Space to Cry

For those of you not on Facebook with me, I should probably update here about my life.  Sunday afternoon we had plans for the husband to visit his mom, while I went to either the cemetery to see my dad's grave, or to visit my mom - I hadn't decided which.   Started to change clothes, and the phone rang.  A woman from my mom's church called me - my mom had fallen down some stairs at the church, and was at the ER.  She fractured her shoulder in two places, and her pelvis in three places. She's now situated in a rehabilitation center (a nursing home, actually.) while she gets therapy and heals.

For three days, I have done all the right things - worried about how we were gonna take care of her if she had to stay with us: Where would she be released to? How would I get her to appointments? What would happen if I missed too many classes or internship hours? What did my mom need in the hospital? Who did I need to call for her? Did I need to pack anything to bring to her?  I visited, made calls, ran errands... I was a good daughter. I did what good daughters do.  (At least I think I did. I have no idea what good daughters do, or are supposed to do, in cases like this.)

Today, I'm tired. I have not let myself really cry or stop to deal with any of this, and as a result, I've lost my emotional equilibrium. I'm filled with doubts, about myself as a person and myself as a daughter. I've seen myself in the eyes of people who knew me when I was a teenager - angry, bitter, depressed, and hurting more than anyone knew how to deal with.  The people at my mom's church at the time looked at me like I was a monster. They loved my mom - she was so good, and sweet, and pure.  What kind of monster could control and verbally abuse her?  They had no idea what I had been through, what she had ALLOWED me to go through. For years and years, their eyes were the measuring stick I held myself up to.  I felt unworthy, dysfunctional, monsterous.... I let people walk all over me, allowed friends to screw me over in a thousand ways, tried to "save" people like I once was... a quest to prove the monster was gone. 

Years and years later, I still am haunted by that.  I still wonder if my mom prays that I not get pregnant, because she is afraid I will abuse my child.  I wonder if God won't let me get pregnant, because he sees the monster inside me too. I'm so sensitive to this crap that after like 2 years of counseling, I still haven't been able to really talk about this.  I'm ashamed of the things I did, the mistakes I made.  A part of me knows that I was an abused child, never given any help or counseling to deal with the trauma, wounded and hurting and lashing out.  A part of me watches the children at my internship with RAD and other explosive disorders, and breaks when I think of the weight that guilt will have on them for the things they have once done. No child deserves to feel like a monster. No child deserves to feel like they are unforgiveable, horrible and unlovable and permanently broken. 

And what about me? How do I forgive myself, for things I am so deeply ashamed of?  How do I form relationships with a person who I hurt so deeply, and who still makes me feel like I need to apologize for them.  How many times do I need to apologize for being a monster, to the person who nurtured the monster and allowed it to grow?

Authentic Me

Who am I

 

Layers of words

actions

responses

 

A marionette

strings wound to others

 

A mirror

reflecting what you want to see

 

A chameleon

showing you only the parts

you will love

 

I hade the dark parts

the hurts

the pain

the depth and intensity

of all that I am

Today I am thinking about authenticity - who I am, who I project, and the gap between them. I realized today that the people I work with don't even know that I am hyper. I am OBVIOUSLY hyper - everything about me radiates intensity and energy... but I've managed to water myself down, camoflauge myself, enough that no one at my office has a clue who I really am.  My professors would praise me - calling it professionalism.  

I question myself - Is this really the way it is supposed to be?  Is this what I want to present to my clients? A shadow, a shell of a person?  No. I just can't accept that.

I am in a program of study that teaches us how to lift people up, how to empower people to rise above their struggles and be the best that they can be... yet we are emerging from the program as broken shells of the people we once were, stripped of our confidence and of the voice we claim is so important for our clients.

Somehow, some way... I will find a way to fight this.

Change of Heart

I saw this online, and it made me think of a conversation with my counselor/therapist person. Right now I am in a place where I feel like the world around me is shaking - everything has changed, is changing, or is about to change.  In 6 months I will no longer be a student - I will be working, in a different office, possibly living and working in a new place. I will lose contact with my school friends, and meet a new group of people at my job.  I may need to learn a new city.  I will have a new boss.

When I look at all of the unknowns, I have to admit that I am scared.  I can't know or control the future, and that makes my insides shake like jello.

Maybe, instead of looking at the unknowns, I need to have faith that God is in control... and look at the possibilities in front of me. I may be able to live closer to Indianapolis, which means more opportunities to take language courses at a low cost, more art classes around, new ethnic restaurants to try...  I will have more time for my neice and nephew, and other family activities. I will have time for art, and can start painting everyday like my aunt suggested. I may be able to actually read books for fun. I will be able to start cooking and eating healthier foods, and preparing my body because we can start going to the doctor for more intense help getting pregnant.  

If I shift my view, from the black abyss of unknowns to the limitless possibilities in front of me - I might just be able to make it through this next few months!

La Musica!

You know, this is a moment of confession for me.  For about 10 years of my life, I rarely listened to any music that was not Christian. I listened to Christian music all the time, and you know - that was okay for me.  I really liked listening to worship music, and still have no issue with it.  I love the soul in black gospel, and moments spent worshipping with worship music.
My taste in music, however, has... expanded a little these days.  (And by a little, I actually mean "HOLY CRAP when did all of this freakishly awesome music come into being, and how have I lived all these years without it!???????")  

I started out really small... in the beginning, even listening to the LOTR soundtrack gave me a twinge of guilt.  Slowly I branched out... a little country here and there, staying in touch with my roots.  Eventually I added in a little Motown and oldies... I learned of Loreena McKennitt and fell in love with the Lady of Shalott and celtic music in general...

My bloggy friend Melba (who has since disappeared off of the face of the earth) introduced me to the Fray and Daughtry.  I pretty much stuck with that, and a little Nickleback....

And then I learned of P!nk.

My world was never the same.  This, my friends, was a life-changing moment. All my inner strength found a voice in her lyrics. I found myself dancing around the house singing, blasting my music at inappropriately loud levels, and just generally... expressing myself as I sang along.

That was about a year ago. In the meantime, I have been learning of music by Christina Perri

Adele

Sara Barielles

Walk of the Earth (My favorite band, still.)

and Amanda Palmer (who I can't totally love, because one of her songs is very sexually explicit... but this song totally makes me smile, and is not sexual... only a little deranged.)

Last week, I learned of an amazzzzzzing new song by Delta Rae, which you really must listen to and love... and while listening to it and loving it, you must especially look at the mirror in seconds 17-22, and the fate of her accusers in the end.

And today, oh sweet wonderful today, I learned of Emilie Autumn... and her song about Shalott.  My world has successfully been completely rocked.  An hour after discovering the song, I still feel an unreasonably huge urge to squeal with joy! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!  (I also make a funny face while squealing, and do a funny thing with my hands, which I can't really describe.  If I wasn't in jammies I'd make a video. LOL)

Learning of this song might change my life, forever.  Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

 

What about you? Any life-changing songs in your life?

Pics!!!!

So yesterday I posted but couldn't get pics to work... so today... I have pics!!!!

Here is a sample of the new hairthings I've been trying to make... they are supposed to look like flowers.  This one is the only one I have actually finished:



.

I need to take really good quality pics later, but for now, here is a pic from my cell phone of the ones in progress.

None of these have the buttons sewn... I think the ones that don't have buttons may stay the way they are. They don't seem like they would be right with a button.

Okay, I have now shared some visual goodness - time for bed!

Eh.

The only word I can use for my life right now (and thus the title of my blog post today) is "eh."  I've been in a bit of a funk, trouble sleeping at night (which is my normal) and out of Benadryl, so really tired when I get home each day. No real motivation to craft/create/write/do anything requiring effort. I have been beating myself up for my lack of energy, but really - I've done pretty well this week. I've gotten a lot of organization of tasks done, a lot of planning and to-do lists made. I have completed a budget and actually even put money in a little envelope system. (This is the way our budget works... the ONLY way it works.)  I have made some cute little hairthings... let me take a picture of the sample one and see if I can post it here.

Or not. My camera is too low on batteries to take any pics right now, even if I have it plugged in.  Silly camera!!!!

Okay, my blogging adventure for the month is not getting off to a smooth start, but neither is my semester at my internship or at school, so... oh well! Bumps on the road are to be expected, and one day we'll be past the bumps and enjoy a beautiful nature scene instead! :)

Withering

I wish I could post something light and happy today... but that's not where I'm at tonight.

During the course of this week, I got a negative pregnancy test, listened to a horribly traumitized girl recounting her story of sexual abuse and the trauma of having her father not believe her, and learned that a family who worked SO. HARD. is struggling and may lose everything they have worked for.

My heart hurts today.

I know tomorrow is a new day.  I know tomorrow the sun may shine, and everything may look better. I know that the potential pregnancy gave me a chance to think about the fact that in 5 months, life will look a lot different, and we can start getting really intense help getting pregnant.  I know that the girl had the strength to tell about the abuse, before it continued and damaged her more.  I know that the father is now believing his daughter.  I know that the family is adjusting to having their children again, and they can adjust and turn things around again...

But today, I feel like a everything good and wholesome has been sucked from my soul...
 

ADHD

Sometimes I'm ashamed to be me.

Why can't I be more settled?
Calmer?
Why can't I listen?
Focus?
Why can't I retain more than a teaspon of information?
Why do I have to ask for things to be repeated?
Why do I freak out when I'm confused?

In other words... my first day back to school totally sucked. Is it graduation day yet? 

Merry-Go-Round

Here we go again.

I had a great vacation... time off from school, time away from the stresses of daily life, time with my husband. And by with my husband... I mean... umm... WITH my husband.  Like... Biblically "with" my husband.  (Yeah, I know. That's awkward to share.)

That was 2 weeks ago... and since then, I've thought random thoughts about being pregnant - my time with my husband was close to (or maybe on?) ovulation time.  Now, I've been tired, sick to my stomach... thrown up... indigestion...

And as always, I am hoping I'm pregnant... and as always, I'm putting all of my energy into telling myself that I'm not, because if I let myself believe that I'm pregnant, and I'm not... how do you survive this merry-go-round, finding yourself in the same places, feeling the same pain, again
again
again
again
again
again.

I'm so hopeful, but so afraid of being disappointed. So I tell myself it's not the right time - Look at all the negatives... think of all the reasons why it would be for the best if I wasn't actually pregnant yet... I took a Benadryl - will my baby be deformed? The hubby isn't through school yet - what if we can't afford a baby? What if my husband can't finish school? 

My stomach feels strange... is it worry? indigestion? or is there a life in there?  I'm so hopeful... so wonderfully, beautifully,  delightedly hopeful... but terrified to let myself hope, to take the chance of believing I might be pregnant - to jump on the merry-go-round yet another time, to embrace the hope and pray with all my might that the ride will end in a different place this time.

 

I got nothin'

You know, I really meant to blog something great and meaningful today...

but I got nothin'!  LOL I just decided to spend some time visiting all of you instead.

Crafty Dilemna?

I found a really cool way to use up some lace that I have laying around (note - I despise lace.) at a blog here, and was all ready to give it a shot... when I realized that the pattern required felt. Now - the only thing I hate more than lace, is felt. My home contains no felt fabric, nor will it anytime soon. The lace is supposed to be hot glued to a small circle of felt, which is attached to a hairthing (in this case, it seems to be a bobby pin, but I will use small snap hair clips.)  I'm wondering... what else do you all think I could use?

(Good ideas might be rewarded with a lacy hairthing, if the design works out!)

Back to Basics

Tomorrow my vacation is officially over - I have to be awake, dressed, fed, functional, and in Indianapolis (an hour and a half drive) by 8:30 AM.

Bleh.  I'm not ready for my vacation to be over! I have so many things I want to do and to create!!!!  I started a new hanging storage thing, but only about half of the pockets are sewn and none are sewn onto the... thing. (Excuse my technical terminology. lol)   Tomorrow when I get home, there will be a husband to pay attention to, an anniversary to celebrate, church on Sunday, and our house looks like several consecutive tornados have hit it... this is what happens when I start a project and have no time to finish it.  This state has already led to one crying spell and another near miss... so gotta get it conquered soon. 

The last training I had for this future job was pretty emotional and intense... I'm hoping this one will be more relaxed, as promised. I'll be deciding where I want to work, which is a hugeeeee thing. I'll learn a lot more about when I'll be starting my job, what kind of additional training I'll get at my new office, and all that sort of stuff.  Feel free to send prayers/thoughts as I go to this - the decisions I make can affect my whole life, which is a little terrifying.

Disconnecting

Throughout the last couple of days, I have tried to just be quiet and think - and realized I can't do that anymore.  Well, the thinking part I can do, lol, but the quiet part? Nope. Every second of my waking days is spent with some kind of media. Video games, computer, music, books on CD, TV... there is always something going on.  I tried last night to gradually wean myself off of media... tried to just listen to music and think.  It was shockingly hard to disconnect that way, and I have to admit it didn't last long.

It made me stop and think - what am I missing by keeping a steady stream of distractions going in the background of my days?  I've decided that while I work to connect with others, I'm going to try and disconnect from my electronics a little more. I'm not giving them up altogether (because I would go crazy lol) but trying to take some time each day just to be quiet, and see what happens.

What about you? Is there anything you need to disconnect from?

Disconnected

Alone

I see outstretched hands
Reaching
Probing
Touching

I feel uncomfortable, deep in my soul
I push the hands away
I hide deeper inside myself
Begging them to leave me alone


This has been me lately.  A few weeks before school started this August, at a retreat for students in my program, a conflict between two of my classmates boiled over, and I was caught in the middle.  Things got messy, everyone was upset at me, and I cracked emotionally.  It was the last straw in a series of back-stabs, drama, and chaos - and I was done.  To get through the semester, I cut myself off from everything social. I no longer saw my classmates outside of class, no longer met with my Arabic friends, and barely talked to even my closest friends. I rarely saw my mom, and I even pushed my husband away. As you all have probably noticed, I mostly stopped blogging and reading blogs.

By the time that Christmas break came, even the limited social interactions that I couldn't avoid were too much.  My classmates are STILL fighting, months later. The class as a whole divided into two factions, and both factions think I'm on the other side.  Our normal debates in classes became side-one-vs-side-two, and all kinds of heated.  Drama boiled over at work, and I was in the middle of that too.  (Note the pattern of always being in the middle? Yeah. Childhood pattern still at work. Gotta work on that.)  I was just exhausted.

You know what I realized over the break though? Relationships don't all have to drain me.  There are relationships, good relationships, that actually give me hope and strength and help me to grow as a person. I MISS connections... I MISS the friendships and relationships I made while blogging, and even some of the connections in my real-life world.

I have no idea what my official resolutions will be for the year... but I'm going to try to blog every day in January (I will fail, but that's okay - my real goal is just to blog more, and blogging every day is kinda shooting for the stars and hoping to at least get your feet off the ground lol) and maybe just try to cautiously reconnect with the world around me - with God, with the huband and family, with trusted friends... and then just see how life goes along the break. 

I'm just asking that you all, my wonderful blogging buddies, bear with me (or is it bare with me? No. Can't be bare - that sounds too naked.) as I cautiously ease back into the blogging world. 

Remembering

Last night I dreamed of the past... the swimming pool of the school where I grew up, and kids I knew.  Today I thought of my cousins - childhood memories of a place where I was loved and safe. I played on a computer for the first time in their house - I remember the excitement of typing letters and seeing them on the screen! My cousins were a lot older than me... Tracy by 8 years, Ed by 6 years. Their house was not clean, and their dad never screamed. I loved it... I loved the smell of the bathroom, manly soap in the air. I loved the fact that Tracy's room was dirty, and no one cared much.  Their parents comforted me when my dad was acting crazy at family functions, and somehow managed the miracle of being able to take me to Walmart with them. (For my extremely over-protective father to let me out of his sight with anyone but my grandma was nothing short of amazing.) They let me buy something for myself, just because.  I chose a single of Amy Grant. 

Their house was one of the few places where I never remember my dad being angry.  We all tried out their new Nintendo, and even my mom tried Tetris and fell in love with it!  I read my first books about ghosts and other creepy things there, and I was even allowed to borrow some to read at home!

My childhood was complicated, and so are the memories... but its amazing to me how just thinking about their house makes me feel safe. I want to make my house that kind of place, for my neice and nephew, but also just for myself.


 

A Crafty Christmas

In honor of my objections to the spending frenzy that occurs each holiday season, and in honor of my status as a person living in the poverty typical of a college student, I decided to make Christmas presents for the relatives as much as possible.  How did it go?  Wellllllllll some presents went really well, and some... well... not so much. LOL 

The first presents I made were for the neice and nephew.   Flower Girl (almost age 4) got the pink and white scarf, while The Boy (age 2 and a half) got the blue and brown one.  Flower Girl was like "you made this for ME?!?!" lol and The Boy... well... he immediately put it on...

 and wore it through the rest of present time. 

For the family present exchange, I was given the name of someone who only wanted art canvases. How on earth is that any fun?  Well, I asked her daughter what she liked... and was told "dragonflies" I went on Pinterest and found some patterns for beaded dragonflies.  Here are the ones I made for her:

Oh, and what is that in the corner, you ask?  My mom loves holiday earrings and jewelry. I attempted to make her some peppermint earrings... Here is a closeup:

The color quality on my phone was pretty crappy, because the red in the thread was just as red as the red in the earrings, and the white yarn was sparkly. The mints themselves were very very cute... but the attachment to the earrings really sucked. I need to find a better way to do that. I was really disappointed with that one. :( 

What about you all? What were your favorite gifts to give this year?

Privacy and Masks?

So I have found something I really really hate about my future child protection career - we are constantly at the mercy of the media.  In Indiana, this is an even greater concern, as our major newspaper in the state has a long-standing hatred of our state child protection department.  In addition to this, we are never allowed, due to confidentiallity concerns, to defend ourselves against anything the media says.  The media will be able to say absolutely ANYTHING about how I handle cases, and no matter HOW untrue those accusations are - I will never be able to say one word in my defense, because the people I investigate are entitled to confidentiality. (And I agree, wholeheartedly, that people DO deserve confidentiality. It just sucks that there is no way for a social worker to defend himself or herself against anything said by the public. )

So here I am... a user of social media.  A blogger who may one day be put in media spotlight - everything I have done or said suddenly up to public scruitiny. A Pinterest junkie whose Pinterest account, featuring snarky pins about various social work subjects, can easily be found via Google.

What the heck do I do?????  I've contemplated moving to a new blog with no part of my name in the title... but this blog chronicles my life, and I really don't want to shut it down.  I just made my Pinterest account unable to be searched through search engines. I viewed my FB profile like an outsider, and deleted the 2 posts that showed up.

What about you all? How have you adapted to the digitalization of your world?

Bubbles in Dark Places

So you're probably wondering how my vacation is going, and why I am not on here posting more! Well, I think I am suffering from the worst case of holiday depression on record, and I frankly want to pretend that Christmas is not coming, and that most other human life does not exist.   This semester was rough on me... intense semester last spring, classes all summer, and then classes this fall that really just sucked the life out of me.  I did okay... no anti-depressants for the entire semester (trying to keep the body clean of as many chemicals as possible as I try to get pregnant). I was strong, I made it through things that broke others around me... until about 2 days before the end of the semester, when my shield couldn't hold any longer, and everything broke down.  I cried in the office of a professor. I began having panic attacks at least once a day.  I wasn't in a good place. I'm still really not in a good place, actually.

So how am I dealing with it?  Well, first of all, I'm taking control of what little I can, and scrubbing my house until it sparkles.  The bathroom, bedroom, and kitchen are done! That's half of my house!!!!!!!!  I'm sooooooooooo proud of that!  Tonight I will work on the living room so that the floor is clean enough to rearrange my books and maybe even make some new crafts that require floor space.  I'm experimenting with new foods, trying new crafts... and basically "faking it til I make it" for the moment - living like I am okay, and hoping eventually I will be.

In happier news...

Hehe I crocheted mints!

I have also tried to learn ASL and Spanish over the holiday break - trying to study each for at least 30 minutes a day.  Having a blast with the ASL actually, and struggling through the Spanish til I find a funner way to learn. Maybe I'll try reading some of the books I have in Spanish.

Anyway, that's all for now, I'm off to try and cook this recipe along with an experimental chicken dish.

Anxious

After having classes since the last January without any real break, I finally have 3 weeks to relax. Three, whole, weeks. 

So what am I doing? Well, I set some goals...

• Reconnect with God, husband, family, and friends
• Get everything ready for Christmas
• Get my house cleaned
• Make art that speaks to me.

Seems really simple, right?  Yep, it did... until I tried to spend today, my first full day of vacation, relaxing. 

I cleaned out a cabinet, put up laundry, crocheted part of a scarf and 6 ornaments, completed 2 spanish lessons, went grocery shopping with the husband, and had a panic attack.

Just a guess, but this does not sound like relaxation to me? 

Gonna go off of caffine tomorrow, and try to actually RELAX instead of rushing to not squander my vacation.  *sigh*

Who?

A few weeks ago, my professor asked us to think about who we want to be. We are seniors now, doing an internship, and we need to think about how we will be seen in the future, and begin to act that way now.

I wrote down some thoughts on paper, and came home to do a collage. So who DO I want to be?  As a social worker, I want to be seen as a knowledgeable leader, someone who is focused, never gives up on people and always believes people have the potential to grow and become more than they are.  I want people to be able to talk to me and know that I keep their words confidential. I want to be seen as versatile, ready for any challenge, even when my insides are shaking like jello.  I want to be seen as "natural beauty" - I want to look nice and feel good, but I want to do so in easy ways that feel real to me. I don't want to look or be fake. Most of all, I want to be strong in character. I want to stand up for what is right, even if it means standing alone. I want to be confident in myself, artistic and strange and eclectic and all the other words that describe me, so that other people find the freedom to be themselves too, and I want to be tough enough to withstand criticism that will come my way.