Fill Up Your Cup

Lucky me.

My new BFF, my therapist, decided to go and have a baby last month so it's been a while since she and I have had one of our chats (SESSIONS).

I miss her.

Yes, she gave me the names of 2 other therapists in her practice that she thinks would be a good fit while she's busy changing diapers and smelling that new baby smell - but I don't want them, I want her.  PTSD aside, the past 8 months have been the most uncharacteristically chaotic of my life.  She's heard the back story, she knows the details, she knows me.

How can I even begin to explain things to another person?

I could hold out my hand, touching each fingertip as I go through the events that have turned our lives upside down:

• Mother in Law hospitalized for "failure to thrive" (although we tried everything we could to keep her healthy)
• Mother in Law sent home by care facility because she is not following their therapy instructions, therefore cannot stay (even though she can't care for herself at home - we were told that we "had to let her fail" by state social workers)
• Mother in Law passes away
• Beloved family dog diagnosed with cancer
• He passes away
• Friend and co-worker diagnosed with cancer the same time as 3 other friends passes away
• Good friend who fought breast cancer had cancer move into her bones - surgery, infections and rehab
• Husband promoted to Captain (this is good)
• Firefighter (married to a friend of mine from high school) and friend passes away, leaving a huge hole in our firefighter family as well as his own

That's 9 things.  I'd need 2 hands.  And I'm not even including the regular teenager stuff OR Katie's mystery viruses that kept her home from school for more days than I'd like to acknowledge, sent us to the clinic more times than I'd like to think about, and had us in a teeny bit of a panic when she had a pretty severe reaction to an antibiotic she was given for something SHE NEVER ENDED UP HAVING!  

Or, that I TURNED 40, Wyatt needs braces and we now have to insure a teenage driver.

Oh, and I need a new roof.

That's a full plate, right?

But enough about all of that.  What truly amazes me (and god, I am getting soooo sick of the word "amazing" in all forms) is that I am surrounded by people who care.  I'm not talking about the kind of people who say they're there for you but then disappear.  I'm talking about people who are actually really there.  The kind of people who will do anything for you.  The kind of people who will push you to get things done that you'd really rather not deal with.  The kind of people who arrange bakers and volunteers for a memorial service for someone they've never met, so you don't have to do it.  The kind of people who listen.  The kind of people who stay up with you all night.  The kind of people that make you laugh. The kind of people who love you no matter how long it's been since you've seen them.  The kind of people who love you even when you've lost your marbles. The kind of people who don't even hesitate when you ask for their help.  The kind of people who aren't just there for you, they're there for all of you. 

These are the kind of people who don't do it because they know you'd do it for them, they just do it.

I'm convinced that everyone needs these kinds of people in their life.  And these are the kinds of people who fill my cup.  They overflow it with friendship, love, support, strength and hope.  Some of them are family.  Some of them are friends.  Some of them are people I hardly know.  And every last one of them is important.

A dear friend called me a name today.  Anam Cara, it means "soul friend."  Of course, I had to look this up and was not really surprised when I read it's meaning.  Soul friends are people who get you (she gets me).  They are people that bind you to this world.  Sometimes I overlook these people until I need them most.  I'm going to stop doing that.

Fill your cup with people like this.  Take their love and wrap it around your head and heart until you feel their comfort.  Never let them go.

Lucky me, after all.

Gene Autry

Everytime I think about updating my little corner of the www, I start hearing that Gene Autry song in my head.

"I'm back in the saddle again
Out where a friend is a friend
Where the longhorn cattle feed
On the lowly gypsum weed
Back in the saddle again..."

Maybe I'm channeling my late grandparents.  Maybe I've just seen Sleepless in Seattle one too many times.  Doesn't really matter.

What matters is that yes, it's been quite a ride.

I've always been able to pound out my thoughts easily, until after.

One of the first things my therapist (god, I hate saying that -- it doesn't even sound like me) asked when I started seeing her at the end of summer for PTSD was if I had ever written about what happened in Oslo?  I might have laughed in her office.  The office that yes, upon my first visit I confirmed DID contain a COUCH. A real therapists office.

Write?  Me?  You're kidding, right?

But she wasn't.

Turns out she isn't a mind reader.

I'd never been on a therapists couch (except for that one time when I was a crabby teenager...) and I really didn't know what I was supposed to do or say.  It was a huge step to be there but I was getting tired of the nightmares, the fear, the flashbacks, the panic and the SCARED.  Between nightmares and my awesome hot flashes (hello old age!), I wasn't getting much sleep.  I'm a worry-er by nature, but now I was worrying everytime anyone left the house.  And yes, I mean EVERYtime.  I jumped when I heard loud noises and panicked during situations that I never gave a 2nd thought to before.  Crying and I were "like this." Tight.  Inseparable.

Hence, the therapy.

I learned that even though I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do or say, I was pretty good at it (meaning, I never shut up).  Still am.  I see my therapist (I can actually say that now, although I TRY not to advertise it) about every 6 weeks.  And if I need to talk to her between appointments, I can call her - like the time in November when I had an all out freak out while picking up my daughter's 9th birthday cake.  That was fun.

I'm also learning that this is a process.  There is no cure.  There is no quick fix.  There is no potion I can take that will let me forget the things that ultimately brought this to the surface.  Although I've made a lot of progress since August, it's a private progress.  Most people don't know.  They don't know that I need a prescription before getting on an airplane, or going underground at Hoover Dam (I did that!).  They don't know that behind my smile, I'm still a little scared when I'm in the city or in a big crowd or at the movie theater or driving over a bridge.  They don't know that in the last 7 months, I have relied on deep breathing more than a thousand yoga classes could give me.

At the doctor's office today, for a simple completely unrelated matter, I noticed a mental health magazine in the plastic, possibly (no, definitely) germ-riddled shelf in the exam room.  A MENTAL HEALTH MAGAZINE.  Usually those shelves are filled with either pregnancy publications or AARP magazines so this was quite a surprise.  I didn't have time to read much of it but it's existence made me smile.  And not a hidden deep down smile, but a real, content, little smile that yes - the world is an okay place and yes, so am I.  And I'm not the only one because hello! there's a whole magazine about taking care of your mental health.

[It was like finding out that unicorns really DO exist]

I pretty much don't have nightmares anymore and the flashbacks are becoming less frequent.  But I still think about it at least once a day.  I still startle, but I don't panic (as much) when something scary, violent or awful happens (could be because I never watch the news anymore either).  I'm surrounded by people who don't judge, who laugh with me (okay, maybe AT me too) and who help me navigate my way through this.  I couldn't do it without them.

PTSD and the anxiety and panic that comes along with mine isn't anything to be ashamed of.  It's far more common than most people realize and the sooner we open up the dialogue and actually TALK about our mental health just as we TALK about our physical health, the sooner the stigma will dissolve.  What I'm trying to say is, I've had more conversations about childbirth, periods and menstrual cramps than I've ever had about this - and that's just not right.  It's time to change that.

Onward.

My friend Kim and I - Out where a friend is a friend

SOPHOMORE

I knew this time was coming.

There was no denying it, no procrastinating, no putting if off.

All summer I've been witness to the transformation.  It's hard to ignore when the grocery bill totals more than ever before and the shoes are outgrown at am alarming rate. Some days I'm better at noticing than others, especially on those days when I'm snapped up in a hug by strong arms that I hardly recognize, a face that grows whiskers, a voice I hardly know.

My son.

My firstborn.

He isn't so little anymore.

Last week he got his schedule for his 10th grade year.  He's attending the same high school that my husband and I graduated from.  I see the similarities but it still seems to shock me when things come full circle like they do.  Looking over his classes, I noticed a familiar name on the list, "A. Waite."

"Hmmmmm," I said out loud.

Really???

When I was in 10th grade, my (now) husband asked me out for the first time.  We were in French class. He did it in front of the entire class.  I said NO!

I know, I know, I know...

Suffice it to say, our first date didn't happen for a few more months, the summer between 10th and 11th grade for me.

Guess who the teacher was?

A. Waite.

Yup.

This is the part where my brain scrambles.  How can it be?  How in the world can we have a kid as old as we were when we started "dating?"  OMG.   No.  No way.  There better not be any girls in that class!  (NOT GOING TO HAPPEN, I KNOW, BUT A MOTHER CAN DREAM)  I know he keeps telling me that he can get his learners permit TO DRIVE, but I keep laughing and saying he doesn't need it yet.  Besides, he's too busy with football and school to be learning how to drive.

OMG.

It's inevitable.

It's here.

It's now.

I'm not young anymore.

SOB.

When They're Gone

They're gone.

The house is quiet, save our poor dog who wanders occasionally from room to room looking for them, and the cat - whose face I woke up to this morning.  And if there is anything creepier than opening your eyes to a feline face 2 inches from your own, I don't know what it is!  Hope she wasn't trying to steal my breath or something...

I can't remember the last time I was alone overnight in our house.  Sure, kids have come and gone on sleepovers here and there but there has always been another body here with me.  Another soul.  Another person.  Usually one right next to me in my bed.

I'm never lonely in this house.

It's different now though.

For days, weeks, months, I'd reminisce about the times Brett would take the kids on little trips to visit his stepdad in Eastern Washington.  This usually happened once or twice a year, giving me just enough days to clean the house from the baseboards to the ceilings, read a book or two, watch whatever channel I wanted on the TV, listen to MY music, take an uninterrupted bubble bath and regain my sanity before my people returned home.

A few years ago, Grandpa Buddy moved to Florida and then to Nevada...too far away to make impromptu weekend visits.  Too far to roadtrip there and back in a few days.  So those little trips with Dad stopped, taking with them my much needed alone time.

It sounds selfish.  I know.

It IS selfish.

I've always craved, needed, REQUIRED a little alone time in order to function.  It's been absent for a long time and I was practically giddy at the thought of an entire 24 hours in the house by myself.  I would unplug my cell phone, I would watch romantic comedies, I would eat salad for dinner and forget to put on my lipstick.  I would FINISH THE LAUNDRY.  This, I decided, is living on the edge.

I had the salad for dinner, delicious caprese salad made with deep red tomatoes, fresh mozarella and basil picked from the live plant sitting on my kitchen windowsill.  I couldn't find a romantic comedy to watch so I ended up browsing the Netflix queue until I settled on something appropriate;  THE NIGHT OF THE COMET, which someone really needs to remake. I didn't put a lick of make up on my face.  I finished the laundry (hallelujah!). I was naked (well, my face was) and alone and I was going to enjoy it goddammit.  My neighbor/friend brought me a pint of Ben and Jerry's and I would be able to eat it out of the carton if I wanted, with nobody asking for bites!

Sidenote:  ice cream with chocolate covered potato chips = WINNING.

Living the dream.

It's funny though, when you get what you think you need.

After my crazy night, when it was time to sleep, I felt unsettled.  Like our herding dog Roy, I wandered from room to room, checking on things.  I knew I'd locked the windows and the doors and I knew the kids weren't in their beds, but still I checked.  I tried reading but the constant tinkling of the cats tags dangling from her collar and the forlorn sadness emanating from Roy (he missed his kids) was hard to ignore.  Everyone (of the animals) had been fed.  Everyone had fresh water.  Everything was done.  There was nothing else to do but sleep, unless I wanted to repaint the bathroom or dust the wood blinds, which I didn't.  It was time to sleep and I couldn't.

I missed them.

Which was, I think, the whole point of their little adventure anyway.

Well played kids, well played.

And husband, thank you.

Laundrypocolypse

Back when we were a young married couple, I used to think it was cute how my husband would throw a pair of jeans into the hamper after only one wearing - whether they were actually in need of laundering or not.

After all, these were the days before our family unit expanded. The days before babies and kids and worms left in pockets. The days before daughters who try on everything in their drawers just because they "feel like it" and then deposit everything in the hamper...under a wet towel that had been used to mop up spilled water from giving the Barbies a swimming pool in a Tupperware bowl right there in the middle of her room.

Tell mom about this little water incident? Nah. That's too easy. It'll dry...eventually.

When it was just him and me and our 1970's gold washer and dryer, doing laundry was fun. Not because our machine liked to shimmy out into our kitchen during the wash cycle, but because even though he refused to wear a pair of pants twice, there was very little of that laundry to do. Days would go by without the hamper being filled. Months would go by without having to purchase laundry soap. A box of fabric softener sheets lasted almost all year!

Bliss.

Now I have fancy front-loaders which, any way you slice it, are like having a little piece of heaven all wrapped up in two box-shaped appliances with tiny windows in the front in order to observe and become one with their clothes washing genius. But despite the shiny, beautiful, energy-efficient machines, laundry is still a chore. A big one at that.

I'm not sure exactly when the laundry started becoming so cumbersome. Probably somewhere in between my husbands jeans and the finding of gum wrappers and bits of tree that come out in just about any load containing boys clothing. As the kids grew, so did the size of their laundry. What used to be one load of delicate, soft cottons with pictures of bears and bunnies playing in fresh fields - bibs the size of doll shirts and pants I could fit on a hamster - has now become one colossal pile, times 4.

I don't include myself in the equation because my laundry is easy and small.

Plus, I never leave worms in my pockets.

Or Polly Pockets.

Or race cars.

And the laundry never smelled as bad as it does now either. Granted, Katie's laundry still smells like fresh cut grass, as all little girl laundry should. But the boys laundry? Oh. Where do I start? It smells like sweat and dirt and lake water. Factor in the detail that they both require deodorant and you can almost smell their laundry from where you are sitting reading this...sorry.

It stinks!

I thought baseball season was over last week. I did a happy dance as I threw Wyatt's uniform in the wash, for what I thought was the last time this year. I may have even had a glass of wine to celebrate.

Now we're in tournament mode, with games at a moments notice. That means I have to keep his uniform fresh and clean at all times, because you never know when the next game will be. This is problematic. Especially because I've already mentally checked out of having to remove sunflower seeds from his pockets (I don't want to start growing those in my washing machine!) and his athletic supporter from his fancy undergarment...Plus, football starts for my oldest in just over a month - can't I get a break?

This has got to be the most thankless, unglamorous, gross job of any laundress - the removing of someone else's athletic supporter (read: CUP). I have reminded, reminded and reminded so many times my head spins that he pleeeeeease take that thing out before throwing his uniform in the laundry. I'm pretty sure if you looked up the phrase "In one ear and out the other," you'd see a picture of my sweet middle child, and he'd still have no idea where his cup was.

So, I'm heading out on a Laundry Quest.

It's kind of like a Vision Quest, except with laundry and without Matthew Modine or a cool Madonna song to accompany it. Which is really unfortunate because I could use a little muscle to get through the amount of laundry I have piling up.

*Originally posted June, 2010