Life's been good to me so far

Awhile before I went out of town this past weekend, I read a lot of stuff abouthow contraindicated isolation is for PTSD. I'd already been thinking about it a lot - as a stay at home mom and a writer, there's an inherent amount of isolation, you know? I talked about it with Grant, though, because we can both look back and see clear patterns that correlate - I was doing very well, being productive and fairly happy, when I was in school - even though I was WAY busier, and had MORE to do that could have been overwhelming. Productivity/happiness then took a clear nose dive after I got my AA, my friend Kristin (who I normally saw a LOT) moved away, and he started travelling constantly. It didn't feel like it was related, because I don't necessarily have a problem with being alone, in the moment. At all. I crave time alone and will purposely isolate myself, which is this whole danger sign of PTSD that you're supposed to watch out for, *sigh* I mean I am normally kind of on the line between intro- and extroverted, throughout my life, and get tired of almost any company eventually and need a break to recharge.

Except PTSD does this thing wherein being around others starts to seem harder and harder - NOT something that's ever been natural to me before - and it creates this downward spiral effect that leaves me burrowing deeper and deeper into solitude as days and then weeks pass, and I'm dissociating way too much. I wrote about this in January/February a bit - first complaining about being lonely and then, later, talking about how I had to admit to my sister and to Nancy that I'd been avoiding them on purpose and MAKE myself go see people again because I was becoming a miserable slug. To be fair, constant pain issues and lumps in my hands were not helping.

Back to more recent history - this past weekend, I was CONSTANTLY around people (and getting a great break from the kind of tedious drudgery that housekeeping can get to be, too). Lots of people. I had long good conversations with Tawanna and Terri from Dance Empire, but also with acquaintances from the studio, and waiters, and with total strangers. I spent a whole day with my mother (and she's trying hard...it wasn't nearly so sucky as it might normally have been), a few hours with Bobby, and briefly caught up with my brother and his girlfriend (Bob actually has a job and drives and shit, can you imagine?). I sat in crowds to watch performances and sat in small groups to rehash things and sat one on one with people. I texted a ton, with Grant and some others.

You would think there would be some inherent stress here - my mother normally weirds me out, Bobby and I have some historic animosity that can pop up, I haven't talked to my brother in months. I didn't get a fraction the sleep I usually would have, and spent way too much time driving. My mom's house was tiny, cramped and generally uncomfortable. Aaron was an over-stimulated SID flibbertigibbit half the time.

And YET...

I felt so good driving and getting home, Sunday night. Our freakin' van AC stopped working and Aaron slept the whole way and I was still happy as a clam the whole way. So sweet and lovely to just hug everyone and be back at my house, once we arrived. So awesome to get back to Grant, and our cats, and my bed. At first I thought this was just about the cramped sleeplessness I'd been dealing with, but the next day I felt SO CLEAR HEADED, so sure of myself and so able to do things that needed to be done. It was a really big deal, not compared to the weekend but compared to the four months prior. Big chunks of the last few YEARS prior. I was actually confused about it. I wanted my husband a whole lot, exactly as he is, and was so grateful for him, and generally had this comparative sort of ease, after Orlando and Lakeland (both of which I hate in different ways), like I love our house. I love our life. I love what we've built here - I chose all of this. Chose! Whereas I've spent so much of the past few months feeling TRAPPED as all hell.

I walked around wondering - am I bipolar? Am I crazy? WAS I crazy? Will this just pass soon? I felt like I used to feel with Jake or Elise on my back, cooking big breakfasts and lunches with kids on counters - you know, before PTSD when I was good at life and stay at home motherhood was in no way contraindicated... Grant was home Monday and I got a lot of texts from the Dance Studio and all week I've had a ton to do, with transferring to university. Still, I've been cooking and cleaning and guiding schoolwork and writing scholarship letters and getting up early like it's not even hard, hopping on my bike to take Isaac to school with a smile and, for emphasis here, I'm even on my period, and now that I'm not taking anti inflammatories that is sort of the seventh circle of hell, except not hellish at all while I'm snuggling with my beasty (Elise) and having crazy hot awesome sex every day <---O_o

I mean, WHAT? How is this happening?

I'm still talking to counselors (in the search for someone who takes our insurance and is right for us, I mean). I'm thinking, ok...am I in the biggest checkout from reality I've ever experienced? I am so not. Is this really just the result of me spending a couple of days around deeply depressed folks (mom and brother) and a lot of stage moms (there was some horrific critical scolding going on). Now I appreciate my easy peasy kids and like minded husband more? Do you really need a break to make you appreciate things, sometimes? When I got back from New York I was like, ugh, I don't want to be back in this pit of laundry and dishes and constant demands. Which is very similar to how I've felt after weekends away with Grant; ugh, no, let the break last longer!! I am not generally happy to get home, whether after an outing or a day or what have you :/ I deal with it, and there are good parts, but I never feel "ready to be home" these past years, when I'm back home.

I gradually worked my way around to thinking of how muddled and messed up I've been, though, PTSD-wise. I have been so ridiculously triggered for the past few months....so many doctors' appointments and ER visits and outpatient tests and even the ultrasound to get my IUD checked annually (my strings are really short and undetectable, so this happens when I go in for a pap). My nightmares and dread of sleeping were back full on, and my general uselessness in the day to day was getting ridiculous. I was on some kind of tense eggshells all the time, ready to burst into tears over any and everything and totally shutting out those closest to me - and that part, is new for me to recognize as part of this. So yeah..."engaging with the world" is generally one of the most important parts of PTSD treatment. And I don't normally do a whole lot of that. And maybe I really, really need to do a whole lot of that.

The point of this whole entry is that I went googling yesterday, for the first time, about PTSD and relationships, specifically. And it made me cry. During a week I am not crying or on any sort of hair trigger ;) During a really happy week, the first one I've had since probably New Years. I sent Grant a bunch of screencaps I'll post here, because, well. *sigh again* Yeah.









PTSD divorce rates are INSANE. It seems that almost nobody with PTSD manages to stay married :/ It makes me think back to how I was feeling just a week and a half ago, like I couldn't deal with not only Grant but anybody and just wanted to live alone, by myself, like man I can't wait for my kids to grow up so I can live totally alone...

I don't want to be totally alone. I don't want to have some fucked up mental illness that makes it impossible for me to maintain relationships.

I keep doing this thing, recently, where I go to people I know pretty well and just rant and ramble nonstop about Grant and our relationship and don't want to hear anything they tell me (and what they tell me varies wildly). I'm thinking back on those conversations now, remembering my own words, and just going, "Geez. GEEZ! So desperate to get away from this shit that is INSIDE OF YOU and you can't escape from."

There is this desperation to avoid triggers and the feelings they cause that can extend in all kinds of weird directions, like, the desire to avoid people who remind you of these things or push you to get help, just as an example. More than one person has recently asked me why I haven't been in counseling and it's like, um. Because I'm terrified of being back in counseling. I dropped out of emdr right as we got to the worst parts, in 2008. And it helped a lot, all the work we did do! But I don't want to go back there.

I'm going to. But I sure as hell don't want to. And so days can pass without me making calls and I'm relieved when I realize it's too late, again.

G always gets the worst of this kind of stuff because I'm not willing to do it to the kids. I get distant from the kids, sometimes, though I try to force it when it doesn't come naturally; but I vent my shit in other directions.

Every night I'm falling asleep in his arms...which I have also done over the past four months, in a more platonic and tensely confused sort of way...I'm thinking, wow, I am really fucking glad this man is not just done with me after all the shit I've put him through, all the complicated bs my brain is, all the ways I've hurt him to avoid hurting myself.

It's not just that simple - there are some real issues Grant and I have had that I can see objectively. It's really amazingly better and different when he can manage to not be super codependent and/or super workaholic, and of course he slips into old/natural patterns with that stuff in ways that can suck for me, at times. He's also been wildly improved since figuring out some dietary stuff a couple of years ago - that shit is like night and day. And our sex life started out kinda wack and we had to figure out how to make it better (although there is something really cool about sex that gets better and better rather than tapering away like the cliche goes). But I don't want my stupid fucking PTSD to make me blind to what is or is not good about us and ruin everything regardless! It makes it so much harder to deal with the normal levels or hurt and vulnerability that are just part of being in a relationship at all. It makes things he's gotten past seem so much more glaring and current, in my mind. I feel as though a huge part of what a successful marriage is, is a refusal to give up on one another, and I feel a little ashamed of how ready to duck out and just end it all I've been, at times, this past year...

I just wanted to archive and get out...this revelation. This relief that is also a whole new set of fears (HOW DO I KEEP THIS FROM HAPPENING AGAIN, FROM BEING CYCLICAL, HOW DO I SEPARATE IT FROM REAL ISSUES THE TWO OF US HAVE WHEN I AM TRIGGERED, BECAUSE I WILL BE?!). I'm putting a lot of energy into strategizing ways to "engage with the world," which is a huge part of PTSD treatment. I'll be back in school soon (summer semester even, I set it up at the last minute to not wait for fall), and counseling. And I'm fighting this new thing, now, this hesitance to say anything positive or nice to him? It's about vulnerability, but it's not how or who I typically am in this relationship and I'm trying to cut through it and beat it...

And that is big, because I do have to see this as a thing. I have PTSD. It's hard to even type it, even though I type about it all the time :/ But I do, and I'm not on any meds, and I have to at least DO THINGS - like counseling and "engaging with the world" - if I don't want it to ruin my whole life. Which, you know, I definitely don't. I like to think in my upswings that triggers are behind me, when that isn't really how this works :/


Tomorrow is my wedding anniversary, I realized yesterday. Seven years married, how time does fly... Ananda and Elise watched the very silly video Shaun was sweet enough to make, after our reception, and I thought about the parts I would do differently now, and the parts I love just the way they happened, and I thought, well. Maybe we can do a really badass vow renewal thing at 10 years that stamps approval on the past and starts everything fresh, at the same time.

I would really like that.

For now, I've got a babysitter lined up and I'm taking a shower before he gets home. It's the little things ;)

And since we've been home it's pretty much nonstop hilarity.

"Is there even one thing you can talk about without bringing up Harry Potter?"
-my husband, to me

(kids screaming from the other room, going wild)
Him: Let's get them settled down and in bed.
Me: Oh yeah, it's getting late. I guess we can get them to bed. (more kids screaming) Well, in theory... I mean, we have the right to try.

WHY do I have to PEE SO BADLY while I'm THIS THIRSTY? My body is obviously not using resources efficiently!
-Me, yelling from the bathroom doorway

(we're lounging on the bed trying to decide on a movie)
Me: Remember when you used to pronounce "chipotle" as "chipote-eh" and wouldn't believe me no matter how I tried to tell you that was wack?
Him: Yeah those are the times when I go check something and instead of saying, "Booyah! I knew it!" I just go, "Well, that's not right. It should be my way."
Me: Oh, like the comma going inside the quotation marks?
Him: That's bullshit. I was just writing an email to Kyle about this, asking his opinion.
Me: Uh-huh.
Him: I'm not going to compromise on this issue.
Me: (laughing wildly) Oh, is that so? Who exactly do you think that effects? I mean, well in that case..(rofl)
Him: (also laughing) I'm calling the people at Oxford!

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On a totally different note, here are some copied and pasted comments I left in a friend's journal when she was talking about how much she's seeing various friends want "more" than being a stay at home mom, and how it is plenty enough for her (which I totally get/respect):

Now that I am busy and/or out of the house for reasons that have nothing to do with my family at least a couple of times per week, I can honestly say I appreciate the time I have here as precious. Sitting down to have tea with everyone or reading with them in their beds before they go to sleep are so sweet, and so good, and I was not appreciating those things anymore, before I started doing my own things. I really wasn't. That would have been sacrilege to me 7 or 12 years ago, but, it's the truth. I don't enjoy cooking of any sort more than once or twice a week, anymore, and maybe I never will again - but I spent THOUSANDS of days preparing 2-3 elaborate meals per day with small people perched on counters and standing on chairs...I'm ready to move on to a new phase. I don't want that to be my whole life. I adore the simplicity of just having fruit for breakfast and salad for lunch and heating up some fish and beans for dinner. I feel SO LUCKY when Grant and Ananda cook or we can go out somewhere, because really...maybe I'm fickle or maybe it's natural, but I'm not interested or even willing to cook like I used to, anymore. My interests and sources of peace and pleasure have changed with age, experience, etc.

I think I could have stayed home indefinitely with my children for as long as I was continuing to have babies. The restlessness and ache for "more" didn't hit me at all during the decade I was producing children - but once Elise got to be 3ish, I started having major problems and asking all sorts of questions and just generally feeling like a caged animal.

I have no doubt at this point that part of why I stayed pregnant was because I crave a very high level of intensity and engagement and need to be validated that what I'm doing is important regularly. I am not even a little bit good at creating structure out of thin air, and we all really do benefit from SOME outside scheduling, but that was outweighed when I was so distracted, placated, enraptured, frustrated, terrified, and fulfilled by everything that being pregnant or postpartum, and having (attachment parented!) babies and toddlers entails. It made life an unpredictable adventure where everything was ultimately rewarding and worth my enormous efforts, and that's how I want life to feel.

It's really different, at least for me, when the kids can all play outside or amuse themselves drawing and with games unattended with no issue for literally HOURS on a daily basis, and that goes on for months, and you know you aren't having more. Everyone sleeping through the night in their own beds, no need to even own a diaper or to pack a bag to leave the house - they get themselves strapped in without me even needing to check. They brush their own teeth.

I don't know. There is a lot less affection and less frequent expression of appreciation, at the phase I'm at now. There is a lot more sarcasm, body odor, complaining, and obvious judgement/disappointment in me for little everyday things. And it's really, REALLY easy once lessons and chores are done and I know what we're having for dinner, to just realize I've spent 3 hours on facebook or to be laying on the trampoline wondering what I'm doing with my life, AGAIN.

One thing that I don't think you struggle with at all, but has always been a huge deal to me, is that I really viciously loathe cleaning of almost any kind. I have to force myself to do it, and I resent that so much of it falls to me, and I get angry with everyone else in the house whenever I devote more than a cursory effort (because of the extent to which it is an impossible uphill battle). I honestly believe that being ill in the first trimester/huge in the third, debilitated by c-sections, and stuck under a nursling all provided a great relief to me as "excuses" to be super lax about house keeping. I really love that college, homework, writing, and so forth give me excuses, now, and I really want the playing field leveled so that Grant should be doing as much as I should because he isn't the only one going out doing other things. When I'm home and have little to do and the place is a mess, the main thing I want to do is leave asap and stay gone as long as possible. I don't really think this is super admirable; I'm just being very honest. I enjoy decorating and I enjoy being in a clean space, but it's almost impossible to enjoy a decorated and clean space for even a little while, let alone a long one, without CONSTANT nagging and at least hourly attention to details, with my crew. When I devote "enough" energy to forcing my kids to keep everything clean, we're usually all miserable. One of my ultimate fantasies is to have enough money to pay others to clean my house, but a close second is to sit and imagine that one day I won't have to pick up after half a dozen other people anymore ;) But when I had babies - well, it's URGENT to clean then. I had very effective motivation! Babies live on the floor, put everything in their mouths, create tons of extra laundry, and generally inspire a strong nesting instinct. That's gone now! Nobody really suffers if I don't EVER MOP AGAIN.

*shrug*

I also have PTSD now, and had to face weeks physically away from my kids followed by months unable to care for my kids, ultimately resulting in never being able to lift any of my kids again...all that kinda breaks up the paradigm a bit. But, honestly, I think I would have come to some of the same conclusions regardless just by being forced to be "done" and having my finished family evolve - my BABIES, my 4th and 5th, are 5 and 7 years old!!

On some level I think it's funny that I've written you that novela, when I would not even contemplate getting a regular job because I couldn't bear to be out of the house that much :p Still and all, the things I am doing add up to a significant portion of time distracted, unavailable and/or gone, and they are all with the eventual goal in mind of doing things "full time" when the kids are older...

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I have a million great pictures from various days/events, that I hope to post tomorrow :)

I've been thinking about this concept a lot lately.

I've been a compulsive and binge eater all my life - I was staying up til everyone else was asleep to sneak things from the kitchen and feeling self conscious about how I didn't want to move from wherever the food was at school functions and family parties from very early childhood. And I've kinda deconstructed that, and thought about how at home, where I often felt unsafe and didn't really have emotionally available adults, the food was rationed and crappy and sparse, whereas at my grandparents' houses - where we were doted on and showered in love - they totally showed their love through food. Shopping for us, cooking, taking us out to eat, rituals around barbecuing on Saturdays and special foods for Christmas Eve, etc.

But recently I've been thinking about actually being orally fixated and Freud's psychosexual stages and all that poppycock. I was not breastfed, cried it out alone from basically day 1 to sleep, and had a pretty weird, spaced out, unavailable mom who went on to be really weird and ultimately abandon me altogether, as I got older, but I don't really think it's as simple as point a leading to point b. I don't really know what to make of any of it.

I'm just thinking of how I would grind my teeth so badly in my sleep that my parents could hear it in the other room, and how I bit my nails enough to make my fingers bleed pretty often. And I obsessively licked my father, to where he started slicking his arms with salt before sitting down to watch tv to try to break me of it/protect himself. I actually consciously remember my first mouthful of gross salt arm :p And I bit my Nana hard enough to make her bleed twice - she actually has a scar where I supposedly would not let go of her breast and she had to smack me off of it (through clothes).

I think it's really over the top, as all this Freudian shit goes, to actually consider me latching my teeth into the nearest breast that way as a 3 year old, btw, but I also think it's interesting that I did these things to my Dad and my Nana - the people who most reliably and consistently showed me love and nurture. I don't think I ever would have dreamed of doing things like that to my mother, because it wouldn't have been safe.

Anyone who has read me long enough or skipped over to my tumblr has probably had the dubious fortune to hear me rhapsodize at some point about how much I love giving oral sex, can almost orgasm from it, it's one of my most recurring fantasies, etc. I've also discovered in recent years that fingers in my mouth have almost the same effect, and that I will nearly cry from the rejection if Grant doesn't want me biting the shit out of him when he least expects it (though I am completely aware that's inappropriate on my part).

Anyway. All this is in the forefront of my mind for two reasons. 1.) I've started chewing gum in the past year and it's totally out of control, like I'm going through half a pack of gum in the 5 hour block I'm at school twice a week alone, can't drive without gum in my mouth, etc. And, 2.) One of my classes is abnormal psych and one of the things we're studying is cognitive-behavioral psych and restructuring techniques - meaning, rather than trying to go back and discover every long buried and subconscious association that contributes to our tendencies, why don't we just focus on what makes us do these things right now in our daily lives, and how we can alter that behavior in the present. Kinda refreshing, eh? :P

I'm also vaguely curious about whether or not I could sub out gum or a tongue piercing (shudder) to play with 24/7 or something like that for EATING ALL THE DAMN TIME and actually effectively lose weight. If only Grant could quit his job, and I could just chew on him and kiss, all day...fairly certain that could work. As it is with him on his fourth business trip in a month, as I attempt to alter my diet in a positive way, my jaw is actually hurting from being clenched all the time. I'm constantly having to make a conscious effort to relax my face. Which is fucking weird.

My last week was characterized in many ways by our fridge being broken. It's kind of unreal what an upset to life it was. Financially, ugh, it was awful tossing hundreds of dollars in food in the trash (after a day of bizarre hodge podge "don't let things go to waste!!" eating) - and then buying by the meal for a family of 7 is so crazily expensive. I spent what I usually would on three weeks worth of groceries. Finally, going shopping today with it fixed, I was starting from scratch and had to spend way more than normal to replenish. My sister was absolutely wonderful despite having an (attachment parented) infant, an (intense) toddler and a (high needs) preschooler; she came over with everything necessary and helped cook us dinner one night, brought me $40 out of the blue another day because she unexpectedly won money from a scratch-off, and then today when we were talking about shopping on the phone she had me run by her house for her surplus carrots, celery, butter and olive oil...apparently shopping in bulk for a smaller, younger family yields "extra," a concept I'm unfamiliar with.

I still spent $705 at BJ's today...despite $50 worth of coupons...but we'll come to that later.

Logistically, I was going to the store 1-3 times per day, starting first thing in the morning before kids were up, as well as dealing with lovely side effects like the cooler I filled with ice leaking all over our dining room, and scrubbing out our fridge and freezer which STANK once they'd been sealed up room temperature for 2 days. There was also the 2 hour google-a-thon researching what we could do to fix it...because we really could not afford to call someone out, at all -

Which is partially because of things like how we had to have the van and the car at Goodyear TWICE EACH last month, and still the car has NO AC O_O - and we got a letter on the front door one day, saying the city had detected a huge spike in our water consumption due to a 3 gallon per minute leak on our side that we were responsible for both fixing, and paying for the inflated use bill they'd be sending us...that one was enough to send a cold chill down my spine. THREE GALLONS PER MINUTE? Luckily we have a plumber neighbor who helped us out...and luckily they know us at Goodyear and the biggest car repair bill...was able to be put on a payment plan. Suffice to say it is not a happy money time.

Grant is also working extreme hours, with his extreme commute, so for the most part I'm on my own with the kids. And, this week, the fridge.

Which is why I feel like some kind of awesome fucking ninja because I was able to diagnose our problem (pull-out bottom freezer was off track, leading to an insufficient seal when closed, causing the compressor to go crazy and freeze through all the pipes and tubes), do the initial experimental cure (get the fridge unplugged and then watch as, sure enough, copious amounts of gross water pooled under it over the next 24 hours), and then put the freezer back together properly so that it wouldn't happen again.

I do not normally stop to appreciate refrigeration unless we've just had a hurricane. And there is a possible one on the way - that would hit while my husband is out of the state for his job - and so I'm familiarizing myself with our shutters and lining up a mental list of people to call if I need help.

Anyway, I really appreciate my fridge right now. It seems especially luxurious, being sparkling clean on the inside and only filled with brand new things we really wanted in there.

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I've been devoting a lot of mental energy, research, conversation, paperwork and calls/emails to the kids' educations for the coming year, too. I'm outsourcing more than I ever have before, but I feel really good about each of them getting stuff that's really tailored to their best interests. I also feel some level of relief that I'm not solely responsible for all of it, especially since the coming school year features my surgery.

Ananda - Staying homeschooled, but now with Marine Science, U.S. Government, Latin and guitar online via Florida Virtual Schools K-12 program, which is a pretty cool resource. She'll have teachers she's emailing and talking to on the phone and be responsible for turning in a certain amount of work per week, which for guitar will include audio and video recording. The science course has a lot of multimedia content, library reading and a field trip. She's using Grant's guitar for this. We're sticking with Kumon math, since she loves it, and will be focusing most of language arts on book reports and analyses, since she reads constantly. She was able to audition into GMYS's Young Mozarts during camp this summer, so I'm trying to figure out some wild way to get a freakin' cello of her own now (they're only provided by GMYS during the preparatory classes and beginner camps). There are some rent to own programs in the area that might work...sort of...since I'm gonna make them. I'm also making her take long walks and bike rides with me often because she can get really, reeeeally sedentary if I let her. I'm on the lookout for a PE program for her, actually, much to her dismay.

Aaron - Staying homeschooled, but doing Earth Science, U.S. Government, latin and (standard 6th grade) math online via Virtual School. I've been stocking him up throughout the summer with reading he likes, so he can do more writing for me based off of it - Aaron hates fiction but loves poetry, comics and general nonfiction. Right now he has a lot of new Shel Silverstein and Calvin and Hobbes, a thick stack of National Geographic back issues, and a few other odd things (like the Book of Useful Information). He's been promised science experiments and will be auditioning for Young Sousas and Concert Band with GMYS later this month, on flute. He also wants to take their new percussion prep class, and we're still up in the air about him dancing. I'm planning to make him utilize his camera and YouTube account, as well, in several different ways.

Isaac is going to third grade at a local charter school. He's extremely happy to have been placed in a combined 2nd and 3rd grade class with his friend Naja (Kristin's daughter), and one of their two teachers comes very well recommended (don't know the other one). He's going to keep playing violin with GMYS, and is supposed to start counseling again in October (grant funding/rotating sessions and breaks thing...).

Jake is doing 1st grade at home. He's very academically advanced and really creative with his time, and so at 6 I don't plan on doing a ton of structured stuff with him. We have some new BrainQuest and Kumon books we'll work through together, and we'll talk and go out places and all the things we always do. I am trying to get him into martial arts; he does NOT want to do music anymore, and is really eager to do that instead. I've found a place funded by the Children's Trust, which kind of blows my mind - they fund GMYS, and the Institute where Isaac's been evaluated and gotten counseling, AND this? If my books ever get big and I am rolling in cash, they're gonna get a whole lot of it. These martial arts classes still cost money, but it's extremely reasonable.

Elise is attending Kindergarten at the same school as Isaac (and our friends Darrien and Naja, and some of our neighbors, and some of her preschool class...) - it's until 2 instead of 3 like normal school. I wish they offered a half day option, but as it is they do have a lot of early release days throughout the year that are half days (I think I counted 16 on the calendar?). She's also going to start ballet through - GET THIS - a free local outreach of the Thomas Armour Youth Ballet, i.e. the MIAMI CONSERVATORY, like, how is this free and local? The Miami Conservatory is extremely prestigious! And, up in Miami! Anyway, Kristin found out about this and Naj has been going and loving it. Elise has been talking whimsically about ballet for 6 months now, mostly just because it's pretty, and I'm sure she'll have fun. She's also sticking with violin and will be going to those weekly prep classes with Isaac now that she's 5 (she's in beginner GMYS camp with Isaac and Jake right now and doing really well, though she's been home sick mostly cuddling with me and Annie, nursing and reading books for the past two days due to some feverish illness she caught there).

I'm doing my last semester at Miami Dade College this fall, graduating in December. And, we're gonna be continuing with TLC and PATH. We are probably starting the ball rolling to move sometime soon, but it's gonna be a slow rolling ball that involves decisions about selling the house, actually selling a house in this market, finding a new place, etc...I don't expect this to be upon us before New Years at the very earliest, if then. Surgery in the Spring, and I'm applying to UM and FIU to start in the fall of 2013.

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Ananda and Aaron and I sat around the dining table for an hour or so the other night, talking about personality. How so much of it is innate - I was cracking them up with examples of how each of the kids in this family is still so much like they were as an infant, and they were filling me on an episode of Radiolab they listened to with Grant on dna in pregnancy and personality formation - how they think it's really interesting, how exposure to radiation changes your dna and can, thus, change your personality.

I was telling them how after I got out of the hospital last, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was "different." That I thought and felt differently about many things than I had before, far beyond PTSD symptoms. It's harder for me to concentrate now, and yet I have to concentrate much more to accomplish things that didn't use to require focus. My belief systems are different, partially because the whole experience left me questioning everything, down to my identity and the purpose of my life.

There came a point when I started researching sepsis and brain damage, and found tons and tons of information because that is a real thing - an infection travelling through your blood stream means there are a bunch of dangerous bacterium flowing through your brain and trying to take over, just like every other part of your body. Apparently many people have much worse trouble than I do with this; I mean I can still wonder about it, research it, understand what's going on and then make a relevant blog post.

These things are hard to quantify, obviously - we're all getting older and growing and changing as people all the time. But life - not aspects of it, LIFE - feels different to me, now. Since then.

I was telling the kids how I remember very clearly how satisfied and fulfilled I was by cooking big breakfasts and lunches, baking for tea and changing and washing diapers, reading to everyone and sitting by the bathtub while kids played. But I don't feel satisfied and fulfilled that way, anymore. I feel bored out of my mind in the house a lot of the time, restless and angsty, or I get really frustrated with my inability to create structure from thin air without accountability and just waste hours and hours for weeks unless I force myself into some kind of outside-the-house thing. It isn't depression; I'm very happy out of the house doing things and sometimes I'm having a good time, here, too - sometimes a really great time, but...my joy comes from different places, now.

Sepsis brain damage, that's a big thing to consider or take on, I mean...ok...maybe being forced to stop having kids, or maybe my existing kids getting bigger, or maybe so much time doing the same things until it was wearisome, or even having a lot of my autonomy as a mother threatened and taken away (through enforced separation, the inability to lift, etc) have altered my perceptions. Maybe it's all these things!

But Ananda and Aaron knew exactly what I was talking about and thought it made an awful lot of sense. Which is a little sad, and makes me stop and ponder how TERRIBLY TRAGIC and awful it would seem to "old me," that new me is...different. But new me, being different, is pretty ok with the change.

Grant nodded like it wasn't even a surprise as we talked about this, saying "Yeah you're a totally different person," as though that's just very obvious.


Sometimes, here on Livejournal, I worry that I'm going to be disappointing or at least disillusioning to my long term readers - I feel like an imposter in certain ways. But, it is what it is.


I have tons more to say, but my eyes are nearly crossing from tiredness AND my sister has completely distracted me via facebook chat :p

So, I'm getting more and more tumblr questions and lj comments and facebook messages about my book, which is really wonderful, but it's also grating on me in this unexpected way...

Maybe because I'm not really used to achieving any kind of personal success unrelated to other people.

Maybe because I wasn't really taught that long term rewards are achievable.

Maybe because I've talked a lot of shit on here for a lot of years about my writing and now THIS is the first thing that's gonna be out there to represent it and this is good writing, in it's way, it really is, I'm proud of it - it's just also insane and not for everyone.

I'm just....thinking about my neighbors, and other PATH moms, and my mother in law and aunts and cousins leafing through it, dance moms and my teachers and it kind of makes me want to hide my head under a pillow until I'm old. I think I would ideally have every single person I will never encounter IRL read it.

You're either in or you're out, right? I'm in.

It's just, somewhere in between answering a bunch of interview questions for my publisher yesterday and seeing the cover pop up on my dash because Bobby reblogged it I was like, alright. I'm not going to throw up. Really I'm not. Lol, geez. It just hit me, You are choosing to publish the contents of your head.

And I wrote this ridiculous bullshit yesterday, spontaneously and like vomiting through the keyboard like all of Twenty Troubled Ladies went for me...and I'm just looking at it, like, really? This is what comes out of your head and through your fingers? THIS? This is the contents of your head...

I'm doing a lot of narrative nonfiction, and working on my children's books, just lately, and have been thinking it's sort of odd that the way time is, and production is, I would always be working on totally different stuff by the time something from years before was getting released (you know, assuming other things get released...)

Except apparently I'm still gonna periodically write totally gritty and psychotic short stories.

---

I am pretty pleased with this past semester of school now that it's over. It's the worst grades I've gotten so far, but it proved to me that even when the shit hits the fan and school can't be a priority, I can still keep going and make it work. January-April for me was like,

-CPS and cops at my house about Isaac counseling issues (everything resolved and closed quickly and without repercussion, but holy shit), and kicking Bob out and moving bedrooms around, and so many phone calls and forms
-Taking Isaac to Kendall and Hialeah multiple times per week for hours at a time, and twice an entire day, when Grant and I weren't interviewing with someone, or filling out packets, or making my sister fill out packets, for his counseling and his psych eval
-getting rear ended and having whiplash - trips to my insurance place and meeting their inspector and sitting on the phone, trips to the chiro, and CONSTANT PAIN and reduced range of motion, for weeks....(thank God that seems to be over)
-ER trip for my hernia and subsequent surgical consultations triggering the fuck out of my PTSD and putting me into a severe dissociative funk
-Bronchitis so bad I ended up at the hospital for it, and on an inhaler for the first time in my life
-Getting ACCEPTED FOR PUBLICATION and spending seriously countless hours on the phone and via email with publisher contact going over cover choices, pseudonym merits, story order, dedications, intro, fonts, my bio, their marketing, interview questions and answers, and tracking down my wayward fucking diva artist for permission to use his images, and having ANNE RICE say she'll read and review my book and having a heart attack....
-Aaron's glands swelling to chipmunk proportions and requiring multiple doctor visits and tons of meds
-walking my mother through my grandmother being put in a home and my grandfather going through open heart surgery that went badly, then ok, and now how to navigate them being in this center together and eventually (hopefully?) going home. Which reminds me I need to get the freakin' cards the kids made them in the mail...
-finding out my financial aid was flagged and cancelled and bullshit AGAIN and tediously plowing through bureaucracy AGAIN to be able to pay for school
-getting offered a refinance rather than foreclosure option for our house that we couldn't afford and my husband basically having a nervous breakdown and putting all the finances totally in my hands (as in, he doesn't even wanna know) and pulling us through that, with the help of selling crap, "manifesting" near miraculous things, and a certain Wright Bank family benefactor (that means Shaun).
-Aaron attended 12 weeks of acting classes and was then part of a performance we all went to, Ananda and Elise sold Girl Scout cookies, Jake learned to ride a bike without training wheels, Laura had a baby....
-I even hung out with/caught up with Kathy multiple times, and met up with Jess and Cale for two different cool nights in Miami and some good phone calls, and spent stolen minutes with Kristin at the bike rack and in our kitchens!

I also think Grant and I might have been nearly killed on the beach, and holy shit can I just say that looking at that list right now is making me give my monitor a severe side-eye because WHAT THE FUCK is the matter with the past few months?!

Point being, I did not drop out, or miss too many classes, or withdraw from or fail anything, NOT EVEN ALGEBRA - which I am now done with, forever.

Humanities - A
Computer Crap - B <---That's really what they call it, isn't that crazy?
Spanish - B
Algebra - C

I'm in like Flynn, it's on like Donkey Kong. I'm gonna get the fuck out of this degree. I'm gonna get STRAIGHT As again if my life ever calms down, but if it doesn't, things'll work out.

One thing this semester did teach me, is that it is ludicrous and impossible for me to go to UM's med school and enter the Extremely Rigorous neuroscience program. But, I am mostly ok with that, and it will probably be there when my kids are grown, right?

I also managed to finagle full scholarships for all five kids to go to Greater Miami Youth Symphony day camp; 2 two week sessions of beginner for Isaac, Jake and Elise and 6 weeks of intermediate for Ananda and Aaron. I think A and A are gonna have a really great time this year; there are PATH friends and Girl Scout troop members who will be there with them.

---

( +20, some of which will be repeats if you've been looking at my fb/tumblr )

Because it's on the way back from visiting Nancy, and he wanted to get something done. It's a deserted (for the weekend) section of the second floor of an office building. All the doors are ceiling height, there's a lot of glass and plush carpet everywhere and the children are currently sitting around a giant meeting table in cushy leather chairs watching hulu cartoons on a projector screen that comes down from the ceiling. We haven't really been in this particular workplace of his before (he's been here 6 months; it's 2 hours from our freakin' house).

Aaron, sitting at the head of the large meeting table: I am the CEO.
Me: You have something to tell us?
Aaron: I'm even wearing cologne. (takes off his watch) Today's topic is "Gshocks". Worth the money, or are you just paying for the brand name?
Me: Isaac, don't erase things from the (very complex and completely covered in writing) board!
Aaron: I think these chairs are probably, like, at least two dead cows each.
Annie: They're obviously fake.
Me: Based on what?
Annie: *glares at me*
Elise, sitting at the foot of the table: Now everyone has to pay attention to me *giggles*.
Jake, muffled from under the table: HEY GUYS THE MEETING IS DOWN HERE!
Isaac: Whoa, a golden doorknob! Did you know the doorknobs are golden here, Dad?
Me: You know what I think we should do? You and me, while they watch this movie?
Grant: I'm sure I do.
Me: There aren't cameras, right?
Grant: Not that I know of.
Me: Well.
Grant: I have stuff to do.
Me: I'm taking some pens and you can't stop me.

---

The meeting with Nancy was great. Ananda is taller than her, Aaron is almost as tall as her. We walked all around a park in Boca Raton with her pushing her dog in a dog stroller and updated each other on the last year of our lives, with Elise and Grant trailing after us when the conversation was too sensitive for small ears and walking alongside when not. Ananda rode a skateboard around, Aaron his unicycle, and Jake and Isaac mostly played at the playground. We sat on a bench and showed each other pictures off of our phones for twenty minutes. Eventually we caravan'd over to Whole Foods to eat. I'm meeting her alone in Davey next Sunday evening. It's a lot easier to say goodbye "til next Sunday" as opposed to "til next February".

Ok, so, MONEY OH MY GOSH....we're in a crazy bottleneck, but, we're climbing out. I don't even want to get into it because, well, I don't like talking about money even when it doesn't involve trolls ;)

Also, ISAAC SHEESH ISAAC....major Isaac stuff happening that I've been writing about on a (tiny, tiny) filter, which is very rare for me...I will feel more comfortable sharing it after he's been through some counseling sessions and I understand it all a little more. PLEASE nobody be offended, there are people I really love who aren't on it right now.

And SCHOOL WTF end of the semester ARGH...it's been like:

2 Saturdays ago: 20 minute group presentation, and 15 minute individual presentation - both requiring field work outside of class and power points (religion).
That Monday: Informative Speech Outline due - 4 pages, cited (speech)
Wednesday: Comparing and contrasting plays paper, cited (english)
Saturday: 7 page term paper (religion)
Monday: Novel presentation including my new book jacket design, and turning in a bunch of "6 word novels" (english)
Wednesday: a speech and a 3 minute commercial for my chosen non-profit (speech), and a paper about the novel I read earlier in the semester (english)
(this coming)Saturday: final exam, and turning in journal we were supposed to have been keeping all semester (oops...) (religion)
Monday: make up final exam only for people who missed a test during the semester (speech)

*this is me doing a dance that looks like a lot of involuntary shuddering, but is actually shaking off the semester*

I'm going to miss a couple of people. I had some really great classmates that I was with in the summer and over the fall, and laughed with excessively, but wouldn't really call friends, and since I'm not doing evening classes in the spring we'll probably lose touch.

All of that up there is why I haven't been posting much, not necessarily in that order.

---

For anyone who hasn't been watching: Regretsy has officially OWNED Paypal. They (regretsy) did a holiday fundraiser for a bunch of families who submitted info to be a part of it. Regretsy readers sent in THOUSANDS of dollars to help via a "donate" button. And then Paypal froze the Regretsy acct, and told April (Mrs Regretsy) that she had to refund what was basically a bazillion $2 donations, because Regretsy isn't a non-profit. Paypal took fees out of all of it twice (as the money went both ways), and April tried to get all the families connected with their freely given charity other ways, and Paypal blocked it AGAIN, saying in effect "WE ARE ON TO YOU QUIT THIS YOU AREN'T A CHARITY" which is...ridiculous on many levels, along with not actually being in line with paypal policy. April documented all of this as it happened, which led to it spreading around the internet, and NOW!!! Now, Paypal is giving each of those 200 families $100 each as an apology (they are also still getting all the toys/food/gift cards/etc from Regretsians). SO FREAKING AWESOME! I'm used to seeing Regretsy laugh in the face of bogus legal threats from angry Etsy sellers, but to see them saying "Paypal is only doing this because we're giving them a massive public lashing and they want to save their PR - what about little guys who are being cheated?? Corporate logistics suck!" is amazing. It is worth reading back over the last 10 entries, in reverse order, to see. April Winchell officially has the entire internet by the balls.

---

I think long and often lately about the perks and blessings of having such a great husband. I don't think I could be more glad that we stuck it out and worked through a lot of things, months ago. Do you know what real love is? Real love is when you're eating breakfast in the diner, and he raises an eyebrow at you because you've eaten ALL the orange marmelade out of the big basket on the table for the day, and just saying, "What?"

This evolution that comes from so much time and commitment is SO AWESOME! There are bad times. We've actually had a couple of bad YEARS, as a couple, when I look back. But even the "bad years" with Grant could be a hell of a lot worse. But the evolving - the realizing after a solid 8 years sharing a bed one day, spontaneously, that you both REALLY LIKE IT A LOT when he puts his hand around your neck, so then you start talking about deeper levels of fantasies you've never shared, or the "Why haven't we ever went to the beach alone together at night?" question that spawns the next 3 months worth of Saturday nights on a sandy blanket...I love it. I really love it.

He figured out some kind of massage technique while I was cramping TERRIBLY on my period last week that makes it so my restless legs are GONE and I can actually get comfortable and go to sleep. That seems like a miracle to me. And I could NEVER lie comfortably on my side with my weird belly and a total lack of self consciousness while he did it, with anyone else. I just started doing things to him that I'd never done before, like, this week, that never would have occurred to us as teenagers.

In the spirit of the marmelade gluttony acceptance: Last night started with me ranting and raving about MY CLASSES and MONEY and OUR KIDS and how overwhelmed and horrified I am with my daily life and how there's NO END IN SIGHT ever and finally he was like, ok, I know what this is really about - and put a movie on for the kids, and locked the doors, and turned up music. Last night ENDED with me blindfolded, arms restrained, going from screaming my head off like a really happy murder victim to laughing HYSTERICALLY and shouting "Ok stopstopstop before I die!!!!!" ...and then continuing to laugh, out of control tearful laughter like something unlocked inside of me, for many minutes.

He just chuckles, and takes the blindfold and scarves off with a loving sounding "You pyscho" before setting the alarm for the morning.

So far it's went:

-Sleep in while Grant takes Elise to preschool and goes out to the store
-wake up to breakfast pizzas & oj, flowers, hugs from Ananda and Aaron, a homemade necklace from Jake, and dozens of well wishes on facebook
-take a nap with Grant, til he goes to get Elise and then comes back and crawls in bed with me, and Isaac, and Elise
-bedroom door closes for highly satisfactory Mommy and Daddy time
-talk of him grilling me a marinated steak and shrooms later
-trip out to Mama Mia's for bruschetta and cappuccino, in the beautiful weather
-MORE NAPPING
-sister shows up to deliver lovely edible arrangement ordered by my mother, which I happily share with children and niece and nephew

(this is where I'm at now)

I mean honestly if this is my thirties I'll take it.

Tangent: this past weekend G and I went up to Winn DIxie in the BEAUTIFUL gorgeous weather on a bike and a skateboard, racing down the same streets we have since we were 13 years old, and it struck me that we were racing down the same streets together that we have since we were 13 years old.

PostScript: Guys, seriously, why can't we talk about whether or not you like it when people talk about sex on the internet, or my weird mood swings, or the pictures I post, or my crazy friends, or college - ? These exploding political threads busting my inbox at the seams, honestly people, sigh. I mean I think about current events at some point every day but I wish I could get a quarter the input and involvement on everyday posts. Ultimately, heated debate of any kind just makes me tired of the subject of debate. <--This is me flippantly whining with a chuckle, ok? So don't come in here like OH MY GOSH YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT THE SUFFERING or I'm just gonna link you to a Rick Astley video.

Weeks old partial update:

When contemplating motherhood, I don't think most people consider the realities of what it will be like. FOR INSTANCE, this morning found me naked, bent over a laundry basket digging for clothes, when a four year old appeared behind me frantically strumming a half-sized accoustic guitar and scream-singing, "I seeeeeeeee your buuuuuuuut! Me SSSEEEE your BUTT!!!"

A lot of motherhood is like that.

Elise talks about a few things repetetively, normal four year old obsession stuff like how many brothers and sisters she has and who my parents and siblings are and basic rules of the house and that she's four and going to preschool, but not until fall, and we have an umbrella for rainy days because we're going to walk to preschool, and that her best friends are Naja and Georgia...etc. One of these things she brings up relatively often is that her "brain had problems" when she was born, and she had to be in the hospital and we were SOOO worried, but now she's doing great! Today she paused in the middle of her normal monologue around the point where people were praying for her and I wanted her to come home to ask, "WHY my brain have problems? What problems you mean? HOW?"

So I spent 15 minutes explaining what umbilical cords are, and what they're for, with lots of pictures from ye olde internet for help, and took her outside to see how the hose doesn't work if you compress a part of it and how umbilical cords usually have something in them that makes them strong so you can't compress them, but hers didn't, blah blah blah. The point is that she gets it all as I'm saying it and asks intelligent (for her age, obviously) questions about what I'm saying and DAMN would I have liked to have witnessed this interchange via crystal ball about 4 years and 2 months ago.

( SIXTY pictures off of my iPhone, spanning the last three weeks, with tons of commentary... )


I realized sometime in the past few days that - for the first time in who knows how long - I'm content. I can look around and feel good about my life, as it is, without feeling there are an awful lot of things I HAVE to fix or can't live with as they are.

It's really nice.