quick

this will have to be quick, as i'm typing inbetween chores. the chicken is in the crock pot, but the cats are not yet fed, nor is their litter emptied.

it's the big three-oh on tuesday, but i think i'm just going to celebrate my 28th again. that was a good age. (;

last night my mental illness of choice came into focus so sharply that nasa should have been able to pick it up from space. "and here we have the great wall of china...and over here, kim's ADD..."

the whole issue was over where to go for dinner. dan wanted me to make a decision based on some options he had. i couldn't pick anything--because i honestly couldn't.

i wrote a poem later that likened my thought process to pouring water through a colander when you think you're using a funnel.

all of a sudden ALL the options are good. and all the options are bad. it's difficult for me to sift through and make a choice. dan suggested that i just pick something, some place. i know it frustrates him to no end that i didn't, and we had this fantastic fight about how annoying it is to the world around me that i can't make a decision.

at the same time, if i could, don't you think i would? i despise angering others.

thursday my mother called. she wanted to know what kind of cake to bake for my birthday. i was honest. i didn't know.

because here is how my through process went:

mmmmmmmmmmmm cake!!! i'm so excited to have cake that's made for me! should i have marble? or white? no not white, it's kind of tasteless...what about lemon with lemon filling? just heard dan say angelfood...with strawberries, delicious! but i'm not sure i'm in the mood for berries right now. or spice cake with some cream cheese frosting...no, carrot cake! so yummy! but no raisins in it...boy i sure do love chocolate cake, too...that cake we had for sara's bridal shower was so good, chocolate cake with chocolate frosting...

at this point i just grabbed something and said "marble...or chocolate cake, that's fine." to which my mother replied: "with what kind of frosting?"

*sigh*

it's not that i don't want to make quick decisions. my life would be easier if i did. it just takes me longer, because mentally i need to list out what my options are, and they get blurred and multiply like rabbits in my head, and pretty soon there's too many to count--they all are good, they all are bad. i can't prioritize which rabbit is the cutest, which is the furriest, which is the color brown...they're all rabbits.

all roads lead me to the same morass of thought: all cats are gray in the dark.

sometimes it reminds me of being at the nature center when i was a kid. they've got exhibits, they've got wild animals, they've got shows. and then they've got these boxes with dark fabric tops on them, and holes for your hands. you put your hands inside and feel:

a turtle shell
a bird foot
a leaf

you're supposed to quickly identify what the object is, and then lift up the flap next to the arm holes to see if you're correct. some things, when you reach inside, are obvious. others take time to decipher.

my problem is that i reach into that darkened box, and i feel around, and the objects are all there--scattered around in the box, a puzzle to be fitted together. i get distracted by each individual piece, so distracted that i forget that i am putting together a puzzle. in the end i give up--annoyed and angry at my self. i lift the flap and see the puzzle is only four pieces large--and then i get more annoyed because what seems like an easy answer, what seems like something a kindergartener should be able to solve--i could not solve it.

it's not that i don't want to be quicker at thinking. it's not that i don't want to be distracted. i hated that when i was a kid i was always the last one eating lunch, or at sleepovers, the last one eating breakfast. too many things were going on--i couldn' t focus on actually getting the spoon to my mouth at the same rate as my compatriots. i daydreamed in class--i think my third grade teacher said that i could be a very good student if i just applied myself.

it feels like after three decades, i'm still that child. that perhaps i should have better control of how i process the world. that i should put things together more quickly. intake is not the problem. i can keep up with what the world is tossing at me. sometimes i mentally move more quickly than my intake, which is the beauty of add. but for the most part it's just frustrating. your brain is moving so quickly, adding so many things onto your immediate options, that all you're accomplishing quickly is frustrating the person offering you options.

it seems awkward to think about picking up paper and pen when someone is optioning away, and writing down the options so that i can think of what i really want.

the same thing happens whenever i have to think quickly about what i want to do--the options become endless, and i just cop out and say, "i don't know," instead of taking the time to make my brain slow down and see the options. it sounds absolutely ridiculous: "can i call you back tomorrow and let you know what kind of cake i want?"

shouldn't i just KNOW right away what my favorite cake is?

perhaps. perhaps not. in the grocery store yesterday there were a hundred different options for barbeque sauce. they were all right there in front of me. it took me probably twice as long as dan would have liked to pick out one bottle for this morning's chicken. but with all the options in front of me, it was easier by far than standing in a different aisle, looking at cans of soup, and trying to think of what sauce to choose when i was in the right aisle.

i want to be as quick, making a decision. i don't want to leave even the minutae of my life up to the whims of others. but at the same time, i just don't know how, without imposing my limitations on them. i don't want to make dan wait for an hour while i puzzle out where i really want to go for dinner, or tell my mother that i'll get back to her later about a cake flavor.

it seems like i keep missing the gold by hundreths of a second. if i could find some way to creep up the podium from bronze, i would. it's just not a quick process for me.

bacterial companionship

so this week i finally was felled by the dreaded Work Cold.

the girl at the end of the row got sick first. then the next...and the next...and the next...and then on wednesday, after two stressful days that made me want to run away anyhow, i woke up a bit stuffy and sore-throated.

it's like watching the weather channel and seeing the big green or blue mass of pixels wander over your city, and then seeing it precipitate outdoors.

it was a good thing we were in training. i was sleepy and chilled; the usual suspects. by the end of the day, i knew that i had a nice little fever broiling on the back burner. i stopped and got some of that Lipton noodle soup on the way home: bascially, chicken broth with bits of parsley and noodles this (--------) big. literally. they're probably double that size in width, but it's the most basic soup imaginable.

hunkered down with blankets and such. catered to my cold. around midnight, just before dan got home from being out with friends, i woke drenched in my bed, clammy and hot at the same time, knowing that the fever had broken. i stumbled downstairs and requested assistance with repairing the bedsheets, and dan replaced them.

it's at times like these that i'm grateful that i have opened my life up and added dan to the mix. sometimes he does drive me nuts; i know i do the same to him. but watching him carefully tuck the sheet under the mattress--a herculean effort for me, at that time of the night--was so comforting.

i have a very, very difficult time allowing others to help me. it's something i'm trying to overcome, clumsily. i'm not proficient at saying, "please do this for me"--if it's just something for me. i can ask dan to take out the garbage, or feed the cats--those seem like community property issues. but to ask him to replace my sheets, or get a glass of water--that seems like it is asking a great deal, because the effort is for no one but me.

***

last week i had dinner with my friend amanda, on her way through town, headed out west. we talked at length about where we were at in our respective relationships. i can see that she is where dan and i were years ago, before the gates opened last year, before questions and answers that you didn't want to ask or hear, before therapists and cognitive behavioral therapy.

we talked about my journey, about hers. i did not like to talk about anything "too personal" with anyone, for a long time. i've changed my opinion about this, quite a bit. however, sharing your story does not have to be whining, or asking for pity. i can relate my life's tale, thus far, and she can relate hers, and we can communually learn from them.

***

the moral of today's blog? sharing words and feelings is good. sharing a hug is good. sharing in general is good.

that being said, i'd feel just fine if my coworkers hadn't been so gracious with their virus-giving.

the archaeology of the soul

for the past few weeks i've kind of hidden in my hole. i just felt like i couldn't deal with the world. head in ground, like the ostrich. me, looking up from a great depth.


sometimes it's like the world is moving much, much faster than i am, and i'm just tortoise-slow in keeping up.

tomorrow morning i see helene, my tdoc, again. i'll be glad to see her but i'm having some real issues with my meds since they got changed. the wellbutrin should be pepping me up but for some reason it makes me dizzy for a while after taking it. i keep reading that i need to give it time to work properly so i'm trying to be patient, but it's made my mornings very slow. and it's probably why i'm having issues with standing next to the rollercoaster, unable to track it as it whirls along the tracks.

i can feel the apathy leaking out of me like fine sand, pooling around my feet and bogging me down.

there just doesn't seem to be a cattle prod large enough to get me going, currently.

it's not that i don't care about what's going on in my life. because i do. i want to call nathan, i want to check up on blogs. i would like to have some goal in my life other than "make it through tomorrow", and so on and so forth.

dan and i were talking about it this morning while i got ready for work. there's a lot of things i'm still trying to work through, since last year, since starting therapy, since being born...okay, i'm overreacting. (; but it has taken quite some time to get to where i am, and it's difficult to break it down and pick it apart.

my therapist told me at one point after some extensive testing that i was naive--and i have to agree. i have always had a slightly rosy view of how i feel about other people, and how i expect to be treated by them. (mainly i expect to be forgotten by others, and don't feel that i matter.)

anyway, after everything was finally laid out on the table last year, i had the opportunity to work on things with dan. which is going as well as can be expected, what with circumstances and such. if i look at things as a chart i can see improvement, leaps and bounds of it.

late this last fall, while my grandmother was busy getting to heaven, serena emailed me. i thought we were starting up a dialogue. i fell back into the hopes i used to have, the hope that dan had fostered in me while we were reworking our relationship.

human memory is slogged down with emotions. i don't know exactly what i hoped, at that time.

and she's never emailed back.

part of me wonders why.

i can understand keeping yourself closed off; i did it for a long, long time. but the value of cracking open your shell and walking around emotionally naked and honest far outweighs the safety and security of staying within.

i know that lately i've been burying myself under layers of fear, because i have niggling feelings all the time that people i hold dear mean me harm, or mean to do me wrong. dan's allayed much of this, by talking and going to therapy and being honest with me. at this point i'm not looking for any communique from serena. i've dropped that hope. it's starting to wither on the vine.

as my wise teresa says, you can only keep the door open for so long. you close it. you hope that something good happens on the other side, and you open it when the person knocks. but you don't expend energy waiting at the door.

yeah, i feel like serena's actions helped undermine my ability to trust people. but it was going to happen anyway, anyhow, at some point in time. the hard work of unearthing my fears, along with my dreams, had to begin, so that i could begin...i don't know, being?

the constant questioning of my anxiety has been helpful to me. why am i getting anxious? do i have any control over the situation about which i'm starting to hyperventilate, or am i only in control of my own reaction?

while questioning my self, i see the answer, buried deep--i'm afraid to lose people. i'm afraid to move away, i'm afraid they'll die, and now, i'm afraid they'll ditch me. i fear that i'll be some cast -off or forgotten relationship artifact, for some reader to dig up years from now in my words and deeds.

i don't want to be forgotten. and in the same vein, part of me doesn't want to forget.

luckily, i'm in therapy. i'm aware. i can learn. the adage about old dogs and their inability to learn new tricks is the part that i need to ditch. it's not a quick thing, this being. it's slow. like me.