Good bye Nana

My grandmother died, June 7th 2011 at 5:50 in the morning. She woke me up to say goodbye as she left us. I'll hold her in my heart forever and I'll never forget the things she's taught me.

Rest in peace. I'm so glad you're no longer in pain. Watch over me and guide me, I've always tried to walk where I could learn and grow and make you proud.

So, here we are.

I said goodbye to my grandmother yesterday. I'm not sure I'll ever see her again. Half of me is absolutely destroyed, isn't sleeping, and feels such a immense sense of loss it is overwhelming. The other half of me is so exhausted of her being unhappy and sick. I hate seeing her upset and confused and sick. She hurts, so much, and there isn't much they can do anymore. Part of me wishes that I can be completely unselfish and let her go without feeling hugely upset at her passing away. But, it is so much harder than it seems. I just want her to stop suffering and to stop being so ill and unhappy.
She has stomach cancer, and another tumor down by her pancreas. It is inoperable, and the stomach tumor is blocking the exit from her stomach -- hence why she's been throwing up after eating and losing so much weight. They don't know what they can do about this, and they're not sure they're really going to try anything. She's not really strong enough for surgery, and they're pretty sure that she wouldn't really make it through anything they tried to do. They're not even sure she'll make it through the endoscope procedure they have to do over the next few days.

It is absolutely heartbreaking for me. She was too sick to make it to my graduation, and at this point, she'll never make it to my wedding (like that'll ever happen anyway), and she'll never see her great grand children. She'll never see me have a published novel. She'll never see me succeed in anything right now. All she has seen of me in the last few years is me making bad choices and ending up being unhappy -- Unhappy and still working retail. I feel like a failure, and I don't think she'll be there to see me in a state where I feel like something else.

It's awful -- and I'm stuck here in PA, where I have no one. I don't get to have people around me who care. I don't have someone to turn to here -- exactly what I moved here for. I thought I'd have a person, to care about me, and to hold me when the world was too much for me to handle alone. But, apparently, that is what I get to do. Having people here tell me that "it'll pass" is not what needs to be said, ever. Right now, this will not pass, and I will suffer through it by myself rather than have it sluffed off the way that it already has been sluffed off.

I can't do this alone. But, I got myself into this situation, and now I have to deal with it -- and, apparently, I have to deal with it alone.

well, that is the grandmother update.... prayers and thoughts appreciated.

~M

Hidden secret

 

The back of the secret said: It'll never love you back.

Day to day...

That's how I live these days. One day to the next. I've been sick, but yay antibiotics, cause now I think I'm finally feeling better. Being sick just sucked and sapped my strenght. The worst part is that it had probably been going on since right before I moved to PA. So, that is a long time to have your body fighting something. No wonder I was always so damn tired -- and absolutely unable to really continue functioning. So... lets chalk that up to a very bad run of luck. Hopefully that is all gone and I won't have to deal with it anymore.

Regardless work is okay, life still sucks to some extent, and I'm still breathing (good or bad, it is what it is).

more later, when I feel like writing again and less like my heart is being ripped out of my chest via my stomach.

Ready to escape

It is so hard to be with and around someone who you know doesn't love you. A couple days after Joe walked out of my life again my mother said to me "Just because you care for someone does not mean that you can help them." Oh how wise my mother has always been. That was at the root of the problem, because I couldn't change Joe from what he was/is to something and someone I knew he could be. It wasn't my job, and frankly, it wasn't fair for him to make the assumption that he did not have to try to be in a relationship with me. I disagree with antyhing and everything that happened in that relationship over the many years it was in action. I guess there isn't anything else for me to do but get away. I'm awaiting job offers from some major people, and hopefully, one of them will take me away from him and away from here. I look forward to it -- and once I'm gone. I'm gone. There is no going back.

I know that most people will never get it, but I'm okay at the moment, though I cried last night. Sometimes you need the tears and time to settle your life and regulate who and what you really are. Sometimes, you just need it. I'm getting there -- though feeling lonely and alienated. I guess that is just how it goes sometimes. I took a chance and I'm not bulletproof. He shot me down and hit vital parts of me I thought I had protected from him. I guess not. But, I'll heal, as all wounded seem to. The scars will stay on the inside and I will learn to find myself being okay just being me. That is what I want more than ever... well, that and being able to go back four months and never start this whole damn buisness with Joe again. But, unfortuantely, I do not have a time machine. That is just how my life works. I guess I will do my best to move on and just see where life decides to take me. So wind, carry me away.

 "Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were." Marcela Proust

I tend to whole-heartedly love quotes of all kinds, and lately, they sit much better with me. I am constantly looking for meaning to what is and has happened in my life. It is hard, to be unsure of yourself. And it is hard to be unsure of who you are and what you have in your life. I have my family and my friends. I have my job, which I like, and prospects for a job, which I could come to really love – and stay with for years. But, I feel self conscious and unsure of myself these days. I don’t feel particularly like myself, and I do not feel as though I’m attractive right now. Hopefully this too will pass like the seconds of our lives which tick away with wild abandon. I, too, long for heartbreak to lose it's meaning, because without meaning, I do not believe that it could cause the pain it causes for me every day. I hate jealousy, and I hate feeling it. Maybe if I repeat it to myself oft enough I'll manage to make it have no meaning to me. I'm willing to work at it, so bring it on. 

Heartbreak, heartbreak, heartbreak. Jealousy, jealousy, jealousy... be gone.

1. I happen to think that the following is also quite true. I do not believe that staying and waking up next to him, worrying about what the day would bring would help me at all. I don't need the pain, the fear, or the anxiety which he constantly brought into my life. I know this, so why can't my brain get it through to my heart that this isn't going to happen -- and it isn't going to ever be something which is good for me. I'll never be okay with him and even if something happened again with him, I'd never be able to stop worrying and I'd never be able to trust him. I hope that if this job comes through and I can leave this place someday that I'll be able to leave him completely in my dust. If I leave this state and he has done nothing to try and remain friends and breach the gap he created between us, I will never speak with him again. I don't feel bothered by that resolution.

1. Here is to finally figuring out how to live.

What I can't wait for is my life to have a love in it which makes me forget about everything and the past. He will be my friend and my lover. He will be everything to me and never treat me the way Joe did. I am now, more than ever, willing to wait for the right person to come along. I know Joe will be back -- he always comes back. But I think this time I'll be strong enough to punch him in the face and walk the other way. Cause, I can't and wont do this again. Two major tries, and a bunch of little ones thrown in along the way. You don't get that many chances with me, and  I will never put myself in the situation where he can make me feel awful abuot myself again. I just won't do it again. I can only have so much self-doubt in my life, and that is all he brings to me now -- whether I loved him once, or not.

He isn't the one for me.

So I'll wait

Unitl I can clearly see,

The way my life should be.

That is what I want. ^^^ A love which bewilders, and surprises. A love which I never once question and never once let leave my mind. Eyes wide open, and kisses with them shut. I'll always remember to stand up for myself. I won't have another horrendous shot at being in love or even 'in like' with anyone. I settled for Joe, and I"ll never settle like that again. I let him treat me in a way I would never accept from anyone else, so why was it acceptable for him to treat me that way? I have to figure that out sometime, because the answer wasn't because he was the right guy for me. He was wrong in so many more ways than one. So... I need to figure out how to get my self-confidence back, and then I'll try and figure out how to move on with my life from here.

<3 Em

     Poor duckling. It is true that you don't have to be pretty to have your problems solved. At least you didn't make stupid mistakes being pretty and then wind up feeling ugly. I feel ugly right now. I do not feel attractive -- and I'm taking it out on my eating, which is really screwing up my internal systems. It's not so good. I can't rationalize my feelings right now, and some of them make me feel like an ugly person. I don't want to be upset and angry, and I don't want jealousy to have roots in my life.

     I'm working to be a better person. I'm reading The Shack with Angela and I'm hoping to find something in it, something I need to go forwards. I cannot wait to see how I feel this time around. I know some people don't believe in God, and I don't really know what I believe most days. I hope that someday I'll have an idea about everything in my life. Sometimes I feel like I need more in my life than what I just have right now. 

    It's hard for me to admit the things which have happened in my life in the past few months. I'm ashamed of making bad choices. I feel that I showed my friends and my family that I am not capable of making the right choices in my life. I feel like I let my parents down, cause now they worry that I'm here alone. 

    I hate that I was so wrong about Joe. Why couldn't I see it? Why do I still feel that there is someone else in him which is not this person that I see all the time? Somedays he can really be the guy I know I fell in love with -- but that guy is so hidden beneath what he is now that I can't get there anymore. I'm not sure anyone can these days. He's beyond long gone. I don't know what to do with him, and I think I am seriously going to do my best not to be involved. I hate that my friends tell me that I don't hide the pain well enough -- that everyone can tell that I'm falling apart inside. I hate knowing that. I value being able to hide what I feel and go on, push on, through my life. I like hiding what I don't want to show. I don't like people being able to read me. I don't like letting it out either, cause to me, the more I let it out -- the more it hurts and sinks in. I don't need it to be a part of me for my life to continue. I want to bag it up and put the bag in a locked box and sink it somewhere in the depths of my mind where I'll never uncover it again.

Every day is a struggle 
Between what I want to say and what I want to keep to myself 
And the words that manage to leave my lips 
Don't hurt me, but they hurt everyone else

So I find myself in need of a part 
I'm not sure why, but I think that it's because 
Of this desire to be what others want me to be 
Which is nothing close to me

But I'll see better when the smoke clears 
The smoke clears inside my head 
And I can listen when the screaming doesn't repeat everything I've said 
And all that remains me and who I am at the end of the day 
And this happens every day ... yeah...

Every day is a battle 
Between what I want to know and what I don't want to figure out 
And everything in between in these thoughts of mine that you know I can't live with out

So I find myself in need of a part 
I'm not sure why, but I think that it's because 
Of this desire to be what others want me to be 
Which is nothing close to me

But I'll see better when the smoke clears 
The smoke clears inside my head 
And I can listen when the screaming doesn't repeat everything I've said 
All that remains me and who I am at the end of the day 
And this happens every day ... yeah... oooh...

But I'll see better when the smoke clears 
The smoke clears inside my head 
And I can listen when the screaming doesn't repeat everything I've said 
All that remains me and who I am at the end of the day 
And this happens every day ... this happens every day 
This happens every day... yeah... 

Lonely

Well, tonight isn't the best night -- by far. I'm so sick of the fact that Joe gets to keep everything and I'm the one who loses. It just isn't fair. I am really not sure I like it here at all. This would be so much easier to just blame on him. He was supposed to be somebody. He was supposed to be my person -- the person I could turn to when life had me in a panic. But he'll never be that, and he never would be. I guess you've gotta learn by getting really hurt, all the time, before you can feel like a failure enough to never leave your house enough.
Man, if I could warn people ahead of time what happens when you trust someone. I'd just destroy their hopes and dreams of futures because I'm that calloused and hurt right now. I don't feel attractive, I don't feel wanted by anyone. I feel like Joe was my one shot in life and I lost it. I suck at meeting guys, and I really am not good at figuring out how to meet guys anyway. So, I'm completely screwed. I don't have a support system here. I'm all by myself -- the exact way I wasn't supposed to be. So what's left? Not much that I can see right now. I'm so sick of this shit. I hate being stuck here. I'm sure this would be lovely if I didn't feel as though there is no escape for me right now. And, that is how I feel. I feel like I cannot get away from what I'm having to deal with here.

Maybe I should have pulled up roots here and moved home. Maybe I should have run from this, here, and him and tried to go on about my own life without falling apart. Caring about him more than anything else -- more than he cared about me -- now that is a dangerous life to live. But that doesn't mean it doesn't still hurt all the time. And it doesn't mean that I don't -- for some screwed up reason -- feel jealous that he'd be with someone else. How is that possible? I hate myself to still caring about someone who has hurt me so many times. But what if he is the only one who seems to have ever really cared about me? What if this was my shot and I blew it somehow? What if this was my fault -- somehow?
This is how I wish I really felt, but at quite certain I never will be that free. What happens if I'm stuck feeling like this -- missing him -- for the wrong reasons for my whole life? What if I always feel as though he's the one who was supposed to be something in my life? I don't get it.

I wish I felt this way about having him out of my life. I wish I could find that relieved feeling in here somewhere. I don't have to deal with his smoking and his other issues -- and especially I don't have to deal with his dysfunctional family any longer. I don't have to deal with his sex issues -- the inability to be there with me and figure out his shit. I don't have to deal with feeling inadequate because of him.
I don't have to take him treating me like shit -- but isn't that what I do when I am over there and he pretends that I do not exist? Isn't that me just dealing with his shit some more? I hate that I was there today, sitting in the dark and Lisa and Geoff went upstairs and it was just me and Joe and for a moment I wished that he would come onto my couch and kiss me and tell me that all of this was just a huge mistake -- a bad dream that I'd wake up from and feel normal again. I wish it was that easy to fix. Even if he did come back some day -- I'll never be able to trust him again, and the stress of having him in my life in any way isn't really worth it to me anymore. I just don't want to feel any of these ways anymore. I'm much happier when I feel detached and don't really feel anything.

Has heartbreak lost it's meaning for me? I'm not sure it means anything near what it meant a long time ago. I don't like that I've spent my last seven years in turmoil about a boy who I really knew I cared about the second I heard his voice. I don't like that I've been wrapped up and shaken down. I hate that it is just the worst thing for me right now to be living somewhere where my life is tied to his in some way. It is either be alone, or deal with him in my life. I'm game for playing the mature role, but he really fails at it.

that's it for now,
M

Permission to be Depressed

"Depression was, indeed, the hand of a friend trying to press me down to the ground on which it was safe to stand--the ground of my own truth, my own nature with its complex mix of limits and gifts, liabilities and assets, darkness and light."
- Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak

I don't think I've ever been "clinically" depressed. Well, maybe I have, but it certainly didn't feel clinical. It felt morbid, cosmic, and unavoidably essential. When I was thirteen, my parents split for the umpteenth and final time and a few months later, my dad brought it to my attention that I'd been wearing the same hockey jersey for weeks and that I needed to start doing the dishes again. I was definitely depressed.

And there was the dark night after Magic Man flew back to London and the apartment felt like a keyless heartbreak hotel with barred windows. But my last extended dark night was about ten years ago. It was a new depth of crushing aloneness. Another break up, this time with Hot-but-Needy Actor Man in LA (I was equally needy, duh,) which triggered an exorcism of self doubt and psychic bile that, being thirty-something and ambitious, I just needed to get out of my system. {Note: it's often not the actual loss that causes the depression - it's all the crap that's tied up in it that you needed to deal with anyway.}

In that spell of depression I wore the same pair of butt-ripped Levi's for weeks. I'd lie in my backyard at two in the morning in nowhere New Mexico, smoking Marlboro's, looking up at the stars, wondering about the fatality of scorpion bites, and praying for aliens to abduct me. {Not joking in any way.} I cried every single day, sometimes twice a day, for weeks. I felt profoundly unheard...empty. As I'd fall asleep I felt as though chunks of my being were decomposing into the bed. It was a brutal ordeal of the psyche, but I knew I was being reborn. I did have faith that whatever new face was emerging, she would eventually smile back at me.

I learned a thousand subtle and mighty things about Life from those existential passages, but what I learned about depression itself is that, the more you resist it, the longer it lasts. When depressed, I find it's best to just be...depressed.Happiness returns more quickly when you give yourself permission to be blue...or any shade of black you need to be.

I understand that for some people, depression can be so severe as to be life threatening. It can grip a soul for decades. The kind of depression I'm addressing here falls somewhere within the category of disparaging life passages to profound melancholy...which is to say, likely manageable without drugs and positively surmountable. But I will go on record to say that, while I think meds for depression can be a viable option to break a cycle and regain one's footing, I think we're a culture overly prone to numbing out. And in doing so, we not only deny our own power, we carry our demons with us far longer than we have to.

HOW TO BE DEPRESSED SO THAT HAPPINESS HAS A BETTER CHANCE OF RETURNING -- SOONER RATHER THAN LATER

1. Give yourself full permission to be pathetic for a short period of time. In fact, relish the pathetic-ness. Enthusiastically wallow in self pity. If people let themselves have downer days more often, there might be fewer heart attacks and road rage. Being a total loser for a morning or a weekend isn't the slippery slope to despair. It's a direct route to what your emotions are trying to tell you...feel, heal, know thyself. And move on, more empowered than before.

2. Watch or read something depressing. Rent a some heart wrenching documentaries like, God Grew Tired of Us or War Dance and ball your eyes out. Chances are that your life will be looking pretty damn good in comparison.

3. Be incredibly, sublimely gentle with yourself, like you might be with a child or dear friend whom you deeply adore.

4. If someone who loves you asks how you are, admit to being blue. When a girl friend calls, let her know that it's a dog day afternoon and that you're happily in despair.

5. When the novelty of being depressed is starting to wear off, shake your arms above your head like you're being saved by the Almighty Holy Spirit itself, turn on some loud Opera music, and shout, "I'm depressed! I'm sooo depressed!"Gauranteed: you will start laughing smirky giggles to deep belly laughs and you will decide to listen to the rhythm of your blues and keep on walking...more empowered than before.

6. Break your happiness fast with a treat. Write a kind note to yourself about how brave you are for being still in the dark, for standing down a monster or two. Dress up even if you work from home. Bring a plant to work and water it. Freshen up. And give yourself full permission to just be ... deeply happy.

http://whitehottruth.com/white-hot/how-to-be-depressed/