springtime; or, the return of the sun

Violets in spring.

If you know me, you know that I am not the most outdoorsy of people. I appreciate nature. I just appreciate it more when I’m not surrounded by insects, or getting sunburned or overheated. I’d rather appreciate it from a car as I drive along a country lane.

I did that today, driving along Lover’s Lane (where I took the photos in this entry). I wanted to see how spring was coming along out there, in hopes of catching the trees in their full spring-time glory.

I was hoping for flowering dogwoods or something along those lines. Instead, the trees boasted that fine green mist that you see only in spring. Still pretty as can be, but not what I was wanting.

Bluets!

I’m still waiting for the dogwoods to start blooming around our house. It seems like everywhere else, all you can see are pink or white blossoms. (I want a pink dogwood. Please.) But it’s springtime, and there is sun, and green grass, and dandelions, and the first violets, and the bluets — all of which seem to arrive overnight. Birds make themselves known, and the bees won’t leave you alone.

Regardless, it’s spring, and I like it, albeit from my seat inside.

as a youngster, I wrote Muppets fanfiction

PROOF! I was in fourth grade, in Mrs. Shriver’s English class.

one day, one hour, one minute, one second

Grief is a funny thing. Not funny ha-ha, but funny-strange. Most of the time I’m all right, but there are moments when I’m suddenly and most definitely not.

The worst part is that there’s been no death. Instead, my mom is being taken from me slowly, in increments. The initial brain hemorrhage was the start of a process that has, and will, take years.

I’m afraid that I’ll lose her completely before she dies. It’s a terror that I can’t even comprehend, and sometimes it overwhelms me. In those moments I am certain that moving forward isn’t a possibility, and the sadness, the grief, is more than I can bear.

It is in those moments that I have to remember that it is okay to take life one second at a time, because thinking any bigger is impossible.

to drink, or not to drink? it’s not really a question anymore.

When I was younger and optimistic about being able to learn to like beer, I would try to order something that wasn’t Budweiser or Miller or what have you. I tried Stella Artois, Killian’s Irish Red, Blue Moon (I think that’s it.)… You know, the higher-end, more craft-type beers.

I could only ever drink about half of whatever I got, always bravely proclaiming that it wasn’t bad! You see, I was trying to fit in with the hipster-ish friends I had made while training for AmeriCorps. Hint: it didn’t work. Their interests were not my interests, and I’ve never been good at pretending to like expensive beer and cheap wine. (Seriously, give me a rum and coke any day. Or just a shot of whatever – Southern Comfort will always be my favorite.)

As I’ve crawled into my thirties, I’ve become more comfortable with who I am as a person, and what my interests and hobbies are. I’ve discovered that I don’t particularly enjoy getting drunk, or even drinking. There’s an element of losing control in being inebriated that has steadily lost its appeal since the first time I got trashed. I much prefer remembering the entire evening, and knowing that I won’t wake up hungover, and that if my friends and I want to do something the morning after a night of raucous tabletop games or Pathfinder, we can. This is, of course, contingent on what time we finally went to bed.

Let’s face it, Cards Against Humanity can go on for hours. We’ll not get into how long a session of Pathfinder or DnD can last.

But the point is, at 32, I’m really, truly okay with spending a night with friends and not having a drink – or maybe one at the most. Let’s face it: a bottle or two of hard cider can be damn good with friends.

let’s talk about valentine’s day, baby

No, I’m serious. Let’s talk about it. I have some thoughts on the subject.

It is never a bad thing for love to be celebrated. Anytime there is a little or a lot more love in this world, that is an amazing and beautiful thing. That being said, celebrating Valentine’s Day has turned into a great big morass of commercialization. Go into almost any store and immediately you will be bombarded with displays of candy and flowers and knick-knacks designed to show your love for someone.

Only, they’re contrived. Seemingly, the only way to show your love is by a dozen red roses or a diamond ring; by a romantic, candlelit dinner; all of this followed by a night of sweet, sweet love. And all of it is indistinguishable from every other couple out there, all of them doing the same thing, on the same day.

If one looks at Valentine’s from this angle, it is indeed a tedious and tiring holiday, because the disparity between the happy, loving couples and the bitter singletons is striking. It’s almost as if the rest of the world is determined to point and laugh at the people who are between relationships for whatever reason, and to tell them that they are lacking. And whatever is lacking is obvious. They’re single. No one loves them. They likely have a cat. Or three. (I only have one, though. He’s more than enough, and being a brat right now. And for the record, I don’t think owning cats is indicative of a person who has given up on love. Instead, they live with their best friend, who happens to be a furry, purring dictatorial mouse-catcher and professional sleeper.)

So, those who are single are bitter at those who have partners, because they don’t have one of that elusive species; those who are in relationships are bitter towards those who are single, because the single people are bitter at them.

It’s a cruel, endless cycle, fueled by romantics on either side. Or non-romantics. Whatever.

I just think that we should all buy flowers and I Love You cards whenever we damn well feel like it, year round and spontaneously. And the best acts of love, in my opinion, are those that aren’t planned, when the words just spill out unexpectedly or the flowers are bought because they’re pretty and the person you love appreciates beauty.

Also, it is perfectly all right to do this for yourself. You’re deserving of special treatment, too, especially when it comes from yourself. So go ahead, take yourself out to dinner. Go buy yourself that cute dress. See a movie. Be good to yourself.

Celebrate love every day.

tired ain’t a state of mind

I started seeing a therapist last month, and it’s helping. Also helping is the increased dosage of antidepressant that I’m now taking.

Well, until the insomnia hit, that is.

Insomnia’s been familiar to me for many months; it comes hand-in-hand with stress and the sort of worry that you have when you’re watching what seems to be your entire life crumble. And, because of that stress and the depression and anxiety that comes with it (along with the other depressive baggage that I’ve carried around for years), the therapy is a necessary thing.

But this insomnia was different. Almost always before, if I’d had a sleepless night, somewhere in the small hours of the morning I would be able to fall asleep, and hopefully sleep long enough that I feel rested enough. But with drug-induced insomnia, that doesn’t even seem to be an option. Instead, I am awake all night, alternately reading and tossing and turning and doing deep breathing exercises to help me relax enough to sleep. None of which works, by the way. Instead, you’re awake, and then you maybe manage an hour or two, and then you are woken up by a text or your cat and it’s impossible to sleep.

But then there are the moments when you do fall asleep, and you wake up to a small, warm, furry body snuggled up to you, and you know that there could be worse things.

i had something ready to post. then i didn’t.

So, there’s this issue I have. Unlike my OTHER issues, this one is technological. It’s called “my computer bit the big one”. So, no computer for awesomely-worded entries. So I thought, “Why not use the android app to do a few photo posts until the laptop situation clears itself up?”

I created a post. The tried to upload it. And WordPress for Android crashed. I posted a review on the Google Play page for it, then decided to uninstall and reinstall. Lo, and behold, it worked! Eureka!

And so, fair friends, a some photos that I have taken recently. All were taken with my phone, a Galaxy Note, and then processed through Vignette.

IT’S OFFICIAL. I’M CRAZY.

Over the weekend I developed a sinus infection and bronchitis. The sinus infection came first, only I thought it was a cold, and I thought on Monday night that I was improving.

Wrong. Oh, how I was wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong-ity wrong, from Wrong-town, Wrongania. (Thank you, Doctor Who.)

And now the word wrong looks, well… wrong.

On Tuesday I went to the doctor, because when I woke up, I felt worse. Like, ‘Oh, my God coughing and sneezing hurts and I want to curl into a ball and sleep for a million days,’ worse. So I took myself to the clinic and was seen, and was told sinus infection and bronchitis. Scripts were called in, et cetera.

But that’s not the focus of this story. The focus of this story is the gentleman with whom I shared a waiting area. He was a perfectly nice man. A pastor. A parent. A coach of a sportsball team. A nice guy, and the conversation was pretty run of the mill until he hit upon a subject that he, apparently, felt very keenly about. He couldn’t understand, he said, why there are some people who just lay around all day in bed. Why didn’t they, he continued, simply find something that they like doing and go out and do it? It’s simple, he thought; you’re lazy if you lay in bed all day and do nothing.

Well, yes.

And… no.

Undoubtedly, some people who lay about all day are, indeed, lazy. But I couldn’t help but latch onto the thought that he clearly — to me — has never suffered a bout of depression. He’s never had to wonder why it seemed that the entire world had abandoned him, and without even telling him what he’d done wrong. He’d never cried for no discernable reason.

He’d never been depressed. I envy him, because depression is not fun. It lies. It holds you down and whispers insidiously in your ear until you believe them and you also believe that there is nothing that will ever make it better.

I wanted to say this to him, but I’ve also dealt with people like him before, the ones who really do not understand. They believe, however kindly, that a depressed person really only has to find something that they enjoy doing. Something happy. And that when they do these things, they’ll discover that they weren’t actually depressed, they were just lazy. But trying to explain that to a person who does not or can not understand depression or any other mental illness is like giving directions to a person who doesn’t speak the same language as you. They smile, nod, and have no idea what you’re saying.

If I’m lucky, that gentleman will read this blog entry and will come away from it with a new understanding of people, and a new tool in helping the people that he pastors.

As for me, today I took a step towards becoming the person I know I should be and can be. I feel hopeful, but I’m still so very, very weary.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Normally I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. I find that after about a month, the desire and drive tends to die away and you’re left with nothing but good intentions. “I will lose weight this year!” and “I will conquer the mess in the spare bedroom!” become mere empty words without anything to them, and are sighed over and put away until the following year.

I don’t like lying, and that’s what New Year’s resolutions feel like to me: lies. This year is different, though, in a way that I can’t quite articulate. Mostly I am learning to be easier on myself, and more forgiving. I’m perpetually afraid that I am going to “do it wrong”, and that only stifles creativity. I’m learning that there is no “wrong way”. There is my way, and if it is what I need, it’s okay. It won’t be for everyone, and that’s all right.

And with all of that being said, 2013 is starting with some very large changes in my life, and the going will be bumpy. And I won’t always want to blog, but I will. I will blog more than I did in 2012. The goal is weekly. But, you know, if I miss a week — or month — or two, it’s okay. Because, you see, the point is that I am trying.

LIFE IS A TEST. HA. (TAKE TWO)

Well, I have just managed to get Semagic to work with my WordPress account, so I suppose we can consider this to be a test post.

So… does it work?

EDIT:

After a bit of fooling around, yes. It does. Which is a good thing.

And so, an update, of sorts. There is no normal. I’m figuring that out. As soon as I think I have anything at all sorted out, team Life throws a really wicked curveball and mess it all up again. I quit my job, and am now a substitute teacher again. I don’t mind it, but it’s not the best thing I’ll ever do in my life. I discovered Coursera, and am taking a Design course which basically is focusing on the students creating an artifact (in this case, anything which fills a gap in my/someone’s life). I have no idea what I’m going to do with it, however, as what I need to fill the gaps in my life are not within my realm of expertise.

To be honest, the things that cause me pain in life aren’t anything to do with technological objects or little inconveniences that can be easily overlooked. Mine is a relatively simple life, and a quiet one. And the truth is, I prefer it that way.

I don’t have the skills to be able to “fix” my mom. Or my brother. Or any of the situations contained within just those two problems in my life. All I can do is go on — I have no influence over my brother. There is no way I can predict when my mother with have another brain bleed. My brother has made his choices, and my mother’s health is out of all of our hands. And so essentially, I find myself wondering if there is even a place for me within this course that I do find interesting. I don’t know if I am in a position to take it right now. There are other courses available that are coming up, so perhaps I will set my sights on them.

I need to decide, however. The first assignments are due this weekend.

And now, something different…

The other day I went into town to run a few errands, and on a whim took myself out Meig’s County’s variation of Lover’s Lane. I felt bad, because gas is expensive and I am relying on my parents a lot at the moment. But these pictures can only prove that it was the right decision. Beauty such as this is all around us, and most of the time we don’t even take the time to see it.