Friday, February 15, 2013

Love and Darkness

"In case you've forgotten on this Valentine's Day, love is not about candy, cards, flowers, jewelry, sex, or feeling happy. Love is hard. Love doesn't happen without work, choice, and huge portions of forgiveness. Happy Valentine's Day...go LOVE your spouse, family, friend, co-worker. I LOVE you. 
'Love is patient, it is kind, it is not jealous,does not brag, and is not arrogant. It is not rude,it is not self-seeking,it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.' 1Corinthians 13:4-7"

My wise friend Julie posted that yesterday.  And oh my god, what a whammy.  I'm running out of attack-the-migraine meds, I've got a week and a half to go before I hit the neurologist again for more Botox, and probably at least 3 weeks after that before said botox kicks in.  And the unknown here is what we're going to do about the #epicfail of trying to reduce my every day migraine preventative meds.  I do not love my life.  I have recently laid in bed, writhing in pain, imagining different ways that I could die, or even my family and I could die together so that no one would have to take care of the girls with their heinous food allergies.  There, I said it.  Chronic illness is a total bitch man.  But let me tell you about life, love, and Valentine's Day.

When I get to the bottom and start imagining ways to die, I usually start telling God that something's gotta change and either he's going to save me or I'm going to end up addicted to drugs just for starters.  Luckily I've got some great friends and family, so when Valentine's Day was approaching and I got roped into providing two types of cookies for a certain preschool class, plus bread, juice, jam, and frosting just for Sasha, I was able to call for backup.  And 'though I did pay a friend of mine for a couple of days of baking, that money probably did not cover the 7AM freak-out-wake-up call he got on Valentine's day because I had a huge migraine and was on the don't-drive-while-on-these-meds, still needing help assembling everything.  We miraculously managed to get both girls to school on-friggin'-time, complete with cards and baked goods!  I don't know how to love this life, but sometimes it still loves on me.  

I don't have answers for all the ugly days I spend under a blanket in a dark room, where the meds don't touch the pain and nausea of a migraine.  But the girls and I haven't yet lacked for a blanket or a room.  When I'm too tired and sick to eat, food is still an option.  Knowing that doesn't always make it better, but if love is a choice, and if love is hard, and requires forgiveness, and hopes all things and endures all things, then maybe I can get my ass out of bed one more time.  I cannot forget that people love me, since that fact is made clear to me daily.  I can forgive myself for forgetting and try again to live, and possibly try to love life again.  I may even be able to forgive the people who expect me to be "normal" and do normal people things like go on playdates, have a "normal" job, take happy pictures etc.  My life is a disaster, I'm definitely single,  and that may have been the best Valentine's Day ever.

Friday, February 1, 2013

The Millenium Keyfalcon

I have 12 new pairs of socks that I'm never going to lose, and they all fit crappy.  Where do you buy socks that don't suck, where the elastic at the top isn't too squeezy?  Not at Target, that's for sure.  I bought 2 perfectly preferable pairs at Gap once, and I have a pair and half left, worn thin and ready to burst.  I even bought some different kinds at Target thinking surely they couldn't all be bad.  I'll be sending the 6-pack of squeezy athletic-y ones to my sister who has smaller feet than me, and is athletic-y. The longer ones that are just squeezy at the top (and are the exact same sock size as the other kind) I don't know what to do with.  What I do know is that I am back to square two, for at least I have a damn mesh bag to safely stow whatever future footwear I may manage to procure.  Ooooh, by the time I get this all figured out, Winter will be over, and socks will be on sale?  But Lord help me, I even bought a bunch of sock in China once, IN CHINA and they fit better than these!  AND I STILL HAVE A PAIR OF THOSE!!!

Needless to say, I may need to revisit this blog title.  This whole stupid sock thing is completely representative of my life, specifically of me trying to manage...everything really.  I keep trying to make things as normal and easy as possible, and it's just not possible.  Life is an atrocious hassle, I still hunt for any socks at all, and for food that doesn't hurt the kids, and for balance between migraine meds, and for energy to raise the kids well...But there are still socks on my feet, be they old, mismatched (or was it matched?), borrowed, or all three.  I definitely feel crazy, and as it turns out, nut particulate still occasionally makes it into my house.

There are times I regret claiming the free piano off the curb in front of a neighbor's house.  The jury's still out on whether it will ever stay in tune, it takes up a lot of space we don't really have, and I found a peanut shell in it the other day.  And if I didn't have it, I wonder if I would have invested in a keyboard, something with a volume switch, a headphone jack, and not prone to hiding death allergens. If the piano stays in tune it will earn its keep, for on the nights I crave wheat and chocolate (ie: all of them) I need only a handful of carob chips and the smell of a freshly tuned scale to help drag me out of the trenches.  11 months into a wheat and corn free life I still haven't figured out food, Sasha's stomach has started getting upset again even sans dairy, my socks STILL mock me, and it sure seems like life only gets harder every year.  But let them mock me who may, while I play the piano for a day, a week, a couple of months before it slips out of tune again.  I'll have a migraine by then anyway.

Then it will make one hell of a gorgeous bookcase.  And through a migraine daze I will stare at my pretty converted piano/bookcase in my old, borrowed, mismatched socks.  But today I played a tuned piano.  And it was awesome.