The Bright Side

I always swore I'd never move back here.

Back to the north, back to the cold, back to this town.

If life had a punch line, that would be mine.

Every place I go has a memory, every person I see has a history.

I go out here and I feel myself avoiding eye contact, talking less and retreating into the shell that protected me through high school. Reaching the end of my last job was the most heart wrenching experience I've gone through in my two and a half decades on this earth and coping with it and this place simultaneously is a daily test of resilience.

But I've made the decision to use this piece of my life as a springboard. I miss my girlies and will never stop praying for them but I choose to become better instead of bitter. This blog was meant to be a place where I find the shrapnel of happiness in the overwhelming mess that is daily life. Monty Python tells you to "always look on the bright side of life" and Dr. Seuss admits "my philosophy is simply: things could be worse". My inch of insight for today? If your life is a joke, learn to laugh at it.

Even though I'm back in a place I ran screaming from, I'm not that person any more.

Some things are the same...

...but some things are different. 

I drink tea on purpose because it's delicious.

I secretly clean the dishes when I'm feeling awkward.

I won't let being alone stop me from having fun.

I can get lost without leaving the path.

The path is more a set of "guidelines" than actual "rules".

I can't say no to people.

I won't be walked on. 

I choose to be happy and, as cliched as this sounds, find the silver lining in every cloud. Yes, I've moved back but my family is here. I don't have my old job but my new job is infinitely less stressful. I miss my friends down south but I missed my northern friends too. 

Everything's going to work out in the end. And if it hasn't worked out, it's not the end.

My Werewolf

A secret werewolf resides in every woman, a creature which resurfaces periodically intent of wreaking havoc on all those close by, a thing which no amount of willpower can stave off.

And it's name is Susie Homemaker.

Once in a blue moon I can feel her stirring. She struggles to get out, tugging at the edges of my mind until I take up a spatula, trowel or, in this case, a sewing machine and wield it as a weapon in the battle for my sanity.

Unfortunately for me, innate talent is not a weapon in my arsenal. My recent skirmishes with inner Susie have, without fail, followed this recipe...

INGREDIENTS

1 pattern ("1" is relative)

3 yards of every fabric (or more if it's really pretty)

2 spools of thread for each fabric

1 cushion of pins

9 band aids 

Assortment of buttons, zippers, lace, elastic, and duct tape.

DIRECTIONS

1.) Pick a pattern and a fabric.

2.) Change your mind.

3.) Change your fabric.

4.) Cut out the pattern (this will take hours, find a good podcast or you will lose your mind).

5.) Revert back to original fabric.

6.) Dewrinkle fabric.

7.) Change your mind again.

8.) Fold fabric in half and lay out pattern, pin it down.

9.) Remove pins from fingers.

10.) Apply band aids.

11.) Cut out pattern.

12.) Read the instructions 6 more times.

13.) Pin random pieces together.

14.) Stitch 'em up!

15.) Repeat steps 13 and 14 until all the pieces are attached to each other.

16.) Scratch head and wonder where you went wrong.

17.) Try on garment.

18.) Decide it needs a zipper.

19.) Cut a slit somewhere and pin a zipper into it.

20.) Run over the zipper while sewing it in and snap the needle in half.

21.) Throw up hands in defeat.

22.) Wait for tomorrow, then see step 1.

Gallery of Misfit Outfits

Simplicity 2176 

"Winging" it

Unknown pattern

Salvage in Progress

Attempting to channel Susie Homemaker is a constantly humbling experience and the last outfit above was the icing on the crow. 

This was actually the first project and I assumed that the pattern size would be synonymous with my clothing size. This isn't even vaguely close to being true. I attempted to put this romper on after stitching it together and couldn't pull it past my knees. After belatedly comparing my measurements to those of the pattern I became aware that I was at least ten inches bigger everywhere. 

There is truly no greater feeling of shame than realizing that you have to go up 8 numbers for an outfit to have a chance of fitting.

But rather than let shame and a bad fit be the end of it, I decided I'll try my hand at a transformative salvage. So I'm changing the romper into a jumper. I cut out the legs and sewed them together, next I'll be randomly inserting skirt fabric. The way I see it, it can't get worse!

(There's one outfit that didn't make the gallery yet. I was bound and determined to make a dress from start to finish in 3 hours and I got close, but it ultimately kicked my butt. So it's been sitting in time out for the last week and a half and I refuse to look at it again until it apologizes. If it behaves it might show up in a later post.)

Today I call out Susie Homemaker as one of my inner demons. 

And now, if you'll excuse me, I have a pattern to cut out.

Backseat Driver

I hate being a passenger. It's stressful for me to have no control over a situation, especially when my life hangs in the balance. I'd always rather be the driver, all things solely my responsibility: radio, temperature, speed, direction.

The rain is pelting the roof of the car with a vigor normally reserved for brawling young boys. The sky wants to swallow us and the road is rife with opportunities to hydroplane. As I unclench my hands from their death grip on the armrest, I shut my eyes and let the water ricocheting off the paddleboard drown out the thoughts in my head.

I left my job. 

I lost my girls. 

My life is careening out of control.

I'm moving back to - IS THAT LIGHTNING?!

I take it back. I should be grateful to take the backseat on this one. To not deal with hydroplaning and fatigue, to just sit back and trust that my Dad will keep me safe. He knows where we're going, he loves me, and he's going to protect me. 

I just have to learn to enjoy the ride on the passenger side.

Disconnect

It's so hard to sleep now.

I've always struggled with the act of shutting off my faculties and submitting myself to unconsciousness but the sheer exhaustion that accompanied my recent daily life made this necessary evil a good deal easier.

No longer. 

Now I again dread nightfall, when my body is weighed down by the blackness and my mind runs rampant with emotions.

8 days ago my identity was solely encapsulated by the little nuggets I called my charges. I lived, breathed, and poured my sweat, blood and tears into personifying love for them. The triplets I nannied called me "Mama" and, though I always corrected them, the description felt apt.

I raised the girls from 7 months of age to 2 years 2 months and those nineteen months felt like a lifetime. I fed them, clothed them, cared for them when they were sick, did their laundry, caught their vomit, kissed their boo-boos away, taught them how to roll over, walk and talk. I used to joke that if I wasn't covered in someone else's bodily fluids it was only because I hadn't gotten out of bed yet. 

I loved the girls and no personal sacrifice was too great for their sakes.

And now I've been cut out of their lives.

The stress of working for their father had my health in a scary place and I found myself forced to notify the family of my intent to find other employment. I gave them five weeks. This surely, I supposed, would be enough time for them to find a new nanny, for me to personally train her and get the girls accustomed to her, and for me to be gradually phased out of their lives. Five weeks, I told myself, was just long enough to say goodbye.

Two days later I got in a disagreement with their father. 

When he came home from work that day, he asked to speak to me privately, then told me that my services were no longer required, effective immediately. He took his keys and escorted me out of the house.

He didn't let me say goodbye. 

I raised his children and will never get the chance to hug them one last time. 

I left my home for my love of this family with nothing but a prayer that things would turn out. And now I have to find the strength to pick up the pieces of my heart and walk away.

I'll never again hold my girls and tell them how much I love them.

Or grasp all three little hands in mine as we cross the street.

Odd are that I'll never see them again period.

I know I existed before them and I always knew I'd have to exist after them. But those three little girls and their brother have changed me forever and it feels like my heart will never stop bleeding. 

It's so hard to sleep now...

Hide it Under a Bushel

One of my biggest vices is that I consider nothing so big a problem that it can't be avoided and ignored until it goes away. I am aware of it, I consider it a flaw, and I'm pretty sure it'll sort itself out if I just leave it alone for a little bit.

That was a joke (but sadly also true).

I could make a list of all the seriously big issues I've squashed down in a box and hidden in the back of my closet but that would mean opening that door and acknowledging everything that's wrong, I'm petrified that unleashing that mountain would bury me alive. I can't do it.

But then I wake up one morning to find that one of my demons has escaped its box and is sitting on my pillow, watching me. And instead of dealing with it, I run.  The only problem there is that it's loose now and can follow me.

So it does.

It establishes a perch on my shoulder and whiles away the hours scratching at my face and yanking on my hair. It spends days whispering in my ear, weeks gnawing away at my nerves. At some point I'm faced with the horrifying realization that I can't ignore it any more and it must be dealt with immediately.

And lately all of my issues have come out to play.

Tonight my health demanded the spotlight.

I was diagnosed about 5 years ago with a pre-existing condition that makes it really hard to get insurance after a move. It's chronic, it's autoimmune, it's inconvenient. I was sick for two years before the doctors finally realized that my problem was more than stress and those tests? Never again. Never ever ever ever ever again.

When I got diagnosed I was put on medication: 15 pills a day, every day. I couldn't stomach that for long so they swapped me to a Tier 3 drug. That means that when I moved out of state and every insurance company refused to cover me, my medicine would cost $300 a month. As someone living perpetually paycheck to paycheck, this was simply not an option and I stopped taking my meds.

That was a year and a half ago.

I've been mostly fine. Some foods make me sick but if I avoid them it's not an issue. Every now and then I'll have an... "episode?" but it goes away by the next morning and hasn't been consistent enough that I can't ignore it... until two weeks ago.

All of a sudden my body was rebelling against me, alarms were blaring, and tonight I realized it can't be ignored.

My inconvenient health issue has suddenly become a serious problem that needs to be dealt with immediately.

And that paralyzes me.

Please pray.

Tick Tock

Life is a trust fall.

Sounds deep, doesn't it?

Some days it feels like life is this perpetual tension, this constant free fall backwards into the unknown. A twisting, wrenching in the pit of your stomach as wind whips past your ears and you recoil with the preemptive impact, praying that something will break your fall and never fully convinced that those arms will be there to catch you.

And it feels like you're falling forever.

I tried to quit my job the other day. I've been thinking about it for months, actively applying other places for weeks. 

And I heard nothing back.

And then more nothing. 

Then last week I hit my breaking point. My boss snapped at me and I realized that I couldn't pretend it was okay any more. And I made up my mind to quit even though I had no next job lined up, no interviews, no direction for my life at all really. 

I spent two days practicing what I would say to my bosses, thinking it through from every angle, bouncing ideas off my parents. I went into Friday a mess of nerves and spent all ten hours of my shift trying to remember how to breathe.

And then my boss was late and I was dismissed for the weekend before I had the chance to say anything.

When we finally talked on Monday, I inexplicably walked away without breathing a word about quitting. 

That night my inbox filled with rejection letters from half of the places I'd applied.

I was ready to free fall into nothing just to get myself off that ledge and God put me back up on it again.

Sometimes life is a trust fall. 

And sometimes it's waiting for the next one.

Over the Rainbow

I've always dreamt of spending my birthday and St. Patrick's Day in Ireland and this year it was going to happen! I was learning Gaelic, mapping out my route, had my passport coming in the mail, and was looking into flights. 

When I was home, my parents suggested I skip the trip and save the money for a car. I scoffed but considered doing the responsible thing... then kept googling "Ireland landscapes".

Then the roommate I was going to travel with decided to go to her country alone. I was a little leery to go solo to Europe but what better potential for an adventure!

And then my boss told me that I have four vacation days left until August.

Okay God, I get the picture. For everything there is a season and apparently this is not my season for reckless Irish exploration.

So I'm putting aside that money and saving up for my next set of wheels, like my parents wanted. No promises though on whether my next mode of transportation has two wheels or four!

And I've decided to save up for Ireland a handful of change at a time.

Maybe by next year...

Chi-Town with a Side of Broccoli Beef

This weekend I flew alone for the very first time, a feat which proved to be much more daunting than originally anticipated. 

I arrived at the airport at 1:30, had a two hour flight and a short layover in Chicago with the anticipation of a quick one hour flight and then a half hour drive to my parents' house. Unfortunately my arrival in Chi-Town began a descent into hell which I didn't emerge from until 5 am the next morning.

But that's not what this post is about.

When my plane touched down at O'Hare, it sat on the Tarmac for an hour while we waited for a gate. We were later informed that a truck had parked in our spot. That's right. Our plane couldn't pull in because a truck was in the way. We then had to stand for half an hour in a windy 19 degree jetway while we waited for our valeted bags, which we hadn't been allowed to carry on because our plane was so small.

Finally, bag in hand, I got my feet on solid ground again and settled in for the layover to end all layovers. I tried to encourage my fellow passengers with jokes about the virtue of patience but was quickly shut up by their complaints about missed connections and their overwhelming negativity.

I had time to spare so I grabbed dinner at the food court and watched humanity rushing by while wielding my chopsticks and trying not to think. 

All of a sudden I felt very alone. 

My family was a state away, my friends two. I was flying home for a funeral and eating by myself and had nobody to keep me company and I felt so very alone.

And then I looked up.

And realized that everyone at my table was sitting by themselves, everyone in the food court was traveling alone and trying not to feel like the only person in the world. We were all alone. Together.

And I decided that one day I'm going back to O'Hare. And I'm going to wear a "Free Hugs" shirt and bring a case full of teddy bears. 

Because everyone could use a hug and a travel buddy.