Ennui

Part 1:

I don't want to do anything. 

I don't want to get out of bed. I don't want to do housework.  Or real work.  

I don't want to straighten or organize it clean

I don't want to go out.  I don't want to shop or see movies or eat dinner.  

It's all too damn hard.  

Too much pain to get out of bed.  Too much effort to take a shower and get ready to go anywhere.  Too hard to sit up in a chair for long to make anyplace comfortable. Every single move is an effort of will, determined by my mind but not enjoyed by my body. But it's not just pain. 

I have no feelings except the edge of a huge dark hole of depression gnawing away at the edges of my awareness,  threatening to take over my mind the minute I give up. 

So I don't give up.  I take a big breath and get out of bed.  I take pain meds and I take a shower and run errands. I take more meds to do things with my family and enjoy the beauty I find with them. 

But I don't want to.  I don't want to do anything. 

Damn this is hard. 

Part 2:

I made a day out of it. I ran away to the library.

It is a short day of daylight right. I'm watching long shadows across the road from the library window and sunset is looming - and it's only 4pm. These days I'm always trying to get out of my house during the daylight - but home before the sun sets. 

I need the sunlight, as much as I can't stay outside long without burning up and turning as red as a lobster. But I know it fends off my depression and the next couple of months as it is the darkest time of year will be a burden for me as it is every year.

Anti depressants don't work for me. They flatten my emotions, sure, and then I don't feel anything, which is good sometimes. But they give me high blood pressure, make me unable to pee and put weight on me. All in all, not good. I'm hoping starting to use the medicinal herbals will help with the :)

I wanted to curl up with a good book today and just enjoy the time here. I think I will :)

Dreams and Dotage

I had a dream last night that my youngest son,  now in college, was home with his friends.  Weirdly, it wasn't our current home,  but either my high school home or my grandmother's house in Calverton. 

I popped in to see them play the last episode of the game that his friend seemed to be playing or creating and it was the final level of a Lego world. The Duplo world. It was immersive and I was in the world made of Duplos and it was beautiful.  

And heart wrenching.  Because it came back in waves how wonderful that time in my life was and how much I miss it.  My Littles.  The toys.  The basement being a huge playroom for them.  It hurts my heart so much just thinking about it. 

And then I realized one of the reasons why my husband may need to do so many things right now.  Because it helps the pain of the loss. Putting ourselves back in the world and doing rather than observing. It's just a survival thing to do. And I realize I need to get well and do it too. Because this pain hurts too much. 

I realized that maybe this is why we are supposed to die,  because sometimes the pain is unbearable.  When I go to that place, it grabs my heart and squeezes.  I can't breathe. Not even to release the cry that's in my lungs. My children are alive but my babies are gone forever.  The babies who need my milk,  the toddlers who need my arms,  my school age kids who needed my teaching and my teenagers... almost gone.. don't need me to rebel against me anymore.  

But it looks like I'm here for a while.  So I'm going to heal myself,  enjoy my life and find a new reason to live. 

But right now,  it sucks.

A tough place to be

 Thursday, Sept. 29th

No idea what is going on. I've felt no energy and like crap for months, if not longer. Dr. Bellor was nice enough to order autoimmune bloodwork, but of course, they all came back normal - except for a high CO2 level. I've probably got sleep apnea and I'll be cursed to wear that damned CPAP which I've been dreading since I had breathing issues at night. Damn.

I'm just so tired of feeling so horrible. I don't feel like doing anything, fun or not. Every since thing I do from the time I wake up until I go to sleep is a total act of will. Putting one foot in front of the other. Fun, enjoyment and joy are gone. I feel so sorry for George who wants to do fun things to take his mind off his terrible job and I can hardly do any of them and am excited for none.

Well, I'm back on the doctor train again and have lots of appointments lined up so hopefully at some point, I'll feel better.

Because this isn't a life - 

L

The DOJ gave me a vacation

 August 20, 2022

It's Saturday afternoon at 5pm on the last day of our vacation week in Massnutten at our timeshare. I'm in a quiet townhome getting things packed and washed to take home for our last week with our youngest before college drop-off. I'm relaxed and rested and thoroughly enjoying myself. Not a Xanax all week.

This is weird. How did this happen?

Aside from being able to take a stash of 20mg prednisones every day to take care of my IBS/migraine/aches/disabling fatigue and my normal Tramadol, I didn't really have to max medicate.

I haven't been this relaxed in months - or years - and I think it's because the DOJ found confidential files in Trump's Mar-a-lago (?) resort basement. I'm hopeful the guy will be arrested/indicted/convicted/ sentenced/retired from elected office life. (Although I'm not sure the Saudis or Russians don't already have secure info they shouldn't have). The GOP seems to be going down in flames with him and so many women have gotten registered for the vote since they overturned Roe v Wade that I am increasingly optimistic that the GOP won't be in charge again any time soon. So that saves our country. And the Congress is passing hand over hand legislation in the last 2 weeks to help Medicare drugs costs, climate change incentives, etc, which gives me hope for my children and grandchildren.

It's been hard to be married to a conservative right now, though. He wants to believe the GOP is still just conservative, not crazy, and he's sure the Democrats will spend us into debt - although the Democrats always have to balance the budget after the GOP spends into oblivion. He's all about the dollar and the stock market and not interested in the federal government keeping a basic security net for all Americans; old, poor, unemployed or homeless. And that is where my heart lives. We see things from a completely different perspective and I hope that things will settle down in the future so we won't have to argue about it anymore.

I know more about our federal and state governments than I ever have in my 60 year old life and more than I ever wanted to - but I want to know what is happening. If my life is destroyed, I'm not going down ignorant and misinformed.

But for now, the knowledge I've been able to find and read gives me hope for the first time in years. The trend is turning. The majority of the US are sane and compassionate voters and we will influence our laws and regulations again. So I can relax. I can leave things in President Biden's hands and know he will do the right thing for our country.

So I do pour art projects on the hill, eat way too much and scroll away on my phone with hope, not fear.

Now for the big fear - sending my baby boy off to college in 7 days. Send me prayers - L

Marriage and Dog Poop

Saturday, May 29, 2022

Marriage is walking through the yard picking up dog poop and pondering why you got a very middling answer when you ask your husband if we'll be together forever - and not blow up like every other marriage.

Not a great thing after a relative with the "perfect" marriage tells you that her husband is horribly depressed and has moved out for a while to fix himself. Not good at all.

I don't think I'd be devastated if he left, but I'd just like to KNOW. I have felt for over 20 years that there's a knife hanging over my head that's going to fall one day.

Suckage.

The world is upside down. Everywhere.

UPDATE: After discussion, I found out that when I ask him that question, my husband was taken about that I would ever doubt it and ask about it - hence the weird answer. I believe him. And I believe in him. I have to just accept that he is here now and wants to be and I hope/think that will be forever.

Libraries are the Museums of Human Spirit

Today I am sitting in my favorite "weekend chair" in the sunny front room without a TV, enjoying my first day off this week and one of my only days off in 2022 that I haven't had a kidney stone, SIBO, migraine or headcold virus. 

But yesterday, I went to the library after work just to hang out, like in the old days, to enjoy the quiet and start my "weekend". It was the same, but different. Same stacks, same layout, same kid groups using the common rooms and same patient librarians at the front desk. And I had an epiphany. While perusing the stacks for the books that were supposed to be on the shelf - but weren't - and walking among all the patrons using their laptops and sitting on a comfy sofa where there was NO breeze and it was stifling....a thought hit me that I'm not sure I have ever had before.

Every single book (or DVD or audio CD) on those shelves represented a story that someone wanted to tell. Something that a human being wanted to put down on paper or media and get it out there. To share to the world. Every one was a wish by a human that did not want it to be forgotten. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. Millions of them. Humans who wanted to share their thoughts and ideas with the human race. I saw each one as a person with a will to be seen. To be heard. To be remembered.

Maybe I'm only seeing this because I only have a few decades to go (if I'm lucky) and in my late years, I've developed the artist in me. I want to leave a piece of me behind. I want to share how I see the world through my eyes. I want to be real. Permanent. I want to matter.

I may or may not believe or go to an Afterlife. That's not for me to know. What I want to know right now is that my presence on this earth is valuable in some way. I don't have the confidence to feel that anyone else needs to know what I see, but I do. 

To all the humans out there, all the spirits that want to share themselves, I hope we all get to see each other as we want to be seen in the eternal beingness of the Universe after this mortal time. It might make it worth it.

The End of Our Freedoms

 May 9, 2022

I have been writing this entry in my head for weeks but have been putting it off because I didn't want to verbalize the awfulness. I've been reading Twitter nonstop just to see people put into words the screaming voice I hear in my own head. The stress has been steady and throbbing with the war on Ukraine still in full force and the war on democracy still slowing grinding on.

Today is my first Mother's Day with no "children" since all my children are now officially adults. And it has been weird, although not just for the reason you would think. My boys both signed my card with lovely thoughts, my (remaining) daughter gave me a goodie basket I love and my husband took care of meals all day. It was something else much more important.

The weirdness started Monday night, I think. Someone released a draft opinion from the Supreme Court...and they are going to overturn Roe v Wade. A Constitutional right I've had my entire life which allowed me and all American women the freedom to control our reproductive system is being taken away. And I cannot talk about it with my husband because he is probably overjoyed. He has always wanted it and when he found out that I was prochoice during this last six years of political debacle, he said I was a murderer, even though I'm the only woman he's ever loved who hasn't gotten pregnant out of wedlock and never had an abortion. So...we can't talk about it at all. 

I'm feeling violated, traumatized and so stressed and cannot talk about it with anyone except a couple of very close girlfriends and my daughter. It's been hell. Since the news broke, multiple state legislatures and governors have said they will use the new release of "privacy laws" this protected and begin measures to outlaw contraception, racial intermarriage and gay rights. 

It's fucking The Handmaid's Tale. And 70% of the country doesn't want it. But the ultraright has been working on this for decades while we've been following the law. And they're winning. Laws don't matter anymore and the Supreme Court is the least ethical SC I've ever seen.

So every day I walk around in a daze and totally confused. I have to get my act together and get the graduation celebration on track for my youngest's graduation in June. Since he actually has COVID this week - oh, yeah, another craziness to add to my stress - I don't have to worry about him getting it the week before his ceremony I suppose. I scheduled myself for a booster at the end of this week to protect myself and hope that's enough. It was hard enough to plan a birthday celebration when he turned 18 because I was so depressed by it - this will be just as hard. Trying to be happy for him when I'm crying inside for me is the absolute worst.

I know I've avoided this empty nest issue until I turned 60, so I am grateful for that. I can't imagine doing it younger and having a marriage so stressed at the same time-and having so much more time ahead. At least I only have a couple decades of life left. When we had the boys we also had a very stressed marriage and survived, so I guess we can survive this, too. I'm at the age when I don't even think about starting over. I'm too tired and too sick. and will never be in love again (and don't want to) so I'm sticking it out here.

I can't believe I'm living through this right now. Pro-choice will become history. We might lose contraceptive rights. The POC and LGBTQ+ community may lose rights they've fought for for decades and finally have.

WTF is going on? I keep hoping the people I love will see what is happening one day, but it will be too late. Worse yet, they might think it's a good thing.

I've finished raising my children ..and now when I could enjoy free time, COVID is still around, the political climate is deadly and Russia has started a crazy war. So much for a relaxing retirement in my future. 

At least I am no longer fertile, I have a house, a job and everything I need. I will have to just wear blinders and be grateful for what I have and how I can help anyone who will need help in the future.

It's nuts. And so am I.

Lord help me.

The Middle of the Storm

Thursday, March 24, 2022

Today is a quiet day. I didn't work, was able to sleep, didn't wake up with a headache and no one was running around the house when I came down for coffee. I have time to think and let my thoughts gel into something coherent and it's wonderful.

I'm sitting in my office on the futon actually writing my own thoughts instead of reading someone else's on Twitter. It has become my haven of sanity in the media war on reality. I can't watch any of the cable news networks anymore - the bias is jarring. The network newscasts are not as bad, but brief and don't show the horror of the day.

Today is Judge Katanji Brown Jackson's fourth(?) day of confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court. The Judiciary Committee Republicans are the worst I've ever seen in my lifetime. And she is the best candidate I've ever seen in my lifetime. So much cognitive dissonance happening there that I can't actually watch because I know how it will tear at my mind, heart and soul. So I play the clips that I know are good to try to believe we will get through this in one piece.

It has been almost a month since Russia starting their attack on Ukraine. And yet, Ukraine prevails, and I am elated. My husband's extended family is still there and we hope are safe. So much is unraveling everywhere around autocrats and I hope and pray it is to undermine them all.

Former President TFG is still not paying for any of his crimes and I keep hoping it is a matter of time. I am assuming they are indicting everyone from bottom to top so that by the time they get to him, there is no one left to doubt it. Except his fans. They will ultimately riot when it happens and I don't look forward to that. I wonder if that's why Garland is waiting as long as possible.

On the personal front, I am on day 40 of my 100 Day Project for my art. I spent the first part of it struggling with my kidney stone from 1/14 to 3/9 but did manage to do a few little things and my graphite portrait of my friend Melanie's mom. That was wonderful and I did love doing that:

I've lost too many days already to my body failings in 2022. I fought those kidney stones for 2 months and it was just awful. Two weeks later I think I'm finally recovered. (I just found out this week that you can DIE from kidney stones and I truly believe I would have by this point in my life). Now that is over, I'm just in time to find out what is going on with my stomach. Can't eat, everything tastes weird, lots of burping, losing weight. It's weird. Have a few tests coming up to see what's going on. Then to maybe fix my teeth and my deviated septum before my spine blows up for good. And squeeze some dentist and rheumatology appts in there too. It's really becoming a full time job to fix my stuff!

This was the first time I lost any real time at work for a health ailment. I was out a full week the week that I had my lithotripsy this time. And lost a whole day just this past Monday for awful vertigo. I think it's a partial migraine/sinus thing but woke up puking with the room spinning and it just didn't go away for days. Still have to take my time sitting up after sleeping at night.

At least I have a game plan for retirement now. Since I don't have a pension, it was always just work until I can't anymore and who knows when that will be? But after some discussion with my husband, I'll stop at 62 (just 1.5 years!) and file for disability...if I make it that far. Not sure I will. I need to get/keep my papers in order so I'll be all ready when it's time to file. I can't imagine anyone would say no at my age, but it would be great to get full retirement benefits at 62 instead of 67. If they don't change the rules.

So the US government is a hot mess, Ukraine is on fire and my body is breaking down. It's an interesting time to live in. I'm really not into it. Wonder if I'll live to see it recover?

Who knows? -

L

The Quiet before the war

Sunday, February 20, 2022

It's quiet here tonight. The boys are at a video game event and Erin has Kaileb quietly in the basement and Shayla is asleep on the futon in my office.

It's calm. And weird. 

We are waiting as a world to see if Putin will invade Ukraine. We have a good solid President in Biden so we know that the US and Europe are doing the best that we can, but we are waiting. Holding our breath.

At home, all hell has broken out at the local level with the crazy Republicans. I wish we could give them another name, but they own it now. School systems are banning books, the Florida governor is trying to forbid talking about LBGTQ issues and people - and at the same time "outing" students at school.

There is a state trying to overturn a 60 year old law that allows a husband and wife to decide which birth control they will use.

I don't recognize my country. It is obvious it will be generations before we get back to where we were when I was a young adult. If we ever do.

At the same time, my daughter is struggling with how to end a marriage to an abusive narcissist with whom she shares my 5yo grandson. Once again, her life is totally upended. And after she totalled her car 2 weeks ago, she has nothing. No car, no home, no family. They are camped in our basement and my office again, but that isn't a good long term arrangement for the kids. We all have no idea how to get her on her feet again.

I'm struggling with the aftereffects of my latest kidney stones: cystitis. I've coded a thousand of these cases but never thought I'd have it myself. 24x7 pressure and soreness in my bladder. It can make a person insane. So thankful it's calmed down enough with meds so I can function. But it's always something with this body.

This lovely body I am so fortunate to have. It has done so much for me! I have to remember to be thankful for all it has allowed me to do over the decades: bear children, ballet and ballroom and club dance, ski, travel, tai chi, yoga, climb hiking trails and so much more. I've had 60 good years of adventures and decades more. It is holding up pretty well for this old gal. That is, if I can continue to manage the pain that is everywhere always. 

And it is allowing me to be an artist really for the first time in my life. I've been sketching as long as I can remember. Horses as a child, then my children, now almost everything. 

Right now I am working on a graphite sketch of my friend's mother. I am using a 100dayproject challenge to get myself to work on it a little every day that I can. It's turning out beautiful. I want it to be perfect...but I also want to accept it if is not. 

So I am deeply enjoying the quiet this evening. Tomorrow morning starts my three day work week and I am so grateful for that as well. A job I can do at home that is a REAL job, which matters every day to the patients I code, and that I do well. I get paid respectably and can still contribute to the household bills and help pay for college when Ben starts this fall. And I am just as glad it is only 3 days a week because by Wednesday I am exhausted. I am so deeply deeply grateful that I do not have to work a 40 hour work week anymore. My husband is amazingly supportive of me...I am truly blessed.

So ... I'm off to enjoy my blessings again and to Pray for Ukraine, the land where my husband's family is from. Trump is finally gone, Maybe one day Putin will be too.

- L

Being part of history can suck

Feb 11, 2022

Today is my oldest child's 37th birthday. That should be my primary focus but for some reason this year it isn't. 

Is it because 37 is firmly is adulthood, actually almost midlife? 

Is it because I'm 60 and all birthdays feel superfluous?

Or it because daily life is now so ludicrous that reality doesn't fit anymore?

It's 11am on a Friday morning right now. I'm 5 years into working from home and 2 years into working part time. More importantly, it's beginning the 3rd year that COVID is in the world and 5 years since Sweet Potato Yam Pants became our president and ruined the GOP.

The world is so different is so many ways Just yesterday I was reminded of why. I was Facebook chatting with a cousin who lives in Canada. Our crazy has leaked up there and the Trucker Convoy protest is ongoing in Ottawa. I said I hope she was okay..and she was actually rooting for them. 

Once more, I had to do a stop and reset with a relationship. My hind brain realized that they were on the "wrong" side of crazy and that changes alot. I'll make sure not to broach certain topics with her - and I'm pretty sure I won't be rushing to meet her again when she comes back down to visit the US.

I've wondered alot in the last few years what it would be like to live in an autocracy. For a while, it seemed we were one. We are trying very hard with President Biden to dig out of that hole. But part of it is still here. We know our words are identifying us as "with" or "against" the government. We watch what we say. We keep our opinions close to our chest. We never know who is the "enemy". And when sometimes it turns out to be friends or family, the relationship changes in an instant.

In my case, the minute that I find that one of my loved ones has believed any part of the crazy, I have to shut down because I realized they are living in a different world than I am. They are not hearing the facts and don't want to know. The propaganda station they are watching only feeds them things that make them feel good about the GOP, evil government, "free-dumb" and gun rights. All the other things...a former President and his party breaking every possible law...never get shown to them and they all believe we are lying anyway.

So, there really is nowhere to feel "safe" anymore. I realized my own husband does not watch the same news feeds I do and get different information. Sometimes he is genuinely surprised when I bring up the latest crazy of the day. So we don't talk about it anymore. If the January 6th hearings start and everything proves "our" side, maybe he'll see it - but I'm actually thinking he won't watch it with me because it will provide too much cognitive dissonance. And he's the smartest man I know...so it's actually kind of terrifying. 

If the GOP wins the midterms, our country will head back to Jim Cross and pre Roe v Wade. His reality will come to pass. Maybe he'll regret it, but I think not. He is too far set into his belief system and I don't think he has it in him to change. It would be too degrading to leave "his" party.

That makes life lonelier both at home and outside. Put a Biden bumpersticker on my van and my husband would be furious and my car would probably get keyed somewhere. Everyday there is some really powerful weird shit revealed and I have no one to talk to it about. This week is was that Trump took 15 boxes of documents from the White House when he left - some Top Secret - and he routinely tore up, chewed and flushed documents when he was President. An outright violation of the US Code 2071, I think. Just add it to the list. If convicted of everything he's done, Trump would be serving enough time for 2 lifetimes. 

Yet it's quiet from Merrick Garland in the Attorney General's office. He is a crackerjack lawyer who prosecuted Mayor Marion Barry in DC and worked on the Oklahoma City bombing. I've read he is slow, methodical, deliberative - and good. So I am hoping SO much that when everything busts wide open all the evidence is on live TV with Congressional hearings, that the truth will out and the crazy lying thieves will be put away.

But that doesn't fix what has happened to all of us on a daily basis. The dog whistle words of Patriot, American, Christian and Rule of Law have all been usurped. The world now is one that members of my generation hardly recognize but one that my youngest children and grandchildren will only know. If they decide to get a job outside of the country after graduation, I wouldn't blame them.

And so I write here, because there is almost NO one that I can speak freely with about how I feel. And most of them are women my age. That's not a coincidence.

White males are on the ropes. Hence, the protests and anger. They were in charge without question for the last 200 years and now that is threatened. There are BIPOC and female and LGBTQ+ citizens who are actually better than them these days. And they can't see it, believe it or acknowledge that. And they may burn down the whole country rather than secede.

L

Happy Insurrection (and Xanax) anniversary

 January 7, 2022

Today I took a Xanax.

Now, that's not totally unusual for me as you know, especially this last few years of the Trumpapalooza of our nation, but after President Biden's inauguration, I stopped needing it almost permanently.

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of the Insurrection at the Capitol and today I needed one again.

My anxiety was pretty high yesterday, as expected, as I watched the President's amazing speech and watched the news channel replay the horrible footage from last year. But it was comforting and even Merrick Garland's lukewarm speech about not letting anyone get away helped normalcy.

And then I watched the "other US" point of view broadcasts and it just made me sink into the Post-Truth reality we live in.

Unless we are able to take back a majority of elected and election officials and pass good voting laws nationwide, this will be the end of our Democracy. The "other" side TRULY believes they've been lied to by EVERYONE and the current government and COVID scientific community are against them. They really do. Even tough Ex Pres Sweet Potato Hitler probably knows the truth (and I know the Faux network definitely does), he keeps pushing all the horrible lies and they lap it up like lap dogs with no brains. This is our reality....or rather our split reality.

I am adjusting to the fact that we are probably headed for an autocracy. No one in my family here understands that. The boys are adults but have no interest in listening to the crazy. I'm married to amazing wonderful man that truly believes this will all work out and I'm blowing it out of proportion so I have to watch my MSM news on the sly like political porn. And pretend it's not on my mind every second. My only hope so far is that he watched the Amazon Prime Jon Stewart show with me the other night that laid it all out with panelists from other Democratic-turned-autocratic countries - and he didn't "poo poo" it. I hope he listened to the men more than he listens to me about this. I can handle it if it works.

So today, I'm trying to medicate with Xanax and art. My hands are shaking and my mind is racing but I am just trying to adjust to my New Reality...that Post Truth and COVID are here to stay for years. And that maybe one day I won't be able to write like this about the government because it will be censored and taken down. So until then, I need to document what is happening for my kids and grandkids.

I can't even say "Lord help us" because it's put a huge hole in the religious part of my soul. And because of that I feel more alone than ever.

But...pray for us anyway.