October 21, 1988

No you are not reading incorrectly, today was a hard day because of a day long ago that changed the course of my life drastically. It's hard to explain to those of us who haven't yet experienced that one defining earth-shattering day that forever looms in their memory. It is not an anniversary we care to remember, definitely not one we long to celebrate, but one that creeps up anyway into the shadows of our memory and make their presence known. Every October since that fateful day I find myself noticing it's arrival without even meaning to. The change in the air, the leaves turning, pulling out the winter clothes all signals that that day will come again, and if I could take a black sharpy and obliterate it from history and from the calender forever I would.

For those of you that have been adding your pearls of wisdom to my blog lately to encourage me, I thank-you deeply. It is encouraging to get your messages when I am in the midst of this fight and they do keep me going and remind me that I am not alone. For the annonymous commenter I'm not sure if I know you but I do thank-you for your advice and comments it means alot. Diana, I always love hearing from you my bosoom friend, my kindred spirit; Rose thank-you always for taking the time to check up on me; and Murman your blog gives me lots to read and think about it just proves that even in the age of technology you can still through the screen of a computer find a kindred spirit.

I leave you tonight with a quote that summarizes today for me, it is from one of the great classics, "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens.

"That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different it's course would have been. Pause you who read this and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, or thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day."

Loneliness. . .

Isn't it strange how you can be in a house full of people and remain incredibly alone, how you can be in a crowd and feel completely isolated, and how if the feeling remains you begin to even crave this same isolation and create it for yourself. Today I have remained holed up in my house yet again even though I really needed to get out. Instead I put off getting groceries for yet another day, and that means I have put off leaving the house for almost a week now. Tomorrow Gil is away from early in the morning till late at night so I am sure to be lonely again, and it will be one of those stressful days you wish didn't have to happen, cloistered inside with only my kids for company and I will undoubtedly be sad by the end of the day, but will that mean that I will be able to force myself out on tuesday or will the cycle continue. The more I am alone the harder it is to force myself not to be, the harder it is to reach out to others and the vicious cycle continues.

Sharp Detour To The Right. . .

Okay everyone that has been on this journey with me, brace yourselves: the road we are travelling is about to detour to the right, and it's quite a sharp turn. For those of you who know me well you know that as well as the "Anne of Green Gables" books, I love the "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" television series and so our two story-lines are about to converge. Hang on......

You see this is the problem. There is someone in my life who doesn't fit any of my Anne characters so instead of always referring to him as "him", I thought I needed to find a name especially since he will figure prominantly in my story line in the coming weeks and months. So in looking towards Buffy I found the perfect character (he would hate this, but since he never reads this) Giles -- he he.

So here is why he has now morphed into Giles, because of who Giles is to Buffy. He is the wise counsellor, and watcher who helps her fight the vampires and demons that invade her town. So even though I don't have actual demons and vampires invading Green Gables, there are so to speak the demons of the mind that seem to invading my mind (in a manner of speaking). Today I also learned that someone new is entering the process but I already have a name for him too -- Wesley. Watcher number two. His real name even sounds like a Wesley -- geeky, but if he's not geeky then I'll just make him Wesley from the Angel series who was dramaticly different from Wesley when we first meet him in Buffy.

Anyhow, Giles would research what forces Buffy was dealing with and then help her in conquering them and this is basically what this guy is doing for me now. He is helping me sort myself out, my demons and get my life on track so he's my watcher. Since my last blog I have decided to let go of fighting this process and trust my watcher that through his research he will lead me down the path that I need to go down. So that is where I am today, I went in with an attitude of trust and co-operation and we are going to try to work really hard to get to the other side of this. Even though this is extremely scary for me, especially bringing someone else, Wesley in when I don't know him as well and don't have any trust in him yet. However Giles trusts him and so for now I will trust that.

For those of you who are still on the road despite the detour stay tuned for further developments as they happen.

My Crew 

Unwell

It's not overly creative to just repeat lyrics as your blog but considering my state of mind lately being creative is just to hard. So this is exactly how I'm feeling it's a song by Matchbox 20, and although tonight of all nights I should be thankful and basking in that, sorry folks I'm just not there.

UNWELL

All day
Staring at the cieling
Making friends with shadows on my wall
All Night
Hearing Voices telling me
That I should get some sleep
Because tomorrow might be good for something
Hold on
Feel Like I'm heading for a
Breakdown
And I don't know why
I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell
I know, right now you can't tell
But stay awhile and then you'll see
A different side of me
I'm not crazy, I'm just a little impaired
I know, right now you don't care
But stay awhile and you're gonna think of me
And how I used to be
Me
Talking to myself in public
Dodging glances on the train
I know
Know they've all been talking 'bout me
And it makes me think there must be something wrong
With me
Out of all the hours thinking
Somehow
I've lost my mind
I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell
I know, right now you can't tell
But stay awhile and soon you'll see
A different side of me
I'm not crazy, I'm just a little impaired
I know, right now you don't care
But soon enough you're going to think of me
And how I used to be
I've been talking in my sleep
Pretty soon they'll come to get me
Yeah they're taking me away
I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell
I know, right now you can't tell
But stay awhile and soon you'll see
A different side of me
I'm not crazy, I'm just a little impaired
I know, right now you don't care
But soon enough you're going to think of me
And how I used to be
How I used to be

Inquiring Minds. . .

Well I have recieved much input from my latest blog entry, voices of concern and well wishes and all are appreciated. Honestly I am not trying to be cryptic but revealing yourself even a little in such an open format is scary, and truth be told I don't even really know what's going on. I am going through a difficult trial of sorts but the hows and whys are so complex it's difficult on a good day to figure it all out, and now I know that the future holds many many bad days ahead and the thought is really scaring me.

I do not think I have enough of anything inside to sustain me, so I will look outside for the support for now because that is all I can do. I do know now that I actually understand and know very little about the human mind and what it is capable of in extreme circumstances, but the head knowledge and walking through it are two different things and if someone could give me a pill that would make this all go away and mean I would never have to walk through this fire, I would grab it up in a second and give away my life savings for it. Right now I wish Green Gables was in P.E.I, and that I was an orphan with loads of freckles but incredible promise. This blog is for all those inquiring minds that might want to know.

The View From Here

I think it's sopossed to be good news, at least that's what he trys to convince me of, but from here it looks ominous and scary. It makes me realize that I could be here for a long time, that this is going to be hard and being the cowardly lion I am I run from anything hard. I've had people who know me tell me I'm brave and courageous but that is not what I see. From here I am always scared and always reacting in fear instead of bravely facing that last frontier. How many days do I spend holed up in my own house because the outside world doesn't seem safe to me? How many times does getting out of the bed seem impossible, and how many times do I fail at just that? Sometimes the only success I can claim for a day is that; today I breathed in and I breathed out, and that's all I can even look to because tomorrow I just don't know if I'll be able to do even that.

He was encouraged today, he was literally pumped telling me he had done his homework and he had a strategy and I just sat there feeling scared and alone. It's easy to have all the book knowledge and to have a plan and a strategy but in the end you go home and live your life and I'm still here. This book knowledge to you is actual life for me and although the one explains the other there is absolutely no way to explain how it is to actually live it. It's completely different and he tells me not to go alone, but in the end I am cause noone can truly understand it unless they are living with it too and I don't actually know anyone who is.

Starting School. . .

I don't remember when I started school, but I'll probably never forget the days each of my girls started their first days. Jessica was easy, at least easy for her, at the time she was an only child and I was devestated. It was a sign, a signal of her growing up and it was too much for me. I remember spending the day crying. She of course never looked back. She ran in so excited and picked out her spot on the mat, she looked so little her back-pack way to big for those tiny shoulders, but in she went determined not to miss even a second. She had been sent to a school further away because the one close to us was full so it meant she would have to take the bus but that was okay with her. We weren't sure how the bus system worked and so being nervous parents I sent Gil to pick her up after her first day. He said when he got there she burst into tears, full of anger that he had come to get her. She wanted to take the bus home by herself. So he helped her get on the bus and drove home alone, meeting the bus when it arrived home.

Elizabeth has had the opposite experience. Unlike her sister she does not posess the independence that Jessica does and so leaving us and spending the entire day away has been a bit of a challenge to her. I think if she had her way she would not go at all. The first day was only a meet and greet and she managed that fine but Gil was there with her. The second day we drove her to school and then waited anxiously for the bus hoping she would manage it like her big sis did. When she arrived home she seemed off, her blue eyes a little more moist then they normally are, but I just thought it was the stress of the first day. Then the phone rang, it was her teacher informing us that Elizabeth had had a screaming fit when it came time to get on the bus. The teacher assumed Elizabeth just didn't want to take the bus home and she said it took two of them to get her on the bus. That part doesn't surprise me because Elizabeth is quite strong, anyone would have a great issue trying to snatch her up that's for sure. Upon further questioning however we discovered it wasn't the bus that was the issue, it was that Elizabeth at first lost her lunch bag, and then after she found it, was convinced she was to bring both pairs of shoes home, her outdoor and indoor shoes and so she had a fit because the teacher wasn't putting them in her bag. That coupled with a fever and an ear infection and mass chaos ensued.

Since then she has had no major disasters, she has friends so she tells us although she can never remember their names. She knows them by the clothes they wear, i.e. "I made a friend today, she has brown hair and was wearing green clothes.", she comes home starving which means she's expending energy, and she comes home loud. I think that is because she is normally a very vocal child and she has been silent all day because she is shy so by the time she comes home she is ready to express herself and express herself some more.

Again as a mom I have felt the pull of watching my little girl take a step towards independence. They all have to do it, they grow up and grow out but it's so hard to watch. I want to keep them here small, beautiful and innocent forever. The thought of their feelings being hurt, of someone bullying them, of hardship makes me hurt inside too and I wish I could protect them from all of that, but I can't. They are ours only for a time and then they go on to have their own lives that hopefully they will grant us glimpses of, and their own children when it will finally dawn on them (like it did on me) how much a parent sacrifices and hurts for their babies. All we can do is savour every second and do our best to make responsible good little people that can affect the world in a good way. That is my prayer for my four babies.

Itch Itch, Scratch Scratch

Did you know Percacet makes you itchy?

Am I Really Big Enough For School 

It's all downhill from here!

As I said to my blogger "mark", I turn 35 and my body gives out. I spent today at the hospital in pain regretting the chocolate cake I had eaten to celebrate my 35th year. I wasn't able to be admitted until 1.00pm even though I arrived by ambulance at 9:30. The pain started shortly after Christopher woke me up demanding his breakfast. At first it felt very similar to heart burn so I took a couple of tums and continued with my morning. By nine o'clock the pain was so severe I was vomitting and writhing about the hall, so my hubby called 911. They arrived shortly after and loaded me in the ambulance and off we went. By the way I never noticed how bumpy the aurora roads were until every bump causes you to feel like someone is digging a knife into your chest. Upon my arrival the triage nurse informed me it was probably gall stones and even though I was in immense pain I was breathing and co-herant and so many others took priority. So for five hours I lay on the stretcher in the ambulence bay with five others waiting, waiting and waiting. When I finally was given my own room I was assessed, blood was taken, an EEG, an I.V. was put in and morphine was put into that---that made me much happier.

Then an ultra-sound, followed by x-rays and then a surgeon came to say it wasn't gall stones but a gall-bladder attack and I would need to have my gall-bladder removed. With four young kids who will need tending he opted to wait until I can make arrangements for their care, so it may not be for awhile. He said that with a gall bladder attack it usually means you will have another, and another until it comes out and so it is wise to get it out while you have control as opposed to having it out in emerg. So that's the next step on my list. It never seems to end and I realized that this is probably the beginning of the long decline that will end with me drooling out my food in an old age home while my children whittle away their large trust funds forgetting their old decrepit mother. Next it will be my hip, and then my hair will fall out, I'll go deaf and blind and be one of those old ladies who yell at inoportune times "huh, what did he say dear I can't hear him?" Ah my youth is behind me and now comes the long journey into that dark night.

To make my humilation just that little bit worse, last night I wore my bright orange pumpkin PJ's to bed. So guess what I was wearing all day long, and of course every-body and their mother had to comment on how festive I looked. Of course you couldn't blame them either because I did kind of stand out.

Happy Birthday to Me!!!!!!!!!!!

Most people my age start to dread the years as they start to creep up. I even know lots of people that lie about their age, but I am not one of them. I've decided that every year I am still getting up every day and facing the world is a success. So here I am another year older and I will not shirk from it but instead will celebrate it. Celebrating with your children always helps in making it special, they don't care how old you are and they can make such a fuss over you, and no matter how old you are that can make you feel special.

So dear reader you may ask just how many years I do have under my belt and the answer is simple, 35. I was born at five in the morning and according to my mother I was supposed to be a boy. So shocked were they that my older sister is the one who named me -- thanks sis. I am the youngest of three girls and therefore very spoiled. I enjoy attention (always have) and have no issue letting other people do the work for me -- Gil can attest to that.

I may not have a specialized career or a fancy degree but when you look at what I have accomplished it's pretty good. I have a wonderful supportive husband, and four amazing kids. We have a house, and a van, I'm realively healthy and for the most part I am content. There are times when I long to travel the world, or sit in a class and feed my brain with something other than "kid-talk". I long to be fitter than I am, or to enjoy a leisurely coffee with a friend, but all and all I am content.

So I will tuck myself into bed now in my new birthday jammies -- which are suprisingly like Halloween jammies -- and wake up to kids, presents, cake, and bowling with my twin sister Coral who suprisingly is celebrating a birthday too. You see we were seperated at birth and miraculously found each other in our college days (at least that's what we like to claim), and I will hug my kids extra, and hug Gil extra and take some time just to enjoy my special day and to reflect on my goals for the following year.