The stuff that gets in the way.

So, I have a confession: I have been having a hard time keeping my shit together lately.  See also: Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis (fatigue, joint pain, muscle weakness, hair loss, and more!), See also: Miscarriage Anniversary Looming, See also: Financial Distress, See also: Marital Issues, See also: I’m a headcase.

And it is true that I have had something like Writer’s Block for some time.  I have long spaces of time when I believe I have nothing to say that you will be interested in reading.  I sit down and think, “Surely I can come up with something!” And I open a text file and I stare at it, thinking.  Nothing comes.  Nothing is worth coming.

Then, other nights, I write things, posts, in text files and then I do not publish them.  Because they suck.  You would think they are stupid. (So I tell myself.) This would be more like Sharer’s Block? Blogging Anxiety? I Suckaphobia?

And then there are all the things that won’t come when I sit down to write them to you because there are other things that block them – things I can’t talk to you about.  What I mean by that is I have issues I WANT to share with you, but it feels weird to talk about this thing when I know I haven’t told you about thoooose things.

Do I write about those things?  Hell yes I do.  Is the writing good?  I think so.  Will I share it with you?

I can’t.

Some things you just can’t post to the world because they aren’t only yours to post, does that make sense?

But the more of those things that I have, the harder it gets for me to come here and talk to you about everything else, like my friends.  That’s kind of how I’ve always felt when writing these posts.  I know it’s somewhat silly to think that way, and I’m not trying to be mushy and sentimental to win you over.  It’s just the tone I always feel inside when I write to YOU.

This is not an academic essay I’m writing – though I can write those, I’ve completed tons of them in my time, and none too shabby, I’ll have you know.  It’s not a performance piece, where I just need to elicit emotion with whatever works.  It’s not fiction, where I can spin any tale just to delight.  It isn’t a review, where all I really have to do is lay out the way it works and what I think of it.

It’s an ongoing conversation I’m having with you about my life.

When there are bumps that invariably happen from my life intersecting with the lives of others, sometimes I can’t talk about those bumps.  Because it’s not my place to have the conversation that they might or might not want to have with you about THEIR lives.

So then, I guess I just have to say, Friends, there is(are) something(s) that is(are) affecting me in some way(s) that we can’t talk about.  And now I have to find a path around that(them) so I can keep talking to you about my other life stuff.

And that’s hard for me to do.  I’m emotional and the things I experience have a way of leaking and spilling out onto the rest of my life.  I should learn to compartmentalize more.  I don’t know.

And maybe this whole thing seems STUPID to you, because “DUH, LOTUS. We ALL have things we keep to ourselves.  We ALL have stories we don’t tell everyone.  Hell, most people don’t feel the need to tell everyone half the shit you think the world needs to know.  I mean, really, you tell us practically every time you have your period. GET A FILTER.”  And OKAY, FINE.  But the thing is, I’m still developing as a writer and a blogger.  This place defined itself to me from the start as My Blog: Where I Tell You What Runs Through My Head.  My idea of “what this is” has changed.  I can’t tell you what runs through my head when I’d have to tell you that Mr. C did horrible thing Y and I want to strangle his face until it turns blue and falls off.  Because you know, Mr. C has privacy rights.   I can’t tell you that I have a constant issue with Problem ABC and I think it’s because Mrs. W did batshit crazy thing X and it impacted me in a really profound way.

I can tell you about how I feel, but I can’t always tell you why. And that’s kind of douchey.  But Mr. C and Mrs. W own their own stuff, and I can’t tell it for them.

My family and friends have privacy rights.  Those assholes.

So let’s just say, that among other things, it’s taking me time, in fits and spurts to keep telling you my stories without telling you their stories.

Maybe one day there will be a time to talk about those things.  Perhaps there never will.  I’m trying to find a way to be okay with that and hoping I can just move past it.

I’m learning that it IS okay not to tell you everything (zomg) but I have to say it out loud for some reason.  I think, if I say this out loud right now, it’s going to help me move this block.

For now, maybe just saying to you that I’ll tell you most of everything, but not some stuff, will help me climb over this boulder, that mountain, and occasionally kick those rocks out of my way, so we can keep walking this path together.

I mean, it would be such a shame to miss the colors this season with you.  The foliage is so beautiful just up ahead.

Puppies: They’re just better.

I wrote a very, very short and moody, desperate and pathetic post a few weeks ago about getting hit upside the heart again by the desire for my lost babies.

It really never goes away. It just hides a little sometimes, lurking; waiting for the right time to shit on your world. Or mine. Guess I can’t really speak for others.

Or yours, maybe, is true, since I’m publishing this crap.

I thought about sharing that post with you now that the bewbs of BEWB Fest 09 have been filed away… because really? Sharing it with you right at the same time as going, “OMG LOOK! IT’S BEWBS!” just didn’t feel right. And everything about bewbs generally feels good, so why ruin that? I mean. Really.

So I thought about sharing it with you now, in all of its deep and philosophical questioning glory (read: whiny and pathetic yearning-filled, demanding inquisitiveness). I thought about making you read trite crap like, “I’m stuck whining the same things, being the same pathetic empty, yearning bag over and over again.”

And

“When will it get so old that my heart just implodes from feeling the same tortured longing one.more.time?”

And the rest of it, too. But no, I saved it as a text file entitled, “baby nonsense.”

I did make you read part of it, now, didn’t I? Manipulative, emotional arse, I am.  But you’ll not have to read that in its entirety.

Instead, please enjoy looking at this cute puppy.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/conwayl/ / CC BY-ND 2.0

I like puppies.

They are way, way better than fetuses that are ripped out of your uterus.

Of course, then they grow up and pee on your baseboards and shit on the kitchen floor.

I have such a positive outlook.

I could use a few glitter coated unicorns flying out of my ass on rainbows during times like this.

Hurricane Season of the Heart and Soul

A couple of weeks ago, I was fine.

As the end of this first week in June nears, I’m realizing that I am pointedly not fine. There’s a date approaching that’s been making my stomach turn a little lately and it seems that with every day deeper into June I go, my heart clenches a little tighter in my chest.

There’s a pressure change occurring in there.

I’m having a very hard time seeing new babies right now. It makes me feel like a jerk, but that’s the truth.

A couple of weeks ago, I was fine.

Right now, seeing someone’s brand new baby or hearing about them approaching a due date or going into labor stirs strong currents deep within.

An emotional tidal wave has been building in me recently, deep inside, hidden under cover.  The sunny, blue skies you can see from up here are foul trickery.  Not even I was really aware that such a storm was gathering until just recently as little leaks have sprung here and there.

Every time I think of the baby boy I thought I was going to birth this month, I feel the lip of the wave pushing higher, the base of it growing stronger.

A couple of weeks ago, I was fine.

Today, there was more than a small leak. There was a huge gushing surge. I broke apart a little bit under the sudden forceful gale.  Something tells me it was just the leading edge.

I drew up the pieces again and stood tall.

Generally, I fill my days with other things of a mostly jovial nature. The biggest part of my every day is more important and precious than anything else, and in that I find solace.

He needs me to stand tall.

Still, the wave is pressing.

But in a few more weeks, I’ll seem fine again.

I just wish I really was.

Even if it’s a crooked rainbow with colors missing. It still counts, damnit.

This past Sunday was an anniversary.

But not the kind you celebrate with an extravagant weekend getaway.

If you’re like me, it’s the kind you await with anxious trepidation, wondering what sick emotional games your head and heart will play with you.

A year ago last Sunday I suffered a miscarriage.  It was the first (but not the last) time I would experience the realized loss of a living being within.

The bottle of Prometrium prescribed by the kind, helpful, and compassionate doctor on the other end of the phone with a sobbing, fretful, worried mother that night, one year ago last Sunday, still sits in my kitchen cabinet.

I still don’t have the heart to throw it away.  Yet, I have no use for it.  Seeing it reminds me of the baby.  That’s not a great thing, but it’s not altogether a bad thing, either.  It’s just… a thing thing.

Even though that first miscarriage ripped my heart out, and then I got an injection of Unexpected Hope only to suffer another Cosmic Sucker Punch, I have experienced a bit of healing in a whole year’s time.

But I don’t want to forget.  And I don’t mean forget the babies (which I most certainly will not).  I mean the pain.

There is something about the pain that is left after something that tears at your heart so fiercely.  There is something about it that I don’t want to lose.

That sounds crazy, doesn’t it?

Perhaps it’s just the idea that this pain is the only thing I have left of this baby (of both of these babies), and the thought of letting go of it and moving on is just… well, shitty.  Unpoetic as it may be, that is the best word for it.  Letting go of that pain feels shitty.

If I can smile all day long every day (even when I’m looking at the damned bottle in the kitchen cabinet), then it feels as though I have nothing left of them.  As if it does not matter that they were here one moment and then gone the next.

Fault me for it if you will, but nutty as it sounds – this pain is a tragically beautiful thing, and I don’t plan on letting go of it until I am holding my babies somewhere.  Whether that is in some eternal dream or Heaven, or wherever else… that’s when I’ll release this gnawing grief.

Until then, that very pain helps me appreciate every hug, flower, and ray of light in this world.  Because I’m a foolish girl, and when the light of the sun shines too prettily for too long, I have a tendency to take everything that’s good in my life for granted.

This pain?  The way it lingers and sometimes flares up?  It taps me on the shoulder and says, “Be grateful, woman.” It’s my reminder.

I refuse to even want to let go of that.

This past Sunday, I planted flowers for our lost babies, who we call Taylor and Davin.
They were purple alyssum, a choice made in order to simultaneously bow my head to another soul that was spirited away too soon.

I could want to be numbed (and some nights, I kind of am) or I could wish for complete healing, to leave these feelings behind and forget them.

Instead I’m going to hold onto what’s left of this pain, and when it feels the most raw, I’m going to try as hard as I can to turn that prism of pain toward the light, so that it creates the most beautiful rainbow I can make that effer shoot out.

Also, washing dishes is so last year.

The past couple of weeks has been a blur.

Kind of a purple blur, if you know what I mean.  If you don’t, well.  I don’t have words eloquent enough to explain it to you.  She does, though.

As the days pass I’m learning lessons about love, loss, friendship, and allowing myself to just let go and be led (by what, I’m not entirely sure – my heart, mind, conscience, Brigade of Righteous Gnomes?) to do what seems right.

Not waiting for a permission slip to do good, or a forgiveness for past good that should have been done elsewhere, but was not.  Not overly worried about my rightful place or whatever.  Just letting myself be led by whatever the heck the thingie is that’s leading me.

Wow, that is so clearly stated!

So much of my life I’ve looked back over my shoulder half the time and the other half, I’ve spent worrying about every little detail of what I should be doing.

Just doing that living and growing thing for now.  Feeling maybe too much and acting perhaps with too much emotion. (Which is really not unlike me at all, anyway. Big Ball of Emotions, FTW!)

I tend to quite regularly rely on a personal shtick of humorous complaining.

Lately, nothing I want to complain about seems worth the energy by the time the breath hits my lips.

Energy is much better spent elsewhere.

And I am so not talking about the laundry.

And so lately, I’ve: Listed Walks, Walked in Maddie’s Honor, Pressed Pretty Purple Paper, Talked to Mah Beloved Crackah Beeshes, Held My Loved Ones Closer.

Clean/Unwrinkled clothing is SO overrated.

(And just for the record so are mopped floors.)

I am bowing my head for Madeline Alice Spohr.

April 14th, 2009 2:30PM, Pacific Time

She is fluttering her (purple?) angel wings and smiling down with love.

We will not forget her, Heather & Mike. <3

-courtesy Mrs.Schmitty

being out of touch and kind of an emotional wussbag

You could call me asleep since the 90s a completely clueless old fart slightly out of the loop, and you’d be right.  I don’t stay current with all the hottest new music, the best new technology, or the latest fashion trends.  I notice some things, much I do not.

I feel like being online, especially on Twitter, does keep me up to date with things, but it still seems like I miss a lot.  I’m constantly having this conversation in email with my more observant, hip friends:

Me: Huh? Dur.

Hip Friend: What, Bitch? You didn’t know?

Me: Huh? *fart*

Hip Friend: Yeah, it’s been around for ages now. Where have you been?

Me: Huh? Dur.

Hip Friend: I have no idea why I even talk to you, loser.

So, yeah.  I am kind of a ditz in that “doesn’t know what the hell is going on” kind of way.  Lingo, for example, hits me from weird places.  I was on the phone with my husband last night, telling him about how Braden was sick and having a hard time sleeping.

John was between shows downtown.  He was driving to the second show, and after we’d chatted briefly, he told me, “I’ve gotta jump.” Uh, okay? It took me a minute, but I got it.  Still, I had a hard time not quipping, “There better be something just out of your reach, over your head, because if you’re on a bridge, I hope you rot in hell.  You could at least wait until we have something in savings before you kill yourself.  I’d have to get a job and everything, you selfish, insensitive bastard.”

Yeah. It’s a loving, gentle relationship.

But, “Jump?”  WTF?  Is this what the kids and trendy young adults are saying now when they want to get off the phone?  Yeah, I’m feeling a bit like I have cobwebs.  Not in my house, but ON ME.  And for the record, that jerk is older than I am but HE GETS TO LEAVE THE HOUSE REGULARLY.  AND DO STUFF.  WITH PEOPLE.

Ass.

Anyway, totally wandered away from the actual thing I wanted to talk about.

I’ve seen a commercial put together by a local news station several times now.  I am drawn into the commercial every time because the way it is shot is really cool (black and white, different speeds) and the song always pulls my attention.  I had no idea what it was, and kept wondering if this was a popular song I have just missed (would not surprise me).

I saw the commercial again tonight, hit YouTube and found it, and listened to the whole song while watching the video.

Really, actually listened to the words, felt them.

Got the deeper meaning, was moved.  A couple of tears slipped down my cheeks.

I kind of like it when something has the power to move me like that, with no warning.

What song(s) have the power to move you?

Also, I should probably check PMS Buddy… I totally haven’t kept track of my cycles anymore and this could be a sign that I need to be protecting my underwear soon.  Because The Red Crotch is, I’m pretty sure, not the latest fashion trend.

Right?

Waste away, young lads and lasses. Enjoy your time.

I miss my youth.

Now, before you go brow-beating me about how I’m still young, how I have so much longer to go before I lose my youth, or how much older than me you are and yadda yadda yadda (oh, yeah, I totally just ‘yadda yadda’d’ you), hear me out.

I mean not only youth in body, but youth in spirit, feeling, knowledge.

I miss the bliss of ignorance, the forever stretched out before me. The feeling that anything is possible.

With the passage of time comes experience; with experience comes knowledge, understanding (of sorts).

They say youth is wasted on the young. However, you realize, that is what makes it worth it. If the young knew the value of youth – the desire they would feel to have it back when it was gone… they would never really be able to enjoy it, would they?

With knowledge comes the shift.

The more you learn about the true nature of humans and the things of the world, the more you have to let go of the naive idealism that kept your young cheeks rosy and new.

No, there is no need to let go of hope, determination, and wonder. I am wide-eyed at the world still, believe me.

You could not freely wander the earth with your eyes, heart and mind open and not find a new and amazing thing every day if you tried. This is why I take photographs. Because over and over… again and again, even within my tiny sphere of movement, this happens to me.

So lecture me not on being able to capture the wonder of youth even with age.

But sit beside me for a spell and mourn with me this thing that must happen to us all. Some of us more than others, or maybe just a little bit sooner. But to all of us, it happens, to some degree or another.

The truth is that we must open our hands and let the fancy daydreams of childhood slide from our palms sometimes. Some things which happen steal them from us like wicked trolls, whisk them away to dark places; hiding them from the light. Only a child can pluck them out anew and let them grow for a time again.

My hands are too old to hold onto things which must escape them, already. The effort of trying has worn my fingers tired and weary.

We move through life, rolling along, and suddenly things assault us from this direction or that. The human tendency to ignore these possibilities on a conscious level from day to day allows us to function; it allows us to keep those wheels rolling, greasy and smooth. But no amount of greasing stops a rock from throwing you off your axel. You’ll have to reconsider concepts like need, desire, and love when your cart overturns.

It can take a long time to grease that wheel again. I’m workin’ on it.

I’m workin’ on it.

I speak in riddles because the words are too painful and tiresome to lay out in detail and push around into the proper order. It has been yet another day of remembering so many things that I would sometimes like to forget.

Sometimes.

So many things, some of which I’ve shared before, others which I may never tell you. Time will tell.

For now I close my eyes, take a deep breath in, push a long, tired breath out, and put one hand inside of the other. And hold on.

Tomorrow, I’ll open my eyes, and move those wheels along again.

On a somewhat related note: man, I farckin’ hate PMS.