I’m taking a Tyler Durden mental approach to this business thing, more from necessity than from wanting to seem hip.

For me, this sugar scrub business is a lot of fun (well, the developing-of-products is moreso than the filing-taxes-and-paperwork), but it isn’t my passion. It’s a great product that I’m proud of and would encourage anyone to buy if they’re in the market for that sort of thing because I really think it trumps a lot of the competition for exceptional quality and price (except Skin and Tonic. She’s got an amazing product, fantastic, innovative scents, great prices and a sparkling, rad personality to boot. I’m glad we’re friends or I’d be terrified of her as a competitor.), but it’s not what I want to spend my life producing or working to share with the world. I don’t stand behind quasi-pricey bath and body products nearly as strongly as I stand behind so many other things.

I’m going to have to go into detail with this in another forum because my personal opinions about capitalism and consumerism shouldn’t be made public when I’m trying to launch a business, but my plan/objective is to make the scrub company successful enough to support our life’s dreams. I want to go back to school, my husband wants to start a company and we both want to take the Bear to see the world and own some land and work to live off the grid eventually. Ideally, the company would become a wild success and I could sell it for a bundle of dough and spend my life going to school and writing and wandering the globe with my family and working wherever I want to, but for right now, my goal is to make it a thriving side-project to my main agenda that will eventually include everything I just mentioned.

Like the Paper Street Soap Company, Yum in the Tub is only serving to fund something much bigger and more important, although I’m not planning on blowing anything up.

The Bear woke up this morning with a fever of 104.1 (F… duh.) We had a tepid bath, some aceteminophen and went downstairs to try out some juice (to no avail.) During WordGirl (8:00 a.m.) she was at 100.3 and doing okay and was still alright by Sesame Street (10 a.m.) - only a little lethargic and curmudgeonly - so I went into the kitchen to unload the dishwasher while she watched the TV from the couch. Ten minutes later, I poked my head into the den only to find that she’d crawled onto the floor, curled up in a little ball and gone back to sleep. I put her back to bed and kept checking on her at a manic every-5-minutes. The temperature started escalating again, so I called the doc, flung the Bear in the car and drove 30 miles to my pediatrician (I have my reasons for going this far.) She was just pitiful in the waiting room and completely unlike herself; she was curled up on my lap with her eyes half-mast (but not sucking her thumb), her eyes were downcast and red and she made little whimpers whenever I tried to move her. I would talk to her and she would repeat whatever word I emphasized (”We’re going to the doctor.” “Doc-tow.”) but there was none of the incessant babbling I was shocked to realize that I missed. She’s diagnosed with strep throat, we get some antibiotics and well-wishes, we drive the 30 miles back home and we plunk ourselves down to rest and watch more “Pooh”.

This may sound terrible of me but I secretly loved what happened for the rest of the afternoon. From 3 until about 6, the Bear laid against my chest, curled up and drifting in and out of sleep. (She was usually disturbed by my incessant temperature checks.)

Ever since she was little, I’ve never been able to get her to go asleep in my arms. Not ever. Not when she was a baby, not when she was teething, not when she’s been about to pass out at the end of the day. It’s one of those things that tears me up inside as her mother but, because she relies on me for so many other things and shows adoration in other ways, it doesn’t bother me too much. However, my mom can always get the Bear to settle down and fall asleep and there’s a really stupid, petty, catty side of me that’s been envious of that, even though my mom never does it to spite me.

Today, she laid in my arms for hours and didn’t move until just after 6, when her fever jumped to 105.1 and we had to plunk her into another tepid bath. (did not like.) Afterward, I took her into her bedroom and rocked her in the rocking chair for longer than she’s ever let me. When I thought she’d fallen asleep, I let the arm that wasn’t supporting her drop to my side a little. Immediately, she reached up to my shoulder and ran her hand along the outside of my arm, pulling it around her again. She didn’t even open her eyes.

I leaned in and whispered, “I love you, Bear” and I heard her say - very, very quietly - “Ah yahzz yoo, Mama.”

Today might be the best day of my whole life.

I kinda hate how being charitable has become a bit of a trend in that people will buy things just because the manufacturer claims that .05% of the proceeds go to curing dyslexia in chimps or something. I like doing things for people but only when I feel like I’m actually DOING something. That’s not to say that I have to get a Thank You note from everyone at St. Jude’s just because I send them an annual Christmas donation… I just like knowing that when I do something nice for someone else, it’s actually going to directly benefit someone. This is why I give blood to the Red Cross, for example. Because it’s far less likely for someone to embezzle my Type O+ than my spare change.

ANYWAY. Christmas always makes me get extra bloody-hearted and, in addition to sending my Compassion sponsored child a little something, I always kinda go a little nuts on the overzealous giving. (Except with the Salvation Army because those bastards won’t help anyone without legal immigration papers… ‘Cause that’s what Christ was about, apparently: shafting kids from decent Christmases because their parents brought them into a foreign country without proper documentation… grumblegrumblegrumble…) And I tend to get a little preachy about the need to share love with other people, even moreso than usual.

So here are my Top 3 Picks for Nice Things You Can Do for a Real Person 2009:

Help The Vereen Family
After developing preeclampsia and HELPP Syndrome during her first pregnancy, Katie Vereen had to give birth to her twin daughters at MUSC (Charleston, SC) after only 24 weeks in gestation. Randi Katherine and Hayden Marie were born on November 27, 2009, both weighing little more than 1 lb. each. Although in need of immediate intensive care, the girls were joyful arrivals for Katie and husband Jon. Despite fighting a hard battle, Randi passed away on December 2. Hayden and Katie continue fighting for full recovery and are staying strong thanks to prayers and love from friends and family. The Vereen Family Fund was created to help pay for medical expenses as well as gas for Jon to drive to and from the Vereens’ home in Myrtle Beach to see his wife and daughter as often as possible.

All proceeds made at my Yum in the Tub shop from December 11-18 will go directly to this foundation and I’ve even marked down prices to $9 per jar or 2 for $15.

However, if you are interested in donating directly to the Vereen family without making a scrub purchase, please contact me at liz.ps@live.com.

Make a Soldier’s Wishes Come True
Get your head out of the gutter. I’m talking about filling a wishlist for a soldier of any gender who is stationed overseas during the holidays. On AnySoldier.com soldiers post requests for things they’d love to have filled by a Good Samaritan who may be up to the task. The requests from gals abroad range from practical things like toothpaste and tampons to more fun items like mascara or scented lotions which can be a real luxury while working in the trenches.

Send a Stranger a Christmas/Holiday Card

While finding a random address in the phone book to send a card to is always fun, there are people out there who are genuinely grateful to get holiday greetings. A popular organization I send cards through from time to time is MakeAChildSmile.org that allows volunteers to write cheerful mail to seriously ill children to read while they’re being treated. There’s also HugsAndHope.org and Post Pals that are similar in concept. I’ve only gotten a few responses, which is expected with these kids’ busy schedules and general weaknesses from treatments, but it only costs a couple bucks to pick up a coloring book and some crayons and give a kid something to do instead of staring at hospital walls.

Also, being a fan of writing to incarcerated women, I always find 5-10 inmates on death row to send some holiday-season cheer to through WriteAPrisoner.com. (No, I’m really not kidding.) Through the website you can see what they’re in for, what they look like, whether or not they’re soliciting money or legal help from strangers, etc. I’ve always chosen straight women (as opposed to men or women interested or looking for other women… like I need that kind of drama) on the other side of the country incarcerated for life sentences, who aren’t on the site for any other reason than because they’re lonely to say “Happy holidays!” to and have only gotten grateful responses. (As opposed to negative ones.) It sounds weird and off-putting, but these are the people who are most often forgotten during the holidays and some of them really have become different people in the slammer. (Although some definitely haven’t, which is why I write to people far far away.)

It probably wasn’t noticeable from the exterior, but 2009 was perhaps the most monumental year I’ve had in a little more than a decade as far as my mentality and resulting general life course goes. I know that sounds terrible considering I had a child in 2007 and got married in 2008 but honestly, 2009 is when everything about who I was and what my life was about during the last 10-14-ish years drew to a close.

See, around the time my mind started messing with me in a clinical sense, some people that I deemed “Important” began to make me believe these negative things about myself that weren’t true. As the story goes, these beliefs lead to more profound false beliefs which fueled actions to back up the initial beliefs and then allowed me to believe more lies about my identity handed to me by predatory self-loathing idiots and it all just spiraled out of hand and turned into this huge mess in which I had successfully morphed myself into this godawful person I never actually should’ve believed I was in the first place. Since 2003-ish when I first started realizing what a mess I’d gotten myself into, I’ve been steadily trying to pick up the pieces, refigure everything out and clean up the catastrophic messes I made. (I’m not saying I’ve been successful the whole time since then, by the way. In fact, I spent the first couple years after that continuing to inadvertently botch things out of sheer habit and blurred vision.) And, in the last couple years or so, I’ve finally gotten to a place where I’m consistently happy and [relatively] stable enough that I can really look back on all of it and go “Okay, since this is the most sane I’ve ever been, let’s see if we can figure out exactly what the hell actually happened with a [relatively] clear perspective…”

Okay, looking back on things and overanalyzing them is nothing new for me. In fact, it’s been pretty damned exhausting hauling that neurosis around with me for over half my life. However, this time when I took a second (or a week) for retrospection, I actually felt this incredible sense of closure and profound relief.

No, it’s true! In the last year I’ve finally gotten over some people and events that not only don’t exist and/or don’t matter anymore but really never did matter to begin with. (Yes, I’m still a bit embarrassed that I built such a huge framework for my life out of complete bullshit, but I’m certainly not about to waste any more time feeling sorry about it or worrying about what I could’ve done differently.) A few months ago I even performed a little one-person ritual in which I identified all the lies and false authorities on which I’d built my self-worth and discarded them formally. (There was a lot of candle-lighting, stone-charging, body-cleansing and meditation involved.) And then I sat down and identified all the truths about myself and my life that I’ve always known and that people who love me have always been willing to support. And honestly, it felt like a complete mental molting of sorts.

But wait! That’s not all that happened this year! This year I finally (FINALLY) was able to make all the amends to people I’d hurt that I’d been needing to for many many years. I honestly never really wanted any sort of response or forgiveness from these few leftover people (although forgiveness is always welcome) but I just needed to know that I did all I could to at least deliver the genuine apology that was deserved, no matter how past-due. Somehow, not only did I get this knowledge of successfully delivered messages, but I was honestly listened to and respected by the recipients, my apologies heard and taken seriously. I was even granted forgiveness, which was the icing on the cake and the ice cream on the side. The feeling that I don’t owe anyone else an apology for anything is an incredible novelty to me and makes me value and choose my actions with impeccable care. (This is not to say I’m not going to offend people or step on toes ever again - I do it at least monthly. I just don’t make offending others an objective anymore.)

And, in addition to being liberated from this completely invisible fear-based “prison” of false beliefs I’d crafted around myself based on the opinions and actions of people who are worthless AND finding closure from my unbelievable cruelty in the past, I also was able to finally get away from Myrtle Beach/South Carolina, (which really turned out to be more of a symbolic liberation than a physical one as I’d finally gotten to a place where I adore(d) the people I’d chosen to surround myself with there.)

With all of these genuinely life-and-mind-altering events combined I was finally able to look at my life objectively and see - without guilt or denial or refusal - all the truths and blessings that are lying in my lap, this great existence that kind of just happened upon me and the realization that, if I don’t go and screw it all up (again) I have the potential to do whatever it is that I may want to do. (Figuring that out is another issue altogether.) And I have more loving friends than any human deserves cheering me on, so I kind of owe it to everyone who bothers to have faith in me as a human (including myself) to point myself in a direction and quit making whiny, self-loathing, fear-based excuses as to why “I can’t”. And now that I’m not wasting all my time hurting over the past and the idiots I let dominate it/me or trying to therapanize (new word alert!) my brain into normal, everyday functionality, I don’t really have any excuse not to.

So it seems like my reevaluation and life-participation in 2010 is a bit more important than usual. This being said, none of these completely-invisible-but-totally-important changes I’ve made in 2009 were on my Resolutions list, so I’m not going to base the rest of my existence on some list I scribble down in the next few weeks. However, with all the shit I’ve been able to throw out of my daily life in the last year and where that’s put me right now, I know I’ve got a lot more momentum going forward than I have in a really really long time. It excites me to dream about what that will allow me to do between now and 2012 when the world/existence comes to a screeching halt.* I’d better get started.

* No, I don’t believe that crap.

The thing about being one of those people who doesn’t believe in mere coincidence is that it makes it impossible to ever ignore my current circumstances. This Thanksgiving, to my terror, I took a second or seven to zoom out and get a screengrab of The Big Picture to find that it was painfully obvious that I’m exactly where I am because I’m destined for something effing massive.

Whoa, hang on. Don’t think I’m getting all egomaniacal here because this actually applies to you, too. However, being that I can’t speak on anyone’s [mental] behalf other than myself, I’m limited to a self-reflective angle from which to pontificate. Surprise surprise.

Let’s look at the bare facts:
Literal millions of people have worked for thousands of years to give me the life I have right now. Suffragettes were beaten and imprisoned so I can vote. Architects spent years smoothing out designs to give me affordable housing. Agriculturalists of every type have spent decades providing me with access to fresh, top-quality food of every variety from around the globe that is delivered within moments of my house. Thousands of hands have worked to create pretty things for me to hang in my closet. A bunch of crazy radicals who’d just had enough of their oppressive theocratic home country climbed aboard a tiny boat and moved to North America and begat a whole other group of crazy radicals who waged a grassroots war and started a whole new country so I can have the right to choose my own religion and say whatever the hell it is I want to say. Scientists and their research assistants spent decades perfecting treatments for potentially deadly diseases so I could be treated for various ailments and make it to the age of 26 without any major scares. Some dude sent his intern out in a thunderstorm with a key tied to a kite so he could learn about electricity so I can have refrigerated food and pay my bills online and can stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Hell, another guy tried 3000 times to make a light bulb so I can see what I’m doing at night. Someone else built a bed for me, someone else (the guy with the key and the kite) decided to give everyone in my country a free education, someone else invented an automobile that would take me across 2,000 miles in just a couple days, someone else researched the inner workings of the human mind and developed a way to talk it into functionality, someone else invented a system of symbols that would allow me to communicate with other people on a sheet of paper, someone else figured out how to boil wood and turn it into paper… The list goes way way on. And it’s pretty damned staggering, actually.

If I stop and look at all these incredible luxuries that have been provided for me to exist from day to day, it’s kind of overwhelming to think about how many people spent thousands of years slowly molding the world around me to be exactly right for my life at this exact moment, all wrought with comfort and access and privilege.

And then there are the more specific, “luck”-based facts of my life. I live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world where even the homeless can find a meal and even panhandlers can make $50,000 a year in small cities. I live in a time where communication with the globe is second nature and a wealth of information literally sits in the palm of our hands every day. I live in an era where women are taken seriously in the workplace and as intelligent beings (except to idiots, but who gives a shit?) and people of all races live among each other. How convenient.

When I step back and think about the odds of my having arrived right here, right now, as this person, with this particular life, I can’t help but note how incredibly small my chances would be of rolling the same die again.

But I really started realizing something was definitely up when I zoomed in a little closer and looked at my Specifics. I was born into a middle-class, Southern family with two college-educated parents who are not bigoted in any regard and were - for the most part - able to teach me morals, manners and compassion. I have three siblings whose intelligence has been tested in the “Above Average” zone since kindergarten and who have always remained healthy. I have survived numerous insanely dangerous situations, including a botched suicide attempt and a handful of evenings where I drove or attended shady parties/events by myself while in a days-long drunken blackout. I accidentally became pregnant while in the only healthy, sane, happy relationship I’d ever been in. I was approached and “adopted” by my AA sponsor when I was 20 years old, thus giving me the tools to combat my penchant for constant overembibing at an early enough age so that I didn’t ruin my entire existence. And frankly, I never had a traumatic childhood. I mean, yeah, there’s dysfunction I’ve seen that I can speak candidly about but there was no dark familial abuse, no alcoholism or addiction in my immediate family… in fact, I never once rode the school bus to or from school and my mom was still packing me a lunch in the 12th grade. Suffice to say, things were alright for me on a fundamental level. (We’re leaving out all the mental fuckery and how I used to habitually screw up all sorts of good things because of my self-sabotaging needs for now, enkay?)

I seem to have a good deal of luck on my side.

With all of this genuinely incredible evidence sitting in front of me it slowly started to sink in that maybe the Universe had “conspired to shower me with all these blessings” (as repeated repeatedly in Rob Breszny’s Pronoia) for more than just show. I mean, seriously, what are the odds?

And no matter how I might sit around and doubt myself and get all whiny about my abilities (which I still believe may be severely lacking outside my knowledge) and my pathetic floundering with self-worth, the evidence that the Universe isn’t paying attention to my petty excuses and has already clearly decided I’m worthy of Importance and a Big Purpose is unavoidable. And for someone like me who focuses so much on the “Attitude of Gratitude” (ugh… AA cliches) it would seem incredibly hypocritical not to recognize these gifts for what they are and maybe not squander them.

This is not to say I know exactly what this Great Purpose actually is at the moment but I really should trust that if the Universe helped me out so much up to this point, it obviously will let me know what The Plan is when I need to. And I’d be a real shithead if I said, “Yeah, thanks for all the awesomeness you’ve worked for thousands of years to surround me with, but I’m really just not up for whatever it is you have in mind as a way for me to return the favor. Thanks, though.”

So this year at Thanksgiving, the list of Things I’m Thankful For really became more of a “List of Reasons Why I Should Push Myself Toward Excellence with the Reckless Abandon of Someone About to Die.” I even sat down and wrote a massive list of things I’m genuinely grateful for that are even more reason why I shouldn’t settle for mediocrity and why my life is honest-to-God Important in a big way (heaps of these reasons coincide with others’ but, again, I can’t talk for err’body.)

Sickeningly, like a crazy postmodern gag-gift from God, the rush of warmth, comfort and incredible motivation I found from this List of Gifts was the thing I’m most grateful for this year.

Oh, the aftertaste of saccharin and sentiment.

I’m not one of those people who tends to fling myself wildly into trendy causes or mass events. I don’t celebrate St. Patrick’s Day (because I’m not Irish and I don’t get wasted anymore) or Cinco de Mayo (because I’m not Mexican and I don’t get wasted anymore), I don’t donate money to anything claiming that they’re “stopping global warming”, and I kind of have emotional qualms with Talk Like a Pirate Day. (Honestly, why are we promoting pirates as a cool thing!?! I just don’t like glorifying people who were into raping, murdering and robbing people. If anyone who claims to be a pirate fan actually ran into a pirate from any era, you’d be none too happy about it. ::Sigh:: /tirade)

But this year a new grassroots event has sprung up and caught the attention of millions of people [thanks to the magic of Facebook-word-of-mouth] that I actually stand behind and am more than willing to support and perpetuate. To Write Love On Her Arms is a group who initially started out to earn money for a friend who was struggling to pay for her rehab bills after dealing with depression and addiction. They began selling t-shirts with the words “To Write Love On Her Arms” (which was the name of a short story one of them wrote about depression, addiction, self-mutilation and suicide) and found that the story and their cause really spoke to a lot of people. From that, they have worked to create an actual day dedicated to promoting awareness about depression and the other associated issues in which they ask participants to simply write “love” on their arms as a means of showing support for victims/survivors of depression.

Alright. I know this is something that a lot of kids are doing because cutting has somehow become a weird social trend in teenagers (BOTHERSOME) and because this group of people are relatively young and can make cool stuff like t-shirts and get popular musicians and celebrities on board it’ll have a very fad-style following at the beginning. So I know I’m totally flinging myself on a youth-perpetuated holiday that may be trendy as hell and very well may fade if the organizers get tired of working for the cause. (I pray they don’t.)

However, as someone to which every issue of TWLOHA’s mission applies, I feel that this sort of awareness-promoting holiday is long long overdue. I mean, we have an entire month for breast cancer awareness, which, while necessary and beautiful, doesn’t apply to nearly as many people as addiction and mental illness does. The truth of the matter is, there’s no reason the old stigmas of mental illness still exist. Because nobody knows how to publicly discuss it like any other health problem, our society has become completely schizophrenic about it, overmedicating some people who are just suffering from real life, while those who desperately need help don’t seek treatment because they’re still under the impression that it’ll make them appear crazy. Sadly, the latter of these two types aren’t inaccurate in their predictions as there are still tons of people from slightly older generations who perpetuate said stigmas constantly. (When my husband and I were talking to a health insurance agent before we got married, I calmly told the agent that I had a long history with depression and had been hospitalized twice for it. He kinda chuckled nervously and asked my then-fiance, “You sure you want to marry her?” Yeah, we didn’t buy shit from that guy…) There’s just not enough information being discussed in logical, mature settings to change the mindsets of those people who don’t bother to understand mental illness and addiction and so, we’re left with those ignorant outsiders believing that depression is just something people need to “snap out of” or addiction is “all about self-control”, which adds a whole new layer to the struggle of those who suffer from these very real illnesses.

When someone tells friends and family that they have cancer, nobody tries to tell them that it’s all in their head; they rally around the friend, actively helping them seek treatment or earn funds, etc. This doesn’t happen for mental illness patients. When people are hospitalized for mental illness, there are no cards and flowers, there are no fundraisers to help pay for medical bills, there isn’t an outpouring of love and concern. Friends and family of the mentally ill are often so confused and clueless as to how to go about dealing with these people that they say nothing at all out of their fear, which only adds to the victim’s belief that they’re not worth the time and energy to save. A lot of times, they take this a step further and criticize the judgment of the victim/survivor, telling each other that this person is doing what they’re doing for attention or that they’re too crazy or unstable to be bothered with anymore.

This is something I have experienced firsthand. I experienced being belittled and ignored when I expressed my very real symptoms of depression to those around me when it started in my pre-teen years and I felt the confusion and ostracization from those around me each time I was hospitalized. These outside influences and social mentality allowed me to continue believing that my self-destructive behaviors and self-loathing beliefs were based in truth. It allowed me to feel isolated even further from the people who were supposed to love me unconditionally. It allowed me to feel hopeless and it took the momentum out of my new actions for recovery. My story is not unique.

So I’m adamantly in favor of this holiday, organization and entire movement. I don’t care if that makes me look like I’ve mindlessly climbed on board some new trend; this is something my heart really stands behind.

There have to be more discussions about how to care and show love for the people who suffer from this very real problem. Mental illness education has to be put on the health class curriculum in schools. People have to start listening to facts and changing their minds about depression and addiction to create a society that supports and promotes recovery and hope. This movement has to happen if there’s ever going to be any sort of hope for the mentally ill.

As an Addict and Mentally Ill Patient in Recovery, this is something I both need and want to see succeed.

Today I’m painting “Love” on my arms. I’d like to invite you to do the same.

Earlier today I wrote a blog post in which I addressed my 13 year old Self, hoping to pass on a little hope and wisdom to her years ahead. Although it wasn’t anywhere close to my best work, I found it to be healing and significant nonetheless.

This afternoon, I went to the local DMV to finally apply for a North Carolina drivers license. When I was filling out my registration, the agent mentioned that I was already on file from 1996, when I received a government ID in order to fly alone, which I had forgotten about until that moment. A freaking HOUR later, I sat in the chair and tried not to look dead-eyed for my license photo (Unsuccessful.) When the agent took my picture she glanced at the screen and kinda snorted before giving me the universal “Heh. Come here; you’re gonna love this” hand signal.

I turned the corner and was instantly stunned into paralysis, while the same brace-faced, clueless 13 year old girl I’d only just spoken to earlier today smiled back at me from the screen. (Apparently, they never discarded my photograph for official documentation purposes.) Her face, full of monobrowed, padded-headbanded glory and aching insecurity sat directly beside the image of my immediate Self, who appeared calm, suitably groomed and a bit more sure of herself than she actually is.

And for a moment, there at the Sanford DMV, it was just the two of them staring at me and the two of me staring back. And none of us knowing what it meant but all of us knowing that we understood.

Later, I asked my husband if it sounded crazy to wonder if my sentimental message of hope and love released into the Universe in hopes to reach 13 year old Me actually did have any sort of effect on how I was able to maintain a glimmer of hope in the times between 13 and 26 years old when there seemed not to be any left at all. He said it didn’t sound insane to him, but then, he’s used to obliging my Crazy - so long as it’s of the harmless variety - so I’m still a little leery.

Something about directly conjuring her image last night and admitting to myself that I did love her, I do love her, I always have loved her and writing it all down and sending that love and forgiveness and hope for her out into the Universe (via blogosphere) only to be directly confronted with her in the physical realm later that day in a completely unexpected situation that was just a random occurrence… her image taken at that exact, crucial age, during the Autumn, in a place I would never expected to encounter her again… It all just seems like a bit more than coincidence, given the specifics and the time frame.

I’d like to believe I received a “Thank you”, sent from a Self I was many years ago. Suddenly, I feel connected to this Self again with the realization that we’ve healed from each other. I’m not busy hating her and blaming her for her inevitable flaws because I see where this rugged, nearly insurmountable path has lead me, with her as my guide. And she doesn’t have any more pain from my abandoning and betraying of her at every opportunity I had, mostly because she sees how it is helping her grow, (even if it’s not her first choice method.)

Whatever insane, metaphysical energy shift that just happened, I do know that this tiny event/coincidence will warm my heart far longer than any other relationship’s resolution has.

I wonder what our reunion will look like when I am 39.

Dear 13 yr. old Self,

Hey! I was driving back from Raleigh to Sanford last night and listening to Nirvana and thought of you. Because it’s October and all the trees are changing colors, I remembered how much you liked the view from your bedroom window and I sort of wanted to join you there and scribble some more in that red plaid journal you keep in your bedside table.

Anyway, I thought that, because I’m twice as old as you are, I thought it’d be fitting to at least touch base with you where you are at that ever-so-pivotal and formative era and compare notes. (Oh, don’t get weary of hearing all about the elusive mystery of adolescence just yet because it honestly never ends. Seriously. Scores of people are obsessed with the “coming of age” years, even beyond John Hughes.) However, because we’ve both seen “Back to the Future” a million times, I’m sure you understand why I can’t start doling out advice or telling you how things are going to be 13 years down the road. Unlike when Doc came to tell Marty that his son was in trouble, I’m keeping my mouth shut because I’m rather pleased with the way things are in 2009 and I don’t want to say anything that might screw it all up. (I know! “2009″ sounds totally weird, right?)

Don’t get me wrong, though. There’s a massive pile of stuff I want to at least warn you about or try to advise you to do differently because, you know, experiencing heartrending pain isn’t fun. (You might’ve noticed.) It’s kind of like being a mother to a child and wanting that child to turn out to be really well-rounded and competent and socially adept and strong but knowing that she’s going to have to deal with and weather a lot of bullshit before she gets to that point. It’s all imperative to growth but it sucks to have to walk through together.

And that’s the point of me writing to you is to tell you that I’m here. I don’t mean to ostracize you or make you feel ignorant by saying, “You’ll understand this more when you get older” but I know you’re smart enough to get that I’m not intentionally being insulting. Please know that there’s nothing you’re feeling right now that I don’t fully understand. I get it. I’ve seen and remember all of it. I know the reasons you think you’re crappy and why you hate certain people and how you feel about certain things and I know that sort of omniscience from me is annoying but I just want you to know that I’m on board with all that. And I love you anyway.

No, I really do. And not in the way that mothers love their children because they have to or how people choose to love people because they’re settling. I really, honestly love you. And I think you’re pretty amazing, actually.

Yes, okay, you’re incredibly awkward-looking and you have no idea what you’re doing sartorially. (Those get better with time - the former slightly more than the latter - but just be thankful for that amazing rack you have. It’s pretty amazing for an 18 yr. old, let alone a 7th grader. And you didn’t have to pray a single day for it, right? Give thanks.) And, yes, you’re painfully insecure, which causes you to be horrible to people you feel threatened by. And you’re culturally inept and things with your parents have just started getting interesting and you’re often that weird girl who talks about sex or left-wing politics too much and you’re confined to those god-awful braces for another year and there hasn’t been a single male human who’s shown any interest in you since the 4th grade and you have to ride around in that giant bus your mom drives around and you have a deeper voice and more facial hair than anyone else in your class and you’re madly in love with someone who will never ever love you back and you only have enough money for a pair of Arizona jeans and some cK One knockoff fragrance for your autumn wardrobe… I get it. You’re tragically, unforgivably flawed and your first years as a pre-adult are not anywhere close to what you were hoping.

Let me clue you in on something that I don’t think will hurt your natural progression: Every single person your age feels exactly the same way you do. Every single one. Even those cocky douchebags who have throngs of girlfriends and torment you daily are freaking out on the inside about how tragically flawed they are, too. I swear. And here’s the real kicker, ready? This whole self-centered mentality is going to continue for at least another 4-6 years with those people you’re around. Seriously! I know you’re positive that all anyone’s thinking of is how much you suck every time you walk into a room and it’s easy to believe that when you’re constantly being reminded by idiots around you that they think you suck. Here’s the thing [that I'm hoping you'll believe because it's me you're talking to here instead of some adult who couldn't know what they're talking about because they don't know what it's like to be you]: everyone is so busy freaking out that everyone else is going to notice how much they suck that they try to hurl the negative attention onto someone else preemptively. And, because you’re the one who’s always had good grades and a loud mouth, you’re the top candidate at the moment. Apparently, you’re pretty intimidating. Good work! (If you want proof of this, wait until one of those little shitheads tries to embarrass you by loudly calling you a “dyke” again and then ask them how many times they’ve jerked off to two girls going at it. If you throw in a wink at the end, I guarantee they’ll have no immediate response.)

Just, above anything else, remember that those people who think that “these are the best years of your life” are the people who have done nothing exciting or of value since they were 18. And in Adult World [that lasts way longer than jr. & sr. high put together], those people suck.

I know. I know. It doesn’t matter who you’re hearing this stuff from; it can’t change how you actually feel about it and deal with it, even if the person telling you all this knows everysinglething about you. It’s cool. I’m not taking it personally.

I’ll spare you any more lectures and, no, I’m still not giving up any secrets. I will tell you that things get a little better for a while, then interesting and fun, then bad, then fun and bad with a little good, then kinda bad but you don’t really notice because you’re still having fun, then very very very dark and then awful and then completely intolerable (literally) and then, just when you’re positive it’s always going to be awful because it has been gradually so since right around now, it gets really unbelievably, incredibly, amazingly wonderful and it stays that way for longer than you can remember. I promise.

So that’s what you have to look forward to. And I wanted you to know so that, during these next 13 years, you’ll keep a glimmer of hope in your heart to keep yourself moving forward. I know you’ll disagree with me, but I believe you’re better than all that crap you’re grappling with right now and I know you’ll figure out how to get rid of it over time.

I do love you. And I think you’re exactly where and who you should be right now. Trust me on this one.

Much love and light,

Mrs.* Castallare

*

On Sunday I was given the Blatant, Irrefutable, Divine Sign of Guidance I’d been begging for for months.
On Monday I received a hand-written postcard [with original art] from one of my lifelong heroes. (The actor! Not the characters!)
On Tuesday I finally finally felt peace and a sense of closure about a wrong I have been conscious of and trying to right for eight years now.
On Wednesday I sat and talked with my college roomie for six hours and we only stopped because it was 1 a.m. and I had an hour’s drive home. She is one of the few who watched me at my very worst (all in a tiny dorm room) and still actively seeks my company. This is amazing to me.
And Thursday? Well that’s the first anniversary of our wedding.

Aside from this, I’ve also had four unbelievable friends take a liberal amount of time this week to exchange lengthy emails with me about the recent varied troubles I’ve been having and how they understand on a personal level. These were all unsolicited messages of concern and all were about a different issues but all were so thoughtful and thorough. I was floored by these friends’ continued willingness to heap love and support on me, regardless of how self-centered I tend to be during my dark moments.

I don’t know why it’s such a surprise to me when I realize it again and again but Dear God, I’m blessed.

Usually, in these rare times when the Universe actively floods my path with reiterated love, support and reminders of my importance, I still struggle to believe it hasn’t been misguided, that I’m not being mistaken for someone else. That fear and resistance is still here, but this week, I’ve mostly found refuge and much needed rest in this warm, deep, swelling Love that Something Out There deems me worthy of.

~ I have my first audition in five years with a professional theatre here in town. While I’m excited to be getting back into theatre, I’m petrified as I haven’t acted in about 3-ish years, I haven’t sung anything except karaoke since my vocal register changed (pregnancy wreaks havoc on EVERYTHING) and, after thorough review of every performance I’ve ever given, I’ve pretty objectively realized I’m not much to look at on stage, nor do I have any level of awareness or implementation of any techniques I may have learned in my 5 years of arts school education. I’m afraid I’m going to look like one of those idiot ‘American Idol’ contestants who’s too deluded to realize they should stick to something else.

~ I just got back from a seriously blissful weekend in Atlanta. While the trip was primarily to visit with my husband’s family, I spent about half the time visiting with my own family and friends which was just incredible, almost to a degree I wasn’t expecting. The Bear and I drove my mother’s behemoth 1998 Suburban down for the 6-hour trip a day early (we had piles of babythings to return to my cousin who gave them to us mistakenly believing they were through with having children) and spent a night and an extra evening visiting with one of my oldest and dearest friends (it’s interesting; I haven’t known her longer than any of my other childhood friends, but she’s the only good friend I can say I’ve been close to the longest.) in her AMAZINGly posh little neighborhood in the Highlands area of Atlanta. The Bear and I stayed with her and her poor, unassuming fiance who was so tolerant of Chloe’s incessant excited squeals while he was recovering from a very very recent oral surgery that I feel I owe him a kidney or something. Anyway, being able to catch up and spend some actual “hang-out-and-talk-about-stuff-other-than-general-catch-uppery” time with her was a rare treat and then being able to see her again the next night at her family’s Football Marathon Extravaganza was even cooler. (Best meal I’ve had in years. Literally. Her brother smoked melt-in-your-mouth barbecue and this crazy Bacon Explosion - we called it the Coronary Log - that was woven bacon wrapped around sausage wrapped around bacon and smoked into a magical, life-shortening log of majesty. And then her dad provided home grown Georgia peaches for homemade peach ice cream that almost made me start speaking in tongues.)
Aside from getting to have a social life with real, actual friends who aren’t obligated to be around me for familial or occupational reasons, I was able to visit with my siblings one morning for a mind-altering breakfast at the Flying Biscuit where I devoured an organic pumpkin pancake stack drizzled with maple syrup and pralines that, also, made me consider going into the priesthood or taking Jesus as a groom. We hit the Decatur Book Fest which wasn’t nearly as cool as I was expecting (I was hoping for book sales galore and only got indie authors hawking their wares en masse) but I did get to meet the guys from Mental Floss and yell at them for monopolizing all of my productivity and spare time with their addictive informative site and intriguing trivia. Plus, I got one of the founders to sign a book for me! Whee! The highlight of this whole thing, however, was that I got to spend some time with my siblings who I always just assume want to be around me to see my daughter. However, when my brother seemed genuinely excited to hang out with us sans Bear later on that evening I’m not sure I’d been so touched in a very long time.

And THEN, as if my weekend wasn’t emotionally rich enough, I got to stop off at my cousin’s incredible little bungalow in Roswell, Georgia where he and his wife made us lunch and their daughter spent two enamored hours bringing the Bear into hysterical giggles I haven’t heard other than when she’s being tickle tortured (Always go for the feet with little wet wipes. Works every time, even during frantic sobs of age-associated protest.) I tend to gravitate toward my cousin as a means of shared sanity as we both have been the ones in our families who have absorbed that swept-under-the-rug dysfunction and have had the residual emotions manifest in our mental states. Because of our shared experiences with years of therapy and learning how to implement those tools into the sanity surrounding us, we have a lot in common in that we look at things objectively and are often the ones accused of being melodramatic or just insane by those who would rather blame and ostracize the “crazy one” for familial craziness instead of beginning a process of self-evaluation and transformation themselves. (::Sigh::) Nonetheless, while both of us have reached a point in our lives where we’re emotionally self-sufficient and no longer willing to sit around and whine about being victims or other cowardly shows of general laziness, we have a mutual understanding of the ability to look at dysfunctional insanity and disassociate with it on a personal level, which is something I often feel very very alone in. It’s always nice to be able to get together with him and compare notes although sometimes I feel bad that our conversations usually go that direction before moving on to anything else, simply because we see each other so rarely and it’s such a sense of relief to have someone who understands who is also within the family. (Luckily, both of us have fantastic spouses who are objectively level-headed but still always on our team… even if we’re wrong… That being said, there’s something to be said for having someone who can understand and relate to my exact situation because he’s witnessed and experienced the exact same things from the exact same people. There’s definitely a sense of validation there.) And he’s always the first family member I send an email to when I’m dealing with great emotional upheaval or conflict in my personal, family-related life as he’s distant enough to deal with the situation objectively but close enough that he can make observations about the usual participants and the roles and persuasions they embody within the family dynamic.
All this being said, that poor guy has gone through far faaaarrr more family insanity and mental fuckery than I eeever have (selfishly, I’m unbelievably thankful for this) so, while his life experiences are always to caricature-esque extremes, I feel like I can really learn a lot from his journey to self-realization and his ability to emotionally liberate himself and find happiness in his own life. It’s very inspiring, although heartrending to hear, let alone to physically observe.

So yeah, it was a great weekend for me and a surprisingly emotionally refreshing one to boot. Granted, the Bear has gotten to an age where she’s really selective about her choice of activity and hates being redirected with a passion (It’s so bad that if we try to pull her off a staircase she’s been playing on for ten minutes in public, she’ll fling herself on the ground and begin screaming and kicking. This happens no matter what personal agenda goals of ours conflict with hers, even to the more minute detail, like changing her diaper when she would rather sit and play with her toes. It’s EXHAUSTING.) so it was really hard to go along with the adamant plans of the in-laws without flat out refusing. There were a few times that they were intent on doing a certain thing at a certain time and were inflexible about it, which is perfectly fine and honestly completely understandable and even relatable to us as people who used to have lives with plans and agendas but, being that we have a child who often restricts our freedoms and abilities to do anything according to regimented plans we were constantly trying to assert our inability to participate, which was taken more personally than intended. We were adamant in insisting the group go on without us and enjoy their time in town while we joined them while we could but that usually backfired on us as well. So we found ourselves stuck in awkward positions such as the Sunday morning incident when we took the Bear to a hot, overcrowded zoo filled to the brim with Labor Day Family Vacationers during which she only showed interest in - again - climbing stairs, running after her peers and… that’s about it, actually. As predicted she showed little to no interest in the animals who were barely visible in their tiny but hilly entrapments and, after realizing that we had plans different than hers, began fussing about everything. She didn’t want to be carried, she didn’t want to walk, she didn’t want a juice box, she didn’t want anything in particular but to scream and insist on pushing the stroller up and down a massive ramp and then scream more at us when we tried to thwart her plans. In addition to battling an oncoming migraine that lasted the rest of the evening, I was practicing breathing techniques to restrain myself from angrily reminding everyone that I did say this would happen and that we would definitely have been better suited for her to have visited in the early-to-mid afternoon, after her nap when all the other kids were still taking theirs and she could have a little more breathing room like my husband and I said at the beginning. (I’m sorry to sound like a ruthless bitch here but we do, after all, spend all our time with this little person. We do have a general idea of how she functions and her inability to adapt to anyone else’s plans. It’s a flexibility we’ve been forced to learn in order to keep screaming meltdowns to a minimum and maintain some semblance of sanity.) When the Bear fell asleep in the car before we left the parking lot and was awake by 1:30 p.m. within an hour of us laying her down for a nap, I was even more frustrated by the validity of my prediction. (It was the one time in my life I honestly wished I could have been wrong just to avoid more of the I-told-you-so’s-and-why-doesn’t-anyone-listen frustrations.) ::sigh:: And, of course, when we insisted that the rest of the group stay and get their money’s worth out of their visit, we were met with genuinely well-intended “of course nots!” which were appreciated but not out of character and was even more of a reminder that this often happens in such situations that could easily have been avoided. I’m definitely not saying that it doesn’t royally suck to have a child who is such a prima donna and demands her way on schedule all the time (it totally does), but, knowing that this is the sort of person who is often among the most popular in this sort of family gathering, I would think that those around us would try to accommodate that for the sake of everyone’s sanity at the least. The weirdest part of all of this is that it’s beneficial to EVERYONE involved when concessions are made to keep her happy as we are all given more time to enjoy ourselves and nobody’s having to run off to quell her fussiness, so, again, the insistence on ignoring our always-accurate warnings is beyond me. Especially since there have been a surplus of consistent examples to back my assertions’ accuracy. Still, though, we’re frequently ignored when we attempt excuse ourselves from late-night public dining ventures (again, always from the best intentions from this group of people who just want to include us) and other out-of-synch plans that inevitably end with elevated stress during an epic meltdown.

However, I was incredibly grateful at the offer to take the Bear off our hands for an evening while me and the hubs enjoyed a night out on the town (Don’t go see “Extract”, by the way. Not much to talk about at all and I’m not even sure it’s worth a DVD rental in six months. Seriously disappointing with a protagonist story very similar to that in “Office Space” without nearly as much relatable humor and sense of direction or varied levels of emotion. Everything just felt hollow and forced and, while the cast was full of individually appealing personalities - Mila Kunis is funny, quirky and hot, as always. Jason Bateman is handsome though a bit bumbling and uncertain… as always. Beth Grant is a particular highlight, returning as one of the most hilarious obnoxious bitches imaginable which, despite her real-life sparkling personality, is what she’s simply genius at. - , together they were just like an eclectic collection of thrift store furniture “finds” that are divine by themselves but look like an apartment in a schizophrenic’s mind when flung into the same room. Not an ounce of chemistry in the whole group. So there’s my mini review.) And I was secretly relieved that the in-laws were the victims of Poopocalypse II later in the evening as I’m not sure my heightened exhaustion and end-of-day stress could have handled such an involved event while keeping myself from breaking into tears. (Again, a 6-hour trip with someone who loathes confinement more than myself is taxing of multiple days’ worth of energy and emotion.) Greg and I went to an actual party with real adults that had other stuff to talk about than having babies and then we went out to a movie and stayed out until midnight. I cannot remember the last time we did that together. 11:30, sure. But midnight? Not since I was pre-pregnancy. Amazing.

~ So I’m gearing up for a big week here. Recovery laundry and babycare from this recent trip, a last-minute monologue cramming session, a trip back to Myrtle to return my mom’s car this weekend… it just don’t stop, apparently.