I Use to Play Bass for the Proper Villians

Lately life has been a strange mix of beautiful and suck.

I had a really great interview last Monday with a nonprofit that is located 3 blocks from my house.  THREE blocks.  I could walk to work every day.  Plus I'd have insurance.  Actual insurance.  These are dreams of mine.  A job where I'd be doing something good (in this case taking care of a kitchen in a nursing home); I'd be getting paid every two weeks (without fail...no excuses or exceptions); I'd have real health insurance (which I still desperately need and am still too poor to afford); and I wouldn't need a car (which would be helpful as I currently don't possess or have access to a car).  They said they'd let me know at the end of last week if I had the job or not, but I've heard nothing at all else.  I actually called them on Monday, but it was a holiday so no one was in the office.  I called Tuesday and gave them a couple of extra numbers to try getting a hold of my last employer with (as she is notorious for not having her phone on, with her, charged, or checking her messages), but they said nothing at all about the position.  If I haven't heard back tomorrow, I'm calling again.  I need a job, and I had really hoped this one was the answer to my prayers.

The thing is, if it's not, I have a couple other places to apply, and a nice woman with a mutual friend put in a good word for me with her boss at another local business here in town.  It is also within walking distance.  I am, as I said, frustrated, but I'm also not without hope.

An old family friend recently asked me if I might be interested in tutoring/babysitting for her grandson who, as it turns out, is autistic.  Having a younger brother with Asperger's, I think this might be a challenge I could handle.  The only challenge will be trying to find a way to and from the house.  Thankfully they're close and it appears I can make my own hours.  I'll be contacting her before the week is out to see if I can have a trial day with the little boy to see if he will let me work with him.  If he does, I will hopefully have found something I can do, at least part-time to keep me afloat for awhile.

I've also taken a renewed interest in baking and cooking.  I'm honestly looking forward to the cooler weather (fall has always been my favorite) if for no other reason than I'll be able to turn the oven on and work in the kitchen without feeling like I'm going to die.  I will never be a summer person.  In the past couple of weeks I've made a couple of cheesecakes (one which I made up using leftover experiment cookies as my crust), some cookies, and pie.  In the process of trying to completely unpack (yes, finally), I found all of my cookbooks, and I'm beginning to think I may have to start trying out recipe by recipe until I go through all the things I've collected over the years.  It will be a good way to get rid of stuff I'll never use again and hopefully find some new favorite dishes for the family.

On top of this, I've been creating notes all over the place about books to write.  God only knows what will come of that, but I've got a couple of really good ideas for kids books.  If I can get myself to hold still and type some of this up (or scribble it out on paper or at the typewriter), I might have something else to try and publish.  Plus I've started trying to pull together poetry I've written over the years.  I may have something to try for there as well.

Beyond all of this, I have found myself, once again, grateful to have the library across the street.  I have been checking out books and reading everything.  I'm finally going through the last of the books that I own but have never managed to read.  I may actually finally have everything read through by the end of the year.  It won't even take that long if I don't find more work soon.

Like I said, it's a mix of beautiful and suck.  At least, through all of this, I have good people on my side hoping and praying right along with me.  I am not sure what I want to do or where I'll be in the next year, but I continue to hope that I'll be smart enough to greet it as it comes and enjoy where I'm at in the meantime.

Broke Blind Bedlum

These days people are trying to convince me of my goodness, my worth, and that I'm going to be alright. I feel bad for them. No one should watch someone they care about feel like they're caving in. It's scary, messy, frustrating business. 

It's odd because I've been on both sides of this equation, but I feel like I live on the collapsing side now. It makes me angrier and darker. I am struggling to see how anyone could stand being near me or listening to me. 

And then I get a text from a friend reminding me she loves me or I get a perfectly timed email from my best friend reminding me why she's always been the "other half of my soul" or a sweet friend tells me that I just don't see the impact I have on others or I convince one of my brothers to write a funny 80 page story by Christmas as a bet or my mom asks me to read the story at the library story time this week or you find 2 TV shows with characters exactly your age going through their own twisted version of your life or a friend says she wants to come take a walk with you after work later this week...

Then I suddenly have Hugh Grant's words in my head "I have a sneaking suspicion if you look...you'll see live really is all around."

I genuinely have no idea what I want from life anymore or what I'm actually capable of because it's been a long time since I believed in myself or had a real dream that I wanted for myself. I have been thinking about it, and I'm honestly not sure I know the last time I feel like I was put in a place for me. I've gathered a truly amazing group of friends, but every place I end up feels like I'm their for everyone else's needs or to build them up or their dreams. I don't have a problem with this, but I'm hoping someday my heart can be one of the ones being fixed and worked on for a change because I'm wondering how I'm still breathing and how it's even beating with all these holes and pieces missing. 

I am a mess, but, thank God, I am not alone. I will hold myself together. These new wounds and breaks will become scars and I will keep moving.

Embrace the Suck

For the past two days I have barely moved.  My back started hurting on Monday but I chose to carefully ignore what I saw as a familiar sign to my back checking out.  Sure enough, Tuesday morning came and my back spasmed as I tried to talk to my car to head to the gym.  I ended up curled up on my front porch with both of my parents standing next to me trying to figure out what to do.  Within 5 minutes, I was laying on a couch on top of a heating pad that also massages your back.  So began a day of nothing but watching movies and ingesting as much in the way of ibuprofen as my body could stand.  I woke up this morning and called into work immediately.  If I don't get fired in the next couple weeks it will be a miracle with all the work I have missed so far this year from vacations, sickness, and now my back.

I find that the what is making me craziest is that I am completely vulnerable.  I have to rely on someone else virtually all the time.  In case you hadn't figured it out yet, I am terrible at letting other people truly take care of me.  It makes me feel useless.  I know I should be able to accept help, and I do sometimes, but when I am literally unable to stand up straight or walk more than a foot without serious pain...it makes it hard to do anything.  I have had to rely on my family to carry things for me, make my meals, put movies in for me, charge my phone, and bring me pain meds.  They have been wonderful, and I hate every minute of this.  I can't do housework, I can't go to work, I can't do anything I normally do.  I am stir crazy and super vulnerable and I am crying a lot.  You try dealing with this kind of pain and tell me you wouldn't cry.

On top of which, I find that because I can't be engaged in any real activities, I am thinking far too much about things that are not necessary to think about.  I am thinking about how much I miss friends, how much life is changing, how lonely I am, how guys still don't ever seem to see me as a woman (even when I am dressed up) and how I just want to feel loved.

My friend, Heather has been phenomenal (she always is), and she has been a constant source of encouragement these past two days.  She and I are so much alike it is scary, and she has been trying to keep my spirits up and help me to not wallow in my frustration over both this pain and my situation in life.  I was reminded by her today of a quote that I love from A.J. Jacobs where he talks about how we need to "embrace the suck."  The first time I read that I fell in love.

Doesn't it just make you smile in spite of yourself?  Yes, the day might be lousy.  Perhaps you want to throw your spine out a window and become a jelly fish.  Perhaps you want to run away someplace where you can hide and lay in a hammock until someone truly wants to seek you out and find your heart.  Perhaps you are just tired of being alone.  I am all of these things and more, but I am going to try to follow Jacobs' example and go for it.  Tonight I will embrace the suck and tomorrow I will do the same.  I will make the best of the bad, and somehow, this will all work out.

In the meantime, find the joy, my friends.