I woke up this morning in a fog. Part of it is that I’ve not been sleeping. Last night I actually slept all night. For possibly the first time in weeks. I’m not sure why it means I woke up more tired, but I did. I’ve had coffee and it’s 10:30am and I still could just sleep. For a week. Please and thank you.
Part of it is me. My head. I’m just in a funk today. I haven’t managed to shake it yet. I’m not depressed. Not really. Maybe not yet. But it’s there. I feel it. Hanging out. Trying to get cozy and comfy. I’m trying to shake it off, but so far no go. I feel uber-sensitive. I feel like I shouldn’t even talk to my best friends, because I’m likely to say something stupid. Likely to be too needy and god knows none of them need that right now. That nothing I say is going to be worthwhile. See: questioning everything.
It’s been a few decent weeks. A few weeks of sun. Of weekend trips out of town. Of mini-golf with Morgan, kite flying with Bailey and finding polly-pollys with Harrison. Weeks of watermelon and ice cream. Weeks of my head being less crazy.
The depression though? Sucks. I wish I could turn it off. I wish it wasn’t here, as a constant reminder that I’m not strong enough. Sometimes I think it’s just me. That I’m too much of a drama queen. That I’m getting caught up in the crazy in my own head. But hey, that’s part of it too.
I get up every single day and do everything I need to do. Without fail. I work. I take care of my kids. I play Frisbee with my dog. My house is mostly clean. My bills get paid on time. Laundry gets done. Maybe not put away, but whatever. It’s there and clean and folded.
It never goes away though. Never fully. I have great days, great hours, great moments. Then it’s back. Making me sad and lonely and wanting to curl up in a ball and sleep. Of course, when I’m like this, I stop being able to sleep, which makes it worse.
When I feel like this, I question everything I say. Or do. For fear of seeming crazy. Or unstable. Which you all may think, I have no idea. I’m not, I promise. I’m just a person whose life has changed drastically. I’m still flailing around in the water, so to speak. I haven’t learned to swim yet. Maybe I need floaties?
I start apologizing for everything. I said in someones comments this morning, that I apologize for apologizing for something that I only thought. My friend Liz is constantly telling me that I don’t need to say I’m sorry for things I NEVER EVEN SAID. That no one can read my thoughts.
I’m a really awesome friend, I assure you.
My best friends. Man they are amazing. They won’t let me go. They hold me up, let me cry, hold my hand and let me say everything that is in my head no matter how crazy it is. They make jokes, help me remember to breath and distract me. Then one of them carefully re-applies the duct tape that had slipped off.
I try. I try so dam hard. But it comes back. No matter what I do, it always comes back. It’s never enough.
Am I the only one who was super excited to see this trailer?
Part one, if you missed it or would like to see it again is HERE.
Last time we covered business cards, the fact that Issa can’t remember names, the utter lack of dress code, food, swag, drama and leaving the hotel. You know, the basics. This time I’d like to touch on things that hopefully will make you feel more comfortable and confident at the conference. Or at least that’s the goal.
The reason so many of us do these types of posts is because we remember how skerred we were the first time. Then you get there and realize, okay, this is doable. I may survive the next four days. Hell, it’s even fun. Which is why so many of us go back. So now, moving forward….
Please take this all with a grain of salt. It’s all really just my non-expert opinions…from one conference experience.
Know who else is going: Ahead of time get cell numbers of peeps you want too meet. Last year I sent out an email to my friends. I knew when people were getting in, who was rooming with who and I had a cell phone full of phone numbers. It helps to feel secure, when you can text people when you land; when you show up at the hotel; or when you are scared/sad/anxious/hiding in a bathroom.
Have buddies: Discuss the sessions at breakfast. Talk about where you want to meet up after for lunch. Don’t leave it to chance if you are nervous. There is no need to eat alone at a conference with 1,200 people. Last year for one lunch, I ended up at a table where I only knew one person. By the time lunch was over, I knew six new people.
Groups are awesome: Invite random people to dinner with you. No joke. Last year on the last night, a bunch of us decided to venture out to an Italian restaurant about 8 blocks away. I am pretty sure I invited every person we saw in the lobby and standing around outside. We started out with a group of say 12 and got to the restaurant with about 22 people. It was one of my two favorite moments. Invite people to Starbucks with you too. You’ll meet some cool people that way.
Utilize Twitter: Use twitter to find people. It’s easy to tweet in the morning, I’m going to Starbucks in ten minutes. If you want to come meet me in the lobby. It’s the best way to find your friends. Yo @blahblahblah where are you? But try to enjoy the event and not spend the entire time on twitter. People who aren’t going equally want to know whats going on and don’t want to know everything that’s going on. Also, my personal opinion is that if you spend the entire time at a conference on your computer, you will miss out on the fun of the conference.
WiFi: Know that the wifi will likely suck. Save yourself the trouble of getting your panties in a bunch. Hai, 1200 bloggers wanting to use it. Just know it now and you won’t expect as much at the hotel. Yes, the hotel has wifi. They are generally prepared for bunches of users. However, bunches of users and 1200 bloggers is big difference.
Do something for you: Something small for you, before the conference. Remember when school was just starting each year, how if you had a new backpack and lunch box and fresh new crayons, it seemed like it could be a good year? How wearing a new outfit that first day make you stand a bit taller?
It’s sort of the same for BlogHer. It can be scary. Mostly the thought of it. When you are there, it’s way less scary. I promise.
To make myself feel more secure and stand a bit taller as I walked into the hotel, I did a few small things for myself the week prior. I bought new flip-flops, my shoes of choice. I bought two new shirts. I got my hair trimmed the week before. The night before, I got a pedicure. All I can tell you is what I did. You have to find whatever it is for you. Just try and do something. It really does help.
Remember Issa’s number one rule: friends don’t let friends drink room coffee.
I’ve always though that these things can tell you a lot about a person.
I see people do posts where they ask their readers questions. I always answer. Mostly because I love to answer questions. I used to buy all those silly teen magazines to fill out the multiple choice quiz’s. I am well known for coming up with random questions and making forcing begging bribing my best friends to answer them. Aren’t you glad I’m not your best friend? Never mind, you don’t need to answer that one.
Have I mentioned I have a problem?
Anyway, I thought I’d give it a try. Please play along if you’re willing. It doesn’t hurt, there are no wrong answers and you won’t be graded. I just sorta want to get to know my readers a bit more.
1. How do you take your coffee?
2. Are you pro or against Blue Cheese?
3. What is your absolute favorite blog to read? Also what is your guilty blog? The one you don’t want to tell me that you adore and read without telling anyone?
4. What would be your perfect meal?
5. If you could vacation anywhere, money was no option, where would you go?
6. Last movie you saw in a theater?
7. What’s a baby name that you have never used and may never use but always wished you could?
8. Favorite flavor of Ben and Jerry’s Ice cream?
9. Last book you read that doesn’t have pictures?
10. How many siblings do you have? Do you get along with them?
11. What is one random thing about you, that I may not know?
He talked in a quiet voice as he showed us around. It was almost finished. An impressive building on a big lot. He walked us through rooms, bathrooms, playrooms and kitchens. Each new room, he asked us something. What do you think of the paint color? Aren’t these windows nice? This refrigerator is the nicest brand there is. He looked at us for our reaction to all of it. It was so unlike him, that it kind of unnerved me. He was the strong, silent type generally. He spoke more to us in that house, than he did in the following three days.
The flooring was still covered in plastic. The smell of fresh paint in the air. Each of the bedrooms was pained a different color. It was a hot day, but the AC wasn’t on yet. Every window in the place was open. There wasn’t any furniture, but he told us it was waiting to be delivered. Just waiting for the paint to dry, he said. He told us what kinds of furniture he had for each room.
Then he showed us a few other small hidden rooms. One was the tornado shelter, which is common in Texas. The other was a panic room. A room that could be locked on the inside. It had a phone, and shelving. There were gallon jugs of water in it, but nothing else yet. There was still lots of space on the shelves. It was the first time I’d heard of one (pre Jodie Foster movie) and the only time I’ve ever seen a real one.
I knew why it was there. I’d seen the bruises on my aunt. I remembered the night, two summers prior, when my mom and Grandpa left in an instant and came back a few hours later with my aunt and her four kids. All of whom were beaten and bruised. At that time though, my brother would have only been seven maybe and I don’t think he’d been old enough to get it. I knew what the house meant, what it stood for. I knew why he’d built it for free.
My brother didn’t. Grandpa explained it to him. He showed him the room. He explained why. Why the room needed to be there. Why the locks were on the inside. Why there was a phone in it, a phone that had it’s very own line. Why we would never see the house again. Why he would never talk about it in a newspaper, or bring it up at church or the Officer’s Club at lunch on Sunday.
It’s for the women and children, son. He choose his words carefully, but he was brutally honest. So only girls will be allowed here, he asked? Well no, some little boys too, I’d bet…but no men. Never any men, unless they are fixing things.
Well if no men can come in, why did you build this special room? Just in case. I built it, so that every woman and every child who ever comes here, can sleep a bit easier, knowing it’s here if they need it.
He did a lot of things wrong in his life, or so he’d tell you if you asked him. I wasn’t patient enough. I was too hard on your mom, on all my kids. I had a temper. I didn’t know how to be a dad. I didn’t know that just providing for them wasn’t enough. I could be an angry man on occasion. I’ve said dumb and rude things to your grandmother. He always told us, people aren’t perfect and he’d never been perfect. That he wasn’t perfect now, he’d never been perfect and he was sure he wouldn’t be tomorrow.
But women and children should always be safe.
My Grandpa, he’s been gone 21 months now. He died two weeks before Harrison was even born. But he made this world a safer place for as many people as he could. He left behind a legacy. Five daughters, one son. Fifteen grandchildren, too many great grandchildren to name. 350 people showed up to pay their last respects to the man, because he was that man. The man you could count on. The man who kept his word. The man who showed up for church early to see if anyone needed to be picked up. The one who showed up with groceries for a wife, when he knew the husband had taken off the week prior. The man who would take bikes that we outgrew, to children in the poorer parts of town. He was that man. The one who had forty rental houses and kept them all in pristine condition, as if each family who lived there were his own wife and children. If I’m in his town and meet someone, chances are, they either knew my Grandfather, or have at least heard of him. Oh you’re his granddaughter? Oh it’s so nice to meet you. Your Grandfather was a great man. Yes, that he was.
It’s always followed by a story of how he helped them out this one time, or how he helped out someone in their family this one time. Always.
He also left behind one beautiful shelter, one safe haven in this world, that wouldn’t have been here, if it weren’t for him.
I sometimes wonder why he showed it to us and no one else. My own mother never saw it. She knew about it, but he never took her to see it. I am not even sure my Grandmother ever saw it. Maybe it was just that day he happened to need to go there and he happened to have the two of us with him. Maybe he wanted to someone to understand and we were the most receptive. We were young enough to not be so jaded and think that he was wasting money, yet old enough to understand. Maybe we were just his favorites. Snort. It doesn’t matter, I’m just grateful that he showed us.
I know I write about him a lot. In these memory posts; in general. Outside of my mother though? He is the person who made the greatest difference in my life. I miss him. So, I write about him. To always remember.
Dear son,
21 months might be a weird month to decide to write you, but hey, you gotta take it where I can give it. The other day, you and I went on our very first mommy, son date. Sure we do things together all the time. We go to the store, we drive your big sisters around like a taxi, we hang out on my bed while I work and you play with your six MAYER trucks. See, you? Are sorta easy. Compared to your sisters at least. You will go anywhere and do almost anything. You will sleep in my lap, on the couch, in the stroller, or just about anywhere. Therefore, you are easy to just tote around. As long as you are fed and have a car to play with, you are good to go.
What I’m trying to say, is we do spend tons of time together. But on Saturday? I decided to take you someplace that was special. Just us. We went to the Children’s Museum for a few hours. We looked at everything. We played with everything. You were absolutely thrilled to spend time touching everything and not having to be buckled into a stroller. Or have me say, uh-uh bubs, that’s not for touching. You touched everything. Every inch of space in the entire place. Every kid you passed. You even picked up some binky off the floor and put it in your mouth, before handing it back to the little girl who had dropped it. I shudder at the thought of that, but you are a binky fool, so what can I say?
You talked non-stop. I have a theory about this. That you and your sisters have a very high word quota a day. Not sure where you get it. Ahem. You even said your very first sentence today.
Mama, yook-it, Bub’s big man now.
Son? You may be big. But you are not a big man now. You were wearing a fireman’s outfit though, so I’ll let it slide. You are not even 21 months until Friday. Please to be remembering.
You liked dressing up like a Fireman. You loved the train room. You adored sitting in a big cocoon thing. You liked playing with the fake food, which I found funny, since you could care less to play with the fake food we have at home. Maybe fake food is better tasting there? No clue.
This was the first of many, many, many, mama-son days. That I can promise you.
Love you son,
Mama
I shouldn’t have asked.
I should have just let it go. Ignored the whispers. The rumors. The nagging questions in my head. In my gut. In my heart. I didn’t want to know. I wanted to know. All at once.
I asked. He answered. The words he said were real. Honest. Truths I wasn’t ready to hear.
Yes. That girl, woman, his teen cousin saw him with is his girlfriend. Yes, they’ve been dating for awhile. Since March. Yes, he thinks he is in love. No. He hasn’t told the kids. Luckily we both agree they aren’t ready.
I sit again, heartbroken. Crushed beyond belief. I didn’t think I could feel this bad again. Yet I do. I am shattered. My heart has been shattered again. I wonder when it will not mend. I wonder if the day will come where it just stops feeling anything anymore. Where it turns to steel to protect me. I’m not sure if I want that or fear it. Maybe both.
It’d be easy if I hated him. God some days I wish I could.
I don’t. I haven’t stopped loving him. I’m not sure I know how to stop loving him. I know he no longer loves me.
It sucks. It hurts. I am hurting.
I wish there was a magic button. To make me stop loving him. To make me not care. To make me stop crying. But a day later, here I sit, still crying. Still loving him. Still caring.
I’ve had Sirius Satellite Radio for six or seven years. Maybe even longer. I’ve loved it. I’ve moved my service from one car to another. Logan has too. We are very good customers. This is a service we have been glad to pay for.
Then I buy my new car. Which is awesome. Which I adore. Whose name is Harper I believe. Anyway, it has an XM radio built in. Which is fine in my mind, since oh two years ago, the two merged. Which was about the time all the stations started saying, SiriusXM Radio. Or something. They changed all of my stations when they did that. But whatever, I remained a loyal customer.
Yesterday I go online to transfer my service to my new car. No where online am I able to figure out how to do this. Which annoys the shit out of me to begin with. I sit on hold. Lalalalalalalalala, tons of minutes go by. I just hate elevator music. Can I tell you how much it annoys me? I want to gorge my own ear drums out. I finally get a human. Oh we can’t help you, you have to call XM, she says to me. WTF? Seriously. Yes.
So I do. 25 minutes later I get a person. MORE ELEVATOR MUSIC. I’m about to go postal on my cell phone, when I get a human being. Well XM and Sirius have technically merged, but we’re two separate things still. So the stations are the same, but you have to cancel Sirius, buy new XM service for the new car and we will have to charge you a start-up fee.
*Issa’s head explodes*
You’re telling me I have to cancel, then start-up a new contract for THE EXACT SAME STATIONS?????? The exact same price too?
Well, yes.
Great. Fine. Whatever.
I do it.
Mostly because I despise regular radio. It’s worth the start-up fee and the 15 bucks a month to not have to listen to those morons. They give me road rage. Truly. I am a much more relaxed, not probably going to shoot someone driver, when I have good music. And NO TALKING HEAD IDIOTS. KYGO? I’m looking directly at you. Possibly flipping you off as well.
But really, wtf SiriusXM? You merged. You now only have one set of stations. I’ve been a customer for years and years. How is this okay? Can anyone else see why you had to merge? Because your customer service BLOWS!!!!!!!!!!
Then of course I have to re-call Sirius to cancel. Another 25 minutes of elevator music. God forbid you can cancel online. She tries to sell me other products before canceling. Doesn’t understand why I’d want to switch to XM. Can you just explain to me why? BECAUSE I HAVE NO CHOICE AND YOU ARE THE SAME COMPANY.
Oh but we’re not. Not really.
Okay fine. You’re not. Am I canceled now?
Yes. Would you like to take a survey about this call and how helpful I’ve been today?
*click*
Look at my bank online a few hours later? My new fees? Charged by one, SiriusXM Radio. Same exact company as last month.
*headbang*
I’ve bought a lot of things in my life. A condo, two homes, probably eight cars. The difference between now and then, is that I’d never bought a single thing myself. Everything I bought, I bought with Logan.
Last night? I changed that. Last night I bought my first car myself. Not my first car, but the first ever car that I’ve purchased alone. As a single person. Alone.
It may not seem like a huge deal to any of you. But to me? It’s HUGE. It is insanely huge. I’ve never really done anything alone. Now? I have. Now, I have a car that is just in my name.
I wasn’t able to buy the exact one I wanted. I wasn’t able to buy a brand new one. I had to get a slightly used one. Who cares though? I mean really? I bought it myself. I’m kind of proud.
Anyway….wanna see my pretty new (ish) car?
I did it. It was hard and slightly painful, but I did it. I am now a proud owner of a 2009 Hyundai Santa Fe. Now I just need to figure out how to get my iPod thingy to work and name her and I’ll be all set.
Any name thoughts? I am pretty sure she’s a girl. I know it’s hard to tell, but she’s a light green color.
I have trouble on therapy days. She pushes me. With good reason. I pay her to push me. To pull all of the crazy thoughts out of my head. So we can discuss them. If I keep talking about them, they tend to get a bit easier to deal with. That’s the theory at least.
The thoughts go round and round in my head. It’s nice to pull them out. Try and makes sense of some of them. Then after 55 minutes, she shoves them all back in my head until the next week. I see how helpful this is. I really do. Tomorrow or the next day, I will feel better about some things. Each week I do see improvement. If I didn’t, I’d find someone else.
But therapy days suck. I’ve gotten past just sitting there bawling through 90% of it. Which is nice. Although when I did that, I needed that. Talking and talking and re-looking at things from a different perspective is hard. Talking about things that I’m not really wanting to talk about is hard. It wipes me out. It makes me emotional. It makes me very long windy. (Which is why I’ve changed my tagline for this blog. Did you see it?)
This divorce thing? Hasn’t gotten easier. Somehow I though by six months in, that I’d feel better about it. I don’t. The day to day living has gotten easier. I guess it’s true, you can get used to just about anything. I’ve gotten used to being alone more. I don’t freak out every time my kids aren’t with me. I also don’t know how to be without them quite yet, but I’m working on it. I’ve made improvements. It’s not easy though.
Therapy days make me all crazy in the head. Or something. I am more likely to have a panic attack on therapy days. I am more likely to drive my best friends absolutely insane with my complete spazzy behavior on therapy days. I am more likely to cry at nothing, to get my feelings hurt at nothing and to say things I don’t mean and wish I could take back on therapy days.
I’m trying not to be like that. It’s hard. Holy shit people, it’s so hard. It’s hard to turn it off, once you dig that deep. Which is why you all get the most depressing, non-sensical posts from me on Tuesdays. Shrug.
Grab My Button!
I’m a joiner
