Tonight, Part 450 (Approximately)

Lately I've been thinking and doing some stuff to move forward with my degree and my career. I've gone so far as to start the application process to the Pie-in-the-Sky State University that I have my highest sights set upon. I've gone through some of the motions and even started the short essay of "Why You Should Let Me Study At Your School." I haven't submitted anything yet because it's not complete, but I'm pretty satisfied with what I have so far.

I had a brief detour last week from this endeavor. I found myself riddled with self-doubts and questions of "why bother?" and other such nonsense.

The question of "why bother?" was answered with "besides the fact that you are, indeed, worth it, you practically OWE IT to the people you serve to move forward in the level of care that you are legally able to provide." I can say this about myself professionally: I crave the ability to do more. I can do more. I can almost run circles around my own job. I crave more responsibility and I want to be the one writing the prescriptions, diagnosing, doing therapy, et cetera.

So professionally, this is what I need to do. Doing the nursing assessments is nice, but frankly, it's too easy. I assess, I fill out a form. I'm not knocking it, it needs to be done. I *LOVE* visiting clients in the home. I almost always find a find to do more than I set out to do. I could keep it simple, gathering vitals and briefly discussing the details of their lives, but I find myself wanting to do more. Sometimes I wish I could just stay with them all day cleaning their apartments and making them more comfortable in their environments, but this is really not nursing. Still, these aren't easy tasks. I think that what I am drawn to are the challenges these people face and where I can fit in with that.

On the other hand, the doing more hand, I think that with the professional and academic track I am on, it only makes sense to further my education and become a nurse practitioner. This means get through the Bachelors, get through a Master's degree geared towards practicing adult psychiatry and get my certification.

I am still not 100% clear on what I really need to do to do this post-Master's stuff, but I do know that before anything else happens, I need the Bachelor's degree.

A few things have happened in the last couple of days that have told me that now is not the time to give up. Now is not the time to say Oh, my life is so hard and complicated, maybe I should just stick with working things out and wait until everything is all settled down and comfortable and then I'll think about school.

Hey, that day might not ever come! Things might not ever be as "stable" as I imagine they can be. And yet time will continue to pass and either it'll pass with me attaining the necessary degrees or it won't.

The only sure thing is that TIME WILL PASS.

I had a conversation today with someone I consider a mentor, a nurse practitioner at my workplace who really kind of helped seal up the deal. She basically reflected the whole idea of just getting back into school, getting the degrees taken care of, doing it now and not later. She gave me some good solid advice in a really concise way. She confirmed what I had been suspecting: NOW is the time.

I've got to at least try to move forward. I've got a solid goal, I've got some good experience, I've got the work ethic, and I've got the passion to work in this field to the highest level of my ability.

So what the heck am I waiting for?

Thursday Evening

Mood coming around slowly. Feel like I'm shaking out the cobwebs, mentally. Working hard on putting things into perspective.

I've been listening to way too much NPR lately to think that my life sucks. I might have some issues in my life, but in the grand scheme of things, I'm holding it down. Currently, I own no property while the value of property continues to plummet. I miraculously sold a house recently in the very inhospitable Florida housing market. I can afford my rent and expenses. Plus, I am gainfully employed.

We are healthy. We might not be perfect, but we are pretty good. We have health insurance.

There are so many things that I personally crave, that may or may not ever materialize. I think I was a good wife. I want to be one again some day. I wish Penny had a sibling or two closer to her age but this may not ever happen. I just don't want to turn out to be the crazy widow mother of the little girl with no father. I just don't want that to be Penny, or Sadie, or me.

Life has become a constant locker room pep talk. I am the coach and the team at the same time. Some days I'm admonishing myself for all of the mistakes I've made, opportunities squandered. Other days I'm mentally rubbing my shoulders and patting my back and telling myself to just keep pushing and success, in some form, will be mine.

And the team, the other side of me that listens, just keeps on going out there and playing, with and without faith depending upon the day.

Monday Night

So I've really been feeling the need to travel lately but a few things are getting in my way. Let's get them out of the way before I commence with the day-dreaming, ok?

• Childcare
• Dog care
• No vacation time accrued yet
• Affordability
• Decisions

Ok, forget all of that stuff. There are solutions to each point I've listed. I just really need to recharge. The last time I went on a real getaway was April of 2005. Rob and I took long weekend to Ocean City, MD and made Penny. It was nice. But returning from that short/long weekend, I was met with some kind of weird information. One) the dogs just need kenneling and not family to watch them and Two) I had just had a future career rug pulled out from under me. So whatever relaxation may have occured while we were gone, it was all negated by the realities of returning.

The next time I go anywhere, I want to come back to relative peace and quiet.

And don't even dare to think for a second that the past couple of years of back-and-forth to Florida even come close to real vacationing. Each one of those trips down to Florida was a fact finding mission filled with town and house hunting and heavy DECISIONS about major life changes. I mean, we may have gone to Disney or seen some interesting things. That's not what a vacation is about. We always came back exhausted, with more questions than answers.

And, please, don't suggest that my trips up to Jersey were vacations either. They were more like brief gasps of fresh air at the surface of my life in the fishbowl. I would hold out there, like holding my breath underwater, until I was ready to crack, order a round-trip ticket, and take a deep breath every time I came up. Evidently, it sustained me.

But really, crying on the airplane every couple of months at the ecstasy of landing in Newark and the horror of landing in Tampa and just wondering how much more I could take...well, that's not a vacation either.

So I think I need a vacation!

For real this time!

Of course I'll take the girls somewhere this summer when Sadie has off from school. I think even prior to that, I need to travel somewhere that is not part of a fact finding mission, or house hunting, something for myself. I need to go somewhere that is just for me.

It might be nice to go somewhere I've never been before. I don't really know that I want to rekindle old memories. This world is huge, but I can't come up with anything.

Dear Internet Friends, do you have any suggestion?

OBAMA WINS

I want to say this as if no one is watching and everyone is watching. 

I just watched Barack's acceptance speech, and frankly, I am moved. After eight years of extreme discomfort and impending doom under the Bush/Cheney regime, here we are. The historical quality of this election cannot be over-emphasized. What an interesting time in history to be alive.

Here we have the first president of the United States of non-Caucasian heritage. You cannot downplay the power of this fact. He won by a landslide. Considering that this group of people attained the right to vote a mere 138 years ago, give or take a few months, this is monumental. It also feels like a very, very long time has passed between the right to vote and the opportunity to win. It has been a long, hard fight up until now. 

The landslide quality of this event should serve as a stern reminder to the Republican party. According to the evidence shown today, most of the people in this country do not feel that you are up to the task of representing our country on a national scale. The proof is in the pudding. Take this as an opportunity to re-work your mission. Find what is good in your party, in your ideals, and discard the bullshit that scares the rest of the country away. Smaller government-OK! Guns for every Tom, Dick, and Harry-maybe not so OK! Entwining yourself with the dwindling conservative Christian-right and others obsessed with other people's uterine activities-really, really not OK!

This is our country, and by God I feel it's the greatest one on Earth. This is not a new notion and I am far from alone in my opinion. Certainly the most important, the one with the most influence on the rest of this planet. For good or for bad, that's what it is. It's a huge responsibility. It was borne from the minds and hearts of the greatest rebels that ever lived and by it's nature it is a mutable place, able to change as needed for the good of it's citizens and absolutely responsible to do so. Within the framework of the Constitution, which remains ambiguous in the best of ways to keep the dialogue open and flowing.

It is not too late for the GOP to get their act together and avoid becoming a footnote in history. (OK, I know this is a far-reaching statement but bare with me-other very good political parties have disappeared over time). I am not anti-GOP. I share some of their ideals. Hell, I'm in love with one.  I just think that by and large, a lot of people have a very hard time aligning themselves with a party that is mostly anti-choice, and primarily conservative Christian, among other things. 

How about if both parties just kind of turned their back on that pre-historic way of thinking? What would happen then? Would we just be left with real issues like the economy, the military, our relationship to the rest of the world? Shouldn't that be enough? Why muddle it with the dark and private recesses of what goes on in our female citizens' uteri and if dudes and chicks want to marry people of the same sex? 

Isn't that what God is for? To sort all that out later on? Isn't that, kind of, his or her domain? 

We are humans. Let us worry about humankind. Let us take care of each other. 

And let the chips shall fall where they may.

Something To Consider

I have been a fan of Merlin Mann's ever since I stumbled upon 5ives back in 2006. I found the concise entries of bulleted entries funny and thoughtful and really believed he was on to something good in that format. I still believe this. I'm sure he would retch upon reading any of my entries but that's Ok. He made me want to be better, and although this is a slow process I think I might be getting a little bit better at this. If anything, I'm getting a little bit better than the early days of "wow, we ate SUCH a great dinner!"

So I'm completely reproducing something that I read on 45 Folders that I have been taking to heart as of late. I'm think he would probably detest this. I'm sorry for that, but I really think it bears repeating for all of the people who don't really follow him.

Oh, and how did I find him? Not sure. It was probably a link on a blog in a galaxy far, far away. Point is I don't remember. I do know that somehow during that time, probably the same afternoon spent lazily on the couch in the throes of maternity leave, that I also discovered McSweeney's. Both discoveries have stirred a latent desire in me to write a little bit more, and hopefully a little bit better.

Merlin's most important words of wisdom, in my opinion, to date, from Kung Fu Grippe, with my thoughts mixed in:

• identify and destroy small-return bullshit; (if it's never going to return what you put into it, say goodbye)

• shut off anything that’s noisier than it is useful;
  
• make brutally fast decisions about what I don’t need to be doing; (brutally fast. i need to work on this.)

• avoid anything that feels like fake sincerity (esp. where it may touch money); (This is my favorite one and I have disobeyed this rule a nauseating number of times. See next bullet's comment)

• demand personal focus on making good things; (I really need to be more demanding. Never again will I get prison gang-raped when buying a car. That's just one example that comes to mind.)

• put a handful of real people near the center of everything. (this one reminds me of selecting your wedding party. if there are only a few REAL people, then plan a small procession)

And, so, these are some of the mantras that I aspire to live by. Naked and brutal bits to shape the new view I hope to attain. Because this circular way of thinking and behaving that I've fallen into is doing nothing to push me forward. 

Like his stuff or not, it's not important. I like it. I find inspiration in it. 

Why Tonight?

When I truly need nothing more than slipping into the darkness of slumber, why can I not sleep? Have I not earned it somehow? Do I honestly need to hear the silence, see the empty space next to me and wonder if it will ever be inhabited by another soul? Should I, at 1:45 am, really have to face these thoughts?

So why tonight? 

With each minute that passes my mind grows more and more fixated on my need to sleep playing against the back drop of everything real and imagined scenario that causes me anxiety and sadness. 

I want these feelings to be over. 

I want to feel secure in something again. 

I am sick of it being 1:45 am, alone, with no one to prod out of their slumber so I can bear just one simple request:  hold me.

How I could've had that at one time and how it could've been so forcefully ripped out of my hands, well, it's just a very cruel feeling. I am left to imagine every unthinkably horrible event that could strike the lives of me and the girls by myself in bed late at night. No one is there to remind me how ridiculous these fears are. The reason: they have proven themselves to not be ridiculous fears but something that could happen and that already has happened to us.

The light coming through the window has a very late autumn quality to it. I imagined for a moment that there was snow falling.  Discovering that there wasn't snow was almost a relief, and not because it was going to make driving difficult, or that we might slip on ice, or even because we don't really have the proper foot wear yet.

It is because it would've been so beautiful to see that I almost can't stand the thought of seeing it now. I have gone on for months about how much I've missed the snow.  And I do-I certainly do. It's just that the discovery of snow falling in the middle of the night is a much nicer thing when someone is there to wake up to break the news to. Just as nice is having someone shake you out of a slumber to spread the good word. I know this to be true.

Most things of beauty are difficult for me to handle. Any of the good times I have are very fleeting. I feel like I'm having a hard time carrying myself through this ugly phase. I have come to start looking at it as if I am crossing some shallow but freezing body of water by way of hopping onto rocks poking through the surface. The rocks are moments of joy that I have to leap to. Sometimes my aim is off or my jump is to short and I wind up floundering into the water. I will not drown, but I am freezing and uncomfortable when I fall short. I can stand on a rock to catch my breath and appear to be on solid ground, but I'm almost always assessing my freezing feet in their wet shoes. Time is the invisible hand that won't allow me to linger on the rock and we, me and time, just have to keep moving.

I do keep moving though. There is no other way. From one pleasant moment to the next, but the in between part is agonizing. The part where I'm up to my shins in swiftly moving water that is so cold my feet have long since gone numb is what makes up the majority of my days.

This is incredibly unfair to the girls. I put my best face on around them, but cry behind their backs. How can they not know? How can they not sense that their own mother?

Will it always be this way. Will I be standing on a rock in cold, wet feet when either of my girls are graduating from high school or college? What kind of condition will I be in when either of them gets married or has children? Will I truly be able to enjoy any of it or will there always be this nagging emptiness in my heart? Will I never regain my sense of balance again? 

This is a very frightening and sobering thought, now, at 2:15 am, with Jack Johnson singing in my imagination that it seems to me that maybe pretty much always means no... I am sick of maybes and time-will-tells. I want the answer now.

One Week

Can I just give my prediction of election here? I could be proven to be completely wrong, but the odds are really 50/50 anyway. So can I just say here there that:

Obama is going to be our next president.

He will be our first African-American president (even though he is technically mixed race).

My own grandmother, a little, old white lady who lived in close proximity to Plainfield during the riots is going to vote for Obama. She is, as a devout Catholic, staunchly anti-abortion, but a life-long Democrat mostly due to FDR leading her family along with the rest of the county out of the Great Depression. I think part of her knows that the pro-life stance is mostly a foil for some peoples' desires to combine church and state. In times like these, and times like those, most people know that the best course of action is to recover our economic state and to keep the judges out of the uteri.

God will sort that all out later. 

I think you might be getting an inclination as to how I will vote in SEVEN DAYS.

And what a crazy ride it's been thus far. I love election years. I love watching the inane minutiae of political coverage minute by minute.  I stand in fascination of the evotlution of CNN from being a very dry, but reliable source of news to what it is today-pretty much just a cartoon. Has anyone been watching Anderson Cooper? He's the new pundit-eye candy that Dan Abrams was during the 2000 election and 9/11. But he might be gay, which makes it all the more tantalizing. 

Mostly, I love the fact that we are going to have a fresh face in the White House, after eight years of embarrassment under the Bush administration. 

Enjoy the next 7 days, people. Something good will come out of it. I am quite sure of that.

But remember my prediction. If I am wrong, you can slam me without remittance to your heart's desire. And if I am right? Well, then history will have been made.

My New Reality

It is safe to say that I am never satisfied. There have been brief moments in life when I have felt content, like on my honeymoon, following the births of the girls, or when I graduated from nursing school. It only occurs after I've crawled across the glowing coals that I've felt even a glimmer of satisfaction.

But like everything, it is a fleeting emotion. After crossing any imaginary finish line, I still have this burning desire in me to define what is next and move towards it. The momentum always keeps me going.

Now what? This momentum has been replaced by confusion. We are here, we are back in New Jersey and I can't make any sense of what to do next. This apartment will do, but it has nothing to do with the life I desire. Work is very good, but I just feel like I could do so much more with the agency. However, for the time being I am limited. It would take a hell of a lot more school to be prescribing medications. I hope to get there, but I don't even know where to begin.

I am itching to buy another house in '09. I want to stay in Rutherford and the next year is probably a good time to pursue this as housing prices continue to fall. By my estimation, and given what I would be bringing with me in cash to a deal, I could actually wind up paying less per month on a mortgage AND taxes than I pay per month in rent. This is a tantalizing possibility. 

There is also the aspect of owning my own home again and doing whatever I please with it. Not having to share a roof with another tenant in another unit sounds like heaven. Being able to just let the dogs do their thing in a yard that's not filled with the other tenant's TRASH sounds good too. Not worrying about the baby getting tetanus from the various pieces of jagged metal CRAP sounds really good too. 

It is very hard to find a 3 bedroom apartment that allows dogs. I have briefly toyed with the idea of actually placing the dogs in another home so that I could find a different apartment, but this was just madness talking.  The dogs are getting along like champs and I could never part with them. I love them with all my heart, even though they spend the better part of their evenings getting scolded for carrying out their canine lesbian sex acts in front of me. 

I think a big part of making this decision to buy a house is that it is not something I'm doing with a partner, or even in memory of a partner, or under any sort of spell of grief that is making me think unclearly. It is a very real, very worldly dilemma.  As far as wanting a house, really feeling like I need my own home again-it's a very clear need of mine. 

There were a million and one reasons why I should not have purchased property in Florida 3 months after my husband passed away. The understatement of the century may have been that I wasn't thinking clearly. I get so angry sometimes over having done this. I wish someone would've talked me out of it. I think once Scott may have gently asked if buying property was really the best choice right now, which I waved away like flies off of a pie. The truth is, no one in my inner circle was thinking clearly. All of us-our grief was so very raw at that time. 

At a time like that, all thinking is delusional, magical, and highly flawed as far as the real world is concerned. It's just what happens. The air is filled with special catch phrases:  passed away, happens for a reason, would've wanted, and so on.  

I've come to pick apart some of these phrases once the magical thinking began to abate and reality set in. Here is what I've come up with:

Passed Away-this sounds quite peaceful, and I believe it was for him, which I am grateful for given how much I loved him and how I wouldn't have wanted him to suffer any more. However, the reality of the situation is, here was a man at age 37 who died unexpectedly, 2 days after moving to Florida to start a new life with a wife and 2 children ages 14 and 1 1/2. So while he may have "passed away," in reality he was severed from our lives in a most horrifying way. Sadie was just getting the hang of the idea of being a teenager and Penny, unfortunately, will have absolutely no memory of this man at all. And not to beat a dead horse, but this makes my job as a mother very difficult.

Happens for a Reason-this one I've come to hate the most. I don't think I can ever utter this to another human being in regard to a death for the rest of my life. For anyone who has said it to me, I'm not aiming this at you. Sometimes there is literally nothing else to say.  I've said it to myself over and over again and still come up empty. We were just trying to convince ourselves that the reason is out there some where and will materialize and we'll all be so happy again once we just find that reason. I'm not beyond thinking that the reason might be that I am just not allowed to enjoy my life fully, and that my children don't deserve the deep, rich happiness of having a very good father figure in their lives partnered with a mother who is content with life. 

(I will allow this much-possibly the reason will not become apparent until generations from now, long after we're all gone. This gives me a glimmer of hope but only because I am a sucker for genealogy. It's the only theory that holds any water about the Happens for a Reason line of thinking.)

Would've Wanted-this one has caused me the most trouble. This is where the guilt comes in and I wish the whole idea of Would've Wanted didn't even exist in our vernacular surrounding death. We are told, even in the funeral mass we were told, that the dead are in a place beyond space and time. So why are we encouraged to make them a part of our worldly decisions that are ours and ours alone? The dead do not care what you do with their bodies, what you do with the money, what you do with their clothing, or anything else that is of the physical plane. The living, while they're alive, might tell you what they wish you would do in certain circumstances after their gone. I was left with basically this blue-print:  make sure that Penny understands football. That was as far as the discussion ever went. And I don't know a damn thing about football. So I'm going to need some help on this one.

So regarding my very adult dilemma about what to do next...whether to seek out another rental (because this place is not going to make the cut come next September) or to pursue the option of buying another house, I can no longer ask myself what Rob would've wanted. Sure, we always liked Rutherford but we always felt the housing prices were a little beyond us. This was back in '04 or '05 when the ticket prices on the homes in every town were completely distorted. Now, they seem doable. 

Right now the ball is my court and my court only, and there is no one along side me to make half of this decision, to talk me out of a nonsensical decision or confirm the wisdom of my, or I should say "our" choice. This is really uncharted territory because I have given up on the magical thinking that led me to buy a house in error last time. Reality is what lays before me and we really haven't been the greatest of friends up until now. I recently just met reality when I sold my home in Florida for, um, LESS than I payed for it. It was an awkward beginning, but it was true, and the house IS sold so at least reality is reliable. I guess reliability may be what I need most right now.

Some Things That Inspire Me...

Ugh folks. It's been crappy night. Is it Monday morning yet?

Ok, I know to the rest of the world, Monday morning is like a dreaded disease akin to cancer or Parkinson's, or maybe just irritable bowel syndrome (IBS! You be WHAT? If you don't recognize this bit, it's time to watch Lady Killers) but to me it's like A NEW BEGINNING! A new week of real productivity. The place where you pick up where you left off on Friday. Time to shire!

So it's only Wednesday, or as some people call it "Humpday" and trust me there is certainly no humping in my household tonight...well, it's Wednesday and I'm already dying for the weekend to be over and to feel the rush of Monday morning.  The day I can escape the thought of mothering and laundry and all the other stuff that I seem to belly-crawl through on my own while mortars are exploding all around me. Well, actually, it's mostly dog fur, but still.  

Maybe it's just me...

This fracture in my life-home life vs. career. Tonight career is in the lead. Wish I could pull it all together into one nice little package called My Life. 

Any CBHer that is reading this is probably laughing like hell. "Career?" they are saying to themselves. And the chocolate milk is shooting out of their nose as they laugh and laugh. 

Hey, we work at a pretty damn important place. That's my response. We do a lot of good, a lot of important things. When you see me there, you best be sure that I am doing something I was born to do. I'm not just walking around with that clipboard for nothing. I am being therapeutic every chance I get. Every single word that escapes my mouth is trying to say the same thing:  I feel for you. I am trying to understand you. I am trying to help you continue to survive in this crazy world. Hell, I don't know if I can survive this crazy world, but I think I can, and I think you can too. We are in this together.

Sure, I don't have my masters yet, not even my bachelors if you want to know the truth. But I am one human being determined to help as many as possible. As has been said before in this blog, what more is nursing than therapeutic use of the self? That's what I am doing every minute I am there. 

So like I said when I started this entry, today kind of sucked. I am going to now turn the topic around to some things that inspire me simply because I need to remind myself every now and again why I wake up in the morning. In bulleted format here goes nothing:

• My kids:  the toughest job I'll ever love, even more so than the Army IMHO. When they do something great or make any improvement whatsoever, it feels like the gates of heaven have opened up. They are the greatest example of living for something other than myself. And some how, this fills my very self up with the greatest feeling ever. It is truly a magical experience. (The flip side is when they disappoint-this is when I feel the flames of hell lapping at my toes.)
• My peeps:  Much, much more consistent than the kids, but without the gates of heaven thingy.  Well, sometimes they do this, but I usually don't hear the trumpets blaring like when the kids do something awesome. More constant. More supportive. Willing to listen to me complain about the kids. And when they don't meet my expectations, it's just a low-grade kind of disappointment, not the kind that makes me want to stick my head in the oven. Overall, I give them an A+ for consistency.
• Family-how is it that I look so much like my mother and my father at the same time? And so does my brother but in a different way. I mean, we look alike but not exactly; we both have a good mix of both of our parents. Far OUT, man. And how is that I can look so similar to other relatives who died long before I was born. I mean, WTF? That is some seriously freaky shit.
• Love-it just keeps going and going and going. Where does this come from? What keeps it going?  How is that I can feel love for some seriously monstrous people along side people who have done some incredible good? I firmly do not believe that the answer is anything religious, but just part of being a decent human being. This shit really does make the world go 'round. Can you imagine if there was no love? Heavy...
• No I am not doing any drugs right now; I don't partake any more.  I am truly high on life. And nostalgia. And a little Chardonnay. 
• The Internet! I have said this many, many times before, but I believe that the creation of the Internet was one of the BEST things to have ever, EVER  happened to mankind. How else could ideas be exchanged so readily, so deeply, in such a timely fashion? The Internet is the REASON that my second child exists. The Internet helped me get through nursing school. The Internet is the reason I didn't succumb to a state of complete and total despair after Rob died. Oh Lord, I could go on about the Internet for a long, long time. The friendships I have made, rekindled, breathed life into over the web...there just isn't enough time for all of it.
• Work-I'm not aiming to make the average individual nauseous over my glowing review of how much I love my job. As far as nursing goes, it's not top dollar. I could be making a hell of a lot more in the hospital. That's ok. Been there, done that. And the more time and distance I put between me and the hospital the more I come to believe that I DID THE RIGHT THING. At first, it was quite a blow to the ego to leave. It was my choice, they urged me to stay. Trust me, I was not tossed out on my ear. But something inside me told me to go. And I did. And time has proven this instinct to be right on target with reality. Hurray for instincts.
• Cooking-If there is one thing that I feel very, very sure about, it's my ability to create a meal that will bring you to your knees. Now listen, I am not the greatest baker, but give me a stove-top, some pans, a decent cut of meat, some vegetables, and a starch and I can usually make a very good meal that will all be served at a uniformly pleasant temperature. I had lost some of my ability and culinary instincts in FL, but it's a bit like riding a bicycle. I am close to being back on top of the game and the end is no where in sight.
• And last, being back in New Jersey. The sight of the skyline from the ridge-anywhere from Kearney before the Hackensack and Passaic Rivers empty out into the Bay of Newark to, well, I guess the farthest north I've been lately is Hackensack-well, this view has done a tremendous amount of good for my soul. It makes me feel like I truly live in the center of the Universe. While there is something to be said about the flatness of Florida and I've written before about how wondrous it is to hear the thunder coming from miles and miles away in such a terrain, this is really the landscape that I belong in for...at least the next four or five years.

Lizslist

*Free!2 good home-2 small obnoxious dogs, very barky, shed a lot, will easily justify the carpet shampooer you bought during a session of retail therapy-1 slender JRT with problematic separation anxiety-would be an excellent companion to a single man who prefers TV over human company + 1 JRT/Dal mix-the dogification of Jim Belushi's character in Animal House-doesn't just bark but actually cries like a baby! A must see!

*Will work for money-15 y/o who needs to stop asking me for so much money. 'Nuf said.

*Wanted-3 BR apt in R'ford that has been maintained properly. Tenant has a touch of OCD and will take care of property. With a toothbrush. And comet. Lots of comet.

*Tired of bitching under your breath to yourself? Holla back if you need someone to bitch about things with...bitch...

*35 y/o/F seeking wife-no sex involved-but for all the other things wives are supposed to do. Must be very clean/detail-oriented/financially stable/quiet/love kids/wine/ dishwashing/proficiency in laundry skills and foot massaging a must/preference in using bleach/comet over ammonia a non-negotiable MUST

*For sale-entire contents of storage unit MUST GO-you name it, it's in there.  

*Experienced cleaning person for hire. No task too big or small. Help me exercise my OCD by giving me a different mess to worry about. 

Sunday

So I've been tracking two people running the marathon in Chicago today. I can't imagine running a marathon, but I think it's something I would like to do some day. I ran cross country in high school and while I did enjoy it a lot, I managed to hurt myself pretty badly. I had to go to an orthopedist who diagnosed me with flat feet and scoliosis and wasn't a bit surprised that I got hurt this way.

After a few months recovery, the cold shoulder from my coach, procurement of custom-made shoe inserts, and a lot of boredom and depression, I decided that maybe running wasn't for me. So I took up smoking pot and hanging out with a bad crowd. It was just so much easier than getting back in to running.

Now here I am, almost 20 years later, and still considering the implications of not resuming an activity that I really enjoyed. I'm still wondering if there will be a day that I can run again. The chances are looking slimmer given the fact that I have a bunion now (thanks again, flat feet). 

I'm not going to write too much about this stupid bunion because I think it will become a hot topic in the future. Suffice to say that it hurts just about every day, sometimes pretty damn bad, and I find myself not exactly limping, but babying it in a way that can't be good for the rest of my body.

2009 is going to be the year of medical and dental procedures for all of us. The kids of course need the routine stuff and we're going to get on track entirely as far as that's concerned. The baby is due for another echo-cardiogram before she hits age 5. It's for something that the pediatric cardiologist has labelled as "trivial" but "worth monitoring." The thing is, they can get the best picture of the area of her heart that they want to look at while she's still a toddler, before her internal anatomy starts to change. I say, let's do it while our schedule is open.

Me-yeah, I have a lot on the plate. More tooth extractions.  Podiatry. Maybe a bunion removal. I am not a BIT afraid of that. I am most afraid of this stupid foot getting more and more deformed, more and more painful, and hobbling around for the rest of my life, throwing my entire skeleton out of whack. 

Yeah, I know, titillating talk here...

Back to the marathon:  my co-worker finished a little while ago, but he's always training so that was no big surprise.  His time was awesome, in my humble opinion.  The other runner I am tracking hit the 30K mark a while back and is moving along toward the finish line. 

Maybe running won't be in the cards for me. I would really need to discuss this with a doctor, which irritates me. I feel frustrated with my physical annoyances, which are pretty small in the grand scheme of things. 

Most likely, I just need to get a grip.

Rapid Cycling

I was going to remove the last post, but figured:  Fuck it. It is what is it is. And it's the truth.

Well, I've had me a little Louis Jadot, it's midnight, the house is quiet on this Saturday evening.

It is what is it is.

I am who I am.

Let the games begin.

I miss having someone near me, and I mean really NEAR me, to share in my workday antics and anecdotes, who is not a co-worker. Someone who can still be shocked by my stories of just how clinically insane people can be and how I can still love these people with all of my heart. A co-worker will, and HAS, told me that "loving" them is not really beneficial on a clinical level. This might be true....but I doubt it. What is more therapeutic than LOVING someone despite the fact that they are delusional, crazy, out there, completely incongruous with reality. I don't have to join in their delusion to love them. 

I just love them. 

What better nurse can you have? The one sticking a needle in your ass, hopefully helping you to carry through with the rest of your week when you forget to take your pills, or take them incorrectly. Those pills you eye suspiciously and hide in your cookie jar or toss down into the sewer. My injection will stay with you for a week or so, peak in intensity around day 3 after the shot, and carry you through until the next one so you don't go completely psychotic and wind up in a very bad place if you were relying on pills alone.

What better nurse can you have than the one who draws up the thick serum in a sesame seed oil base, the better to dissipate slowly over time, through the largest muscle in the human body, the gluteus, and ever so slowly release itself into your bloodstream..all the while your nurse is saying a prayer: Please Work. Please help so-and-so maintain a decent level of functioning. Please help him/her to NOT go bananas this week and get evicted from his apartment, start a fight, get arrested, neglect himself, etc.

Until you see just how much these people need this kind of treatment it's hard to understand. This isn't just depression or anxiety or trouble adjusting to life stressor. This is some major biological illness going on. It's hard to explain without getting too clinical, but these people are not headed for "remission."

Remission is a wonderful goal, if sought early on. But we're talking about people in their 40's and up, who have been institutionalized for most of their lives. They need their shots like they need oxygen. For most of them this is their life-long therapy.

Occasionally, I will share with them the fact that I had such bad allergies that I myself needed weekly shots for nearly ten years, and that I understand how it is. Some shots melt into the flesh like a hot knife through butter, and others just hit that particular nerve ending that wakes them up and stays with them throughout the day. In the summer, you have a lot of bleeders due to vaso-dilation and in the winter, when every thing's a bit tighter, you don't see so much blood.  But it's all subject to the mysterious locations under the skin that are either inauspicious or favorable. 

So you never really know what you're going to get.

Some people only need the shot for the short-term and they graduate away from it as they become less psychotic and more able to take oral medication exactly the way they should. Others are going to need it forever and ever. Like most everything, schizophrenia exists on a spectrum. Our treatments are highly individualized. I've seen younger people do the shot for a couple of years until their symptoms pretty much remitted and they could carry on with just oral meds and keep their live together. I've seen younger people with more heavier baggage in life do great with seeing us every two weeks for a shot. I've seen mostly fairly old people come in every week for their Haldol or Prolixin and do pretty darn good until the next time they were due to see us again.

Sorry to get so nursey on ya'll, but I am finding that work is carrying me through so much of what I myself carry. I live for Monday mornings. I do the very best I can during the weekend, and come the beginning of the work week, I am raring to go. 

I have made a lot of weird and tough decisions in my life but if there is one thing I chose to do correctly, it was to be a psychiatric nurse. I am proud of my daughters, I love both dearly, but the only other thing I have left right now, besides myself that is 100% good for me is my career.

The story of how I fell into this job is not something I want to revisit now-but thank God it happened that way. I was able to deal with a somewhat difficult pregnancy while working at CBH. I was able to look after a very sick husband while working here. Because of the flexibility I was able to handle so many issues at home and still complete my work. 

It really made me feel like Superwoman.

Have I mentioned lately how great it has been to be back at the best job I have ever had?  Despite the tragedy, the year in Florida that just plain sucked, despite the continued feeling of loneliness I experience...to be back in my desk is probably the greatest thing I have ever pulled off in my entire life-aside from delivering two healthy baby girls into this world. 

So maybe I have some weird inter-personal shit going on. This will resolve itself. I don't know what the outcome of that will be.

These thing I do know right now:  the girls are OK, we are back in NJ, work is more than good, there will be more money in the bank soon, and life is tolerable. 

LOVE YOUZ GUYZ.....

es

Why I Hate Fridays

There seems to be a pattern with my typical Friday nights. I get home from work, scramble around getting Sadie where she needs to be, making sure people are fed, cleaning up dog crap, looking around at the place and trying to find at least one thing I can do to make it a little bit better. I get the baby to bed, check in with Sadie over the phone because she usually spends the night at a friends, pop open a bottle of wine.

Then silence.

And then a little more silence.

I could turn on the TV but I don't even feel like it so why bother wasting the electricity.

In my past life, a Friday night was normally spent at home anyway, but there was a routine to it that was enjoyable. Usually a pizza would be delivered and devoured. There might be a movie or something worth watching. The lights would always be down low and sleep would hit me on the couch at some point. Peeling myself up from the couch, I would brush my teeth and fall into bed after a hard week at work.

The main difference was-I wasn't doing this alone.

This made all of the difference in the world. This is what made past Friday nights something to look forward to. This is what makes my current Fridays torture.

I try so hard to enjoy every cute little thing that Penny does and says. How lucky I was at one point in time to be able to look over my shoulder at someone else and ask, "did you just see how cute she was?" doing this or that, or be able to marvel together at this precious creature and dream together of her potential.

That is gone. Gone, gone, gone. Where did it go? And more importantly-why? And not "why me?" but "why the girls?"

I can understand why me. Why not me? What the hell have I done with myself that's so fantastic? When I think of all of the time and energy in my life that has been wasted on ridiculous nonsense and selfish endeavors, I can understand fate turning me back into the singleton that I am obviously born to be. Why NOT?

But why these children? I can bear whatever punishments God/fate/whatever wants to dole out to me. Most of my life has been fairly miserable anyway. Is my karma rubbing off on them? That's a pretty horrendous thought.

So if you want to know why I hate Fridays, this is just a taste of what goes on in my life on a day that should really be something to celebrate, even if it's in a very quiet, simple way.

Penny is getting smarter too. When the subject of Daddy comes up, I'm finding that the simple answer that worked before, Daddy has gone Big Night-Night, is just not going to cut it anymore. The other day she asked me if I could wake him up soon.

***

And the heartless wind kept blowing, blowing - LP

How It Went, How It's Going...

My first day back to work was practically non-productive. I always feel a little guilty about non-productivity and in the back on my mind this was gnawing away at me. I was stopped so many times from staff and clients alike, just to talk and reconnect, which was truly delightful, but part of me kept thinking "you are getting paid for these hours and look at how you are spending them." I voiced this to my supervisor and she laughed it off and I felt a little better.

But you know me. The motto "work makes free" is just in there, in my DNA or something, and I walked around feeling very happy and a little guilty at the same time. I had to keep in mind that this is part of the nature of this industry I belong to, one that involves a whole lot of talking to begin with.

And how nice it is to feel like I belong to something, belong to an industry, again. We all fantasize about winning the lottery, or having some other magic fall on us that would allow us to not work for a year, a decade, or forever. But this work stuff is what keeps so many people going. It was a huge part of my life in the past and the year that I missed working was certainly the worst ever. Not just because of the not working part-but the not working part really made it suck that much more.

So to be back-well, it is really the most incredible feeling ever. I rememeber right after Rob died, aside from the shock and awe that descended upon me over losing my soulmate, I remember just wanting to be back with everyone that I loved so dearly at work. There was so much craziness swirling around in my head that I'm not afraid to talk about it now.

My mind was mostly on cruise control and I would hear the voices of some of the people I worked most closely and best with and sort of imagined, in a very passive way, what they would say to me if we were face-to-face. I really believe they would've said these things and highly suspect that they were thinking these things and I was just picking it up in an intuitive way.

The above paragraph is either very psychotic or right on the money. Either way, it helped. Perhaps it was real or perhaps it was some kind of survival mechanism but it helped me survive.

When I studied mental health in nursing school, I was captivated. I wanted to be right in the middle of that science. However, I had very traditional views about how one's nursing career should progress-with the requisite minimum 5 years on a med-surg floor, followed by the some acute psychiatric experience, THEN outpatient when I was closer to retirement.

As I've said before, certain life events were breathing down my neck which were mandating that I slow it down a bit, strive for the 9 to 5, and enjoy my holidays with my family. Coming to CBH was probably one of the BEST decisions that I have ever made. Besides the perks of weekends and holidays off, I found there the most supportive group of people that I have ever worked with. Listen, the pay is NOT top-dollar but for me it's a salary I can live on and the flexibility to take care of my family is there.

Most importantly, I believe in what I do. Sure, sad and tragic things happen to people. When you are in the business of helping people, you are going to see some sad shit. But it is nothing like the sad shit that happens in the hospital, where things happened that really shouldn't have and I felt sick about it for days, months, weeks...and even up until this present day.

But I digress. I will blame the 2005 Bordeaux that I am enjoying tonight...

I suppose is that what I am getting at is, I have been preparing for this week all year long and it has been so rewarding to come back. I gave a few injections today and did find that it was a lot like riding a bicycle. Somehow it just comes back to you. And I did find, to my delight, that it still feels like I was born to do this work.

I look forward to a few weeks passing by, and people just being used to seeing me again so it's not a big deal anymore. I look forward to blending in with the woodwork again and just being another cog in a great machine that I am happy to be a part of. I'm not very comfortable with being front and center, but I happily endured it because I am so glad to be back.

I really never wanted to be gone in the first place. I cried my eyes out when I gave notice. If Rob didn't die, I'm sure I would've missed this place and just moved on in a fairly smooth fashion because we would've had each other and we would've been fine. However, my husband did die and things were so crappy down in Florida without him. I needed to reclaim something that was MINE, namely my career. Without my career I am lost, I am sort of a crappy mom and homemaker and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

So thank you, Workplace for taking me back. This week, as minimally "productive" as it has been, was a most magical and uplifting experience. I feel useful and productive again. I feel like I am part of something larger than myself again. I will strive to give back to you what you have given to me.

And that's really something that can't be measured at all...

The Final Hours of the Long Hiatus

Before diving in to what the title of this entry suggests what it should be about, I think a quick recap of the process of the return home is in order. All-in-all, it was sort of painless in some ways and complete and total torture in others. I'd rather not get into the torture part because that's best left behind.

What worked best for us this past year was summed up very nicely through the way in which the move itself was made possible-good people in our corner. It literally took a village to get us home. Between the packing, the loading, the driving, the plane flights, and the countless good wishes that were granted to us-well, I'm not sure how it would've all worked out. To those of you who were able to help with the nitty-gritty side of things-thank you. As I see it, you made a sacrifice for the well-being of this family and it will never be forgotten. To the even larger group of people who offered unlimited support, phone calls, encouragement, text messages, prayers, emails, and just plain old good vibes-without you I really don't know how I would've discovered the will to not fall apart completely.

In time, I am sure I will devote a lot of space to really sharing more of what my life was like as I stumbled through August of 2007 to August of 2008. Looking at these words, I cannot fathom that it was just one year. It was a year that felt like a decade. Nearly every single day felt like a week. Every hour was a day in itself. Time felt like it was moving so slowly, but not in the way that you would hope for. More like in the way you might feel trapped in quicksand and waiting for help.

***

Tomorrow, I return to work. I have no idea how productive I will actually be tomorrow, but my foot will be back in the door. I expect to be non-productive, possibly even counter-productive. Ha ha.

These final hours are a bit bittersweet. Although the reason for my long absence from work is a sad one indeed, there was a freedom in not working that wasn't half-bad. Mostly it made me really, really crazy.

I look forward to picking up where I left off. My work environment, physically, is less than stellar. The building is old. The microwave is always dirty. Sometimes there are interesting insects sharing our space. The computers are slow. Some of the places I have to visit are downright creepy.

For some reason that might be hard to really convey in light of the cons, it's best job I've ever had. It's in the field that I knew I wanted way back in nursing school on the very first day I sat in my psychiatric nursing class. This is the way I know best how to be a nurse and be fully myself, to be the things I like most about myself, to bring about the most effective treatment possible, and to work with people that I hold dear-both staff and clients alike.

And it's just a good night's sleep away from this moment.

100

This is my one-hundredth post. I'm going to try to not make it a crappy one.

I am feeling so connected, folks. I have Twitter now, and it's even set up for mobile use. Of course it's also featured on this here blog and on FB too. I just downloaded a mobile for FB. I continue to make friends with people on FB that I don't actually know but darnit, they seem worth knowing. At the very least, they are worthy Wrestler opponents which carries an awful lot of weight in my world.

None of this is helping me with the Operation Get Back to Jersey. However, it is making life a little more tolerable and every bit counts. Nah, scratch that---It's making life better. I think that's a better way to describe it.

I have transcended tolerable by now. I am well aware that intolerable days are always around the corner, but those are just days and not my whole entire outlook on life. To be able to say "I am having a sucky day" instead of "my whole life is in a shambles" is a very important distinction.

Gunga Ungula for you Caddyshack fans out there.

Today is Sunday. By this time next week I hope to be deep into Virginia. Wow, that did not come out right. What I meant to say was, I hope to be approaching the Capital, which sounds a little perverted too. In other words, I well on my way home.

Big Mama here is getting a haircut and color on Tuesday. The one I am sporting now just has no style. At least with long hair I could put it up in an accessory, mainly just ponytails with the occasional braid or hair clip. This is just a freak show of blah on my head right now.

I'm going for a deep brown, no red whatsoever. I'm keeping it shorter, no bangs. I need some layers or something. I just want it to look cute for the fall and winter, when I have no tan, and the dark hair contrasts with my skin. I'm sort of starting to form a vision of the kind of style I'd like to sport for the next year. The kind I'm sporting now will not cut it for the work-place or being anywhere other than my lanai, Publix, daycare, my car or any other place borderline agoraphobics frequent.

The remix is still in the studio, so to speak.

Bulleted Updates to Clarify Past Bulleted and Non-Bulleted Updates

• Yeah, I basically had to storm the guidance department on Tuesday during lunch hour, a sneaky tactic, and demand action. It worked. Sadie will be in 10th grade English. Hurray!
• We've had a bit of rain here, but nothing unmanageable like an actual Hurricane. Absolutely nothing we haven't seen before, and certainly far from the worst of what we have seen.
• New issues have spawned, leaving me nervous and anxious. Again, nothing new here.
• I am leaving Florida in one week. The girls are leaving in six days via JH-chaperoned airplane ride. The timing should not in any way coincide with Penny's #2 time, so I think it's going to be a good flight!
• Pretty please, will someone by my house?
• New level of procrastination in the form of Twitter. I love you, Internet.

A Night Like Tonight...

Reinforces exactly why I am moving. This might be the third worst day of my life, still a bit far behind the second worst day of my life and miles lagging behind the number one spot, but it's the kind of night where I just want to throw battery acid in my eyes to distract me from my troubles, or maybe stick a freshly sharpened pencil really hard into my ear just to mix up the mood a bit. I can't even blog about what happened because it's partially not my business to tell. If you're that curious, just ask me over email or something and became a captive audience to me tales of strife as a single mom. But not here. Just can't do it here.

Allow me to take my mind off of my issues by completely turning my focus around for a few minutes. If I don't, I will surely go crazy. I've been having Undertoad (see The World According to Garp for the definition) Moments all day long. Probably has a lot to do with going to the funeral parlor to pick up a receipt for Rob's funeral. I mean, they're really nice and all over there, but I just can't get around the fact that that was the last place I saw my husband.

Well, that's sort of a weird way to start your day. I thought to myself about how great it was going to be to hopefully NEVER drive by there again, never see it again, and then I remembered that I still actually own a house in this town. I just might have to come back someday. Also, it's a given that someone else in my family will be having their own funeral there eventually and so I'm sure I'll actually be inside that place again. Hmmm. So, no closure on that end.

So of course just being in there gets the old imagination rolling along. The color of the shirt, literally darkened by tears. People who were, things that were said, the way everything looked, the scent of the flowers, the feel of the velvet-lined chairs in the front row. The very last time I saw him, how sorry I felt that he wasn't going to wake up the next day and take us to the beach.

I found myself driving about, running my errands, thinking about these things in the drizzling rain. I no longer ask the question "why?" but damned if I know the answer. The short answer is: because his body just couldn't do it any longer. The bigger answer eludes me still, and maybe it always will.

I've said time and time again that maybe generations from now one of my relatives, far, far down the line will know. Maybe someone will inherit my love of geneology and twists of fate. They might look through an old photo album filled with pictures of their great, great, great-grandparents and discover the unusual story that unfolded in our lives and see some kind of positive meaning in it for them.

I Just Wanted to Say

...That I am completely freaking out at the moment over several things.

• I cannot get in touch with the freakin guidance counselor at school so Sadie can finally just finish English I (yeah, it was a bad year) which is holding back her completion of the course, which is holding me back from withdrawing her from Springstead, which is holding me back from enrolling her in Rutherford.
• There is a fucking HURRICANE coming and I don't know if I should put the shutters up or what. This might knock out my phone, cable, and...internet...
• I am so nervous and distracted by the above that I can barely stand it.
• Holy shit, I am MOVING in two weeks!
• Will someone buy this damn house already?!
• All of this leads me to procrastinate on Facebook more than I already do because I don't know WHERE to start with the rest of everything!!!!
• Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh......................!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Where It's At

Major strides were taken this week on the road to victory for Operation New Jersey Return (ONJR). The majority of my belongings were packed, for better or worse, onto a PODS container. Initiated in a very organized and well-planned manner, it turned to the usual moving mayhem once my father stepped onto the scene. What began as a well-thought out endeavor with meticulous packing and labeling of boxes quickly escalated, or maybe degenerated is the better term, into semi-random stuffing of my furniture and belongings into the sixteen-foot container.

Some things working for my belongings arriving without everything breaking:

• Table legs were removed, everything that could be taken apart was taken apart
• China and fragile valuables are cradled by enough bubble wrap to contribute to the Earth's destruction somehow
• Most of the heavy stuff was tied into the container fairly well

Some things not working in favor of my belongings sustaining boo boos:

• Many of said table legs and removable components of furniture were placed in the container by my father, so I cannot vouch for them being wrapped in bubble wrap sufficiently
• Many items appear to be basically tossed into the container in a haphazard manner
• I cannot vouch for what I didn't tie down, which is an awful lot of important stuff

I was out there at dusk last night, fitting the last of what I could fit in by myself, which was an awful lot in retrospect. Somehow I was able to get my filing cabinet in by sheer brute force, a hand truck, and the will of God behind me. It is placed in the container, on top of my couch which is sideways. It is upside-down due to the fact that I basically had to roll it in. Crammed around it are various boxes filled with heavy things. Behind all of this lies the contents of my house minus the baby's crib, 2 mattresses, 2 computers, and just little odds and ends.

Inside the house is a skeleton crew of belongings. Just enough to eat at, sleep on, watch TV, use computers, and attend to personal hygiene. We're at the point when it's all about using paper plates and not even having to run the dishwasher. I do, however, have 4 coffee mugs still in the rotation because I just don't like to drink coffee out of anything else if I can help it.

It won't be long now, gang...