A Hard Day's Night

I realized I was standing in the store I work at in the middle of the night. I'd obviously come to get something, but I couldn't remember what, nor could I remember how I'd gotten there. There were other customers around, considering the store is open 24/7, so no one was looking at me weird, but I felt weird. Intensely so.

Had I been asleep? It's scary realizing you've just woken up somewhere. I had to have gotten in my car and driven from home, and the biggest relief I had besides the fact that I'd obviously made it alive was that my daughter is with her other parent this weekend. I could have just left my daughter alone in the middle of the night. I could have caused a car accident, could have killed someone, could have died.

I puttered, reeling, around the store. Since I was there, maybe I'd buy something. Maybe I'd remember what I had come for. I was certainly in no condition to drive. I ran into a few people I've worked with and gave watery smiles, all the while trying to hold onto sanity.

At the checkout, I noticed the registers had all been changed during my day off. I hadn't heard anything about a remodel and didn't like it. It looked a lot more complicated than it needed to be. A couple managers showed up, offered me some snacks they'd had in the back for whatever employees wanted them, and I took one, all the while still trying to figure out what I was doing.

This is the kind of dream I regularly have. It's hard to separate from reality for the most part, and I'm left feeling off-kilter for the rest of the day. I'll be going to work soon and I'll see all these people and feel like I'm insane and if they just thought about it they'd know because they saw something bizarre and didn't recognize it.

My job has eaten my life. I dream about it, think about it, worry about it, and get one day off twice a week instead of an actual weekend. Some people like getting two breaks, but one day isn't enough for me to shake things off and relax because there's something fundamentally wrong with my brain. At least, that's the way it feels.

I haven't contemplated suicide this winter, which is good, but that's less because I like my life and more because I found a question to ask myself that scares me too much to want to find out: What if there's no heaven or hell and death just erases us from existence? The idea of disappearing entirely scares me more than eternal hellfire, and I'll take that.

I'll take it and my feelings of insanity to work, and I'll be quiet all day. I'll work, I'll jump every time someone walks up behind me, and every time I try to smile politely, people will give me a look that says I'm not fooling anyone.

Personality Tests

I'm a sucker for a good personality test. It has to be difficult, however. I can see results a mile away, and can't help tweaking my answer toward one result or another, or spreading my answers out so I know the result could have gone in multiple directions.

This one, however, stumped me. (Disclaimer: flashy lights, avoid if epileptic.) You're given a couple circles on a pulsing background and asked a question, such as, "Which one is angry?" or "Where will you never be safe?"

I, being the smart-aleck I am, started out picking the opposite of what I thought was obvious. As I went through it got a little disturbing, and I started to play it straight. My results were... me.

Though quiet on the outside, you are often the hidden hero; someone who rushes in when needed and then after the emergency is over fades back into the woodwork. Because of this sense of duty and honor, you can also on occasion be rigid in your viewpoint and unyielding in the face of other ways of thinking. Usually cynical and rarely trusting of others, you maintain a small set of intimate friends. These bonds are stronger than most. You are always grounded in the present moment. Your close bonds can also lead to clique-ishness and a tendency to gossip about those who are deemed less worthy. You are an integrative thinker, collecting data from a wide range of sources and applying it to your worldview. You can become overly task-oriented. In stressful situations you often withdraw from the world to seek peace in contemplation. You often seem cold and withdrawn. Often you will withdraw rather than verbalize your discontent.

Maybe not the best parts of me, but that is me, minus the bravado. That's me minus the logic that keeps me going. "I feel ____, but logically I know ____, so I refuse to show anger because I have no real reason to be angry."

Eh, it makes my mind swim. So of course I took the second test in the series immediately.

This one was four pulsing colored squares, each with shadowy figures in the center. "Which one knows your secret?" "Which is better than you?" Entirely different results, but still me.

A risk taking individual who fights against the burdens of life through a quest for excessive stimuli. This individual is not only impulsive but admires impulsive behavior, as this is perceived as being free of the exhaustion he or she feels from everyday life. Best method of entry is to appeal to the novel and the future development of our protocol. 

This client feels that times have come to a juncture that is requiring immediate action. This belief is often mistaken however and such an individual can react to perceived threats with overzealous behavior or asymmetrical responses. This client will not heed advice, whether good or bad, and will take his or her own guidance, even if it is only chosen as a means of asserting individuation.

This one cut deeper. Part of it is who I want to be. I want to take risks. I want something to truly interest me. Yes, I admire people who can set aside that very logic that I hold to and do what they want. Freedom is a heady thought. Freedom from constantly thinking about the consequences and deciding "It's not worth it," because maybe sometimes it is.

Also, interesting little fact here: When trying to read the second paragraph, I blanked out. I do that sometimes when something hits too close, or is too stressful. Rather than stressing over it, I just lose my train of thought and have to start over (much easier when I can reread what I've written). A quick read tells me that I sometimes go overboard and I don't trust advice. Sometimes just to prove that I have my own mind.

Well, ouch.

You know what's really fun? They have a third test, complete with pulsing lights and disconcerting noises.

You feel frustrated in your attempts to make your will manifest in a relationship, either personal or public. This frustration can be seen by others as irritability or anxiety and occasionally a tendency to drift into righteous anger. There is a feeling that society or people are holding you back, which can lead to a moral exhaustion and a sense of apathy if allowed to fester. If this continues you will ultimately desire only to be left alone.

Insecurity is the watchword for you at this moment. There is a strong sense that you have been socially demeaned or ignored recently. Hopes and dreams have been stymied, leading to an ever greater anxiety or unease. You need reassurance and to believe that your problems will someday be overcome, whether or not this is actually the case. Often your anxieties will lead you to become unreasonable or demanding. 

Mild discomfort now. I'd really rather deny this one and delete this entire post, but I won't let myself.

Big Disclaimer:
The tests I just took may beat your ego to death and creep you the heck out. In fact, they recommend not taking them unless you have a clinician ready to look at your results. I don't know if I just took one for the team or if I'm psyching myself out.

Little Disclaimer:
I love stuff that messes with your mind. For example, The Game, starring Michael Douglas, is an awesome movie that will drag your brain through the mud, push it off the roof on your dad's birthday, then laugh at you.

The moral of this blog post: How I entertain myself alone on the Internet.

DSL - Dog-Specific Legislation

My sister has rottweilers. If you just grimaced or shuddered, feel free to hit the back button, because the dogs are not the problem in this story. The dogs are house pets. One is from a long line of show dogs, and spends most of his time cuddling and asking to be pet. The other is from a line of working dogs, and enjoys fetching things and learning commands. A busy dog is a happy dog, and these dogs are happy.

Puppies do not come trained, this is a sad fact of life. Kids don't come trained, either. When a puppy was introduced to my 11-year-old daughter, there was much drama because puppies nip, and they have no sense of personal boundaries whatsoever. It has been six months now. The puppy is quite a bit bigger and far better trained. She knows things like off, down, toy, bring, and leave it. The kid, however, does not seem to understand this.

My daughter panics every time the puppy comes toward her. The puppy's intentions are greet-and-sniff. My daughter starts turning away to cower against something, squealing, bending and covering her face. Unless something has happened with her father's dog that I don't know about, she's never been hurt by a dog in her life, and yet she acts terrified.

The puppy sees this squealing and body-contorting, and thinks my daughter is initiating play. My daughter won't listen to simple commands, such as Say off, or Ignore her and keep walking, so the puppy bounces or jumps up or yips, and my daughter claims that the dog has attacked her.

Let's pause a moment. The puppy is a rottweiler. What could happen if a melodramatic pre-teen goes to school and tells someone that a rottweiler attacked her? There's a possibility that two pets could be taken from their home and put down, isn't there? Even if neither dog has ever left a mark?

My sister is a certified dog trainer. It drives her crazy that my daughter, after six months of living with my sister and her dogs, still panics. But only over the puppy. The full-grown male rottweiler she's fine with. He can come greet her and she pats his head awkwardly. He tends to move slower in general, but he is no less capable of acting like a dog than the puppy is.

My daughter is afraid of the puppy's potential to hurt her. She's done this with other things, too. For example: she's been afraid of movie theaters since she was about seven because her dad took her to a scary movie once and she doesn't want to get scared.

My daughter doesn't want to listen to instructions because her fear has gotten in the way, and my sister is so upset that she doesn't want to work with the kid. My sister has taken this stubbornness or fear or whatever it is as a personal insult.

I have now ranted myself into either mental exhaustion or a block, which means that I might have been about to really get somewhere. Can't think anymore, though. My sister's crying because my daughter cries every time the puppy comes up, and my daughter is in her bedroom doing whatever 11-year-old girls do in their rooms alone.

So one time, at the cheese factory, they decided to tell a guy he was being fired for a bunch of tardies during his lunch break. Then they sent him back to finish work all emotional and he cut his hand pretty badly with a box knife. The whole line had to be shut down so they could clean everything. They decided after that to maybe start giving people notice on Fridays after their shifts.

Bloody Mary

So, when I was twelve, my parents sent me to summer daycare. Perhaps they were a little overprotective, but details. The point of this blog is that although I was a good kid, I had a mischievous streak, and have always been a skeptic.

When the kids decided that Bloody Mary was living in the girls' restroom, I led a few investigations. There was nothing, of course. There was no blood on any mirror, there was no blue toilet water (because we tested Baby Boy Blue too, while we were at it), and no one came out of anywhere to attack anyone at all.

The whole "good kid" thing is important because I was trying to disprove a theory after little girls started wetting themselves rather than go to the bathroom, since they weren't allowed to use the adult bathroom.

I failed anyway. Kids wanted to believe, for the same reason people like a good ghost story. It's exciting.

There were some girls who claimed they had seen Bloody Mary, and who are you going to believe? A twelve year old, or a group of ten year olds? Well, neither probably, but on with the story.

A group of girls went into the bathroom with a few they were trying to scare, and I volunteered to hold the door open so they could escape when Bloody Mary arrived. So they did their chanting and turning around in circles and flicking water at the mirrors and flushing all the toilets, and when the first girl screamed that the trash can had moved, WHOOMP! The bathroom door sealed closed.

I can't get the door open! *it opens half an inch, then slams shut again* I'm pulling!

I even pretended to pull so the kids outside the bathroom could see that I was innocent. Somehow Bloody Mary had skipped the stabbings and gone straight for holding the door shut, which doesn't sound like much, except that group hysteria is a powerful thing.

During the struggle to open the door and free the girls, someone saw Bloody Mary in a flash on a mirror, someone saw a single drop of blood, someone saw her fly out of the mirror, then disappear, someone saw the trashcan jump, though within three retellings the trashcan had lifted a full foot off the ground and moved across the floor.

I did eventually let go of the door—I mean, I managed to pry it open, against a strong and mysterious force—and a wall of screaming girls fell out and scattered, still squealing, to the winds. Or to five feet away from the bathroom, to relive the terror.

Things kind of faded out after that. I like to think that everyone was so terrified they stopped talking about Bloody Mary, and since no one was talking about it, girls started going to the bathroom again.

That's the end, you can go now. Or go play on Snopes or something, that's always fun.

Some Things Never Change

My dad sounded a little too cheerful when he asked to take me out to lunch tomorrow. I am, as a result, filled with dread.

How can someone sound too cheerful? you may ask, and why does that frighten you to your very core?

It's rather simple, really. Whenever my parents had really horrible news, they would try to temper that news with a treat. They'd act a little too casual, and the treat would be completely out of nowhere, because usually it was something they'd been trying to hide. For example: My sister has never watched the movie Forrest Gump through to the end.

One fine spring day, our parents pushed the couch up in front of the tv to make things cozier, told us we were going to have a movie and ice cream sundaes later, then sat us down and announced that my mom was moving out. My sister had no clue until that moment, and she did not enjoy her sundae, nor did she watch the movie all the way through.

I loved my sundae, and I loved the movie. Of course, my bedroom was directly across the hall from my parents' and I was a bit older, so the announcement was wonderful for me. No more being unable to sleep until 3 am listening to them argue! And a sundae on top of it all!

Once in a while I'd wake up and find that my father had taken my sister out for the day, and that announcement was always met with dread. It meant that my mother wanted to tell me something truly horrible, perhaps break my spirit and remind me what a horrible person I was for having repeatedly done something wrong over the previous weeks or months. The problem was me, and she needed several hours in which to set me straight, while my sister went bowling or fishing or out to the park.

So any time I get an unexpected treat just for me, I'm thrown into anxiety. I asked my dad if my sister and brother-in-law were also invited to lunch, which is always the case, but no, it's something just for us. *shudder*

So, what am I so afraid of?

Well, number 1: homelessness. I've been living in someone else's house as a favor to me since December 2009. My then-best-friend kicked me out after three and a half months because I was still unemployed, and she and her boyfriend had decided that not only did I not actually want a job, or I'd have one already, but that I was never going to amount to anything, and I should give up and try to get on disability.

I then moved into my aunt's house. She didn't actually have room, but I had just been kicked out, and it was that or let me live in my car. I stayed with her for about two months before I managed to get into Grad School. Unfortunately, I flunked out after two semesters because I couldn't wrap my mind around Accounting, and my school did not offer any kind of Master's degree in any kind of art or design.

So it was on to grandma's house. I was there for several months before I was notified (by my father) that my grandmother wanted me to leave, because I wasn't the companionship she'd hoped for. I'm an introvert, you see, and sitting quietly in the same room with someone feels like good company. I don't like to fill the air with words unless I have something to say which I think is important.

My grandmother was terribly injured, went into surgery, and ended up staying with my father, because his house is wheelchair accessible and hers is not. This extended my stay at her house to nearly two years, because I took care of her pets and kept the house from being abandoned/broken into.

My sister kindly, generously, amazingly, asked me to come live with her for reasons such as the horrible heat wave, horror at my living situation, and hope that she could help me out. I've been here four months and I'm still unemployed, even with her tossing every job she hears about my way (yes, I apply for them all), and now it's into autumn, which means the Seasonal Affective Disorder is kicking in. I'm sleepy all the time, I'm no longer oozing the hope and enthusiasm I was when I first got here.

So, back around to lunch with my dad tomorrow. There's a chance he just wants to have lunch with only me, though we don't get along for more than the shortest amounts of time. There is also a chance that he wants to pass on a complaint from someone else because he thinks it's helpful.

I'm taking bets.

Depression is Depressing. III

You don't want to hear it, so I just won't say it.

That's why I'm so quiet.

Depression Theatre: Popping the Bubble

I understand why people kill themselves, and I shouldn't, and I don't want to. I believe in Hell, even when I'm so pissed off and disillusioned that it doesn't feel like anything could exist but the pain. There's not even a reason for it! I cried when a nurse practitioner told me it was low thyroid, because that can cause depression. That's a reason. And I cried again when my regular doctor took me off the thyroid medicine because it was making my heart race, making it impossible to sleep or think, and because that meant it was just depression again.

If you believe the whole brain chemicals thing, it shouldn't make a difference. If you don't believe it, just knowing me is enough to prove it's got to be more than dramatics. I can't control it, God, I wish I could. My eleven year old has better emotional control than I do. She'll freak out at little things, because kids do that, but in half an hour, she's back to herself. Half an hour later, I'm still reminding myself not to do anything stupid. Same an hour later. Same for days, sometimes.

I even have reasons to be depressed, real reasons to be ever-so-slightly discouraged about life. I worked my ass off in school, worked my ass off to go to college, and it seems like life keeps shitting on me. It shits on everyone, I know. It's my own fault for making bad decisions, I know. I should be able to just get over it, just work through it like everyone else does, but the littlest things can set me back so far.

Someone reminds me of my faults, and I'm useless for days, just hating myself. I know logically that I'm smart, I'm a good writer, good designer, good artist, good parent, but none of that means anything because smart doesn't get me a job. Good writer, designer, artist, doesn't get me a job, doesn't get me I don't know, love or something. I don't even know what I want.

Do I want a house of my own? Yes. I would like to get my life out of storage after almost three years. I would like my daughter to have a space all of her own, and all of her toys. I'd like to be able to stop telling her I'm sorry, that's in storage, and tell my family, I can't get that for you, or I can't find out, because that's in storage, too.

I'm not a big guy, so I let someone else pack the storage unit. He and his friend piled stuff up in such a cluster that I can't get it apart without either injuring myself or going into a rage and just breaking it all. My paintings are supporting box corners and there are beer bottles scattered around. My belongings don't remain in storage because I'm lazy.

This is where I'd complain again about being unemployed if I hadn't done so a hundred times before. A note on that subject, though. Pizza Hut sent me an e-mail after I applied saying they don't have any jobs I'm qualified for.

My friends get sick of the drama. I don't blame them.

I feel like a complete waste of life having to hide the scissors when I get like this. I've never hurt myself like that, and I don't like even the urge to do it. I can't control that, either. I don't sit down and say, I'm miserable. I want to cut to punish myself/to show people how much I hurt/to remind myself that I really am alive, and I can still feel.

I've been over that before, too.

Why do you even bother?

Because I don't have a choice.

There's always a choice. Your choices got you here.

I tried! I tried to do the best I could. I listened to my parents even when I didn't want to, I never did drugs, I never sneaked out, I didn't even teach myself to cuss until college. I was nice to people who were mean to me. I've tried to be everything anyone ever wanted me to be, so why can't something go right?

Because you don't get anywhere being nice. People are attracted to confidence. They want someone who knows their own mind. What the hell do you know?

I don't know.

Exactly.

And I'd continue trying to convince my inner critic that I'm worth something, but the mind blank just got me. Sometimes it's annoying. Sometimes I'm in the middle of telling someone something, maybe explaining to my sister why I'm acting even more pseudo-emo than usual. Then poof I've got no clue what I was saying.

It's trying to get me again. I'm having trouble stringing together sentences, but right now, I'm fine with that. I was feeling really bad a few minutes ago.

So, to paraphrase: I was having suicidal thoughts and self-harm thoughts, and chose to blog while listening to Don't Jump, by Tokio Hotel. The depression bubble popped. I'm still miserable, but no longer leaking from my face (highly unpleasant, that) and no longer thinking, self-harm or otherwise. If I wasn't out of cereal, I'd go have myself a bowl of comfort food.

Moment passed, nothing to see here. Move along.

*insert amusing cheese factory anecdote here*

PRIVACY NOTICE

Warning: any person and/or institution and/or Agent and/or Agency and/or fanboy/fangirl and/or stalker or any governmental structure (except the high school I graduated from, you know who you are) including but not limited to the United states Federal Government, the government of any nation in, on, or near any continent whose name begins with an A, an E, or any other recognized letter, the moon, Mars, or Venus (excluding Venus's southern hemisphere) monitoring/using/not using/unaware of this website, any of its associated websites, or any unrelated websites...

*pauses for air*

...you do NOT have my permission to steal everything I've ever written under all my various pseudonyms (because I acknowledge that you are all-knowing, omnipotent, know when I am sleeping, know when I'm awake, know when I've been bad or good, but I'm good, for goodness sake so stop watching me pee!) and use it to better the world, including my pictures, and use them to throw darts at, including my art, and draw mustaches, then say you drew it.

Because, of course, the government has nothing better to do than break into random Joe Blow's Facebook and download pictures of his rottweiler sleeping with the new kitten or his kids sitting in a wading pool. In fact, their intention is to steal the pictures of every middle-class person with a Facebook account, edit them in Photoshop, then use this doctored photography to throw them into one of the many empty prisons just sitting around.

Oh damn, I got sidetracked.

You are hereby notified that you are strictly prohibited from disclosing, copying, distributing, disseminating, or taking any other action against me with regard to my stuff that I already mentioned. Even if it's illegal. Especially if its legal status is questionable. Because I know that telling you not to prosecute me means that you can't. In fact, I could go rob a bank, but if I told everyone in the bank before I robbed it that they are hereby notified that they can't identify me in a police lineup or a court of law, they are legally forbidden from doing so. Because I said hereby, and that means business.

(Note: I have never robbed a bank, and I don't intend to, just saying.)

The foregoing prohibitions (See? I said foregoing too. Ha on you, loser!) also apply to anyone I forgot to mention, including Venus's southern hemisphere, your employees (yes, yours), agents, students, friends, families, and any pets capable of speech, whether they're under your direction/control or not.

In other words, consider everything I've ever done, even if I posted it on the internet for the world to see and checked the "public" button on my privacy/security settings, private and legally privileged and confidential blah blah, blah, the violation of my personal privacy is punishable by law.

Celebrities are so dumb not putting signs up or wearing buttons that say this stuff on them, because if they did, they wouldn't have to worry about paparazzi anymore.

Wait, what's this? Is it a link? I wonder where it goes...

Fear-mongering: bored of it.

So one time at the cheese factory, I told them that they were legally forbidden from firing me, and they didn't. No, just kidding, I never said that and anyway, I quit that place.

Reasons to Live

It's that time of deepest winter when it seems like the sky has always been steel gray and everything visible from here to the horizon has always been shades of brown and death. It's also that time when hopelessness is at its worst and the "Seasonal Affective Disorder" has piled so thickly onto fifteen years of ongoing clinical depression that it's hard to remember why I bother living.

While searching the All-Powerful Internet for reasons to live, I realized that no one else's list is going to do me much good. Sadly, the first two I pulled up listed sex as at least one of the authors' reasons. Sorry, not going to work for me.

I had such a list in high school. I was reading a Dean Koontz book and the main character had one which, among other things, mentioned a certain burger from a fictional burger joint. After a moment's wondering whether a food item could really be worth living for, I thought of one that I actually considered enough of a reason to make it another day or so. Unfortunately, Pizza Hut's triple-decker, stuffed crust, deep dish, heart-attack-of-bliss no longer exists, and the stuffed crust alone isn't enough. Plus, I can't afford fast food.

I'm living on $150 per month. I live at my grandmother's house, but that's still less than two hundred dollars per month, and I use half of that on gas driving my daughter places. School, mostly. The library. Wal-Mart.

I spend a chunk of it on Internet because the place I live contains some houses, a hardware store, and a bar, none of which I'm interested in, and the nearest town is fifteen miles. I have to buy my own toilet paper and whatnot, so that leaves me with nothing. But I digress.

Reasons to live... Not leaving grieving family members used to be a big one on my list. I think they'd get over it, though. They'd be horribly ashamed of me being so weak, but I'd be dead, so shame means nothing. Ditto for leaving behind debt and a storage unit full of most of my belongings.

Fear of Hell is on my list, but it's not as powerful as it should be at the moment. When in the throes of misery, when you feel nothing inside but seemingly endless self-hate and misery, eternal suffering doesn't look like much of a difference. You must keep in mind, of course, how very important perception is, and that logic doesn't work against persistent, irrational thoughts.

I hate you.

No, you're just miserable. You know you're smart, you know you have artistic talent, and that you're a good writer. You know people love you.

So? Everyone hates you for that alleged smartness, and I don't care if that's a real word, because you know how it pisses off your dad any time you mention anything he thinks you might have learned in college, because he assumes you're talking down to him.

But you can't help what people think or assume, and you know he loves you.

So? He doesn't like you. If it wasn't for your daughter, he wouldn't care if you visited.

Probably not... But my sister likes me.

Yeah, and that does you a lot of good. Everyone's already ashamed of you for being such a failure. You can't get a job in two years of unemployment, and everyone's sure that you're not really trying. In fact, you're not! When was the last time you filled out an application?

...I'm sorry! I'm sorry, but every time I try to, or even think about it, I just think what a failure I am, and what a waste of time it'll be to fill out yet another application for another job I won't get! It's a waste for me, and for the hiring manager who has to look through all that crap already!

You don't even TRY, so stop pretending.

I'm suffering from long-term depression! I need to give myself an emotional break, forgive myself a little. It doesn't have to be perfect...

If you're only second-best you won't get the job, so yes, perfection does matter!

So does luck! I could get lucky!

People don't get places with luck, they get it with hard work!

I try!

Liar. You don't try. You nap half the day on the couch because you don't want to think, and because you hope desperately that your grandmother's cats will sleep on you and maybe you'll feel worth something.

But...

You're worthless! It's no wonder everyone says "I wish I knew how to help you," but no one ever actually does anything!

They try to give me advice...

Because "You need to get a job" is advice. You didn't already know that?

Well yes, I did, I want a job, but...

You're a f~ing loser and you always will be.

But I went to college!

Pretentious bastard!

No, that's not what I meant! I meant, I went to college full-time and I graduated, and I had a part-time job and an internship, and...

And you couldn't get your bills paid. You realize it's been two years, and you still owe hundreds of dollars to the utility companies before they'd hook you up, even if you WERE competent enough to get a job and find your own place to live? And your grandmother doesn't even want you in her house anymore because she can't deal with the noise of a child, and because you aren't social enough to be the companionship she needs.

No! I'm smart, and I have proof! I graduated college! I learned common sense that I didn't have when I was a teenager! I have friends! I have a friend who loved me enough to fly me halfway across the country to see her, and another friend who would gladly do the same if she had the money! They love you, and they think you're smart and clever and they like you as a friend, and if you told them that you desperately needed them...

They'd apologize for leaving and promise to talk to you later.

Because they have school and jobs...

Which are more important than you.

Which is how it's supposed to be.

Loser.

Actual mental conversation, there. Not really a dramatic reenactment. Oh yeah, I was supposed to be listing reasons to live. Number one about half an hour ago was that my friend told me I have to keep living, whether I want to or not. If I manage to think of a number two, maybe you'll get a better blog post next time.


Reasons to Live:

1. My friend told me to.
2. Because there has to be more than one reason, or making a list was pointless.

Shaken, Not Stirred

Ever had a nightmare so profound that you can't shake it off? I've had many, leading me to such rational acts as telling my father not to go to a certain store for a week, and freaking out whenever he wore a certain shirt. Last night's was one for the books. The kind where you wake sweating, feeling nauseous and fairly certain you've been crying, and for the rest of the day you're on edge, praying nothing happens and afraid to do anything, lest it turn out to be real after all.

Warning: Parental Fear Trigger ahead.

The realism didn't help any. I was sitting in this very house alone, my grandmother in physical rehab, during Thanksgiving break, and got a phone call that my daughter had died. She'd been in a horrible car accident and a piece of iron had gone through her eye. Of course, countless times during this nightmare I got visuals of exactly that, of my child screaming in terror, and I was shattered. My child, one of my best friends, my favorite pet, my life's work, something that will never happen again in my life, gone. Just gone.

I was stricken with grief. I didn't want to live anymore, didn't want to eat, and sometimes I was in shock, like I'd just blink and she'd walk through the door. In fact, part of me insisted it had to be a nightmare, and I'd look at the door, knowing she was about to come in, but she didn't. There was no closure, and I couldn't handle it. I couldn't see her again, it didn't feel real, and how was I supposed to go looking for a job when I my world had just died?

And I was still alone, but more alone than ever. My family was worried, but nobody did anything, as always. If you don't talk about it, it goes away, except for me it wasn't going away and it never would.

I was told I should move to the city and try to get a job, now there wouldn't be anything holding me back, and all I could think was I don't care if she was 'holding me back,' I don't feel free, I feel lost. I had the thought that I could finally move to California, that I'd never have to see my ex again, but if I expected to feel relief, I didn't. What if I did move? I'd be living with someone who has a child of her own, a daughter only a year younger than mine. Could I handle it? Would envy kill me? Self-pity? Would I get attached to someone else's child in a sad attempt to replace my own? Could I live with that? Would I ever be a functional human being again?

I didn't know, and I don't know. I woke sweating, nauseous, and spent, and I've spent all day dreading the possibility that my phone might ring, despite knowing that it didn't happen. When I walked into the kitchen this afternoon, I looked at the door, listening for her, and I knew she wouldn't come in. She's due home Sunday night.

I should have called my ex to talk to her, and for a while it seemed like the perfect solution, but I didn't think of it until nighttime, and at this hour, I'd be leaving a shaky-sounding voicemail begging to hear from my daughter in the morning. My ex doesn't return my calls when he has her, though. She doesn't call, and that would be infinitely worse than just trying to make it through the day, just reminding myself that even if the memories of the dream feel as real as any other memories I have, none of it happened.

I still feel sick and exhausted, I don't want to drive anywhere, and I hate that anything that takes my mind off it is only temporary.

So one time, at the cheese factory, someone walked up to me in my new hoodie, and without preamble, cut the ties that pull the hood tight because we weren't allowed to have any loose items or jewelry above the waist. So I clipped a stuffed turtle to my belt loop in protest, and no one ever said a word against it.

I made that damn turtle a raincoat out of an empty bag of latex gloves, and it worked with me for over a year. Yes, I've told that story before, but I told it better this time.