Accentuate the positive.

There will be times when life sucks. As in the pain you feel will feel endless. All you will want is to go back and make it right. Spend more time, don't hurt, make it right, listen, be in the moment. Regret. You will have thoughts of regret whether or not you've ever told yourself that you have no regrets. When someone you love dies or you realized the life lesson after the barn door is shut and the horse is no where to be found.

Moment by moment, day by day you deal with the pain and do your best to distract yourself from the pain. Pain, hurt, regret will consume you. In an instant. You  have to fight back. In your weakest moment you have to fight back. Don't do it alone- call a friend, see a therapist. But dear god, don't expect the person that you just hurt, don't ask him or her to make it better. Only you can reach inside yourself and start the journey to better.

I'm doing ok. And the rant above is only slightly referential and then from only a third party point of view.

Try, do your best, not to have regrets because if you live to old age, I'm talking late 80s and 90s, all you will have is the past. Have happy times on which to reflect. Dependent on someone to take care of you- fix your meals, get you out of the house, take you to the bathroom- you don't want to have regret sneaking up on you. Your life will suck enough.

This is my only life. I will do my best to appreciate each moment I have. My amazing sisters, the amazingness of finding love with someone who dealt with me at my worst. I pined for 16 years. I should have lived my life for 16 years. I could have not pined, not cried over lost love and still have reconnected with Fisher. We're not back together because I shitted away great moments of my life because I was obsessed with him.

Appreciate all the good- in yourself and others. Do your best to be a better person. To have pure love for another. Plan for the future, but don't write it in blood. Write it in pencil or have some white-out handy.

The Beauty of the Color in My Life.

First off, the store cat has to apologize to the storeowner for forgetting to get in touch. Carried away with bike riding with my sister and picking up produce at a farmer’s market.

This thing between Fisher and I- it’s real. And I’ll do my best to take it one day at a time and never take a phone call, text or anything for granite. Sixteen years of my crazies and him having a hard time with my crazies (understandably) and me moving several times from one end of the country to the other.

I know that this is where I am supposed to be right now, but I am so looking forward to having my own place again. And hopefully one day (sooner rather than later) that place will also be Fisher’s place. But all of those hopes and dreams have to stay in my heart.

More mature, perspective, healthier, medicated. Appreciative that we could still fall in love again after everything. And everything encompasses a lot of ugly stuff. We’ve accentuated the positive, eliminated the negative and not messing with the in between.

I’m bummed that we’re apart right now, but I am so happy that he’s back in my life. Sixteen years ago I fell in love with him. I knew he was my soul mate. Even when I felt nothing when he loved me, he was still my soul mate. Accepting, funny, intelligent.

One time in a place where I am the store cat, MC and I talked about what kind of guy I would need to be with to make me happy. Some one that would challenge me to be a better person, with as much education as me, and someone who saw my quirks as an asset.

Maybe I’ve found that person.

For now, I work, go to school, attempt to hold my shit together and be a good person.

My sister, D*, has decided to end contact with my mom. I don’t blame her and when I’m on my own again, I might do that as well. L* won’t let me do that now, living with her and having her paying for my education kinda makes me her bitch in dealing with our mom.

We’ll visit my mom this weekend. It will be a difficult trip because of my mom’s mental state and she’ll no doubt say bad things about D*. That will be my breaking point. Hopefully, I’ll only be at my mom’s for a day and then drive over to see Fisher.

So many places I’d like to be, places and people that I would like to bring together to have them surround me. Fisher, MC, San Simeon.
MC- you are always in my heart. How can I not think of you when I have so many wonderful reminders that I have the pleasure of seeing everyday? I’ll be back again. Being there feels like home.

A rabbits den.

ADD/ADHD, dyslexia and phonological learning disability.

Welcome to my world.

All that stuff above, I can deal with. I’ve been dealing with it for 35 years. Now I have a center at my disposal that is an advocate for me. It’s like Christmas.

What I can’t handle is the rabbit hole I’ve fallen down in regards to my mom.

I will not go into further detail. I will tell you that it’s all very bad. Our realities over-lap and intertwine for most of us. For others reality exists in another realm, with another set of values. Getting a person back into the “real” reality is a difficult and harrowing experience. I had to let my father go, let him pass. My mom, I’ve been trying to hold onto her and it’s destroying me and my sisters.

Patience and Understanding

Loving and leaving

Amazing weekend spent with Fisher. One word- bunnies. Love the second half of my thirties. Love being with someone who accepts me for everything that I am.

And now I’ll pack my bag and in a few hours head north hoping that it won’t be until thanksgiving that we see each other next.

I want everything right now. No more waiting. Now. It won’t happen like that. Time will be spend apart from each other. Probably some more tears on my part. Some depression for him. The time we do have together is precious, we are completely focused on each other. A million times better than when I fell in love with him 16 years ago.

We drove past a the place where he first made me laugh out loud, a moment a treasure. It was at a lumber store. Crazy, huh? We were building a stump together for his production of a Midsummer Night’s Dream. It wasn’t until a few weeks later that I knew.

Kept in my heart, always hoping. Good times and some very hurtful times. Now I will treasure every moment with him and do my best to live in that moment. One day, one hour, one minute at a time.

For Fun

So, I've been finding mandalas to "paint" in Photoshop. Hence the earlier mandala. Using the pencil tool to outline and the paint bucket in larger areas to fill in color.  The one is in process:

How are a friend and an enemy alike?

First off, a victory of sorts- finally diagnosed with ADD. After 36 years of struggling to connect and swim through the knotted string in my head, I have some hope. Dear lord, please have my psychiatrist write out a script to give me a chance to see if meds will help. I don’t have the ability to work thru this on my own. Must needs help.

In other news, heading down to the college town after work sometime this afternoon to spend the weekend with Fisher. Boy, do I need a break from here. Since April I’ve been stuck in the ‘burbs with L*, K* and my pets. Need to get out. Well, L* and I did visit my mom back at the beginning of the summer, but trust me that doesn’t count as getting away.

Office at work is quiet. The boss gets back this coming Thursday. Classes start in 10 days.

I would love to be able to shake off this feeling of the sads, but it doesn’t work that way. I have a deficiency of happy endorphins. Normally, sitting down, chilling out, there’s no feeling of contentment. Do people have that? Feeling good when doing absolutely nothing?

I always got my happiness from other people. Other people specifically being boyfriends.  Being in love.

So, now I have to find a way through several avenues of being content on my own. Medication, therapy, applying emotional tools. Yay, for me.

Eve-o-lution of Emotion

Oh, noes, neither of the two people that know about my blog have looked at it in 5 days. My world! It’s crashing down all around me!

Finally cleaned out the last remnants of moving from my car. Found a journal that contained entries that I wrote to/about Fisher. Thought about rewriting them here. There’s really no point in that.

There was a chance he might drive up here this weekend- not happening. Too busy. I could drive down there next weekend, but his schedule might be to hectic. Fifteen years ago, maybe even four years ago, I would’ve driven down there anyway and shown up on his doorstep. I’m trying to have patience and understanding. Be a grown-up?

He’s really into me and I feel the same about him. And I’ve got a good therapist to keep me in line.

I have no grey hairs, but the hands of a fifty year old. True. Small, bony fingers, lots of creases.

Losing my mom to her mental illness accentuates my grief for my dad and grandmothers. My grandma, especially. She went through so much and still had an endless amount of love to give. She had her moments, but there was always love for my sisters and me.

My world is changing. How I look at my world is changing. What I value, how I love. Evolving.

When I was 19 I knew that Fisher was my soul mate. I am grateful that after 16 years, we are together again, but this time in a much better place. With perspective and experience I realize how much we care about each other.

Musings, although not especially existential

When I take medication for my anxiety, I’m not taking it just for myself, but because of my mom as well. I medicate more because she doesn’t medicate at all.

Just balled my eyes out at the end of watching Arthur. The new one. I have a soft spot for Russell Brand, so I liked it more than most.

All I have left of my summer classes is one final that I have to take by Tuesday at 10p. Then a few weeks off and then fall semester.

I have a job now. Working front office at single practice dental office. Fish out of water, trying not to drown.

L* and K* are leaving tomorrow to spend a few days in America’s hat and then onto the only state that really has an upstate.

Still ironing out details when I’ll be able to visit Fisher.

This is all such sh*t. What to actually be sad about and what is left over. Dealing with not being able to deal with my mom. Oh, look, she’s falling off a cliff and there’s nothing I can do until she hits the bottom.

There are people worse off than I am. People that have gone through worse, but are dealing with it better. How do people do that- go through something terribly awful and continue on as productive members of society. Death of children, witnessing a horrible tragedy, rape- how do you deal. How do you not give up?

I wish that I had made peace with my dad when he was healthy. I made peace with him because that’s what you do with the dying. You forgive. Why can’t we do that with the living?

american cheese singles

So, maybe is a good time to write or maybe it isn’t. Took two of my anxiety pills that make me sleepy. Maybe it will get the words flowing.

Having a hard time not letting my mom’s mental illness take me down. I feel the anxiety in my shoulders, always tense and even attempting to consciously trying to relax doesn’t work.

If it’s this hard for me to deal with this now, what’s it going to be like in the future? Will my therapy be able to keep up with her downfall? Or will it run right over me and pick me up like a snowball rolling down a hill. I’ll become a part of the mess; I’ll be indistinguishable from the illness that surrounds my mom. There’s not much left of my mom, her sanity is leaving and replaced by an alternate reality that only she sees. Our rules don’t work her in world, no one sees life the way she does.

It’s horribly depressing.

I have a high level of anxiety due to the fact that I never learned how to make myself feel ok. I look for other people to tell me that it will be ok, unable to believe myself. I’ll let you get close to me, if you tell me I’m doing good to prop me up.

It’s neither better to lose a parent through death nor mental illness. Both suck. Too watch a parent die or fade away, it sucks. Life is so trivial in the big scheme. My life in terms of all life- trivial. Life is too fucking short to be bogged down by shit. This is my only life, I want to be happy. Ok, so maybe rainbows and unicorns are too much to ask for, but how about smiles and kisses.

Missing Fisher. If it all works out, I’ll visit him in two weeks. He’ll be incredibly busy with rehearsal and no doubt grumpy when he comes home, but hopefully when we’re together it will be good.

The love a have for him is so intertwined with who I am. “You and I have memories, Longer than the road that stretches out ahead” ~Beatles.

What an effin’ job to figure out how to manage anxiety that’s been accumulating for roughly 36 years. 36 years of needing my parents to tell me whatever I needed to hear. And now I’m out of luck. Dad’s dead, Mom has lost her marbles.

So, I get to head down this road myself. Finding out how to make myself happy by myself. Just me. No validation from the peanut gallery. No boyfriend to beg for love. How about I just stay in bed?

Going forward with therapy I want to know what I’m going through. I thought I had dependency issues. Nope, I have built up anxiety. My dad ran away after the divorce, well my mom kinda chased him away. I was freaked out that I would lose her too. That she would drop me off with my grandma or an aunt and I was afraid that she'd never come back. She worked full time and took care of three girls. A teenager, a tween and me, the baby. I was potty training when my parents separated. I have vague memories of my little toilet sitting next to the big toilet in bathroom. Thank god I have no memory of shitting my diaper.

What I do remember is that my sisters were rock solid for me. They dug in their heels and did their best to protect me. Sure, L* and I fought like it was WW3, but she was right there with me eating american cheese singles in the closet while our parents fought in the kitchen. I was angry, I took it on L*. Not even angry, more like confused and unsure.