Every week for school, I am supposed to check-in. It’s supposed to hold us accountable for what we are or are not learning by having us keep a record of what we have done to move us closer to our goal of completion and we have to submit it each week. This Friday, I will be checking out… I haven’t yet swallowed the lump in my throat, but I already put in a pre-emptive strike e-mail to let them know I was returning my cirriculum…
Category: Downward Spiral
I’ve really been trying hard… I got in with my doc and she agreed there is something going on – metabolic or otherwise that is hindering me from seeing positive results. I am at the heaviest I have ever been while not pregnant… I am only 5 pounds away from the heaviest I have been even while pregnant. That’s not okay.
So I knew the day was going to suck, but I really had no idea just how much it really could suck. How much wood would a woodchuck suck if a woodchuck could suck wood kinda suck…
It’s been a while. I had / have all these great things I want to write about, but never seem to find the time. As of this moment, I have 12 minutes before I have to leave to pick Mega Man up. Let’s see how much I can unload before then…
I am going to lose my certification.
The end of the year is often a time for taking stock, evaluating, and making resolutions for improvement. I hate that. *laugh* I think it's trite. I mean, I suppose it's better to remind some people to try to stop, reflect, and see where they could improve, but I strive to do that year round. Having said that, right now I am stopping hard – like both feet on the brakes hard. I am having a hard time with just about every little thing. I feel as though many things shouldn't make me look twice, let alone keep me up at night. So for one, why are these things plaguing me so? For another, if I realize they shouldn't be, why can't I let them go? So I find myself joining the masses at the end of the year to stop, take stock, evaluate, and change course as needed.
Normally when I feel this way, I post to my private blog. It's just not the sort of thing I post publically because it feels… cheap. I guess I am throwing it out there because, well, keeping it to myself hasn't done me any good, so I assume putting it out there can't hurt much, either.
I miss her. I miss her so much it hurts. I catch myself saying something she would say and I damn near burst into tears. But, as always, I don't. I just dummy up. Or shut down. It's funny. I know DH has asked me things about her or that would turn the conversation towards her… And I know I swore my babies would know her through me, but I have failed because I can't bring myself to talk about her. We turn those pages too quickly in the photo albums. Whenever we start to get too near the subject in conversation, the last thing I recall saying is, "I don't want to talk about this any more," and then it's like someone else steps in and covers for me for a minute while I collect myself somewhere else. When I rejoin the situation, there are several minutes missing and it's like I was in a fog… Like I just dropped in out of nowhere. I don't think that's normal, but I must admit that I am not exactly in a hurry to do anything about it, either. I'm not lying when I say I don't want to talk about it… I don't. I can't have a conversation about her without facing the fact that she isn't here… And won't ever be here. The past tense is a bitch. If there were some way around it… I might be able to talk about her… But that past tense is a wicked, wicked thing…
I wish to The Force she were here. I can't think of anything short of my children that I wouldn't give up to have her here… I look at Dizzy Girl and I just ache. Physically. I ache. I think about how much she looks like me and what she would think of her hair and her smile. I think about how she would adore her toothless grin and her chubby little cheeks and her pink outfits and her bows and frills… I think about how she won't be there for tea parties and doll houses or dance recitals…. And I think about what she will never see with the boys and how much she loved on Mega Man when we were out in California… I just ache when I think of all the things the children are missing because of that void…
It's like a black hole for me, really. It has gravity. It pulls me in all the time, but pulls in pieces of other stuff, too. We had Mega's 5th birthday party this weekend and before I could stop myself, I pulled out my phone and started to dial so she could sing to him. Christ on crutches, I tried to call her. I can't remember my own damn phone number half the time, but without thinking, I started to dial a number I've not called in almost 4 fucking years. How do I do that? How do I just block it out like that and access it without even thinking? How for fuck's sake do I do that? I don't even think I want to know… And I don't care to change that, either. I just sort of trembled and closed my phone. I lost a few more minutes, but BFD… I was back in my party room with 18 energetic children and no one noticed…
So I skip some beats… So what? I could be losing my mind, right? I mean, I could just forget. In this case, I don't really see an issue with my method of holding white-knuckle tight to every little thing I can get my fragile little mind to recall. Where is the harm in that? Sure, I can sometimes see an overlap and again, I lose afew minutes before I can get the memory out of real life… It's like watching a movie, but instead of just the current scene, I can see a scene previous, too. Where you should see children running in a park being watched by me, their mother, I see me running in Schiller Park being watched by her… BFD. No harm, no foul. In some instance, I can't control it. It starts and stops of its own accord and I drink it all in… Because after that, I don't know if I can recall it again or if I will even remember what I saw when it is over. It's like a flashback, but better. Sometimes I can even smell things… Like pudding. Does anyone else remember cooking pudding on the stove? To this day, I still prefer hot pudding to cold or room temp… Pudding cups suck. Gimme the real deal.
So I miss her. And today it was so bad that I kept seeing her everywhere. Everywhere. It hurt. A lot. I hate that. I hate that hurt and I hate that ache. I fucking hate it. I hate that I feel it at all. I hate that she's not here. I fucking hate it. Why can't I have her back? Better yet: why did she have to go at all? Seriously, of all people, The Force couldn't have picked someone, anyone different? WTF…
FUCK.
I guess Celiac Disease is one of those things that we only have a basic understanding about. When you couple it with breastfeeding, we know even less… Great!
Yesterday was a super bad day. I spent all of 2 hours at home. The majority of the day was spent in a waiting room. We finally got T-Rex tested for CD, but it took that long to do it. Ridiculous. I didn't appreciate the stares people kept giving us – you see that he's s toddler in a very non-child friendly waiting room. You see that we've been sitting there longer than anyone. Would you like to try to make him sit still and be quiet? Bite me!
So anyway, that led to a gluten-day. I have been dying for some gluten anyway, but with the stress, it just made me cave and I gave in. I indulged. A lot. This morning I didn't feel too bad, so I decided to do it again. I know it's dumb. I know it starts an auto-immune response in my body that could not only make my stomach hurt, but give me a fever, chills, cold sweats, hot flashes, and never mind the damage it can do on a cellular level. I get that. I really do. It's just that it's hard to care when I feel like my family would benefit from my insurance pay off if I were to kick the bucket. Srsly…
There were times when I thought I understood. Those moments of enlightenment were brief, and fleeting. But tonight, I think it clicked. The understanding is still there… I'm not saying it's justified, but I think I get it now. I think I can let go of that part of the anger because I understand at least one small part of what was going on. Again, I don't excuse, condone, or even forgive, but I understand. I can see the attraction of the beast and because I understand, I can stop being so damn angry…
The understanding scares me. Understanding it means I have let down some barriers – that I've gone from seeing it as completely unacceptable to something that normal people and not just monsters do… And couldn't that mean it's then something I could do? If I can see the allure, what's to keep me from becoming just another number… another victim, if you will? While I'd like to think I am stronger and better than the easy prey I feel so horribly towards, I am not so sure I can stand up to the temptation if you catch me at the right (or wrong, depending on how you look at it) moment…
I get it. So do I persevere and overcome… Or do I falter and succumb?
One of these days you're gonna love me You'll sit down by yourself and think About the times you pushed and shoved me And what good friends we might've been And then you're gonna sigh a little Maybe even cry a little but One of these days you're gonna love me
- Tim McGraw
*Day 85: I am grateful for the acceptance of one more thing I cannot change. In accepting this thing, it leaves one less battle I must fight with myself. For that, I am eternally grateful, for I am my own worst enemy. 
We totally went in and stuck to our guns. For that, I am very proud of us. I have never been good at avoiding temptation and true to form, I took the 2007 V-8 4×4 Dodge Durango home last night for a 24-hour test drive, though I knew we were heavily leaning toward a negative vote on keeping it. After researching what it would do to our insurance (a monthly increase in cost of $28.00 with the same coverage criteria), what our interest was roughly sitting at (because thanks to the Patriot Act, they can't tell you until you're signing), and what they were giving us for our trade-in (about $7,000.00), we just couldn't do it. After purchasing the extended warranty and gap coverage (which was NOT an option considering we were adding $8700 in negative equity to our loan after our trade-in!), we would essentially be taking on the same loan we did 2.5 years ago. Our payments would be right at $409.00, which is only $20.00 less than what we're paying now. While I am a conservative driver for the most part, and I don't go many places, I know that the V-8 engine alone would more than eat that $20.00 "savings" per month, and nevermind the increase in insurance. Right now, if we continue to pay the little extra we have been, we'll have this loan paid off by November 2011, rather than April 2012 when it matures. It sucks and we're nailed to the damn wall, but it's been working. If I can't pay the extra one month, then it's no big deal. But we were only willing to tighten down so much if we knew it meant we were saving on some of the interest in the long run. If we take out this new 6 year loan, we won't be doing that any more and we'll just be tightening down because Miss Vanity doesn't think a mini-van at the tender age of 22 (now I'm 24) is cool…
