No, Panties!

Last night Bean and I went to Wal Mart and I bought (among a LOT of other things) some panties. Fancy ones with lace that say "Princess" and "Sweetheart." I love them. Anyway, as we were gathering the bags to take inside I dropped a pair on the ground and said, "No, Panties!"
Bean's eyes got really big and she hissed, "Mother! We are in public! Stop saying 'no panties'!"
"But!" I retrieved my panties from the ground and held them up as evidence, "I wasn't saying 'no panties,' I was saying 'NO' to my panties who wanted to be on the ground."
"Mother!" She squeeked, "You will stop saying 'panties' until we are inside the house! We have neighbors!!"
I didn't tell her that our neighbors have heard a LOT worse than "panties" and sometimes it's coming from inside the house. I worry that they'll get the wrong idea and call the police or something.
"Panties," I said, because I am a grown up. "Panties, panties, panties, panties."
"And stop talking to your panties, Mother. It's weird."
She's got me there.
Several people I know have been taking advice from their pants. Good advice, too, like "Hey exercise!" and "No more snacking!"
My pants are falling down today, so clearly they are saying, "Take me off and find some jammies, girl! You need to rest more!"
Why yes, pants, I believe you're right.
"And also, keep eating those Girl Scout Cookies and there will be no more falling down."
But pants, shouldn't I just wear a belt?
"Belt Schmelt, eat the damn cookies."

I think my pants are in cahoots with my tummy.

Funny that my pants speak so clearly when the messages from my head are so mixed.

I want to be left alone. I want quiet and no movement. No stimulus. Nothing. A big blank sphere of empty.
I also want people around me who need me and love me and want to be around to take care of me and let me take care of them. And I want there to be laughing and crying and all of the messy life stuff.

What is restorative? What is draining? I sometimes feel like if I have to interact with another person I will be rendered mute. Like I have nothing at all left to say to anyone. (Of course that's a crock of shit, because all I have inside me are words).
And sometimes there is a little break in my day - instant messaging a friend or an impromptu lunch that fuels me in ways that isolation never could.

Oh good, something else to struggle to balance.

My pants say that balance is overrated and also could I please stop buying the fabric softener with the flowers on it. They apparently like the bear.

So this morning, faced with a basket of clean panties I pulled out the pair that says "Princess" (because I am and I like when that is recognized, so they are my favorites) and Bean said, "No, wear the "Sweetheart" ones, they go better with your bra."
"Bean, nobody's going to even see that."
"You never know, mom," she smiled, "you might get into an accident!"

Funkadelic

But not in a good way.

I have been a little (lot) down lately.
Down is not exactly the right word though. Stretched thin. Delicate. Easily shattered. Last week between Bean's health and upcoming school deadlines I was in pretty sad shape.

Luckily I have wonderful friends and a very sweet Bad, Bad Man to try to take care of me. And I let them. Sometimes even I can admit defeat and allow someone else to help with the heavy lifting.
And I must say, that Bad, Bad Man went to almost heroic efforts to make me feel better. To the point where my mother said, "He's not trying to get serious with you, is he?"
After Bean and I stopped laughing we assured her that no, that Bad, Bad Man is not interested in taking things to the "next level."
Seriously.
Wow.

Saturday I went to an 8-hour seminar to prepare for the licensing exam. Um, Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

First: I do not test well. At all. In fact, one of the reasons I picked this college is because the Master's program I was interested in did not require the GRE. Honest to bob.

Second: I have taken some practice tests for this thing. Scoring them made me want to go work at Wendy's.

Third: It's a comprehensive exam over everything I have learned and forgotten, as well as the stuff I didn't learn over the past four years.

Let's review the past four years: wedding, infertility, bought a house, father-in-law gets cancer, father-in-law dies, husband disintegrates, husband loses job, husband dies, grief, guilt, Bean starts middle school. Yup. I think that's about it.

Fourth: This license is necessary for me to be a social worker. The thing that I have been working toward for the last four hellish, ridiculous, horrible years.

Fifth: 25% of the people who take this test fail the first time.

Fifth: I know two people who had to take it more than three times and one of them still hasn't passed. And these are not stupid people.

The professor who teaches the workshop is my favorite... and he made it seem a little less scary. "YOU ONLY HAVE TO PASS!!" He bellowed at least once an hour.
Sure. I only have to pass. Sure.
But what if I don't?? What if I'm in that 25%?
I have a plan. I know what steps I need to take. I have structure for studying now, and I have some more practice exams to take and I have 3x5 note cards and Amazon is sending me a very helpful book.
I can do this.
Maybe.

But even if I do pass it, it's just another link in the chain of events that are going to completely change my life.

I have to graduate and pass the exam, then get a (new) job, quit the station and then figure out what my life looks like after grad school.
And it's not like I have my pre-grad school life to hope to "get back." Before grad school I was newly married and looking forward to spending my life with a husband who loved me. Before grad school all I thought about was having another baby. Before grad school I worked full time at a the radio station. Before grad school I didn't knit.

My life before grad school seems so foreign to me. And all I have known for four years is crisis... so what happens when that's over? How do I settle in to a real life after all of this? What are the steps?

There are things I want to do. I want to sew. I want to travel. I want to accumulate savings and lose weight. I want to write.

Well, the "NapLover Handbook" says a NapLover in crisis needs lots of love and hugging and kissing. She also needs chocolate and a variety of other foods. And also sleep. Lots and lots of sleep.

I'm off to eat some Hershey's Kisses and then go to bed.

Unclench

OK. So Bean is fine. She's just a teenager. Irritability and difficulty sleeping are also symptoms of adolescent depression, and the bruises are apparently just bruises.

I am so relieved.

I was trying so hard to stay rational and calm and not freak out... but I was really scared. I didn't talk about anything but anemia as a possibility, but she was scared too. While we waited for them to call her name she said, "What if it's like Jeff?" I knew what she meant. Jeff had been in for tests a few months before he died and they didn't indicate anything was wrong. I said, "But it's not. He never told them what was wrong so they didn't know what to check. We're telling them what's wrong and they're checking."
We are just both understandably touchy about this particular topic.

The first time I saw Dr. N after he died she sat down with me and his chart and she showed me what they tested and we talked about what tests would have shown the problem and why she didn't know use them. He was not at all honest about how he was feeling.

So now I feel like I overreacted... but that's OK with me. In this case I would rather overreact.

Have a great weekend everyone!!

ps. Dear SP... just a quick THANK YOU! I'll be in touch!

if it's not one thing it's your mother...

Physical therapy went well. She says I have healed, but I just haven't built up any strength.
And also I might have to wear an orthopedic insert in my shoes.
Which means no Birks and no Crocs.
I am inconsolable.

And Bean isn't feeling well... hasn't been for awhile, so I made an appointment for Monday. When I told my mom what was going on she (the nurse) freaked out and demanded that I get her in sooner.
And then she wanted to come over and see her...
I said, "Mom, she's in school."
So she insisted that she see Bean on her way home.

Some background:
My mom is a nurse. Her mom is a nurse. I am a nurse's daughter. This means we don't go to the doctor for minor ailments: colds, flu, warts, sprains, bleeding that can be stopped within the hour, etc. When I was a child you had to be on death's door before mom thought doctors were necessary. I remember one time my temperature rose above 103 degrees... mom stripped me and put me in a cool bath and gave me Tylenol. I know that if that hadn't worked she would have taken me in, she wasn't heartless or neglectful. Just practical.
What, after all, is a doctor going to do or say that she didn't already know and wasn't already doing?
Her coolness and efficient nurse practicality is actually comforting to me now.

So when my mom freaks out about symptoms it is scary.
Luckily, The Fabulous Michelle was on hand to remind me that my mom was freaking out and I should not ride on that crazy train with her.

She's having some lab work done today... I am 99.9% sure she's just anemic, which is totally treatable. But the other alternatives are scary. Way scary. WebMD should be ashamed of its self for scaring me like that. Seriously... go to WebMD and type "fatigue" and "bruising" into the search engine.

I know, right?

So I'm going to head home and take care of my Bean and then we're going to have ice cream... and if she's up for it we might even head to Twist.

Evilest Ex

Physical therapy starts tomorrow... I know it's good for me, but maybe that's why I'm dreading it so much.

I hate good for me.

I do like lunch with Sally and surprise visits to Twist. We had a very nice lunch today and I got a muffin to go... when the mid-afternoon snacky hit me I opened this:


Isn't that lovely?!? It's just a simple muffin, but it felt like a present.






I don't know if it's stress or hormones or what, but I have had varying degrees of headache for more than 10 days. Enough already. Today it was exasperated by the automated air freshener that is on the other side of the wall from me. I ended up camping out in the conference room... which made me a prime target for everyone who felt chatty. My favorite.

Bean had a school thing tonight so we went... it was called "Family Fun Night," but it was actually "Teach Parents about Standardized Testing" night.
Fuck that, fuck them.
Deep breath.
I understand what they're trying to do... but the parents who need to know that kids need appropriate foods and amounts of sleep to do well in school DON'T COME TO FAMILY FUN NIGHT AT SCHOOL.
And don't even get me started on testing.
(headache headache headache)

Also, this town is just too fucking small... there are too many people who know me and everyone I was married to. Apparently the idiot stepmother has been lurking on my Twitter... which probably means she is lurking on my blog. Ick. (Oh, hi S! Nothing to see here). My friend said she was interested in taking classes at Twist, but was afraid to run into (get this) the evilest ex.
That would be me.
Evilest.
Right.
That's me all over!
I make unreasonable demands and change plans at the last second and have been milking them dry with my constant increasing of Bean's child support and won't even let them see her.
Oh wait... nope. Don't do any of that.
I know! I say bad things about them to Bean in an attempt to make her hate them!
Nope... Don't do that either. I actually defend the idiot step-mother when she says something stupid that hurts Bean's feelings.

She is so tiresome.
Maybe I should be more open to out-of-state job offers.

Signs

I finished A Girl's Guide to Vampires by Katie MacAlister(10) last night, and Land of Marvels by Barry Unsworth(11) this afternoon... two veeeeeeery different books. The latter is not a book I'd normally pick up on my own, it's for the next Literary Feast. It was good enough... and the story did pick up for me after the first 100 pages or so... but it didn't do much for me.

Well, so much for my plan to avoid artificial sweeteners. I made it, like, three whole days. I think I need to just be more forceful with myself about the whole "wanting something besides water and tea" thing.
In fact, I'm going to get up and get more water right now...

OK. That's better.

I did have some really great iced tea last night - Bean and I went to Smash Burger. The burger was awesome, but the tea was the best tea I've had in a fast-food place. Really good. Really really good.

It's interesting to me that almost everyone I know is having some kind of irritability issue right now. Nobody feels quite right. I'm more likely to burst into tears than scream a blue streak, but even I have had my moments (you know, swearing and then crying).
(It's probably all the Nutra-sweet, right?)
I'm just saying, tread carefully people. We're all gonna blow.

I'm also having some rather disturbing dead-husband dreams, and apparently recliners can still send me into a panic attack. There is a blue recliner in 2 pieces by the side of the road on my way to work. The first time I saw it - almost even before I registered what it was - my vision shifted and there was a dull ringing in my ears. I took my foot off the accelerator and took a deep breath and my vision cleared... The whole thing happened in seconds, but I cried all the way to work. It seems like these things should stop having this effect on me at some point. Like I should be able to sleep through the night on a regular basis and not feel pierced when I see recliners and Notre Dame insignia and Cubs hats and lottery tickets.
It seems like I should stop feeling broken.

It is interesting to me, though, how we continue on toward our destinations and move through our days, even when we feel pierced or deflated or broken. It brings context to those absent or blank looks on strangers' faces. Maybe sometimes it's not that they are lazy or bored, sometimes it is that they are gripped by internal mess. Maybe sometimes they are just getting through the day. For the first six months or so after Jeff died I should have worn a sign, "My Husband Died, I'm Not Really Like This." Maybe we should all have signs.

Breathing

I finished Sing Them Home by Stephanie Kallos(9) this morning. It is well written and sad... and a lot of alienation - of the characters and the reader. Interesting. There are these bits of this eccentric small-town life that have Welsh roots and remain mysterious despite their constant recurrence - which makes the reader feel like an outsider.

It has been an emotional couple of weeks - and I find I'm not alone in this. People are flinging around all sorts of energy and nobody seems to know how to just settle down. Least of all me.

Headachey and restless and prone to tears... incapable of making rational decisions.
I find myself again in that place where I just want to raise my arms over my head and hope (hopehopehope) that someone saves me before I go under. There is nobody up there, ready to save me. I know that. And I am too invested to fail... so I will keep moving forward. I feel like I am not meeting any of the needs that are presented to me and I am (of course) failing everyone. Again.

In these times I remember the early days of Jeff. The tenderness and calm in him that seemed so limitless. I was so easily comforted, secured, repaired. He was so available to me. So sure. So willing to hold tight to me.

So it's no wonder that I flinch at kindness now, anticipating the inflated cost of everything good. (There is no plenty without loss, no boon without sacrifice, no perfection without misshape). I am terrified at the prospect of the one thing I need most of all: calm, consistent, reassuring comfort. Someone who does not need me to be strong every second of every day. Someone who will love me without hesitation.

I need these things (don't we all?) and I am terrified of these things... because what if it doesn't exist, and if it does exist how much does it cost?

Jeff was the only man whose love I never questioned. I knew exactly how he felt about me and I knew that it was not likely to change. The balance due on that kind of security was so much higher than I could ever have predicted. Much higher than I could afford.

Time to breathe.
It helps. And sometimes it's really all you can do.