Somewhere I belong...

I am struggling again.

I am sure the stress of the last two weeks has played a huge part in that. The constant running around, the constant phone calls, ( we all  know how I feel about the phone ) Jack being so ill and away from us. I fully understand all those things have affected me.

There is more to it.

I have been in hermit mode the last few days. I have not wanted to really speak to anyone, or do anything. I needed some down time. Certain  people are not understanding or accepting of my Summer schedule. I am a night owl at heart, and all school year long  we are up very early in the morning and go to bed around ten at night. In the Summer, we get to flip around. Alex and I both rather be up at night and sleep during the day. Unless we have appointments to keep, that is what we will do...but other people do not like that much. They do not understand it, it is not what they do, so they scoff at it, or make snide remarks. It bugs me. I am 34 years old, full grown, and at this time in my life, I do not have set schedule that I HAVE to follow, nor do I until August rolls around. No one here has any problems with it. Jack does not mind, and he  is slowly swapping around to our schedule. He has no set time to do ANYTHING, so he can sleep and be awake whenever he pleases. It actually saves us money for Alex and I to be up at night. The cost of electricity is much cheaper at night, while during the day, "peak hours" cost more. Our light bill actually dropped since we flipped around. So for us, it works out much better to have this schedule. Why others have issues with it is beyond me.

The other issue is that I have been feeling very out of place. I feel like I do not fit in anywhere. I try to be friends with people...and I  suddenly feel very awkward...like I am the butt of a silent joke that everyone is aware of except me. I feel alone and different. On the outside looking in. If I throw myself out there, I get shut down, or worse, I feel like I am being tolerated. I hate that. I much rather someone come right out and say "Look, I really do not like you, we have nothing in common, and I am only nice to you because I either feel sorry for you, or because you are friends with someone I care about. You and me? Not so much. " I can deal with that. I can RESPECT that. I just hate feeling like I am the person that everyone tolerates in order to not seem rude.

I only have ONE person that I do not feel that way with. Out of the many people I have semi-often to often interactions with, I only have ONE that I am 100% comfortable with, and who I know will tell me in a heart beat that I am being an ass, or unreasonable, or that when she says she loves me, I know she 100% means it. Our lives are so similar and parallel that she is the one person who gets it, and I know I am that person for her too. She is priceless to me, and I would be totally lost without her.

( There are  a couple of others that I know are sincere and  do show it, this is not about them. )

It sucks though. I have others in  my life who say they feel the same, they care, they are here anytime...but I do not see it from them. I do not feel it from them. Now, I fully understand that I have a mental illness. Being bipolar means that we view the world a little differently, and that view is not always rational. I know that sometimes, the problem is simply me, it is in my own mind. However, I have been dealing with this long enough to recognize when I am being mental and unreasonable, and when there is actually something going on behind the scenes. I can't shake the feeling that something is not right in Whoville. It hurts. It hurts because I do not feel comfortable in going to these people and point blank asking them what the deal is. I am scared that the problem  is all in my head, and asking them or mentioning it to them will only serve to make me that much more of an outsider. I hate  feeling this way. I hate feeling like a freak. Not the good kind of freak.

I feel very alone.

Sometimes I need to be alone, I am an introvert after all.  This feeling of loneliness is much deeper. I feel lonely in my soul. I don't like it.

I have been cycling more rapidly these days...but instead of going from super low to super high and back again, I have been cycling from low to really low and back again. The upswing is not  actually UP, there is no happy part...just a slightly less intense low. I have a call in to my doctor for next week...I am waiting to hear back for an appointment to discuss changing my meds. I am involved in phone therapy, which is both a blessing ( because we do not have the gas money to make three trips into town a week to see the doctor physically ) and a curse, because I dislike the phone so intensely.

I just feel really lost and alone, and nothing I am doing is working to bring me out of it.

I don't know what to do. I am afraid to say anything, for fear of making it worse, and I will end up even more alone. I am afraid that if I do not say anything, nothing will change and I will still be the butt of the joke, and alone. I am afraid that it is all in my head, even though I KNOW deep down that this time, there is something going on to make me  feel this way.

I do not like feeling like the crazy person everyone has to walk on eggshells around. I do not like feeling like there is a lot of whispering going on behind my back. I don't like feeling that people view me as some high maintenance "friend" that everyone has to constantly deal with.

I have been trying to be kind to myself. I realize the anniversary of my Dad passing, Jack getting sick, having to deal with Dad not being here for Father's Day, Jack not being here for Father's Day, Jack losing his doctor, ( he is moving his practice somewhere else in Florida ) the mediation for settlement coming up...I realize all those things are affecting me, and I have been trying to be really kind to myself. I sleep when I feel the need to, I eat right ( we ALWAYS eat right though, I am not one of those that cram all manner of crap in my face and then complain about how crappy I feel. I don't care what you eat, as long as you enjoy it...but we enjoy eating good and wholesome foods. ) and have been adding more natural vitamins and stuff to my diet, trying to combat the lows and being tired. I have been spending a lot of one on one time with Alex, laughing and being silly with her. Aside from Jack being a bit grumpy due to pain, things are great between he and I. I have been playing games with Alex, cooking us yummy food, being silly, relaxing and resting. I am doing things I usually enjoy. I still feel terribly empty and alone though. I do not know what else to do to fix it. I am not sure if I can fix it. I am still waiting to hear back from my doctor about what my diagnosis is for all my testing. I am pretty sure the answer will be  that I have MS, so I have been trying to prepare myself for that, and what it will mean for me and my family.  I am lucky that I have a rock solid person in my life, the one I mentioned earlier, who is well versed in all things involving MS...so I will have her to help me. It is still very scary though.

 I have also been feeling like a selfish ass. It is not like I am the only person with problems. My friends all have their own lives. They have health problems, money problems, mental problems, life problems. Everyone is going through their own version of life, and all the good and bad that comes with it. I hate even talking about my own issues, because so many people out there have it worse, or have their own stuff to deal with. But as a friend told me once, just because other people have it worse, or have their own stuff going on, that does not mean what I am going though is not important, or that my feelings are not valid. I just hate to dump all my shit on someone else when they are going through their own stuff. It makes me feel like my own problems are so petty and unimportant. Even though to me the problems are massive and important, I know that to others, it is very low on the scale of things that constitute a major issue.

What do I do about it? Who do I turn to when I feel like people do not even want to talk to me, and because of my issues, I cannot even accurately judge if that is true, that they do NOT want to talk to me...or am I just being a head case and jumping at shadows? How do I combat the feelings of being alone when I am to unsure of myself to talk to anyone?

I am asking for help, but I am admitting that I do not know what kind of help I need. I don't want to be that one person that everyone just deals with, and rolls their eyes when they read stuff like this and think, " Everyone get ready, Bella has lost her mind again. Here we go with the bullshit!" I am asking for some honestly and clarity. I am asking that the people who are in my life to stay because they actually want me in their  life, and if they are just going through the motions or tolerating me, I ask that those people tell me that, so we can part ways and move on so they no longer have to deal with me, and I no longer have to worry about if they really want to be there or not.

I am asking, for those that stay, to forgive me for any weirdness, for my struggling, for not being totally sane and level all the time. I am asking for understanding, because I am just trying to figure this shit out as I go, just like everyone else. I am asking for those in my life to tell me what THEY need from me...because I want to be there for all of you. I do not want it to be about me all the time. I will give people the shirt off my back if it will help. Just know that sometimes things go sideways in my brain, and I need a little something extra every now and then. Tomorrow I might be on top of the world, and the next day I might be curled up in a ball in the middle of my bed, wishing the world would just swallow me up so I no longer have to go through this.

It is hard, and I try very hard to not let this define me, but the honest truth is, this IS a part of who I am. Glossing over it or sweeping it under the rug does no good. It means I am not being honest with myself, and it means that I am trying to pretend to be something I'm not to my friends and people I care about. I rather have one single person who truly wants to be around me than 30 people who just tolerate me because they are nice people. That may be too much to ask, but I do not really think it is. We all deserve honesty.

I think this will end my rambling tonight. If you are still reading, thank you. I know these things are not a fun read, and people probably get tired of hearing it,  but if I do not get it out, then it festers and turns into something even uglier than what it already is.

I care about all of you, and I hope that you stick around as I try to navigate the sometimes rough waters of life. I appreciate you all.

Day From Hell....NaBloWriMo day 11

Tonight is a cop out post. My day has sucked from about 10 AM until right now, when I am about to go faceplant in bed.

I have been at the hospital with Jack most of the afternoon. He hurt his foot and needed to go to the ER. He is home with me, and mostly okay..I will explain maybe tomorrow. I have to be at my Mom's all day so it will be later in the evening before I will post.

I will be so glad when this week ends.

Later folks.

Tired...

I am tired folks. Flat out tired. It has been a long week...month...Summer...year. This whole year has been one gigantic crapfest and I am just tired to my core. There have been a few bright moments, and I am very thankful for them, but unfortunately there is not enough good to offset the bad these days.

Take just the last week for starters. Rain. Never. Ending. Rain. It has been raining every single day, 75% of the day, for two months. No exaggeration. All day rain. I feel like I am molding. Friday night Alex and I were up and the power kept surging. I was not surprised..because it was RAINING and our power goes out all the freaking time in the rain. It did this for about 15 minutes and then seemed to regulate. So we went to bed shortly thereafter. Jack woke me up at 8 on Saturday because it was doing it again, and the surging was so bad we were afraid for our electronics and the lights, and they were all bright as the sun. So we killed the main breaker and called the power company. They came out and determined that our main breaker outside was fried. So we called the landlord, as it is his responsibility to fix these things. Of course, it was a weekend and he is cheap and does not want to pay weekend service charges, so he gave us some bullshit story about nothing being open and he could do nothing until Monday. So I called my Mom and she was kind enough to let us come stay the weekend with her, and we would just bring Alex to the bus stop Monday morning and then come to the house and wait for the electrician, which was supposed to be here first thing in the morning. We did that, and came home and waited. The old guy finally shows up and says "Yep, the breaker is fried." ( No shit Sherlock, we already TOLD you that. ) So he says he has to go get the breaker as he did not have one like that on hand, and would be back in a couple of hours. 6 hours later he calls and says he has it but it is pouring ( as usual ) and he can not fix it in the rain, so he would be over first thing the next morning. So I call Mom and ask if we can stay one more night and she agrees.

So we pack up and head back over there. I will not go into details, but later, we all got into a wicked fight over some one else's lies and a mistake on Jack's part, and we ended up having to leave, to come home to a house with no power and no way to eat and no way to get Alex up the next morning. I was very unhappy. Other things happened, which are personal , but I was heartbroken and sick with all the stress and drama, and I got a wicked migraine that almost sent me to the hospital it was so bad. Jack ended up staying up half the night so Alex would get up on time, and he got her up and off to school. He had to take her to school because the bus never showed. We found out later the bus had a headlight out and was being fixed. Nice of them to call and let us know. I was still in bed, my head was pounding and I could hardly stand.

He gets home around 9 and the landlord calls and says the guy will be out there soon. 2 hours go by, and it was starting to get dark and I knew it was about to rain. Two not so nice calls by me to the landlord later ( I never get mouthy with these people, but I have just had enough of everybody and their bullshit, by law he has to provide us with power ( as long as we pay the bill of course ) and it had been four days and I had to spend the night there with a 7 year old with no way to eat or anything, as our stuff is electric and it was pouring so we could not cook outside, so I was just beyond fed up. It starts raining, and with each drop I get angrier and angrier. I call the landlord back and I told him I do not care if the guy has to come out with an umbrella and some rubber ducks, but he needs to get my power back on NOW. 20 minutes later the electrician shows up, puts the breaker in and finds out that did not solve the issue. So now we were facing a house wiring issue. I was near tears by this point. An hour and much tracking of mud all over my friggen house later, the guy finds out that when that moron who came over to put our new phone lines in, also managed to not only break our water pipes in two places, in addition to cutting every single other phone line in the neighborhood and having to come back and repair them, he ALSO managed to cut the ground wire leading from the meter box to our house. So un-grounded power was surging through our home. I thought I was going to have a stroke. Luckily the electrician ran us a temp line from the box to the house, above ground, and is supposed to come back out Thursday to bury the wire once he gets the proper machine to do so, and that will be fixed. So at least we have power back. Then came the fun of my landlord screaming at me to get him the name of the jerk who cut it, since he was going to make him pay the 1300 dollars it is taking to get us back up and running. Lots of fun.

Add to that we are beyond broke, the only reason we have food in the house is because my Mom cleaned out her freezers and gave us the stuff so we would not starve, the truck needs a fuel pump and only works half the time, leaving us sitting on the side of the road more than once, the doctors are dragging their feet with Jack, family issues, stress after stress and I have had just about as much as I can take. I have migraines daily, and I told Jack that I was going to end up either dying from a heart attack or my brain would explode from the migraines. The family issues also screwed up a 20 year friendship with Jack and one of his oldest friends, and all because some ego tripping power complex having asshole decided to tell three different sets of lies to three different people, resulting in a lot of heartache, broken relationships, and loss of time and money, and us having to pay money we do not have for something we had nothing to do with. All I can say is that man better hope I never lay eyes on him again.

I may gripe every now and then, but this is a hole I just can not seem to drag myself out of. I do not know what to do, or where to turn, or how to fix it. I am a positive ( albeit realistic ) thinker, but this...I am not finding much to be positive in my life right now. I know that eventually things will turn around, but this year, and most of last year, have been terrible, and I can no longer see the light up ahead, guiding me on my way, and the batteries in my flashlight are dead.

I am tired of tripping over rocks and falling in the dark...I really need to find a light switch.

One of those weeks...

It has been one of "those" weeks for sure. I fought a hell of a migraine from Thursday until Tuesday. Jack ran out of his pain pills, and the horrible nurse at his doctor's office was in no hurry or in any way concerned about it. So he was in agony for three days. He even went to the ER, the pain was so bad, but because he has a "specialist" they would not help him. Finally he had to threaten them with a lawyer to get results ( he is still on workers comp ) but at least he finally has his medicine. We actually DID contact a lawyer, and in fact Jack meets with him in the morning, to see if he can help us get some results. His job is now talking about trying to put him on disability, and he has still heard nothing about that second surgery he is supposed to have. The doctor office says the insurance company is dragging their feet about approving it, while the insurance company said that the dingbat nurse has not even submitted all the paperwork to them yet! So we are caught in the middle, and decided that having a lawyer would be a good thing right now, to help us navigate what is to come. We are not looking for money or a settlement or anything, we are just looking for proper doctor care and hopefully get him back to work, even though we know he will probably never go back to being a heavy line mechanic anymore. His awesome boss created a position for him though, so if he ever does get to go back, he will have a job, so that is good.

So stress has been high. It sucks to have to watch the person you love most in life in constant agony, and there is not one thing you can do about it. I think that is why my migraine was so vicious, the stress and worry were just getting worse, and so did the migraine.  I actually got what I call reverse tunnel vision for a day or so it was so bad. As a lot of people who have migraines experience, I know one is coming because I get these wavy lines in front of my eyes, kind of like heat shimmers on a hot road...this is my cue to take some meds and do what ever I can to head it off. Only this time I could not get it under control, and the wavy lines were so abundant I could not see straight ahead. All I had was peripheral vision...while tunnel vision is where everything else fades except the center of your field of vision. Ergo, reverse tunnel vision. I could not hardly stand to even look at the computer screen, it would cause a flare up after about ten minutes. I live on my computer, so this part is what bothered me most, sad to say.

If we get an income tax this coming up year, I really need to go and get new glasses. I think that would help a lot.

So yeah, the last few days have been less than fun to say the least.

At least he is no longer in pain, nor am I, and I can SEE, so that is always a good thing.

He is nervous about tomorrows meeting with the lawyer though. Or rather, the investigator, as this is just to see what kind of case we have, what we are looking for, and if they think they can help us. I can not go with him, for reasons I will explain shortly, so I made him a sheet with questions to ask and things to mention. We like to joke that I am the brains of this operation ( that is our marriage ) and he is the brawn, and while it is a joke, as he is very intelligent, I am a pro at handling things like this and they make him a bit nervous.

The reason I am not going is partly because of Alex, I have no where to put her, and she is way to hyper to sit there for a couple of hours quietly while we talk business. The other reason is because we have a new furry family member. Friday, Jack and Alex saw this dog running around in the road. Skinny, ribs showing, skittish. She followed Jack and Alex back to our house from the mailbox up the road at a distance..well, it was Alex she was following. She came in to the yard and would not come near Jack, but she went to Alex and laid down at her feet. I got her some water and some food, which she scarfed. It was obvious she had not had a meal in a while. It is also obvious that she is part Shepherd and part Coyote. (Called a Coydog actually lol ) She lopes and acts like a Coyote, with a shepherd face. She is young, maybe 8 or 9 months old.   Once Alex started petting her, she let Jack and I pet her, and suddenly she was the most friendly thing ever. We coaxed her in the house, and she promptly jumped up on the couch and went to sleep. Not a care in the world. She is Alex's shadow. Follows her everywhere, and whines if she leaves the house or goes to the bathroom without her. She sleeps in the bed with her. We do not know if she used to live in a house, or with people, but she is house trained ( although, from our experience with Wolves, they do not mess in the house usually, they will hold it until they are outside, even if "wild" ) and she acts almost identical to our Tundra wolf, Baby, that we lost two years ago to old age. Jack gave her a bath, and took her to all of our neighbors, and to the two streets on either side of us, to see if she belonged to anyone close by. No one claimed her, but a few said they had seen her in and out of the woods for the last week or so. So, unless we see a missing dog sign with her on it somewhere, we have adopted her. I named her Wiley ( Wile E Coyote lol ) even though it is a girl. It is weird, we feel like she has always been here, and we have only had her for less than a week. The only problem is, we do not know how she will react if we all left. She is not destructive, and she gets along perfectly with Soccer, our Shih Tzu, but she freaks if Alex leaves, even if we are still here. So we worry about leaving her alone just yet. If she WAS with humans before, it has obviously been a while, as you could count all of her bones, so there is a good chance she has abandonment issues. I do not want to come home and find my couch ripped apart or something. She is a BIG dog, even as young as she is, with her paws on my shoulders she is almost as tall as I am, so she could reach counters and my desk and stuff. So we are going to have to ease into that...all of us go out in the yard, or take a short walk, leaving her here, then coming back, to see how she does, and to let her know we WILL come back. I do not think I have ever seen such a loving and trusting dog though, especially one who seemed to be half wild. She is very submissive, and will lay down or stop messing with something if you raise your voice. So she is a bit of a mystery, but she is a good addition to our family. I wonder what she will look like as she fills out and grows up?

She loves to play with Soccer lol.

She is a total sweetheart, so hopefully she will get used to the place and realize that even if we leave, we WILL be coming back, and that we are not leaving her forever.

So yeah. That is the main highlights for this week. I missed my Foodie Friday post last week, due to the migraine, but next up is Stuffed Bell Peppers. They were so good, but we ended up eating them in the dark. We have had really bad storms almost daily here for the last couple of weeks, and right as I took the peppers out of the oven, the power went out for several hours. So we had a candle light dinner lol.

I will work on those pics tomorrow and get the post ready to go for Friday.

I think that sums it up for now. I am sorry for the several day absence, but I was trying to keep my brain from exploding and keep Jack from being in agony. Things should return to normal now!

Have a great Thursday!

I have exorcised the demons!

Out of my computer that is. Maybe my mind too, but the jury is still out on that one.


I have been feeling a bit...snarly...the last few days. Went in to hiding, to spare the masses, and then decided to reload the operating system of my computer, because it was acting 3 kinds of possessed and not even my PC guru skills could get rid of the gremlins my beloved PC had.


Not to self: NEVER ever ever ever for fucks sake EVER reload the PC when your hair is on fire and spinning around in circles, waiting for the pea soup to spew forth. ( Think Hades from the Disney movie Hercules )


You know how it goes. When you are feeling like that, everything that can go wrong, will, in fact blow past wrong like it was standing still and head on to the 'OMFG the world is about to end' section.


If I had a sledge hammer last night...I would not be typing this today, I kid you not. The files I backed up? Corrupt. Trying to download files while not killing my meter? Pointless. Downloads not complete, had to redownload, meter got sucked dry. ( My bandwidth meter, I am on a limited plan. ) Luckily my music ( A full GIG of music, yes ) and my photos transferred over or I would have set this fucker on fire and danced around it in the yard. Well, in a barrel, we are in such a hot drought I would have been arrested...no burning allowed anywhere.


I still do not have all the programs back on here that I use regularly, I ran out of energy. Finally got to bed at 7 this morning and slept till 3:30 this afternoon, and miracle upon miracles, I felt AMAZING when I woke up. Further proof that I am a night owl at heart. I can sleep 8 hours at night, wake up in the morning and feel like shit all day. Sleep during the day and wake up in the afternoon and feel like a million bucks. Go figure.


I got up, scarfed down some food as it had been a full 24 hours since I had eaten last, and decided to tear shit apart and dust and rearrange some knick knacks. Jack then woke up from his nap so I decided to stop for today and warily use my PC, and other than FB, which always has something wrong with it, it seems to be demon free. Thanks to my day sleep, the demons from my head are also mostly gone. 



I am still kind of dreading tomorrow. We are going to eat at my parents, and because I am a broke bitch I can not get my Dad anything for Father's Day. Hopefully he will be happy with something Alex and I will make for him tonight. I know he will be, but I still feel like shit about it. Hopefully it will all be okay.


So enjoy your weekend folks, and Happy Pops day to the Dad's out there tomorrow. Expect a post about Jack tomorrow lol.


Stay cool folks!

Pardon my dust.

Yes, I know, I am behind again, but as you can see I have been doing a little renovating, already. Not done yet, got a few more things to add...and I want to show some blog love to those that I read most often, so look for that.

Mini update is: Things are calming down around here, after the two weeks from hell. Alex had an allergic reaction to her school shots so that was fun, dealing with that all weekend after spending most of a night in the ER. She is finally back to her normal self today.

No word on school yet, I figured I would give them a week to find out just who did or did not show up, and then give them a call if I had not heard anything by then.

I deep cleaned my kitchen and living room today, and did some laundry.

Tomorrow is the bathroom and my room..and then the kiddos room...if no one hears from me for a few days, chances are something ate me while I was in there lol...

I think that about sums it up for now...I want to say hello to the new followers of course, I am up to 13 now, so that is exciting. I swear I will post more very soon lol.

Ta!

*Music of the Moment: Up All Night by Slaughter*