I think it’s time to update everyone. I’ve had a very eventful couple of weeks. To the point where I haven’t told anyone not directly involved in said events anything about them, not really. It’s taken some processing time. Also, it’s painful for me to be still long enough to write anything.
So, the new year started off with a bang. I went to see my infectious disease specialist on the second. There was good news: I am no longer in the acute stage of mono, I am now in the convalescent stage. Except that really is only good news on paper, because the convalescent stage can last up to six months. And having had mono before, I know that it’s pretty much guaranteed to with me.
I felt so miserable (physically) that very day that I went to the urgent care directly as I had finished my appointment, and they pumped me full of two liters of fluid. I didn’t have to pee once. I tell you this, because as anyone in the medical field might recognize, it was indicative of my severe dehydration.
The next day I took my two younger sprites down to see the lights at the Denver City and County Building, as I was meant to do the day before, but couldn’t, being hooked up to an IV and all. This may have been a mistake, as I was in no shape for it (there was much to see, so we got out and they ran around while I trailed behind and hollered for them not to get too far away), but we had a really nice time and I managed to save my meltdown(s) until I came home.
I haven’t melted down like that in a long time. That night I was like Vesuvius. Explosions and tears and anger and yelling and frustration. . . Well it got very ugly. I was emotionally and physically drained, and had made the mistake of actually looking long-term and realizing that July was when I was probably going to be back to about 85%.
See, that was (and still is) kind of a huge thing for me to deal with, because I pretty much spent three years in bed due to mental illness. Except for appointments and very rare visits with friends, I lived my life curled up in my sheets. I couldn’t wrap my head around being forced back into a state like that, even temporarily, and even when I was doing pretty damned good psychologically.
Well, I had a lovely friend, whom I actually reached out to — which is huge in itself — help me through that night. And for that (among other things) I’ll always be grateful to her.
So I’m dealing with the mono recovery road, but I’m also dealing with sciatica. I developed mild sciatica about a decade ago, in my left hip and leg, when The Artist formerly known as Babygirl (I can’t call her Babygirl anymore, I’m afraid, she’s 13 and way too grown up) had been riding on my hip for a couple of years. It went away — I would get a tinge every now and again, but no big deal.
Well, starting last Fall, it came back, and it came hard. A couple of the times I went to the urgent care for Dilaudid injections, the sciatica was my primary pain.
(Side note: My primary care doctor and I — the one I was certain there was no hope of salvaging a relationship with — somehow hit the reset button during one of my urgent care visits. A doctor at another location in the same network that my doctor works in essentially treated me as a crazy drug-seeker, which pissed my doctor off righteously, and I’m wondering if it maybe made him see the way I felt he was treating me [minus the drug-seeker part, he's never treated me badly from that standpoint]. Whatever it was, he and I are now on the best terms once again. Just goes to show you, there is always hope when a person is a good person.)
It continued to build, and it continued to build, and after seven urgent care trips in two-and-a-half months, and a conversation on the phone with my doctor this past Thursday, I ended up spending Thursday night in the emergency room. My doctor wanted me somewhere they could do a more thorough workup, instead of just treating the pain, and I was happy to defer to him.
It took two shots of Dilaudid (I don’t think the first one was more than one milligram, I think the second was about twice that), but finally, finally, and for the first time in months, I think, I was out of pain. I knew that day that I was in a great deal of pain, and waiting in the ER to even get through triage was pretty ugly, but I don’t think I knew how bad the pain really was until I got out of it.
So I saw my primary in the urgent care on Friday, because his office said they couldn’t get me in until the beginning of February (he said other things when I saw him). I have an MRI set for Monday morning to check for a slipped disk or spinal compression, I’ll be set up for physical therapy contingent on the results of that, I’m taking an oral steroid — if that helps there will be steroid injections to follow — muscle relaxers, and I’ve got my good friends ibuprofen and oxycodone keeping my pain minimal for now.
It took me some time to process all of this, and I’m probably not done — right now I’m just kind of high. I keep hearing things from people like, “Wow, you just have one thing after another,” or, “It never stops for you, does it?” And there is truth in those statements.
But, with the exception of The Night Of Vesuvius, I’m alright. Better than alright. Even that night was just some dealing and processing I had to do to get to here. My mental health is well intact, praise God, and everything else will fall into place as long as I have that. After being without it for so many years, I feel like as long as I’ve got it — and all of the support my amazing friends and family show me — I am leading a charmed life. It may sound cockeyed, but then so have I been cockeyed for pretty much all of my life. ;)
You may not be hearing from me much, as I have instructions not to sit for long, and when I do rest, the only way that I’m comfortable for any length of time is if I lay down and stick two big pillows beneath my hips. You try working on a laptop at that angle.
But I’ve been playing on Twitter; if you don’t already know me there, my handle is @BlushingScarlet. That I can do from my phone, which is easier to stick on my stomach and type with. I’m going to still do everything I can to be a good admin for A Canvas Of The Minds, which now has so many wonderful authors that they can easily run they site without me (which is good, I may not be writing much there for the present).* I’m reading posts from my phone, and clicking the “Like” button is my version of “I was here, thank you for giving me something worthwhile to read”, and sometimes I will attempt a comment — though those can get a little too runaway for a phone and a girl like me.
My personal correspondence is going to be a little slower. And by that I mean even slower than normal. Same with comment responses. But just know it isn’t because I’ve forgotten, okay? I love you all so very much.
I’ll leave you with the pictures I took in the ER while high as a kite on Dilaudid, Prednisone, Valium, and at least one or two other things. I honestly just remember there were multiple shots and I swallowed a cupful of pills, and those of you who know me well know that for me to have been that willing to put so much blind faith in any doctor, things were pretty bad. But I had fun trying to take pictures amid the tangle of wires (blood pressure cuff on my left arm, pulse oximeter on my right pinky, oxygen hooked up to my nose, mp3 player headphones in my ears to help zen me out) in my little ER bed. Thank God the nurse left the sides up, I probably would have fallen out.
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And also, I give you the immortal words of Jon Bon Jovi, from the song Its My Life: “My heart is like an open highway/Like Frankie said, ‘I did it My Way‘”
“Don’t bend, don’t break, baby, don’t back down. . .”
I won’t if you won’t.
Kisses,
Ruby
*Speaking of Canvas, we can now boast of two Freshly Pressed authors! In case you missed it, DeeDee was Pressed in December for her piece Coming Out Bipolar, Round 1, and just this past week Alice was Pressed for her piece Epic Quests and crap like that. Congratulations to them both; they write good shit, and more importantly, they’re good eggs. Now they just have to get something they’ve written for Canvas Pressed!
For 31 years of my life, this one was a done deal. Okay, I can’t speak to my younger years entirely, but something happened to me around age 14 that made me my own and only support. I had my first breakdown, and in true Ruby style, it was one hell of a mess.
Crying hysterically when your mother tries to drop you off at school may sometimes be normal for some adolescents. But I was never bullied, I had lots of friends, and I wasn’t afraid of any of the teachers. So for me it was a bit extreme. To my mother’s credit, she knew this was not one of those “You’ll feel better when you get to school” things, and she didn’t force me to go in.
Hiding in the basement, cowering in terror from your very good friends when they try to come and find you at your house after school definitely does not fall on the spectrum of normal for a 14-year-old girl. It would be more than a decade before I had any idea why I did it. Even before then, I never really thought about how incredibly strange my behavior was. And no one was home with me to see the degree to which things had deteriorated.
Now don’t take that to mean I had absentee parents. They simply both held jobs, and as the crying and anxiety seemed to relax almost entirely when my mother brought me back home in the mornings, she went to work at hers (not without reservations, I’m sure).
At some point I pulled myself back together. I couldn’t really tell you how. It probably had something to do with the looming threat of not graduating the eighth grade and getting the fuck out of that school forever. Even if my days in middle school weren’t as miserable as some, that place still sucked. There’s a reason they parcel those three years away into their own little hell. That way you can get through them and start semi-fresh somewhere else.
There are a lot of now infamous parent/teacher/principal/student conferences that went on while they tried to figure out what to do with me, as I was so far behind in so many classes. May it suffice to say I gave a lot of the staff a lot of hell, but in a very adult, don’t-you-dare-talk-to-me-like-I-am-a-freaking-child kind of way. I was pretty incredible, even my parents thought so. My theory on why I was graduated is that I had one or two good teachers who were on my side and realized that there wasn’t really anything else they could teach me, and the others just wanted me the hell out of their lives.
Point being, after I got back up onto my feet, I made the decision that no one was ever going to see me off of them again. Fuck all to what was going on, I could hide it.
And I did, with one exception when I was 16. Never mind the details, but it caused a shift in my perspective. It was no longer I’m going to hide this, damnit. It ceased to be an issue of pride and independence and turned into a belief that ultimately, I really was the only one I could rely on to take care of myself, at least emotionally and mentally.
And for the next 15 years, that was my life. I had friends, I had family, and I had doctors, eventually. And they were all good people looking to help me in my time of terrible distress. But I wouldn’t have it. Not really. Yes, I sobbed in my mother’s arms more times than I’m sure I ever did as a child. Yes, my father cleaned up my financial messes and babysat with me during the days as I went through electroconvulsive therapy. Yes, my friends made themselves available to me to the degree that they were able to and then some – but they did all have children, most were spread across the country, and for a lot of that time I wasn’t really with it. And yes, on more than one occasion I know I begged for help from my psychiatrist. I had even begun to develop a strong support network through blogging.
But still, when I got down to cases, I was the only one I could count on.
It’s funny how the most unexpected things can change your whole perspective.
Last Winter, I spent about three days in the worst migraine I had ever lived in my life. By the third day I couldn’t even think, and when I went to speak to my mother in the early morning hours on a Saturday, when she was getting ready for work, I was pushing back hard on the tears. You cannot cry when your head feels like that. Crying equals more pain.
The solution she quickly came to was for my father to take me to the urgent care. Sensible enough, except my father hates all things medical, he doesn’t deal so well with them, and dear Lord, in the past five years had I put him through enough doctor and emergency room visits to last several lifetimes, and I just didn’t want him to take me, honestly.
I expressed something like this to my mom, tears rolling down my face in spite of myself, and she told me that maybe that was something my father was meant to learn from all of these experiences, how to be able to deal with the medical world (my mother is so very Catholic and, I swear, everything with her is “meant to be”).
I don’t think my dad learned anything that day, but I got to thinking about what maybe I was supposed to learn from all that had happened to me in the preceding five-and-a-half years (yes, I’ve got some of it in me, too). And sometime after the Vicodin and the ice packs and attempting to sleep and the muscle relaxers and throwing up, I came to the most amazing realization.
I have so many people in my life who are reaching out their hands to catch me.
I have friends who would put a roof over my head and food in my mouth should I land on their doorsteps. I have aunts and uncles and cousins of my parents who would take me into their lives in an instant. I have two grandfathers who would give me shelter and love and whatever I could need. I have so many wonderful cousins. One particular branch have absorbed me into their lives and made me feel like closer family than I technically am, and never so much as blinked when I asked them to help me find a pharmacy where they live and drive me there (twice) because I was going off-the-wall manic. I have my parents, I have always had my parents, but I feel differently about their taking care of me than I ever did before. I have so many of you lovelies, who would scoop me up and tuck me into your lives and set me on the road to recovery in an instant.
I have the whole beautiful world. There will always be an endless number of kind hands, even if they are the hands of strangers, reaching out, willing and wanting to help me should I need it.
Kind of amazing when you think about it.
There won’t be another breakdown. I may have my moments here and there, but I can say with absolute confidence and certainty that I will never go back to where I have been. But while I can’t list for you all the things that journey through Hell (capital H) taught me, one of them was definitely how to let love in.
I often (okay, almost always) feel out of place with the world I inhabit. And only a little bit of that has to do with the Jelly Jars experience. Mostly it’s more cultural. Film, literature, even this whole online community, while I love all of you dearly, and hope no one takes this personally. . . It doesn’t work for me. I find the interaction weird and foreign and uncomfortable, at best.
I can’t explain it all, I know I never will. Because it does fall into the category of “inexplicable”. But two things, maybe to give you the general idea.
As I was writing that bit about online interaction, I found the contrast to hopefully help elucidate. The past few days, I have spent a lot of time with three generations of strong and beautiful women. My very best friend, who lives too many miles away; her mother, whom I am friends with now and see independently; and my friend’s lovely daughters, ages five-going-on-fifteen, and three-bursting-headlong-towards-whatever-awaits.
We sat out on the back porch and watched the little ones play in the kiddie pool and water the flowers and make “bird soup” (which, don’t worry, it was food made for the birds, notfrom the birds). We hung out in the water at the real pool (I’ve got very visible tan lines and who the hell cares, something will age me, something will kill me, all things in moderation). But mostly, it was the sitting and talking – out on the porch, in the pool, and in the house. There was even a brief shopping occasion. We were three women (plus two in the making) hanging out in the kitchen, talking decorating and cooking and marriage and children. Such a cliché, right? As modern, liberated women, we’re supposed to have moved on and want so much more. So many higher aspirations.
Higher than mother, wife, grandmother, dear friend. . .
I don’t want marriage or children for myself. But how can someone ever think that something better, something beyond, something more important than loving and sharing and raising up strong, intelligent, beautiful, wonderful new women exists? Let me tell you. It doesn’t.
Holding out for something less,
Than touching the hand of God. . .*
I don’t belong online. I belong in a tight-knit small town community of maybe the early 1920s. I’m not sure. And yes, I would be strange and shunned by some because I am different. But most people, the good ones, would welcome me to come sit and have lemonade and talk and care for their children.
I can’t sum that one up neatly. Really this post started with a song.
Because that’s the other thing I may be able to explain. Music.
This seemed so straightforward in my head. God. Okay.
Musically speaking, technically I was a child of the ’80s. The Police, De Do Do Do, De Da Da, Da was my first real love musically. Not to discount Barbie and the Rockers, but that was merely a fling. The Police were a serious, long-standing love affair for me.
But nothing really sunk into my soul until the ’90s. And no, it was not the music of the ’90s. Not at first, anyway. In the ’90s, anachronistically enough, I found the ’50s and the ’60s.
I have mentioned here and there that my father is a musician by calling. Brilliantly gifted – really, it isn’t just a daughterly bias. He and I would sit on our back deck Sunday evenings, just us two, and listen to a local radio program called “Doo Wop Sunday Nights” (or something like that). Though I was heavily into the Violent Femmes at the time (holy fuck is that hot, sexy, intense music – my first all ages show), when I did listen to the radio (which was often), I always listened to the oldies.
So I had some background. A bit of it. But he and I would play a game. And a song would come on, and I would guess who the artist was. The Drifters, The Platters, Ben E. King, Sam Cooke. . . And the lesser knowns. J Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers – Last Kiss. . . That one just broke me to pieces every time.
Anyway. I had this positively preternatural ability to name the artist damn near every song. I was intrigued, as many of their names just popped to my lips from places completely unknown to me. My father didn’t make a huge deal, he loved it, of course, but I think there was kind of a layer of amazement there, too. Like, ‘Where in the world is she getting this from?’
Perhaps from you, dearest Daddy. Because I honestly have no explanation other than some weird ancestral memory thing he transmitted to me in the X chromosome he provided for my beginning. Yes, some of it I absorbed growing up, but there was so much more.
I moved on to later ’60s and ’70s. I dove in and established a well-loved collection. The Association, Simon and Garfunkel, CSNY, Joni Mitchell, The Eagles, Cat Stevens, The Lovin’ Spoonful, The Animals, The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, The Beatles, The Doors, Van Morrison, The Who. . . And on and on and on.
And while I was wading through the music of the late ’90s and early 2000s (some of which was very, very good), I was going even further back, before my father’s time, to the Big Band era. Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Harry James, Artie Shaw, Cab Calloway, Count Basie, Guy Lombardo, The Andrews Sisters. . . And on and on and on (again).
Okay, so what? Most everyone discovers, and often loves, music that existed before them. I mean, how could you not love Tchaikovsky? I love Swan Lake so dearly it used to sing me to sleep every night. But.
It’s a difference between loving and appreciating it versus feeling it deeply embedded inside the fiber of your soul. That is the music I belong to, be it under the boardwalk or up on the roof. Either way. I don’t have that kind of connection with pretty much anything after the mid ’70s. There are exceptions, of course. Don Henley’s The End of the Innocence knocks me flat every time (as does pretty much anything that includes Bruce Hornsby).
I am an anachronism. I feel like a very permutated Billy Pilgrim. I haven’t come unstuck in time. Rather I exist spread out, in times before my own. I cannot tell you the last new album I bought (that’s another topic for another time – artists who make albums for the sake of the whole album, and how if you download or listen just to a track or two, you are missing so much more than the point) – oh wait, yes I can. It was Don Henley. To replace my cassette (yes, tape) that I couldn’t find.
There’s so much more. I don’t feel I came across in the way that I wanted. Post-migraine (lull in the migraine, more likely) words are very often befuddled, and points get lost in the process. Mislaid. But you pretty much had me at Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition.
This song just triggered all this in me, because as much as I grew up in the MTV generation (y’know, back when they really did just play videos all day – it isn’t a myth, I do remember that time, as short-lived as it was), I can’t watch videos. I hate them. Live performances are great, but to me a song is such an incredibly intimate thing. I want my own strong feelings and associations, not someone else’s concept (with the exception of Lex Halaby’s beautiful and absolutely perfect vision for Train’s Marry Me, that one was so spot-on – and Mr. Halaby is an amazingly nice guy, we exchanged an email or two about that video and he was such a sweetheart).
Fuck. Way off track.
So to close, here is the song behind the post. Which if you didn’t know straightaway, at the first sentence, well now you will (even though there is so much more to say still about how disco killed the live music scene. . . some other time).
I heard you on the wireless back in ’52. . .
(This song and video are solely the property of their respective owners and artists. Absolutely no copyright infringement is intended.)
By the way, Angel, I never answered one of your tags – one of three or four I probably never will, but one question especially stuck with me, because for me it was so simple that I laughed, and I know it’s somewhat generational, but. . .
7) You’re driving for at least four hours by yourself. You don’t have a CD player, and you can’t hook up your mp3 player or smartphone to your stereo. How do you occupy yourself?
I turn on the radio, of course. ;)
*lyrics by Kevin Griffin and Better Than Ezra, Closer
. . . There was a Soho. And she loved rude boys with serious mohawks, piercings, and lots of tattoos. And she loved going to shows, and running around in her 18 eye silver Doc Martins, causing trouble with bottle rockets, glitter, and on one very interesting evening, spaghetti. She was something else, let me tell you. And I love her with all of my heart and soul.
(This song and video are solely the property of their respective owners and artists. Absolutely no copyright infringement is intended.)
P.S. I just tried on the Docs (because yes, of course I kept them!), and while I love me some stilettos, no shoes have ever made me feel half of what those boots do. . . Damn!
I’ve learned a lot of things recently. And I’ve come to some realizations in the last month or so. And I am going to lay them out here for my enjoyment, in spite of the tremor that makes typing a task and that no amount of food or rest seems to want to cure. That sentence was better in my head. So. . .
It turns out that getting a mild sunburn is not really the horrible thing I had come to fear. Actually, it’s evidence of me being happy and utterly relaxed.
A good, full, belly laugh is better than two strawberry margs plus a 2mg Xanax for making me stress free and happy.
I should never leave the house without pen and paper, otherwise I resort to writing things down in the back of a book with a pen borrowed off of a very nice waitress with an infectious smile (I knew this one, but it happened anyway).
There ain’t nothing better in this world than friends and family, except maybe for friends who treat me like family. Because maybe I pretty much am, even after all of the years spent apart.
When seemingly everything reminds me of someone, it’s because we made so many wonderful memories together.
Girlfriends are pretty much the best thing ever in the whole entire world. And how I miss mine. And. . .
I am so glad my oldest and very best is coming back to visit for a week. Because she will make everything clearer and calmer, just by her presence (also because I have so many good memories of time spent in her parents’ home).
I may not be a strong swimmer, but I make a very good mermaid, nonetheless.
Spontaneous, unexpected expressions of love from kids are probably the best experiences of my life.
I can, in fact, be organized. But it is contrary to my nature, and I am pretty much happier not making much of an effort.
Some people I will always miss, but that doesn’t preclude me moving forward.
Usually I have to completely destroy myself so I can build back up into something better. I have gotten pretty quick on the turnaround, too.
If I can’t figure something out, maybe it doesn’t matter so much to me. And if it does matter, I’ll figure it out soon enough.
If I listen to enough Van Morrison, I can do anything. ;)
This ran through my mind the other night, magically, and at the urging of Ms. and Tonic, I’m posting it here.
It isn’t remotely “for you” as in directed at you, lovelies, it is only “for you” in the here it is, read way. Make sense?
This is my soapbox
There’s not room up here for you
So kindly fuck off
Yeah. . . I was a teensy bit annoyed.
Having got that up, I want to say a really enormous thank you to everyone who has been helping and supporting me as I am wading through the whole ECT trauma self-therapy thing. Particularly (and here is my Oscar speech where I forget and leave out lots of people, I’m sorry about that): the above-mentioned Jen (Ms. and Tonic), SummerSolsticeGirl, Anita S, Suzie Ivy, Cate, halfwaybetweenthegutter, my dear, dear Canvas family (Laura, I love you), so many non-blogger friends. . .
This is really hard and this is really scary, but thanks to each and all of you, I’m doing it.
(The links up above will take you to the wonderful individuals’ blogs. You should read them, if you don’t already. Like I said, I know I left a lot of people out. This doesn’t mean that I don’t love and appreciate you, it means that my anxiety hasn’t settled down on this topic yet today, so I am using the comments on the posts as a cheat sheet.)
Got to spend yesterday morning with my Canvas co-creator, best blogging buddy, dear, dear friend, and utterly wonderful woman, Lulu! She invited me into her home, I met her husband, son (adore them both), and even briefly mom and dad. I wished I could have stayed all day.
Lulu, I love you!
(picture taken with the camera on my Fancy Fone a.k.a Samsung Galaxy S II)
“Wanna cry for you
Would it do any good
If I rained for you
It would just be water
And the nights with you
And the storms in your head
And you’re down, and you’re down
And I can’t lift you
I’m powerless to change
Your world
I’m powerless to stop
The hurt
But I’ll
I’ll give you my heart, give you my shoulder
I’ll give you my heart
Give you my shoulder
Over and over
Wanna run for you
Would it do any good
If I flew for you
You would still be standing
And it’s hard watching
‘Cause I’m part of you
And it’s hard not to
Not to know what I can do
I’m powerless to change
Your world
I’m powerless to stop
The hurt
I’m trying hard to be your
Tower of strength
I’m trying hard to bring you
Back to joy
I’ll give you my heart, give you my shoulder
I’ll give you my heart, give you my shoulder
When the night just cuts you through
And the dream is lost to you
When you’re worried and confused
I will
Give you my heart, give you my shoulder
I’ll give you my heart, give you my shoulder
Over and over
Time and again, give you my shoulder
I will
Give you my heart, give you my shoulder
I will
Time and again, over and over
I’ll give you my heart, give you my shoulder”
~ Heather Nova – ‘Heart and Shoulder’ ~
So by now you should know I love to tell my story with songs. And by now I know that links often don’t get clicked (and honestly I’m a bit hazy about the ethics of inserting a video into a post).
This song, though. . . I remember listening to it, a million years ago it seems, though more accurately it was about 14. I had a friend who was going through some shit, and this always made me think of that friend and my utter impotence to affect the situation.
Fast-forward to about three weeks ago. I’m in the dark, lying in my bed sleepless, completely mad, with my music as my only companion, the one thing that could walk with me through the hours-long minutes and shield me from the worst places in my head. Or, failing that, accompany me to them and see that I made it out intact.
And I heard this song. And I thought, ‘I wonder if this is what it feels like to love me and watch me go through what I do. Feeling utterly powerless, thinking that nothing you do could possibly help me.’
If I’m at all right on this one (and I know that I am), let me tell you something. Having individuals in my life who love me, who have their own lives but care enough to keep up with mine, and whom I know are going to be there forever, no matter how crazy I may be, no matter what I go through. . . I realized not so long ago what that truly means, to me personally. The people on the front lines of the war that is my life get a lot of credit and thanks and gratitude, and rightly so, because they deserve it. But so do all of you deserve it. I don’t know but I would have been a million times lost were it not for your continued, ever watchful, loving presence in my life.
Thank you.
Moral of the story: “A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked.” ~ Bernard Meltzer
(Any inaccuracies in lyric transcription are, of course, mine. I should be asleep right now, you know.)
I’ve finally come up with a middle ground for my page about me. The page is titled Ruby, I didn’t get cute with that one, and its text is here, just below ~
Growing up, my favorite quote was from Orson Welles: ”We are made out of oppositions, we live between two poles. . . you don’t reconcile the poles, you just recognize them.”
Growing through this blog, I had till now two alternatives for this page: the short one, which was what I used at first, and the long one, which was a recent attempt at writing a new description.
Here’s my somewhere-in-between-those version of me – with a few beautiful words from a friend, someone who has known me long and knows me well. Because I am always searching in my life for balance, it brings the best and brightest things to me.
What about me? I’m one hell of a wild ride. Hang on tightly and let go completely, or you will be lost. But I’m worth it.
“You are infinitely stronger than you know. You have amazing gifts, unparalleled brilliance, innate talents. You have an intellect that God only bestows upon a very few. You are gifted and you are a gift to the world.”
These words, which have propped me up and made me better, come from the same amazing woman who said to me she could always tell me anything, she never worried, because she knew I held her in “unconditional positive regard.” That’s something about me that’s true, but I don’t know if I realized it and I wouldn’t have been able to put it so succinctly.
“When you were 14. . . You were fearless in word and dress. . . You were audacious, hilarious, brilliant, intuitive, and deeply caring. You filled a room.” I filled a room. Wow. I filled a room. I did, too. And I still do, sometimes like it or not. But I like it. I also like that I can read the other qualities she listed and nod my head. They are still me. They were always me. They always will be me. Em, thank you forever and ever for these words.
Other things I want to tell you about me? I have already, just not in one central place.
I’m wildly madly batshit crazy. Both by temperament and diagnosis. But I am also patient, so patient, more patient than an oyster creating a pearl from a single grain of sand. In addition to the intellect mentioned, I am blessed with a very broad and deep well of knowledge, which I have acquired over and through the years I have lived. Some of it has come easily, some of it, not so much. And if you’re curious about the number on said years, depending upon whom you ask it varies between three-ish-or-so decades and a thousand years or more.
I have a brilliant gift for using the written word, using it properly and using it well.
I have blue eyes and very good friends and an amazing family and ambition and love to give that is limitless. I have an undisciplined body and an understanding heart. I have a love of good music, old films, and great literature.
I have a confidence in myself that few ever possess. A kind of self-assurance, in the very best sense of the word. Lots of factors have given me this gift. I am happy to say that I am one of those factors.
I am the most stubborn son-of-a-bitch whom you will ever encounter in your lifetime.
My instincts are beautiful. I’m a free spirit. I’m so amazingly creative, and I am also deeply analytical.
I have most insightfully called myself a phoenix many times through the years, because in this life I have crashed and burned and risen from the ashes of my own disasters to make something beautiful more times than I can recall.
The way I write can be unusual at times, and there are reasons for that, and for now they are all mine to hold deep inside of me.
I am curious and beautiful and honest and a writer and an advocate and a reader. I am wonderful with children, I take interesting photographs, I am loyal and supportive, I am kind, I understand the things in this life that cannot be understood, and I can love like no one you have ever met in all of your days. Actually, we’ll let Em’s words close with this point, because if I want you to remember one thing about me always, if I could pick, it would be how I love, and how I love all of you. Take it away, Em.
“Your value is limitless, and your capacity for love infinite.”
