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This time last year was a dark, dark place for me. Very dark. And it took me weeks and weeks to really grasp that I didn’t need to live in the dark place, that I could reach out and get help. It was a huge mental shift for me, but somehow I managed to get myself to a doctor and cry in her office.
Last year my tears and darkness stemmed primarily from something called caregivers depression. I was exhausted and strapped and giving everything in my soul to taking care of GM. There was nothing left for me. And then I began to feel like there was just no point to my life.
Sure, there might have been some underlying sadness at having to take such a long break from trying for a baby. But to be honest it wasn’t the main course of my meal of depression. It was maybe the soup course, something else I could soak in.
I was on medication for approximately three months and it honestly saved my life. I may not have realized it at the time, but looking back I can see the path I was on & it was not good. I am thankful for the counsel I got from friends and my Mother, the nudges to seek help.
There has been some internal growth in a year, I am now a bit more fine-tuned about how my chemistry works: how my brain can go from happy thoughts to doom thoughts. And once again I am aware that I need help. I can’t waste any more time feeling like this. It just sucks.
I would so much rather be a happy person, a person that is able to bounce back from devastation. But I am not bouncing, and I think you all can see that. I am already getting the nudges from good friends. Luckily it hasn’t taken me as long as it did a year ago. I do not feel ashamed for recognizing that I need help. Instead I actually feel pride that I didn’t let myself get in the way.
I called my doctor. This is the doctor that helped me through the hep C scare of October & November. She is kind and funny and honest. I have an appointment with her tomorrow morning immediately after GM gets her hair done. There was a part of me that got all anxious over making time for myself to do this. I knew that adding something extra to GM’s friday routine might really throw her off, but I need to take care of me. It’s important. I’m choosing to get better.
Woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head
Another day. Just a regular, plain, ordinary, nothing happening day. A wednesday.
The monotony of life is starting to feed into my already scheduled depression. I am becoming paranoid about little things: why aren’t people returning e-mails? Why are the neighbors that live on either side of our house arguing in front of my window? Why is GM still sleeping? Why don’t I have more control over my life?
It sucks to be on roller skates inside your own brain, going round and round and not really getting anywhere.
I am ready to be done with January. I need a new month with new prospects for happiness. I need to be out of the month that brought me the happiest day of my life and the lowest day of my life.
I’m tired of the setbacks and the blue days that lead into blue nights that lead into blue weeks. I am tired of being so needy and clingy and demanding. I just don’t even like myself anymore.
Probably not a good idea to blog when it is raining and the things that you want out of life seem so far away.
February? So soon?
Thanks to an e-mail from the fabulous Sarah I discovered that Sue is early. Sue! Come on, you know Sue. Head over to your ’scope and tell me what is resonating with you in regards to her predictions for next month. I am going to review mine & share my favorite bits in the comments.
What sounds good for February?
(please also go sit with Sarah as she wades through a complicated blip in her FET cycle)
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Moving right along…
First, four bullet points for you:
- I have selected the photo to showcase for last week’s Mini Photo Friday theme. The photo was selected based 100% on how much I actually wanted to eat it. Go here to see it.
- I was totally unclear about when the next theme would be announced. The theme: black & white is applicable for this week, this photo friday. Although I will confess that I am happy to already see some great submissions. Make sure you upload your photo into the flirckR pool. If you only put it on your blog I may not see it.
- Next week you will see a poll within a post and YOU will select which photo should be showcased. Winner of showcase gets a creative responsibility as a prize. (oooh!)
- As for yesterday’s post. I know you all have questions. Hell, I certainly do. But until my dispute has been heard and responded to I won’t elaborate. I will say that I am confused and if I am able to fight it I will. It means a lot that all of you guys were just as up in arms as I was. I have gotten several e-mails from you regarding other options and they were greatly received. Thank you.
And now, as I said, we will be moving right along…
Today is an election day in my state. (oh it does not feel right to type the words “my state” let me rephrase.) Today is an election day in the state where I currently have to live. I have spent a lot of time on research and after making a mental list of pros and cons I am fairly certain that I will be dangling my chad for whoever looks best in a pant suit.
What kills me is that, at the end of the day, my vote does not matter. Now before you think this is just another one of those, “what difference could my vote make?” rants it is not. In fact I DO think every vote counts. Don’t you guys ever watch teen movies? The prom queen vote always comes down to the last couple of votes.
But in this case, in my state, my vote literally does not count. It is not because I am not registered to vote here (I am) and it is not because the people at the polling place don’t like me (they do) it is because, in a move to draw attention to our state we moved our primary up. And then we got slapped on the wrists.
I can not tell you how frustrating it is to know that my voice will not be a part of the great chorus of the primary election process. (but it won’t stop me from singing, er, voting)
It makes me think about the other times in my life where I felt like I didn’t have a say: A choice was made for me. I can live with someone else telling me what is for supper (hell, I actually would love that). But what hurts is someone telling me how I should look, how I should act, how I should live my life. (there is a deeper post there)
GM is up and stirring and I need to attend to her, but I wonder what things in her life she didn’t have a say in. What about you? What don’t you have a say about?
But of course…
Some of you may notice that my side bar looks different. And others of you may notice that the piggy bank has taken a sharp return back to the starting gate. Yes. Some things just don’t work out. My ad account was disabled and I will not receive any of the indicated earnings. I suppose this paragraph is a cautionary tale. I have submitted a dispute to the disabling, but do not expect it to go in my favor. Because things rarely do…
This was an especially hard and difficult weekend before I found out about the disabling so I am taking the news pretty hard. I’m just tired of the motherfucking set backs.
Thanks for the support that you guys showed- I guess there is such a thing as too much. (I kid)
Looks like the one thing I can do well is setback induced depression. Bring it on.
Sweetness: A photo Essay
(Or how to make sweet, Southern style, tea)
And now GM and I are going to enjoy our morning coffee and prepare to watch last night’s Miss America pageant. (did anyone else watch the TLC show leading up to the pageant? Go Miss Washington & Miss Alaska!)
February 29: a proposal
Thank you for the hand holding yesterday. Today is a fresh start. A chance to power through and be in the moment. A good friend, who is still suffering the reverberation of a recent end of a pregnancy, wrote to me last night about the idea of having a memorial. I will admit that at the time I read her e-mail it didn’t click for me. This morning, however, it does.
There has been a lot of loss recently. And before that. And before that. And before that. So many of us have either had a loss of pregnancy or known someone that did. With each announcement of a loss, and maybe this is just me, but each post of loss brings me right back to my loss. My unpregnant moments. And then the moments of friends. It is a circle of sadness.
One of the shitty things about loss, especially this kind (& please forgive me the word “loss”. I know many of you hate that word, but for lack of a better one at the moment I am using it) is that there are so many dates to smack you upside the face. There are the dates of trimesters not reached or estimated due dates not achieved…almost birthdays, almost first days of school. All of those damn almosts.
This year there is a date on our calendar that only shows up every four years. This year I propose that we take a small moment of this “extra” day and commemorate our losses. On February 29th post whatever feels right to you to honor your grief. You can simply post a photograph, or a poem, a post with no words…whatever helps you through. If you have not known loss first hand you can post in friendship for those that have.
If you don’t have a place to post I will post anything you wish to share on that day on my blog.
If anyone would like to create a symbol for this memorial please contact me. I did some research, but nothing is feeling quite right.
ask…& she delivers
one quiet little plea was e-mailed. one small little note describing the shitty of my afternoon. two large bags of wine brought home. so much thanks.
Incrustation Infinity
Sometimes sadness can heal on its own. Scabs form and cover the open wounds of sorrow and the throbbing pain is replaced with something itchy and peeling. Sometimes the sadness underneath the scab is left alone long enough that it just heals completely and the next thing you know the scab has flicked away revealing smooth and unmarked emotions underneath.
And then there are times when the scab catches on something, a bit of clothing or a bit of reality, and the wound is opened again. Often the new wound will hurt more because you were under the impression that healing was happening. You were thinking that maybe time was mending the fuck out of the wound and that everything was just going to eventually go back to the way things were before the sadness.
Oh but it doesn’t. My scab came off too soon and it left me sobbing and gasping for breath at the shock of it all. I mean, hell, I was doing better: taking showers, doing the laundry, making plans. But we don’t always get to plan when we are faced with scab peelers. Scab peelers could show up in the form of the pottery barn for kids catalogue or the accidental click too many within your photo bin and suddenly you are looking at that smug and now defunct positive test.
Usually they are in the form of people. People that are just bopping along and living their lives and seriously not meaning to fuck your shit up. But oh these random people can hurt like nothing else. They pull those scabs off so fast and so severely that you might feel dizzy before the tears come. Or maybe the tears just come and then you see that the scab is on the floor by your big toe.
This afternoon I took GM to her Friday hair appointment. We were experimenting with coming at a later time to see if it made our morning routine smoother (didn’t). GM was in a sort of out of it mood and I was so tired that I didn’t even manage to switch out flip flops for real shoes. We were early for the appointment- something that is never good. With time to fill GM gets anxious. Suddenly she won’t know where she is or why she is there. Suddenly she gets suspicious or agitated. I do the best that I can to occupy her mind by flipping through magazines or pointing out cars in the parking lot.
As we waited in the lobby a woman waddled in and sat next to GM. Yes. Waddled. You know where I am going with this, don’t you. GM was now transfixed on this woman and openly gawked at her. Trying to cancel out any unidentifiable energy that GM was exuding I gathered my strength and smiled, actually grinned, at the pregnant stranger. She, being what I am sure is a perfectly lovely woman, smiled back.
Seeing the smile GM pounced on an opportunity to chat. Except she was speaking so softly that the woman needed to scoot over to the chair next to me. Our thighs were touching. Our thighs. My unpregnant thighs were touching her pregnant thighs. And I know that GM was partly enchanted by this woman’s obvious and “make no mistake about it” pregnancy bump. I know that GM must have felt this sort of kinship or understanding with her.
And then my scab fell off.
In crashed the emotions that I had hoped were gone. In came the waves of sadness and paranoia and loss and inadequacies. I was no longer a granddaughter taking care of her GM- I was an unpregnant girl sitting next to a pregnant woman who was able to captivate and charm my GM precisely because she was in a condition that I was not.
I literally tingled and felt my body go cold with envy.
Soon the woman was whisked back to a station and I tried my best get it together. GM turned to me and remarked with all of her perfect timing, “Boy! She sure is going to have a baby.” I nodded, because it was true, and then focused on biting the inside of my cheek to keep from crying.
When it was GM’s turn to get her hair styled I looked up in dread as the woman from the lobby was, indeed, just one station over. Her purse next to my purse. Her conversation in the same air as mine.
Things I wish I had not heard: 1) It was such a surprise! We weren’t even trying! 2) We certainly think she will be a redhead. 3) I think we will name her after my Great Grandmother.
You can’t unhear things. I have tried.
So now I am doing all that I can to get my wound to heal again. I wonder if I can convince Mother to bring home a vat of wine. Old motto: Time heals all wounds. I kick that motto to the curb. To hell with it. New motto: wine makes a stronger scab to cover the wound.
Friday is for Photos.
Ages and ages ago I decided that I needed to have something forcibly creative to look forward to every week. Having a blog that was ALL one topic was tedious and no fun. I needed something interactive and silly. I needed to get out of my computer and see what other people were up to. One of my big passions is photography. I figured if I could condition myself to take one new photograph a week and maybe convince some of you guys- we could count on at least one day where we weren’t obsessing about that other stuff. Instead we would be getting our culture on and learning more about the folks within our blog roll.
Photo Friday was born on January 25, 2006- exactly two years ago. (A fact that I only just now realized. How cool!) The first theme was “face mask”…man that seems like ages ago. Since then many themes have been explored to varying degrees of participation.
Well now that I am, once again, in dire need of distraction I am resurrecting Photo Friday. I have been building up to the announcement all week (well, only in the post titles…but it was a build up in my mind).
For those of you familiar with how to participate I hope you will. I have set up a NEW SITE just for theme announcements**. This is also a place where I would like showcase a few photos each week in one place. I can post photos sized 640 x 480 in all their glory on that site and each week you will select which photos will be showcased. (oh yes, we are bringing in a poll box)
For those of you that are unfamiliar with the workings of Photo Friday here is a Quick How-To:
- Each week, usually on a Tuesday or Wednesday, a theme will be announced here.
- Between Friday and Monday upload your photo to your blog and/or our flickR group
- Tuesday morning the polls will be open for you to select your favorite photo of the week. (polls will be found on the main Creating Motherhood blog)
- By Thursday morning the selected photos will be showcased on the Photo Friday blog.
- Repeat
An awesome post by Chicory detailing how to join the flickR group can be found here.
And finally- you can’t have a post yakking away about photos and themes and shit and not just go for it. So this week we will have a mini Photo Friday. If you are set up and able to join in please do.
The theme for the mini Photo Friday is: My Favorite Treat
Happy uploading! Let me know here if you participate with this theme so I can get some practice in creating the poll. (thank you!) Also let me know if you need any help setting up flickR or anything related to Photo Friday. The more active participants the more fun it is.
**if you check out the new site you will discover next week’s theme. shhhhh!
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