…ruminations…

Home is my heart is my home is your heart.

So close.

The last three weeks have gone by relatively fast.  Each weekend I have had something to look forward to.  Mom and Dad coming to visit Iowa, me going to Illinois to visit the twin, finally RELAXING so that I don’t give myself a panic attack before my surgery (that is this upcoming weekend).  Less than a week before my fourth surgery by the time I am 23.  All I have to say is I better not be sick one freaking day when I am older.  None of those health issues, please, because I have had my fill.

Writing.

After all these years I think I have finally found a way to write and keep writing.  And also, maybe, a way to get published.  I have been in a memoir mood lately (most recent being Augusta, Gone).  In memoirs, we hear a person’s story.  Their survival of something extremely difficult.  It reads much like fiction story, but carries the heart and soul of a non-fiction (since it is a non-fiction).  They are stories of facing difficulties and coming through, and some times not coming through (I speak of Nic Sheff’s Tweak where at the end he admits to having a relapse while writing the book).  However, they are stories we all can relate to, whether it be literal or not.  The more I read these things, the more I see that my writing style needs to change.  Short and succinct has never been mine, but needs to be.  These stories hold life truths that we all know and need  to learn.  Reading these true stories (or even fictionalized memoirs) helps me realize that what happens in the every day can ben extraordinary to another individual.  It helps me to realize that someone may be able to relate to my highs and my lowest lows, so why not write about them.  I do not intend to bare it all publicly on a forum such as this.  But what if I wrote once a day, kept it in a file on my computer and then at some point in the future go back and read each entry.  What if based on a theme I picked all entries that relate and am able to set up some type of premise.  Even a few sentences or paragraphs a day is better than nothing.

Recommendations.

I haven’t had this in awhile and thought I would do one.

Musical Recommendations:

1. Brand New:  They recently came out with a new album entitled “Daisy”.  Jesse Lacey has definitely gotten more depressed, as evident by his lyrics.  But despite their pessimism, they are still some of the best lyrics ever written (in my opinion).  Track from that album that has been on my iTunes repeat list: “Stolen”.
2. Paramore:  Another of my favorite bands that have recently released a new album entitled “Brand New Eyes”.  The music seems more generic then previous albums, but Hayley Williams is maturing in her lyrics.  Track from that album that has been on my iTunes repeat list (there are several, but I am choosing my favorite): “Playing God”.
3. Senses Fail:  No recent album to speak of, but as I have been in a dark mood, Senses Fail has become top gun again.  They have and will always be a favorite band of mine.  I usually listen to them when I am nostalgic or just plain old pissed off.  Buddy knows his lyrical genius and the raw sound accompanying them makes their songs good for screaming along too.  Track that has been on my iTunes repeat list: “One Eight Seven”.

Christmas in October.

It’s October 10th and it is snowing in Iowa.  Well, was snowing.  Right now it’s just friggin’ cold.  It makes me happy.  I have always been the type to wrap up in a blanket, or layer and layer and layer.  I have always enjoyed the comfort factor you get from when you finally get all snuggled and there is still this crispness in the air.  I just don’t know if I could ever live some place where snow occurs every tenth year or something.  Or when a few flurries causes the whole town to go undercover and not move until it has melted away.  I need to see those white fluffy flakes and feel that blustery cold every once and awhile.

I honestly don’t know why I find it so hard to keep a journal.  Or to write every day, even if it’s just to say a small one sentence bit about this and that.  I think it’s because when I was younger I let all my most personal and emotionally trying moments come out for everyone to see, and I enjoyed the commentary, but I know I hurt many people with my attacks.  I have always been passive aggressive, and these open forums allowed me to attack and attack people who made me mad.  I would write things on here that I would never think about saying to their face, yet I knew it would get to them.  It was so juvenile, but I know there are those juvenile parts in me still, and I know that they still want to slander and mud-sling.  But luckily the more mature part is winning out.  However, it leads to boring entries, or no entries at all.  It’s not that good things never happen to me, it’s just that I always tend to concentrate on the bad.  Ms. Negativity, or Ms. Pessimism.

Whenever I try and talk to Jonathan about my depression I describe it as a black hole.  Imagine, if you will, a black hole in my chest where my heart should be.  It weighs heavy there and then sucks in everything.  All the happiness, all the anger, all the sadness.  I have these brief glimpses of emotion and then they get sucked into the black hole.  I am then left with nothing.  I am numb.  A walking shell.  All I want to do is sleep.  All I can do is stare or escape in to novels or movies or music, and even then those things just feed the hole.  My body begins to ache because I don’t take good care of it.  The tension and stress of putting on the perfect facade, so that no one can see what’s behind it, tires me.  It exhausts me and it makes me even more unhappy.  This week I have been a shell.  A body going through the motions of “normal” life, when in reality I have nothing.

I know I need to work on seeing the good in things.  Of picking a positive and concentrating on that.  I know this pessimism hurts me more than anything and it hurts my relationships with people.  And I have been trying, but some times you forget what the sun looks like when it has been cloudy for weeks.

Plusses and Minuses.

+  Tomorrow is Friday.  THANK GOODNESS comes to mind.

+  Going home to good old Illinois to see my parents, and also go shopping at IKEA to further the awesomeness of Jonathan and I’s living space.

+  I just finished reading Perfect Fifths by Megan McCafferty and was pleased.  Really pleased.

+  I beginning to read Requeim for a Dream, which will then…

- lead me into wanting to read nothing but American drug literature.  It’s depressing shit, but I obsessively read it and digest as if it were, in fact, a drug.  Addiction startles me, and scares me, and somehow through it all I feel like I can relate to it.  There are things within me that just knows that if given the opprotunity that I would be like those lost souls snorting or shooting their life away. 

+  Thanks to Krista, I found these awesome crackers.  And I got a box at lunch today.

+  Cranergey can be found at Wal-Mart, and althought I loathe Wal-Mart, I bought my self a little six pack of the best tasting cranberry juice (with add viatmin B and green tea extract) ever.

+  Senor, our awesome lawn ornament that sits on our balcony, is getting a much needed bath…

-   from the persistent, never ending, bullshit, will it just stop already rain.

+  Did I mention that it is almost the end of the week… yes, yes I did, but it never hurts to mention it again and again and again and again, when it is absolutely fabulous!

+  I plan on writing, like really writing, again.  It’s been too long, and I feel sad that I have not had the desire or the energy to sit down and put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard) and drained my brain of these swirling thoughts.  Because… despite my negative self inclination, I do have some good things to say and a somewhat witty way of writing them.  Just wish I could be the next Chuck Klosterman, blathering on about pop culture in an easily excessible and totally awesome way. 

-  I need to expand my vocabulary, because awesome is a not so awesome word.  It’s too bland and non-descriptive. 

 

Maybe some recommendations later.  Been big on new music (as I always seem to be).

The Madness.

Jonathan and I finally have our own place.  No longer are we walking back and forth (or in older days, driving) between each other’s places.  It feels good.  It looks good too.  I was surprised at how easily things just came together.  Jonathan and I have the same aesthetic, the same feel for belongings.  He let me have the reigns for the most part, but he was definitely vocal (“I think we should get this,” “I don’t like that,” etc.).  Our guest bedroom is still in shambles, and will probably be that way for at least another two weeks.  After that, though, everything – minus a few decorations here and there – will be set up.  Including our brand spankin’ new kitchen table.  Jonathan was commenting yesterday that he really must be growing up, because he is getting more excited about furniture we have purchased than other things.  I agree, because I am in the same boat with him.

Recommendations:

1. Mad Men:  (Television)  KEEP WATCHING IT – if you already do – and START WATCHING IT – if you don’t.
2. Kings of Leon:  (Music)  Remember, this is a band that had albums before Only By The Night.  I think you should try listening to songs from Aha Shake Heartbreak.
3. Sloppy Firsts, Second Helpings, Charmed Thirds, and Fourth Comings:  (Books)  This series about Jessica Darling written by Megan McCafferty is brillant.  Will definitely appeal more to the female persuasion, but definitely worth mentioning to anyone and everyone.  I have recently taken to re-reading them in my bout of “OH SHIT I AM NO LONGER IN SCHOOL” angst.  Just as good as I remember.

Bookshelf 2009.

Something New…

Recommendation:

1. Passion Play by William Fitzsimmons

Been listening to this non-stop for a couple of hours.  It’s striking some chord with me right now.  If you like Joshua Radin, you’ll like Fitzsimmons.

Sick of being sick.

I was put on NuvaRing, which I will now tell everyone I know NEVER to go on, for my persistent ovarian cysts.  The ring gave me such horrific side effects that I had nausea and was vomiting, was sinking into a depression, was so fatigued I was doing nothing but sleeping and going to work, and had no control whatsoever over my appetite.  I usually exercise exquisite self-control and will power when it comes to my food, and I literally could not prevent myself from eating.  And it wasn’t just that.  I never ceased being hungry.  It was like I was a bottomless pit.  For the most part, I could handle the food intake, but the fatigue and the vomiting was a no go.  I took myself off the ring four days early and began my period on Saturday past.  Since then I have been having this incessant pain in my side that worsened when I was not in the fetal position, or standing straight.  At one moment yesterday when I was attempting to lift something at work, I literally shook with pain and a cold sweat came over me.  I ended up leaving work and calling my OB/GYN.  She wasn’t present so I talked to her nurse and was told to head into the ER.

While in the ER I was tested for the common three:  1. ovaries, 2. appendix, and 3. bowels.  After six hours and many pokes and prods later, I was told that I had multiple functional cysts on my right ovary.  Apparently my body could not handle being on a hormone and then being swiftly taken off the hormone.  My ovary became “overexcited” and began to ovulate.  And ovulate.  And keep pushing those ovum out until many cysts and follicles, small as they were, sprouted on my right ovary.  You see, my left is practically non-functioning.  It’s this tiny, miniscule, barely working sack of skin still left in my body.  I believe I ovulate from it once every six months, if that.  Anyways, back to the point… These follicles and cysts were then hemorrhaging and leaking blood into my system which can irritate my innards and cause a bloating, uncomfortable feeling.  However, to me that did not explain the severe pain.  Every once and awhile I would have this rocket go off on my side and cause me to literally tremble with shock and pain.  According to my ER doctor, that was being caused by the placement of my ovaries and these multiple cysts and follicles.  They were rubbing against the inside of my abdominal wall.  When this happens, the irritation becomes great and my muscle cinch in a protective move.  That seemed reasonable because that type of description was how I had described my pain.  So three multiple things had come to create one horrific pain:  1. ovulation, or should I say multiple ovulations, 2. cysts and swollen follicles, and 3. rubbing my abdominal wall.

I am happy to know why this pain — a pain of five days — is there, and what it is.  But it’s also quite depressing because I have been off the hormone for exactly 7 days now, and I already have multiple cysts wrecking havoc on me.  This seems like a no win situation.  I have been told by several of doctors that most women experience this, some as often and as painful as what I have, and others not-so, but the only thing that is real end to these pains is pregnancy and childbirth.  And I am in no way ready for that.  When the symptoms from the NuvaRing were affecting me, I had this inkling I might be pregnant, and Jonathan and I did the we-want-it-but-are-to-young-to-be-parents dance over and over and over.  Last night we both broke down crying because I think the realization finally hit Jonathan that we might not have a chance to have natural births.  The left barely functions and the right is getting worse and worse as time goes on.  The problems become too much, but the treatments cause equally evil problems.  So, as my facebook status says, “Just take the one I have left and leave me alone!”  And yet, I don’t want that.  I don’t that at all.  I am so willing to deal with all this confusion and physical pain and mental anguish just for the chance to have a baby that is Jonathan’s blood and mine.  But the daunting question of “WHAT IF?” keeps popping into my mind.

So, all in all.. I am sick of being sick.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

I cannot wait.

I am re-reading all the Harry Potter’s in preparation.  Like I always do.

Did I mention I CANNOT WAIT.