4.26.2007

headaches


i'm in a headache {migraine} cycle again.

i don't know if it has to do with antibiotics, or infection, or allergies, sinuses, stress...

probably a combo of all of it. but i keep having headaches. it's time to change my patch. my bladder is still not right.

grrrrrr. i just can't handle the physical downside of this taking forever to heal thing.

in other news, things are going well for me in areas other than the hurting. i'm happy with the progress that i'm making in therapy, with the people i have chosen to be close to & honest with, with the progression of my emotional/spiritual self and my interactions with people. i'm having some great self-awareness time every day, meditating, praying, striving towards becoming emotionally healthy. and working hard to figure out why i always think that if someone knows me for who i really am, they will not want me in their life anymore, and so i keep my 'real stuff' so close to my chest.

i'm working on being completely honest with my support network and figuring out who my support network really is. and being honest with myself about some of my co-dependent relationships.

life is hard, even when it's simple. i just want some healthy love in mine.

and i'm finding it, first in me. i'm learning to love me. and to accept the love of others. and, to be less rigid* (this is by far the most difficult for me and what my therapist works on the most, my having less rules and interacting less with people that hold emotional stuff at bay and keep it easy for me to be emotionally distant and less at risk.)

but anyway. less rules for me.

now i must go be exposed to the smog. my head is so excited. :/

4.22.2007

Seen on Flickr


Day 105 Reject - USDA Grade A Prime
Originally uploaded by ardruna.

this is seriously awesome...

4.21.2007

this just in...


i am in love with Michelle Malkin and Donny Deutsch is a Douche - http://gawker.com/news/lies-well-disguised/lies-well-disguised-donny-deutschs-makeover-252875.php

anyway, here's the thing. i've been holed up. thinking. thinking thinking meditating praying thinking.

changes are happening. big. structure & restructure. the building up of me is coming in the form of the tearing down of me.

i have officially lost everything. been humbled, brought down to zero.

but this is not the end of me, it is only the beginning of my story.

a new story.

as my roommate has reminded me, i would be homeless if it weren't for her. i am, almost literally, penniless. i await the decision (lengthy bureaucratic bs) of state and federal agencies regarding disability. it will be retroactive, but still...

in the meantime, i cannot work. physically & mentally, i am not capable anyway. i have done what i can and given the rest to the universe. i have heard the positive words and the negative words regarding my current status. i have absorbed advice that i neither asked for nor was in the position to take. i have reached the point of realization regarding many things, the primary one being that i do not have to feel guilty for where i am emotionally/physically/mentally.

i'm doing the best that i can - everything that the doctors tell me. taking all my meds. going to my sessions. exercising. but, i am also very recently post-major surgeries, recovering from a year of hardcore physical illness & major trauma of the surgeries. and, i'm menopausal, depressed, anxious.

this is me. i'm broke. and sometimes i feel broken. but, i'm not worthless. sometimes, some people in my life imply that other people in my life do the very nice things that they do for me for reasons other than that they care about me. and this makes me feel that they are implying that i'm not worth it, somehow. that i'm not the kind of person who warrants that kind of attention or affection or kindness, but that people who have something to prove are using me to prove it. that implication angers me, because i do not feel that i am beyond love. i feel very much worthy of love.

because we are all flawed. we are all on the edge of something. we are all damaged goods in some way. but at least i am owning up to mine, seeking a path to betterment all the way around. not just for the acute, immediate issue. but for the deeper issues as well. and i strive to be a good person, a kind person.

there is no such thing as perfection, therefore i do not strive for non-mistake making me. i want to be known as the me who will own her mistakes. who will apologize & do what is possible to fix them. i want to be honest. i want to be a better person. i want to only be a benefit to the lives that i am a part of and not a detriment.

the thing about other people in your life is this: Nice is overrated. everyone talks about how they are looking for a nice guy. but, anyone can be nice. nice is easy. I like considerate. Considerate shows effort. Considerate says: i know that you don't like being late so i will be on time, i know that you like comedies so i will see this movie with you, i know that you get up early for work so i will go to bed earlier, i know that you are sad so i will hug you, i know that you like cookies so i got you this...

Considerate says: I pay attention to the details and, because I care, contribute to them in small ways to show you that i want to be a positive force in your life, i want to be a source of reliability and happiness and contentment.

Anyone can be nice, few are truly considerate.

I have been fortunate in my life in that I have known some truly considerate people. and in the world of dating, i have also been fortunate to know considerate men. men whom i am still friends with because they made/make my life better. and i am lucky enough to have met one when i was about to go through what is, to date, the most trying time of my life.
my grandma says that i have a 'problem letting go of relationships', but i say that people come into our lives for a reason, and i can either see it for the positive & cherish that person for the good that they were/are in my life - or i can spend my time being a bitter, resentful woman who has poor relationships with men and negative viewpoints on previous relationships and creates negative new relationships because of it.

you will not catch me on the Men Ain't Shit train. it has never been my steez. and now, i believe that we create our own destiny in this life. so, if i bring my previous baggage about being cheated on or lied to or betrayed or whatever into a new something, and i expect that the same thing will happen, then eventually i will create that dynamic. eventually, he will live up (or down) to my expectations - even if only in my head.

so, i'm deciding to a) Love Me. flaws & all. scars, stretch marks, issues, ethics, taboos, history. i am worthy of love, especially from myself. and b) Bring Positive Expectations & try not to let past issues effect current situations.

somewhat like an addict, i am taking every single thing one day at a time. and i'm pursuing happiness, positivity and serenity. i am making the changes, pursuing the things & people that bring me contentment and smiles.

and, i'll take Consideration over Nice any day.

to everyone in my life who reads this and knows where i am and what's coming, the sun's gonna shine in a mile...

in a mile we'll be feeling fine...

4.18.2007

...you will close the door behind you,


go your way.

not for the first time i'm looking back on my first love.

i was old, by any standard, for any culture.

unable to think or speak or think or move. hand in glove.

taken aback by the ferocity with which my heart could betray me and love so completely another. ache so much for another. want so much to make another happy - with my intelligence, my conversation, my laughter, my body, my moans, my mouth, my everything.

where is he? he once meant so much to me. i was told love should hold old friends...

not for the first time i'm looking back on all those years.

names ringing in my ears... a time when there was just a bunch of us, around the playstation, the softball field, the waterpipe, the pool table, crawling up the street carrying vodka bottles with nipples screaming HAPPY NEW YEAR!

where are they? they once meant so much to me. i was told love should hold old friends...

...you will close the door behind you, go your way. time will make amends to me. life has moved on.

all of the borderlines have been redrawn...

4.17.2007

no more fucking news for me


this is a blog for grown-ups. i should say that now. (a year later, right?)

i curse, i vent. i say ridiculous shit. i deal with my issues at therapy, with a couple of select friends, and in this space. so yeah, no kiddos here.

anyway, i'm not watching the news any longer. i can't take it. it's so depressing, how they target in on something and just pound it to death. mediabistro started reporting almost immediately yesterday that everyone was on their way to Blacksburg to do their reports from there today. people are doing special hour long reports from there. it's ludicrous. how many times can you say the same thing?

he was fucking crazy. he was actually, probably up until then, on the edge. we're all on the edge of something. he was on the edge of psychotically killing people. and whatever was going to push him over that edge happened. and it's terrible. a terrible, terrible thing. but i can't digest any more of it. there's no more to know. it makes my stomach hurt. it makes me sad. for all of those families, all of those young lives.

i have lived the heartache of watching a young life, my best friend, be taken away. in the blink of an eye. body parts torn asunder. blood, cellular stuff, i have watched and touched and felt life end. young life. it is horrible and there is nothing that can ever ever ever match it and every time that i know that it is happening, traumatically, bloody, horribly, i hurt for the people who will have to identify them, who will have to know that that is how they went, who will have the what if's and the questions and the not understanding.

i am still friends with her mom. she still asks me questions. it's been almost 13 years. she still asks me questions. she had a nervous breakdown. i was the only one that would go see her. i live thousands of miles away, we write, i call her. i loved her. i love her mom. i will never stop being there for her. but there are some questions that have no answers. that what this situation has created for so many families, so many people...so many quesions that have no answers.

ugh. this day is challenging. it started with 3 hours of therapy. meh.

4.16.2007

the eyes i see with

things that don't need to happen, in my opinion:

~you don't need to tell a dog 'up'. they're smarter than us for a reason. they had to brave the 'wild' for a long time & i think that they may have learned to jump when necessary. this is all, of course, subjecture on my part. maybe dogs don't know when to jump up on a sidewalk. maybe they have no idea that they need to Poooooo Pooooooooo or Peeeeeeeee Peeeeeeeeeee outside. maybe they are merely here to be our pick-up toys for the opposite sex.

~protein bars don't need to cost more than a dollar each. what the eff are they putting in those things that they cost almost $3 each?

~people don't need to go on to college campuses wielding guns and killing random people. what the fuck? seriously. i'm stressed out all day now. i mean, when is something like that going to happen in los angeles, i wonder? a city this big, as many crazy people as i meet and see. i know it's only a matter of time before some psycho pulls out a weapon in my therapists office or on the bus or some shit. damn. or in Whole Foods because they don't have his beets. or the post office. i'm never going into the post office again. ugh.

~i don't need to wake up suddenly allergic to oxygen. my eyes swollen and my throat closed and not able to breathe. having never had allergies, i'm pissed to the max about this.

~i don't need people reposting my All Rights Reserved Flickr photos on other websites. fucking jackasses.

i do need to just stop participating! ugh.

4.13.2007

where do i go?


lately i've felt like i can't find my words. my tears are here. but i've felt lost on the inside. my meds are keepin me relatively calm on the outside, i only lose my cool about 30% of the times that i'm actually feeling it. but i don't necessarily think that that is a good thing.

but i don't know either. maybe it's fine. maybe other people shouldn't suffer just because i'm all fucked up. maybe i should just take the drugs and be sedated and be fine on the outside and be forced to fake a smile that lasts every day of my life.

today, my doctor said to me...'tell me. just because i can't fix it doesn't mean that i don't want to know what's going on. tell me.' and then he said, not once but five times, 'i want to know what's going on with you always. please stay in touch with me. please drop me a line. if i can do anything for you, please let me know. i want to know what's going on with you.'

he could tell that something was wrong and that i was going inside myself. he told me of the major trauma that my body has undergone, not only the surgeries, but also just the years of pain and disease. and my strength to have endured it. he told me about how all of the data that they have is for women 63 and up, whose bodies were menopausal and therefore there is no data for women who are 30. i'm in unchartered territory here. he did invasive internal exams and took samples and they did lots of bloodwork (and i almost passed out in the sun waiting for my bus :( )

so, he's a good doctor. he told me that they rarely have a 100% success case as far as chronic pain goes and that he knows that once i get my mood stabilized and my depression dealt with and my anxiety handled and my hormone dosage levelled (most of it comes from this), that i'm going to do great. he cares. that was nice.

i just am so stressed out, about so many things. it hurts to be so confused, in so muc turmoil, and feel as if no one gets it, or really even cares that much. as if i have to pay someone (my psychiatrist) to care.

i'm just exhausted, maybe. it's been a long week.

a really long week. my first one.

4.05.2007

this is the place i live


but so does everyone.

i'm not special.
my sadness. my pain. my aloneness.

nothing special.

been had before, by many before me.

i'm not special.

i keep forgetting that.

life is just one humiliation after another...and we should just get used to it.

hormones teach you humiliation. your place. crying in public teaches you humiliation. your place. anger. rage. hormones. loss of control. they teach you humiliation. your place in the world.

am i prepared to live in this world with its harsh need to change me?

this moment...i don't know. i don't know if i have the strength to know.

exhaustion. i'm exhausted. but rest is not healing me. i'm not whole hearted. i can't find me. i have to find my ability to make friends with the unknown.

life sans disease is almost as scary as life with it.

4.03.2007

maybe my moment's gone

i'm not the same person i seem to be.
all of this depresses me...

i won't listen.
i won't talk.
my life is weightless.
i mean a lot.
i mean a little.
i'm brittle.

maybe this *is* me.

i have to go back on the anti-depressants. i have to take the sleeping meds as prescribed. i have to, once again, be me under the influence of fucking pharmaceuticals.

because i am ill equipped. my body can't handle it. my head can't handle it. my heart. the trauma. the slow eeking of my stability that has occurred over the past few years. the see-saw of illness & my battle to claim health. the financial burden of a long-term illness. of chronic pain.

so, i keep thinking that this isn't me. and i want to find the me that i was before. but maybe this is me.
maybe i am depressed and anxious.

i'm taught by experience and therefore worse, i know that much. just a fucking version of the truth of me.
and everyone wants a piece of me...energy, pills, advice, help, conversation. and i don't feel like i have anything to give. not even to myself.
maybe my moment's gone.

i need an escape. a way out of my head. i am not equipped to deal with life & the people in it. i am not equipped to deal with being responsible for the how my actions affect others on a daily level because in a large sense, i really don't give a fuck. not about them, per se, but just about all of it. life. the things that are happening outside my mind that is racing and my heart that is pounding and my pelvic floor that is still having pain.

i am not equipped to deal with people who can only see me in relation to them. who cannot even try to step out of the box that 'we' are in and try to see or imagine the depths of where i am, the mental anguish that brings me to a place where i would say that i cannot reign in control. that i must cry. that i must seek aloneness and healing. that i want to be left alone.

i need to take time to catch my breath and choose my moment. i'm sliding. i think my pain belongs to me but forget that it's happened to so many before me. i'm sliding. i forget to remember that i'm only human, it's okay to make mistakes and not have it all figured out. i'm sliding.

i am trying to be a good girl and give everyone what they want, but i got nothing.

...sometimes, you have to let go, close your eyes & let it crash.
lonely isn't a strong enough adjective...
words are my enemy now.

I lack the necessary tools to help me get right. I can't poke a hole in my chest and pull my heart through, and though there are some that would take me any way that they could have me, I don't want to have someone take their place as my temporary savior. I bring along everything - my ethics and my issues and my taboos. i'm heavy now.

there's a documdrama on - sometimes in italian


about how expensive a major &/or long-term illness is, about how it can cost all of your money and more.

it is poorly acted.
the actors are not attractive.
the doctor makes me feel like i am watching my life over the past years.

then, it cuts to this commercial for Insurance, of some kind. the difference between HMO & PPO. before this was a drama, all in Italian.
before that, i don't remember. i took pics. i ate crackers. i cleaned & read. i am learning that 39 million people in the U.S. do not have health insurance. that sucks...almost as much as how much i have to pay to have health insurance.

i can't sleep. the back and forth of hormones and insomnia is killin me.

i have therapy *group* in a few hours. ***yawns***

i can't believe that i brought Pudding Pops. that's awesome!! yay!

i want to nap.

4.02.2007

if no one calls & i don't speak at all,


do i disappear somewhere?

i don't understand anything. nothing. at all.

what is it that i think i need?
is there love in me that wants to be free?

or am i selfishness and ego? is that what i carry with me everywhere i go?

...this feeling that my life is incomplete.

i only know this...i start to cry. i can't tell you why. i stumble. i can't let people in. because i don't understand anything.

there's this pain in my chest all the time...beyond the physical pain. it's the pain of not knowing what the fuck is going on.

of knowing that everyone is watching me stumble and trip, of my fingers losing my grip, of me being down on my knees. and wondering if this is what they wanted to see?

sometimes, i feel gripped by fear and doubt.

my spiritul advisor said this today : Whenever you are about to achieve something major, a great breakthrough, cross a giant threshold, the dark side of your nature will bombard you with fear and uncertainty. ...it is only with total certainty in your power can you hope to dominate the sabotaging aspect of yourself.

i feel like there is a miracle waiting for me...that all that i need to do is focus on the problem and walk towards it with total certainty. i'm just too attached. i need to detach, and focus on the outcome and not this journey, this oh so difficult journey, that i'm on.

sometimes, i want to say to people...am I bothering you? You wouldn’t be bothered if you knew what I’ve been through.

i know that all the good reasons i have to be mad at people vanish once i take a peek behind the curtain. i have to remember to ask the light/the univere/the gods to help me understand the pain that drives a person, so that i can see their chaos and their pain and their reasons. because that is what i want from them.

i want them to see the pain that drives me, my chaos, my conflict, my struggle.

today, starting today, i want to resist holding onto the bad feelings that i feel. i want to open my heart and focus the beam of my compassion onto the people in my life. i know that i need compassion, love and forgiveness.

i am prepared to give what i need. i am asking the universe for patience in the receiving of what i need.

i am asking the universe for guidance. for the strength to love myself, to forgive myself, to find the knowledge of what i am worth in this world.

i don't know what i'm worth in this world. i'm self-deprecating. i expect so much and accept so little. i want to know with absolute certainty what i am worth in this world.

my meditation tonight was really good. i met someone great today, a great lady, whose daughter is going through the beginning of what i have lived for the past years. it was all so random, but i feel that the universe placed me in their lives to help her...i honestly didn't even know why i was walking there. and then i was telling her my story. then BAM...she said, i can't believe you said that, about that, because my daughter has all that you have just said and i wasn't going to say anything but when you said ________, i knew for sure that you have really lived it b/c i watch her do that every day. will you help me? will you share with me what you know?

and so i took her info and told her i would contact her tomorrow. i won't leave my bed or my self-suffering for me, but i will do it for others who can benefit from my suffering, and maybe the universe knows this. maybe i'm supposed to start a group or something.

i just know that i'm back to walking the city late at night. i'm restless. i am in transition.

i need a tapeplayer walkman.
i need to prepare for tomorrow.

Happy Passover.

Good Pesach | Happy Passover

since things fall apart, I'll be having my Seder tomorrow night (which is still totally acceptable).

i have a lot to think about with this Pesach, because it is the first time that it means so much to me.

it is also me acknowledging to my friends that my Judaism means more to me now, when i for a long time eschewed religion.

i want to know that i am in the place that the creator intends for me, the universe, the gods. that i am giving the energy that i need to to get the life that i want.

there is so much that i want.

i feel like i am waking up after a long coma, and there is so much that i haven't known or dealt with for years that is pressing in on me now.

i walk the city late at night...does anyone here do the same?

i want to be the things i claim.

more later, i have to run out.