Brookie, With Pictures Totally Unrelated to Story.

Brooke has been sick since Monday. My plan to start writing here again was sidetracked by fevers, doctor visits and Brooke screaming , at least 100 times a day, "Oh!! This nose, I can't take it anymore!". When we went to see the doctor on Saturday, she randomly said to him, "If I saw a wishing star, I would wish to breath out of my nose like other people can.". He said it broke his heart. Mine was a little shattered too.

She needs her adenoids out. We decided to wait til June when school was out and then Bob decided that maybe wait a few years, it will traumatize her and then ...BAM...this horrid week and I think we all realize she needs them out ASAP. Even on non-cold/allergy days she struggles to ever breath out of her nose, add a sickness and it just gets clogged. The ears can't drain, the sinuses can't drain and everything just gets infected.

When her ears get all clogged up , she can't hear either and combine that with a fever and it gets pretty scary. I'm always checking to see if she is disoriented from fever or just partially deaf from the build up of gunk that can't escape. It requires getting real close to her face and yelling to make sure she can respond properly to what I am asking. Mega-antibiotic was started Saturday, so hopefully things will start improving. After a few doses, her fever spiked back up to 102.7, but maybe today it will really start working to clear this all up.

Her birthday is in two weeks and she is going to be six already!! It seems not so long ago that she was born and yet at the same time, its hard to remember life without her.

There is Only One Way to Go, I Guess

Well. Maybe two. Wynonna said when you hit rock bottom, there's only two ways to go, straight up or sideways. I always believe her. I always seem to go sideways too.

I am in such a strange place. Hard to even define. I do tell the people closest to me, cause I am pretty sure we have equal evidence against one another for being commited. I try and play it safe with the deepest information. I'm wise like that.

One thing I never really talked about much here is definitely the biggest issue in my life. It starts with an Anx and ends with an Iety. And. It really sucks. It is not just something that you can re-route, it is something that works really hard to become the center of your universe. If you listen to it, it grows. If you ignore it, it fights back violently as to say "LOOKIE HERE, I'M COMING BACK BIGGER AND STRONGER THAN EVER......MUHAHAHA!!!". The worst part is that just when you think you have it all figured out, stress happens. Lots and lots of stress and BOOM, square one.

My main escape is work. It is predictable for the most part, no one sneaks out or anything like at home. There are a few personalities I could live without and a few people that make mountains out of molehills while I search furiously for ways to make molehills out of mountains in my own life. Sometimes I would pay to have the problems they think they have, cause life would be a breeze. Not to minimize anyone else's struggles, but it just seems some people have to have the drama and so a small issue can become what makes them nuts for weeks and weeks on end.

Home is my stress place, no doubt. Cassie, oh my Lord, Cassie. I can't even talk in detail about her here because it could tramautize and torment others. Its just so bad. Hopefully, in writing about it without writing about it, I can gain an outside look in and maybe figure out what to do, because I am great with other people's problems, just really sucky with my own.

Bob, ugh. He killed me on a Wednesday and thats all I have to say about that. Seriously though, he can take a stressful situation that you think could NOT possibly get any worse and make it SO MUCH WORSE! When things get bad around here, he tells me, the one doing everything, how I just sit there and do nothing about it. There are not words. He also follows me like a puppy and anywhere I go, he finds a reason to search and destroy. It is exhausting. Occasionally he is useful, like when I have had enough and yell "BOB!!!!!!!!!" and he makes offending people get away from me now.

I'm not trying to say that I am not difficult, cause I am. I crawl in my corner and surrender a lot. I deal with and deal with and deal with and when I can't deal with one more second, I detach and need space and I can't get space, so I detach more. Then I basically hate, resent and lash out. When I have had enough, I have to make myself laugh at something, anything. So, out of nowhere, I change. I'm a bitch, I'm a lover, I'm a child, I'm a mother, I 'm a sinner, I'm a saint..I do not feel ashamed. I'm your hell, I'm your dream, I'm nothing inbetween.

I can't seem, for how much I want it, to be where I want and need to be and goddamn, it is so frustrating. Bad times are like a prison and everyone and everything else is holding the key. I want my fucking key back. Which reminds me of the anger. The anger at trying to be a nice person in this world that deserves nice back and gets not nice back. And all that being said, I know somewhere that I am to blame and that only I can change things for myself, but I'm tired. That is the opportunity for depression to come in and it has and I have to be the one to make it go away.

I want simple. I crave simple. I was given this deeply analytical brain and it doesn't serve you well to have to think so much. I envy people that take life for what it is and they just live life not searching for a reason or some bigger meaning to it all. We live, we die and everything in the middle is just making the best of it and accepting the uncertainty and ups and downs of this life. I want to know why, who , when , where and maybe all that crap doesn't really matter. I want security and certainty where none exists and I am ruining my middle every step of the way waiting for the answers where there aren't any.

I am 42 now. Its time.

WOWSIE, I FORGOT ABOUT THIS PLACE!!

It has been years. Well, not years, but, like a year and a half or more. This used to be my place to go, while I worked at home, to unload a lot of whiny-ass bullshit. I miss that.

I have been working at "The Practice" for two years now. I love it, I hate it and I wouldn't trade the experience for the world. My co-workers....same, but they have become so much a part of my weekday family. Only one is on my shitlist today and some days..none at all. That ain't so bad.

Ryan will be graduating from college this year. I can't believe it. I'm so proud of him. He doesn't really need me so much anymore and that hurts as much as it makes me feel good to know he is independent. He sent me a text today that said, "I'm sick. I need you to take care of me.". Tearing up again. Excuse me....................

Travis will also graduate from a 2 year program in December and is working in a coal mine part-time, and omg, I made a rhyme. He was in an accident Wednesday, but he is okay. (Did I make another rhyme?) He is doing great and, again, proud.

We will be leaving proud to mention Cassie. Same shit, different year. Still love her and want the best for her and I hope someday she wants the same.

Brooke. The Princess. She is adorable and funny and fabulous and she brightens every single day and I am so not worthy. She is going to be six and all grown up like, reading me bedtime stories.

So, back to me. I'm in midlife again. Well. I never left it, I just bunked up and stayed and stayed...now I can't figure out how to get the hell outta here. I'm going through this really reflective time and I see parts of my life so differently and its so long and complex and I reject complex, as I nurture it minute by minute. Everything feels like an ending with no real new beginning. The best times seem behind me and I long for days when I lived life instead of reflecting on it and analyzing it and feeling so damn far away from that life. Blah. I think they call it depression. FYI, it sucks.

So many things have happened and so many things have stayed exactly the same. Most of it I wish to reverse. Mostly, I miss me. I'm still me on the outside, but the inside is icky and sad. I plan to change it, I have been planning to change it for a long time and I think so much about changing it, but change, thats a hard one.

I figure I have some time left here and, you know, I look like I should feel better. I think life is harder than I thought while being so much easier than I make it. The things I am ready to let go of, hang on tighter and the things I let go, I question. Anyhow, I thought maybe I would start writing again and that it may help me figure it out. This might get deep. It may be the same whiny ass shit all over again and wouldn't that be horrid? I guess time will tell, but I am pretty sure it will start out sounding much worse and hopefully end being much better.