The Big L

Every time I sign onto AOL and don't hear, "You've got mail!" because I don't have any new e-mails, I always imagine it saying, in that same peppy voice, "You're a big LOSER!"

Hahahahahaha!!!!

My Two Selves

A while back I wrote this post:

http://laughingeden.blogspot.com/2009_05_01_archive.html

It's about how hard it is to try to be okay for everyone else in your life but inside you know that you'll never be okay again - not really - not in the way that you were before whatever it was that changed you forever happened. Changed you in a way that wasn't all that great.

I just finished reading Every Last One by Anne Quindlen and she seems to have nailed it in her writing much better than I did in mine.....

"I have two selves now, the one that goes out in the world and says what sound like the right things and nods and listens and even sometimes smiles, and the real woman, who watches her in wonder, who is nothing but a wound, a wound that will not stop throbbing except when it is anesthetized. I know what the world wants: It wants me to heal. But to heal I would have to forget, and if I forget, my family truly dies."

So you see? There's no way to ever be what you were before. The you that everyone wants back so they can be more comfortable around you again. So that they can be comfortable with what's happened in your life.

There are days that I'm really bitter about that. Bitter about others being inconvenienced by the tragedies in my life. I often want to scream at them, What's happened to me is hard on YOU??? Walk one day in my life, with the burden of grief I carry. ONE DAY!! I dare you.

But, then, there are days that I totally get it. I get the instincts within all of us to get things back to normal and be okay. Because when things are okay and normal, it means you're safe. All of the upheaval of tragedy makes you feel really unsafe and scared. It shakes the firm foundations you've based your life on - turns them to dust and you're slipping and falling and grabbing at something - anything - to anchor yourself. To steady yourself again.

I remember when my sister, Joanne, was killed. I left the hospital and went to my friend T's house. I stayed there for days. I finally had to go home to get ready for the funeral and I desperately didn't want to. I knew instinctively that once I went home, to the home that Joanne had been a part of, it would all be real. She would really be dead. Gone forever. Never to walk in that door again. Never to sit in the living room watching a movie with me again. Never in the kitchen baking with me again.

I knew that as long as I stayed at T's, as if it were just another of the hundreds of sleepovers I'd had with her, then Joanne's death could just be a bad dream I'd had. Everything could be normal and okay.

My instincts were spot on: going home was hideously painful. Gutted me. Forever changed me.

But here I am, many years later, changed but surviving. Laughing as often as I can and loving in a way that maybe only someone that's been through what I've been through knows how to love - fiercely and striving towards the unconditional.

I'm living my life as best I can.

I think Joanne would be proud of me for that.

Another Day

I'm tired. But still thankful.

~A new friendship with a neighbor

~Polka-dot pajamas

~Baking

~Thunderstorms

~Water

Faith

"I've ceased to believe."

"Believe in what?"

"In sense, in justice. In life."

~Philippa, Heaven


It wasn't so long ago that I was at a place in my life where I realized I believed in nothing anymore - God, marriage, friendship, family, the church, health, joy, life, myself....

It was an awfully scary place to be and I'm so thankful that I've clawed my way back to believing in a few things again. I still struggle on some fronts but I'm working on it.

Trying Hard to be Grateful

Ever get to a point when EVERYTHING is crap and it all hurts and pisses you off and if you don't want to cry then you end up laughing this ridiculously maniacal laugh that scares the people around you?

Yeah....that's where I'm at.

But there are still many things to be grateful for and here are just a few:

1. Mad Men (so damn sexy!)

2. My daughter's innate wisdom

3. Coupons!

4. Jennifer Weiner

5. That I can eat tons of crap all day and still lose a pound overnight. (I don't know why that happens. It just does. Don't hate me.)