So many issues, So many tears, So many times I wish, I so wish you could hear. Hear the way the blood rushes Through my heart, vein and lungs The adrenalin pops when you raise your voice I just want you to stop. STOP. We argue, we fight I hold my tongue yet another night I crave peace, but you bring war Some day you might wish you hadn’t started I am blazing with anger and you think me weak Yet my self control makes me strong How much can one person endure? How many words before they simply disappear I see the crestfallen faces of the children And I try to make excuses, but there are none. You’re just an asshole.
An excerpt from the blue book of depression asks the question above. My mind immediately went to the word think, and a well known phrase "Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right.” -Henry Ford I've spent a good majority of my life telling myself I couldn't for one reason or another. I wonder what would happen if I told myself I could.
I slowly opened the door to our bedroom, the darkness disrupted by slivers of moonlight scattered across my husbands bare body. I lifted the aluminum baseball bat to shoulder position, my hands firmly on the spongy grip, my target clear in sight. This would be the last time I would feel worthless and fat. I struck, again and again, beating that sucker to smithereens. My eyes narrowed further as numbers flashed off a digital display, like a desperate plea for forgiveness. It didn't matter, we were through. Sitting up straight in bed, my husband asks 'What the hell are you doing and why have you murdered the scale?' 'Shut up, or you're next', I growl like a feral animal. _________ Nothing too fancy, I come across the thread about a short horror story and I was thinking of the struggle that many of us women have with our bathroom scales. Initially I was just going to beat the crap out of the scale, but then I thought it may be more fun to lead the reader along, making them think I was doing something far more insidious. Did it work?
It's a sad day in CE's world when she can't even come up with a title for a blog. I'm sitting in our living room thinking about where to take my story and I know it probably looks like I'm not doing much but I swear by the power of Greyskull, I'm meditating on where I want to take these characters. I've discovered I'm not a pantser when it comes to writing, I have to plan the shiznit out of things.... Ah, look I found a title!
I find myself very frustrated tonight. I'm about a week in recovering from my surgery and I was commenting over on a friends thread in another location. One of the things that frustrates me is that many people cannot see how their choices are continually leading them to the same outcome. No matter how many times you suggest something in several different ways, they're just not ready to step out of the rut they've worn themselves into. It reminded me of this scripture, about how when you throw your pearls before swine, or what is holy before dogs they often turn on you and rip you apart. I've seen this happen a few times. Well, no more. I'm done throwing mine at her. She can stay in her damn rut.
It's done, and I'm aliiiiiiiive! Sweet Christmas though, do I hurt. I've decided if another tumor happens to grow anywhere in my chest, it can bloody well stay there. Seriously. I look like a junkie with all the bruising from the various and many needles and IV ports I was punctured with. I feel like someone took a sledgehammer to my rib cage, and every time the medication wears off, I feel like they've taken another swing at it. The medication is either there, or it isn't. When its working, I feel like something a big game hunter has shot. I basically walk a bit, and then need to lie down so I don't crumple into a ball of quivering flesh. As I write this though, it's like a scene out of the classic song 'Comfortably Numb' as performed by Pink Floyd. Hello. Is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me. Is there anyone home? I was in hospital with the ever so stylish chest tube for a few days, wandering around with hose and reservoir to collect the fluid as it poured out of my chest cavity. I began walking again a few hours after the surgery, working on preventing clotting and fluid pooling in the lungs which often ends up in pneumonia. My husband accompanied me once, and he looks at me and says something about the zombie apocalypse, because of all those shuffling throughout the unit. I'm sure he got this mentally blank stare, since my brain only half caught what he was saying. At this point I was completely engaged in keeping myself from becoming a puddle of disorganized goo on the floor. I vaguely remember commenting it'd really suck for me, considering I had this chest tube crammed in between the ribs, snug in the intercostal muscle area and I wasn't capable of moving very fast. It was at this point, he kindly offered to barricade us in a room if necessary. This is why I married him. It wasn't his good looks, or his unique only to him voice or anything else. It was his ability to see himself and I through the zombie apocalypse. These are the people you want in your life. Those who will fill up a shotgun, take to the streets and go out in a blaze of zombie busting glory if need be. Then, because I have this most often medically linear mind, I tried to grasp the answer to "What would I do? What if modern medicine just suddenly ceased to exist at that point and I was called upon to remove the tube myself? I let that sink in, with a slight sense of horror. I couldn't even begin to process it with my disengaged cranial space and frankly it stressed me out a bit. I think they should write that into a book somewhere, they meaning some author, who is not me because I'm still not out of that place yet. I get mentally stressed trying to put together a thought as to how to remove a chest tube during an emergency situation. Here's some starter material.. https://www.wikihow.com/Pull-a-Chest-Tube There is no pain, you are receding. A distant ships smoke on the horizon. You are only coming through in waves. Your lips move but I cant hear what you're sayin.
And all through the house, I searched high and low for a loose fitting blouse The mate to my slipper And something which didn't contain a zipper Try as I may, try as I might I can't bloody well find anything that isn't too tight!!! So I settled at last on a polka dot robe And prayed to god that it wouldn't unfold...... ____ My lame attempt at some presurgery poetry.
Try as I may, try as I might. I just cannot find the energy to write. This seems to be the main theme at the moment. Though today seems to be a better day than the last two. Likely because I slept 14 hours. Instead of blathering on here like an idiot, I'm just going to get straight into the WIP. Later taters.
I'm about all appointmented out. I've had about 4 different appointments this past week, and another pre-admission one with the hospital tomorrow. Who knew having a tumor removed would be such an ordeal? My poor husband is afraid something is going to happen. He has been coping with the death of his uncle in relative silence, holing up at home working on his hobby 24/7. He's afraid I have a date with death... maybe I do, maybe I don't. Not going to worry about it. I on the other hand am looking at the opposite side of the operation, I'm super looking forward to having a hole in my chest for awhile, not to mention the snazzy drainage tube near the lung. Exciting times I tell ya. Non-stop fun, fun, fun. What's sad is I've been having all these thoughts like I'd like to go and get my dentistry work done prior to my surgery because I won't feel like it after. Yet, the other part of me doesn't want to waste the money on it, if I happen to check out during said surgery. I've also been thinking if one does absolutely 'have' to die, there's truly no better place than at the hospital. Saves time in trying to round up an ambulance to come by and work on a dead body for show for the family, saves the coroner from having to swing by because I'm under 50 and my death isn't being ruled a homicide, and well there's a conveniently placed morgue. There's a bunch of other conveniences, like not having to transport my carcass etc. It's just all gravy. Kind of hoping when it is time for my date with death, I'm at the hospital. I'm trying to decide whether I'm morbid or practical. I'm kinda leaning toward practical.
Haven't written much of anything for the past few days, am feeling fatigued since I've been trying to do more on the home front. I vacillate from feeling sort of okay, to feeling like I'm going to die. I just love the no in between. It took me an hour to modify two paragraphs of my WIP today. And that's all I've got for today.
Another entry from the blue book of depression. Yes I do. Do I want to blog about it? No. Next question please.
I've learned that I have no goals. Save one. To write every day. I come up against a writing prompt which asked me to set out 3 goals that I could accomplish within my lifetime and I stared at the thing as though it had grown horns. I have been reading a few books about how one might end up writing a book, some tips and tricks so to speak. It speaks of being a pantser, or a planner. Those of the pantser variety tend to just go by the seat of our pants, hence the name. Many of you may already be familiar with this term, but I was not. It described a lot of the decisions I have already made in this lifetime. I have rarely planned anything, I simply went with the ebb and flow of life to a large degree. Yet, I did make conscientious decisions to support an end goal I had in mind. Example, as I was working toward my educational goals, I supplemented them with two other career paths, one secretarial in nature and the other in paramedicine. I chose to do these two things so I could fulfill the end goal. Make enough money to support my family, and to become a doctor. I had initially planned to not marry, nor have children. I would write the MCAT and be a doctor. I'd have finished med school at 24. I got as far as writing the MCAT. I ended up having three children by the time I was 21, and married by 24. So much for that 'plan'. Yet, I wouldn't change this aspect of pantsering in the least. While taking a dream, it gave me a dividend of joy and happiness I couldn't ever imagine, tinged of course with the sorrows over the years. This different path, while it describes my own journey and may not describe others also taught me I would have continued a selfish, self absorbed, intellectual who lacked the true compassion required of ones in a medical profession. It taught me I would have been a complete moron in terms of human emotion, and I'd have likely said insensitive things because the only way one learns to be compassionate is by having your heart ripped from your chest. You can't learn compassion or empathy any other way, if it is not an inherent quality you already possess. It also taught me that I could look death in its face and not be swallowed up. I'd have been a piss poor doctor, with my parsnip of a personality. In my mid 30's, I yearned to finish my degree in the Sciences, I had dropped out of Grade 9 (high school for you American folk, but the end of junior high for me) and then hit school hard in Grade 10. I never lost sight of the goal/dream/plan/purpose. I also discovered that I wanted to take my zest for the Sciences and translate them into a field that I seen to have unending possibilities. One which would impact literally every field by some degree or another, so for the first time I began to pursue a different career path. I enrolled in a Nanotechnology Systems Degree and obtained that in 2012. My end goal then was to enter into nanoparticle research, particularly ones that targeted Ovarian Cancer, Osteoporosis and other disease. Instead two years later, I'm working in the field of solar research and development and I discover that in fact I have another calling all together. So in 2014, I left solar to go back into medical research on lantibiotics, something that was also driven by a career change for my husband. What a fiasco that was. He ended up hating the job, and my research position never materialized, the funding had been cut before I got there. Again, so much for the plan. At every turn I was turned away, and while part of me may yearn to go back to research, the person of faith inside of me tells me its pointless, which is probably some wild dichotomy that I haven't really delved into. Isn't the whole point of faith to believe that you can make the world a better place? Yet, I look at the world around me and see its circling the drain. In truth, I don't think it can be saved, it needs an intervention. So you might say in a non-linear sense I've learned I need to fail harder, because maybe, just maybe, one of my failures (maybe even one of yours) could be the intervention the planet needs right at this time.
My husband is a solitary man, he keeps to himself and only a select few have ever been 'let in' to his life. He often feels forced to interact with family because they share a bond of blood, mainly kept in touch by the occasional holiday interaction. He stresses deeply over these times, and sometimes I confess I leave them to him alone because I think he should have alone time with his family. When I am with him, he often relies on me to provide the bulk of the conversation. His main issue is that his relatives will say to him 'why haven't you called?', 'why haven't you visited?' yet they make no attempt to do either themselves. Two anomalies in this equation though are his Dad, and his Uncle David and it was with great sorrow we learned his uncle had passed at 4:30 p.m. yesterday. He leaves behind one son, a wonderful woman he had started a new life with, his brothers and my husband. I feel such a sense of sorrow for my husband, because the small group he's allowed into his inner circle has diminished by one. He came to me yesterday and says, 'you must think me a horrible person, the past three times I've cried, twice it's been over a cat'. Yet, I understand my husband in a way I think most wives who love and care about their husbands do. That he grieves in his own way, and it is a quiet fortitude that is shown in just carrying on. It's shown in the way his voice catches when speaking after he found out, its behind the snarky comments at the children, the short tempered moments between us. Yesterday as I was doing my regular bible reading, I came across a portion of the Sermon on the Mount and I paused for a moment at Matthew 5:4 and I thought of him with a great sadness. 'Happy are those who mourn, since they will be comforted.' I told him that I wished the comfort that my thoughts on the resurrection provided would comfort him too but acknowledged they would not mean the same thing to him. I gave him a hug, and he retreated to the basement alone to work on his n-scale model train set. Then, as softly as a thought formulates, a small nudge told me that I needed to go sit in an easy chair in the basement and just 'be' with him, and so its what I did.
Again, yet another gem from my writing prompt book. As I said in the blog about my husband, I'm not very good at flirting. So, I don't have any pick up lines, or really know of any that would work for me. I was thinking probably the best and most effective pick up line is simply 'Hello'. Also queried my husband on this one, and he thought about it for a few minutes. Then responds with 'Hi'. It reminds me though of when we first met. At the end of the day, he's carrying his drill and I'm locking up the office. He turns and says to me, know what they say about men with big drills? I'm thinking 'likely the same thing they say about men with big boots'. Big Feet. He then says 'big bits'. Of course I rolled my eyes, but it did make me laugh. It's really no wonder we're together. This also reminds me of a time before we were together. One of the friends I had at the time had a serious thing for cowboys. I'm not about faux cowboys, the ones who are actual cow hands, men who work the land etc., I could muster up some respect for them, but not many of the pretend cowboys that used to frequent this favorite spot of hers. I'm also not overly fond of country music, so going to places like this was more of a painful experience than anything, but because she liked the cowboys, a few of her friends would go with her. One night she comes up with the thought to just out and out say something unexpected and see what the fellow said. She had a few shots of liquid self esteem before we got into a cab and headed off to our destination. We're there for a bit, she's had a couple more drinks. I'm standing there kind of off to the side, minding my own business sipping on a Pepsi. She wanders up to the guy in front of me and says, "Nice Boots, Wanna ____!!!" I nearly spit my drink out. See my friend was a preacher's daughter. I hadn't ever heard this kind of language out of her, let alone see her so forward. For that to come out of her mouth, she had to be pretty close to passing out. The guy, over the din of the place, and the music goes WHAT?!?! Sincerely shocked too. Then he looks at her, and then at me, and goes 'Damn lady, you nearly gave me a heart attack.' She didn't get a date, but they did dance a few before the rest of us peeled her off of him and took her back home. It was a night I know I'll never forget. Yikes.
In going through my 300 question writing prompt book, this question took me back to a time when my son was 6 years of age. I had promised myself that I would write more this year, to write at least something, whether it be on my WIP, or something of a journalistic nature, I would write and so, you poor buggers are the ones who are having to suffer through reading the drivel (if you so choose). I was raised old school, I had a military Dad and a mother who was born in the 50's. They were married in 73', with my Dad in his combat fatigues and my mother all pregnant with me. She wore a mini skirt of all things. Discipline in our household was being strapped with a leather belt, car v-belts, or fan belts or something else. So I learned real fast to not mouth my Dad off, nor get caught if I was going to be bad. I turned out okay, albeit a bit of damaged self esteem. This of course caused me to go 180 degrees the opposite direction from 'beat your kid styles of discipline', I aimed to reason, use logic, teach, guide. Yet, nothing quite prepared me for the time when the store clerk of the Macs' who I knew quite well had told me my son had pinched a chocolate bar. Well that next day, I marched his little 6 year old keester back to that store, and had him apologize for stealing, and pay the money back for the bar. I remember his cloudy little face, and I thought, man I got this parenting thing down pat. I didn't spank, I didn't keep nagging, I simply used logic, reason and guidance. Well fast forward, this boy is now a teenager. He's still half good, not all that bad. I think I can see glimpses of the young man he will come to be and I'm proud. Until I find $20 missing from my wallet. My last $20, the only money we have for the remainder of the month, and its gone. I know he's taken it. So while he sleeps on the couch, I go through his wallet, and I find my $20 in it. Well I slapped that little fecker right on the damn forehead. All the guidance, all the logic and the teaching I had hoped to do just went right out that window. He woke up, tried to say he hadn't took it, and I nearly smacked him again I was so ticked. Reason had returned, and he ended up confessing, that yes, he had in fact took it. I was so disappointed, because had he asked, I would have told him I couldn't give it. However, it was the sneaky, underhanded way he went about getting it that really annoyed me. Fast forward to his late teens, just a few days before his 18th birthday. I get a call from the Remand Centre, he had been thrown in jail as an accomplice to an armed robbery, and I wondered for that brief second if that I had whooped his ass like my Dad had mine, whether we'd even be having this conversation. The crown wanted 4 years on a first offense, but I didn't think he was that far gone, I thought that a lot of his involvement with this was due to a misplaced sense of loyalty and so we found a decent lawyer, he confessed his part of the involvement instead of having it go to trial and was sentenced 2 years less a day in medium security prison. It wasn't perfect, but at least it wasn't 4 years. I have always been a firm believer that if you're gonna do the crime, you will also do the time. He served his 2 years, and I watched this boy become a man in jail, molded by the horrors he heard and saw behind those bars. I feared that at one point we may lose him to an evil version of who he could have been. It was like watching a petty car thief go in and learn how to become a murderer. I visited, often driving in the wee hours of the morning for nearly 5 hours to go and see him for maybe an hour. I was scared, he was scared, and yet he couldn't show it because of the place he was in. On the day I finally picked him up, I think there was a collective sigh of relief in the car we had all piled into, his sisters, myself, driving back from what had been 2 long years of hell for all of us. He suffered in ways that I couldn't begin to imagine, and PTSD became his new way of life. I still wonder at times, if I had been more heavy handed if we could have avoided this more brutal life lesson. It reminds me of this quote: “Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.” ― C.S. Lewis It's been several years since my son was released from prison, yet he hasn't gone back. That's got to count for something right? We've moved on from that time, but some of us still remain in that prison and I think that's a worse punishment than I could have ever thought to mete out.