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
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.
It’s very clear you’re being unfair, King. No matter what you say, we won’t obey.
Gonna hold a revolution now, King. And we’re gonna run it all our way.
I wish I went to No Kings Day, but there were a couple of reasons why I chose not to, and the biggest one is where I live.
I’m brand new here and one of the cashiers at Hannaford already knows me. Some random guy asked me if I bought [somebody’s] house.
Like what the actual fuck?
Life in tiny town America, right? This is exactly what I signed up for, but damn… the realities are a little much some times. Did you know Amazon delivers in about four business days? That I’ve been reduced to shopping at fucking WALMART because everything else is an hour away? Yeah. I don’t even know where I can get a pizza. The two local places that I can find online closed during covid. There’s one Chinese place, but every time I drive by it, it looks closed. Guess it’s a good thing I’ve finally learned how to cook.
My town has a Tractor Supply, a Hannaford, a McDonald’s, a Subway, and a Dunks.
That’s it for the big time brand names. Everything else is locally owned and operated.
Like I said. Life in tiny town America.
At any rate, strange things are afoot at the Circle K and I need to get the bookkeeping business rocking and rolling yesterday. It’s bad enough that I’m the new girl. It’s bad enough that I’m From Away. I don’t need to have my political affiliation out there just yet. And I’m not at all happy I felt that way, but in a crowd of 25-ish? I definitely would have stood out and since there are things happening that I absolutely cannot talk about, I didn’t want to take the risk of pissing off potential customers just because I lean blue.
Instead, I went to the Whoopie Pie Festival. You read that right. A WHOOPIE PIE FESTIVAL. I have died and gone to New England heaven. I love a good whoopie pie and I have missed them. Oddly enough, a New England treat cannot be found anywhere in South Florida despite the large number of snowbirds.
It was about an hour away, but it was a great drive through some of the prettiest backroads I have ever driven. It didn’t hurt that the entry fee was super cheap and that samples were a quarter each. There were about 20 bakeries and I stopped at every. single. one. The only one I wanted to sample but didn’t was Moxie flavoured. Mind you, Moxie is one of those things you either absolutely love or hate beyond belief. There’s pretty much no in between and I am on the yuk side of the spectrum, but I bought a full sized one because I wanted to try it so badly. You can’t go to Maine and not sample a Moxie something, even if you don’t like the soda.
There was a cotton candy one at the same bakery that had the Moxie one and that? That was absolutely orgasmic. It was just sweet enough and I swear it melted in my mouth like real cotton candy. It was so good, I went back and bought a full sized one… and a Moxie one. That one is still sitting on my counter. I’m afraid to eat it.
Because Moxie.
At any rate… my 26 hour drive (assuming non-stop) was actually 37. (THIRTY SEVEN) I napped a couple of times at rest stops and the cats were relatively well behaved. I couldn’t get them to eat, sleep, or use the litter box, but they did at least eat some of their sticks and pee in their carriers. The soft ones because, of course, I got rid of the hard plastic ones. It was too hard to put the cats in them by myself. I’ve washed my car a few times and used a ton of febreeze, but the great thing about cat pee smell is that it doesn’t go away.
Oh, well. That was the worst thing that happened the entire trip, so I’m OK with it.
Got here in plenty of time to meet the furniture guys. I have all new appliances. And a bunch of things the movers broke - like my brand new TV stand AND the TV. I ended up having to order a TV because a) I can’t carry one that big by myself and 2) it wouldn’t fit in my car. When it finally arrived, I was so excited to set it up and… the screen was shattered.
I started to paint my office, and I was supposed to finish it today, but I fell asleep on the couch last night and didn’t take one of my bipolar meds. I woke up feeling pretty sick, headachy and feverish, in a way I only do when I forget to take that particular pill. Probably not a good idea to play with electricity and inhale paint fumes. Instead, I’m blogging and about to take a nap. In my defense, I did go grocery shopping and made brunch and that was more than enough for the way I feel right now.
Fun fact: I used to be able to forecast rain about a half hour to an hour before it actually started, and if I woke up gross and sinusy, it was going to rain. Sinus migraine? We were in for a serious downpour. Hurricane season almost killed me. I HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO FORECAST RAIN ONCE SINCE I MOVED HERE. I am broken… but in a good way?
Fun facts about buying a house in a dying small town an hour from civilization:
1) Furniture only gets delivered there every two weeks. I either move heaven and earth to get there Friday or wait until July because all the June slots are booked. I had been planning on keeping my IKEA furniture, but I have two pieces that are so old that they are not interested in moving AGAIN. Plus, they’re heavy-ish and at the end of the day, they’re at least 10 years old and I don’t feel like paying to move them to Maine as temporary furniture. So, because I decided to chuck everything and furnish the whole house with new things, I leave Wednesday, as soon as the movers do. 26 hour drive with 2 cats. Fun times.
2) UMaine Hockey has a waiting list. I just dropped $50 to put my name on a waiting list for hockey tickets. They had a really good season, so my timing totally sucks. Plus, it’s MAINE. They’ve always had a good team and I’m not surprised that they’re sold out, but damn.
3) New Englander’s have long memories. I signed up for internet and cable. When I gave the girl my address, she says, “Oh you’re in the new development.”
The. NEW. Development.
My house was built in 1962.
This doesn’t surprise me - I’m used to hearing directions like take the left at Yoken’s. Yoken’s went out of business in 2004 and the building had been torn down forever ago. The sign, however, lived at it’s spot for years after that. When the ex and I lived in New Hampshire, I once told him to turn left at Yoken’s. He looked at me like I was insane. The sign was no longer there and he had no idea what I was talking about. Also, in a different small town in Maine, my dad was getting directions to a church, and his aunt told him to take the right at the old [whatever the hell their name was] place. You know, the white house. Well, dad had no idea who the fuck they were talking about and the house was no longer white. It’s hard to get lost in a town with one traffic light, but we did.
The movers come Wednesday and I am this very strange mixture of nervous, scared, and feeling settled. I still have a few things to finish packing, so I’m going to do that as soon as I finish lunch. I’ll be living on take out until then because I want everything packed before the work week starts again.
