Short but heartfelt letters.

Dear Hashimoto’s,
Thanks for making every day harder. You’re a dick.

Dear PMS,
I do not like you. You do not actually make me more powerful, you just make me want to break people in half all day long. You do not help me deal with my emotions more effectively, you just make me cry at things that should not be cried at (the fight scene in Ice Age? Really? No. Really?) You do not make my son’s toddler habits easier to deal with, you make me want to run screaming from his presence. You are like a disorder all unto yourself. I am tired of you, officially.

Dear Braden,
Yes, it’s true. Your “farts are stinky like poopoo,” indeed. The amount of joy you bring into my life with simply silly things like that cannot be measured. Oh, but please don’t kick me in the eye again. That was the opposite of joy.

Dear Birthday,
I see you lurking there. I know, I know. I’m almost officially a whole year older. It’s really not even exciting anymore. It just validates the white hairs and the callouses. If you were really as awesome as you claim to be, you’d give me my old bewbies back. Now THAT’S a happy birthday.

Dear John,
I know you miss being at home. To make sure you feel welcome upon your return weeks from now, I am saving you all sorts of chores to complete! Nothing says loving like that, right?

Dear Debt Collectors,
Thank you for the recent letter demanding the thousands due in medical bills, immediately. The way the entire sheet of paper was pink truly made me feel the threat inherent in your message.

Dear Property Management,
I’m guessing the magic number for phone calls before you come and fix the light in the kitchen is something higher than 3. Even if you have promised “someone will be out tomorrow,” they won’t. You don’t really mean it. It was a joke – you were just kidding! I get it now. I hope you get explosive, burning diarrhea on your birthday.

Dear Jillian Michaels:
When I do the “butt kicks,” instead of holding my hands in fists in front of me, I hold out both my middle fingers. It totally helps me make it through. I’m not flipping you off, though. You are the toughest bitch I’ve ever not known but loved. In a completely platonic, non-I think of you naked when I’m in the shower kind of way. (Really.)

Dear Mexican (our dog),
Please just stop being gross. Seriously.
PS: I know. Watch your back.

Dear Body,
I know that you are tired. I know that you hurt. I know that it’s not your fault. I know that you feel bad because I always hate you. I am sorry. I’m still pushing and I’m trying really hard to get you healthy again. Please hang in there and work with me on this, damnit.

Dear Hair,
Did you hear what I said to Body? You are leaving me, and it’s making me frantic. I know you are just really tired of the antibodies in my bloodstream and the Hashimoto’s that is the result. I feel embarrassed that you are so important to me, in a way, but it’s true. You are important to me and I have cried several times already now, noticing how you are taking leave of me steadily. I do not like to see my scalp. Please reconsider. Please stay.

Dear Health Care Industry,
Please just fix it. Please stop telling me there is nothing you can do to help me. I am broken and you are supposed to be able to fix me.
You are supposed to.
So when I come in this next time, please do not turn me away again, telling me to keep waiting. I am done waiting. Ok?

Dear Reality Television,
You are still really, really stupid. Stop tricking people who I know are otherwise really smart.

Dear Halloween,
I hate the temptation of your endless bags of delicious candy. I love your ghouls and goblins, witches, werewolves, vampires, and ghosts. I delight in feeling your spirit as I watch horrible movies about undead monsters. As you approach, I tilt my head back in the dark and utter a high pitched cackle. When you are gone, please make any leftover candy disappear. My ass does not want to be dressed up as an elephant for the rest of the year.

Dear People Who Drive,
YOUR BRAIN. USE IT.

Dear You Guys,
Thanks for still coming here.

When your uterus threatens to take hostages, things are clearly out of control. Menstruation Rules!

Dear Internet:

My muse wanted me to tell you that she’s been rockin’ and rollin’ pretty heartily recently. She has knocked back some stiff drinks, tickled my brain with the naughty feather, and laughed in my ear. I have grinned, typed, and clickity clacked away at my keyboard, happily.

She also wants you to know that tonight, she’d love to help me out and provide some great content for you, however, she’s been struggling to keep her head above the muck inside the swirling vat of menstrual hormones that is MY ENTIRE BEING right now. Earlier, she was doing the drowning sign and gasping for air. I gave her the finger and told her to “fend, bitch” because I have my own shit to deal with, okay?

She is currently fleeing from my angry, rampaging uterus, which is running at her full force, prepared to bludgeon her to death with an engorged tampon. It has already threatened to create a hostage situation with a list of demands if it can capture her. That ho bettah run, because here at Casa SarcMom we do NOT negotiate with Effing Terrorists. Or Asshole Uteri.

In defense of the out-of-control uterus, it feels like a damn badger is gnawing on it, and just in case you’re wondering? NO. THAT DOES NOT FEEL GOOD. It feels… how do they say it? AbsofackinlutelyCraptastic.

So that great content? Uh… yeah.

Also? Who the hell authorized there being NO WINE IN MY HOUSE RIGHT NOW?

I might have to burn it down just to make a point.

I’m going to go punch myself in the uterus really hard (knock that damn badger loose) and then look for the matches.

Someone send booze.

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.

Some letters I really needed to get off my chest, immediately.

Dear Uterus,

Just so you know, it would totally be okay with me if you wanted to just… you know… leave. For awhile. Get out. GO AWAY. Consider it a vacation, whatever! WE really don’t need one another right now anyway, right? And the ripping, tearing, and cramping pain you’re causing me today is really not what I’d call “pleasant” or “enjoyable” or even “moderately bearable.” It’s more like “excruciating” and it “sucks ass.” It makes me want to “smash myself in the head with a sledge hammer to numb all feeling in my body.”

You’re also creating quite a mess around here. I, for one, don’t appreciate the stained crotches in my underwear that I can never seem to avoid when you start doing your special thing every month. Furthermore, I’m quite tired of feeling like a regularly tapped keg of Hawaiian Punch.

In case you’re trying to leave a “trail” because you were thinking I was lost in the woods and needed to find my way home, let me set you straight. I’m just fine, here at home, and there are no witches trying to eat me. (In fact, as long as you keep it up, Uterus, NO ONE is going to be trying to eat me. Thanks for that!)

So, really, please treat yourself to a Bahamas Cruise several times in a row, or a couple of months in Europe. Really, that would be great. Hell, go spelunking in some caves somewhere and get eaten by bats for all I care. I just think we need some time apart.

It’s not me. It’s you.

Your Encasement,
Lotus

**********************************************

Dear Mind/Brain, Back, Stomach, and Legs,

Look. Just because Uterus gets the notion once a month to start acting like a total jerkface doesn’t mean that you should, too. I would really appreciate a little support here. I mean, at a time when I’m literally feeling like The Evil Undead is clawing its way out of my gut, you could step up to the plate and try to help me hold things together instead of chiming in with The Chorus of Pain and Insanity.

But no, you’re just a bunch of shameless lemmings. If you weren’t attached to me, I would say something like, “I hope you just fall off/out/rot/die/snap.”

But, um, don’t do any of that. Please.

Holding Onto Last Shred Of Sanity
(for as long as mind allows me to, damn you, mind)
Lotus

**********************************************

Dear Eve,

It was a SNAKE.

AN EFFIN SNAKE!

Really? You had to listen to a SNAKE?

I HATE YOU.

One of Your Many Daughters, Bound To Your Sin,
Lotus

You can tell I’m on my period when I talk about “the indicent.”

Or when I tell you in detail about how I have PMS or, you know, just flat out announce that I’m on my period.  That’s also a good way to tell.

But you can rely on me to talk about the miscarriage around this time of the month, too, I’ve come to realize.  Because, really, it’s actually more painful to me than the date on which the miscarriage happened, this bleeding that says there is no life within these fleshy walls we call “my uterus.” 

The bleeding that says, “AH-HAHAHA, YOU ARE ALONE IN THIS SHELL OF MEAT.”

I don’t think my depression about the matter is excessive.  It’s not worse than it was in the beginning, but it’s not really getting better either.  How about that, y’all?  I guess it takes more time.  Or magic dust.  Or what-the-hell-ever.

Most “normal” days I am “fine.”  Whatever that is.  Sometimes stupid things make me cry.  Sometimes un-stupid things make me cry.  Sometimes people say asshole things, and that makes me cry.  But mostly, on “normal” days, I am fine.  And I think, “Oh, I am getting better, and next time I have my period, it will probably not bother me so much like last time.”

But I am wrong.

I have not gotten past the part where I want that very baby back.  Somehow I feel like I should have been able to let that go by now and want a different one, but it’s just not happening for me.  I have times when I can clearly acknowledge the fact that I still want to have another child someday and that I cannot have THAT child someday, and so I would have to have a DIFFERENT child someday.

But I don’t want to.

And then I think about it some more and I wonder if I really DO want to have another child someday.  Maybe I just still think I kind of sorta like the idea of having another one someday, but that it’s not really true that I actually want to have one.

And I really don’t need to hear any more about how often it happens, or why it probably happened.  I especially don’t want to hear about how it was probably ”for the best” because of why it probably happened.  Thanks, but telling me that my “embryo” [my baby, asshole] was probably some kind of fackin’ chromosomally mutated freak isn’t going to make me want it back less.  If Braden had some type of disease, I would also still want him, I’d just WANT HIM TO BE HEALTHY.

Also, Braden has been extra challenging for me lately.  He is pretty much always up my ass so far I’m choking.  Quite often, he is screaming/whining/throwing a tantrum/crying.  I don’t quite know what to do when, for example, I’ve been playing with him all day and then I’m just trying to have a conversation on the phone with my husband who is NOT HERE and whom I MISS and Braden comes over and shoves a toy in my face.  I tell him to wait, but then he cries, screams, or just gets another toy and hits me in the face with it instead.  I get frustrated and raise my voice at him telling him to, “Just let me talk to Daddy for a few minutes!” but that just makes John mad at me. 

It’s all just triggering a level of insanity in me that I am not mentally coping with very well.  Icanhasdrugz?  Maybe that’s what I need.

I’m reaching the end of my rope and finding it’s just a frayed knob and when I look down, there’s a pit of glass shards waiting below.

What with my inability to let go of the desire to have my dead baby back, and Braden having been really, extra difficult lately, I kind of really am starting to sort of think I maybe don’t want to have another one, not even someday, not even one day.  Not ever.

And it’s making it really hard to make love to my husband.  Because THAT’S HOW YOU MAKE A BABY AND I’M SCARED.

(Ooops, I just said that to The Internet, didn’t I?  Oh well.)

 

That ends this installment of Pity Theatre.  Also known as, “Oh, Poor Me!” 

Not likely to be seen on Broadway anytime soon.

 

 

Also: GIVE ME SOME CHOCOLATE OR YOU DIE.

Monday.

Woke up to Braden screaming at 7am and said to John, “Can you let me sleep in just a little today?  I’m so tired and feel like I’m getting sick.”

Response?  “I guess so.”

And immediately?  I wanted to fly at him like a Banshee and rake my fingernails across his face.  I wanted to wrap my hands around his neck, while the Medusa Snakes sprung one by one from my scalp, and shake him until his head fell off, while screaming, “YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO SAY BUT.OF.COURSE.DEAR, WITH A SMILE, YOU ASSHOLE!!!!!!!!!!”

 

*ahem*

 

I closed my eyes again and John left to take care of Braden. 

Less than 5 minutes later he deposited Braden (screaming and crying) in the bedroom.  That’s how you let someone sleep in, didn’t you know that?

He had to rinse out a Poop Diaper, so, yeah.  I got up to take care of Braden. 

And you know what?  I decided that Mondays are great days for refusing to wear clothes.  That’s right.  Down to the kitchen for breakfast in my bra and underwear.  Because putting on clothes would be the decent thing to do, but why should I be expected to do the decent thing?  I am clearly not meant to be held to such lofty standards such as “expected” and “decent.”  Nope.  Didn’t feel like it. 

Braden got Panty Theatre while he ate his cereal.

(Funny aside: He pulls the top of my shirts down lately and sticks his hand inside, saying, “Beeeooobeee!” Hilarious.)

Sat on the couch, in my underwear, and watched Sesame Street.

Almost had a Bonafied Mental Breakdown (complete with screeching and panic-attack-like chest tightness!) when Braden peed a huge puddle in the kitchen, then got down on all fours and splashed it alllll around, completely dousing his hair.

Mmmm, Pee-Hair!

Seethed in John’s general direction when he left the house to take some gear to a gear-repairing-type person.  HOW DARE HE FLEE THE DOMICILE?

Finally put some shorts on.  Told Braden to, “stop whining because that is annoying.”  HAHAHA, POT SAYS TO KETTLE!

Basically? I acted like a SHIT for most of the morning.  Then I started working on posts and whatnot, and I kept thinking, “What the hell is up with me?” and “What am I going to write about today?  I usually know by now…” and then I realized it.

I’m in a funk.  Because my body is a whiny pansy-baby hormonal suckface.

Last night, while John bathed Braden, I sat on the couch and ate pretzels with peanut butter and started crying at something on King of the Hill.  Why, hello there, PMS!  How lovely to see you! 

 

Dear PMS: I hate you.  I hate your emotional rollercoaster, and I hate what you herald.  I hate what’s coming next week and I hate everything else right now, too.  Thanks for that. 

Basically, PMS?  I hate you, and I hate your ass.face.