Yoga Bear

In keeping with my transformation to Joy, I returned to my yoga practice yesterday. And as I sit here with my soreness, I am infused with a delicious sense of calm. This is my drug better than all the drugs. Except maybe demerol, which is my absolute favorite. But otherwise, if I could put yoga on a little spoon, put a lighter underneath it, melt it into a liquid, put it in a syringe and inject it directly into my veins, I totally would. But yoga isn't that easy. You have to do this work, this great but challenging work.

People scoff about yoga. People say it isn't really exercise, that you don't burn a lot of calories doing it. And while that may be true, that's not really the point. For all my fellow yogis and yoginis out there, I know I'm preaching to the chanters. But to the scoffers, I have to say, the only time I ever felt that yoga was easy was when I wasn't doing it correctly. The first time I took a class with a hands-on, real yoga teacher it was a disheartening experience. Prior to that I thought I was something of a goddess; I must be a goddess to take to this practice so easily, I said to myself. Na-uh.

This teacher kept coming back to me, readjusting, pushing, pulling, making me feel like the most idiotic idiot that ever idioted. And once she put me in a pose correctly, well let's just say, it was fucking difficult to hold it. And I realized then why it had been so easy. Everything I thought was right, was wrong.

I hate the word "pose". It sort of has a lot of bad connotations, what with models and people trying to be what they are not. So maybe it is fitting here, because me thinking I was a goddess of some sort made me a total poser. I prefer the word "asana", which is the sanskrit word roughly translated to "pose". It has a beautiful sound, don't you think? So all of the "poses" in yoga end with that word "asana". Uttanasana, Savasana, Balasana, Virabhadrasana, and the list goes on. The words are like honey dripping off a spoon. Here is my favorite: Ardha Matsyendrasana. It means Half Lord of the Fishes pose. I've never done that asana. But I'm totally psyched about it. I want to feel like a lord of the fishes. Because each and every time I am in an "asana" one of my goals is to embody the essence of the pose. Like when I'm in Bhujangasana (cobra pose), I try to feel sinister and when I am in Kapotasana (pigeon pose) I try to feel like I'm bugging people at the beach. The asana I am best at is Merudandasana (balancing bear).

When I am in this pose I feel as if I am open to all possibility or maybe just waiting around for a piece of fruit to fall off of a tree or for a lord of the fishes to get cocky and crawl out of the sea so I could have an easy breakfast. I really don't know that much about bears.

It was hard going back after four months of inactivity. It felt like starting over - but that it how I am feeling with everything these days. I have to embrace the beginning of a Gwen without grief. Last night, with each asana I felt a growing hatred for myself, a disgust at my lack of grace, my inability to "perform" the way I used to. Annemieke, the beautiful Swedish woman who was teaching the class, sensed my frustration. I was in the middle of locust pose and about to assume bow pose, which, for me, is very challenging. She came over and said to me in a whisper, "You have nothing to prove in this room. You do a beautiful practice. Just let yourself be and do not worry. Breathe." And there it was. Just breathe. I opened myself up to strength, I opened myself to bow pose. And even though I only held the pose a few seconds, it was a victory. I know that next time it will get easier. And the next and the next...

I know this is a metaphor for life. And that it why yoga is so good for me. I have to tell myself everyday, "You have nothing to prove. You do a beautiful practice. Just be and don't worry. Breathe". I have born so much tragedy...What is yet to come I can bear, with grace and strength.

Spring Wings

There is something about spring that makes me feel like a child. Not like the skipping, carefree version who wants nothing more than a lollipop and a turn on the swing. I'm talking about the essence of childhood, the bated breath of possibility, the evolution into something bigger and greater than you were before. There is a part of me that dreaded this season. It is, afterall, a first spring without Amy. The first blossoming of flowers, the first cool morning that gives birth to a warm day, the first throwing off of the sweater underneath a hot sun...the first taste of this immaculate freshness that incites so much compulsive cleaning and organizing. All of this without Amy. But I feel a kinship with the budding trees and flowers. Something is alive in me, something is being born, and I feel a weak, but palpable joy that has been absent for so long. Or maybe it was just buried beneath so much grief.

Is this a betrayal to feel happy? Probably. I am just so exhausted from the sadness. I honestly can't walk among the other humans with that burden anymore. I have to say "I'm sorry Amy. I'm sorry to be having this gift of Spring, to be loving warm winds on my face, to be intoxicated with the yellows of daffodils and forsythias, to be...alive when you are not." And then I have to walk away from that sorrow. Because there is nothing left for me in that place that held me so tight I couldn't even breathe.

I haven't been writing. There are many reasons for that. But mostly I felt stale. I felt unworthy to be putting words to paper and everything I wrote felt ugly and wrong. And then Monday, Ashley sent me an article written by Elizabeth Gilbert that really got in my heart and uprooted those weeds that stopped me from pursuing this creative expression.

"I believe that – if you are serious about a life of writing, or indeed about any creative form of expression – that you should take on this work like a holy calling...I made a vow to writing, very young...One day, when I was agonizing over how utterly bad my writing felt, I realized: "That's actually not my problem." The point I realized was this – I never promised the universe that I would write brilliantly; I only promised the universe that I would write. So I put my head down and sweated through it, as per my vows." - Elizabeth Gilbert "Thoughts on Writing"

So that's it. I always felt like writing, for me, was a holy calling as she describes. And that calling haunts me, it nags me like a bitchy wife, it wakes me up in the middle of the night with words, phrases, sentences, dripping from my dreams like blood from an open cut. And like her, I can't make any promises about the quality of what is put to paper. I only can honor that calling, that screaming need...to write. To write like the words have the keys to the answers to everything I ever wanted to know.

So I will enjoy this spring and I will write and I will make the choice to be happy. Because at the very least I have to try, I have to believe that there is something in me that is valuable, that matters. And maybe you think thats silly or melodramatic or whatever. I don't care. I'm so tired of hating myself...of grieving, of pinching an inch, of wallowing in mires of muddy self-pity, of crying terrible tears at sunsets Amy will never see, of crawling out of bed in the morning with dread at the thought of a new day. Its not fair to ask a person to live this way. Not even the likes of me.

So I'm going to take flight on my spring wings, like a butterfly out of my chrysalis. No grief to bear. Us butterflies, we travel light.

Bitter Heart

"In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter - bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."

Stephen Crane wrote that. He can see right through me. He's dead but he knows me better than anyone.

Did you ever read a poem and felt like you just underwent an autopsy? Or think "I wrote that like six years ago in my head while curled in a fetal position on my bathroom floor wondering after the whereabouts of my soul"? Or maybe that's just me.

Poetry has a bad reputation. Novels gossip about her behind her back. Everyone says poetry is easy. She'll spread her legs for anyone. She only inhabits the tattered, black and white composition books of angsty teenage girls with fading cuts about the arms and legs and belly. But that's not entirely true.

The best part of poetry is the part that makes you uncomfortable. Words that are so skillfully whittled they make you squirm like a worm on a hook. A good poem doesn't touch your heart like a gooey love song. It gets on your fucking nerves. It makes you want to eat a whole dark chocolate bar, or maybe just give the world one more chance to get it right.

I stopped writing poetry a long time ago. It felt like a lost cause. It started to be that everything I wrote was inferior to everything I read. It was embarrassing. And I cooled off like ice.

I have a tattoo on my lower back. But before you think that I think that you think I'm cool - I don't. It's a chinese symbol. The chinese character for poetry. I don't regret getting a tattoo. I do regret getting that tattoo. In case you didn't know, I'm not Chinese. I don't know why I did it, but now that it's done I'm going to have to spend a lifetime trying to justify this act either by becoming a communist or memorizing the works of Confucius. I also might have to drive the Dalai Lama out of his hometown. Which makes me sad, because he seems like a really great guy.
I think I'm just going to stick with eating sesame chicken on a regular basis.

Anyway, my tattoo probably doesn't even mean "poetry". It probably means "asshole". The tattoo artist who "did" my tattoo seemed like the type of person who would do that on purpose. But I'm not judging. I'm the type of person who would do that on purpose.Like Stephen said, my heart is bitter, bitter. But I like it. Because it is bitter. And because it is my heart.

I Am Not Meant For Womanhood

Current Mood: Looking on the Bright Side of Life

Well, well, well. To my surprise and delight, many have expressed dismay at my planned blog hiatus. While I certainly stand by my position to remain relatively quiet in regards to the negative aspects of my experience, I see no harm in sharing positive insights and anecdotes. So I decided to keep public the blogs that aren't so weighed down in the mire of my chaotic, pessimistic brain.

Last week, after my first fill, my boss' wife commented that I had the bust of a 12 year old girl. And I totally do! It got me thinking about this little poem I wrote when I was about 25, but looking all of 12. I had these scrawny arms and stick legs attached to this frail, puny torso. Amy used to call me a "lollipop". She said my tiny body made my head look huge. It makes me smile in a wicked way to think how afraid I was of womanhood then, even though I was literally knee deep in adulthood by that point. I fought that acceptance of myself as a woman so long and so hard...but in the end nature won. And I'm so glad it did. In the moments when I'm not cursing under my breath about what hurts, I really am very happy to be alive, and also blessed to have a better chance at living a long and happy life. But this poem, still, it makes me smile. It makes me remember who I was at that fixed point in time and what things I was fighting so hard to hold onto. And it reminds me how far I've come. Oh the irony to have breast buds at the age of 32 after that battle to remain a child in body and mind all those years. Or maybe its something only I can appreciate. Either way, here is the poem. I hope you like it.

I am not meant for womanhood
or the hassle of growing up
I'm built for hopscotch and skipping through life
for moonlit giggles and dreaming about being a bride
but not somebody's wife.
My little girl hands
are designed to handle little girl things
like faux but fab jewelry and red candy rings.
My hips are not the birthing hips
my mother said I'd get
but more for carrying baby dolls
and not the real ones yet.
I'd rather wear my sneakers
than silly old high heels
and I prefer a beat up bicycle
than a Volvo for my wheels.
If I could give up dollars
and credit cards, I would.
Then I could pay with candy
Which to me is just as good.
Instead of hours on a treadmill
to make my body slim
I'd play freeze tag with my neighbors
and hit the jungle gym.
In life there are things that we must do
like growing up and getting old.
Since God has said that I must to
I will do what I am told.
But while on the outside
I'll be doing what a good lady does
inside my head I'll always be
the little girl that I was.

Totally corny, huh? But it makes me smile. I hope it made you smile, too. Much love.

Table Salt Nation

Current Mood: Feeling Guilty for Feeling like Shit

Warning: A long explanation of why I'm annoyed with people who are annoyed with me. If you don't care about that then just read the last two sentences and be on your merry way.

It's been brought to my attention on more than one occasion and by more than one person that I am wholly miserable and irritating as of late. Circumstances in my life have not allowed me to feel, and therefore be, any different. It sort of sucks that when you're down, you have to feel guilty for being down, on top of being down. It especially hurts considering that I have multiple reasons for feeling the way that I do. The past year has been one trauma after another.

Things are going on in my life that I don't always talk about, not on here and not even to most people I know. And that is on top of the things I DO talk about. All of which occurred since last February: Finding out my BRCA2 status, the break up of my brother's marriage to one of my best friends, painful kidney surgery to remove a large stone, two lumpectomies and biopsies (basically cancer scares), my sister's horrible illness and death, my agonizing decision of whether to have a mastectomy, my experience of having a mastectomy and current, ongoing and painful reconstruction. So if I'm not doing cartwheels and singing Zippadee Doo Dah with rays of sunshine coming out of my eyeballs all day long then pardon fucking me.

My sadness is not a "disease", or a "syndrome". I'm not depressed. (A term that is so over-used it has started to reach "Alrighty then" and "Yeah Baby" status in my mental list of most vile words ever said in the history of the English language). I'm hurting, physically and emotionally and I'm so exhausted just having to explain and defend myself over and over and over again, on top of everything else I have to be exhausted about.

I don't know a lot of people who have had the same experiences as me. I don't know very many people that have had their breasts cut off. I've had it up to my eyebrows with people telling me how I should feel about that, or how I should be over it by now even though I'm still undergoing the process and am in fucking pain every minute of my life. I'm tired of people telling me I need an anti-depressant when the only reason I'm sad is because I physically hurt and yet am still expected to complete all my duties and tasks as if I were healthy and feeling great. Going to work, taking care of Liv, household cleaning, laundry, making dinner, changing kitty litter, gritting my teeth through the pain, and biting my tongue when stupid things are said and done to me, so as not to add "conflict with people I care about" to my already overloaded list. All part of a day's work.

I realize that everyone has shit to deal with. I don't have the monopoly on suffering and pain. But I feel like I'm here to listen when other people hurt, when other people need a friendly, compassionate ear. I feel like I reach out to people, with emails and phone calls and help when asked. Okay, mostly emails. I'm, admittedly, not a phone person. But seriously, I would never make a person feel bad for hurting and needing to vent and just feeling sad. I just can't take this shit anymore. I seriously want to shut the blinds and curl into a fetal position some mornings. Not just because of the pain and difficulty of my life. But because I know I'm going to be hearing some hurtful comments from someone at some point in my day that's going to lead me to believe I'm not doing enough and I'm too sad and I'm apparently getting on everyone's nerves.

And then I inevitably start to panic and worry that I'm going to end up with zero friends after this experience just for being honest about what it's like. Excuse me for having feelings. Seriously. After so many years of silence, I finally found a voice. I found a way to express my pain rather than cutting myself with sharp objects, starving my body down to a frail skeletal shell of a human, or putting my head in a toilet 3-5 times a day. I thought I was expressing myself in a healthy way, through blogging and talking to friends and family. As a result, I've opened myself up to a world of hurt. I have never felt more alone in my entire life.

I am going through one of the most physically painful and emotional devastating experiences, and still grieving the loss of my best friend in all the world, my sister, and I am feeling guilty for being sad. Like I'm abnormal. I guess it is irritating to everyone. That's fine. I'm going to stop bothering everyone with my shit. Of course, not everyone has expressed annoyance towards me. But the few that have, well they've made me nervous and afraid that everyone is secretly rolling their eyes at me after every conversation and/or blog entry. It hurts more than the physical pain I am experiencing.

So for anyone I've hurt or annoyed, I'm truly sorry. The last thing I want is to drive everyone away from me for being a downer or a snooze. I'd rather be eaten alive by a trillion angry fire ants than be boring. It's not like I have a reserve cache of awesome friends waiting in the wings or anything. I'm not that cool. That's why I'm going to make my blogs private for a while, at least until all of this passes over and I'm feeling positive again.

Sorry for this rant. I know it seems like a temper tantrum. It sort of is. I hate to direct this rage at everyone. There are, obviously, so many great and supportive people who are reading this and thinking "Whoa. What in the name of all that's holy is she talking about?" And again, I'm sorry to you. There are so many people who have just been supportive and kind and non-judgemental. I am truly grateful for you. These people say, in not so many words, "You are entitled to the way you are feeling". Which is what I need to hear right now. I do not need to hear the following: Aren't you feeling much better by now? You should take an anti-depressant (I'm not depressed folks, I'm in PAIN. There is a huge difference.) Can't you drive yourself? (After I took a valium to control my chest spasms.) Yeah I guess I can drive, if you want me to risk my life and the lives of others. Sure. No problem.

I'm probably over-reacting here. I'm probably just hypersensitive. And you are probably thinking, why doesn't she get over it all already? Amy died like six whole months ago. Gwen had her boobs cut off like 3 long weeks ago and reconstruction looks like an absolute breeze. Free boob job. She's lucky! Why is she such a pussy? You are probably rolling your eyes. You are probably thinking I need medication. And for anyone who wants to suggest that or who already has...I've tried all that shit before in my life. It never made me feel any differently about anything I was going through. I just had to worry about taking a pill every day on top of all the worrying I was doing about the other crap that was going on.

I swear the pharmaceutical companies are making millions of dollars on these "medications" and it's probably just generic table salt in those little colored capsules. I've heard people say "Wow, I feel so much better", like two days after they started taking them. And I'm calling "Bullshit". And also, "Placebo effect!" It takes at least two weeks for the "medicine" to build up enough in the brain to possibly have any effect, if it will at all. That is, according to the doctors I've spoken to about it.

Anyway, if you take anti-depressants and they work for you, then GREAT. I'm glad for you, truly. But they've never done shit for me. I wish there were a magic pill that would make me smile from ear to ear despite distracting pain, ugly and mutated, nipple-less, numb-skinned, non-breasts, and unresolved grief. That would be the most awesome. But it doesn't exist or believe me, I'd be popping those things like tic tacs. Because honestly? I'm having a time. I have a bee in my bonnet. Fuck it. I have a bee HIVE in my bonnet and the whole lot of them are stinging like the fucking little beetches that they are. (And no, that's not a typo. I fully intended to write "beetches". I might be in distress, but I'm still rad enough to crack myself up with stupid yet somehow totally awesome and appropriate pseudomorphic puns).

Truthfully, though, I'm done expecting anyone else to understand. I guess that was a total pie in the sky idea to have in the first place, huh? If it comes down to losing everyone in my life that I love and/or care about, I'll be okay. Because, in case you haven't noticed, antiquated idioms are my new best friends. And they never tell me that Zoloft is the answer to all my problems. God bless 'em. For those of you that still love me or even still like me a little, I hope you are having a nice weekend. If you need me, I'll be sliding down rainbows into pots of gold and saddling up my unicorn for a nice ride in a country meadow full of poppies.

Bugs For Breakfast

Current Mood: Disgusted by Oatmeal

Warning: Rated LB for long and boring content. Also, lots of psychological self-evaluation. At the very least: read the last two lines. I feel its my job to warn you.

You know that saying "Everything happens for a reason"? Well after so many years of buying into that bullshit, I just sort of gave up. It brought me nothing but trouble, that little phrase. My annoying little brain coming up with, for lack of a better word, half-assed theories based on unrelated events. I already hated myself, and I didn't much help in finding "reasons" to do so. In fact, I'm sure that I looked for reasons to reinforce this self-loathing at every turn. A flat tire, a shoe lace untying while running on the treadmill, a rainy day, even an animal carcass laying on the side of the road, could became a symbol of how much the universe despised me just as much as I despised myself. It's not the only irrational thing I used to do in those days. Human beings and their actions, whether they are innocuous or harmful, could become the fiercest weapon I would use against myself. That is, other than myself.

My therapist would tell me that I had a unique lens through which I looked at everything and everyone: the opposite of rose colored glasses, if you will. If a person would look in my direction when I walked through the door at a party, I would assume that he or she was looking at me and assessing me in all sorts of negative ways, that he or she must find me repulsive or fat or under-dressed. Or if I was buying my lunch in the cafeteria at work and the cashier said "You must be hungry today", I would think that this woman thinks that I'm the fattest, most disgusting pig that ever walked the face of the planet. If a remark was made regarding my lunch, no matter how harmless, I would take this as a sign that I shouldn't be eating it. Often the lunch I had just purchased would be ceremoniously thrown away, for something as little as a remark from a person who I didn't know and didn't know me. So I would jump to these conclusions based on no reality whatsoever.

I would look for symbols in everything. The lights went out through the night, so I wasn't supposed to go to work the next morning. I would step in dog shit and somehow that meant I was a shitty friend. I would find squirming maggots in my just made oatmeal and have a naturally visceral reaction to that. But also think, the universe is telling me not to eat right now. And I am listening loud and clear. So I would not eat for a few days in response to this event. And that type of event would occur so regularly as to make a pattern. It had to mean something, I would think. Why else would these bad things happen over and over? And then my therapist would say, with that inquisitive smirk she would so often employ, "What makes you think that you're so special?" Over and over, every session, she would bring to my attention that, despite all this self-loathing and terrible, terrible hatred of myself, I had somehow and someway designated myself the center of the fucking universe. I was a person who hated myself so much that I actually coined the term "Gweningitis" in regards to an imagined disease people would catch should they be in my presence too long or too often, and yet had inflated my importance to egotistical proportions. Assuming every person who looks in my direction is thinking about me, even negatively, assuming every rainstorm is falling from the sky in order to ruin my day, a little bug planting eggs in my food on purpose just to give me a reason to starve myself, is so self-centered as to be considered pathologically narcissistic.

She was right, of course. Although, this wasn't ever my intent. Since child hood, I had developed strange methods of dealing with stressful events and fears, both natural and unnatural. And being raised, as I was, in a fatalistic, doomsday cult, there were plenty of the latter, believe me. But anyway, these methods were like mind games; only I convinced myself that they held actual power. Magical thinking, I believe it's called. This is the root of it all, I suppose. I remember lying in bed at night and having these fears about fires, or robbers, or anything bad a child can imagine after watching the evening news. I thought, "Well, if I say my house will catch on fire tonight", then it won't happen. Because what are the chances of this happening? That I will know something bad will happen? And here is a paradox; I knew that I didn't have that much power. I couldn't foretell the future and predict events. But at the same I was also giving myself a sort of control over these traumatic events, preventing them from happening. Instead of nightly prayers, I would run a list in my head of everything horrible that I could possibly imagine happening, and say, decidedly,"this all will occur". And you know what? It never did. I connected the dots. It was working, in some weird way.

Into adolescence and adulthood, I kept up this mindset: this pessimistic attitude about life as a sort of talisman, or as a shield between my heart and the world. I mistrusted anything good or happy…thus the lens, that horrible, lens through which I looked at everything. Through therapy, cognitive therapy, I learned what I was doing. Why I was doing it. It really did help to know why I was so negative, why it was so hard to see the good but so easy to see the bad. I did grow a lot just knowing this. The experience, for me, was sort of like in the wizard of oz when Dorothy sees what's behind the curtain…that the wizard is just a man after all. These magical thoughts lost all credibility, laid out and transparent as they were on my lap as I sat small and frail as a child on my therapist's couch. After these revelations, I really made an effort to interpret events, conversations, looks, and just everything in a different way than I had before. It was all up-hill. Like I said, I sort of stopped believing that everything happens for a reason. I mean technically everything does happen for a reason. You can find a reason for everything that happens if you look hard enough. But just because you can, it doesn't mean that you should. Or maybe that's just a dangerous endeavor for me. I'm not really that special or unique. The universe, and other people, don't single me out for anything, good or bad.

When I gave up my conspiracy theories regarding the universe, that's when the worse things started happening. When I finally relaxed and allowed myself the luxury of happiness, the luxury of joy, the luxury of living without weirdness, the universe attacked and with a vengeance. But I still tried to stay the course, maintain my newfound convictions that the "wizard had no power". When I found out Amy had cancer, I had to convince myself, "this is a random event". Four words repeated over and over, like a mantra. Internally, my heart was beating against that. And then we discovered this fucking BRCA gene mutation. How could I not feel attacked? It is so hard to repress those soul-destroying ideas that, again, the universe despises you. That God, himself, despises you enough to make you wrong, altogether wrong, in the first place. But I took a deep breath, and I said, "Gwen. Stop it. You are not that fucking special." Amy died, you guys. She's dead. Her breath is lost, never to be found. She is ash in the cold, muddy ground. And still, me saying over and over "get over yourself, Gwen. You are not that special." See, I work so hard to be normal. To feel normal. To think normal. I don't know. Maybe everyone does. But again with the fucking "special", I am thinking.

Rain is pouring down right now. I sort of like the sound of it. But I can't shake the feeling that these raindrops, falling meanly and incessantly, are somehow my un-cried tears. But that's progress, I guess. I used to hear hateful words in the music of the rain. I know I'm being ridiculous. Nothing is about me. People die every day. I'm not the only one who has lost her breasts, or her sister, or her soul to years of desperate, disgusting actions. This morning, I am at work. Danielle is making breakfast in the kitchen. She asks if I want oatmeal. "Sure," I say. And you're probably wondering how I could do that again, eat oatmeal after what had happened before. It took a long time, let me tell you. I didn't trust that little guy with the hat for years. It is a traumatic event to see maggots, alive and wiggling in your food, after all. I convinced myself after a few years that it wasn't worth holding onto, that particular fear. It was a one time thing. It could never happen to me again. "Blueberry or Banana Bread?" Danielle asks. "Blueberry. Definitely blueberry." I eat two bites. And then I look at it. Really look at what I am eating. Little fly larvae mixed in the oatmeal. Gross, repulsive little bugs for breakfast. The dialogue in my head is sort of saying that I'm the gross and repulsive one. I shouldn't be eating breakfast. I don't deserve breakfast. I am listening, again to the universe, as if I were this special person. But this is…this is…again. With the bugs in oatmeal. Twice in a lifetime. Why?

And it occurs to me that I am doing all of it again. Seeing the symbols, looking through the twisted lens, hyper-sensitively reacting, interpreting, ever unnecessarily interpreting. And I probably have been doing it for a long time. Someone told me last week, that I'm too negative, that I'm never happy. That I put too much on others when I should be putting it on a professional. This person is right. I am sorry, so very sorry. I shouldn't put these things onto you at all. It isn't fair. I want to make it up to all of you somehow. If I could make the rain stop, I would. But I don't have that kind of power. You've put up with a lot of negativity just by reading these blogs. Truth be told, I do think you're all pretty damn special. I hope the universe brings you blessed and wonderful things.

I know I need to at least consider the idea of seeing a therapist. The whole thought of it makes me really, really tired. Therapy is just the heaviest thing, the most tedious, gut wrenching mental work for me. I don't know if I can do the couch thing again.But I guess it's better than burdening people with this type of talk. Maybe I need to come to terms with the universe yet again, call a truce. Or maybe it's a simpler matter. Maybe I need to just STOP EATING OATMEAL. When I think of oatmeal, I want to vomit. Can you really blame me? Jesus Christ, I hate fucking oatmeal. It makes me sick to my stomach, now and forever. I think oatmeal is the real thing I need to be afraid of. Hell, maybe all of us do. Twice in my life I've been violated by it. I was a fool to trust it again. Those innocent, instant oats are screwing with my head. What with the always trying to make me eat wormy looking, nasty, vile, abhorrent insects. Watch your back, people. Look very carefully at the Quaker Oats, is all I'm saying.