Day 7: On The Road Again

I'll never forget the moment when I realized something was very wrong with me.  I was standing in the shower, conditioner in hand, when I decided that the extra three minutes I would have to stand in the shower to apply said conditioner was simply more than I could handle.  I had been inexplicably tired for months, and it was in this moment I realized that I had gone beyond the point of simply being lazy.  Something was draining every ounce of energy I had from my body.  

Before long, my entire body bore the evidence of my mystery illness.  A number things were believed to be the culprit: my new house, the paint we used, my laundry soap, my body wash, my lymphnodes, an ulcer, and the list goes on.  I spent months going from doctor to doctor, exhausted and getting worse, itchy, and in near constant pain.  I looked nine months pregnant, yet no one could explain the fatigue or the anaphylaxis. 

During this time, I was nearly too tired to get up and go to the bathroom on the weekends.  I still tried to work, but even that ultimately suffered.  The Mayo Clinic got involved, and after nearly 3 months I finally had an answer.  I had a mass of tumors in and around my uterus that was sending all of my systems into some sort of autoimmune panic.  Surgery was scheduled, and after 6 months I had 104 tumors (as well as some other body parts) removed, and have since felt like a new person. 

I didn't realize how sick I actually was until I wasn't anymore. 

Today, I went to spend the day with a friend which is something I very rarely do.  I had a wonderful time, and on my way home I couldn't help but appreciate the fact that less than a year ago, a team of wild horses couldn't have dragged me out of my house.  I smiled as I drove, noticing the beautiful colors of the trees, grateful to have some of my energy back.

This may be a short entry, but this something I am supremely grateful for because not long ago, we weren't sure I'd be here to type this.

~ A Very Much Alive Lolli

Day 6: The Sweet Smell of Success

This may sound strange, but there are two smells in this world that are guaranteed to uplift my spirits: Apple Cinnamon and Eucalyptus.  There's a story behind that.  When I was kid, my family and I would travel to Oklahoma to visit my mom's relatives.  My favorite place to visit was my Aunt Francie's.  While I couldn't tell you in enough detail for you to envision exactly what my young eyes saw, I can tell you that her house was always a place of comfort for me.  What I can recall are dimly lit rooms filled with antiques and bric a brac that always smelled of eucalyptus or cinnamon.

Since my time there, I have always dreamed of her house and having one just like it of my very own.  There are even times where I have gauged the overall niceness of my house by whether or not the smell was the same as the one I recall from her home.  As such, I have always ensured that I have those smells in my house.

Each time I walk through a little patch of scent in the air, I think of how blessed I am to have my home and how much I love it as well as my family and my independence.  It may seem a silly thing, as my Aunt Francie's house was no place of grand opulence, but it's always been my ideation of what a home should be.  A warm, inviting place filled with warm, inviting scents.  Those are the kinds of places that are most filled with love and fond memories, and that is exactly the kind of place that I've always envisioned my own little patch of this Earth would be.

Perhaps even as a child I knew I'd grow up to need a safe and cozy place to hide away from the world.  It's entirely possible that my anxiety was present all along without my parents realizing what it was.  Regardless, this little ranch house was exactly what I needed then, and is still sort of what I need today.

I haven't been to my Aunt Francie's since I was roughly 13 years old, which is a shame.  Being full of anxiety, plus having three kids and a husband who works non-stop makes it hard to travel.  I suppose that just because I can't be there physically, some part of me will always be there in spirit.  I'd love to get back there someday soon though.

Every time I walk by my Dollar General Apple Cinnamon Plug-In Air Fresheners, I feel successful, as funny a statement as that may be.  I feel like I've achieved something wonderful, even if it's something as small as the perfect and inviting cloud of scent between my theater room and my bathroom.

It's great to have memories that can inspire confidence in oneself and/or one's surroundings.  I suppose a lot of people don't have those kinds of memories.  I love that something as simple as a whiff of an air freshener can lift my spirits so, and for that I am incredibly grateful.

~A Sentimental Lolli

Days 3, 4, & 5: He's A Hard-Working Man

I feel like I sort of failed myself by not writing all weekend, but I had a good reason.  My husband had the weekend off.  Until Friday, he hadn't had a day off in 21 days.  He works midnights, so most of our interactions involve me telling him to stop interrupting Mad Men with his snoring at lunch time.  I run the house and take care of the kids while he sleeps, and I wake him up with a hot meal (most days) around 6 pm, only for him to leave again at 8 pm.  He does this 7 days a week most weeks so that our bank account doesn't take a hit while I'm trying to establish my newborn company as a viable business.

We spent the weekend together refrigerator shopping, errand running, taking the kids out to a nice hot wing dinner (our bi-weekly Avanti's tradition), thrift shopping, perusing the bookstore, and laying in bed watching Stranger Things and TWD.  I had every opportunity to write my daily posts, but I chose not to.  When I write, I isolate myself from everyone, pop my headphones in, and disappear.  The way I see it, I have 21 other days that I could use to do that.  For this weekend, I was all his, but I was still thinking about what I'm grateful for.  So, whether or not I wrote it down, I feel like I still did my part by considering what I was grateful for at the end of each day.

Call it a cop-out if you want, but at the end of every night this weekend, I could only think about him and everything he does to keep us financially sound.  He hates his job.  He is a foundry specialist at Caterpillar, and without a doubt has the hardest job in the company.  He pours molten iron into sand molds 12 hours a day, 7 days a week.  The pay is good, but there have been many times he's come home looking like a dalmatian from the burns.  One time, his boot caught on fire while his foot was still in it.  He comes home dirty, sweaty, and exhausted in the Winter.  In the Summer, he comes home all but dead.

I could never do what he does.  I would never do what he does either.  I get frustrated with him, and I moan and groan constantly about how lonely I am and how I wish he'd stop sleeping so much.  It's not very respectful, and I always feel bad that I have such little patience for our schedule.  It's hard to remember why he does it when I'm mid-meltdown with Shayne because she wants chicken ramen and not beef.  Running a home with three kids is chaos.  (To moms with more than three, I salute you.  I also think you all deserve capes.) . It's messy, it's loud, it's dramatic, and when you consider  that they are all girls as well, you can imagine how petty it can get around here.  Our house is big, it's under renovation while we're living in it, and we're creative people.  Housework is never on the top of our priority list, and our cluttered environment shows it.  I'd love a Home & Gardens worthy living room, but I can barely get my kids to stop dumping cocoa powder onto their mattresses.

Then I had a thought while we were looking into buying the fridge of my dreams.  Running a home with three kids is also VERY expensive.  Something I don't consider as I'm swiping James' debit card at Wal-Mart for the 15th time this week.  Something I definitely don't consider when he's laying in the bed at 4:30 in the afternoon while I'm fighting the kids to finish their chores so that I can start dinner.  Expensive is James' job.  Whether we need toilet paper or a new refrigerator, HE provides it for us.  How?  By working 60+ hours per week in literal hell.  What does he get in return most of the time?  Grief from his frustrated wife.  Don't be me.  Don't be that wife.

I am blessed to have a husband with an infallible work ethic.  At no point in our relationship did he ever let us go without an income.  When I got the job here with AMT, he took 2 years off and stayed home with the girls, but the second I was hurt he went right back to work.  Nothing stops him from providing for us, and no job is beneath him.  I've seen him sweep the McDonald's parking lot for minimum wage, and I've seen him save a man's life for not much more.  When we didn't have a car, he walked to work every day so that we could afford the rent on our 1 bedroom apartment.  I've seen him go underground and shovel coal to provide us with the size of home we needed for our growing family.  I've seen him go to work less than 24 hours after seeing his machinery kill his friend Wes.  I don't mean to offend, but there are very few men I know who even come close to the level of commitment my husband has to providing for his family.

He never tells me no, either.  If I want something, he makes sure I get it.  That's another thing I really suck at as a wife.  He never tells me no, but I rarely tell him yes.  That's where my pragmatism and my anxiety most affect our marriage.  I don't see our financial situation very often.  Only when we need a serious budget (i.e. buying our house) do I monitor our finances.  Despite the fact that I don't really know where we stand, I always feel like we're on the verge of going broke.  As such, when James wants a subwoofer or a riding lawnmower, I tell him that's a stupid waste of money and then I leave to go buy new makeup brushes.  That's really crappy, I'm aware.  It's no less true, however.

I've been working on changing that though, and the difference is already noticeable.  As frustrated as I get, there's never a point where I don't actually appreciate him.  I just have a terrible way of showing it.  Over the last few months, I've made it a point to say thank you for everything he buys for us, even if it's just toothpaste.  If he tells me he wants something, I don't tell him how stupid it is.  I let him tell me about it, and encourage him to do what he needs to to get whatever it is.  I tell him I appreciate him working so hard before he walks out the door at night.  I have opted to trust that this hard-working man will make sure that all of our financial needs are met, rather than worrying that he's not paying attention.

It has improved our relationship tenfold, and has actually served to ease some of my anxiety where the finances are concerned.  I trust in my husband for literally everything else, so why should I trust him less where money is concerned?  I hate money, and I hate dealing with it.  Letting him handle all of it has drastically improved my mood because he is taking on all the stress for me.  We still have our moments, but they are now few and far between.

I definitely don't deserve him most of the time, but I have a patient, hard-working, family-loving husband, and for that I am immeasurably grateful.

~A Sappy, Ooshy-Gushy Lolli

Day 2: When The Road Gets Bumpy

Anxious people are not well-known for their ability to let anything go.  It's our curse to allow things to gnaw away at our innermost selves, all the while attempting to project a ray of sunshine into the world, the former making the latter all the more difficult.  It is my humble opinion that people who endure an anxiety disorder are the deepest thinkers and the best pretenders.  Their, our, whole life is a lie.  This gives us a very pragmatic outlook on the world.

I'm a realist, and nothing less.  I have a very matter-of-fact view on the world, and I very rarely get genuinely excited about anything.  People only see what I allow them to see, and I like that about myself.  I even deign to consider myself to be more open and honest than most.  However, at my core I know who I am and how I tick.  I rely on facts.  I have a hard time believing in anything I can't prove.  My belief in God has been a struggle for this reason.  I fear I go through far more doubts than the average "good Christian", but I keep at it no less.  I can't have made it through everything I have without some sort of divine intervention, so that's where my soul makes peace with my mind.

I have no doubts that my realist outlook on life lends itself an accessory to my anxiety.  In fact, I can prove that one.  There are two of me in this world; the one that exists in my mind, and the one that I present to the world.  Who I present myself to be changes year to year, day to day, moment to moment.  Who I am in my own mind is my only constant, yet remains to be the person I want to change.  I change my clothes hoping my attitude changes.  I change my hair hoping it gives me a new personality.  A little tip:  Nothing changes.

I suppose that's why I'm doing this.  Writing is an incredible act of self-invasion.  Letting out thoughts that no one would otherwise be privy to is a very personal act, whether you're writing an ad or an autobiography.  You're putting yourself out there for the world to see, like an animal on display.  You're letting your innermost thoughts escape their cage to expose your every vulnerability.  Maybe by exposing my thoughts, I can reveal to myself the secret to finally changing myself for the better.

I've always found it funny that I always seem to end up in positions that by nature I'm uncomfortable in.  I don't like putting myself out there, but I don't like living in my head all the time either.  In order to present myself to the world, I have to pull off the most masterful of deceptions.  I have to pretend I'm successful.  I have to pretend that I'm confident.  I have to pretend like I'm not thinking of a million and one ways this could go wrong.  Even with this blog, I've already found myself thinking, "No one will read it.  You're wasting your time.  A year is a long time.  You can't possibly find that many things you're grateful for".  

That's not what this is about though.  I don't care if anyone reads, because in the end, it's me who I hope is changed.  I guess that makes me at least a little optimistic.  Optimistic that this will work, anyway.  And for that, I'm grateful.

~A Cautiously Optimistic Lolli

Day 1: There's No Place Like Home

I want you to imagine sitting completely alone, in the far back corner of your house, everything silent with the exception of the furnace and The Black Crowes playing quietly from a laptop.  That is the exact situation in which I find myself, and I wouldn't trade it for the world right now.  I call my house my cavern of solitude, and I truly do mean that.  There is nowhere else I feel quite so comfortable.  I can live by my leggings ARE pants rule.  I can listen to Hole without feeling judged.  I can eat 14 mini Hershey bars and throw the wrappers on the table without worrying about who feels what way about it.  I live here, and not simply as in reside here.  I LIVE here.  I interact with the world on my terms, presenting myself as I need to depending upon the audience, but at home I am authentically me.  I let my guard down here, and allow myself to feel vulnerable to my own neuroses.  I love my home, and I love being hunkered down inside its walls.

Of all the places I've called home, I am most proud of this one.  This house is the culmination of years of hard work, and stands as a monument to commitment.  This house came to my husband and I at the exact right moment.  We were dealing with a lunatic for a landlord and needed out before he tried to burn the house down.  We didn't feel safe keeping our children there anymore and started looking.  I was in the bathtub when I found the listing.  The whole process of buying our first home wasn't easy, but in the end we came out victorious. 

A few short weeks after moving in, I became more sick than I'd ever been.  Suddenly, my house became a suspect, and I found myself uneasy being here.  After months, the doctors figured out that it wasn't my house, and I feel that made me cling even tighter to the comfort my home once again offered.  It was like the make up after a breakup. 

Now, I find myself wandering around at night after the kids have gone to bed looking at this house, construction zone that it is and think of all the years of work that have gone into making this dream a reality.  I hate the mess.  I hate living in the midst of a remodel.  I hate that I'm overwhelmed by the list of things to do to finish said remodel.  However, I love having the opportunity to hate it all.  I mean, at least I have a home to hate.  I'm so grateful to call this house my home.

~A Housebound Lolli

An Experiment in Re-Focusing Myself

I read an article the other day that sparked a profound thought.  Maybe, after all of the denial, I do actually have the power to change the way I see the world.  I am, at my core, an incredibly jaded individual.  I've learned in recent years that it's best to accept that one truth about myself.  My life experience has rendered itself key in my becoming who I am today.  I've learned a lot of hard lessons over the years, and my attitude reflects each and every one.  It has taken me a long time to forgive myself for the person I was in the past, and every failure I experience seems to be a catalyst for blaming my former self for my present situations.   All of this baggage has subsequently led me down a road of depression and anxiety that I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy. 

If you don't have anxiety, I don't think I can explain to you what it feels like.  Drowning in open ocean I suppose.  It's an inescapable feeling of dread...like your life force is being forcibly removed.  To me though, the worst part is the sneaky way it isolates you from your life.  My being jaded has only proven to make things far worse.  I hate myself for who I am sometimes, but I have decided that maybe part of it is being caused by my oftentimes salty outlook on the world. 

But...

Like I said, I read an article that made me think I could control my point of view.  It suggested that at the end of the day, write a journal entry detailing one thing that the events of the day made you most grateful for.  According to the author, if you make this a daily habit, you will start to see your perspectives change.  It's worth a shot, right? 

So, most people use November as a month to post daily about what they're grateful for.  This is bigger than that.  I'm going to begin a blog series called 365 Days of Gratitude beginning tomorrow, November 1, 2017.  I hope you'll follow me on this journey of finding a better version of myself. 

~A Very Cynical Lolli