That Thing I Do

Yesterday I went to lunch with my friend/ landlord.  She wanted me to have my locks lopped off but  I wouldn't.  I like my locks and I've worked hard to get them to lock...People don't know how much work it is to lock your hair and maintain it to keep your hair looking good.  It's grueling...trust me.

So the week before last, when my friend said, "We are going to the hairdresser on Tuesday so that you can get your hair done."  I said, "Okay", but I didn't really mean it...so when the day came, I told her that I didn't want to go and I was keeping my locks.  I texted these words to her.

She texted me back, "Ok".

I don't think she was too pleased with me because she was kind of cool when I went to lunch with her yesterday.  The conversation was flat...and I was kind of disappointed.  She goes to Ghana sometimes for a few days and then flies back home.  She said that she doesn't like her coworkers and she criticizes everyone.  I had expectations... When you have expectations, you get disappointed.  I don't know...what I expected.

Yes...I do.  I was expecting to have a vibrant and fun conversation about dreams and aspirations.  She told me about her trips to Ghana and what she does when she goes.  I wanted to hear more about those. Vicarious conversations...I've had lots of those, when I'm so happy about what someone else does that it's like I'm doing it too.  (Granted, I need a life).

My friend is now planning to go to China to shop for someone who will make bridal hats. She wants to open a bridal shop in her home. How boring. We were in a Thai restaurant.  I sat across from her and pictured myself saying, "Oh! Oh! I can make hats! Pick me! Pick me!" Bridal hats is the last thing that I'd be interested in making.

I met her at the city hospital that we worked at.  She wasn't friendly then and was always getting into confrontations with people.  She was very defensive.  I used to calm her down, when she would bristle at any and everything and nothing.  Her temperament is like that of an animal that's been mistreated.  It doesn't matter how kind you are to them, the chance that they will revert to their wild behavior and bite you in the butt remains. I knew who she was back then...how did I forget?

Doc said at the beginning of the week that I always do that. Not only was I incredulous that she said that to me, but I'm still struggling to understand what it is that I always do with people. I forget...what is it?  Do I forget that people are who they are and that's how they are...including me?  Do I forget to treat people with a long handle spoon so that I won't get injured when they bite it?  Do I blame people for things that I am responsible for?  Pro'ly.

A tendency to look for people who I look up to...who I can model myself after...lingers.  It's like being a teenager.  They say that people get stuck in the age that they were in when they were first addicted to a substance.  My DOC...drug of choice is caffeine.  I began drinking coffee at the age of 14 or 15. Am I stuck in teenagehood?

I'm trying to practice mindfulness.  Mindfulness involves not forgetting yourself and being present for your life...showing up for it.  I haven't been present for my life in the past few months...not fully. (I don't think I've ever been FULLY present for my life.  (I've been too busy trying to show up for everybody elses).

I'm trying to be present for my life now...how difficult. Especially when you don't really like the life that you live. What life is that exactly?

Time Wasters

I waste numerous hours sitting and thinking and wondering about stuff.  Stuff like, why people do some of the stupid things they do.  Or, why people can't see how our freedoms are being chipped away and that we will all be living in a United States that seems like Iraq or Iran in a few years. I wonder why it's so difficult for me to do the things I need and want to do? Or why it's so difficult to stop doing the things that are not good for me like drinking coffee or eating fatty foods or just sitting and staring and wondering about stuff.

Another time waster is playing online computer games.  All of them have a repetitive quality to them that trick us into thinking that each time we play we are doing or seeing something different.  How clever.  Life is like that too.  We are like blood filled, skin covered robots with bones that are programmed from birth to do the same things over and over again.  The odd thing is that we can do the same thing over and over again and expect different results all of our lives.  Are we trained to be insane?

I keep wondering why we as a society put our lives in the hands of people who don't care about us.  Like congress.  The Republicans and some of the Democrats.  People who have what they need...for now at least, and who feel content playing with the lives of people who are struggling to get their needs met.  Why we are content to believe what these people say is beyond me.  It might be more reasonable to look at what it is that they do...or don't do. 

I think that President Obama is right to try to encourage us to be proactive.  It is only by speaking out that we will be able to maintain what freedoms we have left.  We have quite a few left...but we risk losing those if we don't open our eyes and our mouths.  I'm going to call my Congressman and Representatives today.  Well, maybe...I have so many other things to do, that I've been procrastinating about. 

I'm wondering if blogging is a waste of time? Hmm, I don't know, but I'm going to keep blogging because I like it.  It makes me feel good...unlike playing computer games and simply wondering about stuff.

I was reading Deepak Chopra's book Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul- How to create a new you.  I read the first half but, couldn't really get into the second half.  It talks about relying on yourself and not a Higher Power.  I've struggled for a long time to gain an adequate concept of a Higher Power, I'm not giving up on that now. 

I have to rely on a Higher Power. That is what powers the soul.  If we had the spiritual power to fuel our own souls, there would be no need for a Higher Power...or a God or Prayer or Meditation.  We'd be our own self contained power houses.  I feel like I wasted my 16.00 bucks.
If there was a recipe for living your life perfectly, I'd think that someone would have written it out by now.  There is now way to live our lives perfectly.  We are not perfect human beings...whatever that means. Perfection is probably in the eye of the beholder.  Perfection can only be perceived by the one creating what they deem to be perfect. I guess. If I am not perfect, can I even perceive perfection? How can that word exist in any language?
I'm done...

Can time really be wasted?

Time...Less

I'm a little anxious today and I'm imploding like a dying star.  I hate feeling like this.  It's the result of drinking coffee and eating ice cream with lots of sugar.  I couldn't resist the ice cream.  I took the kids to Bruster's yesterday and  just lost it when I saw their ice cream and I didn't have any.  So, I got an apple dumpling with cinnamon syrup and vanilla ice cream.  Yummmm-ma.

I'm paying for it this morning with the jitters...I hate feeling this way.  I'd really like to go back to sleep and wake up feeling a lot calmer.  Also, I have to go up to my young son's school and I need to clean up my room and journal.  I always journal in the morning....lately though, its been a struggle.  I haven't been wanting to write for some reason.  I think that maybe a truth is about to reveal itself that I'm trying to hide from.  Hiding is my forte...it's what I do.

I guess I even try to hide from myself.  A part of my personality must be shy.  I'm sleepy and I have a headache.  I made some terribly fattening Mexican pie.  I don't make it that often .  I like to eat it cold.  The flavors come through alot stronger when you eat it cold. 

My older son has decided to do a drag show.  I told my older daughter and she wrinkled up her face. I didn't know that she was homophobic.  I remembered when she was in high school and I told her that I thought her brother was gay, she cried.  I did too at first. But, then I tried to encourage my son to accept the gay part of himself.  I don't think he was ready.  I was kind of ready.  No one wants their child to be gay or lesbian or bi or transsexual.  Well that's the way I thought back then.

But, it doesn't matter to me.  He's my son. If he decided to have a sex change, then he'd become my daughter.

I told my daughter that I was going to the show if he made the audition.  She said she wasn't ready.  That's fine.  I am.

As for the jitters.  One of the things that Deepak Chopra talks about in his book Reinventing the Body, Ressurecting the Soul is how we can be timeless.  I like that.  When I get the jitters, it appears that I don't have enough time to do anything.  It's like I am just running way ahead of me and I am in back of me trying to get the ahead part of me to notice that she's leaving me behind.

I have been like this for the past few months.  Living like this full of guilt, remorse, regret, anger and just unresolved emotional fallout that just resurfaces like oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico.  It contaminates, sticks to, spoils and kills everything that looks like joy in your life.  Timelessness...Wow!  That cleans all that fallout off.

I'm tired...think I'll go to the library and "three page" myself...

And be Timeless.

Communication? Dream?

Me and D.. didn't have a good conversation on Monday.  I got frustrated with her asking me questions that I didn't really know the answer to (and didn't really want to answer).  She got frustrated with my not answering them.  I'm not frustrated anymore, just scared.  How come I can't control my life?

No one can.  The difference between me and them is that I know that I can't control my life.  "They" still think they can.  What silly little puppets we human beings are with our invisible quantum powered strings hanging  from vital parts of our bodies.

That was an angry statement.  I make angry statements when I realize that I AM actually a silly little puppet powered by invisible quantum strings.  But, maybe it's a good thing. We've done enough damage attached to those strings.  Can't imagine what would happen if we really got loose.

I had a dream this morning.  I find myself exhausted many days.  I was tired this morning but, was more than willing to push myself to my limit again.  I had planned to go to a 12 step meeting and then go to the library.  I was headed to my son's school to drop off lunch money and then go to the library and write.  I fell asleep instead after I lied to myself saying that I would just close my eyes for a couple of minutes.  I made the mistake of covering myself up with a comforter after realizinI g that I was cold.

I dreamed that I was going to work and that I arrived early.  The hospital was an old hospital with really sick patients in it.  I was walking through the hospital trying to help people, my coworkers at random.  I couldn't find my phone or my stethescope or anything that I needed to do my job.  I decided to go outside and move my car.  I guess I had been rushing to get there and parked my car wherever.  I was driving my care up a street because I had to go around the corner to get into the parking garage.  It was raining and as I got up the street, it started to flood.  I started to drive through the water but when I got to a certain point, the water was up to my mirror and I couldn't safely go any further. So, I turned up the side street.  I kept panicking about going to work and I still couldn't find my cell phone.  I made a  U turn on that side street and was going to go back up the street to the hospital, but my car became disabled.  I found myself at Nana's house.  It was a big beautiful house.  Some girls from the hospital who had just gotten off work had picked me up and taken me there. The one driving was in school and she sat at a table in the house with the other girls.  I think she was studying.  I looked for a phone to call work.  It was hard to find one that I could communicate with.  All of the phones were either unplugged from the wall or off the cradle or...just not working.  I mistook someone else's cell phone for mine and when I asked someone if I could use their cell phone...they made some excuse.   The supervisor that was on that night finally called me.  The conversation was interrupted because I went to go hang up another phone so that I could hear her better.  I never finished my conversation with her.  I didn't want to go back to work but was willing to.  I had left my car in the middle of the street somewhere and wasn't sure how I was going to get there.  Eventually, I woke up...

I am not quite sure what this dream means.  I know that it has to do with the lack of communication and obstacles that I face at work.  The girls who brought me home are like some of the coworkers who rally around me, but whom I don't necessarily know.  I felt nervous and anxious throughout the dream. I was fearful that I would be fired for becoming a no show.  Frankly, I think to myself how much I don't want to go back to work.  And how I should just not go.

But, I'd be pounding the nails into my own coffin if I did that.  I have to go back to work because I need the revenue.  I like the job.  But, I need to separate my identity from nursing.  I work as a nurse.  I am not a nurse though.  What's the difference?  I remember when everything that I was and did was nursing.  I had no self-esteem save the kudos and compliments that I got from my patients and coworkers and sometimes the doctors.  All I did was talk about myself-- as a nurse.  I felt powerful and in control when I was at work.  What a sick fantasy.

I still love nursing.  I don't love what it has become. It is difficult to work, knowing what your limitations as a human being are and seeing young nurses who have yet to realize theirs.  It is stressful working for an industry who sees dollar signs embedded in the faces of every person who crosses the threshold.

Anyway. 

Owning My Words

I don't really know what this blog is about much anymore.  I just write and whatever comes up, comes out.  Not always.  Sometimes I erase stuff that I think is too personal or might be construed the wrong way.  But, that's only on the days that I care what someone else thinks.  I'm enjoying writing these days...When I write.  It's been difficult to journal. I don't know what that is all about.

I can only guess why it's so hard to put my words down on paper.  One thing I know that affects my ability to write in an adverse manner is consuming too much sugar and caffeine.  I'm addicted...AGAIN!  Working nights has done this to me.  Or, I've done this to me working nights.  I don't like working nights because it makes me exhausted.  It has totally confused my body clock.  I can't think clearly when I take in too much caffeine and sugar.    Caffeine makes me insomoniatic (I love making up words).  Sugar clouds my judgement and ability to think clearly.

So, why do I consume them. 

I tend to drink a caffeine on the weekends when I work to stay awake on the days, that I sleep well.  One of my coworkers talks about the things she does during the day.  I sort of envied that, and I tried to do things on the days that I work.  My coworker has more time to sleep though. She lives closer to the hospital than I do.  She lives ten minutes away and I live an hour away...so, she doesn't have to go right to bed after work.  I need to.

I feel really isolated sometimes.  I was thinking about this yesterday when I took my eldest son shopping.  I don't like that isolated feeling.  But, I don't think it's time for me to get super social.
It's been difficult.  I need to think about who I want to socialize with and whether I like the people or not and blah blah blah.

People are funny here in Atlanta...Nosy and wary.  I'll explain that in another blog sometime. 

I've been here for what seems an eternity.  Sometimes, I wonder if I didn't relegate myself to my own personal hell by staying her for the past seventeen years.  I can't believe it's been that long either. 

When I came down here, I was running from the chaos in my family. I also wanted to protect my children from being treated like my mother and her children had been treated by the family.  I was also running from a crazed husband who just wanted to use and abuse me and totally ignored the children.  (By the way, my ex is still crazy as hell...my first ex). 

Anyway, I am making a pledge to own my own words.  After all, they are my own words.  I think about what a dysfunctional society we live in when you have to be guarded about what you say.  Or, people say you have to be guarded about what you say.  Lest you offend the powers that be.  But, who are they but human beings who find it fitting to say whatever they want? 

We are all adults... Of course, maybe there are things that shouldn't be said by anyone.  As for me, I'll have to figure out what I shouldn't say as I go along.  Trying to figure out what is proper based on societal mores in American society is almost impossible.  People are too often ostracized, black-balled, ex-communicated , exiled for what needs to be said but, what the status quo is unwilling to face.  A nation in severe denial is the USA.

I've found in my own life that when you stay in denial for too long...the black dog will bite you in the ass.  In other words reality will make itself known in a way that is utterly excruciatingly painful.
Then, you don't have the choice of ignoring it...or you can call the black dog a chipmunk and continue getting injured.

I'm owning my own words...whatever the consequences.

Sleepless

I'm having a sleepless night.  I took time off from work this weekend because, my son's dad is leaving for Virginia this week.  So, I thought he was leaving for Virginia this weekend and I wanted to help my son make the transition but, he went to spend the night at his dad's house.  This is his dad's last weekend here.

So, I sit alone in the bed.  Initially I was playing games on the computer, like Collapse and Gardens of Time.  I got tired of doing that so, I decided that this would be a good time to blog. 

I am emotionally and spiritually mired in quicksand. How I got here, I don't know.  It always comes as a surprise for me when I'm stuck. It's usually a sign that I'm in denial about something or other.  I could make a list of all the things that I'm in denial about.  But, if you're in denial about something...would you necessarily know what it is?

Possibly.  I won't make a list.  I made a gratitude list once on this blog and I was absolutely appalled at some of the stuff that I put on it when I glanced at it.  I think that I was really grateful for about half of them, the others I was trying to be grateful for but they didn't quite make the cut and I put them on there anyway.  I wasn't really sure how to be grateful at the time.  I do now, though.

I'm sitting up here writing on the computer and... this computer kind of does crazy things, sometimes.  Things just appear on the screen. Well...maybe I'm hitting keys that I shouldn't be striking.

I'm tired but I can't sleep. My eldest came in here and sat on my bed for a minute.  I think she got aggravated at me because she was in a group picture with her sorors and they all had black dresses on it.  Hers stood out because it had this huge colorful applique on it that looked like a bouquet of flowers.  I wasn't sure what it was and I said, "What the hell is that on your dress?" I realized that should have suppressed the urge to ask that question when she snatched the picture away and changed the subject.

I don't mean to aggravate this child but, she gets upset if I take a deep breath. All sorts of things ran through my mind when I was looking at that picture.  Like, why didn't she wear a solid black dress so she wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb? It almost looked like she was wearing it because she wanted to look different from everyone else.

I think she showed me the picture so that, I would say something to aggravate her. It worked...I did!  I wonder if all mother-daughter relationships as strained as ours is?  Sometimes I think that girl hates me. Maybe, I havent' t learned how to fully love myself.

I bought myself two pairs of decent shoes today.  Well actually, a pair of sneakers and a pair of shoes.  I was going to wear the sneakers to work but, decided that I need something a little sturdier. Although, they are very comfortable.

I'm going to sleep.  For now, I'll just stay in denial until, I my subconscious decides to tap me on the shoulder or hit me over the head with a ton of bricks. G'night.  It's about 12:30 AM where I am. 

Oh, So Random!

This morning I decided to go to B&N bookstore to blog and journal. Most days, I receive a great sense of freedom from blogging.  But, lately my efforts to express myself-so to speak-are a little strained.  It is hard for me to write without feeling guilty about what I write.  Nobody is really looking at this right?

Maybe it's the paranoia from all the news I've been reading about Google and Facebook and how they can look at your personal stuff and how Facebook can go into your past.

So what?  I tell myself. There are things about my past that I'd rather not remember, but I feel that if someone want's to waste their time digging up old stuff from the past so that they can laud it over you and ruin your life...so be it.  People...especially the ones who have money...think that they are God.
But, they must be miserable.  If you are so hell bent on controlling someone else's life that you don't care how it affects them, you'd have to be miserable.

Then, some people are miserable and don't know it.  They mask it with something else. Anyway, the information here is vague.  I thought that maybe I would just stop writing stuff on Facebook, but if they can already look at my past, then I guess I won't.  The government probably wants to do this for surveillance purposes--so they say.

With the advent of technology,  we might as well strike the work privacy from our vocabulary. 

Anyway, I wanted to write about something else.  I'm not relaxed writing at all.  Not owning my words.  How do I own them?  I guess I just have to write whatever it is that comes to my head.  I am probably threatening writer block.  I thought I was just real tired and I tried to sleep, but I have this excess energy that won't dissipate.  I don't know where it's all coming from.

I went to my ex-friend S--- house a couple of weeks ago.  I hadn't seen her for about three or four years and was wondering how she was doing.  Why I did that I have no idea.  I have her phone number but, we aren't friends anymore for a reason.  She said that she didn't like or trust women. That women could not be her friend, just associates. 

She proved not to be a good friend.  I  left my number in her door and she called me.  I talked to her for a long time but, decided not to call her back.  She's right where I left her.  I have moved on.

My thoughts are random.  My young son woke up this morning in a panic because he had heard the fron door slam.  He came in my room, locked the door and put his head under the covers.  I got up and opened the door and he went into hysterics.  I assured him that there was no intruder downstairs and he finally settled down.

When we woke up this morning, he said he had a sore throat. He hinted at staying home but I wouldn't let him.  I don't know what to say.  I looked at his throat and told him that he had to go to school.  He went.  This music with Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett singing with various artists is kinda cool.  I like it.

I bought a cup of coffee at QT this morning.  I am trying to stop drinking it. I'm thinking that drinking an excess of aspartame and maltodextrin is what is making me so jittery.  Or, so crazy.  I guess I'll have to strike those from my diet too.

My friend K---- got mad at me the other day because I decided not to take the ten hour drive to Virginia.  She is sitting on a deserted island waiting for someone to save her.  I am not that superhero or heroine.  I don't think I'll go visit her for a few years.  She is really crazy.  She was upset because I told her that one of my coworkers was going to have a wedding shower and I wanted to go.

Now, if you had a choice of driving 45 minutes to a wedding shower or 10 hours to visit a friend who has serious anger and control issues and is a chain smoker...where would you go?  No brainer!  I've known her for over 30 years.  I must've been just as crazy as she was back then.  Everytime something doesn't go her way she throws these mega tantrums.  I sent her some money a couple of weeks ago and when she went into her rant she said that I sent it cause I knew I wasn't coming and I was trying to placate her.  Talking about self-centered and ungrateful!

I am done.

Tired Ramble

I'm very tired.  I have been pushing myself.  To do what?  I don't know.  But, I've been pushing myself.  I don't have to work this weekend which is really nice.  I'm tired of working.  But, I found myself feeling anxious when I woke up today. That anxious feeling that I get when I have had too much sugar the day before. 

Not only that...
I feel like work is my life.  What can I do if I a don't work?  Throw a rock in the pond...hear the plop and watch the ripple.

I have worked my behind off trying to learn to live without being addicted to taking care of people.  Care addict.  All addicts get a piece of their identity and personality from the thing that they are addicted to.  Why does my identity have to be attached to nailing myself to the cross everyday on someone else's behalf?

I know that it's nice to do things for people but, when it starts to suck the life out of you, it might be good to walk in another direction. 

On those days, that I feel like my "self" is running to catch up with me, that is exactly what is happening.  I have left myself behind and I'm trying to get my attention.  Okay, so I have my attention. Now, what  do I do?

I noticed one day while sitting in a room with a bunch of bipolars who were in an acute manic phase, how they all try to solve everyone else's problem but their own. (They got on my nerves so bad that day).  Chronic caretakers are like that.  So, are they necessarily bipolar? I don't know.  I guess it depends on how far outside of themselves that they live.  I live outside of myself but, I try to stay as close to home as I can these days. It's horrible tryna find your way back home when you wander too far away.

There was a time when I just couldn't stay indoors.

I don't know why I'm writing this.  You put all your business online, somebody reads it and judges you and decides you are psychotic and useless to society.  Unless, you're Charlie Sheen, or Ted Turner or some other rich white guy with a drug habit and billions... Or Li'l Wayne, or Kanye West or...

I just like to write.  I write "I" too much though.  When I go back and reread )or is it re-read? ), I try to remove some of the "i's". 

It took me a long time to even realize that I was tired.  I just wasn't paying attention. 

Lemonade Recipe

When life hands you lemons...make lemonade. So, the saying goes.  But, what if you don't know what lemons are? What if you don't recognize them?  Some people have what they think is bad luck, and have know idea that they may have some control over the outcomes in their lives.  I used to be like that.

Sometimes, I know that things in my life seem a little sour, but I am remiss to find the source.  I'm not sure sometimes wether these are natural events in the course of things or wether these are lemons that can be turned into lemonades.  What if it's just rotten fruit?  You can't make much of anything out of rotten apples or oranges.  If you let them sit there they'll fester and draw flies and sundry other vermin that you don't want around.  All you can really do is throw them away.  But, then it depends on how rotten it is.  In some cases you can cut out the rotten spots and make apple pie...but oranges, you just have to throw away.  The entire taste of an orange is spoiled if it has a rotten spot in it.


So, what's the point of this?  Hell if I know.  I just woke up thinking about this.  What if a person can't recognize a lemon?  Then, I guess you can just throw that away too.  And then you have to understand that if you make lemonade, you're just putting something sweet on top of something sour.  It doesn't make the sourness go away, it just makes the lemony taste more palatable. 

Then, I started thinking that sugar is not all that good for you... So, then you've damaged yourself, by trying to make a sour thing sweet.

So... I like lemons.  Especially, in lemon meringue pie or cookies.

(Humming...Whistling).

I guess you don't have to know what something is to know that it's sour.  And is it always best to sugar coat something just because it's hard to swallow?

Hmmm. Now there's a thought?

HALT! Who Goes There?

I'm a woman on a mission and I've been speeding with a frenzy that you wouldn't believe and I've gotten nothing accomplished.  The result of raw, irrational anxiety.  So, now it's time for me to stop.
Hungry? Angry? Lonely? Tired?  The four basic needs that I need to attend to. I've neglected them-ALL. Because, all of my attention has been other focused.

I don't feel like writing this and I need to take another nap before I go to work.  Maybe, I should stay home.  I have to show up at work at some point. I don't won't to go to work...

Well, I just ate.  I'm not really pissed.  But, that loneliness of mine is a persistent state, which could cause vegetation to grow all over me.  I had a nightmare that this guy who had gone fishing had caught all these hands and he was throwing them out of a big tank with murky water.  I acted like this was normal in the dream, but now that I think of it.

I am still having a difficult time settling myself down.  A result--I believe--of eating sugar and drinking caffeine or too much aspartame.  I keep developing these mild persistent headaches.  I need to lay off the sugar, caffeine and aspartame and maltodextrin.  Maltodextrin is the worse.  Anyway...what will I use to sweeten my drinks without sugar, aspartame and maltodextrin?

Who knows. I don't really know but, bouncing off the walls is no fun at 53.  I feel like I have multiple personality disorder.  With all these mood swings and anxiety and not knowing what to do or not wanting to sit down half the time. I really feel sorry for people with ADD. 

There is a Comcast truck outside my window with one of those people buckets that help people climb up to the wires on poles.  I get nervous when trucks are outside of my door and I didn't call anybody.  I feel tired.  Okay God...what to do next?

I am trying to have patience but I read something in a Kahlil Gibran book that said patience can cloak itself as something else...I'm going to have to look it up later cause I have to nap.  I' m so afraid of everything it seems. I think when someone betrays you...like they do at work, it can make you afraid.  The question is not whether I should or shouldn't stay in a situation where people are  deceptive and mean and hateful.  The question is where else can I go where people aren't?  What am I?

S.A.D

I've been depressed here lately.  I've found myself on an emotional downward spiral that started last week.  It's not that I'm crazy either.  I feel tired and jittery and all I want to do is sleep.  I don't even want to write these days.  Haven't been writing in my journal.  Just journaling on my blog.

If I look at the things that have me weighed down at this point, maybe I can shut my eyes and have them go away.  But, I doubt it.  Life, for me is really not that bad.  Then, why can't I just snap out of this ?  Maybe, I have seasonal affective disorder.  They've got a name for everything. I never thought about it before.

First, I got sick.  Then, I decided that I needed a social life.  Then, my ex, my young son's father decides that he is going to move to Virginia.  That leaves me searching for childcare. Then, then. I start looking at work and some of the things that we have to deal with and some of the ethical considerations that everyone ignores.  The burden on the nurse there is just too heavy.

If you have a patient that is sick enough...terminal...advancing towards death and the doctor doesn't know what to do, you don't sit there and just let the patient struggle to breath.  The patient's care has to be geared towards something.  If the doctor says that he doesn't know what to do...then...what isthe nurse supposed to do.  We are told that we have to act a certain way because this doctor supplies the floor with patients.

I say call a code. 

The daughter is sitting there holding her breath because she does not know that there is help or whether anything that can be done for her loved one.  Then you call a code and the people that you work with want you to justify it...  I vote my conscious and uphold my own code of ethics.  The ones that I was taught before I came to Georgia.  Cause honestly...
The downward spiral started last week when I decided that I don't want to be a journaling recluse anymore.  I went out to breakfast with my coworker Sunday morning and I just had a feeling that I shouldna done that.  I have never had a desire to go out to eat breakfast with her. She is dysfunctional and has some issues that I just can't quite put my finger on.

Frankly, she scares me.
Then there was that med error at work Sunday night.  It didn't start there though...I said that it started the previous week when I decided that I wanted to turn myself into a social butterfly. Maybe I should stay in my cocoon. 

I've always been rather clumsy at living my life.  Maybe becoming a social butterfly shouldn't be a priority, not now anyway.  I have a lot of trouble with trust.  I trust the wrong people. I.E. the aforementioned coworker. Or, I don't trust anyone.  That is a recipe for a hermits life.
I thought it was the med error that was bothering me of fear of losing my job.  But, that's not it.  I have lot's of stuff swirling in my head. 

WHERE IS MY JOURNAL?????!!@!!!!!!!#WERT&$%)()(*&*#$@%^*&(_)

I have so many baffling questions in my head.  Like how do I deal with this job? My boss never calls me, except when I do something wrong.  If this hospital ever makes magnet...I will be surprised--and dismayed. Not only that, my boss doesn't like me.  I don't really like her either. She's a liar and she's phony and crazy to boot.
I hope she never reads this.

Choo Choo!

I'm trying to get back on track.  My nerves are on edge and I just feel like I need to go.  I can't go...anywhere.  I read blogs last night.  It made me wonder why we bother to send our thoughts out there in cyberspace.  If words are typed on the page and there is no one to read them, do they still matter?
I guess they do.  They definately matter to the person who wrote them. 

Chugga chugga! I'm getting on track as a slow start.

When I wrote about the mistake I made at work, I was so jittery.  It's time to let it go regardless of what the consequences might be.  I think that my jitteriness is caused by something else.

This morning, my little boy said that he didn't want to go to school.  He claimed that his arm was hurting and that his throat was sore.  I told him that he could go to school anyway. He gave me that look that his father, my ex used to give when he didn't want to do something.  A solemn puppy dog eyed stare.  So, I let him stay home.

He then told me about girls fliriting with him at school.  I assured him that there was nothing wrong with it and told him that it was okay to flirt back. I informed him that he is a handsome guy and girls are going to flirt.   He said that he'd thought about asking one of him to be his girlfriend.  One that he doesn't really like.  I suggested to the little man that he ask to be friends with her by asking for her number.  He said that he was waiting for her to ask him for his number. Then he giggled.

It must be hard at 10 to try to approach the opposite sex.

I couldn't even remotely allude to liking a boy at  that age...or any other age for that matter.

I'm surprised that I am able to have a discussion like this with my son.  It's funny and scary at the same time.

Tuesday Morning

SO MY BOSS CALLS ME THIS TUESDAY MORNING TO GET MORE DETAILS ABOUT THE MISTAKE THAT i MADE AT WORK.  i'M NOT FEELING AT ALL EASY ABOUT THIS.  I STILL FEEL SHAKY FROM IT AND i'M WORRIED ABOUT LOSING MY JOB. tHE COWORKER WHO WAS MY CHARGE NURSE ADVISED ME NOT TO TELL THE PATIENT ABOUT THE MISTAKE AND i TOOK HER ADVICE WHICH WAS REALLY STUPID.  i WAS EXTREMELY TIRED AND CONFUSED AND SOMETIMES iJUST DON'T KNOW WHY i DO THE THINGS i DO.  i HAVE NEVER BEEN ABLE TO TRUST THIS PERSON BEFORE, WHERE THE HELL DID i GET THE IDEA THAt I could trust her that day? 

i was exhausted and had an emergency  that night and one of my patients was having a melt down and after the emergency. i was somewhat flustered because I could not get in touch with the doctor to ask him a vital question about this patient and as I was waiting for his phone call I decided to hurry and get my meds out.  i ended up accidently switching up my the patients meds and when i discovered this i was horrified.  i didn't tell the patient right away because i was trying to calm myself down and i didn't want to scare her.  i never completely calmed down and decided that i would wait until my patient was more awake before i explained what happened.  when the charge nurse asked me about whether i had told her or not.  i told her not yet.  she said, "no don't tell her". then she gave me a speech about how the patient's doctor would take care of it.

i knew better, but i was so sleepy that i wasn't thinking clearly. so , i did not override her.  i took her advice.  she also advised me not to put a note in the chart which i had written.  i said to her , "but they need a record in case something happens".  she said, "no". still shaken from the earlier events, i took her advice.  i'm uspet with myself for using poor judgement.  " i've used poor judgement in many matters involving my own life. i tend to be a little more cautious with someone elses.

the thing is: even with policies for transparency, many nurses think that you should not tell when you make a mistake.  many nurses.  so, mistakes still go unreported.  i've been told by numerous nurse that they never report med errors.  i always try to report med errors myself, because you have to consider the welfare of the patient.  and they need to report if something goes wrong.

i've learned a very valuable lesson.  follow my gut and don't let your charge nurse talk you out of doing the right thing.

anyway. it is kind of scary how little integrity someone has and how you can be convinced to compromise your own values if you are not thinking clearly.  always think. 

the biggest problem with society today is that we don't have the courage of our convictions--a psychology teacher that i had once said this in a lecture.

maybe is should go back to school.

I Mean What I Say

I mean what I say when I say that 9/11 commemoration has a whiny quality about it.  No one commemorates the hurricane Katrina tragedy.  The way that America picks it's battles and grieving process is discriminatorily (is that a word?) one sided.  Soldiers die in Afghanistan and Iraq everyday,  who is thinking about them?

It's sad what this country has come to.  I heard people speaking about the fact that on the day of the Towers falling, no one considered skin color or gender.  I heard people say that people were just helping each other.  It is sad that that is what it takes for people in this country to look past the surface and see each other as human.

After that one day, back to business as usual.

I am writing this morning after waking up to get my young son off to school.  He is decidedly cheerful and exuberant.  I am still sleepy.  When I went outside to bring the garbage to the curb, two dead maggots decorated the top of the can.  I would have gagged but I was too sleepy.  Snails or slugs had decorated the top of the can with dew drops.  I was impressed.

My young son told me that his back hurt.  He said the same thing yesterday after he came in from playing.  I told him that if he can go outside and ride his bike and play with a hurt back, he can go to school.  He does that sometimes...I used to do that when I was a kid.  I would try to stay home from school.  I liked school though.  He does too.

I am living.  Today.  I want a cup of coffee but I will wait until it's time to go to my meeting.  I like sitting there and sipping on coffee while we talk about what ails us.  I don't care anymore about what I say on my blog.  I am tired of hearing people rant about political issues and lying in their rants.
I guess they're lying. Maybe they think they are telling the truth...who knows?

If you say something that's not true and you think it is, that is denial. Denial is the process of lying to yourself as well as everyone else.

We are a nation in denial. The United States is sick.  When patients who are in denial wait until their disease is so advanced that they have to go to the doctor  they have decrease their chances of survival. Markedly. 
I mean what I say.

Shift

I tried not to move.  I tried to stay still, but the thing is...I'm uncomfortable.  With myself.  What most people do when they are uncomfortable with themselves is try to change their external environment. This works temporarily.  But, for permanent relief, it is the inner environment that needs changing.

So.

Last night I was uncomfortable with how I was feeling.  I don't know what emotions presented themselves, but I was tired and didn't want to be at work.  Eventually, I ended up doing something wrong and that didn't help me feel any better.  Usually when I do something wrong it makes me feel worse.  I beat myself up, call myself names and complain the whole damned night.  I didn't do that last night.

What I did was just didn't try to talk myself into saying that things are what they are not.  I just accepted the fact that I  crappy.  That I screwed up at work and left it at that.  I don't feel good about what I did but I decided not to dwell on it and to do things differently next time.

I keep mulling over my decision to move.  I'm still not sure that that is the best thing for me to do.  For one thing, I'm nowhere near ready to move. For another thing, I haven't reached my goal yet.
I feel that if you say something, you should mean it and stick to the program.  I have to stick to the program. 

I want to write.  I want to write and publish a novel.  I won't move until I do that.  Not only that...interesting working with Doc C. I like working with his patients and I'm trying to understand what it is he does. It's hard sometimes to understand what he's doing. But, I'm getting better at it.  I've never been one to just follow instructions without asking questions.
I'm learning to do things a little differently than I used to.
It's difficult.  But, I think I have time to learn.
Sometimes time is all you need...and maybe a little patience to go along with it.

Day #3

Well. This would have been the post for day #3 but I wrote the title a couple of days ago and skipped a day. I worked nights so to be honest with you, I'm not sure what day this is, nevermind the number.  I have just gotten home after having breakfast with one of my coworkers.  I really should have my head examined.  Not only for having breakfast after work but for having breakfast with my coworker...

She's nice, but it must be something  genetic for women to long for male companionship after being imprisoned by a male in a relationship for years on end.  I know it's a harsh way to put it. I wonder though sometimes, why we have such a hard time honoring ourselves first and why we search so hard for that one person who will make us complete.  He just doesn't exist, not in the flesh anyway.

Then,
I've never been in a relationship for years on end.  First of all, I've never had a decent romantic relationship.  Secondly, I simply couldn't stay in a relationship where my husband treated me like a nick nack in a curio cabinet.  I just couldn't sit still that long.  Not only that, for all these years it kind of escaped me...knowing what a real relationship was. So, maybe I'm just not an authority on relationships.

Non-relationships maybe, after two failed marriages and two crazy husbands.  Both, on opposite ends of the spectrum.  One an overacheiver. the other a career criminal.  I mean, I've had the best--and the worst--of both worlds.
My coworker seems to just be discovering who she is.  The guy that she is dating seems nice enough but doesn't have a permanent job.  Hmmmm.  He's a contractor.  Men, will go for a nurse, when they won't go for anything else.  Nurses have secure jobs. Nurses love to take care of people.  Nurses come from troubled families. Nurses are suckers...At least that's what they think. Men.
So, what does this all have to do with day number three?  Who the hell knows?  I just had to write so that I wouldn't miss another day of blogging.  Yes..I'm addicted.

Today is the commemorative day of 9/11.  Why don't they just make it a holiday?  I mean.  Maybe, we should still be commemorating Pearl Harbor nationally.  I can understand why people would be upset about 9/11 especially those who lost people who were close to them.  But, I think that some people use it as an excuse to hate.

To justify waging wars on people who had nothing to do with it.

9/11 commemoration is being used as a propaganda tool.  A reason to chip away at our own freedoms and constitutional rights.

I feel for those who lost their love ones in 9/11 but, there is a whiny quality about this.  When I think of how many of our young people are still being killed overseas. It's like, we lost 5,000 in the  Twin Towers.  So, it justifies losing 100,000 in wars that we wage to take someone elses land and oil so that we can finish destroying the ozone layer and whatever other life forms exist so that rich people can get richer.  It amaze me that we denounce other countries for human rights violations, but ignore those in China. That we villify women who have abortions here but, say nothing about baby girls dumped alive in gutters in China. (Maybe it's because China is not part of the UN).  How we borrow money from Communist China, but refuse to have any financial dealings with Communist Cuba.

HUGE QUESTION MARK.

I'm not feeling well and it's hard for me to write when I'm feeling this way.  I just don't have the energy to put out there.  I have a mild upper respiratory infection.  It makes me feel tired and sluggish and sleepy.  I hate it when this happens.  It just seems to take a toll on me.  I can't wait to get over it.  My head aches.

I slept all day today.  I talked to Kay  on the phone last night and she said that I don't get enough rest and blah blah blah.  The thing is, that she's content to talk on the phone all night and sometimes gets and attitude if I say I'm going to hang up.  But, she didn't last night and I don't have to have permission from my friend to get off the phone. 

I would go get a cup of coffee.  It boosts my energy level. The problem is that with fake energy, I will still be tired, eventually.  I'm tired all of the time, the house looks a mess again and I need to feel better.  I also need to change the filters up there, in the furnace in the attic. I hope there aren't any snakes or squirrels up there.  You know how stuff like that goes.  I need to send off those tax forms that Es did.  I didn't know that he did them.  I was going to do them myself, but he did them. 

I didn't mean for him to do them.  Anyway, they didn't call me and tell me that they had them.  I guess...I don't know...it's weird how Africans do things.  These are just random thoughts.  I was going to let all of my tax mail go to his and Ay's house but that didn't work out to well.  I finally had to call the IRS and tell them to send me my stuff. I kept getting my mail too late. 

I don't feel scared anymore writing this.  I still feel sick though and have a headache.  I need to change  the filters in the furnace...I know that that is one of the things that is making me sick.  Joe is leaving for Virginia at the end of the month.  I have to find new childcare arrangements.  My head hurts.  I keep saying that I want to move back home.  I want to move back home. I'm going to move back home...my target date is in May.

My back hurts.  I don't see the sense in staying in Georgia...I don't like it here, never have.  Py is now doing extras work on the set with Vampire Diaries.  I am just rambling and it's fun...just spitting stuff out there and not caring what it looks like or who sees it...nice.  The wind blows today and it's still hot.  It's cloudy outside and I can hear the cars going up and down the street.

I spent a little time on facebook.  I don't really like that forum, it can be so impersonal sometimes...

This is rant number 2.  I am signing out.

My Life in Blog

I'm  just going to ramble here.  If I come out with rational and coherent sentences, that will be nice. But, for now, I just put on the page what I think...haha...I started to write paper.  It's funny how you can now have a page without paper.  I've not been feeling well this week, I attribute that to the fact that I have run myself down.  I am a victim of the hamster principle...you know...run yourself ragged until your body says, "eff this, I need a break".  I suspect that that is what is happening now.

I found myself speeding up and dancing to some really rapid drumbeats and now I just can't go anymore.  I thought in the past that when I sped up like this that I could slow myself down...but I just can't do it. I can kind of pace myself.  What keeps me moving is this ingrained guilt.

I was watching this old movie called The Red Shoes the other day where this girl saw some red shose that she just had to have and she couldn't stop dancing in them. My mother used to read me and my sisters that story before we went to bed when we were little.  It used to creep me out, especially the end where they had to chop her feet off to stop the shoes from making her dance. Talking about throwing the baby out with the bath water.

I think that this story speaks to materialism and how we think that if we get that one little thing that all of our problems will be solved...guess what? You start dancing to the beat of societies drums and the faster and faster they go, the faster you have to dance.  Until...bam...you get tired. 

It's like I'm running from something.  I think it's some type of discomfort that I'm running from but it's an inner discomfort, some type of turmoil...I just don't understand. Just like that girl with those shoes.

Because I was so antsy, I started doing a fourth step.  That made me antsier...if that's the write spelling.  Being sick, I'm ansty.  I want to just rush around and make the world a better place to live so that I will be more comfortable. When I did this speedy shit inthe past, I would do things like buy people stuff to make them happy.  I would also make these drastic life plan/ slash changes.  I go between frantic random activity in my life to total inertia. 

I think that I'm finding a happy medium.

That frantic activity mode is as bad as the total inertia...I hate both of them.  With frantic activity, I don't think, I just do.  With the total inertia, I don't do anything, I just think. I wonder what made me like this.  It sounds bipolar...but people keep telling me I'm not bipolar because I am aware.  I wasn't always aware.  I have just learned to stop long enough to think about what I am doing. I had to train myself to do that.

At one point I was afraid to blog about this stuff because I was afraid that people would think I'm crazy.  I know that people think I'm crazy anyway so these days, I don't give a shit.  Besides, Ted Turner is bipolar, if it wasn't for all that money he had he'd get no respect.  He's not medicated either. Yikes! Money must provide a great cushion between being delusional and reality.

Writing calms me.  It helps me pace myself in world that seems to spin so fast that you can't see the forest or the trees or smell the flowers or none of that stuff.  I'm grateful for pen, paper and Blogger.  It's difficult to be sane in an increasingly sane world.

I'm Starting Over.

I promised myself that I would write everyday for 365 days.  I have been distracted and very tired.  I'm so upset because now I have to start over.  I'm not feeling well.  I have some type of upper respiratory thing going on.  On the left side of my chest, it hurts, I'm tired and sometimes I just break out in cold sweat.  My appetite is not that good either. It is hard for me to concentrate. and yesterday I missed my doctors appointment.  I'm ready to go back to bed.  I've been in bed all day.  I think that I have just run myself down really bad working nights.  I am going to leave Georgia.  The question is...where am I going to go.  Why should I stay somewhere where I am just miserable all of the time.  What I need is no longer here.  Was it ever.

Is that a good reason to move?  Karyn drives me crazy.

I am sitting up here watching ghost hunters.  The thing about it is...everytime they hear something weird, they say...what the hell was that like they are surprised.  i don't understand why they are so surprised when they are looking for ghosts, but when they find them...they just look totally shocked.

Anyway, I was reading this post that this guy wrote about this country and our freedoms and he says that he is going to go to the phillipines and live and then when all of the craziness here is done, he's coming back. He feel like he has paid his dues and so he is going to leave this country while everybody here tries to kill each other.  He could be helping trying to get things straight here.  But, this guy feels that this country is at a point of no return. So, do I.   

Writer's Guilt

I have writer's guilt this morning.  It's guilt that tells you maybe you shouldn't be doing this.  that you sholdn't be writing about your co workers and family members and that maybe you should just go backtosleep cause you'llnever have that bestseller thaty've beentryna  write for the past 40 years.
in order to get over writers guilt, I have to write and say eff you to the whole effin world because I plan to write wether Ihave a best seller or not. Something soothing about writing just keeps me doing it.  I like writing whether I'm tapping on a keyboard or just...just writinglong hand.  this is the first timethat I posted this.  One of my alteregos doesn't like for me to write...she always wants to go out and do stuff to make the world better and stop total disaster.  I keep telling her that it's not within her power to do but she does not believe me and she keeps cropping up. I remember her when iwas a little girl on the fringe of puberty about 12.  some idiot in the Boston globe newspaper said that an asteroid was going to hit the earth and destroy us all.  I went into hysterics and had a panic attack.  I really don't know what I was worried about...my life wasn't that gleeful backthen but I didn't want to die.  Mythinking was I wouldn'tknow whether mylife was gleeful or not if I died.  I remember my sister taking me to the wake of a young girl named clarisse blake who had beenbeat to death.  I swear that was the worse image that I'd ever seen.  I didn't go to any funerals for a long time after that and I stillhave trouble staying inthe chapel whenI go.  I didn't stay for mother's whole funeral or nana's.  I didn't even go to aunt mae's funeral.  I don't know why we have funerals anyway...especially when so many people think that nothing happens after this...nothing.  What a sad and hopeless thought.  I kind of loss my place in life this week.  I feel discombobulated and dissheveled.  I want a cure for this.  The only thing I can think of is to leave the state and go live somewhere else.  That will not cure what ails me and I am not even sure what ails me..  Caffeine withdrawl...anger and disdain.  Okay so what am I supposed to be writing about again?

Spiritual Augmentation

I felt so empty this weekend that I figured that the answer to all of my woes was to go to church.  So, I was determined, come hell or high water to go to church this weekend.  Until Sunday morning.  It's my coworkers fault, that I didn't go.  He said he wasn't going to church because he was sleep.  He said that he was going home and going to bed.  So, I thought about how tired I was and I decided that I was going home and going to bed too.
So, I did.
I had to think about my desparate desire to go to church.  Why today,  all of a sudden did I have to go to church?  I get into these obsessive modes and think that if I do the one thing that I'm obsessed about, all of my demons will disappear.  It was simple when I really thought about it.  I didn't want to go home to be alone. I needed to be around other people.  Plus, I felt like I needed to let god know that I was still here.  That I needed his assistance and his attention. I swear that He forgets about me sometimes.  But then, it's easy to blame it on Him.

I was doing that instant gratification, patch it up make it all better, feel good today thing.
My motives weren't that  pure, so I didn't go.  I just stayed home.  Sometimes I wonder why anybody goes, with the state of the world today...you wouldn't think that anybody was darkening the church doors.

Okay...so then that brings in my question about my relationship with God and how to have a more genuine and natural discourse with my Higher Power.  I know that God knows who I am.  I know that God knows what I need.  I know that God knows that I love Him and that He loves me.  Okay...so then you start quoting bible verses.  Where to or three are gathered...and stuff like that.  Ministers always tell you how important it is to go to church.  How many of them really benefit spiritually?

Maybe that 's none of my business.
Some of the ritual expectations that we put on ourselves are simply that... ritualistic expectations.  If you don't study the bible and contact God on a regular basis...what good does going to church one day a week do?  I don't know.  It may help some people.  It may have helped me.  But, I don't believe that God wants me to torture myself with sleep deprivation.  So, I didn't.  I just came home and went to sleep on Sunday.
Maybe I'll try to go to church this Sunday.