Tell Giles...tell Giles I figured it out. And, and I'm okay.

"The hardest thing in this world, is to live in it."  In the episode "The Gift,"  Buffy Summers gave this sentiment to her little sister.  It was an epiphany--for both of them, I'm sure.  For me, too.  I've always spent my life waiting for Happily Ever After.  Movies, TV, books?  All these outlets gave a younger version of myself brief immunity from reality.  But as younger versions of ourselves are less matured and educated, I mistook the life pauses for life expectations. Happiness is not constant; it comes in and out of swells of grief, indifference, and discord.  And, like Buffy, we all battle our demons and celebrate the victories as they come.

The last few years have been a particularly confusing era for me.  The endless hills of emotions have been brutal.  I settled into an amazing community, caught some kindred spirits to share our joys and concerns.  I kept them in a heart-shaped jar and, one-by-one, watched them flutter away to the next home.  It's the occupational hazard of being a military family, befriending other military families, that I hadn't expected in the beginning.  I made friends.  Friends moved.  I moved on. 

With the help of those beautiful creatures, I was able to overcome a lot of my insecurities and anxiety.  I started exercising and lost the remaining college-marriage-baby-ate too much taco bell when I worked there-weight.  I no longer cared if people saw me without makeup.  My paintings were selling at craft fairs and customers wanted me to sew dresses and capes for their kids.  My kids were happy and my marriage seemed to be slowly solidifying into a steady rock.  So we decided to add another family member.

About 4 weeks into the pregnancy, I was nauseated by everything.  Barfing was my newest talent and I was perfecting it.  By 6 weeks, I had developed a hemorrhage behind the baby and was told to park my ever-widening-ass until it cleared up.  I watched Supernatural via Netflix on my bed all day, next to a lime green puke bowl as I let the downstairs t.v. raise my kids for the summer.    I felt myself slinking closer to a dark place I hadn't been to in a while.  Was I becoming depressed again? 

I told myself it was just circumstances getting me down, mixing a cocktail of hormones in my brain and that any day I would sober up.  Eventually, Willow was born and I was ecstatic!  She's perfect.  Nurses well, sleeps great, smiles constantly!  The older kids love her, as does her daddy.  So why was I suddenly, after two months of pure bliss, feeling so defeated?

All I wanted to do was sleep or cry.  My body had exploded to 200 lbs. during the pregnancy and I had even gained weight in the hospital, despite having a 7 lb. 7 oz. person surgically removed from me.  My office is an abandoned wasteland of crafting supplies because time is a precious resource and I now have 4 other people in the house that need mine.  A hollowness had taken over.  I let my mind marionette me around, mimicking my old emotions, but it was just a performance for the spectators.  When I was alone, I was hung up and lifeless.

It's just the Baby Blues.  Every mom gets overwhelmed and exhausted with a newborn.  It will pass.  My thoughts ticked on with time.  When I hadn't had any local visitors, they evolved from I guess everyone is giving me time to get settled at home all the way into nobody cares that I had a baby--no one even wants to meet her.  Eventually, I believed there was no reason to exist.  I actually uttered a daily mantra--Nobody cares if you are alive.  You don't do anything but screw things up.  Maybe everyone would be better off without you.

I was holding Willow, post afternoon feeding, when I whispered it to myself; that's the moment I recognized where I had gone.  This was that lonely, awful place I had been sequestered to as a teen and again as a young adult.  Hormones may have played a role in my return to depression, but it certainly wasn't going to fade without intervention.  It wasn't right.  A person who literally depends on me for life--who's whole existence would fade without me supporting her, feeding her, loving her, was staring up at me and I couldn't allow myself to truly feel it.

I've been on medication since April.  There are days that I still struggle.  This might be the monster I fight for the rest of my life.  But, I'm fighting to make it a long one. 

"Be brave. Live.  For me."

Today's subject line quote is Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003 TV Series)
Episode: The Gift (2000).

Unfortunately, this hospital is not equipped to treat stupid.

     So, hey again.  Remember how I said I would blog about my vacation?  Well, this isn't it.  Sorry.  I just had a massively weird day filled with umpteen mishaps that I felt like sharing with the world.  Really, how do this many things happen to one person in one freakin' day?  Perhaps some of you have a theory as to why I'm such a magnet for freak accidents and behaviors...

     Today started out busy. We were all slow-moving this morning, due to a whole 'nother series of catastrophes the night before:  Dom went to poker night, I was coming down with a cold, both kids ended up staying up late, Michael threw a fit about sleeping in his room, and we all ended up going to sleep between 10-11.  Regardless, we were supposed to be down the road by 9 this morning for a neighborhood "60 day weight loss challenge."
     They promised to take my picture, weigh me, calculate my BMI, body fat percentage, and take measurements.  Nowhere did it say ANYTHING about doing jumping jacks and situps until my stomach tried to escape out my ass and throat simultaneously.  And  yet, I started off my day with no breakfast and a trip back to junior high P.E. class.  As if not being able to do 2 full situps in a row wasn't embarrassing enough (in the middle of a crowded room, by the way), once I finished the fitness test...I blacked out. 
    I was getting my measurements done when the nausea hit, and suddenly the scarecrow-esque, waif of a woman taking my measurements was laying me down on the floor and holding my feet in the air and about 10 other trainers were shoving almonds in my face. 

     But the good news is that my body fat percentage and BMI are actually in the healthy range for my age now--despite the fact that I gained about 15 lbs. since the summer.  Apparently I live in a universe where gaining weight makes you not fat any more! That's because I'm old now.  Yay for moving up a bracket on demographics!  I've spent the last decade in the overweight to obese categories, so tonight I decided to celebrate by ordering a pizza and making cookies. 
     Oh, and just in case you were wondering...cookies taste like ass when you leave out vanilla and salt.  I made a batch, baked about 8, and tried to fix the remaining batter by adding the missing ingredients AND MY HAND.  Also, just in case you are ever curious, getting your hand caught between the prongs of an electric mixer won't break it.  But it definitely hurts.  Also, staring at the machine in disbelief will not magically imbue you with the Jedi mind powers to turn it off.  That's what the switch is for. 

So, seriously guys...Am I stupid now?  Because this all sounds like stuff that happens to idiots.  Also, my neighbors dog ran smack into Michael's knee today and bashed in it's front teeth.  I can't even begin to make this shit up. 

Today's subject line quote is The Big Bang Theory (2007 TV Series)
Episode: The Peanut Reaction (2008).

I'm on vacation. Social convention dictates that I let my hair down at a local watering hole. Social convention is stupid.

Happy New Year, visitors of the interwebs!  As some of you might recall, I wrote an open letter to 2012 last December, pleading that the year would not be as chaotic and assholish as the one before it.  If the sparsity of posts in the last 12 months is any indication, things have been quite calm.  Things are much more laid back on the West coast, I suppose.

No matter what the reason, we lived the hell out of this last year!  And to bring it to a close, our family took a vacation of historic magnitude.  Apparently saving all the fun we forgot to have in the previous years, and tried to use it all up in the 3 weeks surrounding Christmas.  By the time we got home, I was sick of fun.  I hate fun now.  I just want to sit on the couch and cry profusely while watching episodes of Nova on PBS; that's how much we maxed out the merriment.  The balance of  happiness and depression have warped into one confusing ball of emotion, who wants to eat all day.  Oh yeah, I got fat for Christmas.  Worth every gram, though.

Now I'm tasked with how to even present all this epic vacationary.  I now declare that a word, meaning "a written explanation or account of a vacation;  a combination of the words vacation, dictionary, and stationary."  It's practically a part time job, except for monetary gain.  Just the part where I get to log 20 hours or so into entertaining you all with hilarity and beautiful phrasing...and shit.

So here's the plan.  I'm going to do this in installments.  There will be no time-frame, because that's just mean.  It'd be mean of me to promise bloggity goodness with a specific deadline because, let's be honest, it'd be a total lie.  Also, it would be cruel of you to force me into such standards in the first place.  Let's be mutually respectful here.  As an artist, you shouldn't rush me.  The end product will just reek of mediocrity and word vomit.  Nobody wants crappy blog stains on the internet.

Unfortunately, today isn't an installment-type day.  I have peanut butter on my sweatpants and a messy bun in my hair that both need attention before I leave to take Michael to swim lessons.  I have some dignity, I won't wear food covered clothing, gross hair, AND be fat out in public.  I have to draw the line somewhere.  Right?  Maybe not.  Either way, no more blogs today.

Today's subject line quote is from The Big Bang Theory (2007 TV Series), Episode: The Vacation Solution (2012).

How good? Like, Judaism-good, or just, like, Unitarian?

     Happy Halloween everyone!  Yes, it has begun already.  It starts on Oct. 1 and runs 31 days--like Christmas or Hanukkah, only better because it's not 9 or 12 days of crappy music and it ends with fistfuls of CANDY.  Plus, I get to craft myself into oblivion and pretend to be someone else for a full 24 hours.  And it's usually somebody even MORE awesome than I already am.

     But lately, the children of the Monterey Peninsula are killing my buzz.  Seriously you guys, if I overhear one more kid word vomit about the sins of humanity worshiping Satan on Halloween, I'm going to roll my eyes so hard that they will get stuck inside my brain.  I'll have to watch my own brain as it seizes.

     It's not so much the belief that confounds me, so much as the look on my son's face when he's not sure he's just pissed off God by hanging up a paper ghost.  Look, I understand where these families are coming from.  I'm Unitarian, that means I've got a basic understanding of the major world religions and several of the less publicized.
    That also means I do have my own beliefs, rooted in many cultures and that are very personal to me.  It means I believe in lots of things, but mostly it means that I believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every person.  I promote the justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.  I give and ask for the acceptance of one another and encourage spiritual growth in our congregations.  I affirm in a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.  There is a right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large.  My goal is world community with peace, liberty and justice for all.  And I believe in respect for the interdependent web of all existence, of which we are a part. 
     As a Unitarian Universalist, I do my best to uphold these principles and respect other world, religious, and political views.  But I also hope that the same regard is fostered around me.  I celebrate Halloween.  I let my kids enjoy it.  And we don't knock on the neighbor's door and demand candy when we know they don't.  I don't correct children (or adults) when they spout off about my sins for carving a pumpkin or cobwebbing my front porch.  And I certainly don't solicit anyone into changing a moral stance on it.  Its faith; it's not right or wrong.

     So is it so insane to ask that the same respect be given to my children?  When I was growing up, my family had the usual, normal traditions that other households did; e.g. Easter egg hunts, Valentine's cards, fireworks on the 4th of July.  But none of them were as energizing or enveloping as Halloween.  I want that excitement to carry on!  My mom deemed herself the Queen of Halloween; she's passed her crown (and as someone who has dressed up, usually making my costumes from scratch, for all 28 years of my life--I believe it's a well-deserved title).  One day I hope to coronate my own prince and princess. I have no idea why my mom loved this holiday so much, but it made her happy.  It made us happy. 

     Halloween is special to me.  Don't ruin it!  Or I'll end up coining another punny moniker for the residents here, just like I did for the Slidoucebags of of Slidouche, Louisiana.  Something along the lines of the assholiest of the assholiest, something equally clever and unladylike. 

Today's subject line quote is from 30 Rock, "The Fighting Irish" (2007).

I'll level with you, I have a fraternity reunion coming up and if I'm not employed, Slimecracker and Man-Boobs are gonna tease the crap outta me!

My first high school reunion is in 8 days and I'm coasting on the surrealism of knowing this.  What's even stranger than waking up and realizing that 10 years has flown by and I've done practically nothing but get fat?  That I'm actually going.

Hopping on a plane Tuesday morning to exchange the farmers markets and fresh air of sunny California for the bible belt, chicken farms, and a party being held at a Cherokee casino.  And I've obsessed over this for the past year!  I didn't want the first thing people to think when they saw me was Oh my God!  Someone ate Cassidy and is wearing her skin like an Edgar-suit from Men In Black!

That got me started on P90X and Weight Watchers again.  It lasted about 6 weeks because both of those are like a part-time job!  Who has time to work out 1-2 hours EVERY DAY for a month and a half?  Oh sure, let me calculate points for the tenth of a marshmallow I just licked off the counter as well!  I'm doing all this between raising 2 kids that need attention 26 hours a day, meal planning, cleaning, and trying to socialize with other moms who are too busy to hang out...you know so have those things that people need...friends??

Also, I started a internet-crafting boutique so that I wouldn't just be a stay-at-home mom who quit working out so she could both eat AND sleep every day.  Turns out, I pay Etsy to put up fancy words and pictures of crappy purses that nobody wants to buy.  Boy!  That'll show the class of 2002 how much I'm not a loser.

But I'm sure everybody feels insecure about what they've done with their lives thus far, right?  Except the popular kids that look just has hot as they did a decade ago.  But they probably made some kind of deal with Satan back in middle school.   And lets face it...that was hella smart.  But back to me.  I shouldn't have anything to be ashamed of or worried about.  Here's why:

I married the perfect person in the universe, or even multiple universes, who could put up with me and could make me as happy as I am.  I did so when I wanted to, even though it was hard and it made us broke for about 5 years.  Despite that we moved across the country after my sophomore year, I still finished college. We got out of debt.  We bought a house. Then I CHOSE to be a mom and one that put her kids above anything else.  I wanted to be with my kids more than I wanted a career.  And now we've lived on every coast of the US, vacationed in Europe and Mexico (or will by this Christmas...Holla!), and STAYED married for 8 1/2 years and been in love for 1 0 even though I gained 120 lbs since high school.  My husband supported me financially and emotionally as I, literally, worked my gigantic ass off to lose 100 of it.  My hips are wider because I had a baby the size of a Buick, but he's the smartest and coolest preschooler in the nation.  I am happy to sacrifice my body to give that gift to the world.

I am not who I was in high school; I'm better.  But I do have bat wings.

Today's subject line quote is from My Name is Earl (2007) "The Gangs of Camden County."

You look like the Fourth of July! Makes me want a hot dog real bad!

     Hey, remember my last post about how I was having surgery in early July and I was all miffed about having to wait until then?  Just kidding. The universe got all askew and caught up with me.  Instead, I got to start a conversation at my dentists office with this:

"I need to reschedule my surgery to next month.  My husband is going to the North Pole."

     As it turns out, he's not actually going to the North Pole.  He is, however, farting around on a Canadian Coast Guard vessel in the Arctic Ocean, off the coast of Alaska for 3 weeks.  He left July 2nd and I celebrated Independence Day by not having any.  It's become a tradition since Dom's been gone about 3 of the last 5. 
     I've become increasingly crotchety and hermit-like over the holiday.  It's usually so hot out that I refuse to go outside for fear of catching fire and therefore condemn anyone else lighting fireworks in my vicinity out of jealousy.  Especially when they last for the surrounding 72 hours.  (It was always like that in Slidouche.  If there was a reason to shoot fireworks, they lasted for days.  New Years, January 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, 4th of July, Saints football games, I'm crazy and want to shoot fireworks at my girlfriend during a fight outside our trailer Day....Okay that never happened, but if it had occurred to them, I'm positive it would have.)

 He'll also be gone for my birthday, so I demand that he bring me back at least a baby seal...if not an adult penguin.  And my ultimate preference would be an infant polar bear holding a bottle of coke.

     But back to my surgery!  This isn't even my last rescheduling.  Now I have to call them back AGAIN and tell them that MetLife is full of douchebaggery and that I'd like to move my procedure back until their office is covered under the "preferred" dentist program.  Otherwise, I'll have to sell a kidney to fund this endeavor and then wait for that to heal before having my teeth ripped out.

     My life is awesome.  And I mean that in the sense that I am truly awe-struck every time stuff like this comes up.  Maybe even out of the sheer ridiculousness of its frequency.  We also have to have Michael's tonsils out because they're the size of Buicks and he sounds like a cross between Darth Vader with a head cold and an asthmatic English Bulldog when he sleeps.  So that's going to be fun.  Right?

     At least we get to take a HUGE vacation this December.  It includes Disneyland, Sea World, the San Diego Zoo, possibly Lego Land, and getting to see our amazing friends Meredith and Eddie again (whom we haven't seen since about 2008)!  Oh, and a 7 day cruise to Mexico, sans children.  What??!  None of us are terminally ill and it all occurs after the proposed Mayan-Zombie Apocalypse, so not really sure why we felt it was necessary to fit a decade's worth of fun into about 3 weeks.  But definitely looking forward to it!

Today's subject line quote is from Legally Blonde 2:  Red, White, and Blonde. (2003)

You think you know pain? He will make you long for something as sweet as pain.

     I believe my body is deteriorating at a rapid and exponential rate.  Since we moved to California (in early March), I have:  fallen out of my front door and sprained my ankle (CA, week 2 by the way), experienced "headache season"--to which my doctor described as allergies that trigger migraines so I have to remember to take a decongestant before it creeps up on me (or sit in the fetal position and moan for the several hours it takes to dissipate, gotten my first ingrown toenail that Dom had to perform home-surgery with a pair of tweezers and some cotton twice daily for a week, grabbed my curling iron by the barrel and received a 2039849384 degree burn on my middle and index finger (the same week as the toenail debacle), we started working out to P90X and my muscles want to physically leave my body due to abuse--but that's another whole blog in itself, and finally the impacted wisdom teeth I've been avoiding having removed since 2005 finally started trying to break through my gums with what I can only assume is razor-coated enamel.

     I had the right half of my wisdom teeth removed a little over 7 years ago.  I made the mistake of using a general dentist and I'm fairly certain he wanted to embody Steve Martin's character in Little Shop of Horrors.  It was the most painful experience of my entire life, up to that point.  Crazy Pitocin labor wins that trophy, but having your teeth and jawbone removed under local anesthetic by a Dr. Sadist, D.D.S was a close second.

     So after having 3 or so more dentists remind me that the left half had to go soon, "And you don't want to wait until your 25 or older, that's not going to be good for you. Blah Blah Blah.  Pain.  Damage.  Etc."  I'm turning 28 this summer and still have the boogers!  It wasn't all fear that kept me from the extraction.  There were several other factors, like laziness.
     Also, there were no oral surgeons (within 100 miles) covered under my insurance while living in South Carolina.  And when we moved to Slidouche, my husband was gone 40% of the year and I didn't want to have to play single parent directly after having someone cut open my gums and rip out my giant, sideways teeth.  Then when he was home for an extended time, Dom needed surgery twice.  And then I decided to have somebody cut me open and extract a baby instead.

     Long story--still pretty long but I'll cut to the chase,  I had a consultation this week.  My oral surgeon is very experienced.  And by that, I mean older than Jesus.  But at this point, I'm not going to go hunting for a new guy and possibly pay out of pocket for a fresher face just because I'm age discriminant.  Though, he did tell me that the root of my lower tooth is scraping the central nerve and there's a possibility that the left side of my face could be permanently numb.  Now I'm just hoping that his geriatric, Parkinson's hands are steady enough to not break my face.

     His office is also booked up through the first week of July, so I get to obsess about this until Friday the 6th.  Yaaaaaay.  I'm going to go eat breakfast while I can still taste it with the left side of my tongue...

Today's Subject Line Quote is from The Avengers (2012).