The year my mother died, I was taking a drama class. I was friends with all the theatre geeks and I liked the drama club teacher, so why the fuck not?
(Long time readers will recognise the fuck it factor at work…)
The homework assignment was to describe an emotional day you had - the day you got your driver’s license, for example. You know. Emotional shit.
My essay might have started by grabbing you by the short hairs and didn’t let go for two pages.
On Wednesday, March 18th, I walked into the condo to see my father crying at the kitchen table.
My father never cries.
When he finally looked at me, I knew.
“Ding dong, the witch is dead,” I asked.
“Ding dong,” he answered.
Have I said how absolutely fucking thrilled I am to be cleaning out 40+ years of memories I’d rather forget? (STILL!)
Do you know, I couldn’t remember what grade I got? I couldn’t just flip to the end and look. No! That would have been the sensible thing to do. The easy thing.
When the fuck have I ever done the easy thing?
I read the entire fucking thing. Cried through all of it. Wondered how it would end.
(Spoiler alert: it ends with my mother six feet under.)
And the grade? As if there were any doubt: A+ The relationship between mother and child can be difficult and you captured that.
Can. Be. Difficult.
Oh, Doc L., you have no idea.
BBQ sauce on my titties would have been a much better story.
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I ran last night.
Willingly got on the treadmill with my puffer in hand.
2 miles - intervals for all of it: 30 seconds (13mm) / 2 minutes (20mm).
Not speedy. Not balloon lady safe.
I did two beginner iFit workouts because I wanted to zone out and let the treadmill tell me what to do.
(The girl who drives a stick and refuses to use cruise control because she drives the car put the treadmill in charge. Yeah.)
I didn’t enjoy it.
But, I didn’t hate it, either.
I have a Turkey Trot coming up on the 24th. In fucking Miami.
I wasn’t really looking forward to the race, but… I’ve always done well at 10Ks. Especially there.
It’s not enough to salvage my Dopey training, but it’s a start.
My new shoes and socks don’t cause blisters, so maybe I can get father in the marathon than mile four.
I have no idea and I don’t really care.
I’ll do what I can and then I’m hanging up the sneakers.
Shrinky Dinks, invented in 1973, are a children’s toy and activity kit consisting of large flexible sheets which, when heated in an oven, shrink to small hard plates without altering their colour or shape. (see also: drug dealer)
It’s a Matt Nathanson sort of day around these parts.
I hit a wall with running about the same time Potterhead was forced to shut down. Despite my running coach’s best efforts, I couldn’t improve. In fact, I swiftly went from success to abject failure. He thought I had exercise induced asthma and that’s why I had not improved. I wasn’t fully convinced (I’m still not), but I saw a doctor he recommended. Guy was a complete douchenozzle, but I took the prescription for the inhaler and went on my merry way.
Fast forward to Wine and Dine.
I hated the 5K, was absolutely miserable during the 10K, and walked off the half marathon course at mile 7. The truth is, it wasn’t the humidity. It wasn’t the heat. It wasn’t the asthma. I just didn’t want to be there.
I’ve been joking about how I hate running, but the soundtrack in my head during those 16 miles… well, let’s just say that those little voices in my head? The ones I’m not supposed to talk about? They were right.
I. FUCKING. HATE. RUNNING.
It doesn’t spark joy. I don’t get a runner’s high.
I. Get. Absolutely. Nothing. out of it.
NOTHING.
So. Really. What’s the fucking point?
I walk a 5K in a little less than a hour. Longer if I’m on the treadmill because that’s when I allow myself to read certain fan fics… but even with reading the un-put-downable pr0n (as the Chicken calls it), I fucking hate it. That’s an hour I could spend doing anything that actually makes me feel good.
I fired my running coach last night.
I left all but one of my Disney running groups.
Being able to admit that I hate it has taken a huge weight off of my shoulders…
but, of course, I’m a fucking idiot and posted in my favourite running (non-RTI FB) group about my struggles and asking if it’s normal.
And… there was that one asshole who told me I was mentally ill and needed to see a psychiatrist.
Bitch, please.
You mean the psychiatrist who held my hand and walked me out of the most suicidal mindset I’ve ever experienced? (Fuck you, CrossFit.)
You mean the psychiatrist who has been trying to help me get past the closure of the only place that has ever truly inspired me to run?
Or, perhaps, you mean the psychiatrist who has pushed me - repeatedly - to find a simple prop to occupy my time?
This one goes out to the one I love… FIRE! She’s coming down on her own now…
I’m sorry.
I lost the plot there for a minute.
I guess I’m fucked in the head after all.
Thank you for the diagnosis, internet stranger. I feel much better now.
I got tired of answering message after message during Irma (which was our first hurricane as Florida residents), so I started posting #bluedotupdates on my Facebook page. Normally with a screenshot of the current conditions. Of course, hurricanes are hard to predict. They can change course in the blink of an eye. Like, for Irma, it was headed straight for Sunrise, so we decided maybe it would be smart to go north west. Well, Irma decided to go there before we could totally make our minds up. Probably a good thing that we were frozen by fear…
We’re located between Miami and West Palm. Closer to Boca than Fort Lauderdale. We are often in the Cone of Uncertainty. We are often nervous. We are often scared. The #bluedotupdates are often soothing. People know where we are and how we’re fairing. While I can get exhausted thinking about what could happen, and answering the same “Are you guys OK” day after day, I appreciate that people care.
I mean, it’s not like I have many friends… mostly acquaintances. People I want to meet up with when they’re near… then blow me off after making tentative plans. And I get it - I absolutely suck donkey balls at staying in touch with people. I hate the phone, but I would rather talk than text. Texting takes too long and I’m never sure where the conversation actually ends. Quick likes on Facebook are more my speed, but they don’t breed intimate friendships.
I’m a fucking walking disaster.
But anyhoo… that’s not the point.
The point is that I’m Facebook friends with three members of my blood family. Two that I was really close to growing up and one that I became close with recently. M & C are my aunt’s daughters and L is my godfather’s oldest.
I’ll give you one guess as to who reached out to see if I was OK.
I’m tired of being angry. I’m tired of being hurt. I’m tired of letting that branch of the family tree live rent free in my head. (...And if you read the archives, I tend to say the same things about my mother.)
The sad thing is that I know therapy would probably help with bits and pieces of that, but every therapist I’ve ever seen wants to dive into the minutiae of my parents’ alcoholism, the physical and mental abuse my mother put me through… and I know that that’s probably the root of all my problems that are outside the scope of the bipolar.
But.
It’s easier to work through that shit here than it is to talk to a complete stranger. I don’t know. Despite everything, I’m still a little protective of my family. Not that they deserve it. (Well maybe my father does. He tried the hardest to do right by me… but the rest of them can go fuck themselves.) Here I can edit my word vomit. Dial back the emotions. Engage in unhealthy behaviours. *shrug*
Maybe I like constantly feeling like shit.
Who knows.
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In other news, and not really in order of importance:
We went to Universal last weekend for Halloween Horror Nights. The only house worth the price of admission was the Halloween (1978) house. We had express passes - which is the only way to do the event, tbh - they’re great if we want to do certain houses more than once. (We can justify the cost of those since the HHN ticket is included in our annual pass.) Since we had early access, we were able to get into Halloween before the doors opened to the crowd. And it freaked me the fuck out. (That movie is the only one to consistently scare the shit out of me no matter how many times I’ve seen it. I hear the music and my blood runs cold.) We also got lost in the house. There was one room that was a hall of mirrors and… GAH! That, of course, was the one room we couldn’t find our way out of. We used the express pass to go through it a second time (when the wait was two-ish hours) and it scared me even more the second time, despite knowing where the jump scares were.
I’m running a ridiculous amount of races between now and Wine & Dine: 5K tomorrow, two 5Ks next weekend, a 5K the weekend after that, and a half marathon the weekend after that. Then, I take the weekend off for my first trip back to UConn in years. (And I almost got a room in Storrs before remembering that the football stadium is in East Hartford… I’m close enough to the stadium to walk to the game.) Have I mentioned that I HATE running?
My Stetopher fic is a struggle. I haven’t figured out the actual plot yet, so it’s eleven chapters of backstory / exposition. I’m oddly OK with the struggle; it means the characters are more in character than most of my fan fic. I’m also loving bouncing in between the three characters thoughts. It’s a fun project, even if it makes me want to tear my hair out.
I’ve taken a break from using italki for Ukrainian lessons. I’m not feeling it right now. I just haven’t found the right teacher and it’s frustrating. I found a (online, yet a true classroom setting) class based in NYC, affiliated with a Ukrainian group that I am familiar with and trust. When I was going through everything with the class organiser, I mentioned my struggles with italki. It boiled down to: there’s a huge difference between a native speaker trying to teach a language and someone who has been trained to teach that as a second language. I looked into teaching English as a Second Language a few years ago, and opted not to because I would essentially have to relearn English. Yeah. No. It tracks. Except now, I’m in the ridiculously odd position of using the Яблуко text for a third class. And, that book has been written in to the point where I have to retype the assignments because I can’t just take a photo of the page. Plus, the paper is C2S so I can’t write in pencil. It has to be pen, and it can only be one type of pen. (Staedtler triplus fineliner, if you must know. It’s the only one that doesn’t smudge… but who the fuck prints a textbook on coated paper?!?!)
At any rate, we have that basic chapter one conversation: How are you? Fine. (Як справи? (Добре!)) What’s your name? Wendell (Як вас звати? (Вендел)) Where do you live? America (Звідки ви? (З Америки)) What’s your profession? Accountant (Яка ваша професія? (Бугалтер)) How old are you? 47 (Скільки вам років? (Сорок сім)) —and next thing I know, I’m in Beginner Two. ACK!!!! Also, it is an absolute bitch to switch between languages on the keyboard. First world problems?
