Spanglish

I'm watching it.

In the past week, my life has been turned upside down. My world stopped spinning while every one elses kept going. Death doesn't make anything stop. Bills are still due, the car still needs gas, the dog still needs to be let out. And when the plants and the flowers and the cards start pouring in from all angles, you no longer have a place to eat because everything covers the table and counters. Nobody acts normal. There are people hangin around and bringing food. Going to sleep seems easy after the day, staying asleep is extremely difficult but waking up is the hardest. Once everything is remembered, getting back to sleep is impossible. Thankfully the rest of the house is in the same boat, so the 4 am body wake up call has eased it's way through the halls, down the stairs, under the door and into the brains of my parents. Then it waits in the closets and under the beds until 3-4 am when it can ooze it's way back through my house. I can see it in the carpets. I can see it in the corners of the window sills. Just waiting. Always waiting to wake us up and bring the news, fresh and new.

Locking one's door is extremely cathartic. As though you're locking yourself in as opposed to locking everything else out. You can invite anyone or anything in you want, but NOTHING can get in that YOU didn't invite. It's wonderful. A total powertrip! This past week I locked out sobriety, incidently locking in extreme intoxication. I was sincerely surprised at how much alcohol I could consume and still be awake.

I searched for comfort unabashedly. I saw my friends and went to my old work. I talked constantly and then didn't talk at all. I was on my phone every waking hour looking for some sort of normalcy. Something that would take me back to just a week pryor. Just a day before Easter. I searched for it in the wrong person, though. I made a mistake and I paid for it.

Never search for love and understanding from a selfish and ignorant child. You'll be left emptier and more alone than you've ever felt. No matter how much they believed they loved you. They were wrong. And they will show it.

The deepness of your sorrow for the loss of a loved one will stretch further than you thought it could. You will stare at the vastness of what lies before you and weep. You will carry the weight of yours and your families sorrows on your shoulders and look for more sorrows to gather atop them. Your pain will work its way from your heart to your lungs, to your ribs. You'll feel it creep to you thighs and shins, down further and further until it spreads through your toes. You'll feel is climb up your chest and wrap itself around your neck to your face. You'll watch it wind it's way around your shoulders, then elbows, then twist down your fingers. When you seek comfort in those unable to provide even the slightest bit of ease, your soul will quake. The very foundations upon which you have built your feeble house of safety will crumble and you will find yourself worse off than when you started. When the purest of needs for comfort is rejected, the purest of agonies will sieze your spirit and strangle the little vitality that is left after the death of a cherished one. You will gasp. You will cry. And when you desire nothing else but to forget, you will remember.

But when you seek comfort from those who are both physically and emotionally able to provide, it will stamp out the agony. It's light will blind the pain into submission and your foundation can be rebuilt, slowly.

Darkness is simply the absence of light. And the light was shown on me by Allan who put aside his pain to tend to and garden mine. Emily, who gathered me in her arms and the arms of her mother and squashed the darkness. Katie, who checked on me daily. Rachel, who listened to me cry and was there from the 11th hour. Cristal, who somehow has shown me such unconditional love, it's blinding. and Kelly, who came to my rescue when it was critical.

My foundation is rebuilt. My house of safety is no longer feeble. And the long journey of mourning has begun.

It's like someone just threw open the heavy drapes on the dusty windows of my soul

Or something equally as dramatic.

So in the past few days I've been systematically informed that I exhibit signs of ADD or ADHD. This seemed silly to me since no one had ever mentioned it to me before. I was just sloppy and a procrastinator and a day dreamer.

PLEASE GOD TELL ME I'M WRONG

I've talked to a few adult ADD sufferers (one of which was the one that said 'Oh yeah! that's how they diagnosed me' when I told him about a particular symptom) and things slowly started lining up and falling in to place. I slowly started fitting pieces together like a puzzle, and filled in the gaps that I thought were just personal failures. That I was TOLD were personal failures.

I went to the internet, like any self respecting hypochandriac, and started chasing rabbits. One of the first sites I came across listed several different symptoms, including emotional and physical, as well as the disorganization and inability to focus.

If you at all have a weak stomach for unabashed wailings of past pain and emotional turmoil, abort this particular blog now. Go no further. I am about to word vomit onto all of you that continue.


The "Myth and Fact" section alone made me almost tear up. Alot of the thing I've blamed myself for for years were mentioned in the Myth part. Moving on, the next section was inability to focus. A standard, I feel. I ticked off a few of the specific symptoms listed, feeling slightly warm inside. Then all of the sudden I see 'Hyperfocus'. I am excited to see this, as one of the reasons I never considered ADD was because there were times when I almost obsessed about things. This intrigues me and my insides heat up just a scoach more.

Next section, 'disorganization and forgetfulness'. It mentions room and car. A small victory, but it assures me further that I might be on to something here. I then come to the 'Emotional difficulties' section.

Check Check Check Check... I mentally go through every symptom, and here is where the water works really begin. "Low self esteem, sense of underachievement, trouble staying motivated" are only a few of them. I can't believe it, it's all right there. My insides are now scorching hot and I can't believe things can get any better explained for me.

The section on "Untreated ADD" got to me as well, mentioning the strain it can have on relationships with parents...

It really does feel like a huge light has been shed on the things I've been dealing with. Being in college opened my eyes to my inability to focus and I realized a lot of people don't have to work as hard as I have to to stay on task or listen during a lecture. This I blamed on myself, as it has always been blamed on me, and I took it as a personal flaw and tried fruitlessly to fix it.

I'd been talking to my mom about my anxiety and whatnot that was leading to my feelings of helplessness and so forth. ADD shares and coincides with a lot of the things I'd been experiencing. It seems they are not independent of each other, but cause and effect of each other.

I've not been to a Dr. and I've never been tested. But the ball has gotten rolling on that and will be done ASAP. I was in tears reading the site and teared up writing this. I hope and pray that I've now started on a path that will lead me to some sort of answers. The answer may not be ADD, but the hope of finding an answer is there now. And I'm really encouraged and validated by that.

An elephant stuffed animal and Kello Kitty pez does not a child make

After this weekend, I needed desperately to get it (most of it) out on virtual paper. I feel like I need to get a lot better at not caring if I air people's dirty laundry, so to speak, (including my own I guess) because this would be a lot more interesting if that were the case.

Friday: I worked until 5 at my amazing job that I'm absolutely in love with. Then I went home. Worked in the yard and awaited my beloved Sugar Pop's arrival with my new friend. We'll call her Skittles. Because she tastes like the rainbow.
So I go over in my pjs, cause IDGAF, and we of course proceed to ingest copious amounts of alcohol. This is, by enlarge, the theme of the weekend. Awake? Have a drink. (bare with me, this is not a recount of my weekend. I have a point)
So we go to a restaurant and thoroughly enjoy ourselves, the next day I go to a crawfish festival with everyone and absolutely tear that shit up! Run in to a friend from Houston that just moved, catch up there. Of course, drink booze. Come home, go to sleep. Next day is sunday. A day to be celebrated! A day of rest! Mas booze please!

The point I'm making here is, my life is fun. But I've MADE it that way. The way I've done that? Doing my best to balance pleasing myself and others. Because it is a balance. Life is a very crazy balance and I'm trying to feel it out. Between piggy back rides to take shots of mad dog and celebrating Sunday by the pool, I've discovered that life is taken a little too seriously sometimes. I used to take it WAY too seriously. Recently. But through no actions that I am at all aware of, I've suddenly seen the light! I've suddenly realized that if I can go through life without destroying other people too much but just do what I want (sometimes without really thinking), I can probably keep myself happy.

I used to take a lot of shit. I used to make a lot of excuses for the way people treat me. Cheating, lying disrespect, stealing, etc. I was pretty damn good at it too. But then I realized, it doesn't really matter. AIDs epidemic matters. World hunger matters. The crisis in Japan matters. 99% of the stuff that's happened to me just doesn't. And that's not a sad thing, that's just logic. I will die before I become anything but a realist, and that's just plain real. So I need to stop taking things so seriously. As long as I'm not destroying other people, and not letting them destroy me, and I can find that balance, I'm gonna be happy. I'm gonna be able to enjoy my life and live it as a good, strong woman.

Sweet Sweet Summer

My skin is pink and sunkissed. I absolutely love it. I just layed out with my dearest Sugar Pop, one of the nicest girls I know and certainly one of the most fun. Our shenanigans have gotten slightly out of hand lately, what with raves and me being a part of her GoGo Dancing troupe. But with summer bearing down on us and our cruise looming ahead, I feel the hurricane that is Sugar Pop and I will only gain speed and will DESTROY WORLDS.

This brings me to my point. Everybody has their favorite summer (or time, I guess. I won't presume to pigeon hole anyone's favorite memories to summer alone). The smell of chlorine and sweat mixed with tanning lotion. The sun cooking anything and everything, true to Texas form. These are the things I remember as a kid. It's morphed, somewhat, into planning around trips to the Caribbean and class. But my life now is so vastly different from anything I could have ever imagined for myself.

After classes, I have a Mike's Harder and lay by the pool. After work I have a purple margarita and lay by the river. After the week I have a bloody mary and float the river. I pop downtown Austin for a quick drink or dinner. I drive to San Marcos to see a movie. I wander the streets of Austin with Sugar Pop, I go to raves, I get backstage, I get bottle service. I cook dinner for my loved ones, I go home for the holidays. I go to school and work, I call my mom every other day. I go to SXSW, I go to South Padre for Spring Break.

Every day I live my life and I validate myself as a human being. I'm carving out the woman I want to be when I die. I'm enjoying every moment I possibly can because that's what life is. That's what growing up is. And, in case you hadn't noticed, that's what college is! I'm blindingly proud of myself and what I've achieved. My choices and my decisions have brought me to where I am. The people I've brought into my life, the people that have brought me in to theirs.

I am lucky and blessed enough to be extremely happy with my life and what I've made of myself. I hope to God you are too.

Despicable Me

Good movie. Great description. Speaking of which, I should probably start finding clever nicknames for everyone I'm going to talk about. If I wont even publish my real name, it'd be unfair to publish anyone elses, correct? Ugh. This better be as mentally beneficial as everyone assures me.

So I was thinking about what a desperately good person I am when something someone, we'll call him Brody (I never saw it, but apparently everyone else did. I considered Dartanian, but skipped over it. Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies.), said one night. We were talking about exes, since we never gave a shit, and I relayed a story. Something about love and affection and all the things I'm not good at, and how I didn't return it and blah blah. Something strange. And true to Brody form, he spared no time in telling me how awful that was. I think the word 'manipulative' was thrown around. Of course I vehemently deny this, because I'm awesome, but maaayyybe it's true.

I always thought it was just this sort of uncanny ability to get what I want. (Allow me to stop here and assure you, I'm not a bad person. But eh, that's not particularly objective, is it?) But I think it's more so me knowing how to get what I want, and getting it. The most recent example:

So I'm dating boy, we'll call him, Picture Perfect. Why you might ask? Because I saw him in a picture and decided he was perfect and immediately needed him in my life. So.... I got him in my life. You might think this is my example, since I'm talking about getting things I want. But it's not. There's more.
So this extremely attractive person has not only been noticed by yours truly, obviously. So there's this mousy little girl, shall we call her Little Mousey?, with whom he used to talk. Now, Little Mousey is that girl who needs everyone to like her. Boys mostly, as she sneaks her co-workers boyfriend, then cheats on him with two other men (atleast) one being Picture Perfect. It's sad, and if she wasn't so ridiculous, I'd actually like her. But, as it was a week after being uncerimoniously dumped by Brody, and I was soundly and wonderfully slumbering under the covers with Perfect, I was none to happy with the 1 am texts and calls. INAPPROPRIATE! She was fully aware of Perfect's new 'taken and loving it' status. (It was mostly compounded by my terrorizing and destroying her in public at a bar in Home-Town. We'll call it H-town for short, shall we?) Well, she continues to try and contact him, so I send her a very composed text, inviting her to GTFO. And she did. :)

All of this is to say, maybe I am manipulative in some ways. But I'm also that bitch that'll squash stuff right at the start. If I feel like fighting for you, trust me I will. Without calling it something else or disguising it. If I want you to leave me and my man alone, I wont passive aggressively talk behind your back or spread rumors or do ANY OF THAT. I'll tell you to your face what I want from you. I've always prided myself on being able to tell people exactly how I feel.

I don't call it manipulative. I call it black and white. But nobody's used to that anymore. Welllllllll, if you want me around, get used it. :)