people to tears, as my mother majestically moves my inspiration towards positivity.  

To me, writing is the most intimate way to emotionally move someone.  Literature.  It is so important to me, documentation.  Writing. Journals especially. Journals and diaries are tools some of us use to de-cloud our brains, very important.  We manipulate words into beautiful pieces of art.  I appreciate and value words and the way they fit together, depending on where you put them.  It’s all up to you.  You are an architect of a cathedral of words where you store secrets and desires and fears.  Once you put those words on paper you can manipulate them, and eventually you can teach yourself to not only manipulate your words but also manipulate your thoughts. 

It’s techniques such as these that allow writers to function. It’s a skill some people are born with and a skill some of us develop as a coping mechanism. The thoughts in my head are transported to paper, like musicians manipulate notes into beautiful music my ears eat up like a pastry from my favorite pastry shop.  If you don’t have a favorite pastry shop then you don’t know what I mean (and you should get one).  Everyone copes in different ways. I have found my passion and I enjoy indulging in the passions of others.

How long people wish to find a light in the darkness.  How difficult it can be with the past consistently looming in the corner, creeping in at night to suck away the light that lingers. 

“The brightest light casts the darkest shadow.”
― Jess C. Scott The Darker Side of Life

My mother was on the higher end of the brightness scale.

The brightest and darkest light signals the eye is capable of sensing span across nine orders of magnitude, a factor of roughly one billion apart. Because the eye can only sense a contrast ratio of one thousand it adapts its definition of what is black.  The light level that is considered “black” spans across six orders of magnitude, a factor of one million. 

~ Our eyes are capable of sensing light in almost complete darkness.  This is amazing.  We can adjust to extreme measures.

It takes approximately 20-30 minutes for eyes to adjust from bright sunlight to complete darkness, becoming ten thousand to one million times more sensitive than at full daylight.

~It takes time.  Adjusting from light to dark takes time.  It’s a process. You aren’t going to be able to see in the dark right away, you have to allow yourself time to adapt.

The Purkinje effect takes place during this process, changing the eye’s perception of color. 

~There is consequence to every action. We can’t just plunge into darkness without any consequence.  Something must be sacrificed, a little part of our reality, a little part of us. 

It only takes the eye approximately five minutes to adapt from darkness to bright sunlight. 

~Darkness is a slow, grueling process to adapt to, but we can adapt if we must.  Light is easier, sight is a sense we often take for granted.

I understand this is very basic. Maybe not even the entirely correct terminology or phrasing, but the general concept is here, and it’s an event that is systematic.

“…And when you sense a faint potentiality for happiness after such dark times you must grab onto the ankles of that happiness and not let go until it drags you face-first out of the dirt-this is not selfishness, but obligation. You were given life; it is your duty to find something beautiful within life no matter how slight.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

My sister and I, we will be okay.  Due to circumstance we have been given a unique view of the world. Together we will adapt and together we will grow.  Our scars will never fully heal, but we are true artists and will cover those scars with magnificent tattoos over time.  We are fighters. We have more love for each other than any depression could elude. We are completely judge free, for I can’t conceptualize a situation where I wouldn’t support my sister.

“I don't know how to stop the atrocities. I don't know how to make people care. But looking into my sister's eyes, we seem to have carved out something between us that none of the madness can touch. Invisible threads.”
― Lisa Shannon, A Thousand Sisters: My Journey into the Worst Place on Earth to Be a Woman

“Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.”
― Brené Brown

My sister and I have agreed to do a joint blog venture. I perused the web for sister quotes to come up with a blog name. I stumbled across this:

"Sister to sister we will always be,

A couple of nuts off the family tree."

~Author Unknown

They may say it's the apple that doesn't fall far from the tree, but in my family we are definitely all nuts. 

          What did the big nut say to the little nut?           I will always cashew when you fall. 

          What did the little nut say to the big nut?           Why are you always pecan on me?

          What acorn-y couple of jokes right?

Being nuts was always a joke in our house. My sister and I were lucky to have parents that were able to make difficult times into laughable memories. My sister and I learned to roll with the punches. Life knocks you down, but you learn to get back up. It's a lot easier to do that when you have a family that supports you. I feel lucky for that. 

I miss my mom. Sometimes just admitting that makes me feel momentarily paralyzed with longing sadness. I just pulled out a box of her journals. Reading parts of one of the the last ones she wrote in. It's hard to explain, but my mom was really funny. Even when she was writing about being really sad, she still had a sense of humor. Here is an excerpt:

Saturday           11-8-08

"In group we talked about being more positive. I'm trying, but I'm positive I'm very, very depressed." -Mom's Journal

Here is an excerpt from one of my journals:

May 28th, 2009

"I'm sad today. Well, all week. But the tears aren't going to hold out much longer. Started crying on the way to Leo's. I think my mom wants- I think she might be dead by this time next year. Suicide." 

Anyways, something I have wanted to share. I graduated from the University of Minnesota on May 17th. I bought myself a journal, the kind where you are supposed to just write a few sentences a day. I love journals. Anyways, I did this for about a week. On May 28, 2009 that is what I wrote. That night, after I finished dog sitting (Leo was a dachshund)  I went out with friends. Sometime near bar close, I got a call from my sister that my mom had overdosed. I didn't even think much of it. My mom had been in and out of the "loony bin" as she liked to call it. I left the bar with friends, and called my dad. My mom was dead. 

Time heals, but scars will always remain. When I wrote that in my journal, it wasn't as if my sister and I hadn't already had concerns about my mom taking her life. It's just, we joked about it. Writing it in my journal meant I was really admitting it to myself that I was scared for her. It makes me think of how we are connected to our family. When they die, you feel them take a piece with you. She was ready to go, and despite the distance, I think I could feel it. 

I guess that's a sad way to start a blog, but I guess I have just been feeling a little lost lately. By lately I mean for a long time, even before my mom died, and by a little, I mean a lot. So I might as well start writing about it. Maybe no one will read our blog, maybe it will just serve as an outlet for me to work out my pain. Maybe one person will read one phrase and feel like someone understood them. Grief is complicated. Depression is hard. 

I want to be the kind of person who can live unapologetically. In some of my darkest moments the words that have come to me are, "Live with conviction." It's not enough just go through the motions, even though I so often do. I want to stop thinking of the future as some saving grace. I want to embrace the present. Stop worrying so much about where everything is going or what effect I am going to have on things.