the first day of #%*&+!

"just as the painter needs light in order to put the finishing touches to his picture, so i need an inner light, which i feel i never have enough of in the autumn."  leo tolstoy

 

yes, the weather is glorious here in nashville today.  yes, the air smells clean and crisp.  yes, i've spent most of the day out of doors.  yet i mourn to my core the end of summer.  fall brings with it some things i love, football, hockey (in a good year), the vibrant colors but for me it is the precursor to wet, rainy, dreary, sunless november.  the rainy season is almost on us here in middle tennessee and the ground will be soggy, muddy and cold from november-february.  it hurts.

 

this is always the time i vow to spend every sunny minute outside before the sun hides itself from me during the nashville winter.  i sometimes wish i could be the person who embraces fall as the beautiful season it is and yet i more closely align to the russian novelist quoted above.  a sad state of affairs, i suppose, but this quote is far more positive than the ernest hemingway i almost quoted.  that one is a killer!

 

i've been sick for a couple of days and that has added to my melancholy.  the house is still a shambles and though i have managed to run the dishwasher and wash a load of linens i've done precious little.  i read my lesson for church tomorrow and walked winston.  now i'm going to attempt to eat a bland dinner and find some mindless movie or TV episode to distract me.

 

thanks to some very generous friends, when my appetite returns, i have money for groceries.  though i certainly take for granted this season i've been given i do not take for granted the friends and family God has blessed me with.

 

grace and peace  

laughter is the best medicine

"dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which i guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis."  deep thoughts by jack handey

i spent today at my brother's house with the family.  i laughed hard, more than once, at my hilarious niece and nephew.  those kids are too funny.  they are quirky and smart, sarcastic and lovely.  they love me no matter what; no matter how misanthropic and introverted i can be.  i laugh so rarely now that it's a shock to my system.  it feels unnatural even as it's happening.  what a shame!  i hope that one day laughter will be a normal part of my life again and not just an anomaly.  

we watched hours of french open tennis until we turned it to stanley cup hockey.  i learned of many things that i've missed out on because of my lack of TV:  a new 'batman,' a new 'men in black,' a new 'spiderman?'  i had no idea.  just another reminder of how disconnected i am from the world around me.  

my niece made it clear that she would not be spending any time with me over the summer.  her reasoning:  no TV, no meat (i'm a vegetarian) and no sweets.  not for her, she said; i'm boring and weird.  she can't imagine how hard these last 2 years have been and the toll that they've taken.  i hope she never knows.

in the house full of activity, talk, TV, laughing, singing, yelling and fighting i, at times, felt very nervous and overwhelmed.  i don't realize the level of quiet to which i have become accustomed.  i wouldn't trade these days with them for anything though.  when i have a job and am able to see them less i will ache for these days of their childhood spent basking in the light and ease of summer.

this one's for you mackenzie and ben.  i love you!

grace and peace        



stephen king and jack white

i had 2 tasks today:  download the new jack white album and buy the new stephen king novel.  a few years ago this would have been a great day indeed--2 of my favorite artists releasing material on the same day.  yay!  well, this is not a few years ago and so today went like this:

paced the house anxiously dreading the bookstore (who EVER saw that coming?!) and tried hard to convince myself to use my remaining birthday money (in the form of an itunes gift card) to download the book to my ipad and skip the album therefore saving money and a trip to barnes and noble.  i got ready anyway, walked winston, headed out to west end with the knowledge that if i got there and couldn't go in that i could always come back home and read the damn ebook.  

i get there and, great day in the morning, there's a parking spot!  you nashvillians know how impossible that vanderbilt parking lot is.  it was a sign i suppose.  i made it inside and instantly my hopes of finding the book sitting on the "new release" table were dashed.  it was nowhere.  everyone in the new store (it just opened after the borders that used to be there folded) was busy.  i had to hunt through the store (both floors) which now appears to be the actual vanderbilt university bookstore--as in all the text books, sweatshirts, electronics and paraphernalia is on display.  i was anxious about the new surroundings and i still couldn't find the book.  i finally had to ask and one of the employees found it on a cart in the back.  

i realized as i walked though the cafe with my iced coffee that i was getting some looks.  since the flood i've joked that i feel like i have "flood victim" or "prone to panic attacks" or "PTSD" tattooed on my forehead because my anxiety makes me a little paranoid and ultra vulnerable.  i quickly remembered that i was standing in the middle of all these vandy students and i had on a white t-shirt with a huge orange "T" on both the front and back.  it was not my status as trauma survivor that was garnering all the attention it was my allegiance to the university of tennessee, and it's unmistakable orange, smack-dab in enemy territory.  i got out of there in one piece, no thanks to a rude man, who not only didn't hold the door for me, but nearly knocked me over on his way in.  it was so egregious in fact that a young guy came out after me and commented on it.  his kindness thus saving the aforementioned man from my wrath.

i rushed home as i always do after such outings with shaky hands and pounding heart, driving much too fast and running from and toward nothing in particular but my own anxious thoughts and fears.  i did get a little laugh as i was in the midst of a near tourette's screaming fit at a honda doing 55 in front of me in the fast lane.  yes, 55 is the speed limit, but "i can't drive 55!"  as i passed the car on the right, mid-scream, i turned to taunt the driver of said honda when i saw 2 nuns.  the nun driving had her hands at 10 and 2 and the nun in the passenger seat was holding rosary beads.  i'm not even kidding!  it was hilarious to me.  i laughed a good long while at that one.  as long my, by now, pounding head would allow.  

when i got home i downloaded the jack white and walked winston.  by the time i got inside it was 2:30 and my head was splitting!  from then until now i've been on the couch in the fetal position.  i don't know if it's stress, my ever-worsening eyesight, my allergies or my lackluster diet of late but i've been in severe pain.  so much so that i have neither listened to my new album or read a word of my long-awaited, difficult to come by, new book.

  

i just keep hearing ferris bueller's words over and over in my head, "how's that for being born under a bad sign?"  

grace and peace    

i bleed orange

it happened today.  my football team lost and we are not eligible for a bowl game.  that means that my college football season is over...in november!  it's awful.  as little southern girls we are taught to love and/or revere certain things, they are:

1.  our daddies;

2.  Jesus;

3.  our college football colors, mascot and coach;

4.  the make of car our daddies drive; and

5.  robert e. lee.

i grew up knowing that i would drive a ford (and i did--a baby blue mustang convertible) until we, as a family, switched to nissan.  i also grew up wearing orange every saturday from august-new years as those were the months that correspond with the university of tennessee volunteers football schedule.  i have untold amounts of orange clothing (and no one really looks good in orange!)  pre-flood i had at least a half dozen bottles of orange toenail polish (those too are orange for fall.)  i now only have one bottle of orange polish (bought for me by daddy shortly after the flood.)

i was food and familied out after the thanksgiving celebrations so i stayed home to watch the game on-line.  it was horrible.  i will never know if they could have pulled it out (we only lost by 3 points) had i driven across town to watch with the family!  we sports fans are a superstitious lot. 

my maternal grandmother is on her way to the hospital tonight with a high fever.  i'm worried about her and am waiting to hear some news.  my mono continues to hang on.  it was a beautiful day here today and we spent a good deal of time outside--rain and cold are expected tomorrow. 

my anxiety hasn't been too bad today.  at least until the sun went down and i started my hunt for the moon.  it's very cloudy now so there's no hope of seeing it tonight but the last 2 nights it's been relatively clear yet i have been unable to spot it.  i know nothing about the phases of the moon, i pay little to no attention to its location, but i have begun to be paranoid about its conspicuous absence since thursday night.  it was clear and i could see innumerable stars (rare this close to downtown) but the moon was MIA.  i haven't seen it since and am feeling a little uneasy about it. 

there is no limit to the wild, irrational thoughts to which i am prone these days.  i feel as if the earth itself has slipped from its orbit and i am the only one who knows it.

grace and peace



take me out to the ballgame

i'll post a real update (such as it is) tomorrow but just a quick word to share my disappointment in the texas rangers world series loss tonight.  i'm not a big baseball fan, just a sports fan in general.  i always watch the world series and since i used to live in dallas i've been pulling for the rangers in a big way for the past few weeks.  last night almost killed me!  so close!  one strike away 2 different times and they lost!!  tonight wasn't even competitive after the first inning.  i'm disappointed for them.  i'd hoped they would join the mavericks as world champs this year!

grace and peace

insomnia, i hate you!

"men tire themselves in the pursuit of sleep." laurence sterne

last night i spent the 5 hours i normally fight for sleep fighting for relief from my anxiety.  i slept from 2-3 and awoke in the throws of a severe panic attack.  i don't know what brought it about but i do know it was exasperated by my growing suspicion that the ticking mechanism in my bedside clock is getting exponentially louder.  i have long suspected this but i believe after last night that i have proof.

i have been an insomniac my whole life and there are several things that i've learned along the way, some of them are:

1. limit caffeine consumption,

2. use the bed for sleep and sex only,

3. do not have a digital clock in the room,

4. go to bed and get up at the same time every day,

5. do not watch tv in bed,

6. get out of bed, go to another room and do something if sleep won't come.

1, 3 & 5 are easy, 2, 4 & 6 not so much.  i don't have a digital clock in the house save for on the kitchen appliances, certainly not visible from my room, and i drink one cup of caffeinated coffee a day.  i will not even pretend to know how to go to bed at the same time every night though i am almost always up around 5:30.  i have also never been able to resist reading in bed. i have a small tv that is hooked up to a DVD player, but not to cable or satellite, and i very rarely turn it on.  i can never make myself get out of bed when i face even a full night of wakefulness because i continue to believe that i will fall asleep...right now, no...right now...!

when i woke up anxious i began the list-making (things left to do on the house, # of clocks I can hear ticking, # of bills that can be paid with my remaining funds) and the worrying (what if i do go crazy, what if the roaring i hear in my head - like the sound of the ocean in a seashell - is more than a symptom of this 2 week old congestion, why does my new neighbor insist on parking on the street instead of in the driveway and why does it bother me so much?)  btw, "bother" doesn't begin to describe how i feel about this injustice. other more appropriate words are: "anger," "infuriate" and "homicidal."

after laying awake until daybreak i finally got up and moved to the living room and watched a couple of episodes of "psych" on netflix before i sent my brother a text warning him of my impending visit to his house for a day of sports.  3 games, 3 different sports (college football, baseball, hockey) and 3 loses!  it was awful, but the company was good, my parents were both there as well as my sweet, funny, gorgeous and brilliant niece and nephew.  my 11 year old niece is thrilled at the fact that she is being written about right now.

i've just been home a short while and am going to post this and try my hand at getting some sleep tonight.  it is, after all, after 2:00 a.m.

grace and peace

can i borrow a stamp?

i have spent a lot of today bemoaning the fact that i can no longer buy stamps at my bank's ATM.  okay, it's been 15 years since that was a reality but every time i buy stamps i remember how easy and convenient is was to get a book of stamps without having to brave a post office or a kroger (the only 2 places i know to buy stamps.)  today it has dominated my thoughts as i awoke this morning in the midst of a terrible realization that i don't have stamps, that i need stamps and that i can go to neither of the above-mentioned places.  a panic attack of epic proportion set in.  this was at 5:00 a.m., exactly 4 hours and 25 minutes after i went to sleep. 

by 8:30 i was pacing the floors with a 3-hour thomas jefferson documentary already watched, breakfast already consumed and winston already walked.  this day has been a struggle.  it's possible that i've showered twice, both before and after a 30-minute nap around noon (i have no clear recollection but the tub was suspiciously wet and my towel equally damp.) 

i finally removed the mysterious purple toenail polish but immediately worried that i had made a mistake.  my reasoning being that if i chose that particular color and indeed painted them while sleepwalking then could it be smart to remove it while awake?  then i rebuked myself for being "unreasonable." :)  i've made it 2 weeks into the college football season without orange toenails and am now concerned that painting them mid-week before saturdays' UT/florida game is playing fast and loose with our 2-0 record. (this insanity has nothing to do with my anxiety - it's just a sports fan's superstition. go vols!)

other than my momentary fear that i had contracted both a blood clot and lyme disease on sunday while watching the ladies U.S. Open final when i learned that these are the afflictions that most recently side-lined finalists serena williams and sam stosur respectively, i was at my "normal" anxiety level for most of sunday and monday after a horrible saturday (and yes, i watched part 4 of "lonesome dove.")  sunday brought with it a lot of emotion which i addressed in that days' post.  i attended church in the morning but did not make it back to sunday nights special 9/11 service.  i wanted badly to go but i felt too tired to drive and be safe (these meds really take it out of me!) 

grace and peace



two for two

two nights in a row i've had sweet friends take me to two of my favorite places in town for dinner.  it's always heartening to be reminded of those who are remembering me and reaching out to me in this crazy, uncertain time.  i was nervous all day (both days) about leaving the house, about getting to the restaurant first and not being able to go in by myself, about being too incoherent or distracted to have a conversation, about not enjoying myself, about not being able to give anything back to my friends. 

i survived both parking lots, both restaurants, both menus, both visits.  i'm exhausted and i had to take an extra anti-anxiety pill each day but i made myself go and i'm grateful i did.  the wonderful, gracious truth is that they don't want anything from me, they just want to know that i am still putting one foot in front of the other.

my grandmother moved back to the rehab center today and tomorrow i start sitting with her for a while each day.  i'm afraid that i've had too much coffee today (i tend to "treat" myself to coffee for having completed tasks:  leaving the house, buying stamps, surviving a trek outside of the house, etc.) and now i'm hopped up on the caffeine, though after 2 days of non-stop anxiety and near-panic i actually feel tired tonight.  maybe i'll sleep.

college football starts this weekend and i, once more, face a season with no television.  live sporting events are really the only thing that i miss.  GO VOLS! 

grace and peace and rocky top