The bad news is that I’ve been living in a never ending panic attack. (Hollander, you are having panic attack.)
My shrinky dink can’t prescribe me the good drugs because she’s not licensed in Maine. She did prescribe me something that would - supposedly - calm me down.
My brain looked at it and said, “What’s the maximum dose? Three? Oh, honey, you’re going to need to at least triple that shit if you want them to work.”
My brain? It’s an asshole.
I’m mentally ill - of course my brain is an asshole. It’s just a bigger one than usual.
Fuck.
At any rate, let’s discuss why I’m actually here.
We’re trying something new today! Trauma dumping!
Wait. That’s not new. You must be new here.
Warning: this entire blog is nothing but a trauma dumping ground.
Well, that’s not totally true…
I’ve been gushing (ha!) over gay hockey players. I bitch about writing. I try to be humorous.
I write.
It’s what I do.
(We’ll get to the puppy later; that’s a whole fucking thing that I don’t have the energy for.)
On April 30, 2001, I went to my father’s apartment at lunch. He wasn’t answering my calls and that was unlike him. He was supposed to be home, waiting for a furniture delivery. I had to have the complex manager let me in… Once she clocked what had happened, she fucking vanished. *poof*
I was not so lucky.
In my nightmares, I relive that moment. The door opening. Him napping on the couch. Walking over there to wake him up. Realising he wasn’t going to.
Everything after that is a blur.
I had just turned 26.
I was an orphan and, very literally, all alone in the world.
No family left.
A boyfriend, a few friends scattered here and there, a coworker who welcomed me as a full member in good standing of the Dead Parents Club, Toledo Chapter. (God, do I love the people in my life who understand my sense of humor.)
May 3, 2001 would have been my mother’s 55th birthday, if she hadn’t died nine years earlier.
May 10, 2001 would have been their 32nd wedding anniversary, had they not gotten divorced in March of 1992.
May 13, 2001 was Mother’s Day.
If my brain is an asshole, the calendar certainly gave it a run for the money.
I honestly don’t remember much about the aftermath, either. I do remember an epic melt-down at work, four therapists, a shrinky dink, a diagnosis, clarity, and walking out of a pharmacy with a little orange bottle that would, also quite literally, change my life.
The contents of that bottle has changed over the years, as has the number of the bottles, but without them? I might not have survived the darkest chapter of my life. I’ll never identify as suicidal, because I can’t do it. The unaliving, I mean. I don’t want to do that to my friends. Not the ones that hung around and supported me when I didn’t even know I needed it.
But.
I came really fucking close.
Depression lies and my brain is an asshole.
And both of them were whispering in my ear about how everything would just… go away.
How I would see my father again. Make peace with my mother. How my friends would go on with their lives and I’d just be a faded memory. How it wouldn’t hurt them and how it would fix everything.
I looked at the pill bottle.
I looked at the side effects.
I calculated the risks.
I looked at the clock to see how much time I had before the boyfriend would come home.
And I put the bottle back where it belonged.
Thursday is the 25th anniversary of the day I found his lifeless body on a couch in some shitty Toledo apartment.
I am not doing well.
Not even close.
Someone asked me if this year was especially bad because April 30th is also the day we went in front of a judge and finalised our divorce.
Also? May 3rd? The day he told me he wanted a divorce. Granted, I’d been thinking about it for a while, but to finally pull the band-aid off? That was a weird night on so many different levels.
The calendar?
An absolute motherfucker.
- - - - - - - - - -
[Verse 1]
How long till it feels
Like the wound’s finally starting to heal?
How long till it feels
Like I’m more than a spoke in a wheel?
[Pre-Chorus]
Most nights, I fear
That I’m not enough
I’ve had my share of Monday mornings when I can’t get up
But, when hope is lost
And I come undone
[Chorus]
I swear to God, I’ll survive
If it kills me to
I’m gonna get up and try
If it’s the last thing I do
I’ve still got something to give
Though it hurts sometimes
I’m gonna get up and live
Until the day that I die
I swear to God, I’ll survive
[Verse 2]
How long till you know
That, in truth, you know nothing at all?
How far will you go
To get back to the place you belong?
[Pre-Chorus]
Most nights, I fear
That I’m not enough
But I refuse to spend my best years rotting in the sun
So, when hope is lost
And I come undone
[Chorus]
I swear to God, I’ll survive
If it kills me to
I’m gonna get up and try
If it’s the last thing I do
I’ve still got something to give
Though it hurts sometimes
I’m gonna get up and live
Until the day that I die
I swear to God, I’ll survive
I swear to God, I’ll survive
[Chorus]
I swear to God, I’ll survive
If it kills me to
I’m gonna get up and try
If it’s the last thing I do
I’ve still got something to give
Though it hurts sometimes
I’m gonna get up and live
Until the day that I die
I swear to God, I’ll survive
- Survive, Lewis Capaldi
My shrinky dink is convinced that boys and girls can’t be friends without someone wanting to get in the other’s pants.
To be honest, a lot of women feel that way, and I cannot wrap my brain around it.
My bestie turned 50 on Andy Moog’s birthday, and we’ve wanted to get to a Bruins game for a while, so I treated him.
Not a big deal; we watched a lot of B’s hockey when we were younger. I’ve missed watching hockey with him, so every chance I get, I will take it.
Unfortunately, I live five hours north of Boston and I hate driving into the city. My genius ass decided that it would be a great idea to take the train in.
Well, the MBTA decided to work on the tracks and end the commuter rail at Beverly, so I had to take a bus from Beverly to North Station. I triple checked the schedule and the original 9AM train I was going to take from Newburyport was scheduled to arrive after noon. It was a 12:30 game and Bestie was getting to Boston at 10AM, so I decided to take the 7AM train.
Remember when I said it was a five hour trip? My ass left the house at 2AM to get to North Station at 8:30, not the 9:30 the revised schedule said. ARGH!!!!!
But. I made friends with a guy in an Andy Moog jersey while I waited so it wasn’t completely horrible. (Yes, yes, I did. Normally, I would avoid talking to a stranger but I was hopped up on two coffees and a bottle of Coke. It’s like being manic, but without… the mental illness part of it? I don’t know.)
When Bestie finally showed up, I was over the moon. Fuck, I’ve missed seeing him in person. Texts just don’t hit the same.
I don’t even know how to do the day justice. I was a sappy mess, but he means a lot to me. He is my everything, My ride or die. My bestie.
And I needed him to know that.
Life’s too short to not share those sort of feelings.
But, you know, boys and girls can’t have deep, meaningful, platonic, friendships…
So, let’s talk Heated Rivalry because I cannot get it out of my head.
I have been so good about not watching the show on repeat because whenever I have watched it, it gets my full attention. Kind of hard to put it on in the background and do stuff… I’m also kind of annoyed with it. I found my original Drarry plot / sketch notebook and it’s like Tierney and Reid went through it page by page. There are just too many hockey tropes that writers - me included - lean on, but they did it better. Yeah. I’ve been fighting with the Drarry hockey disaster for years so now I’m on draft three. I’m trying to get away from the tropes, yet still fit in the framework that people find familiar.
Honestly, as annoying as it is to start fresh, the writing is better this time around. Or, at least, I like it better.
I finished all the books and I’m also very annoyed at the people on Facebook who are asking stupid questions about things that happen in the books, but say that they refuse to read them. OR they only read the two books that center on Hollanov, and miss the subtle things woven throughout the six books. Like Ilya colllecting gay people… It’s this whole thing that you don’t really catch on to, but it’s there. REALLY subtle and nicely done.
I’m also annoyed by the Skip haters who, well, skip their episode because they ‘don’t like it’. My siblings in Christ, if it wasn’t for Skip, WE WOULD NEVER GO TO THE COTTAGE. I think the show did the book dirty because the relationship was weird and angsty and kind of beautiful in it’s own way. I have to say that during every reheat I yell “SKIPPY” every time I see them on screen, I like them that much.
The cats are starting to worry about my mental health.
They don’t even know the amount of crazy I can bring to the party.
I could go on, but let’s talk about the title of this entry. Which, oddly enough, has nothing to do with the two hockey players.
I’ve been in a weird place lately. Not quite depressed, not quite manic, but definitely not normal. I’d say I’m cycling but it doesn’t feel like that, either. I’m stuck in this weird off-center bipolar limbo. Even my shrink picked up on it when we met this week. I don’t know. It is what it is and nothing is fixing it. I’m just going to ride it out and hope I come out the other side soon. I thought I’ve experienced everything the bipolar could possibly throw at me, but this is new. And I don’t like it.
This weird little place my brain is residing in led to me to texting Mr. First Guy and telling him I wish we were watching the BOS-MTL game together. We’re both huge Bruins fans and our favourite player is Andy Moog, a goalie. He shares a birthday with Moog and I share a birthday with Bobby Orr, so it’s like we were meant to be. We have, however, in the years since high school become friends. Good friends. Besties. It’s not outside the realm of possibility for us to go to a game together, or even watch a game on TV. More importantly, it’s a completely valid emotional response to watching the biggest rivalry in hockey. (Which, OK. Fine. The rivalry in Heated Rivalry is also BOS-MTL, which lead a bunch of fangirls to watch that game. Whatever. It’s weird, but, you do you, boo.)
During this conversation, I brought up Mr. FNFTF and said how the two of them have really helped me survive through the years. Like they filled two holes in me. Which, thankfully, didn’t go anywhere further than ‘shared trauma’ being the glue keeping them in my life. They were both around when my mother died and they were there when my dad died, too. I know my dad’s death affected Mr. FNFTF because they used to hang out without me. Which is weird, but gives me the warm fuzzies. I’m just fortunate that I still have people around from that time period because I don’t have a lot of people left who were there. A lot of people only saw the fallout from my mother’s death or they saw me hit rock bottom after my dad died. The people that came in and out of my life in the 10 years between just don’t get me. Neither do the ones that came in after my dad. I don’t know how to describe it. I mean, those are life changing events and they really form the basis of who I am. To not see the whole picture…
When Mr. First Time told me he loved me in that text conversation, I broke down and bawled. Ugly cried. It was so good to hear it - unprovoked and knowing exactly where it was coming from. I didn’t realise how alone I’d been feeling until he reminded me that I still have some worth to people. (Depression lies. Period.)
Everybody is fascinated by how easily I walked away from a relationship of 30 years, married for 26, but after all those years of riding the bipolar roller coaster with me, he still didn’t understand what I needed. And I wanted to move back to New England. Neither was something we could compromise on and I’d go so far as to state that keeping that relationship going was a compromise, but I wasn’t willing to continue doing it any more. We haven’t spoken in any way, shape, or form since his text asking how the drive to Maine was. I certainly didn’t go out of my way to text him on his birthday - I didn’t feel the need to. Unlike the other two, I don’t need him in my life and more importantly, I don’t want him there, either.
So. Yeah. It’s nice to be understood. It’s nice to be wanted. It’s nice to have, um, holes filled.
And on a completely random note, the breeder we got G-Man from has a new litter of puppies. I’ve wanted a dog, but I’ve been flip flopping over what breed to get. For $3,800 I can get an amazing German Shepherd. Good temperament, breed to be gorgeous, and smart as fuck. BUT that is a lot of cash I don’t really have unless I dig into my savings and my house really needs to have the vinyl siding replaced. Decisions, decisions. I think I’d rather spend the money on a dog, tbh. Not sure the cats will agree, though. The breeder hasn’t asked for a deposit, so I’m just going to wait and see if I make it to the reservation list or the wait list. I haven’t heard back.
Even more random, Fandom Running Club is doing it’s first Rumble of the year. I’m on a team (Razoom’s Back!) that’s fundraising for Razom for Ukraine. The race has three different groups with different caps (5K, 10K, 10 miles) to make it more competitive. My dumb ass has consistently been doing 10 miles since we started 16 days ago. I could drop to a lower level. I want to drop to a lower level, but I also want to win and doing 10 a day will keep us competitive. I mean, I can’t bitch about my teammates. We all have things going on and it’s easier to do lower miles. I’m not that busy. I can spend 4 hours on a treadmill, no problem. My feet don’t want me to - I have blisters EVERYWHERE. My toes are killing me and since 10 different blisters in that area wasn’t enough, they’ve moved onto my heel. I don’t care. I can live with the pain. Ukrainians are dealing with a lot worse than blistered feet.
Even even more random, I have FINALLY moved into the kitchen. I ended up ripping out one of the lazy susans and finding some pull out drawers on clearance at Home Depot. The cabinets are much more functional now. Every thing I can’t fit is in the dining room. That was on my agenda to clean this weekend, but I tore the living room apart instead. I needed more light and I needed more space between the couch, pellet stove, and treadmill. The good news is that the living room is spotless and the kitchen is finally livable. I’ll get to the dining room soon. I do need the house as clean as possible ASAP. I’m tired of living like this. It just sucks that my time is so limited. (Also, the puppies will be ready to go home in March, so I have extra motivation.)
Speaking of things to do… I should probably get to my to-do list. I’m hopping on the treadmill for the Stupid Bowl if only because I want to see how Green Day and Bad Bunny comment on the current state of the union…. which only leaves me 5 hours to try to do eleventy gazillion things.
This fucking scene broke me in all the right ways…
Jesus fucking Christ. Do you people even know me?
I love hockey.
I love MM relationships.
I love porn.
So, OF COURSE, I will absolutely lose my mind for MM hockey porn.
I had no idea that was a secret.
It’s not like I’ve hidden my love for MM fiction nor talk about writing it (including the absolutely frustrating Drarry Hockey Disaster. I swear to fucking god, if I ever finish it that will be the title because it is fighting me every step of the way. )
Imagine my surprise when my phone, email, and DMs started BLOWING THE FUCK UP with people asking me if I’d heard of Heated Rivalry and if I’ve read the book or watched the show.
The Game Changers series has been on my TBR forever; I was a little burned out on hockey but I decided to start reading them if only to get everyone to shut the fuck up.
Holy. Mother. Of. Fucking. Fuckity. Fuck.
I really enjoyed the first two and then I stopped to watch the show since it only covered the first two books.
Did I say Holy. Mother. Of. Fucking. Fuckity. Fuck. already?
How about Motherfucking Jumping Jesus Fucking Christ on a Motherfucking Pogo Stick.?
Fuck.
That show really needs to come with a warning because it took everything that was amazing in the book and…
Fuck.
“Will you come to my cottage this summer? Don’t go to Russia. Come to my house. We’ll have so much fun. It’s so private. No one will know.” absolutely shattered me.
SHATTERED.
I AM BROKEN.
I AM IN PIECES.
I swear, MM hockey porn is going to be the fucking death of me.
What a way to go.
EDIT: I had to change the title because I kept getting shit for “misquoting” the line. No. I wasn’t quoting it…but whatever. Ya’ll are some psychos.
I have no idea how this was downloaded and placed on my desktop, I swear! #dopey2027
Holy shit, has it been a crazy few months.
The day job was sold on the 30th of September, but the high level conversations started back in July.
In my role as Controller, I was called on constantly to provide financial statements, proofread legal documents, and literally carry the weight of the world on my shoulders. I had scared coworkers calling me non-stop, some crying, some digging for details I wanted to provide, but couldn’t. The stress got so bad that the owner freaked out on me during a meeting with the CPAs and basically told me I didn’t know what I was talking about.
I threatened to quit. And I meant it. Even though I didn’t have a backup plan.
I’d given the owner so much grace and let so much roll off my back, but to be talked to like that in front of my peers… It literally took two people to talk me into staying.
And through all of this, I’d been terrified that I was getting fired, too. The purchasers don’t need another accountant; they already have a huge staff (although one did quit just as the sale was going through.)
Apparently, I’m keeping my job - for now - because they think I’m ‘capable’. What a glowing commentary on my 20 years of experience.
I’m also being micromanaged. A meeting every Friday that can LITERALLY be emails.
I fucking hate meetings.
So yeah, there’s been a lot and putting it into writing like that definitely downplays the amount of stress and the absolute mess that the sale was.
In happier news, I finally moved into my home office. I still have a box of two in here that needs to be sorted. I’m so happy I pulled the carpet in here. Yeah, the floor is damaged in some spots to the point where I was ready to grab my sander and refinish it myself. I decided to wait until I pull the remaining carpet in the house.
My living room is set up (including a honking huge treadmill to replace the one that got STOLEN BY THE MOVERS.) The bathroom is a bathroom. The kitchen / dining room is a shitshow because I emptied out all the cabinets and drawers and still can’t figure out where everything should live. The room that was supposed to be my craft room is still full of boxes and needs to be painted. My bedroom is finally emptied of all the shit, I have curtains, and a closet!
And what a fucking adventure that closet was.
It absolutely stunk like smoke and the shelf / closet rod were sticky with nicotine. There was wood paneling on the walls that seem to absorb it all, too.
I ended up covering all the seams in the paneling and giving it SEVERAL coats of a shellac based primer. Then, once I finally couldn’t smell smoke and the nicotine stopped bleeding through, I gave it several coats of a boring white paint. I even installed a closet kit. I mostly did it right. The one rod wasn’t cut short enough, so it’s really wedged in there. The other one is a little slanted, despite being measured three different times. I also checked that it was level. It’s a later problem. I just needed the closet to be functional.
All of my appliances have finally been installed, which was also an adventure. Despite measuring the fridge several times, the damn door kept getting stuck on the wall trim. If we pulled the fridge out, it blocked the doorway. I decided that I needed a smaller, back ordered fridge. (Because, of course, it’s back ordered.) The kitchen was installed in June. The fridge came after Labor Day. I *barely* got my rebate because of the delay and the fact that I screwed up the rebate form because I already filled out the form with the old fridge’s information, with the exception of the fridge serial number. The new serial number didn’t match the old fridge’s model number, so there were a couple of conversations with the rebate support team.
I had to replace the garage door and opener, which was $2,500 I wasn’t expecting to pay out of pocket. The one-size-fits-all door opener I picked up is not one-size-fits-all and I really wanted an opener. Once I started using the garage door more frequently, I realised that the door was popping out of the track and was really damaged. Like backed into it several times and possibly dropped on the hood of a car damaged. With winter coming, there was no way I was leaving the car on the driveway. So… yeah. Merry fucking Christmas, Wendell.
All this to say, HOLY FUCK DO I LOVE TECHNOLOGY.
My fridge beeps at me if I leave the door open too long. The microwave tells me when it’s done. The stove tells me when it’s preheated. The washer and dryer alert me when the cycles end. And the coolest thing of all? I can open the garage door from my phone!!! (Now if only I could get a remote car starter… the one downside of driving a stick shift.)
Speaking of Christmas, my house is half ass decorated. I put up a nekkid tree BEFORE THANKSGIVING and I’ve putting shit around the house as it comes from Amazon and Etsy. (The tree will continue to be nekkid until the cats stop climbing it… so probably until I take it down. At least it’s a cheap ass fake tree.)
This is noteworthy because
1) I’ve never liked Christmas. The whole gift giving thing makes me uncomfortable - like, here! I barely know you, but society says I have to buy you something. Or, thanks for the scarf. I’ve only knitted fourteen thousand of them for myself.
2) Empty chairs at empty tables.
So yeah, no Christmas music, no Christmas decorations, until long after Thanksgiving. And that only happened because of the ex.
However, we used to go to Universal for Grinchmas and the Christmas parade every year - and the fucking story resonated with me so much that now, my first Non-Grinchmas Christmas, I have Grinch shit EVERYWHERE.
And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow,
stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so?
It came without ribbons. It came without tags.
It came without packages, boxes or bags.
And he puzzled and puzzled ‘till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before.
What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store.
What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.
So yeah. Happy Turkey Day - or if you’re like me, happy first day of a much needed four day vacation where some turkey may or may not be consumed.
