A Surprisingly Sane Blog

I’ll get caught up. Unfortunately, my body decided it wanted to die a couple days ago and I have been so ill and so utterly alone since my hubs and girls are in Arizona for the holiday that I haven’t been able to blog.

After getting up at 3:00 a.m. in a few hours, I’m flying over there to join them. Stuck around here to finish my classes for the week. Made it to only one of them because MY BODY TRIED TO DIE FROM THE AGONY of whatever the fuck the stabbing, horrific cramping in my lower back and abdomen was trying to do.

I’m still sick, but I have a a plane to catch so I’ll catch up on my posts soon.

Current Mood: Sickly

Prompt: Little Engine Post. Write a list post with 10-15 lines that start each with “I think I can…” Write 5 lines at the end that start with “I know I can.”

Sigh. I’m a horrible pessimist when it comes down to personal growth. Tried and tested proof has made me a non-believer. I’d rather just move forward silently without discussing my goals or having to answer when people ask, “So, how did [insert thing here] work out for you?” The answer is almost always: it didn’t, and I’m not in the mood to discuss why. But, it’s the prompt, so here it is:

I think I can…

1. Learn to like dark chocolate one of these days if I keep forcing it down my throat.
2. Slowly convert to a whole foods, vegan diet if cheese and 1/2 & 1/2 suddenly become “plant-based.”
3. Admit I really don’t like eating meat and never have, and yes, I know that makes me a freak.
4. Someday get over my disappointment of having to retire from dance because of my damn arthritis before reaching certain goals.
5. Stop buying way too much shit on Amazon when I’m feeling depressed.
6. Avoid stopping by coffee drive-thrus at 1:00 pm.
7. Wear my new orthotics to keep the arthritic swelling at bay without bitching.
8. Forgive people for being shitty friends and move on.
9. Figure out how to clean my house in a timely manner and keep it that way.
10. Bury some of the ghosts of past mistakes that I really just need to let go.

I know I can…

1. Be awesome at my new career choice.
2. Backpack the Grand Canyon again this upcoming year and love it.
3. Save my marriage from the “dance death” that has been threatening to divorce us our entire marriage now that I am moving on from the profession and starting a new “family-friendly” one.
4. Raise my girls to feel empowered, confident, and proud to love themselves.
5. Kick bipolar disorder’s ass and tell it to shove it.

This post was written as part of NHBPM – 30 health posts in 30 days: http://bit.ly/vU0g9J

Prompt: This one’s for you, baby. Dedicate a song to your condition. Why did you pick that song? Find a youtube or link to a version to embed in your post.

Limp by Fiona Apple

Click on the link to hear it.

Why did I pick it? I’m sick of having my ass constantly kicked by this illness, and I am forever angry trying to manage it. The song speaks for itself. Plus, Fiona Apple is my favorite music artist. She’s not just a musician, but a writer, and a damn good one at that. We speak the same kind of talk. I can relate to her.

This post was written as part of NHBPM – 30 health posts in 30 days: http://bit.ly/vU0g9J

Prompt: Elevator blog. If you were in an elevator with someone and they asked about your blog. What would you tell them? Make a version for a 30 second elevator ride. Make a version for a 1 minute elevator ride. Make a version for a 2 minute elevator ride.

30 Second Version:

Me: Blog? What blog?

1 Minute Version:

Me: Er, this is my stop. (It’s not really.)

2 Minute Version:

Me: I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of such a blog. And if I could tell you, I’d have to kill you.

Honestly, I don’t really like talking about my blog. It’s hard to feel proud of something that serves as a black hole to your illness and dark thoughts.

This post was written as part of NHBPM – 30 health posts in 30 days: http://bit.ly/vU0g9J

Prompt: Open a book. Point to a page. Free write for 10-15 minutes on that word or passage. Post without editing if you can!

“Drafting Memos…
…So how difficult can it be to write a memo? Unfortunately, if the memo is a legal memo, it can be very difficult.”
-The Legal Writing Handbook, Fifth Edition

Ha ha ha ha ha. Sorry. This has got to be the eye-glaze-over moment for every one of my blog readers, but I’ll try to twist my schoolbook excerpt into something somewhat interesting.

I like writing. Love it, actually. Always have. When I was a young kid I read Harriet the Spy and decided that I needed to write in a journal. And I never really stopped. I wrote poetry- tons, actually- opinions on articles, and threw words on a page in distress while I admitted my failure and inability to settle on a career that I actually wanted to pursue.

My fifth grade teacher told me I was going to be a writer.

I was excited until I brought that idea home to my family. “That’s great, Tamra, you’re a very talented writer. But you can’t do that as a career,” my parents would patiently explain.

I’d try throwing out another career idea: I could be a dancer. “That’s nice, honey, but you can’t make any money being a dancer, and besides, you’d have to move to some awful place like Chicago or New York, and you don’t want to do that. The winters are miserable.”

I started reading John Grisham books in junior high. My literary skills were above and beyond anything my teachers had seen. The were excited to have such an avid reader and talented writer in their class.

I decided I wanted to be a lawyer. I must have been thirteen. “That’s great, sweetheart, but you don’t ACTUALLY want to be a lawyer. It’s a terrible job. You have to deal with criminals and fight to get bad guys out of jail, and you have to go to TONS of expensive school that we can’t pay for.”

Nix that one.

I spent high school in a state of panic over “what I want to do with my life.”

I had zero idea what I should do, what I wanted to do, and whether or not I actually wanted to do anything at all. There wasn’t a job out there that interested me any longer. I continued to write.

College was fast approaching and it was time for me to start filling out applications. I wanted to go to the University of Washington. I loved Seattle. Or maybe Gonzaga University in Spokane. They were trying to recruit me, being a goody Catholic girl and all. I filled out applications.

“That’s great, Tamra, but you can’t go out of state. We’re not paying for it. And you can’t take out loans because we refuse to fill out the FASFA form for you to apply. And you’re only sixteen. You’ll be seventeen when you start college. You’re not even a legal adult. You can’t work full time while you’re in college because you’ll never pass.”

I applied for a bunch of universities and paid for the application fees with money I’d made from my part-time job as an assistant for an insurance agent. I was excited to have been accepted to all the colleges I applied to, but I wasn’t in the top five percent of my class, I wasn’t from a low-income family, part of an exotic ethnic background, and I didn’t get a penny in scholarships.

Off to several years at the University of Arizona I went, and I lived at home because my parents threatened taking away the car and pulling college funds if I found an apartment. They didn’t want their baby to leave the nest.

I graduated with zero clue what I wanted to do with my life, and no idea what I’d be good at. My parents tried to get me to do some kind of math or science. “That’s what you want to do. You’re smart enough, and it’ll make good money.”

I would have believed them like the puppet I was except for the fact that I knew that was the last thing I wanted.

I should have listened to my inspired 13-year-old self when I realized I wanted to be a lawyer. How stupid I was to allow myself to be so controlled.

And may God fucking kill me by stinging lightening bolt if I EVER to do my kids what my folks did to me regarding career choices.

This post was written as part of NHBPM – 30 health posts in 30 days: http://bit.ly/vU0g9J