Random thoughts for Friday:
** Thank (deity of your choice) it's Friday.
** This has been my week -
Monday - get to work at 7:50am and I am immediately whisked off to training. We have 3 call centers in Houston and the hurricane damaged em so we get a crash course in Medicaid calls.
Tuesday - get to work, we are ushered off into a different training room where we will be taking calls so that the people who came down from Houston can be close so we can ask them questions since we got 6 weeks of training in one day. I don't have all the necessary programs installed so I am told to sit tight and wait. And I do. 4:30 comes, time to go home. So I go home. Calls taken for the week=0.
Wednesday - Still don't have the necessary programs installed. I surf the web all day text friends and that's about it. Calls taken for the week=0.
Thursday - Still don't have the systems...the issue is escalated. By noon, nothing has been fixed so I'm told to call the corporate help desk where they point me to a web page where I have to enter in 10 different tickets to get the access I need. 4:30 gets here and still nothing. Calls taken for the week=0.
Friday - Get to work, still nothing. Read some blogs, paint some stuff and more stuff. (as a side note, if you go to those links, move the speed bar slider to "fast') It's almost noon and I'm told it's been escalated again.
I'm not complaining or anything but wow. This company is just full of fail.
Calls taken for the week=0.
September 19, 2008
September 18, 2008
I Heart Tammy
Tammy said:
One person critiqued my writing by saying, “It serves no purpose other than to vent.” I can remember feeling stung by that for a moment until I realized that if I needed to vent then that’s a pretty big purpose. I am conflicted and raw and I think that comes through. I would rather be a bubbly, funny, fluff writer but I can’t fake it so here I am. I originally started this journal as something for myself and slowly found that a few others were responding, and they were grateful. Now my readers are in my thoughts as well, and it helps to not have this be so solitary.
Personally I am glad that she's NOT a "bubbly, funny, fluff writer".
I wish I had the power to take away her dad's abuse and suicide that has contributed so much pain to her life but I can't. What I hope she knows (do you know Tammy??) is that by sharing these monumentally intimate parts of her life with us, she is helping us deal with the demons we all have roaring inside us.
Blogging/journaling is very much like photography in that it freeze-frames a moment in time that we can go back to weeks and months and years later and remember and reflect on and sigh about.
Sometimes it's a good sigh and sometimes not so much.
There is a place and a purpose for "fluff'...I visit here and here every day but there is also very much a place and a need for journals like Tammy's that are not always full of happiness and funny banter and silly rants. Being so open and honest about depression and loss and the not-so-pleasant parts of living makes those of us who are maybe feeling some of that ourselves know that we aren't alone.
Someone said of her blog, after reading the story about her father's actions:
I had heard that a certain blog was good, but hadn't gone there until today. I didn't know what I read there was going to be so disturbing to me or I wouldn't have done it. I don't like to watch sad movies or read sad stories or have anything to do with anything sad if I can help it. My brain and heart get too tangled up in it. Sadness takes a death grip on me and it's hard to get free again. I won't be reading any more of it.
I read that and I instantly got mad and then felt defensive of Tammy.
Yeah, that's kinda silly but it's true.
This is another case of that intolerance and control-freak-ness rearing its head.
It's OK that she can't handle sad stuff (freak) and it's OK that not everyone thinks the way I do (FREAK) and I'm sure it wasn't meant to be mean or spiteful (F R E A K) and she made the post on her own site (coughcoughweirdassFREAKcoughcough) so that's her bidness.
Me?
I like the sad stuff.
I looooove watching Beaches when Hillary dies and when Bette Midler belts out Wind Beneath My Wings I do the full fledged ugly cry and IT FEELS GOOD.
As long as I'm alone.
If I'm not, I have to get up and leave the room during that part because I can't cry in front of people.
I guess maybe the point is that what Tammy went through is real and Beaches may not be but whatever MY POINT IS VALID.
One person critiqued my writing by saying, “It serves no purpose other than to vent.” I can remember feeling stung by that for a moment until I realized that if I needed to vent then that’s a pretty big purpose. I am conflicted and raw and I think that comes through. I would rather be a bubbly, funny, fluff writer but I can’t fake it so here I am. I originally started this journal as something for myself and slowly found that a few others were responding, and they were grateful. Now my readers are in my thoughts as well, and it helps to not have this be so solitary.
Personally I am glad that she's NOT a "bubbly, funny, fluff writer".
I wish I had the power to take away her dad's abuse and suicide that has contributed so much pain to her life but I can't. What I hope she knows (do you know Tammy??) is that by sharing these monumentally intimate parts of her life with us, she is helping us deal with the demons we all have roaring inside us.
Blogging/journaling is very much like photography in that it freeze-frames a moment in time that we can go back to weeks and months and years later and remember and reflect on and sigh about.
Sometimes it's a good sigh and sometimes not so much.
There is a place and a purpose for "fluff'...I visit here and here every day but there is also very much a place and a need for journals like Tammy's that are not always full of happiness and funny banter and silly rants. Being so open and honest about depression and loss and the not-so-pleasant parts of living makes those of us who are maybe feeling some of that ourselves know that we aren't alone.
Someone said of her blog, after reading the story about her father's actions:
I had heard that a certain blog was good, but hadn't gone there until today. I didn't know what I read there was going to be so disturbing to me or I wouldn't have done it. I don't like to watch sad movies or read sad stories or have anything to do with anything sad if I can help it. My brain and heart get too tangled up in it. Sadness takes a death grip on me and it's hard to get free again. I won't be reading any more of it.
I read that and I instantly got mad and then felt defensive of Tammy.
Yeah, that's kinda silly but it's true.
This is another case of that intolerance and control-freak-ness rearing its head.
It's OK that she can't handle sad stuff (freak) and it's OK that not everyone thinks the way I do (FREAK) and I'm sure it wasn't meant to be mean or spiteful (F R E A K) and she made the post on her own site (coughcoughweirdassFREAKcoughcough) so that's her bidness.
Me?
I like the sad stuff.
I looooove watching Beaches when Hillary dies and when Bette Midler belts out Wind Beneath My Wings I do the full fledged ugly cry and IT FEELS GOOD.
As long as I'm alone.
If I'm not, I have to get up and leave the room during that part because I can't cry in front of people.
I guess maybe the point is that what Tammy went through is real and Beaches may not be but whatever MY POINT IS VALID.
I love that Tammy isn't afraid to lay it all out there and share so much. I love how Dooce isn't afraid to talk about how being a mom isn't all about Kool-Aid and fat, gurgling babies and that sometimes it flat out sucks and SOMETIMES you don't even LIKE your kid.
A lot of us write these not-blogs for mostly personal reasons...to vent or to feel we're putting our opinions out there, whatever.
The result of that, a lot of times, is to make a lotta people feel less alone with their inner-struggles and that's pretty awesome, eye em oh.
I had more to write about but meh.September 16, 2008
This isn't breakfast!
Yesterday morning I stepped outside to go to work and there it was…
The first cool morning in a LONG time.
I have reverse seasonal disorder, I think…I love fall and winter cold weather and that first cool, fall-ish morning just makes me soo happy.
It was the same this morning and should be all this week so I shall carry on with the belief that the Texas summer is over and it won’t get above 85 degrees again till at least next April.
Do NOT burst my bubble, please.
I got to work yesterday morning, got to my desk and one of the supervisors scurried over and told me to head upstairs to one of the conference rooms.
*start panic*
That’s never a good sign but upstairs I went and found out I was gonna be in training all day.
The hurricane knocked out our Houston facility so we were getting a crash course in the calls they take.
They also are letting the people from Houston come here to San Antonio to work.
They are paying them $.50 a mile for their travel and are putting them up here.
Basically they spent 6 hours training us yesterday for a job that new people get trained on for 6 weeks.
In all honesty, my ADD kicked in with a vengeance and I spent the vast majority of the day yesterday surfing the next and sending text messages. I just CANNOT focus in that situation so I have really no clue about what we are supposed to be doing.
On the positive side, kinda, today we are holed up in a training room and my computer up here doesn’t have the necessary programs loaded so I can’t take calls. I’ve already read all my daily blogs so I figured I’d type up an entry.
There are several people in the room from Houston and they are providing quite a bit of comic relief.
One of them has been VERY vocal about her disappointment in the food provided.
Yesterday they brought us boxed lunches. I had a turkey on wheat and it. Was. Good.
This morning, as soon as we all got here, they came around with Krispy Kreme donuts and coffee and the Houston people had a FIT.
“Donuts?? What the hell kinda breakfast is DONUTS?? And isn’t there any hazelnut creamer for the coffee???”
The rest of us just looked at each other and tried to not crack up.
Today they are bringing in a full Italian lunch and I can’t wait to see what they have to say about that.
$.50 a mile for travel and a week at a pretty nice hotel is NOT a bad deal.
And it’s not like these are people who lost their homes…every one of them in here had their electricity back on the day after the hurricane hit and the only reason they are here is that the windows were blown out in the building where they work so they are here till Saturday.
I’ve been listening to some of them take calls and I think it’s good that my system isn’t working.
The calls they take are all for Medicaid and I admittedly have compassion issues when it comes to that and from what I’m hearing it’s gonna be a challenge.
Most of the plans we have for these callers have a $1 co-pay.
For EV. REE. THING.
You go to the doctor? A buck. Emergency room? A buck. Have a baby, you pay a buck.
One of the Houston people just took a call from a woman who had gastric bypass surgery and she was SCREAMING at her that she was NOT paying that dollar because she is on Medicaid and it should be FREE.
It’s the principal, it seems.
Oy.
When I was 16 I got fired from a grocery store.
Back then, food stamps came in a book and they were shaped just like money and came in 1’s and 5’s and 10’s.
Well, one thing I saw EVERY DAY was people coming in and buying something really small and getting the change back.
This bothered me QUITE a bit because I saw all that tax money leaving my pay and going to these people.
Finally, one day I just HAD it.
A woman came in with 6 children, each armed with a $1 food stamp.
I’d seen her doing this many times before.
By the registers there was a candy display and in it you could buy a single piece of bubble gum for $.02. They would each get one piece and one by one they would come through my line and hand me a $1 food stamp and I’d have to give them $.98 back.
They would hand that to the mother, who was waiting in line behind them, and she would use the change to buy cigarettes.
She put the cigarettes down in front of me and threw the change down and I told her no.
She looked at me funny and said “Huh?” and I told her that I wasn’t selling her cigarettes when she was using MY tax money to pay for them. I don’t remember the exact exchange but we went back and forth and I told her she was scum for doing that and involving her children and she called the manager over. Long story short, I was fired on the spot and she bought her cigarettes and laughed at me as she ushered her kids and her cigarettes out of the store.
I was upset about being fired, but it felt good to stand up against something I thought was wrong.
I do think that incident left a really strong mark on me though because to this day I have to check myself when it comes to certain situations.
It happened last night when I was watching the news and they were showing people in Galveston who lost everything in the hurricane and were complaining that people weren’t doing enough to help them.
These are people who refused to leave despite the mandatory order to do so and my first reaction was along the lines of “Jesus, shut the hell UP. You shoulda LEFT when they told you to!”
Then they were talking to one of the rescue workers who had been working day and night to pull people out of their homes that were now roof-deep in water and the reporter asked him what reason were people giving for not leaving and he thought for a second and said, simply, “They have nowhere to go”.
That’s when it clicked in my brain that even though I’m currently estranged from just about everyone I know, all it would take would be a phone call and I would have a place to stay if I needed it.
And then I realized that not everyone has that.
Sure there are shelters…I know here in San Antonio there are thousands of people here but really, how would that be??
Packing up what you could carry and driving to a strange city to stay in shelter?
Sleeping on a cot surrounded by hundreds of strangers?
Right now, I wouldn’t have the money to drive anywhere.
And what about my job?
My cats?
I go about my life with the genuine belief that I am a caring and kind person then things like this crop up and I’m not so sure.
It’s definitely something I need to work on.
The first cool morning in a LONG time.
I have reverse seasonal disorder, I think…I love fall and winter cold weather and that first cool, fall-ish morning just makes me soo happy.
It was the same this morning and should be all this week so I shall carry on with the belief that the Texas summer is over and it won’t get above 85 degrees again till at least next April.
Do NOT burst my bubble, please.
I got to work yesterday morning, got to my desk and one of the supervisors scurried over and told me to head upstairs to one of the conference rooms.
*start panic*
That’s never a good sign but upstairs I went and found out I was gonna be in training all day.
The hurricane knocked out our Houston facility so we were getting a crash course in the calls they take.
They also are letting the people from Houston come here to San Antonio to work.
They are paying them $.50 a mile for their travel and are putting them up here.
Basically they spent 6 hours training us yesterday for a job that new people get trained on for 6 weeks.
In all honesty, my ADD kicked in with a vengeance and I spent the vast majority of the day yesterday surfing the next and sending text messages. I just CANNOT focus in that situation so I have really no clue about what we are supposed to be doing.
On the positive side, kinda, today we are holed up in a training room and my computer up here doesn’t have the necessary programs loaded so I can’t take calls. I’ve already read all my daily blogs so I figured I’d type up an entry.
There are several people in the room from Houston and they are providing quite a bit of comic relief.
One of them has been VERY vocal about her disappointment in the food provided.
Yesterday they brought us boxed lunches. I had a turkey on wheat and it. Was. Good.
This morning, as soon as we all got here, they came around with Krispy Kreme donuts and coffee and the Houston people had a FIT.
“Donuts?? What the hell kinda breakfast is DONUTS?? And isn’t there any hazelnut creamer for the coffee???”
The rest of us just looked at each other and tried to not crack up.
Today they are bringing in a full Italian lunch and I can’t wait to see what they have to say about that.
$.50 a mile for travel and a week at a pretty nice hotel is NOT a bad deal.
And it’s not like these are people who lost their homes…every one of them in here had their electricity back on the day after the hurricane hit and the only reason they are here is that the windows were blown out in the building where they work so they are here till Saturday.
I’ve been listening to some of them take calls and I think it’s good that my system isn’t working.
The calls they take are all for Medicaid and I admittedly have compassion issues when it comes to that and from what I’m hearing it’s gonna be a challenge.
Most of the plans we have for these callers have a $1 co-pay.
For EV. REE. THING.
You go to the doctor? A buck. Emergency room? A buck. Have a baby, you pay a buck.
One of the Houston people just took a call from a woman who had gastric bypass surgery and she was SCREAMING at her that she was NOT paying that dollar because she is on Medicaid and it should be FREE.
It’s the principal, it seems.
Oy.
When I was 16 I got fired from a grocery store.
Back then, food stamps came in a book and they were shaped just like money and came in 1’s and 5’s and 10’s.
Well, one thing I saw EVERY DAY was people coming in and buying something really small and getting the change back.
This bothered me QUITE a bit because I saw all that tax money leaving my pay and going to these people.
Finally, one day I just HAD it.
A woman came in with 6 children, each armed with a $1 food stamp.
I’d seen her doing this many times before.
By the registers there was a candy display and in it you could buy a single piece of bubble gum for $.02. They would each get one piece and one by one they would come through my line and hand me a $1 food stamp and I’d have to give them $.98 back.
They would hand that to the mother, who was waiting in line behind them, and she would use the change to buy cigarettes.
She put the cigarettes down in front of me and threw the change down and I told her no.
She looked at me funny and said “Huh?” and I told her that I wasn’t selling her cigarettes when she was using MY tax money to pay for them. I don’t remember the exact exchange but we went back and forth and I told her she was scum for doing that and involving her children and she called the manager over. Long story short, I was fired on the spot and she bought her cigarettes and laughed at me as she ushered her kids and her cigarettes out of the store.
I was upset about being fired, but it felt good to stand up against something I thought was wrong.
I do think that incident left a really strong mark on me though because to this day I have to check myself when it comes to certain situations.
It happened last night when I was watching the news and they were showing people in Galveston who lost everything in the hurricane and were complaining that people weren’t doing enough to help them.
These are people who refused to leave despite the mandatory order to do so and my first reaction was along the lines of “Jesus, shut the hell UP. You shoulda LEFT when they told you to!”
Then they were talking to one of the rescue workers who had been working day and night to pull people out of their homes that were now roof-deep in water and the reporter asked him what reason were people giving for not leaving and he thought for a second and said, simply, “They have nowhere to go”.
That’s when it clicked in my brain that even though I’m currently estranged from just about everyone I know, all it would take would be a phone call and I would have a place to stay if I needed it.
And then I realized that not everyone has that.
Sure there are shelters…I know here in San Antonio there are thousands of people here but really, how would that be??
Packing up what you could carry and driving to a strange city to stay in shelter?
Sleeping on a cot surrounded by hundreds of strangers?
Right now, I wouldn’t have the money to drive anywhere.
And what about my job?
My cats?
I go about my life with the genuine belief that I am a caring and kind person then things like this crop up and I’m not so sure.
It’s definitely something I need to work on.
September 11, 2008
9-11-08
"All of a sudden there were people screaming. I saw people jumping out of the building. Their arms were flailing. I stopped taking pictures and started crying." -- Michael Walters, a freelance photo journalist in Manhattan
I'll go ahead and be like everyone else and say "Damn, I can't believe it's been 7 years."
It seems like yesterday and it seems like forever ago.
Even worse, I didn't even realize it was 9/11 till I went to read Robyn's entry after I got to work today.
I have to admit I am pretty much ashamed of that fact.
I remember the details of that day...which is saying something cause I have a horrible memory for the most part. I was working the graveyard shift back then and I had just gotten home and I was feeding my roommate's twins their breakfast while she got ready for work. I saw the first plane hit and felt sad then I saw the second one and I got scared.
I called my mom.
Is it bad that I didn't realize today was that day?
I certainly haven't forgotten, I couldn't if I wanted to.
Maybe it's just human nature or American nature or maybe I'm just too absorbed in wallowing to see far beyond myself.
I don't know.
***Random Thoughts***
-- I've eaten oatmeal 3 days this week for breakfast. Two of the days I added way too much brown sugar but it was just that, raisins and cinnamon - no butter - so I shall carry on with the belief that it's still a good thing.
So glad to see you have overcome them
Completely silent now
With heaven's help
You cast your demons out
And not to pull your halo down
Around your neck and tug you off your cloud
-- I'd link the songs from y0utube but I can't access it from work
also
-- The other morning I was getting dressed for work and I heard this "POP POP POP POP" from the living room so I went in there and I smelled that smell that I can't really describe but for some reason I know it and all I can say is it's the smell of electronic death.
I finished getting dressed and then went to see if my computer would turn on and sure enough it's dead.
It's a bit surprising to me that I didn't react more strongly at the potential (and now realized) absence of My Crack. I mean, I miss playing and even more I miss talking to mah buddies there but I'm not dying or anything like I have done in the past when I've had computer issues.
I do plan on getting a computer up and running at home, hopefully by next week. I have a feeling this tranquility may be short lived and I'll start needing a fix by then.
I'll go ahead and be like everyone else and say "Damn, I can't believe it's been 7 years."
It seems like yesterday and it seems like forever ago.
Even worse, I didn't even realize it was 9/11 till I went to read Robyn's entry after I got to work today.
I have to admit I am pretty much ashamed of that fact.
I remember the details of that day...which is saying something cause I have a horrible memory for the most part. I was working the graveyard shift back then and I had just gotten home and I was feeding my roommate's twins their breakfast while she got ready for work. I saw the first plane hit and felt sad then I saw the second one and I got scared.
I called my mom.
Is it bad that I didn't realize today was that day?
I certainly haven't forgotten, I couldn't if I wanted to.
Maybe it's just human nature or American nature or maybe I'm just too absorbed in wallowing to see far beyond myself.
I don't know.
***Random Thoughts***
-- I've eaten oatmeal 3 days this week for breakfast. Two of the days I added way too much brown sugar but it was just that, raisins and cinnamon - no butter - so I shall carry on with the belief that it's still a good thing.
-- TOO many of my calls today have gone like this:
THEM - Yeah I'm calling about a claim and I wanna know why you haven't payed it.
ME - Sure, I can help you with that....what's the date you had the service?
THEM - I dunno.
ME - Ok...how much is the claim for?
THEM - Umm, I have NO idea.
ME - ...ok...who is the bill from?
THEM - I really couldn't say.
ME - ..............
Seriously, I've gotten like 5 calls juuust like that today and it's all I can do to not scream at them. The thing is, when I tell them to call back with SOMETHING I can use to locate the claim they act like I am just the most unhelpful person on Earth.
-- I recently discovered that we have a small cafeteria in the building (that's the source of the oatmeal) and they sell Starbucks coffee but they are ALWAYS out by the time I get there.
It's prolly better because I'm sure milk is better for my old-lady brittle bones but dang I still walk over there every morning on the off chance there may be some coffee left.
-- I am always, ALWAYS behind on music. A good friend recently introduced me to Tool and A Perfect Circle and I am pretty much obsessed now.
Go listen to:
Tool - Opiate
Choices always were a problem for you
What you need is someone strong to guide you
Deaf and blind and dumb and born to follow
What you need is someone strong to guide you
like me, like me, like me, like me
Tool - Eulogy
Standing above the crowd
He had a voice that was strong and loud
And I swallowed his facade cuz I'm so eager to identify
With someone above the ground
Someone who seemed to feel the same
Someone prepared to lead the way
With someone who would die for me
So glad to see you have overcome them
Completely silent now
With heaven's help
You cast your demons out
And not to pull your halo down
Around your neck and tug you off your cloud
-- I'd link the songs from y0utube but I can't access it from work
also
-- The other morning I was getting dressed for work and I heard this "POP POP POP POP" from the living room so I went in there and I smelled that smell that I can't really describe but for some reason I know it and all I can say is it's the smell of electronic death.
I finished getting dressed and then went to see if my computer would turn on and sure enough it's dead.
It's a bit surprising to me that I didn't react more strongly at the potential (and now realized) absence of My Crack. I mean, I miss playing and even more I miss talking to mah buddies there but I'm not dying or anything like I have done in the past when I've had computer issues.
I do plan on getting a computer up and running at home, hopefully by next week. I have a feeling this tranquility may be short lived and I'll start needing a fix by then.
September 10, 2008
Confessions
99% of the things I post here are things I have never told another living soul.
Lately I have been feeling really sorry for myself because I have NO ONE I can confide in.
I mean, there are people who would be happy to fill that role but I just have a complete lack of...whatever it is...to talk to anyone.
I don't know if it's trust, I don't think it is. There are people I know I could just open the dams with and they wouldn't go make a billboard and tell the world my secrets.
I guess I'm afraid to be vulnerable.
Ok, I don't guess, I know.
I know for a fact that Suzanne has gone through depression...depression WAY more severe than I've gone through and I can't tell her anything about it.
I'm aware that makes no sense. None of this does.
It's almost like a drowning person taking the life preservers that everyone is chuking at them and tossing them to the side and saying "Nah, don't want it. I'll just drown".
SO stupid.
** I haven't seen a single member of my family in about a year and a half despite the fact that many of them live less than an hour away. I missed my niece and nephew's birthdays. Thanksgiving. Christmas.
Last year I really did plan on going. I wrote about it then:
I was alone for Christmas.
It was the first time in my life that's happened.
I started several days before trying to build the momentum to go see my family. I first planned to go on Christmas Eve and spend a few hours there. I haven't seen my family since….what? April?
Jesus.
So Christmas Eve got here and I just couldn't do it.
"I'll get up early tomorrow morning…shower and get dressed and go. I'll just GO." I thought.
I didn't.
I got up around 8 that morning and thought "Ok, I will be there by 12 if I start getting ready in an hour or two."
I spent the day extending that time-frame.
Not only did I not call them, I turned my phone off so they couldn't call me.
My mom had been calling me a couple times a day for the past couple weeks and I never answered.
It was the same thing…I'd think "I need to call her. I'll call her tonight" but night would come and I couldn't - can't - make myself dial.
Christmas was also my dad's birthday.
I laid in the dark, whispered "Happy Birthday daddy" to no one and cried myself to sleep.
Right now, at this point, I can see the same thing happening again.
I still haven't talked to my mom in....a very, VERY long time.
Her calls have dropped off from just about every day to weekly to now once every other week or so.
I do the same thing there...I tell myself "Next time she calls you ARE gonna answer!" but I don't. I hit "silence" on my phone and hope she doesn't leave a voicemail.
My good friend Suzanne's mom died a couple months ago and you'd think that would have motivated me to to stop this crap and GET OVER whatever it is but it didn't.
I want to talk to my mom.
I miss her so much, despite the fact you could describe our relationship as anything but close.
I honest to GOD don't understand why I can't.
I miss my family.
The truth is I have pretty much alienated every single person I have ever had in my life and the only people I have any interaction with is people at work, Suzanne and people online from The Game.
Work is a necessity and here people have come to know my "rules" and for the most part they leave me alone and don't get offended when I don't want to go to lunch or talk or respond to them.
Suzanne I've known for over 10 years from when we used to work together and she has her own issues plus she also knows how I am and very rarely pushes me to do anything.
The online people are easy - I can disclose as little as I want and no one ever questions it really.
I never lie about myself - unless you call omission lying. None of them know what's been going on with me and I like it that way. I don't try to be someone else with them and their impression of me is pretty much the same as that of my co-workers - I'm cranky and distant but fun to be around.
** I am very lonely.
Growing up my family just did NOT display affection.
There were no hugs and no "I love you"s.
When I met the man who I would go on to marry (then divorce almost 10 years later), he was all about the hugging and kissing and told me he loved me about 20 times a day and I just soaked it up like a sponge.
After a while though, things changed and I was no longer comfortable even with him touching me, though that's a story for another time.
Thing is now, I am starting to really see how lack of that is affecting me.
I've been completely void of ANY real intimacy - physical or emotional - for so long I had convinced myself that I didn't need or want it.
But I do.
I'm still not over the hump - I still very much feel as though I am I drowning sometimes.
The thing is that I have a sense of hope now, for some reason.
I don't wanna give up and I don't want to just watch life passing me by anymore.
There is a small part of me that feels it may be too late but I try to keep that part as subdued as much as possible.
I want SO much to live again.
I think where I usually fail is getting overwhelmed by the task.
It is such a big mountain I have to climb and baby steps have never been my strong point.
In the past it's taken just one set back to make me completely throw my hands up in the air, declare the world unfair and scurry back under my rock.
** I harbor a lot of resentment toward my mother.
Intellectually I know this doesn't do anything but hurt me - and there was a time when I thought I was past it but I'm not. If I'm really honest with myself I'm not.
I don't sit around and dwell on it and hell, I know there are millions of people who had things a lot worse and don't sit around and bitch but this is mine.
The biggest issue between my mom and I was always my weight.
There is not a time in my life I don't remember her calling me a big pig and I don't think a single day went by in the first 18 years of my life where there wasn't at least ONE negative comment made to me about it.
I was very young, prolly 6 or 7, when I started sneaking food.
My mom would bring home cookies and mini-pizzas and chips and would stick her finger in my face and tell me they were NOT for me.
It was bad enough that she did that but invariably she would do it in front of my big brother and my dad and that would just kill me.
Still, when no one was in the house I would creep to the pantry or scoot a chair across the kitchen floor and up to the sink so I could reach the overhead cabinets where she would sometimes hide the food I wasn't supposed to have.
Then, in a move that was sheer genius, I would hide the wrappers under my mattress.
The mattress that held the sheets that my mom changed every Saturday...
She'd always find them and it would lead to her yelling at the top of her lungs for me. I'd walk into my room and see her standing there, hands on her hips, my mattress halfway off the box springs and the crumpled evidence in plain view. She'd scream at me and call me names and occasionally she'd grab the closest, suitable item - a hairbrush or a wooden hanger from my closet - and she'd wack me with it a few times.
After a while she moved the cookies and cakes and all the other "forbidden" items to the huge chest freezer in the garage and made a little ceremony out of locking it and then promptly handing a key to my brother and one to my dad.
It didn't take me long to figure out that a medium flat-head screwdriver wedged in juuust right would pop the lock on the freezer in no time flat.
My mom was a Lifetime Member of Weight Watchers, having lost an *astounding* 21 pounds (can you just FEEL that sarcasm right thar??) to reach her goal weight and having kept it off however long you have to keep it off to be a Lifetime Member.
When I turned 10, she decided that I needed to go and despite my pleas and begging to not go, when Wednesday morning came she reminded me that I better not eat anything that day since I had to be weighed later and that evening she handed me a $10 bill and dropped me off in front of the Lutheran church and told me to go find the meeting, that she'd be back in an hour.
All I remember is it was very, very cold and I weighed 88 pounds and I wondered what she was going to have to say about that. Was 88 pounds fat??
After the meeting I waited outside and when she pulled up she started what would be a weekly ritual for a while. I'd climb in the car and she wouldn't say a word, she'd just hold out her hand for my little book that showed what I weighed and if I had gained or lost weight.
If I lost weight, she'd drive to Sonic on the way home and order me a dry Sonic Burger. Once it arrived she would take it from the bag, remove and discard the top part of the bun and that was my reward.
If I gained weight, it was a 5 minute berating on the way home and very dry, broiled cod for dinner.
I'm not sure exactly how long I kept going but I remember sitting in the back of the room and listening to these old women (i.e. 20-30 years old...OUCH) talk about making homemade ketchup and about the many uses for canned salmon (eat the bones, they are fulla calcuim!) and that if you had a sharp enough knife, you could get TWO slices of bread outta one.
I just wanted to go home and watch The Waltons.
The thing is, I WASN'T FAT.
I was very tall and NOT skinny but I was far from fat.
I was very active.
I took jazz and ballet lessons and in middle and high school I was on the track and volleyball teams.
I ran 4 miles a day WITHOUT STOPPING.
It just pisses me off so damn much that she let this DEFICIENCY (not being the stick-thin daughter she always dreamed of) of mine not only ruin the mother-daughter bond that I very, VERY desperately wanted and needed but it also, quite obviously, played a part in shaping who I am now.
I know that I am the only one who can remedy the latter.
Maybe finally admitting my anger is a first step in that direction.
I don't think my mom likes me.
Now, or then.
I think she feels a responsibility for me because she gave birth to me.
I don't think she loves me.
I have this....ache....to feel unconditional love.
The thing is, I have no idea how to do that or if I even can.
Lately I have been feeling really sorry for myself because I have NO ONE I can confide in.
I mean, there are people who would be happy to fill that role but I just have a complete lack of...whatever it is...to talk to anyone.
I don't know if it's trust, I don't think it is. There are people I know I could just open the dams with and they wouldn't go make a billboard and tell the world my secrets.
I guess I'm afraid to be vulnerable.
Ok, I don't guess, I know.
I know for a fact that Suzanne has gone through depression...depression WAY more severe than I've gone through and I can't tell her anything about it.
I'm aware that makes no sense. None of this does.
It's almost like a drowning person taking the life preservers that everyone is chuking at them and tossing them to the side and saying "Nah, don't want it. I'll just drown".
SO stupid.
** I haven't seen a single member of my family in about a year and a half despite the fact that many of them live less than an hour away. I missed my niece and nephew's birthdays. Thanksgiving. Christmas.
Last year I really did plan on going. I wrote about it then:
I was alone for Christmas.
It was the first time in my life that's happened.
I started several days before trying to build the momentum to go see my family. I first planned to go on Christmas Eve and spend a few hours there. I haven't seen my family since….what? April?
Jesus.
So Christmas Eve got here and I just couldn't do it.
"I'll get up early tomorrow morning…shower and get dressed and go. I'll just GO." I thought.
I didn't.
I got up around 8 that morning and thought "Ok, I will be there by 12 if I start getting ready in an hour or two."
I spent the day extending that time-frame.
Not only did I not call them, I turned my phone off so they couldn't call me.
My mom had been calling me a couple times a day for the past couple weeks and I never answered.
It was the same thing…I'd think "I need to call her. I'll call her tonight" but night would come and I couldn't - can't - make myself dial.
Christmas was also my dad's birthday.
I laid in the dark, whispered "Happy Birthday daddy" to no one and cried myself to sleep.
Right now, at this point, I can see the same thing happening again.
I still haven't talked to my mom in....a very, VERY long time.
Her calls have dropped off from just about every day to weekly to now once every other week or so.
I do the same thing there...I tell myself "Next time she calls you ARE gonna answer!" but I don't. I hit "silence" on my phone and hope she doesn't leave a voicemail.
My good friend Suzanne's mom died a couple months ago and you'd think that would have motivated me to to stop this crap and GET OVER whatever it is but it didn't.
I want to talk to my mom.
I miss her so much, despite the fact you could describe our relationship as anything but close.
I honest to GOD don't understand why I can't.
I miss my family.
The truth is I have pretty much alienated every single person I have ever had in my life and the only people I have any interaction with is people at work, Suzanne and people online from The Game.
Work is a necessity and here people have come to know my "rules" and for the most part they leave me alone and don't get offended when I don't want to go to lunch or talk or respond to them.
Suzanne I've known for over 10 years from when we used to work together and she has her own issues plus she also knows how I am and very rarely pushes me to do anything.
The online people are easy - I can disclose as little as I want and no one ever questions it really.
I never lie about myself - unless you call omission lying. None of them know what's been going on with me and I like it that way. I don't try to be someone else with them and their impression of me is pretty much the same as that of my co-workers - I'm cranky and distant but fun to be around.
** I am very lonely.
Growing up my family just did NOT display affection.
There were no hugs and no "I love you"s.
When I met the man who I would go on to marry (then divorce almost 10 years later), he was all about the hugging and kissing and told me he loved me about 20 times a day and I just soaked it up like a sponge.
After a while though, things changed and I was no longer comfortable even with him touching me, though that's a story for another time.
Thing is now, I am starting to really see how lack of that is affecting me.
I've been completely void of ANY real intimacy - physical or emotional - for so long I had convinced myself that I didn't need or want it.
But I do.
I'm still not over the hump - I still very much feel as though I am I drowning sometimes.
The thing is that I have a sense of hope now, for some reason.
I don't wanna give up and I don't want to just watch life passing me by anymore.
There is a small part of me that feels it may be too late but I try to keep that part as subdued as much as possible.
I want SO much to live again.
I think where I usually fail is getting overwhelmed by the task.
It is such a big mountain I have to climb and baby steps have never been my strong point.
In the past it's taken just one set back to make me completely throw my hands up in the air, declare the world unfair and scurry back under my rock.
** I harbor a lot of resentment toward my mother.
Intellectually I know this doesn't do anything but hurt me - and there was a time when I thought I was past it but I'm not. If I'm really honest with myself I'm not.
I don't sit around and dwell on it and hell, I know there are millions of people who had things a lot worse and don't sit around and bitch but this is mine.
The biggest issue between my mom and I was always my weight.
There is not a time in my life I don't remember her calling me a big pig and I don't think a single day went by in the first 18 years of my life where there wasn't at least ONE negative comment made to me about it.
I was very young, prolly 6 or 7, when I started sneaking food.
My mom would bring home cookies and mini-pizzas and chips and would stick her finger in my face and tell me they were NOT for me.
It was bad enough that she did that but invariably she would do it in front of my big brother and my dad and that would just kill me.
Still, when no one was in the house I would creep to the pantry or scoot a chair across the kitchen floor and up to the sink so I could reach the overhead cabinets where she would sometimes hide the food I wasn't supposed to have.
Then, in a move that was sheer genius, I would hide the wrappers under my mattress.
The mattress that held the sheets that my mom changed every Saturday...
She'd always find them and it would lead to her yelling at the top of her lungs for me. I'd walk into my room and see her standing there, hands on her hips, my mattress halfway off the box springs and the crumpled evidence in plain view. She'd scream at me and call me names and occasionally she'd grab the closest, suitable item - a hairbrush or a wooden hanger from my closet - and she'd wack me with it a few times.
After a while she moved the cookies and cakes and all the other "forbidden" items to the huge chest freezer in the garage and made a little ceremony out of locking it and then promptly handing a key to my brother and one to my dad.
It didn't take me long to figure out that a medium flat-head screwdriver wedged in juuust right would pop the lock on the freezer in no time flat.
My mom was a Lifetime Member of Weight Watchers, having lost an *astounding* 21 pounds (can you just FEEL that sarcasm right thar??) to reach her goal weight and having kept it off however long you have to keep it off to be a Lifetime Member.
When I turned 10, she decided that I needed to go and despite my pleas and begging to not go, when Wednesday morning came she reminded me that I better not eat anything that day since I had to be weighed later and that evening she handed me a $10 bill and dropped me off in front of the Lutheran church and told me to go find the meeting, that she'd be back in an hour.
All I remember is it was very, very cold and I weighed 88 pounds and I wondered what she was going to have to say about that. Was 88 pounds fat??
After the meeting I waited outside and when she pulled up she started what would be a weekly ritual for a while. I'd climb in the car and she wouldn't say a word, she'd just hold out her hand for my little book that showed what I weighed and if I had gained or lost weight.
If I lost weight, she'd drive to Sonic on the way home and order me a dry Sonic Burger. Once it arrived she would take it from the bag, remove and discard the top part of the bun and that was my reward.
If I gained weight, it was a 5 minute berating on the way home and very dry, broiled cod for dinner.
I'm not sure exactly how long I kept going but I remember sitting in the back of the room and listening to these old women (i.e. 20-30 years old...OUCH) talk about making homemade ketchup and about the many uses for canned salmon (eat the bones, they are fulla calcuim!) and that if you had a sharp enough knife, you could get TWO slices of bread outta one.
I just wanted to go home and watch The Waltons.
The thing is, I WASN'T FAT.
I was very tall and NOT skinny but I was far from fat.
I was very active.
I took jazz and ballet lessons and in middle and high school I was on the track and volleyball teams.
I ran 4 miles a day WITHOUT STOPPING.
It just pisses me off so damn much that she let this DEFICIENCY (not being the stick-thin daughter she always dreamed of) of mine not only ruin the mother-daughter bond that I very, VERY desperately wanted and needed but it also, quite obviously, played a part in shaping who I am now.
I know that I am the only one who can remedy the latter.
Maybe finally admitting my anger is a first step in that direction.
I don't think my mom likes me.
Now, or then.
I think she feels a responsibility for me because she gave birth to me.
I don't think she loves me.
I have this....ache....to feel unconditional love.
The thing is, I have no idea how to do that or if I even can.
September 9, 2008
Let's Try This Again
As you can see, I deleted the posts that were here.
I'm gonna try this again, a fresh start.
I starting the online journal (I'm NOT a blogger…I'M NOT!) (not that there's anything WRONG with that…) thang a looong time ago and I know there are a handful of you that come here from time to time who have been reading my junk for 5+ years and that is just amazing to me.
I prolly never said/say it enough but thank you for that. All of you.
The thing is, I have always, always been a closed off person. I have learned over the years to be the asker-of-questions and "The Good Listener"so conversations and relationships can be focused away from me and on someone - anyone - else.
That behaviour has played a huge part, I think, in getting me where I am today - in this bad place that I never, ever believed even existed.
It has also fed my online journaling because all the thoughts and feelings I have suppressed for basically my entire life just start spilling out when I start an entry.
I am very much a tangent writer and very prone to start talking about something and OOU it will remind me of something else and there ya go, the thing I started the entry about is hardly discussed.
See, I was going somewhere with that and now I have NO idea where.
As an interesting side note, it also explains, at least in part, why I have such severe control issues - if I can zoom in and focus on the problems and shortcomings of everyone else and get SOO freaking obsessed with the most mundane of details (you don't put eggs in potato salad…you don't drive a single mile over the speed limit….whatever you're doing YOU'RE NOT DOING IT RIGHT...you get the point) then it's that much less time I spend dealing with myself.
I've always blamed my mom, at least in part, for my need for control because it was ALWAYS her way or the wrong way and there was no room for discussion and I thought, all this time, that I had just gotten that from her and that was that and it was only very, very recently that it dawned on me that maybe, just maybe she has issues of her own.
It's kinda hard to explain…I always saw her as flawed somewhere in the back of my mind because of the damaging way she treated me when I was growing up but I think now that a large part of me has always seen her as perfect so I must have, on some level, deserved it.
Deep down I resented the very essence of who she was and at the same time I wanted so much to be just like her.
Damn.
It's really staggering how many times I have made little discoveries about myself when writing here…I think 38 years of not acknowledging my emotional needs or usually even the fact that I *have* emotions has caught up to me in a big way.
I'm gonna try this again, a fresh start.
I starting the online journal (I'm NOT a blogger…I'M NOT!) (not that there's anything WRONG with that…) thang a looong time ago and I know there are a handful of you that come here from time to time who have been reading my junk for 5+ years and that is just amazing to me.
I prolly never said/say it enough but thank you for that. All of you.
The thing is, I have always, always been a closed off person. I have learned over the years to be the asker-of-questions and "The Good Listener"so conversations and relationships can be focused away from me and on someone - anyone - else.
That behaviour has played a huge part, I think, in getting me where I am today - in this bad place that I never, ever believed even existed.
It has also fed my online journaling because all the thoughts and feelings I have suppressed for basically my entire life just start spilling out when I start an entry.
I am very much a tangent writer and very prone to start talking about something and OOU it will remind me of something else and there ya go, the thing I started the entry about is hardly discussed.
See, I was going somewhere with that and now I have NO idea where.
As an interesting side note, it also explains, at least in part, why I have such severe control issues - if I can zoom in and focus on the problems and shortcomings of everyone else and get SOO freaking obsessed with the most mundane of details (you don't put eggs in potato salad…you don't drive a single mile over the speed limit….whatever you're doing YOU'RE NOT DOING IT RIGHT...you get the point) then it's that much less time I spend dealing with myself.
I've always blamed my mom, at least in part, for my need for control because it was ALWAYS her way or the wrong way and there was no room for discussion and I thought, all this time, that I had just gotten that from her and that was that and it was only very, very recently that it dawned on me that maybe, just maybe she has issues of her own.
It's kinda hard to explain…I always saw her as flawed somewhere in the back of my mind because of the damaging way she treated me when I was growing up but I think now that a large part of me has always seen her as perfect so I must have, on some level, deserved it.
Deep down I resented the very essence of who she was and at the same time I wanted so much to be just like her.
Damn.
It's really staggering how many times I have made little discoveries about myself when writing here…I think 38 years of not acknowledging my emotional needs or usually even the fact that I *have* emotions has caught up to me in a big way.
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