Pants on the Ground

I work for a family business. Sometimes that's a fantastic bonus, and sometimes it's just too much. Ken works for the same business, in a freelance capacity, from a home office. So when things are crazy at work it means:

I work all day. Then I go home, and talk about work with Ken. Then I walk around my home, and there are constant visual reminders of work from Ken's files and equipment lying around. The phone rings. It's my step-dad. First he talks to me about work. Then he talks to Ken about work. Our home is small enough that even though Ken takes the call in the other room, I can still hear every word he's saying (about work) while I'm in the other room trying to watch TV or fold the laundry in peace.

On special occasions I get together with my family, and talk about work with my uncle.

Lately, things at work have been totally off the hook. I've been bellyaching here for weeks about my work stress, and this week is exactly the same. My overall state of mind can be encapsulated by one word:
ZOMG!!!1!!!

*sigh*

I won't bore you with the details. God knows, I have certainly talked enough about work lately (see above). So I'll tell you about something else. All you regular readers know that Ken is a prince who consistently spoils me rotten. Well, I finally got a chance to do something for him.

However hard I've worked lately, he's worked harder. More hours, more responsibility, tighter deadlines. His attache case broke, his clipboard broke, and he hasn't had time to replace them. He's eating so little due to stress and lack of time that he's shed enormous amounts of weight, but he hasn't had time to buy any new clothes. Last weekend his belt was on the last notch, and he was headed directly for a Pants On the Ground situation.

He's not working seven full days per week, but when he does have downtime, he's down. The man is on the couch, in a daze, catching his breath.

I decided to go shopping, to help him out.

Replacing the attache case and clipboard was easy. Then I headed into Old Navy to purchase some pants. That was significantly more complicated. Women's clothing manufacturers generally make pants in one length, (long), and expect you to hem them yourself. Or take them to a tailor. Old Navy's mens' pants come in a variety of waist sizes and a variety of inseam lengths. This creates a whole matrix of size options on a two-dimensional grid.

Because the available sizes can't be arranged in a linear fashion, finding a size is like finding a needle in a haystack. The clerks who stock the shelves can't seem to decide whether they're piling the pants by waist size or inseam. It's kind of random. Either that or the customers have been rearranging the display all week.

I dug through stacks of pants looking for sizes until I was sweating. Then I thought I might have better luck on the lower, less frequently-accessed shelves, so I got down on my knees, with my own super-low skinny jeans threatening to give me a case of plumber's butt, and used both hands to burrow through the piles.

I finally came up for air with two pairs of pants one size smaller and two pairs two sizes smaller than Ken's too-big pants. The colours were based entirely on size availability. (Black and beige - what other men's pants colours are there anyway? I can't think of any.)

I cashed out. I was sweaty, tired, and carrying a lot of bags by then. Yes, I'm small and pathetic. Yes, four pairs of pants and an attache case plus my coat and handbag was a lot to be carrying. But I persevered. I still needed to find a belt.

The belt quest was epic. I went from store to store, checking out belts and asking for help with sizing. Either there was nothing in Ken's size, or the belts were all the end-of-winter clearance super-ugly models (for example, white snakeskin), or they had giant buckles shaped like trucks or hundred-dollar bills, or they cost $150 before tax.

I walked through the whole mall before I finally got to The Bay and located a decent belt for $25. By then I was dehydrated, cranky, and my arms were aching. I stood in line at the cash for what seemed like forever, balancing my shopping bags, while some dude fussed over a return. Then, finally, I paid for the damn belt and got out of there.

I dragged my bags all the way home: a subway ride, and then a 20-minute walk. But it was all worthwhile. It made Ken happy. It also made me happy. He's been wearing his new pants, which look much more flattering than his old ones, which were so big on him they were starting to look like clown pants. He's been using his new bag and clipboard. And it was about time I got a chance to do something for him, for a change.

Day by Day

In the past week, my default feeling has been overwhelm. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed, scared and sad; sometimes overwhelmed, yet happy and grateful. But always with the overwhelmingness. I find it difficult to sit down and craft a post in this condition. If I can't make all the pieces of my life come together and fit into a coherent picture for my own personal mental health, how can I do that in a piece of writing?

My coping mechanism is: I retreat into a smaller and smaller slice of the present time, and just deal with that, until I'm basically living one minute at a time, without thinking much about the last moment or the next. I can get by like this, although even things that I put in my calendar tend to take me by surprise, because I'm just not thinking that far ahead, even when the event in question is planned for tomorrow. Similarly, I'm having trouble remembering things. Oh well. How important are those things anyway? I mean, do I really need to buy toilet paper?*

*rhetorical question

The reason for all this mental AAAAAAUGH! *frantic jazz hands* is that there is a lot of change happening, or pending, at the moment. It's pretty much all good stuff, or at least neutral. But I don't deal well with change, even if it's the kind of change that's going to improve my life. I try. I say all the right things to myself. But if there are too many changes at once eventually my brain just blows a gasket. Blam.

In general all this change has to do with my workplace. We're moving to bigger premises and with that will come role changes and personnel changes. I am taking on more responsibilities. And also, there's the wee matter of me being in charge of upgrading our ENTIRE COMPUTER SYSTEM. It'll be a quantum leap from what it is now, but dang. It's ginormous project, and thoughts of the transition process are making me mightily nervous.

Every night I watch an episode of Grey's Anatomy before I go to bed, to relax. It's my new favourite show. Then I go to bed and dream that I'm designing blueprints for a new wing of the GA hospital, except it's real and I work there and it's all very stressful.

Well, that's life, isn't it.

Anyway, this weekend I'm looking forward to lunch with my 93-year-old grandmother. She's going to get a taxi to my house and then we'll walk to the mall together. While we were planning this I asked her if she would like to meet me at the restaurant, because it's a 15-minute walk from my place. She was indignant.

"I can walk for 15 minutes!"

And you know what? I'm sure that she can. Probably faster than me, and that's on shorter legs because the top of her head barely clears the underside of my chin when she hugs me. My grandmother is awesome. Maybe she'll provide some wisdom to help me get through.

(((HUGS)))

Thanks everybody for the love, support, and suggestions. It helps a lot to know that all y'all are out there, caring and sending me healing thoughts and prayers.

In answer to a couple of comments: I take a multivitamin with a B-complex every day, but it's not a "high" dose. 25 mg of each of the Big B's. It would be a good idea to add a little extra. Next time I'm out shopping I'll see if I can find an additional B complex take on top of the multi for the time being.

I have a couple of options if I'm desperate to sleep and not having any luck. I can take a herbal helper, or sometimes I'll go find Ken, who stays up late, and he'll mix me up a medicinal drink. I'm not even a social drinker, so it doesn't take much to unwind me. Booze works better and faster than the herbs, but for obvious reasons I don't want to overdo that route. Either option usually leaves me feeling much more drowsy than usual in the morning. Neither is much help if the insomnia comes at 3:30 am. I can't take a pill or a drink if I'm supposed to wake up and go to work in 3 hours.

As for other pharmaceutical options, I'm taking a "wait and see" approach. If there were such a thing as a short-term anti-depressant, I'd be thrilled to take it. The thing is, most of them take 4 - 6 months to kick in, and then they're hard to stop. I'm hoping that I can at least count on feeling better by 3 months from now! If I don't, well, whatever, I'd let them stick horse tranquilizers into my veins by that point.

I want to make it clear that while I have my dark moments, especially in the wee hours of the morning, I'm not just flopping down on the floor and giving myself over to despair. The horrible anxiety episodes tend to come at night. In the daytime, as long as I'm not ridiculously tired I can get myself dressed, put on makeup, and be almost normal.

Yesterday I went to church, which, while I have complained bitterly about some of the church politics here lately, was an uplifting, comforting experience. What I think about the church and what I feel in my heart while I'm there are often two very different stories.

Ken and I went for lunch at a favourite restaurant downtown. It's casual, cheap, healthy, and has a good view of a major intersection out the front and side windows, making for excellent people-watching. The University of Toronto Engineering frosh were up to some shenanigans on the street corner, making a lot of noise and hassling passers-by for donations to the Sick Children's hospital as part of their orientation/hazing. On our way out I dropped a Toonie into their collection hard-hat. All 12 or so students in the group pointed at me and chanted "This lady rocks! This lady rocks! This lady rocks!" which was the silliest thing that's happened to me in a long time. I mean that in a good way.

The weather was perfect. Blue skies, not too warm, the epitome of a lovely summer day. We were close enough to the Canadian National Exhibition fairgrounds that the jet planes from the air show flew over us as they looped back from their demonstration runs. For the next hour or so as we strolled along Queen St., at intervals the air would begin to tremble, then shake, then rip apart as yet another specimen of Canadian or American Air Force muscle burned a streak across the high, blue sky. Sometimes the planes were so close that we could see the details of their paint jobs as they tore overhead. Other times the entire world would fill with their vibrations, echoing off tall buildings and all around, but the planes themselves would be out of view behind a stand of trees or something, and the noise seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.

The air show is an end-of-summer ritual that always cheers me up. It's fun, it's predictable, and yet always exciting. I have been to see it from down at the fairgrounds, where you can hear announcements over a wobbly P.A. system describing what type of planes are being flown and by whom, but it's actually more fun to be out somewhere random in the city when suddenly nine Snowbirds shoot past overhead in tight formation, and you're clenching your jaws to keep all the fillings from vibrating out of your teeth.

I hear they have a special clean-up crew at the CNE for after they air show. They go around with soft brooms and micro-accurate vacuum cleaners, collecting the shreds of blown-out eardrums that collect in drifts against the bleacher supports thanks to the breeze off the lake.

We stopped in a bakery for treats, and then window-shopped, swigging Perrier out of small, green-glass bottles.

We strolled through the lushly green grounds of Trinity-Bellwoods park amongst young people working on their tans and/or showing off their ink.

Despite being a little more tired than "normal" (whatever "normal" is - it's getting difficult to remember at this stage), I relaxed and enjoyed the day.

Of course I still couldn't fall asleep at night. After tossing and turning for two hours with frustrated adrenaline building up to toxic levels in my bloodstream, I went back out into the living room and let Ken get me tipsy on orange juice mixed with vodka and Disaronno. We watched Ghost World, or at least Ken watched the whole thing and I watched until my drunky eyelids started drooping and I got back into my bed and passed out. At least I got to sleep in this morning.

If I didn't have to work, it might almost be fun to live like this: stay up late with Ken every night, sipping mixed drinks and watching indie films together. Ah well. Better luck tonight, perhaps. *fingers crossed*

Struggling

I have a good life, and I know it. But right now, I'm struggling.

All last week I had just enough energy to work for around 6 hours each day, and then come home and crash out. Except the one day I came home at 4pm, had a nap for 45 minutes, then glued my contact lenses back onto my tired eyeballs and went out for an evening work event. All I had to do was sit around, eat a nice dinner, and make pleasant conversation. How could that be tiring? I don't know. But it was.

Saturday was my catch-up-on-rest day. I slept for twelve hours on Friday night, and then had a long nap on Saturday afternoon. I had made a deal with myself that I would be feeling good by Sunday. I could feel my energy returning, and I knew that it would just take one good rest to get back to myself. I was looking forward to that as my reward for suffering patiently all month with the stupid virus.

My energy did come back, but not how I wanted it to. For the two weeks before I caught the virus, I had anxiety and insomnia. It came back during the brief break between when I initially got sick and when I got re-sick. And now, you guessed it, it's back again.

Last night I woke up at 4:15 am. It wasn't just one of those jet-laggy wake-ups that happen when you've been sleeping too much during the day. It was a full-on stomach-clenching, eye-squeezing, tearful, lengthy anxiety attack. I won't say panic attack - it wasn't that severe. But it was pretty freaking uncomfortable. And unpleasantly familiar.

Great. I finally get over my illness. Now I have enough energy to go back to having anxiety and insomnia. Perfect.

I know, I know. Maybe it's just a one-off. Maybe I'm just re-adjusting to normality. I shouldn't catastrophize and assume that this is how it's going to be for the rest of the week/month/my whole pitiful life. (Yes, I am feeling a little sorry for myself.) But it's getting harder and harder to pick my chin up off the ground and keep going. The boundary between my dark thoughts and my conscious control is getting mightily thin.

The breaking point

I've been giving too much to others in the past few weeks/months. It's knocked me into a rut from my past. I have an old, bad habit of progressively erasing myself until I almost disappear, as a cumulative response to escalating demands from other people.

Not that the other people are aware of what I'm doing. I'm not saying that it's what they're asking of me. It's not their fault.

This is what happens when I'm surrounded by people who are upset. They're not all upset about the same thing. Just life, doing what life does, has conspired to disturb a lot of people in my life at the moment for one reason or another.

The more emotional the other person becomes, the "calmer" I get in order to compensate. I instinctively focus on being the grounded, stable one. Except I'm not really grounded and stable. Well, sometimes I am, but lately it's been an act. I figure that someone has to be "the strong one". We can't all freak out, or nothing will ever be resolved. So I shove all my anxieties and sorrows somewhere into the back of my mind, and concentrate on soothing the other person.

Usually, in my own time, I can go back and unpack what I've shoved away, and deal with it. Except when a lot of stressful things happen one after the other, without enough of a break in between, for months on end, eventually I can't handle any more. I've reached that point.

I won't name any names, but there are five people whom I care about who have been going through a lot of crap lately. That's a lot of people. And when one might be having a good day, another is into his or her next crisis. It seems like it will never end.

I'm not sure how much more soothing I can do. Obviously at work I have to remain professional. I don't want to be mean. Except at another level I'm so fed up with it all I do want to be mean. I'd like to tell everyone to F off and leave me in peace. The truth is, I'm frustrated, because nothing I do makes enough of a difference. All these people I care about are suffering, and I can't bear to witness it anymore. Except that I don't have a choice. And I don't know how to handle it.

There's No Place Like Home

On Tuesday evening I had dinner with my mother.

She’s 65 now, and is starting to show signs of becoming a little old lady. She’s a little hunched over, a little smaller than she used to be. She putters around her old house, tending to her many houseplants, trying to keep dust from accumulating on the stacks of books that fill every corner of almost every room. She dotes on my adopted cat brothers, and laments the damage they do to her furniture. She likes a good, strong cup of tea.

We had a very civilized evening, discussing theology over homemade sheppard’s pie and roasted vegetables.

After nine o’clock, I decided I’d better start heading home. Even though it was dark and raining out, or perhaps because of that, my mom offered to drive me all the way home instead of letting me to take public transit. My home isn’t far from hers, but my mom is not a confident driver, especially at night, so it was going to be a bit of an ordeal for her.

(For anyone who doesn’t know: I don’t have a driver’s license. That’s a story in itself. Let’s just say that I inherited my driving genes from my mom.)

We set out in good spirits. My mom took her special route through a maze of winding side streets. She likes to stay off streets that are more than two lanes wide if possible, and completely refuses to drive on any highway. We made it most of the way to my house on the back streets.

Finally she had to go north on Yonge St., one of the central arteries of Toronto, in order to pass under the 401, one of the major highways. As we approached the 401, traffic slowed down. Orange signs and traffic cones directed all the cars to merge into the right lane. And then, lo and behold, ahead of us the road was completely blocked.

Traffic was being forced off to the right. At first all we could see to the right was the on-ramp to the 401. My highway-phobic mother gripped the wheel with white knuckles, thinking she’d be forced onto the highway. Then she saw that a side street branched off from the approach to the on-ramp. Saved by the skin of our teeth.

We turned onto the residential street and proceeded into the dark. We started out facing due east, but the road soon began to twist and turn unpredictably until we were both disoriented. Any intersecting streets also seemed to wind off at odd angles.

We were getting deeper and deeper into one of those fancy-dancy areas, where mature trees arch overhead and on either side there are wall-to-wall mansions with fountains and wrought-iron fences, spot-lit in the dark to look like movie sets. There was one other car on the road, following close behind us.

When we had been driving for quite some time with no apparent progress, my mom decided to pull over so that we could consult a map. The car behind us pulled over too. I guess they were following us in the hopes that we could lead them out of the maze. As I pulled out the map book and fiddled with the overhead light, they gave up on us, turned around, and went back the way we’d come from. We were alone.

In the weak light, I squinted at the map book. This book was a pocket version, which had approximately 3-point type. The tiny letters swam in front of my eyes.

“I can’t read this!” I wailed. “Can you read it?”

“I can’t read it,” said my mom.

Eventually, with much peering and frustration, I managed to find a map of the area. As I suspected, the street we were on essentially looped back on itself, as did many of the cross streets we were passing. It was all one big, elaborate cul-de-sac. Finally we decided that the best way out was to do what the other car had done: turn around and go back the way we came. At least maybe we could get back onto Yonge St., go south to the next main street, and drive around the construction.

Getting back to Yonge St. was easy. Getting onto it was not. The proximity to the highway which had just saved us was now working against us. The side street we were on came to a stop sign. Whooshing past at vigorously accelerating speeds, cross-traffic was heading up the on-ramp to the 401. A couple of cars ahead of us found brief gaps between the oncoming vehicles, and slipped through to the other side. Then it was our turn.

The rush of oncoming headlights seemed endless. Meanwhile I could see a line-up of cars growing behind us, wanting to get through the intersection. We were going to have to thread the needle.

“Holy shit,” said my mom.

Then a gap opened up. My mom reacted quickly, stomping on the gas and getting us across the dangerous on-ramp approach. We made it back to Yonge St. and, eventually, to my home.

“Pat on the back for you!” I told my mom, and spent some time praising her driving skills. I was really proud of her.

However, maybe next time I should take the underground train. That’s a heck of a lot simpler (and it would have been faster too).

Oops

You know how preparing for a wedding can put a relationship in a pressure cooker? If you don't, take my word for it.

Back at the end of March, Ken and I had a difference of opinion. There were some WORDS and some hurt feelings. In the final analysis, Ken decided that I was right to be angry with him because of something he said or did - I don't even remember now - so he made me an offer I've always refused.

"Hit me!" he said. "Just give me a good smack. It'll make us both feel better, and then we'll be even again."

In the past I've always said that it was a silly idea and I couldn't possibly. But this time, I was pretty ticked off, so I went ahead and hit him. Not in the face! Good grief - do you think I'm that vicious? I pummeled his sides with the palms of my hands, smack-'em-up style, with what I estimated to be moderate force. He didn't even say "ow". There were no marks, no bruises.


A couple of days later, when he complained that his ribs hurt, I assumed that he had pulled a muscle coughing. (His asthma's been acting up in the past few weeks, possibly from pre-wedding stress.) His ribs hurt quite badly for a couple of days, and then it started to ease up, relatively speaking. I say "relatively" because he hadn't found time to get to the doctor for his asthma, and all the coughing kept re-aggravating his injury.

Last week he finally went to the doctor. And was sent immediately to the x-ray department. Although we haven't gotten the official results back yet, the doctor seemed to think that he has at least one cracked rib. Not from coughing.

From DOMESTIC VIOLENCE.

OMG.

When Ken told me that I had broken his ribs, I felt sick. How could it be true? I'm undeniably a featherweight weakling. My arms are so skinny that I have to get links taken out of my bracelets so they'll stay on my weeny wrists. An eight-year-old once dead-lifted me clean off my feet. A GIRL eight-year-old! I can't open jars by myself! How could I have broken Ken?

I sank to the floor and cried bitter tears of regret. How could I do this to us just before our wedding? On the day of the x-rays, because he'd been forced to contort his body to get good angles for the x-ray tech, he was in severe pain. Standing hurt. Driving hurt. Everything hurt. I freaked out. That freaked him out.

With all the stress his airways squeezed shut even more, and he launched into the worst coughing fit I'd ever heard since we both got mold-poisoning from a contaminated humidifier. In between gasping for breath and barking coughs, he moaned in pain. Every groan and wheeze was like a knife in my heart.

Neither of us slept much that night. That was Tuesday.

Since then, things have gotten a lot better all around. Ken is on stronger asthma medication, which is bringing his breathing back under control. And the pain which resulted from his contortions in the x-ray machine has diminished considerably. He's still in pain, but it's no longer excruciating.

A doctor explained to us that ribs have some weak points, and hitting them at the wrong angle can cause a break without much force. I guess we just had bad luck.

But in the final analysis, this whole fiasco has had a good result. It's brought Ken and I closer together. This is the worst thing I've ever done to him, intentional or unintentional, and he forgave me without any hesitation. In fact, his exact words were "It's not your fault. There's nothing to forgive."

Technically that might be true, but there are a lot of people who would feel justified holding a grudge even if it was entirely an accident.

On this blog I have shared the good news when Ken brings me flowers, or showers me with gifts, or cooks me a gourmet dinner. But nothing he's ever done for me or given me has been as precious a gift as this instantaneous, complete, unconditional, and unquestioned forgiveness. Even as he was doubled over in pain, almost unable to breathe, he forgave me. It's a blessing beyond compare.

Ken will still be a bit sore on our wedding day, but if we're sticking together in sickness and in health, what better way to prove it? And if anyone feels that's not a good enough excuse, I'll just tell them I had to beat him up and drug him to get him up the aisle.

In closing, consider this a warning. Obviously I'm a raging angerball, endowed with supernatural strength. So watch what you say in the comments, or I'll find out where you live and beat you up next! Grrrrrrr....

Grace in Small Things #8

1. I'm grateful for the flood of responses to my last post, which were by turns touching, insightful, caring, thought-provoking, and funny. I love how much I can count on receiving an abundance of support and well-needed perspective. My friends, you are THE BEST!

2. After I posted yesterday, I called my more kindly boss and explained that I've been under more stress than usual lately. He was very understanding. I said that I don't like to bring my personal problems to work, but I had to admit when I was at my limits. Not only was he OK with that, but he offered to help any way he can.

3. A very effective homeopathic remedy allowed me a restful sleep last night. Another tablet this morning stilled the butterflies in my stomach. I'm carrying the bottle in my purse, just in case, but your comments are better medecine than pills.

4. I'm looking forward to going to my mom's house for dinner tonight. She still lives in the house I grew up in. Walking "home" from the subway, through a large, grassy park and along streets lined with cozy houses and tall trees takes me back in time in the best way. For 20 minutes as I walk, I re-live all the best memories from my childhood as a feeling that pervades my body from head to toe.

5. I'm looking forward to hugging my furry little brothers. (Newcomers: I'm referring to my mother's cats.) Unfortunately the one with the bad dandruff and shedding problems is the one who's more eager to snuggle, but hey, that's what adhesive rollers are for.

An Apple a Day

I'm resisting the urge to make a doctor appointment.

The irritating bronchitis is still sapping my energy. Also, in the past two weeks I have had three episodes of seeing strobing, crescent-shaped lights or patches of static. These visual disturbances hang around for around 25 minutes from the buildup to when I can finally see normally again. This, as you can imagine, is not very helpful when I'm trying to work. I need to be able to READ THINGS. And see people. You know, the basics.

I checked with Dr. Google, and found that the most likely cause is something called acephalgic migraine, which means you get a migraine aura without any headache. That's not too bad, compared to what people with actual, serious migraines go through. I couldn't see any mention of treatments. I think it's one of those "just live with it" things.

Then again, there's a minute chance that it could be an indication of something more serious.

So, do I bother going to my doctor? Take a whole half-day off work to sit in his waiting room for an hour so I can talk to him for five minutes? He'll probably tell me that I should get more rest, and take an expectorant for the bronchitis. Then he'll tell me that the migraine thing isn't anything to worry about and I should just make sure to stay hydrated and eat a balanced diet. Then I'll leave feeling like I totally wasted my time.

Of course, if I don't go, there's that one in a million chance that I'll be sorry I didn't. As my good friend Logan pointed out, always there to reassure me, it could be a tumor pressing on my optic nerve or something. Seriously, someone I work with has a sister going through chemotherapy for that exact problem. It happens!

I would say that 85% of the time when I've consulted with doctors they've been completely unable to help me (or at least unwilling to investigate my complaints further). For example, I used to suffer from Irritable Bowel Syndrome. My doctor said "live with it". Then I got a naturopath, and the naturopath cured me. Take THAT, allopathic medicine!

I suppose I could go see my naturopath... but he's in my old neighbourhood where I lived 13 years ago, and it's a huge pain in the butt to take public transit all the way to his office. Especially when I'm still so fatigued all the time. I'm too tired to get help for being tired - does that make sense?

Argh.

Recombobulating

I think I'm back to "normal" now. Yaaaaaaaaaay!

All that cathartic purge-writing, followed by large doses of support from all y'all were better than any medicine a doctor could have prescribed.

Also, I had a chance to get some stuff off my chest with respect to my step-dad. He's back in town for a few days. Ken and I met him on Sunday, in the freezing cold, at 4:45 pm when the sun was beginning to set, in the middle of a vast industrial park in Markham. He's shipping his car to Florida, where he'll be spending most of the next few months. It's kind of weird to put a car on top of a train to move it from point A to point B, but even at $800 I guess it's cheaper than renting wheels all winter. He dropped off his car at the rail depot and we drove him back into town.

It's almost exactly one year since I got the news that my parents were splitting up. During that year, I listened to a lot of bitterness (mostly justified) from my mom. But for whatever subconcious reason, maybe my need to provide balance and the desire to keep both of my parents close to my heart, I didn't allow myself to agree with her. I saw her side; I saw his side. I tried to remain calm.

But since my mom finally announced that she was starting to feel like herself again, in early November, starting to feel happy and optimistic about the future, something shifted in me. It wasn't necessary for me to hold the centre, so I finally let down my defenses and started feeling my real feelings. I got sad, and angry.

By Sunday I decided that I had to talk to my step-dad about my feelings, because it got so that I anytime I talked with him I'd get all crabby and then snap at Ken or some other innocent 3rd party.

I broached the subject over dinner. I told him that I would love him no matter what, and he would always be my dad, but I was really angry with him. He made a selfish decision that hurt a lot of people. He wasn't miserable with my mother. In fact he was quite content. But after 27 years of marriage he saw something he liked more, and so he went after it because he "didn't want to have regrets" on his deathbed.

How about regretting how much he hurt my mother? And me, and the rest of the family?

I told him that to me, marriage vows are for real. I left my first marriage, but not easily. I was literally going crazy in that relationship. If I had stayed, I would have had to be medicated in order to function. Talking it out wasn't working. We had been going round in the same negative circles for years. He wasn't open to the idea of going to a counsellor. I stayed until I lost all hope for happiness in that marriage, then left for the sake of survival. And I hated that I had to leave.

He says it was a tough decision for him. In the end, he turned to his guiding philosophy: a channelled entity by the name of Seth. According to Seth, the most important thing is self-actualization. There is no mention of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." It's all about doing what feels good and right for you. Other people have to look out for themselves. So much for love. I hate Seth a lot right now.

Be that as it may, my step-dad is not planning to reconsider his beliefs. I have to accept that if I want to have him in my life. Also, I'd better be ready for him to make more decisions in the future that may hurt me. That sucks. However, he doesn't go out of his way to be mean. Mostly he's very generous, and he tries to be kind, if it doesn't interfere with his convenience too much.

That'll have to be good enough.

The good part is that he's so self-confident and unworried about what other people think of him that he was able to hear me out without getting upset. He listened, and he said that he understands my feelings. He even told me that he feels guilty, although he tries to push the feeling away. When the anniversary of the split came around, he started having guilt-nightmares that were keeping him up at night. Good. I think it's only fair that he feel some consequence from the decision that he made.

So maybe I'm not ready to fully forgive him yet, but I feel a thousand pounds lighter after telling him what was on my mind. And I'll always love him because... how could I stop?

The bottom line is that the process of going to pieces that started in mid-November and carried on throughout the holidays has finally reversed itself. I feel like I've put myself back together again. It's not exactly the same configuration as before, but I'm here, and feeling good.

I made it through the mess. Now, on to better things.
:-)

I can haz purspktiv?

I've had a healthy year. This blog will be one year old on October 24, and the last week or so was the first time I've had to deal with a significant health issue since I started writing publicly.

And, wow. I'm grateful for the mirror this blog has been for me this week. I reacted to the news of my anemia pretty much the same way I've always reacted to health challenges, but I've never been brought face-to-face with the extent to which I over-react.

Did you notice the shrill note of panic between the lines of my last post? The tone of OMG AAAAAAAAUUGGGHHH! in my Twitter/Tweets? I wrote half a post yesterday and then deleted it. No matter how I worded my thoughts, they came out sounding like I had Caps Lock on, plus a lot of this !!!!!!1!!1111!!!!!!!!

I had to sit back and ask myself: WTF?

It's just an iron deficiency. At least 10% of women have the same concern. Why am I reacting like I'm going into chemotherapy? Actually, I'm not going to address that question on this blog, because the tedium of all the navel-gazing required might actually cause some of you readers to lapse into a coma.

All you need to know is: sometimes I can be neurotic.

I don't much like myself when I'm in my neurotic mode. My anxieties run away with me, and it's tough to get enough control to pull back and take a moment to think. However, this time I got a grip much more quickly because I wrote down my thoughts and then re-read them, asking myself "what would other people think?"

The first couple of days when I took Palafer, I honestly felt that it gave me weird side effects. I felt heavy all over, then achey, as though I were coming down with the flu. This lasted from ten minutes after I took the dose until two hours later, when it started to wear off. I don't know if this was a "real" effect and now I've adapted, or if it was a psychosomatic symptom that cleared up once I got my head back on again, but this morning I took my dose and I was fine.

A couple of times I thought I felt some aching creeping in, but I didn't panic, thought strong, positive thoughts, and shortly I was feeling fine again.

Whichever way, there's definitely an element of mind over matter at work. I'm glad I got a handle on that sooner rather than later. Thank you Blog, for giving me the perspective I needed!

Shock Attack

Speaking of symptoms, apparently I jinxed myself.

I've been coping pretty well with my challenges lately. My physical symptoms have been restricted to intermittent insomnia, bouts of sweatiness, and occasional shaking hands. The best cure is deep breaths, yoga, and not allowing myself to get into a downward spiral.

Last night, however, after a particularly upsetting conversation with a member of my family regarding my parents' separation, I didn't get off so easy. After I hung up the phone, I noticed that my heart was beating rapidly, but I got myself calmed down and went to bed.

2:35 am: I wake up with a need to visit the facilities. I get out of bed as always, when WHOOOOOSH! The floor starts tipping under my feet. Woah, head rush. I must have gotten up too quickly. I sit my butt back down and wait for my blood pressure to adjust.

I wait a reasonable amount of time, and try again. Again, vertigo attacks. I get myself to the facilities and back by clutching door jambs and chair backs along the way. By the time I'm on my return journey, my heart rate has sped up quite a lot.

Ken's still up watching TV on the sofa, but I don't want to worry him. I get myself back into bed. I figure it's just some kind of nighttime weirdness and if I can fall back asleep it'll be gone when I wake up again in the morning. But I can't fall asleep. My heart races faster and faster and my whole body start to shake. Very quickly I start to feel chilled. My hands and feet become icy.

I call for Ken. By the time he shows up by my side, looking concerned, my teeth are chattering uncontrollably. The vertigo is still having its way with me, despite the fact that I am lying flat on my back. The room spins. What is going on?

Ken piles blankets on top of me and brings me a hot water bottle, but my teeth are still rattling away. He fetches his furry winter hat and sticks it on my head. No help. I'm thinking that this is probably one of my show-stopping psychosomatic symptoms, so I ask him to bring my trusted homeopathic cure: Rescue Remedy.

I know that not everyone believes in homeopathic medicine. In my experience, it works. If you want to call it the placebo effect, go ahead. I'm a pragmatist. As long as I feel better, that's good enough for me.

I instruct Ken to get four drops of Rescue Remedy into my mouth. This is something of a challenge for him considering that my jaw is opening and closing at a rate of about 10 times per second. But he manages. Within seconds, my body relaxes. The shaking becomes a series of twitches, and then stops. My teeth get in a few last clickity-clacks, then stand at ease.

I'm still feeling faint, nauseated, and dizzy, but the worst is over. I think I can fall asleep now. So I do, under a mountain of blankets and wearing Ken's shapka.

Through the rest of the night I woke every 90 minutes or so with a racing heart, and took another dose of Rescue Remedy. I survived. It's morning now, and despite still feeling a little shaky I'm well enough to sit up and type. I'll be spending the rest of the day on my sofa, for reals.