Burlap Soul

We both took Friday and this coming Monday off of work due to extra vacation days, so we're enjoying a nice long weekend. Well, I assume it's been a nice long weekend so far. Yesterday was The Day of the Blood Test, and I was so damned doped up on Ativan that I don't even remember a damned thing. ...... Nope, I'm sitting here trying and I honestly don't remember much at all, just blurry images and lots of "5 minute snoozes" that were really "five hour stretches of lost time." Why people choose to medicate themselves heavily on purpose in life is just something that's always been lost on me. Frankly, you might sleep well but other than that, I just think it sucks.

However, this morning I did get a whopping task done - and I do mean whopping. For two months now, we've been trying to clean out our old file cabinet and get every single paper I've collected for the past eight years in some sort of organized file. I can't begin to express to you what a monstrous task that is, but I did complete it this morning. Go me!

Let's see, what else....

My car is currently in the shop and we're afraid it may be an axle or struts or suspension or ball joints or something else just as costly. Please cross your fingers that it isn't... please? We'd really like to get wedding stuff taken care of this month - not to mention the whole holidays thing. I had a really nice Thanksgiving. It's always unusual and nice when everyone just sits around and talks and laughs without weird bitchiness or criticism coming from the Bad Apples constantly. I only wish my mom would've come so that she could maybe snap out of her depression a bit. She's not doing so well and it's affecting everything and everyone around her. Having a very obsessive and unsupportive husband doesn't help much either. He's a wonderful person, just not very understanding when it comes to anything remotely emotional, plus he tends to obsess about negative things so much that it's hard to be around someone so serious all the time. This is twice as hard if you're completely the opposite of that - like my mother.

Sometimes I am so grateful that J. and I can talk about things the way we do. Sure, we're vastly different people and we want to choke each other sometimes, but I never have to worry that if the chips are down and things really suck that we will suddenly just ignore all of our problems and sit in a room and wear fake smiles and live a life of strained acquaintanceship. I wouldn't tolerate it, nor would I let him get away with the same crappy shit. You talk about it, you deal with it and you move through it together. Otherwise you've got crap.

Tomorrow we decorate the tree, check out the new awesome rink in the new Fountain Square and see if we can find a wedding florist. I have a feeling that's going to the be the hard thing at this point. We've called two or three that we really like and they're already booked. (The whole reason we picked a Friday was that it wasn't always so expensive and booked like Saturdays - too bad we picked a Friday in June. Oops.)

Still, it doesn't matter to me at this point. I'm just unbelievably grateful that we're actually planning anything. People are actually getting excited about dressing up in 30s/40s garb too. How cool is that? I fear cursing us, but I have to say that I'm really excited about not only planning this wedding, but in participating in it and saying our beautiful vows to each other in a garden courtyard in the sun. Funny how life changes you. My sense of humor is still the same, but I never would've imagined how many trivial things I'd stop believing in just so that I could finally feel comfortable believing in myself.

I feel as though this last week has gone by in the space of a day. Every single night, having to eat out because we had to be somewhere or go somewhere or meet someone here, there, everywhere. It's a good thing my mom is so willing to come and get the dog for a day or two when we need her. Otherwise, this wedding planning and house hunting would be damn near impossible.

Yes, I mentioned that we are house hunting. Now I say this unbelievably cautiously, as J. has been approved for a relatively low home loan amount (at least for this area) so we are just looking and seeing what our options are at this point. Plus, we have been wanting a house so badly for so long that I fear cursing ourselves and counting any unhatched chickens. We've already fallen in love with houses that have fallen through on us in the past and we are currently enamored with one that's affordable and beautiful, but it needs so much work that we dare not get hopeful. They always seem to fall right through our fingers right when we've made our decision. So we're cautious... we'll see. I honestly don't know how people buy new houses and get married at the same time. They must be either A) millionaires or B) have personal assistants or C) both.

I'm curious as to whether or not people still stop by and read me anymore. I know that I don't update much lately, but I do try to check in with others when I can. It's ironic that I've become such a quiet lurker, as I look back on old entries here and old comments I made years ago and I don't know how I had the energy to say so much so often. I guess I never intended on becoming part of such a busy couple. Funny how life changes on you so fast, and then how it can change back so quickly. I live every day knowing just how wonderful things are going compared to where they've been and I know not to take anything for granted ever again. My biggest fear is that we will have worked so hard to attain so much and then somehow it will all be taken from us in the blink of an eye. This is what my anxiety dreams consist of, losing what I have worked for, forgetting some crucial element and watching everything being taken away as a result.

I had a dream that it was our wedding day, but I was so disoriented and overwhelmed that I thought it wasn't for another week yet and had forgotten to do everything, so we had a ton of family there that had come from all over the country and were complaining and we had nothing to show for it or do for them. These are the kinds of dreams I have about the wedding. They are mild, to the point that I wake up laughing at how terrified my subconscious is of failure and plans falling through. Trust me when I tell you that I would take more of those anxiety dreams any day, especially if it would save me the usual tarantula and blood and screaming and flashback dreams that wake me up most nights. I don't even mention it anymore when these nightmares happen, I've just learned to accept my subconscious as a fact of my life. If you're a car that gets slammed into too many telephone poles, you can pop out the dents and replace parts all you want, but you'll still always be structurally changed. So what? That's just who you are. You still have everything you need, just a few extra miles. Drive on.

I know that I am a strong person that is getting stronger every day, but that does not mean that I somehow have it all together. Strong people usually become that way because they have survived something. I'm learning that for everything that I have survived, I am now primarily afraid of losing it all. J. and I have debates over whether or not he should run to the gas station for milk at midnight. He says it's no big deal, we've been there a hundred times. I say you never know when someone's going to walk into the gas station you've been to a hundred times at midnight with a gun and end everything. I throw statistics at him like a crazy woman; third-shift convenience store clerks have the most dangerous job in the country, that gas station is on a desolate stretch of highway making it a perfect target, we are close to a downtown urban area, it's always that poor guy that was going to get milk for his wife's cereal that ends up plastered all over the news.

For years I drilled into him: it's okay to want, it's okay to dream, it's okay to shop without buying, it's okay to live life instead of following a perfect plan, it could all be gone tomorrow and then where would you be? Now he is the one saying to me: it's okay to want this, it's okay to plan for this, it's time to start coming up with a five year plan, yes I know we may not live forever but we still need to figure out what we're doing next summer anyway.

Life has dealt me so many blows that trust is now my most fearsome obstacle. I was always the one saying Live Life for Today, but now that those todays seem to keep coming, I just don't know what to do with myself - or if I should keep planning on more of those warm happy days at all. Seven years together and now he is the believer and I am the skeptic. I wonder if our roles will have the time to continue shifting like this, how many more dances we'll have before we walk off the dance floor and say, "Yes, we played our song many times, but we were always dancing."

See? Told you I was brilliant.*

;-)

I've been tagged by Leah, which is odd because I was reading her entry on doing this meme and thinking the same thing she was: "I can't do this because I've revealed so much about myself that nothing's left." But alas, I will try.

The idea is to write 5 things you don't know about me and then tag 5 others. I'm not really into tagging others, so if you want it, you got it.

5 Things You Might Not Know About Me

1. When I was a kid, I was obsessed - no my friends, I mean obsessed - with Madonna. I'm talking dressing like her, hours spent copying the dance moves, posters plastered everywhere, refusing to listen to any other bands that beat her out in Casey Kasem's countdowns... obsessed, people. You think I'm kidding? I didn't listen to U2 for nearly ten years because of some old grudge about the Long Distance Request and Dedication. Yes, I still like her a little, but I'm not quite so uh... singularly focused anymore. Thank God. (Yeah, if anyone from my hometown is ever googling me now and trying to figure out who writes this blog, they just got it.)

2. I often stop to wonder what's happening in my parallel universe when I've just made a decision - how Parallel Staz is handling her "yes" answer compared to how I'm doing with my "no." Funny, that's just never sounded odd to me. More like "parallel universes? well, duh." Ironically, I have a very low tolerance for sci-fi.

3. I can't fall asleep without music or sound. When we were first dating, J. used to get so frustrated because I love to fall asleep in front of the tv so much that my ideal date would be watching old MST3Ks and just falling asleep on his shoulder, but he could never turn it off or I would wake up. This drove him insane with confusion. His perfectly logical engineering brain does not understand such insanity.

4. During my years as a pharmacy technician, I had to testify and give statements on several forgery trials as an "expert witness." I never lied on the stand, but I always felt pretty silly sitting up there being called an expert when I was only stating the obvious.

5. When I realized as a kid that I wasn't going to be a veterinarian, I turned to theatre. When that didn't work, I considered being a graphologist because of my obsession with handwriting and handwriting analysis. Any time that you send me a written note or card, just know that I am always analyzing it - sometimes without even realizing it. I seriously thought I could be some breakthrough handwriting crime-solver with the FBI. Shut up, dude. X-Files wasn't on yet.

There you go, have a ball.

J. is horribly ill. He's been told he has the flu, but I'm not stupid and the doctor is. So he does not have the flu, but rather something that has taken over his lungs, nasal passages and throat. His glands are the size of golf balls and he can barely stand up or speak without coughing his head off.

So could you say a kind word for him? I have Christmas shopping to do still and I've already told him that I'm not getting him a damn thing if he's still sick at Christmas. Stupid stubborn engineers with their "I can totally go to work today" mentality - when will they learn? Health first, job second. *sigh* Boys.

I swear this is both the longest and most drawn out yet shortest and most chaotic week ever. (Much like that sentence ran on forever to make an excruciatingly small point.) Why must we work Friday? Really, who the hell is concentrating anyway? We're all just checking off lists in our head - lists that have nothing to do with work anyway, so what the hell's the point?

*sigh* And yet again, I'm off to get just enough sleep to maybe function for half a day. Yayyy, nine to five life! :-/ Come on 5:00 Friday. I want need my week off.

However you celebrate or whomever you celebrate it with... Happy Holidays to you and all of yours!

Now if you'll excuse me I'm about to gorge myself on some southern-fried goodies and lots of extra buttery mashed potatoes. :-) Mmmmmmm....

We're off to Michigan everyone for Holiday Part Deux. (Back pain and knee willing...) Be safe, have a wonderful New Year's and send us good travel vibes! :-)

We're in J.'s sister's house in Northern Michigan in her wonderfully custom made home office - and best of all, we are both blogging from two adjacent computers.

Seriously. We. must. have. this. at. home.

Of course he is blogging a bit more than me lately. I, however, am just happy to be here, relatively healthy (back pain flare ups = yay!) and relaxing. This year, J. booked us a nice little winter getaway to our favorite place for New Year's. They provide you with a horse-drawn sleigh ride, a blanket with hot cocoa, jacuzzi and king size bed and a champagne toast at midnight on NYE. I honestly never imagined this so long ago, but I can't think of a better way to celebrate 7 years together. Really... who knew? Not I, for I was blindsided by this one - and a little surprised as well. I think we both were. :-)

Hope that you have wonderful peace, serenity and happiness with you and all the loved ones in your lives. Send us some good travel vibes and we'll be so very thankful. Happy Holidays everyone. :-)