Ringing in 2015, aka, "This is terribly belated"

I don't know about anyone else, but "New Years Resolutions" makes me feel about as awesome as when you start seeing a new Doctor and you need to fill out the questionaire about your cholesterol, history of diabetes, and when you last gave yourself a self-breast exam. 

Blech.

Making a list of things that you need to improve just because it's a new year doesn't seem to have any real weight that will carry you through those 12 long months.  Hell, by the time September rolls around we seem to forget that we're waltzing straight into the holiday season, let alone the home stretch for the end of the year (and thus the deadline for these "goals").

I generally have a list that I've got running for myself that's a lot like my grocery list.  Check the items off as you come across them, and try to get them all in a seamless fashion so as to save time, and avoid backtracking too far.  These are things that need to get done, but if they're leftover for next trip, NO ONE IS GOING TO DIE.

I say that now, but one day something insane like "eating less fats because your cholesterol is over 300, you goddamn animal" is going to be on my list, and then shit is going to be real.  I'll eat my words when that happens. 

So in order of things likely to get done, here's what I hope to get hammered out in the near future:

• Get our minor reno projects out of the way so we can start planning the scary and lenthy ones
• Measure dimensions for new beds and start hunting for pallets for free on craiglist
• pick these bad boys up and store them. Pronto!
• Move the new dresser into Kiddos room, so you can get rid of his old one that threatens to tip over every time you open it.  Seriously. 
• UFYH in the 3rd bedroom.  Also seriously.
• Fix the damn composter (and dump compost into it)
• Should the old dog run be converted into new composting rotation?

Additional achievements to unlock this year:

• Stop picking up projects that I can't get to.
• Also try to finish new shit that I HAVEN'T gotten to.
• This includes refinishing the rocking chair, and the 2 cast iron skillets I've acquired that NEED to be refinished.  No.More.Projects.
• Try not to become an unintentional pack-rat
• De-clutter thyself.  Immediately.  Ahem; TODAY. 

More, on this, but a little later...................

Finding Cheer after the holidays

After all the joy of the holidays, when the presents are torn apart, the toys put away in cubbies, the Christmas tree/menorah/Holiday decorations are all stored back up, we find ourselves in a slump.  It's still cold out, winter doesn't magically pack itself away and we're left with a huge gap in the upcoming months where you shall see nary a shred of happiness, or paid vacation days.  With the exception perhaps of MLK day, or in my employers case, Cesar Chavez day.

I didn't even know that this was a holiday, and I am 1/5 Hispanic.  I failed my Hispanic roots right there.   (Note:  my dad won't admit this; he says we're Native American, and French.  His parents names were Manuel & Roma.  I got nothing here other than that).

So here we are, back into the numbing work of plodding along, the nights are just starting to back down a little bit from showing up at 4:30 in the afternoon which causes us to feel like you need to rush directly home, right after work, so as not to be caught out at night.  Because nighttime in winter is terrible, worse than anything in the world.  God forbid that you be caught out in it, and especially when you know your pajamas are waiting for you in the snug surroundings of your abode.   This could also just be me, and I am a lazy freak when it comes to the cold.

Something about this time of year is what causes us to hit a sort-of low point with some things.  Maybe it's that sudden ramp down from holiday cheer and frivolity, maybe it's the credit card bills we all know are coming imminently that we didn't want to deal with when we were buying 3 memberships to wine-of-the-month club for ourselves from "Santa", maybe it's because there's a freakish Arctic weather pattern that is fucking up all of our nice Colorado winter weather.  Whatever it is, we are now deep into the pocket of what's called "Seasonal Affected Disorder", or SAD.  Very apropos. 

Sadness doesn't really need to be for any reason.  It could be because all of your pants are magically 1/2" too short, and you didn't notice that you've looked like Harrison Ford in Witness with his Amish pants.  It came come for a spell and leave just as soon as it would like, and doesn't need to announce itself.  But while it's there, you find that even the nice things you usually enjoy make you feel disconnected, and uncaring.   You don't feel like working on your 1,000 piece puzzle, you don't want to snuggle your children as much when they go to bed, you don't care that the dogs just want your presence next to yours.

The sad thing about sad is that all of those things make you happy.  So many things many you happy, and because the chemistry in your mind is out of balance, none of it matters.    In these times I find it impossible to care about basically anything.  I go longer without shaving, showering, planning meals, planning what I'll wear tomorrow (more out of convenience than anything, I'm not so fashionable that I'm planning something interesting, we're talking shoes, pants, shirt; done).

For those of you, like me, who are in this funk?   Well.....  I'm with you.  We're all here together.  If it's a rough time at work, a crap time in your marriage, something with your kids that you neither understand or know what to do about.  Whatever it is;  I'm here too.

You're not alone.


In light of the fact that you might be feeling as down as I am, I've come up with a list of things that might help.  In no specific order:

• Google "funny memes" on your lunch break.  Or poop break.  Whatever.  Don't GAF at this point.
• Schedule yourself a 30-90 minute massage. 
• Take some time for yourself to relax.  Whatever is pushing this shittiness on you can't very well be fed when you're 100% relaxed.  Shit, maybe you'll burst into tears on the massage table, and while it will be embarrassing as hell, you'll need it.   Not that I've done that.  No, not me.
• Take a walk.
• This is not trivial.  Seriously. Take a walk and look around you.   Don't forget to observe the ice and slush around you; I don't want to be responsible for you falling on your ass when you were looking up.
• Pet your animal for a least 30 minutes.
• Scientifically, this mellows people out, and your animal will get some enjoyment out of it too.  Win, win!
• Get some.
• If you're alone, or if you're married/partnered/unioned; take some time to make this happen.  Orgasms = endorphins = you feel better/not like moose crap anymore.
• Get a small project together.
• Nothing huge, maybe it's just organizing a desk drawer, or a bathroom cabinet.  Give yourself some purpose and some body movement.  Even if it doesn't help, you'll still appreciate that you did something, even if it's in that same way that Eeyore would embrace good news, like "yeah, well, it didn't help, but at least it's done".
• Listen to some music.
• Not depressing shit either, like blues or jazz.  That shit will not help very much aside from lull you to sleep and make you not ever want to wake up.  Try something upbeat.
• Ask for a hug.
• Don't ask for hugs from strangers.  People are really weird lately, and you'll likely get maced anymore.   Try a hug from a friend, someone close to you, who cares about you.  Hugging for 20 seconds or more has been proven to raise serotonin levels. Hell, I will hug you, and not mace you.  I probably need a good hug, too.
• Do something nice for yourself.
• At the risk of encouraging someone to be frivolous, darn it, it might be time for you to buy something that makes you happy.  What my mom always called "a little pick me up".  A scarf that you loved that you spy at a store, a nail polish that you thing is lovely, a magazine that you wanted to read.  If you've got a job and a few bucks to blow, then the sky could be the limit!  
• Talk to someone.
• Maybe it's not as simple as just "cheering yourself up".  If you're down so low that even a stern puppy-swarming cannot bring you a laugh, a chuckle, or even draw the slightest smile (and might even make you cry), it really might be time to make an appointment to discuss what you might be going through.  No one but you needs to know about it too, that's what's beautiful.  If you're like me, I hate telling people when something is seriously wrong.  I hate sympathy for myself and I can't explain why; I just get very guarded when it comes to things like feelings.   And even if it's just a talk over the phone, or a series of appointments just remember that you're trying to help yourself maintain in a world that's very hard to maintain in.  Seriously; it's insanity out here.   

Wherever you are, both emotionally/mentally or physically, I really hope something on this list helps you.  Maybe you'll read it and say "man, she missed this one important thing on her list "___insert action or item____" that would totally work for me", and that's the thing that gives you just a smidge of pep in your step.  I might not have thought of it, but hopefully I put enough inspiration in front of you to find it on your own.


Many hugs, and don't worry;  Seriously, it will all be ok. 

Envy is a slippery slope, filled with unenlightened commentary

The word "barren" seems really inappropriate when one of you is fertile, but the other not.  It feels unbalanced.  Perhaps referring to this situation as "unfairly lacking in sufficient sperm product", but this doesn't roll off the tongue in any way other than clumsily.  Also, people don't care to hear the word "sperm".  They way the look at you is like you'd exposed your private parts to them while smiling.

Ping ponging between feeling desperate to fill the empty wasteland of my weeping womb, and arguing with my spouse about whether or not another child is in our families dynamic is as well balanced at the tides that come in and out of the shores.  I spend countless hours remembering what it was like to hold my now-5 year old kindergarten aged son in my arms as a caterwauling infant and chiding myself that I wasn't more appreciative of his newness, his baby smell, the privilege that I might never have again to feel him at my breast.  All the mundane things I took for granted as I didn't worship and revere them as they happened. 

The mind takes you places you don't realize it will when a desperation sets in.  As my ovaries cast out a new ovum with every passing month, I feel a new surge or urgency in myself that comes with each  of these passing moons, and in that brief and fleeting window I indulge in the darkest of fantasies on begetting a baby.  I languish in these ideas, and I cringe at what the definition of them really and actually turns out to be.  The weight of the hard fact bears down in my mind only after the curtain of ecstasy subsides. 

I have spun myself many webs of possibility in search of this magnum opus, and learned that despite the passion to pursue them, the oceans of children already born into this world will have no love of a mother to call their own, and to sew the seeds within them that blossom into that unconditional bond.   I cannot give a child the warmth and kindness, gentle touches and togetherness.  It is a damning hatred that grows in you when you see how the politics of countries punish the innocent and blameless to lives grown with the starvation of love, and to be cared for by strangers. 

Confined in a windowed prison of waiting, I am watching each week and month go by, passing beside me, as with each moment I am closer to failing at this endeavor.  It is a malignancy that comes with a bitterness that I have no care for.  The complacency and acceptance feels like I have resigned myself to yet another shortcoming in my life, the last in a very long list. 

To use the phrase "between a rock and a hard place" would be like putting a band aid over a bullet wound. 

Everything good

Today I exchanged a cup of coffee for a cup of tea.  On the end of the string of by bag, the tag reads "patience pays". 

Amid the hurrying to get one place, or another, and planning one thing or another, this helped me so tremendously today. 

I am grateful for subtle reminders.  I feel very lucky to have everything that I do. 

There is no way but forward

In the face of losing something we love and care about we find ourselves desperate to make amends and plead for more chances to make the wrongs right again, and smoothe over everything that's become broken. 

We hold within ourselves an immense capacity to love and radiate warmth and joyousness.  I feel that every time I think about where my life will go from here, and how beautiful it will be again.   

Yet I digress that I am so very fearful right now, knowing that this joy and love is waiting for me again.  The crossing into the unknown abyss to where I've never ventured scares me in a way I cannot explain.  A great deal of hurt is going to come, for all of us, and I question how I will withstand it, and protect the ones I love in any way I can.   Yet knowing that this certainty looms before me, I cannot bear to stay where I am.  I am lost in uncertainty about whom I have chosen to spend my life, and I cannot answer the questions of whether or not I want to stay with him. 

Sensing this, he's changed the game and announced that he wants a vasectomy reversal, so we can have a child together. No more donors and doctors and ovulation schedules.  In the corners of my mind where there is the tiniest cleft of love remaining, the shreds I tucked away that will stay with me and haven't been mired in the years of unhappiness and neverending fights and harms, it feels the ache of joy I so badly wanted those few years ago.  Every time he postponed and reasoned how we should wait another 6 months, another year, another few months again, just this little bit longer.  Always pushing it farther away from me and never wanting to talk about what would happen, how we would get through it.  Never making it a reality for me, only a desire just out of reach. 

It's been so long since I've dared to hope that this would be a REAL decision, or a real conversation, I've had to quiet my heart and keep from bubbling up with tears and sobs.  I've had to force myself to keep from feeling attachment to this, almost to the point where, when I think about a baby,  I don't feel happy anymore.  I feel a cavernous sadness inside me where the dark is waiting for me to venture to it, so it can take me and never let me go. 

The sharp pain of longing no longer exists, I just have to accept that in this moment, in this life, this is what I will have, and the yearning must be quelled in order for me to survive.  It pulled at me so hard and for so long, that it feels like I've lost something so important that I can barely take time to really mourn its loss. 

My journey will continue, and I will have to mourn when I'm ready.  Life must continue and I must find happiness within it.  Life is suffering and yet there's no other way to overcome what's needed.

Anything worth fighting for

The inability to concieve a child naturally takes a toll on a couple.  Making love for years and never getting pregnant.  Some months when you're busy living life without worrying about a new baby it's not something you think about, and others you feel a dull and constant ache through every fiber in your mind that just causes you to yearn for it.  

You see around you people making joyous announcements with large smiles and hands all over beautiful bellies, and people surrounding them with happiness.  And you feel empty, and guilty for it.  Why shouldn't you feel blessed enough with what you already have.  "You already have G, why do you need anything else?"  He asks me.   For the last two years he's slowly turned the tide on the plans to have another baby and pushed continuously to leave those plans behind and just live our lives without one. 

I always had this dramatically romantic idea that the ultimate celebration of love and togetherness was to have (or want to have) a child. 

That ache is mine, and mine only.  It's not a pain I share with him.  It's only mine. 

I'll turn 33 this year.  Not hardly old enough to be watching the grains of time slipping faster and faster, but old enough where I'm seeing more gray hairs moving in, and I've noticed deeper lines where I smile and squint.   Times not going backwards, that's a definite. 

There's a reality that I've been tonging around in my mouth and haven't dared spoken to many, but it's that if I stay where I am, I will be fighting alone to have a child with someone who doesn't want one himself. 

"The Greatness of Forgiveness"

I can't take and credit for this; it showed up in my daily emails subscribed from Dr Andrew Weil.  Nevertheless, it was worth sharing as a way to remind myself of why forgiveness is important.  Even if it is only forgiving yourself........


Forgiveness is beneficial not only mentally but physically as well. People who forgive tend to be less angry, depressed, stressed-out and anxious, and have lower blood pressure and heart rates than those who hold grudges. If you tend to have a hard time letting go of a grievance, consider that forgiveness does not mean you have to forget an incident, but rather that you can place a limit on how it affects you and your relationships.

You will benefit from the process of forgiveness as much, and perhaps more, as the person with whom you have the disagreement. This holiday season, take a step back and think about who you would like to forgive, and let it happen.

Much love to everyone.