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.

Holding On To Hurt

The other day I watched some ridiculously random, stupid movie: 13 Going On 30.

And I cried.

Wait.  I cried more than once.

And what’s really pissing me off about that is that I was crying because I thought of my Swan.

I’ve been carrying a hurt in my heart for some time now.  The “hurt” is a residual effect of an event that transpired some time ago now – over a year ago.  It’s not something I care to share with the world at large, so you will have to forgive me and allow me some room to ponder and develop my thoughts without divulging them in intricate detail this one time.  I know it seems uncharacteristic of me – but there actually are things I choose not to talk about here, out of love and respect for others.  That is the case with this current topic.  And while I have no need to lay all the pieces before you, I feel hugely moved, if only momentarily, to talk about the hurt.   I think I’ve been denying the full effects that hurt has had on me, emotionally and spiritually.  I’ve been cramming that hurt into a box that I taped shut, painted black, mashed flat, folded into an Origami Swan and then shoved down inside my heart.

Whenever I bump into it by accident, I just quickly say to myself, “Ohhh, hahahaha (that’s quick, nervous, fake laughter) – there’s a pretty swan! Tee-hee!” and then I shove it back down and RUN AWAY.

Sometimes, when I’m all alone, I take the Swan out and I unfold it carefully.  In true masochistic form, I peel back the corners of the box and I look inside.  I pull the hurt out and I hold it up close to my face and look at it really, really hard.  I inspect it.  I see how ugly the hurt is.  Sometimes I just nod, because I know it is ugly; I remember clearly.  

But a lot of times I tremble, because I forget a little bit that it is as hideous as it is, and when I look at it so closely again, I am forcefully reminded.  I have a little, frayed string of hope running around in my heart attached to the Swan.  It’s the faint hope that the longer I wait the less ugly the hurt will look when I inspect it.

One year has not been long enough yet.  So I keep waiting and absently wrapping that string around my finger over and over and over again.

But the movie?  Why did it make me think of my Swan?  There’s a line, “We need to remember the things that were good.”

That’s what I want to do.  I want to stop inspecting my hurt.  I really want to just let it go.

I need to learn how to release all of the Swans I’ve ever folded… learn how to let them float away on an eternal river of goodbyes that never returns to its source, ever flowing outward and away.

Why do we cling to hurt and often find it easier to focus on than joy?

Why is it so hard to let go of our Swans?

Or am I the only one?

Haik’use me, your thyroid’s F’D up, lady.

The levels of my
Thyroid Antibodies are
Insanely high, yo.

 A quick update on my thyroid labwork.  I finally got a nurse on the phone a couple of days ago.  She told me a few things that aren’t so awesome.

First of all, a bit of history: My levels have, in the past, been skewed such that the THS (which supresses your thyroid) was low… meaning my thyroid was actually running faster than it’s supposed to.  Before anyone gets all jealous (that b*tch had built-in weight loss hormones!) it was not enough to make me lose weight.  (You’ll remember, I was told, ”It’s not bad enough for us to medicate yet.”) It was just enough to make me feel like supremo crap – nervous, tired, moody, and anxiety prone.  That has been the case whenever I had it checked from 2005 up until now. 

Also, thyroid antibodies were detected at such levels that I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis.  That basically means that my body created an army to take out my thyroid, as if it were a foreign body, and is regularly attacking and mutilating the poor thing. As such, I have Goiter – a swollen, hurting, sad, whiny, crying thyroid that is just screaming out – “Pweease, pweease, stop hoorting me!”  I regularly feel like someone is choking me, and it’s hard to swallow sometimes.  *whine, moan, cry*

So, onto the current events.

I finally got my nurse on the phone, and she says, “Your thyroid hormones are normal.”

At first, you would think this is good news, right?  Ahh, grasshopper, but no.  Because what that means is that the “hyper” phase has now switched and the hormone level is heading in the other direction.  And good folks, what that means is that before long I’ll enter the “true” phase of hypothyroidism. 

But the fun continues.

“Your thyroid antibodies are incredibly high.  So much so that Dr. Crowe wants you to go see an Endocrinologist.”

How high are we talking, people?

There are 2 measured antibodies.

TPO - Normal Range: 0 – 34, My Result: 216
Anti-Thyroglobulin – Normal Range: 0 – 40, My Result: 849

And apparently, when your thyroid is taking a beating from an antibody level that high, it’s enough to cause the symptoms I’m experiencing (depression, fatigue, loss of libido, dry skin, brittle nails, weight gain….), even if the other hormones measure “normal.” 

Well, butter my biscuit.

So, no relief for me yet.  I’m on the waiting list for the best Endocrinologist in town.  At some point, I’ll get an appointment, and more tests will need to be done (and paid for – with what? my bellybutton lint?)… and maybe one day, I’ll get some medicine to help me feel better and be happy.

Maybe one day.

And hopefully we won’t have to sell Braden on the black market to afford all of this.

(In China, of course, where boys fetch more… what? So I’ve done my research….)

Go see my face.