When the darkness closes in...

I'm furious with my big brother.

I've documented in great detail here about how obnoxious and annoying my big brother is; how he's a terrible loser and an even worse winner, how we still pick at each other like we're 5 and 10 years old and no one can stand to be around us because we're so much alike; and how he's the best dad and big brother in the world.

He's a big jerk.

On Monday, he told me he had leukemia. Chronic Myelocytic Leukemia.

My stupid brother has stupid cancer.

I'm so, so mad at him.

I'm crying even as I type this. How dare he have this happen to him? We've always been Johnny and Michelle, and now he's going through something I can't help him with.

My typical brother:

John: I have leukemia.
Michelle: (crying)
John: Why are you crying? Other than the leukemia, I'm in perfect health!

And later:

John: (blah, blah, blah)
John:...And no matter what, do NOT ask me how I'm feeling, I'm already sick of it, I feel fine! I mean it! Don't ask me!!!

(sigh)

The prognosis is good. I just feel a little beat down, what with my grandma's cancer and then my things and then my grandpa's brain tumor and I don't wanna hear the prognosis is good I wanna hear that my brother is going to be perfect as good as new as obnoxious and annoying as ever.

I love my big brother. I'm not really mad at him...well, no more than usual. :)

Love y'all, goodnight. :)

I'll never get used to it...

Meadow with Poppies, 1902 - Pal Szinyei-Merse

CAUTION: AMBIEN POST

I am trying to write with extra care and precision but my eyes are mostly shut and I'm thinking about puppies for some reason, which has nothing to do with my post...

Oh dear, it's already gone off the rails!

Anyway, just thought I'd provide a weekend update and a promise to do better in regards to my blog. :)

Update:

1. Still moving. I have to turn in my letter by Friday. I tend to procrastinate. I need to be out of here by April 1, yay!!!

2. Still sickly. I have discovered that I CANNOT eat dark chocolate. I was given bad information and so for Valentine's Day, certain people gave me some wonderful dark chocolate to eat. It was good. The ensuing migraine was very, very bad.

3. Dwayne finally got his letter on Friday, approving his disability. TWO YEARS and TWO DENIALS later, and two years of no income, before he could get this approval. Because he has not had access to good medicine during this whole time unless he paid for it out of pocket, he has deteriorated to where now he is in a wheelchair 99% of the time. His poor hands and fingers are permanently disfigured, the joints are twisted and knotted...he has the hands, knees and hips of a 90-year old. He is only 46.

4. It's hard not to be angry at the government in this kind of situation. His savings are gone.

5. But I guess all of us are in bad shape. I know the economy is supposed to be getting better (really?), but I'm not feeling it.

6. My brother, for instance, lived with my sister-in-law and their baby at a very nice house that he had owned for years. Then the Recession happened. The house got sold, and my brother moved his family into an apartment. They had another baby, and my brother moved his family again, into the apartments where I live. It's the WRONG WAY. As your family gets bigger, your house is supposed to get bigger...not smaller!

7. As for me, my rent here has gone up and up, but my pay stays the same. Oh excuse me, the company raises our hourly pay every year, but its minuscule, and insignificant since our health insurance goes way up every year and any raise we see is immediately swallowed up by the health insurance.

8. Okay, I gotta wrap this up because I forgot what my original mission was and I've fallen asleep 30 or 40 times now. Ambien 1, Michelle 0.

9. We'll continue later and see if I can stay awake for Round 2. Should be great fun.

Goodnightzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz................

10 years. 10 YEARS!

All of a sudden, ten years is today!, and I have to make a fabulous post, an hour after I've already taken my Ambien, which means...nooooo fabulous post is coming from me tonight! Maybe tomorrow...

But my ADD couldn't just leave this date empty, so this WILL be the official 10-year anniversary post! Sad, very sad, but true...

I've been trying and I can't really remember what prompted me to start blogging to begin with.

It was the days of AOL dial-up, so we had lots of open time while we were waiting 20 minutes to download one song at a time from Napster, and AOL started something called AOL Journals (it was blogging), and all us nerdy writer types signed up. And then we went from there.

And a lot of people quit along the way, or moved sites, but I stayed...I tend to stay somewhere until I'm forced from the building. Finally I was forced to move to Blogspot, and I've been here ever since. Yay!

I truly love my blog. It's a purely personal blog...when I started it, I was a young mom with a young daughter and we were having a sometimes difficult, sometimes wonderful life. 

As we both got older, our lives changed, and as Chelsea was able to take better care of herself, my grandmother got sick and my world fell apart. 

My blog became a record, and an outlet for the things I couldn't tell my family, because they were in as much pain as I was in.

So...I'm trying to gather my thoughts because the Ambien is kicking in big time! ... This blog has been a lifesaver for me. When I write down the things that have happened, the things that I have felt, I know them to be true. It's been cathartic. I think it's helped my mother and daughter, too, who've also read it.

I love my blog and I love the friends it has brought me, that's definitely the most important thing. Thank you all for sticking with me through my migraines and meltdowns and mild little freakouts; I'm totally appreciative (hope you don't stop now!), and you rock!, thanks y'all!!!

Don't you bring me down today...

Orchard in Blossom with View of Arles by Vincent Van Gogh

I'm only mildly irritated that every time I try to comment on a post, my comment disappears into the blogosphere. THREE times that has happened, so far. No wait, FOUR.

I'm practicing my breathing.

Chelsea and I are moving! Probably. Most likely. Our new place will be not as nice, is smaller and has no fireplace, BUT it's closer to work and is almost half the rent.

The most important thing and the biggest impetus for our move is that our new place will not have a floor-sleeper.

I know it's a tiny bit ridiculous...I'm basically moving because my squatter won't leave.

Let me be a precautionary tale, although I seriously doubt there's anyone out there as naive, gullible, timid, pushover-y and can't say no-y as me.

I'm going to pick this up again tomorrow when my stuff isn't disappearing into the nether...I'm hoping this doesn't disappear!

Let me know if you have some oceanfront property in Arizona you're looking to get rid of...

Whatever's meant to be will work out perfectly...

So I went to Google looking for the Olympic thing:

But instead, I found this:

Google said Happy Birthday to me!

I know that Google is telling me Happy Birthday because I'm logged in somewhere or other...but it's a little, um, freaky... The machines are poised to take over. We are almost in the land of Terminator and The Matrix, I know it. The other day, I went to send an email at work, and my computer very helpfully told me I forgot to attach my spreadsheet.

They are alive.

So, for my birthday tonight we went out to eat, and my birthday party is on Sunday; tomorrow night Dwayne is making me dinner, because he's perfect and wonderful. He is in pretty bad shape now, and pretty confined to the wheelchair and in very low spirits. He is in constant pain, yet apologizing to me because he can't help. 

Doesn't he know he's my hero?

I have much to say, but not the will...my headache has been hanging on for a good long while this time around. At this point, who cares? Migraines are just a given...like the SNOW, and the COLD; and never going away!

Ahem.

Still celebrating my tenth anniversary of blogging, here's a birthday throwback...

Sunday, February 6, 2005:

Before I left for Germany, when I was ten years old, my family had an early birthday party for my brother and me…who knew when we would be home again? My grandmother decorated a huge cake, with one side of it with Smurfs (for me J ), and the other side of it with a UK wildcat (for my brother)…

We got lots and lots of presents that day. One of my presents was a tape recorder…one of those huge black and silver things… On that day, with my family all together for the last time in what would be years, I made all of them speak into the recorder and record a special message for me.

I took that tape with their special message with me to Germany, where I kept it for all three years I was there, and whenever I was desperately homesick for my family I would play it…

The message was simple: It was my mom, my brother, my grandma, my grandpa, my aunt, my great-aunt…everybody recorded the same thing… 

"I love you, Michelle…"
"I love you, Michelle…"
"I love you, Michelle…"

I no longer have the tape, but I can still hear it, in my head…

Today, my family had an early birthday party for me (my birthday is actually Monday)…They called me into the kitchen, and I walked in to the crowd of people, my mom, my grandparents, my brother and sister-in-law and nephew, my daughter, my aunts, my boyfriend…

I knelt down to blow out the candles on my cake…

And I realized that all the people that had left me the messages on my tape so long ago were still right here…

I nearly cried as I realized how blessed I was, that over twenty years later, I’m still a member of this wonderful, sometimes maddening, always loving family,

And they were able to tell me again, today, that they loved me…

Instead of a wish for something I didn’t have, this year, before blowing out the candles, I just thanked God…for everything.

I can't escape myself...

What I'm experiencing right now is anxiety and stress, a lot of it. I know it well.

What I'm doing right now is hiding under the covers, nursing my headache.

What I'm afraid of is that I'm going to be triggered right back into the dark place - the place I've tried so hard to get out of for the past two years.

Funny how that fear is just piling on to the anxiety and stress I already have.

What I'm supposed to be doing is utilizing the tools I've learned to handle moments just like this.

But I can't remember a thing. Let's blame it on the headache.

The headache is probably caused by the stress and anxiety.

See?

I can't escape myself...