Life Under Construction

Archive for the ‘Yours Truly’ Category

In just 12 hours I’ll be boarding a plane to Mississippi.

Actually, I’ll be boarding a plane that takes me to another plane that eventually takes me to Mississippi.

And I’m a little freaked out.  I’ll be gone for over a month.  What if I forget something?  What if I don’t remember to grab my meds or my lucky necklace (shut up)?  What if I have an anxiety attack in the airport?  Or worse… on the plane?  I’ve been flying for years, but it seems that every time I fly I get a little more anxious about it.  And I have no iPod this time.  All I have to distract me is my DS, and I really hope that works.

I can’t find my digital camera charger.  I’ve been looking for it for days, and it’s just missing.  And my camera is pretty much out of life juice.  It is not in my bedroom, and it really bothers me when I own something and I don’t know where it is.  So until it’s found, it’s just one more thing for me to worry about.

I probably won’t have the internet for a while.  The most I’ll be able to do, I think, for at least a week is post updates to Facebook and Twitter from my phone.  That means no blogs.

At least when I come back I’ll have something interesting to say.

It’s Monday again, the start of a new week, and this week actually feels different.  All my days and weeks have felt the same for months now (what with me being unemployed and all) but I know that change is coming and it feels like a good change.  It’s a change I’m ready for.

This Friday I’m making my ‘temporary’ move to Mississippi.  I’ll be living down there for about a month and a half before Walter and I fly back up to Rhode Island to move all my stuff down (read: the actual move).  That will take place sometime in the beginning to middle of May.  Before my birthday, which is in 69 days.

My wedding reception will be *fingers crossed* May 9th.  I realized afterward that that particular Sunday is Mother’s Day, but it’s really the only weekend I can have it.  I think.

I did a lot of shopping at the mall on Saturday, and by a lot of shopping I obviously mean that I bought underwear.  Because it’s been too long since I bought underwear.  I should have looked into buying new sneakers, but I didn’t think of it.  Blast!  I suppose Walter can always take me shopping for new sneakers.  *shrug*  Yesterday I had breakfast with Jean and we went to Walmart and I bought stuff I’d need for the move.  Because I like to come prepared, like a good Girl Scout.  My old troop leaders would be so proud.  I just have a few more things to pick up before I pack my bag, like a pillow and some sunflower seeds.

In other news I’ve been watching Stargate SG1 because all 10 seasons are online.  I swear, I half expect Colonel O’Neill to spit out a piece of gum and pull a toothpick and rubber band out of his back pocket to fix whatever problem they’re encountering.  He obviously doesn’t do that, but it’s still awesome.  I <3 Richard Dean Anderson.  It’s almost hard to believe that they came up with enough material for MacGyver to last 7 seasons… but then I remember that he’s MacGyver.  He can do anything.  DUH!!!

Speaking of MacGyver, I’ma watch some more Stargate now…

How was your weekend????

One of the things I heard most often as a small child was “Take your sister and go play outside.  And stay out of The Gravel Pit.”

Of course that’s right where we headed.

In the way back of our backyard at The Gray House was a hill you could drive a car down that led straight to The Gravel Pit.  Almost at the bottom of the hill there was a little path through the woods that led to The Old Oak Tree (basically just an old tree that had fallen down that we claimed as a fort), so Alli and I would veer right down that path to go to The Old Oak Tree just in case.  I mean, you couldn’t see the path or The Old Oak Tree from the house but we were kids and being overcautious.  We didn’t want to get in trouble!  Alli and I usually climbed on the fallen tree (that wasn’t really an oak tree, but how were we supposed to know that?) and sat for what we deemed was an appropriate amount of time in case mommy came looking for us, then we’d sneak the remaining twenty feet or so to the edge of The Gravel Pit and run around the very edge to another path we’d discovered toward the very back.  It was a weird place we found, and we got in trouble one time because we definitely couldn’t hear anyone calling for us from there, but we liked it.  There was a discarded mattress we could jump on without getting in trouble.  There were some old baseball cards (my favorite was a Darryl Strawberry – I didn’t know anything about baseball at the time except that my dad said Rocket Roger was the best pitcher and Wade Boggs had a hole in his glove – and I really liked strawberries….) we’d look at and it was just our extra special secret place.

There was an unspoken code of honor when Alli and I were kids.  The I won’t tell if you won’t code.  And even then if one of us slipped up and told on the other, the offended party wouldn’t retaliate.  Because to retaliate would mean that we probably got into MORE trouble with the grownups, and if there was anything we understood as children it was that we had to stick together.  We understood what it meant to get in trouble, and we understood what we had to do to keep each other and ourselves OUT of trouble.

As we’ve gotten older that code has sort of dissolved.  I’m still the big sister, the protective one (the enabler).  But instead of being my partner in crime, Alli has taken another path through the woods so-to-speak.  She’s on some super secret path of her own that I can’t see ever going down, and our only interaction is when she reaches out because she wants something or needs something.  Do we adventure anymore?  No.  Not together, at least.  Our friendship, like our partnership, has started to dissolve over time.

The Old Oak Tree is crumbling and breaking and decayed.  The secret path to the discarded mattress and our super secret hideout is no longer discernible through the forest.  And Alli and I can’t rely on each other the way we used to.  Sometimes growing up is no fun.

But no matter what happens, I’ll always always always love my little sister.

I’m too angry and irritated to love anything at the moment.

Except my little brother, who is going to scan those pictures of me when he gets out of work.

I’ve been trying to get in touch with someone from Unemployment for about a month now (because I have to speak to an actual person to find out why).  AN EFFING MONTH.  I was so discouraged that I couldn’t get a hold of anyone that I gave up for a while.  So I called again yesterday and got a recording saying that they were closed Wed and Thu, so I’ve been calling at least once a minute for the last 45 minutes.  And all I’m getting is a busy signal.

So I’m getting zero funds.  Since the beginning of January.  ZERO FUNDS.  I have no income.  It’s driving me crazy.

I HATE UNEMPLOYMENT.

I MISS MY JOB.

BOTH OF THOSE THINGS A VERY LOT.

I really really miss my job.  I can’t even tell you how much.  I’d even take the frustrations again if it meant I could be doing what I was doing where I was doing it.

And now I cry.

Happy freaking Friday, everybody.

I was going to post a blog this morning that I spent a lot of time thinking about and working on, but I wanted to put a picture in it of me when I was all wee and cute and my brother never got around to scanning it and emailing it to me, so I’m posting it next week.  Because it just won’t be complete without the picture.  So for tonight I’ll just give you some random things I’ve been thinking about.

• I eat too much candy.  I do, I eat Sour Patch Kids and Raisinets and Nerds and M&M’s and Almond Joys (oh, Almond Joy is my favorite) and Kit Kat bars and… you get the picture.  But I’m not going to stop eating it.  Not right yet anyway.  I need it.  It makes me feel good.
• I also sit around a lot.  I spend the majority of my day sitting, and when I’m not sitting I’m laying down.  I’m so lazy.  I won’t stop doing that either, unless someone forces me to.
• I’m tired of my blog theme.  Nothing I can design ever works for me for more than a month at a time and it really bothers me.  Why can’t I just design something and stick with it and like it?  Huh?  Why do I have to be so ridiculous?
• I was watching Desperate Housewives (don’t judge me) tonight and I recognized Leslie Ann Warren by just her voice.  She played Cinderella in my favorite version of Roger’s & Hammerstein’s classic and I loved her in it so much.  So tonight when I was watching Desperate Housewives (I said don’t judge!!) and I realized who she was I got uber excited and had to check on imdb to see if I was right and I TOTALLY was.  I’m so giddy about it.

That’s it.  I’m pathetic today.  I hope everyone’s week is going good.

It seems like everyone is moving these days, doesn’t it?

Back in 2003 I moved to South Carolina to be with a boy I’d only known for 8 months.  A boy named Josh who, after less than five months together, asked me to marry him.  I’m pretty sure people in my family were taking bets on how long I’d stay down there.  The move lasted a whole 5 months before I called my dad and asked him to come get me, which he promptly did.  Needless to say, Josh and I never got married.

I was impetuous.  I didn’t think everything though before I said yes to moving 1′000 miles away.  I didn’t think anything through, for that matter.  I agreed as if I had nothing to tie me down, nothing to hold me back.  In all actuality I think I just wanted to run away, and he simply presented me with the opportunity.  I didn’t realize at the time how much I still needed my family.  I didn’t realize at the time that the things I did could have the kind of consequences they’ve had.  I only thought about what I was doing, and not about what would happen down the line.

It’s been nearly 6 years since I moved back home from South Carolina, and I’m going to be moving again.  But this time?  This time I’ve weighed all my options.  I’ve taken all of the important things into account (and a whole lot of unimportant things, too) in making my decision.  Sure, there are some loose ends to tie up but I know I’m moving this time for the right reasons.  I’m not running away from anyone or anything.  I’m running to someone.  And that makes all the difference in the world.

I’m feeling wicked detached from the internet – from all things really – and I don’t like it very much.  I feel uninterested in everything and it makes me sad.

Ick.

I have nothing to report, really.  Um, I’m spending the day with my nephew and sporadically reading a blog here and there or watching a YouTube video.

I feel blah.

I feel boring.

I feel uninterested in everything.

I guess I kind of want to go back to bed and hope that I’ll wake up feeling better, more interested.  More excited about ANYTHING.

I’m not getting enough rest at night while I’m sleeping, I think.

Lame sauce.

Someone cheer me up, please?

I don’t know why, but last night just as I was falling asleep I started to get dizzy.  Just from laying down.  Who gets dizzy when they’re immobile, laying down with their eyes closed?  That can’t be normal, especially with the nausea from what I thought was having eaten too much earlier at dinner.

It started as like a mini jolt.  Just as I got to the point where I was going to drift off to sleep, I would get this little twinge – like a wee mental pinch – and my eyes would shoot open.  I was actually on the phone with Walter when it started to happen (don’t judge me for falling asleep on the phone).

Now, something like this happened the other night.  I had an anxiety attack over I don’t know what, and I got that mental pinch (not completely unlike The Zaps, except I’ve been taking my medicine) every time I got to the START SLEEP CYCLE mode.  But I didn’t get dizzy that night, I just got the jolts.

I can see now that last night I had an anxiety attack.

But do you know how hard it is to distinguish whether or not you’re having an anxiety attack when you’re actually having one?  It’s near to impossible.

Among other things, I felt like the world was ending and nothing good would ever come again.  Almost like a Dementor was sucking out my soul, except that I could move and function.  Sort of.  Because whenever I was still I felt like the world around me was spinning.  It wasn’t a fast spinning, it felt like that feeling you get when you hold our arms out and spin around and around and then stop.  THAT’S what it felt like.  Only it went on for 4 hours instead of a few moments.  I don’t know if it was a result of the anxiety attack or if my anxiety attack was a result of the dizziness.

I DON’T KNOW.

All I know is that I’ve never felt like that in my life, and I thought I was going to have a stroke or a heart attack right there in my bedroom in the middle of the night and I would die and no one would find out until morning so help would never come.

My poor husband.  He’s all over there fighting for whatever they’re fighting for these days in Iraq, and I’m calling him freaking out because I’m scared and I think I’m going to die and there’s nothing he can do.  He didn’t need that added stress, and I feel really bad about it now.

I tried going in to talk to Sarah.  At 4am.  Which didn’t yield the best results.  She was very nice and I felt extremely awkward waking her up, because “I feel really dizzy and you can’t tell because I’m trying not to move too much, but I’m freaking out… what if I’m dying?” isn’t really normal conversation in the middle of the night.

You know.  Unless you are me.

But I’m proud of the fact that I’ve only gone to wake her up in the middle of the night twice – in the last 13 months that I’ve lived here – over anxiety attacks, because I feel ridiculous and she shouldn’t have to put up with it even though she assures me it’s completely alright to wake her up if I’m having one.  It’s embarrassing how needy I feel and how frantic I get.  I want so much to be an adult, a grown up, but it’s hard to feel like one when I’m trembling and crying and gasping for air because WHAT IF I’M DYING BECAUSE I DON’T KNOW WHAT IS WRONG AND IS IT NORMAL????

So I still don’t know whether it was (dizzy = anxiety) or (anxiety = dizzy + x [with x being the unknown stressor variable]).  And I’m freaked out that it’s going to happen again.  I’m kind of glad I didn’t go to the emergency room where I’d mentally debated asking Sarah to take me for 4 straight hours, because I feel physically fine now other than the nausea and how tired I am from getting 4 hours of sleep after 4 hours of that.

I don’t want to do it anymore.

I’m sitting here in my room with a cup of hot cocoa watching large flakes of snow fall fast past the kitchen windows.  This is going to be my last winter in Rhode Island for a few years, and I love that it is snowing so fiercely outside.

I’ve got Autumnsong playing in the background as I read and write.  Tom Milsom is very talented.

I had the chance to meet him in Central Park last summer where he put on a small show when Lauren and I went to NYC for a blogger meet-up.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I’ll be moving away soon, so I wanted to share with you some of the things I love about where I live:

• My family is here.  I’m very close with my family.
• Nothing is really too far away.  The closest grocery store or WalMart is five minutes from my house.
• There’s nothing in the world quite like the peaceful feeling of being snowed in by a good old fashioned blizzard.  Wrap a cozy blanket around yourself and curl up with a book or just watch the snow fall… it’s calming.
• We get the best of all four seasons here.  In the spring everything turns vibrant and green with the rain.  In the summer we have the beach and the glorious sunshine.  When it’s autumn the leaves take two weeks to turn and the streets are lined with the most magnificent colors Mother Nature has in her bag of tricks.  And in the winter?  Everything is covered by a blanket of white while the Earth is sleeping.
• Del’s Lemonade.
• The Washington County Fair.
• The Providence Place Mall.
• Ninigret Park.

I think mostly I just love the feeling of home, the good and the bad.  I learned everything I know here, I’ve had 97% of my life experiences here.  This the a place where I became me.

What’s something you love about where you live?

I’m going to tell you this story about how I hijacked a van when I was a wee child, somewhere around ripe old the age of 5 or 6.

Not to be confused with the time that same year I had decided to see what smoking a cigarette was like when my mom left one burning in the ashtray of the old blue Chevette in the driveway at The Gray House to run back into the house to grab something, and thought I would die but hid my discomfort because I didn’t want to get in trouble as she came back out and got in the car to take me to I Don’t Remember Where.  Yeah.  Not to be confused with that day.

We were in the van – I don’t remember who’s van it was – in the driveway of my grandparents’ new house (( at least I’m pretty sure that’s where we were… I think… )) with both of my sisters, Alli and Sarah, and our cousin Jerin.  I don’t know how I got the notion in my head that pulling the lever next to the steering wheel was a good idea (( come to think of it now, there might have been a lit cigarette involved here, too )), but I did it and suddenly we were in what I now know to be ‘neutral’ and the van was slowly rolling backwards.

Toward the street.

I was crying in the front seat while Sarah and Jerin were panicking, and Alli was “reading” a Winnie The Pooh or Where’s Waldo? book – completely oblivious to what was going on the entire time.

Where were the grown ups, you ask?  And why were we children often left unattended in vehicles?  Well, I’ll tell you.

It was the late 80’s.  There were no rules about leaving children or pets unattended in vehicles for any period of time (( or wearing seat belts, for that matter )).  I mean really, how much trouble could 4 kids aged 11 and under get into while waiting in a van in the driveway?

Quite a bit, the grown ups learned, as my uncle ran around the back of the van to try and stop it from rolling into the road.  I’m pretty sure Sarah jumped out too and was trying to help him, but I was in full on panic mode by that point (( what can I say, I started early )) and all I remember from between fits of sobs is that a) Alli in all her 4 year old glory was still oblivious to what was going on, and 2) I was terrified that my sister and uncle were getting sucked under a gigantic moving vehicle and it was all my fault.

Oh, and I think the front driver side door was open beside me.

That’s a lot for a small child.