Wide Awake
I flop over onto my other side. Awakening wide-eyed at some vague time in the middle of the night, I spent the last hour (ten minutes? thirty seconds?) rolling around and adding to the pile of tissues on the nightstand. “This is total bullshit,” I state, to no one in particular. Mike is fast asleep, and the cat had long ago abandoned my lap for a more stable surface. I sneeze, grab another tissue, blow my nose. It is total bullshit, almost cruel. Being so tired, yet unable to sleep. I flip over to my other side, pull the comforter tighter against the chill. It’s almost as cruel as the…
When I Was A Little Kid
When I was a little kid, I thought I could grow up to be anything I wanted. This included a mermaid, the President, a famous actress, a successful writer and a beautiful princess. There was no tool more powerful than my imagination; indeed, it took me to places I would never be able to go, even as an adult who was supposed to hold the world in the palm of her hand and bid it do as she liked. When I was a little kid, there was no sadder girl on the face of the earth. Yet even despite the cloud perpetually threatening rain over my head, tomorrow always held…
The Bravest Thing I’ve Ever Done
I’m not a terribly brave person. If anything, I’m rather cowardly. Exhibit A: I flee from confrontation Exhibit B: The thought of a spider crawling across my arm sends me into apoplectic shock Exhibit C: A crowded room makes me want to crawl into myself and disappear Exhibit D: I’m not into extreme sports like cow tipping or, to my husband’s eternal dismay, skydiving Exhibit E: It took me about a decade of writing experience before I summoned the bravery to share my work with others That’s a lot of evidence against me, enough for me to write myself off as a cowardly lion, which I’ve always done. But as one of my favorite…
Rough Drafts & Neuroses
I have written and trashed two posts today. That makes this post number three. Yep, I am still chugging along, thinking I’m going to get something worthwhile written. I don’t know what’s wrong with me today, or why I feel like I NEED to get something up on here, but I have my suspicions… It’s partly because I don’t like leaving my fiction in the number one slot for too long. I don’t want someone to visit here and think that’s my real life (even if I’ve labeled the post “Fiction” in the title. People are not to be trusted). It’s also because I’ve been feeling weird lately. No, I’m…
Growing Pains (Not the Show)
When I was a little girl, the pains in my knees kept me up at night. Every night, like circadian rhythms, I would yell for my mom or dad, “Owwww! My knee hurts! Could I take a pill? Or could somebody rub it?” Because I’ve always been sensitive about pain, I’d indulge in any level of melodrama to get some kind of relief. One of my parents would inevitably take compassion on me, and sit at my side to rub away the grinding pain. And I once noticed that they used on me some CBD oil when the pain became unbearable. Growing up now, I came to realise that the…
When in Doubt, Go Swimming
My arms sliced through the water as if no time at all had passed since my last swim. My eyes squenched fiercely against the chlorine, as I had neglected to bring goggles along on this impromptu trip to paradise (also known as my husband’s place of business). As a result, I had to awkwardly lift up my head every few strokes to make sure I neither crashed into the wall nor swam in circles. Knowing I didn’t have anything better to do today, Mike invited me to hang out by the pool at the school campus where he works. Classes hadn’t started yet, and I’d have the whole place to…
Circumstantial Evidence
It started at ten years old. Fourth grade tested my patience; I snuck books under my desk and made myself ill just to distract myself from boredom. I noticed sometimes if I tugged gently at my eyelashes, they would come right off in delicate little clumps. Sometimes three, sometimes five, sometimes as many as eleven would fan across my index finger like I had blinked them off. Eyelashes began dusting my desk at school, the pages of the books I read. Pretty soon the soothing feeling of yanking them out addicted me. I started sporting itchy bald patches on my eyelids, eyes burning and watering. My mom noticed and asked,…
Why I Am No Longer Advertising
Last November, I made the decision to advertise this little blog a few places, hoping that I’d gain new readers and wider exposure. Six months was the internal deadline I set for myself when I started, knowing that at that point I’d reevaluate my financial situation, the blog’s statistical data and my ROI. Yeah, I can rock the financial lingo with the best of them. Well, there I was at the six month mark last week. In the weeks leading up to it, I’d been thinking a lot about whether or not to pull the plug, and I went into a tailspin of self-doubt because that is part of my…
The Hard
I am struggling lately. This season of difficulty was not entirely brought on by external factors, though. Life is pretty okay in that regard: no one is sick, my family is on good terms with each other, Mike and I have stable jobs in an unstable economy. It’s not spectacular, but I honestly don’t have much to complain about when it comes to basic necessities. No, this is an internal struggle. Part of recovering from addiction is learning to deal with yourself, as the addict masks their humanity with drugs or alcohol. No icky feelings, no managing fears, no confronting the shame accumulated over a lifetime of being human –…
The Dark Days
I am going to come right out and admit something: I am having a hard time. Yesterday was the worst bout of depression I’ve had in a while. Today is a little better, but not much. It has been coming on for a while now, like cold symptoms developing into cholera or similar, but raged in full force this weekend. My body actually aches, as if I had the flu (I don’t have the flu). That terrible commercial is right in one respect – depression hurts. When people ask me “Well, why are you depressed? There must be a reason,” I want to punch them in the genitals, because that’s the…
