I'm Back In the Saddle Again

Checking in!

I'm back from my vacation. The parents and the kiddo and I had a great time. We ended up driving about 2700 miles total. It was a bit more rushed this time around than it was 2 years ago since we'd added one destination (Chicago) to our itinerary. This time around was a lot more tiring for my parents -- so much so that if we do it again next year or a few years from now we'll take a plane. If you knew my mom you'd have a surprised and shocked look on your face about now. My mom's never been on a plane and has always sworn she wouldn't do it. When she said that was what she intended to do I could tell she was even more tired than she was letting on. Frankly, I'm pleased as punch. The drive is brutal, my parents are getting older, and I don't want to do it again.

During my time in Chicago I had a wonderful reunion with the girl who was my next door neighbor and best friend during kindergarten and first grade. (I saw her briefly when we were 15 on a visit back but except for that, we hadn't seen each other since we were 7.) We spent an evening at her house and she and her husband threw a backyard cookout for us. They currently own the house three doors down from the house I used to live in and two doors down from the one she grew up in and in which her father still lives. It was fantastic to see her and her family and she and I really bonded again. She's a lovely person.

As an aside -- her brother, 7 years older than we are, was the one I contacted to find her again. He didn't remember me from Adam and hadn't spoken to me in 35 years and yet, by my picture on Facebook, he began to flirt, calling me sexy and cute and saying we should date and all. Oh sheesh! I don't want a relationship (least of all with the brother of a friend of mine!) and I wish I'd had the presence of mind to ask him, "Oh, well, thanks! But hmmmmm, it depends. Are you rich?"

I figure if he can judge whether he wants to date me (i.e., have sex with me) by a picture, I can judge whether I want to date him (i.e., have sex with him) by the size of his wallet. If we're comparing pleasures, a European tour is just as enjoyable as a good lay. Don't ever think I can't be as shallow as a man can!

The funny and priceless moment of the trip? My dad -- bless his heart -- couldn't seem to get it through his head that his 40-something daughter had been driving for over two decades and could probably read roadsigns and directions even in unfamiliar territories (especially given that for 10 years my career was reading maps!) So he'd sit in the back seat making comments about how he could see my exit coming up or something of that nature and fall back on, "Well, I'm just saying!" when he was called on it. But my kiddo, my brilliant, funny, sarcastically witty kiddo, who was sitting in the backseat with him, had finally had enough of this on the way home. To yet another upcoming exit comment, kiddo just calmly said, "Soooo, pawpaw, what are you now, a tour guide?"

I nearly spewed my mouthful of coffee through my nose.

That's my girl!

Other than the great times with family and friends and pursuing a hobby of mine that often requires travel, I learned something else of vital importance on this vacation. I mentioned in my last post about those silly throat issues I've had since last year. Something that I sort of wondered about (or sort of already knew) demonstrated itself clearly to me over the week and a half we were gone. I noticed my throat issues went away significantly during my vacation. As in, I forgot to take my peppermint oil pills and didn't even realize it until the day before we were scheduled to leave.

Upon realizing this I also realized another important thing. I was breathing. Deep and normal breaths. Not holding my breath without realizing it until I drew in a deep breath on purpose. Not the shallow ones that I'd grown accustomed to taking with my chest tight. Not ones that I had to slow down or speed up to feel right. Deep, normal, relaxed breaths. I realized this because the morning I awoke to head home, the old style of breathing and such began again. By the time I arrived in my parking lot I was feeling my throat for the first time in a week.

Sonofabitch. It's stress. Fucking stress. More than that -- anxiety. It's slowly been building up in me for years now, I guess. I just never really noticed it. Perhaps that was what ate my gall bladder away and began my GERD. Perhaps it's causing my migranes. Perhaps, even now, it's destroying the tissues of my throat. It seems finally my body's had enough and it's letting me know it can't manage it any longer without physical repercussions. I need to stop it before it does any more damage.

So what am I going to do about it?

((Song: "Back In The Saddle Again" by Aerosmith. Lyrics here:
http://www.aerosmithfans.com/cds/words/0401.html ))

If I Squeeze My Grape, Then I Drink My Wine

You know how you get those days when all you want to do is get in the car and drive? Go nowhere, really, but just go? Listen to the music pour from the speakers and wash over you as you let everything weighing you down just empty out of you?

I'm having one of those days.

I thought about Grey today when I heard some Kenny Wayne Shepard pop up on my mp3 player. I texted him and we chatted a bit. Just touching base with him made me smile and feel better. I've been wondering if I'm not sinking a little bit again; dipping my toes in and breaking through the surface of a tiny depression. All the symptoms are there again. By now you'd think I'd know to anticipate that my moods will ebb and flow, but it concerns me that it seems the ebbs are coming closer and closer together as I am growing older.

Am I happy? Well, that's the million dollar question, isn't it? When my thoughts turn to escape -- even if I'm not really sure what it is that I'm trying to escape FROM -- it usually means no, or at least an "I don't think so."

When I first got divorced I went through a "celebratory" period, for lack of a better term. Going over to friend's houses, listening to music, dancing and singing and laughing. It wasn't that I hadn't done that before -- I had -- but it no longer carried the underlying frisson of "reporting" in to someone. Feeling that freedom was a wonderful antidote.

That celebratory feeling is gone now. I don't spend as much time with my friends and haven't because I'd rather spend more and more of my time in my room, alone. I don't feel the desire to go out and I don't feel as connected to my friends as I did then. I just feel very alone in a way that my friends can't fill.

I'm also frustrated at some health issues. More than each one independently, all together they make me feel helpess and useless and have made me look at my own mortality and the faster and faster passing of all-too-important years. It's one thing to think abstractly of your own finiteness and quite another to get old enough to really grasp its totality. I know that I'm in the midst of working through some existential issues and I won't get them sorted out until I reach an acceptance of both the inevitability of my own ending and my inability to prevent it from occurring. Right now I get angry and scared and feel indignation, injustice, desperation and futility instead of that place of calm acceptance.

This is a really hard battle for me. I'm a natural half-empty girl. Pessimism is my drink of choice. Maybe I'm just exhausted with the battle -- mentally, that is. When I'm in good health I'm a lot more upbeat and social and don't dwell on all these sorts of things. I need to remind myself that I won't always be in picture perfect health. I simply have to find way to enjoy life no matter what, instead of spending what years I have (and they could be a very many yet) in a funk fueled by my anger at losing what is, in actuality, only an illusionary control. After all, when my time does come, I want to be able to handle it with dignity and acceptance and not despair.

So anyway, these feelings, which I've experienced in the past, are back with a vengeance. That's why I think I've been dipping my toes into the waters of sadness again. Such is my lot. I comfort myself with the fact that after I forge through these issues I'll be in a better frame of mind. My mom tells me her 50s were much better than her 40s. I suspect that's because these sorts of things had been resolved. At least I hope so.

((Song: "Grey Room" by Damien Rice. Lyrics here: http://www.eskimofriends.com/lyrics.asp#grey ))

Gloom, Despair, And Agony On Me

The new job is going as well as can be expected. I've been thrown in the deep end and I'm handling cases and drafting documents. I feel like I'm burning the candle at both ends but I want to make sure that I don't look like an idiot. I've been telling myself today that I simply have to stop getting all stressed out. I woke up this morning with a bit of stuffiness and the realization that the stress of the last few days has apparently kicked my almost-in-remission sickness of a few weeks ago back out of remission. I'm feeling the urge to cough more and more. My throat is sore and my head is achy. I'm not "sick," per se, but I don't feel good either. Damn it all.

I'm going to bed now. At 8:30, sheesh. But I simply can't afford to let this catch back up with me again.

((Song: "Gloom, Despair, And Agony On Me," sung by the cast of Hee Haw. Lyrics here:
http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/g/gloomdespairandagonyonme.shtml ))