road trips and life

On my last drive to NJ, I thought about how road trips make a great analogy to life. Everyone in a little box moving towards their own destination. The people tailgating me aren't really thinking about me as they press hard on my backside, they're mostly just trying to get somewhere. Their frustration and anger is theirs, not mine. I can move aside and let them pass. Likewise with people in real life; our agendas are different and that's okay.

On the road, it's extremely important to pay attention to the needs of others. Not to change our own needs in response -- like, I am not speeding past the radar camera no matter how irritated someone looks behind me, but I can politely decline to stand in the way of their choice. As in life, if we all honored each other's choices, wouldn't the world be a better place?

the poison of depression

I found this snippet I'd written in my diary last year:

I understand the difficulty of loving someone who struggles with feeling worthy. It is absolutely wrenching to believe at your core that love is strong enough to save someone from themselves. If only people could see themselves as they are seen by others.

I spent so many years trying to convince him he was worthy, intelligent, incredible, amazing. I can't even tell you the number of times I collapsed in tears, unable to reach him, weary from the attempts.

It was recently that I realized no amount of love would be enough.

That, I'm afraid, is my failure. It is a white-hot spear of pain I will carry inside me always. I don't know that he will ever fully know or anyone else will ever understand how hard I tried. When it got to the point that loving him was hurting me, I had to leave. It felt like a matter of survival. I didn't want to do it. I still worry about how he's doing.

I understand what it's like to try to reach someone, shout into their soul their worthiness and finding that the fortress inside is soundproof.

No matter how much you desire, you cannot save someone else. Love and will are not enough.

top keywords

My favorite keywords people used to find my blog this year.

1. can i put a non poisonous snake in my vagina?
2. free blowjobs sierra vista
3. should i take a tamiflu if i lack a spleen
4. i ate tiny brown bugs in my cereal am i going to get sick
5. ate fly larvae and now my stomach is bad
6. she finds excuses to grope me

But out of all of these? #1 is my favorite.

Maybe I really didn't want to know how some people celebrated Columbus Day.

On a scale of one to Adele, how tough was your breakup?

You're so adorabus that I need to devour you! WHOLE.

"I love her to pieces," "I'mma eat you all up!" -- where do such deconstructionist, consumptive expressions of adoration come from?

Humbling Friday thoughts

I have a fair amount of unease still, when I think about my ex husband's feelings about our breakup. I imagine conversations sometimes where he surprises me with understanding but I'm a realist, and the reality is that pain is a great obfuscation filter. It's easier to concentrate on the acute, like "the transmission died!" rather than the steps leading to the failure (low oil for years wore out the parts).

I heard through the grapevine a while ago that he thought I'd changed after the breakup and began drinking and clubbing. It's very humbling to be the recipient of negativity because it illuminates how powerless we are over how someone else decides to feel about us. I can't refute anything. I can't say actually no, I still don't drink, I don't even LIKE to drink, that never changed, why would you think that changed? And then I think but what if I did, so what? And I DO like Justin Timberlake, what of that? Why couldn't I ever feel what I felt? I'm sorry and indignant at the same time. You can't subject a person to those things that were happening, I think, and expect them not to implode. And then I have these imaginary conversations where I try to explain what was happening inside me but the thoughts fly out into the ether to be received by no one.

It just feels really awful to be misunderstood.

"Forgiving is not something you do for someone else. It is something you do for yourself. An unforgiven injury binds you to a time and place someone else has chosen; it holds you trapped in a past moment and in old feelings." ~Carol Luebering

I guess everything is timing

I spent much time last weekend with Mr. Blackbelt and when I got home, dreamt that I plunged into the icy sea for a survival exercise with a group. It was an alarming situation, but I wasn't scared at first. We learned how to use scissor kicks to break up the ice and how to stay afloat by blowing up the airplane inflation devices around our necks. I was aware of the danger, but knew I had a tiny window before the cold overtook me, and I reveled, for a short moment, the silkiness of the water and the peaceful, still night.

But then the rest of my group began showing signs of hypothermia. After they lost coherency, I began to get scared. We were a long way from the rescue boat and I suddenly felt alone in the sea as my comrades died off, Titanic-style. Then I woke up.

Maybe this is a metaphor for considering opening my heart again. I plunge into dangerous waters. I harness my head and take comfort in lessons learned. But the tolerance for icy water can only last so long and in the end, I recognize how truly vulnerable I am against this vast sea I cannot control.

I've been out with Mr. Blackbelt about 10 times. And I am less sure now that this could turn into something. It's still too new to fully gauge, but I am wondering if he is not really over an old beau afterall. It may be unfair to say this, as I still deeply care for those in my past too, but there might be some signs which may mean let this one go. I don't know though. So we'll see. 

"I guess everything is timing..." Ani DiFranco

When you're watching yourself drown.

Snippets from an advice column: what to do when you're struggling:

Dear Carolyn,

I feel like I’m watching myself drown and I can’t do anything.

.................

The drowning feeling is normal, and passes. When people suffer a shocking loss, the emotions come rushing in, as if they’re water and we’ve run out of places to hold them. During this time, it’s okay to set no other goal for yourself than to get through each day as well as you can.

As long as these feelings are overwhelming you, you won’t be able to think straight — yet, you’ll also have points of such stunning clarity that you won’t believe you didn’t see these things before. It’s as if someone took your world and shook it, hard. Your wife is in roughly that same condition.

I suspect there’s also an element of mortification here that this mess is playing out for all to see. If that’s the case, then please don’t give it any more thought. You can’t change what people think, and it’s not as if anyone is new to the idea of marital turmoil. Concentrate on getting yourself well; your inner-circle advisers are right on that one.

Your emotions set their own pace, so work on physical wellness, which you can control. Eat well, try to sleep well, exercise, go places and do things you find pleasing, anything that restores you.

As for still having hope, the best thing, I think, would be to proceed very slowly. Get used to living apart for a while. Get your feelings in order. Get your words in order; you’d be surprised at the distance between what people want to say and what they say, especially when in distress. Get used to where you are before you try to go anywhere else.

And, most important, don’t try to go back. What you had before is not only gone, it’s what got you here. Even if your goal is to save your marriage, think of it not as restoring the old but instead as creating something new.

-- Carolyn Hax

Why there's a class system

Here's why people with shitty backgrounds have to struggle so hard to become doctors, lawyers, etc. The resources required to better yourself, educate yourself, etc. are huge. If you're always fighting upheaval, there's nothing left. You're just surviving. People thrive when they create, contribute and add to society but who has the resources to give in survival mode?

Also, when used to chaos, more is chosen. Partners may not be stable or healthy -- stormchasers are attracted to eachother.

"Stop choosing storms" good friends advise. "Let the storms inside settle and then you can rebuild in the quiet aftermath." But it's comforting, on some level, to be in the presence of someone who also understands the darkness.

This is why it is so important to invest in our children so they grow up loved and supported, happy people who give to society instead of struggling with their demons into adulthood like me.

The nest of fuck.

Help! I'm curled into a fetal position and I can't get up!

Oh. My. God.

Funniest and most horrifying blog post I've seen to date:

"Then I realized that for someone to take a picture like this, they like, walked into a home or hotel for the first time and saw it… meaning this nest full of fuck was growing inside a building somewhere." --Riyad Kalla

See the rest of the post, including a video (which I could not fully watch) of a camel spider eating a huge lizard, someone cradling a tarantula almost as large as a fetus, and one thumb affected by a brown recluse spider bite.

[shudder] you were warned!

--> continue to Spiders, Scorpions & the Crawlies -->

Epic epicness of backfat

So, I was texting back & forth with a friend one day about how I needed to workout. I said I was in danger of getting backfat. She was all supportive and sweet and said "oh stopit!!" so I said I'd send her a picture so she could see for herself.

I promptly went online and found THIS so of course I sent it.

I couldn't stop snickering. Look at the gem I found! Who wears that??

Now, my friend normally responds right away, but an hour passed and I heard nothing. This was odd.

NOTHING to say about this epic text? I mean, this was an orgy of People of Walmart magnitude wrapped up in a single photo. Surely she'd have SOMETHING to say.

That's when I realized I got the phone number wrong.

I left out a single digit.

::facepalm::

Some random dude (probably someone's grandpa) in CANADA just received a picture, with NO explanation whatsoever, no text, of backfat.

Not only did I send it to the wrong number, but I sent it out of the country and promptly paid $1.00 for the privilege of embarrassing myself.

D'oh!!

(And no, this is not a joke. It really happened!)

Naked, paralyzed and engulfed in flames is probably how it'll go.

Inspired by Oh Noa's "Everything Is Trying To Kill Me" post (http://ohnoa.com/2012/02/everything-is-trying-to-kill-me), she says "Sometimes my brain creates the most irrational, invasive thoughts and works against me, acting as my personal reminder for all the horrifying things that could and probably will happen to me," I wanted to share my *own* list of irrational ways I fear I will meet my death.
Here are the myriad ways in which I will die:

-- While running down the steps at work in my favorite tall boots, I will slip and topple down 3 flights like a giant flesh basketball banging down the cement stairwell as clothes rip off my unconscious form at every turn, leaving my dead, naked and bruised corpse at the bottom for traumatic identification by the coworkers I looked up to most.

-- A snake will crawl out of the toilet while I’m on it and slither into my body cavity and devour my innards. Then my family will find my hollowed-out naked & shamed husk right when the snake’s eggs that were laid inside my abdomen hatch, transforming the simple act of opening a bathroom door into the apocalypse.

-- While sewing, I will accidentally drop a needle and later step on it where it will proceed to sink deeply into my heel and I will die instantly of pain and tetanus.

-- While plucking an errant hair, my elbow will slip on the wet bathroom sink and plunge the tweezers into my eye pointy-edge first.

-- I will scalp myself blowdrying my hair because it will somehow get sucked into the back of the hairdryer in a freak accident, forcefully ripping out a great patch of fiercely embedded strands before the hairdryer catches on fire spreading flames to my loose bathrobe and engulfing me.

-- I will slip in the shower and, while ripping the shower curtain down, cause the rod to slam my neck into the side tank of the toilet, instantly rendering me a quadriplegic unable to call for help while the lower half of my body continues to get showered on until the hot water runs out and turns icy cold, freezing me until my paralyzed body dies of hypothermia.

-- A wolf spider will crawl down my throat while sleeping, causing me to wake to violent choking and then die instantly of a massive heart attack as I see a hairy-legged insect, coated in mucus and saliva and writhing furiously, ejected from my throat.

-- A tornado will engulf the house while I sleep, lifting me up into a swirling rush of debris, painfully maiming me airborne after ripping off my clothes and dismembering me mid-air on camera with the Storm Chaser news team.

THIS is how my brain likes to exert its creativity. I could maybe make use of 9 lives. You have any irrational fears?