I am failing in what I am supposed to be writing about.  That tag line up there says Commentary on politics, education, motherhood, feminism and finding my way back but I seem to mostly write about being crazy.  Which I suppose really does fall under finding my way back but the part of the picture that is missing is where am I finding my way back from and where am I trying to go.  A deeper shade of sane I suppose is the easy answer.  But the truth is I only know where I am leaving with the vaguest idea of where I want to be.

I woke up after I turned 30 and discovered my life wasn’t what I planned on and I wasn’t where I wanted to be.  I was newly diagnosed with an auto-immune disease that while minor in perspective to real horrors in this world was taking things out of my life that I had enjoyed.  Crafting and reading were gone.  I had to change how I cleaned, what I bathed in, what I ate and drank, the makeup and clothing I wore.  I was marked by embarrassing scars on my hands and feet.  I was in a job that was slowly killing the bit inside me that made me ever care a bit about my job.  It was (and still is) a dead end job.  I was working 80 hours a week.  My marriage was falling apart.  My child hated me.  Did I mention my job sucked?  I had no relationship with my family and but two friends who seemed to be there for any of this.  I was ready every single day to die.  I was no longer clever and funny and successful and oh so very on top of things for my age.  I was a failing 30 year old who was in such a rush to be a real grownup I peaked at 25 and was suffering an identity crisis I didn’t even deserve.  So the way I have described the next 6-8 months of my life was that I lit a torch and threw it in and burnt down every single thing I had in the world.

And now, I am rebuilding all that while a lot of those problems still exist.  I am still have my first world problem identity crisis.  I still am in a job out of simply inertia and my love for my nearly 4 weeks of vacation.  I am not sure the W family situation is ever fixable, rather simply tolerable.  My child doesn’t really hate me and probably never did but I continue to be the Hater of Fun™ in my house.

The thing is I can rewind every single year of my life and all I see is that I was trying to get to a destination, but not where I was going much less why I was headed there.

My mother found this blog through Facebook.  This alone has kept me writing about my family with much depth.  I have no desire to hurt people and I know that what I say and how I feel will hurt her.  But then I consider the fact that almost no one who reads this (and there are so very few anyway) knows my mother and hurting me has never prevented her from venting her spleen online and to people about me and the one conversation I ever attempted to have with her about how I felt minimized in my own life by the very people I should matter to she ended it by proclaiming “I was a very hard child to love.”  And that was where it broke.  I talk about that moment a lot with my psychologist because it became the moment that I remember every time I am weak and share something of myself with them.  I remember the abject lack of love I feel and have felt by the very people who should love you no matter what.

And that is when I realize that is what I am trying to find my way back to, a place of love.

The hardest thing these days, now that I am saner than I was is figuring out what I can and can’t write about.  In my previous place I wrote if it was in my head it was out my fingers.  Which works, until you have a nervous breakdown for the entire Internet to read.  That isn’t so good.

I want to write about what is going well (a lot) and what isn’t (my job).  And while my marriage has been off limits for public consumption for a long time I am finding that some of me  is too.  And I think I am ok with it.  Just because I can share doesn’t mean I have to.  My psychologist agrees that writing is good for me and so I am doing so, just not all of it is public and of course the job is off limits because while I hate it, I want to keep it at the moment.

But at the same time…my crazy can be funny.  And while I feel panicky and ill when it happens sometimes, well it is just funny looking back on it.  And that is the story about my crazy i want to talk about.

I think many of you are aware I have incredible social anxiety.  Which is really unfortunate because I love being social.  But I continue to suffer from being awkward and socially inept and am aware of it.  So social situations that are new or I don’t understand the social rules will make me physically ill.   (Just ask about how I threw up over going to the Buddhist meditation center with Thomas because I wasn’t sure what I needed to do when we got there)  But the worst are the ones that are sprung  on me.

At least I can obsess endlessly about a social situation that is coming up and then cancel on it when I can’t seem to get my social courage up to go.  Tom has had to be the unfortunate audience to many a monologue where I talk about HOW.I.WILL.JUST.DIE if said situation arises.  I should add I often claim to be near death if forced to talk about a topic with my psychologist that I don’t want to.  Tom is a patient person, who is really good at ignoring me so it is probably less painful than it sounds.

Oh look, I diverted from topic again.  Awkward transition complete.  Several weeks ago we were shopping at SuperTarget which is also known as the place I can get fresh sushi, clothes and a Starbucks all at one place when I spied a man that looked shockingly like my psychologist.  My psychologist has a very psychologist look about him and is well unique enough in appearance that it was easy to spot him several rows away.  I rushed into the next row and my stomach sank.  For me to talk about all the stuff in therapy that I really would rather not divulge (seriously my crazy goes deep) it is important that my Dr. not exist in my real world.  Running into him at Target was simply not going to be something I could deal with.  So I peeked around the corner again at which point I didn’t see him only to look back up and notice he was at the end of the very row I was in.

I am a very smooth and subtle person so I grabbed some can off the aisle and walked past him (at this point I was blocked in on one end pretty much) pretending to not see him and staring intently at a can of some vegetable.  I get to the end, see Tom and he asks what was up.  Where I proceed to have the loud meltdown with tears and all.  At which point Tom says really, let me go introduce myself.

I look at him and start yelling through my tears and gasping about HOW.I.WILL.JUST.DIE if he walks over there.  And how he needs to stop walking right now.  I am absolutely certain at this point that my Dr. has seen my with my canned veg stare and heard me and the new thought hits my brain.  When I see him next we are going to have to talk about this.

We finish the little bit of grocery shopping we have and I check out while Tom takes the boy to check out video games.  I checked out with my eyes and brain on high alert should an encounter happen again.  Then I went and threw up and called Rose while I sat on a bench.  Rose is pretty good at talking me off the edge and gets when I am both stressing and amused at something.

And while I obsessed until my next appointment about what I would do if he asked me about it the truth is, it amuses me.  I want to get better at controlling reactions and acting like a normal human but I laughed and still do over it.  (and no, he didn’t mention it which means I still am alive)

I recently returned for a 4 day visit with my brother and his family.  I marveled several times while I was there on our evolving relationship.  And I left with a heavy heart even while I looked forward to coming home and seeing my husband.  The most unfortunate part of having an only child is that he will miss out on that shared experience both Tom and I have had.  The shared experience isn’t always pleasant but we both have siblings that we have known our entire lives.

I remember idolizing my brother as a child.  He was definitely the leader in all our rabble rousing but I was his co-conspirator.  We both had active imaginations as children and spent hours together playing pretend games.  My brother was in my eyes everything I wanted to be.  Smart, funny, well liked.  For years I was willing and did fall on the sword for him simply because I wanted him to be happy.

His welfare is of my concern No burden is he to bear

We’ll get there

For I know
He would not encumber me

My favorite memory of my brother and I happened when we were young and lived in Memphis.  I was around 7 years old which puts Jay at 11.  It was summertime and hot.  We had been left to our own devices.  I am not exactly sure where he procured them from but Jay had a handful of bottle rockets.  And he decided we should set them off this his bedroom window.  And we did.  It was a lot of fun.  We were getting away with something!  (One of us might have been grounded to the house).  The fun continued until a bottle rocket fired backwards back into his bedroom setting the floor on fire.  One of us tossed an orange blanket on it which burned slightly.  There was a black mark on his floor we deftly covered with furniture and I am sure we explained the singed blanket somehow.  Many years later, after Jay had moved out and a combination of situations forced anxiety and depression (although at the time I didn’t know that is why I felt the way i did) to weigh down on me I would drag that blanket out and remember that time.  I wanted most in life to be there again.  Setting the house on fire, in it together, brother and sister.

If I’m laden at all
I’m laden with sadness
That everyone’s heart
Isn’t filled with the gladness
Of love for one another

Our tween/teen years were hard on our relationship.  I think they were a hard time on every relationship in our family.  I regret that we didn’t find the support in each other, but alas teenagers are self involved aren’t they?  But we occasionally reached out to each other.  In junior high I struggled with finding my place in this world.  We lived in a small town which just makes weirdness, well weirder.  During this time when our relationship was not the best Jay reached out and encouraged people to befriend me.  And he helped me find a little bit of me.  These days those little things outweigh any of the bad of that time.

It’s a long, long road
From which there is no return
While we’re on the way to there
Why not share

Adulthood presented its challenges as well and it took us years to find our place in each other’s lives. Parenthood provided that path for us to reconnect and learn from each other again.  I consider myself blessed to have him in my life.  He is one of a few who have known me from the very day I was born.  I find he often has the capacity to remind me of good I never knew or forgot.

I love him and his wife and his son.  And if we both end up raising our one boy each I hope they find in each other the love and support my brother and I took 30 years to get right.  Because it has been one of the best things in my life, knowing him as an adult and a parent.

And the load
Doesn’t weigh me down at all
He ain’t heavy he’s my brother

Happy 36th Birthday Jay!

(ps I bought you a pig!)