Keep On Trying

“If you want something that you’ve never had, you must do something that you’ve never done.”

I’ve had this quote in my head for weeks, maybe even for months now. I have been trying to use it as a personal mantra of sorts as I deal with the anxieties that going to college have stirred up in me. I don’t know who to attribute it to and I’m certain that isn’t the point.  I’ve spent my entire life believing that if I just worked harder I, and therefore we, would make it. I still think that there is a truth there, but what I am trying to change is what I am working harder at. I’ve had moments this summer,sitting in my math class staring at an algebraic formula on the board in front of me, when I’ve thought, “I was a really good baker. I should just go back to that.” I have to remind myself that my back isn’t going to make it another 30+ years in the food service industry. I have to remind myself that after my last job as a baker I ended up in a nuthouse. My mom hates it when I refer to that time of my life in such a way. Somehow psychiatric hospital is okay with her, but nuthouse, or looney bin is not. I tried to explain to her that I needed to look back on my past with a sense of humor.

The last time that I was called up to the board to solve a problem in front of a class it was chalk I held in my hand. I could sit here and blame my brilliant mathematician father for creating a math phobia in me so deep that certain words my teacher uses trigger panic attacks, or, even better, the feeling that I am going to shit myself. That’s how much math scares me! It’s tied into my goddamn bowels, not that I’ve shit myself yet, but my stomach gets sick. Blaming my dad, or wearing the victim t-shirt, as I’ve come to think of it, hasn’t gotten me very far in life at all.

Defining courage is relative, but for me this summer it has been continuing to go to class everyday. It has been studying when I feel like crying, or napping, doing my homework even when I think I am writing down the wrong answers, and resisting the urge to run out of the classroom in the middle of a test.

If financial aid and possibly a student loan pan out I hope to be able to attend full time in the fall. I have ideas as far as what program I wish to get a certificate in, mostly careers in the medical field that have a high demand, decent pay and benefits, and a reduced potential for continuing to exacerbate my back problems, if that’s at all possible. A lot of these programs are already full of students who got their asses in gear earlier in the year than I did. I’m just going to continue to enroll in classes that will be applicable as prerequisites no matter which path I choose. In that new agey way of speaking I loathe, I believe that if I just keep trying I will find my way. Also, just to brag slightly because I want to, my math teacher told me that I was at a B+ the last time that I checked in with him, and since then I’ve handed in one homework assignment that I got 100% on, and taken an exam that I got an A on, so that puts me at, hell I don’t know, now. I’m doing fine is my point.

' July 10th, 2010 at 04:50pm 6 comments

I’m Still Alive

I am recovering from bronchitis. I just thought that I had a cold until I went into the doctor with an earache and he xrayed my chest. I hope the antibiotics help. I feel so drained, as if I need to just drink water and sleep.

My son is back from Canada now. What stressful hell. I’ll just say that I won’t be speaking to those family members up north again and leave it at that.

Nathan found a job already at a nearby store and seems to be happy just doing that right now. Yes, we wanted him to go back to school, but he doesn’t want to right now and I can’t push him, as he always goes the opposite direction.

Polly currently has a 3.8 GPA and is preparing for finals now. I am so proud of her, as I know how hard she worked this year. Last year she flunked so many of her classes and didn’t even care. This year, as a freshman in high school, she realized that she would have to take the classes over again if she failed them. Ah, the reality of consequences.

I am enrolled in a couple of college classes for Summer term. I have my books. I am scared. I must let my fear motivate me instead of allowing it to stop me in my tracks. I start at the end of this month.

I feel like a different woman lately. I long for friends, love, companionship. I’m tired of being isolated and lonely. I need to get out there. I want to travel the world, first heading to the east coast and then to the UK. My thoughts and dreams are different. I want to stand up tall and strong and proud.
I love you all for caring so much. I will not surrender. (Repeat as necessary.)

' June 9th, 2010 at 08:13pm 4 comments

I Didn’t Mean To Cause Alarm

Sorry to those of you who were worried. I’ve been all caught up in the stress, guilt and worry of Nathan leaving for Canada . Now I am apparently caught up in the stress of talking to him as he realizes he made a mistake and shouldn’t have gone in the first place. I knew it was a bad idea, but this is what we must do as parents. We let them go, and learn, and then we are here for them when they need us. It’s painful not being able to teach him these lessons, but rather to have to watch him go through them.

I’ll be back here soon, just writing whatever. I need to just let it out without giving it so much thought or being afraid of disclosing too much. I hope that everyone is doing well.

' April 20th, 2010 at 02:45pm 4 comments

Hell-Oh!

Well, Thursday was right in her comment on my last post. I didn’t listen to her though. No, when the former friend himself expressed a desire to communicate I did it. I think that it was helpful to me in certain ways. For example, I was able to say some things that had sat boiling inside of me.  Probably more important to my recovery was the fact that when I got angry I said so. Vehemently said so. I think that the therapist in the hospital who pointed out to me that I wasn’t going to be able to heal until I let myself get angry was spot on. I can’t control the responses of others but I can own my own.

Belle, please know that you do have a voice and a way of communicating that is no less than the voice of others. I hear you and I appreciate you.

The most importnat revelation came as a total surprise. If I have a moment with another person that I feel deeply is significant ; it doesn’t matter if the moment is significant for them. In fact, it doesn’t even matter to me if they remember the moment. I can still have it as my own, and it’s no less precious.

In other news, Nathan turned 18. He has decided to go up to Canada to stay for awhile or maybe to live with a family member. I can give him my opinions and advice, but I can no longer control his decisions. So once again the topic of letting go is first thing on my mind. I can say good luck, and goodbye, and even tell him that he’ll have a home to return to if he changes his mind. But I have to let him go.

The part of this month that has surprised me is the fact that none of the pain brought me straight to my knees. I have cried; I have gotten pissed off, but I haven’t gotten into bed and stayed there. I am carrying on. I have continued to go to my doctor’s appointments. I’ve had a couple more steroid injections for my back and hip pain and they seem to be helping. I am starting yet another series of physical therapy. I am trying differnt medications for pain, depression, insomnia, and anxiety. My mouth feels like a desert from one of the new meds, so I have been chewing gum and sucking on hard candies and sipping water.  The doctor said that the dry mouth often goes away after awhile so I hope for that to happen.

I am in the process of waving goodbye while still letting it be okay for me to carry the memories of my own significant moments with me. I’ve never been good at closure or letting go, or whatever you want to call it. I just know that I have to figure out a way that works for me because the weight of it all is just too much to carry forward.

Does anyone know where Bonnie is? I just wanted to see if she’s doing alright and I’ve had no responses to the emails I’ve sent her.

' February 24th, 2010 at 04:40pm 6 comments

Spanning Time Without Me

I’m going to call this a rough draft because it originally came to me as a song when I was in the shower. I’ve been fucking around with the tune, and the verse chorus verse, and I don’t have a guitar or a piano here, and I got frustrated, to say the least! Still angry, except now with more tears!!!

The book we wrote together was six years long. He wrote the ending without me, years in advance. So not fair. I wish he’d warned me before I got so deep. I’m alive. He fed me his words. I fed him mine. I was never full, always hungry for more, counting down the moments until the words started again. I was butterfly flutters and all aglow. He was all smiles with eyes that spoke a language I never interpreted.

I knew what I wanted, was longing to just settle down together in the comfort of cloud like pillows of trust. His mind was set to wandering and he was longing to head east, where he could get to feeling alive. I just fed him more, hoping he’d know that
everything he was itching for was right here in me. He grew thinner no matter what I did.

When he lifted up his little empty cup for me to fill; I held up my empty bucket. It must have been overwhelming. I wasn’t being greedy, just being the me I was then. I thought I was doing most of the giving, didn’t realize how much I asked of him until tonight. I didn’t think that I wanted more than I needed.

He told me to run along, go play now; he had other writing to work on. I went off and waited without him. I am not a patient woman. I grew restless trying to crack the code of his messages. He smiled, even chuckled a bit, at my frustration.

Spanning time together, we went from our nine hour phone calls to rides home from work, sitting in our seats, silent. Rage came along for the ride. I slammed his car door hard. He took off, no longer waiting, watching to make sure I made it into my house safely. I saw him throw the five dollars that I had left on the dash for gas out the window.

Once he was ‘round the corner I searched for it by streetlight, finally finding it amongst a pile of wet leaves. He asked me later if I’d gone after it and I lied. He was so far under my skin he could tell the truth. I tugged at my hair nervously and waited for him to turn everything back around.

I don’t know how we got going in that direction, but once we did there was no turning back. I trusted him; he was the one who knew how to drive.

I was wrong when I told him no one was keeping score, but I meant it when I said that I didn’t want to play his game, but that I wanted to win.

Six more years have passed since our book read THE END.
I looked him up online, thought I was ready to just check in, say hey.
I found someone who knows him now and she emailed me and said,
“Hi! He has mentioned your name before. He is doing great! He seems happy and healthy!
What message do you want me to give him?”

I realized that I’d made a big mistake.
I hoped he hadn’t let her read our book, wondered if they’d written one together.
Now I wanted to see him one last time, study his face, and ask him why he went away.
I wanted to know what I had meant to him, back then, and why he spent so much time on me.

I typed out message after message, contemplating and then deleting. I’d thought there were so many things I wanted to say.
All the words are used up now, we had spent them frivolously.
In the end I wrote, “If you see him, say hello”, the nod ‘n’ wink to Dylan’s “Blood On The Tracks” was for me, not her.

I hope he got to the place he needed to get to; a place of health and happiness that I couldn’t give him. He is not lonesome without me.
Now I know that he is alive. I can find just about anyone on the internet, but I can’t find myself. I asked my doctor about ECT treatment for this depression, hoping to have the memory of him zapped out of my brain. He’s doing great; he is happy, and healthy, without me.

' February 1st, 2010 at 11:40pm 2 comments

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