Just look up know you are loved

(You are loved – Stars go dim)

While I am still grieving, and rightfully so, things are starting to look up. I think Saturday was a struggle because I was completely alone all day with nothing to take me away from the negative thoughts and nothing to provide enough distraction to create a motivation to eat and drink. I have a choice. I can be mad at myself for grieving which isn’t going to change the fact that I am, or I can realize that I lost my chance at my long term dream and the light at the end of my tunnel burned out and I graduate in 49 days and have nothing to which to look forward and it is okay to be sad. I am learning to pick the latter, because being angry with myself about grieving isn’t helping anyone.

Sleep is still crazy – but dehydration is partly to blame for that. Some of the nighttime awakenings now are probably thirst driven. With more time I am realizing that even working casual at my job and supplementing with a job at Caribou and maybe taking or teaching some classes on the side wouldn’t be the end of the world. I could make it work and try again next year with a year of experience as a pharmacist.

It is frustrating that while back in October I was being pursued by residency programs in which I had no interest, I now am applying to residency programs where the lack of interest appears to be mutual.

No one wants real me. They only want paper me, and when they find out in the interview they get real me they aren’t interested.

One thing someone said to me came back to memory though, and makes me wonder if I am doing something wrong. Someone told me that later when the interview is over and I am hired we’ll look at who you really are and make plans from there…umm…the only difference between me in an interview and me in real life is that in real life you aren’t going to see me wearing make-up, and I will most definitely be wearing socks, not tights. After seven interviews, wearing tights isn’t AS uncomfortable as it was at the beginning, but I will still wear socks or bare feet over that any day. Am I supposed to lie in interviews? I am not a liar. I am honest to a fault (but I am smart enough to know not to tell people they look pregnant even if it is just their hair that I am looking at). I am not capable of lying even when it would be the smart thing to do. For me, a little white lie is essentially a big fat no. And besides, if someone hired me on the basis of a lie, that wouldn’t bode well for the future of my employment…especially since I’d probably guiltily admit my lie sooner rather than later and they’d know they weren’t getting what they thought they were getting.

I am not a quitter. I refuse to let everyone be right that I can’t do it. I might not get my dream job right away, but I am going to get there eventually. I definitely have plans to continue to get closer to my dream job the best I can.

I saw this quote on a blog “I’m always OK, especially when I’m not.” Yep…that’s so me. I just finished crying and some people asked me how I was and I said I was okay. Not totally convinced considering the wet red eyes, they asked again, and okay was still my answer…(so there might be one area where I am slightly less than truthful, but in reality I am okay as long as you define okay as that my heart is pumping oxygenated blood)…Part of my problem is that the less okay I am the more my ability to communicate decreases and therefore the more I need the scripting of being “okay.” The other part of the problem is that I am a chronic people-pleaser…

I am still drowning, but I am doing better…at least a little…a candy package in my box said good source of protein…it became my lunch…if it is something I am interested in eating then it counts as a meal at this point. I want to get back to balanced appropriately sized meals, but for now hitting one of those criteria is the goal…I should probs buy some jolly ranchers, because my manager gave me one on Friday and it was so perfect because I could put it in my mouth and with zero effort get calories…and it tasted awesome…I love sugar…and considering the last time I did a blood glucose screening I was at 56mg/dL, I don’t think sugar is a problem…

Side note that it is starting to get super frustrating that my phone never has service. At my parents house I had service in most places in the house even if I didn’t have it anywhere else, but in the state I am currently living in, I wander around trying to find a signal long enough to send a text and for every text that sends there are multiple that failed or even that look on my phone like they sent but never hit the recipient’s phone.

Today’s big success: starting to believe again that maybe God cares just a teeny tiny little bit…I still agree with Jonah that even death would be better than this, but yesterday there was no way you could have gotten me to even pretend to agree that God cared about me. It might not sound like much, but it is a huge step right now.

Will you catch every tear or will you just leave me here?

(I have this hope – tenth avenue north)

The title of the song isn’t very true for me right now. I am surviving, but just barely clinging to the edge.

Friday I wanted water for the first time in a week and I was working on catching up on calories as best as I could when food still didn’t sound good. I had my second ever performance review. It was very positive and this time the focus was on how awesome I was doing rather than on here is a pile of forms to sign and I’m really sorry but I tried to give you a raise and instead had to fight to let your pay only decrease a little because they audited and found out you cancelled your tech license…not that I didn’t like my first review, but that time coming from a really frustrating appointment, while I was glad to get to sit down with my manager because she was (is) awesome, I just wanted to get it over with…this time I really needed SOMETHING positive. Thankfully even though I had a new manager I wasn’t asked about my career path plans…we kinda all already know that what I want and what is going to happen are impossible to reconcile and that I have no idea what I am doing right now. So, all that to say that Friday was definitely still challenging, but there was a tiny bit of hope that maybe things get better.

Saturday was not so good. So, umm, I pretty much failed. Okay, so I shouldn’t say that. I did keep my car on the road all day without running into other big iron things or getting lost, but in terms of eating and drinking I definitely didn’t meet the arbitrary rules that I set for myself. I told myself that I could go to church but I couldn’t serve unless I’d eaten a reasonable amount and had at least 1 cup of water. Well, this girl decided she needed something positive in life and decided to serve anyway. I justified that I had eaten a bag of apple slices. Yeah, since getting up before 4:30am until getting ready to serve around 4:30pm my intake consisted of MAYBE 2 ounces of water and a bag of apple slices. I mean, at like 11:30 that night I’d had around a cup of water so if you count that into the daily intake even though it technically belongs to the previous day then I met the water requirement.

A friend invited me to come to an event. I decided I might as well go because I figured maybe a distraction would be enough to get SOMETHING in my mouth whether it was a little water or some food or even just a flavorRx sucker. I am so thankful for that. I was an awful conversational partner and definitely acting clingy, but God knew what he was doing. I think. I don’t know. It is hard right now to believe God cares about anything about me. Anyway, at first I was overwhelmed being in a room of strangers and not feeling very social, and it took a while, but eventually I finally found enough motivation to eat a piece of pizza and an oreo and to have some juice. I can’t deny that was a God-thing. Anything else being served I would have probably continued to refuse, but Domino’s pizza is one of my favorite foods and it took an hour or maybe more, but I finally ate. And I’m guessing that was probably not that much lower in calorie count than the peanut butter and jelly corn tortilla sandwich I was originally going to force feed myself. And it was really good to be surrounded by people and laughing. I might still not be sleeping well and struggling to eat and drink appropriately, but at least there are tiny positive mixed in to the overall negative.

The light at the end of the tunnel may have burnt out, but it feels like it was smashed and God is laughing at my pain. If my tangible lightbulb changing skills in the past at my apartment are any indication, it’s going to be really challenging and I might need some help, but once it is done I will realize it could have been a lot easier. I have to hope that metaphorical lightbulbs are enough similar to physical lightbulbs. But hope is hard.

Sometimes she feels like crying but she’s holding on surviving…feeling stronger every day

(Fighter –Jamie Grace)

We all know that little people have big feelings…but sometimes big people have big feelings too…but it isn’t as socially accepted for an adult to have a temper tantrum as it is for a toddler. It isn’t as socially acceptable for an adult to scream and whine and yell about how it’s not fair. It isn’t as socially acceptable to show sadness, anger, or other emotions. We learn as we get older that less positive emotions are for hiding. Then something happens and we have big feelings and don’t have many resources beyond putting on the mask and playing the part of the happy plastic person everyone wants to see. I know that numbing out isn’t a good coping mechanism long term, but short term it is pretty close to the only tool in my tool box. That tool has, unfortunately, gotten a lot of use in my life. Sometimes it feels like God forgets about me sometimes. I just want to be happy.

I am resilient. I am an innovator. When I didn’t have an eye shadow brush to apply my eyeliner, I found a lip liner brush and used that. When I was struggling to make the can opener open the can of evaporated milk I went to my room and grabbed my pocket knife. When the best tool you can think of is a screwdriver, every problem looks like a screw. Yep, I stabbed a couple holes in the top of the can with a screwdriver. The excitement of having a pocket knife to make sharp sticks wore off about a week or so after purchase, but the usefulness continues to make it worth the like $3…yeah, it was cheap and has been abused which explains why I’ve already broken so many pieces…but despite those abilities, there are still very few tools in my emotional tool box. Maybe I’m just broken like the pocket knife.

This week has been hard, but at least the physical manifestations are getting better. I was struggling to eat and drink enough because it just seemed like so much work, and I just didn’t feel hungry or thirsty. I wasn’t sleeping much because I was crying too hard to fall asleep. Yesterday I decided that especially considering I was going to be traveling a lot which is already a time in which I don’t always eat and drink normally that I really needed to get back on track and I worked really hard. I had breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Perhaps not perfectly balanced and definitely missing the snacking that usually gets me to a more normal calorie count for the day, but I ate. For the first time all week I had more than 2 cups of water…probably only like 3 cups, but still, it was progress…and I realized another thing: I don’t know how to celebrate without feeding my face. I wanted to celebrate my accomplishments, but the only ways I knew how to do that were grab some skittles or pour some juice…and that sounded more like a punishment than a reward.

I’ve already cried a few times today, so evidently the more emotional side of grief is still very present, but the physical side is getting better. This morning for the first time all week I WANTED water. Sure, it wasn’t ideal considering how far behind on sleep I am that I woke up and wanted it at 4am, but I got almost a cup of water in…I wasn’t so interested in it anymore when I actually got up for the day, but I got a couple ounces of juice and a cornbread in for breakfast. I also determined that since I was almost definitely calorie deficient this week that I was going to drink the leftover evaporated milk. I mixed in some syrup so it at least wasn’t so disgusting, and I did it! My stomach feels like that was way more food than it was used to eating in a sitting, since I had just eaten lunch, but I know that taking care of my body is important.

Where many a dream has died…we were made to die

(Casting Crowns – Thrive)

Looking at the title of this song, I am pretty sure that I’ve had the lyrics wrong…We were made to thrive is a lot more positive and makes a lot more sense in a Christian song, but TBH, we were made to die is technically also true…and is a truth I am living right now. I am very much aware the only thing that lasts forever is heaven so I really only have to keep holding on second to second, hour by hour, day by day until I get to go to my forever home. None of this is forever.

Basically, this post is the same as my last post, only written when calm enough the sentences and paragraphs might actually make sense and the content is moderately more appropriate. I recognize this still is probably moderately inappropriate, but it is far better than the last post which I was smart enough to password protect due to a few sentences that were wildly inappropriate. (Of course, wildly inappropriate in my world which might very well mean barely scratching the surface of the realm of you might want to rethink that sentence in the outside world).

What do you do when your dreams have died?

It feels like sadness. It feels like betrayal. It feels like disappointment. It feels like frustration. It feels like overwhelm. It feels like I should stop this paragraph before I say something I will regret.

I only ever imagined myself in one particular position. I graduate in May and so I applied to nine positions. I didn’t get any of those positions. I think if I had gotten almost any of those positions I would have been very happy with it. Now that I didn’t get any position, not to mention that one position, it seems like that is the only position that would make me happy and put me in the correct trajectory. I am not a quitter so I am trying again even though I told myself before that if I didn’t match I was going to get a job at Caribou, but I feel like all I am doing is spending a lot of money and time to put myself through a hard position I don’t even want. I wish I were in a different career where at least if you are having to go through the second phase all the application fees are waived…I know one exists because I was on the wrong website one day…

Caribou seems like a good fit. It is a good way to increase my conversational skills and confidence – the areas that I think are probably what kept me from obtaining a position even though no one seems to want to tell me that despite the fact that I made it very clear that my preferred learning style is to have lots of frequent specific feedback. Plus, I tried and failed. Maybe I should listen to what people have been trying to tell me and take a year to re-evaluate whether I should really be a pharmacist…although that is not to say that I don’t recognize that my plan B of social work probably isn’t a career that fits my skillset much better. And I am very much aware that everyone would probably be right in telling my I was throwing away my skills if I worked at Caribou long term.

It seems like I have very few long term goals, but the ones I do get crushed.

• Graduation and my (old) church
• My college choice (didn’t crush me emotionally though until problems started cropping up)
• My college classes (I probably would have made the same choice either way, but I don’t appreciate being lied to as a persuasive technique)
• Becoming an RA (or not)
• Loving my abuser into not hurting me or anyone else (I will admit this one was a Very Stupid Dream and one that I should have realized wasn’t even a good idea)
• Being a straight-A student
• Residency at a particular institution

Like some people said on a TV show I was watching: A: I want what they have. B: What is that? A: They are happy. (pause) B: Are we not the losing team? A/B: Yes we are the losing team!! A/B: Are we not the losing team? A/B: Yes we are the losing team!!

I want to be happy. I saw a big sign that said Take the time to stop and smell the dead grass. I’m not quite sure what the intent was, but I decided it means it is okay to take a break and cry…but I don’t want to. I just want to be happy…but it’s hard when everything my life is built around is out of reach. It’s hard when I am faced with daily reminders of what I can’t have. Pretty sure the only long sleeves I’ve worn in the past year and a half were my winter coat, white coat, and the sweatshirt jacket with the logo of my dream job. The only t-shirts I’ve worn in months are the ones with the logo of my dream job. I own like four badge reels and all have the logo of my dream job. I go to work at the location of my dream job. I make and receive calls from people in the position I wanted that might have been involved in not wanting me. Ninety five percent of my friends in the state I call home are my friends at the location of my dream job.

Before anything happened I knew this week would be hard because next week I have to go back to the physical building of school…now I barely care about that…small blessings? I mean at least if I am already crushed it’ll be hard to crush me further.

Totally unrelated, but I bet you didn’t know they sold 16.9 ounce water bottles in purse size…well, I suppose it wasn’t sold that way, but it was in my hand when I was driving home and then I looked down and it was in my purse…wadded up. We’re not going to talk about driving right now. After totally missing my exit on the way home from work on Sunday, I am now driving with GPS. I saw an accident yesterday and was very glad it wasn’t me…and luckily a very nice pickup truck driver stopped to let me in his lane so I didn’t make a bad choice and turn into a neighborhood where I was going to be completely lost…and potentially go down the rabbit trail of wondering if one of the houses I was passing was the one that I had picked out on Craigslist as my future residence (as a room rental…I certainly don’t need an entire house when I was perfectly happy in 305 square feet).

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I am fearless…well that’s not me

(Cage – Plumb)

I will find out tomorrow if I have a job next year and if it is the one I wanted, but in the meantime, I am really proud of the work I did to get this far. Bravery isn’t lack of fear. Bravery is doing it, scared.

In the month of February, I was on 10 planes. I hate the airport. I hate the complete lack of control…and to be honest, being inconvenienced by people who think the world revolves around them is something I can deal with and brush off when at work, but that really annoys me when it involves other people. I suppose it mostly goes back to the fact that I don’t always value myself as much as I value others so I’d rather take the beating in order to keep it from affecting anyone else, and don’t want anyone else to have to be hurt. Like dude, you booked a flight with American Airlines so the United Airlines gate agent is not going to get you on a flight for free because you changed your mind about when and where you wanted to go. No one cares that you flew with United Airlines last week, but you’ve been talking to this person 45 minutes and they have other things to do to keep people moving in other areas so that we can all get on the flights we paid for…

I made a lot of connections and did a lot of other Big Girl things at the airport that made me proud of myself…and it wasn’t all bad, because on one of my flights there was a really cute baby in the row across from me (which does mean I got exactly zero homework done because that kiddo was so cute!)

I also stayed at a hotel alone for the first time. A hotel alone is definitely a lot more pleasant experience than with three other girls I don’t know well who are LOUD and omnipresent, but is definitely still something that I wouldn’t necessarily choose on my own. It was kind of awesome to be able to call a phone number and have a cookie delivered to my room though.

I booked four AirBnB’s and stayed at three of them. Slightly less scary than a hotel, but still a social experience that was totally new.

I rode a couple buses in Chicago. I may have used GPS on my phone to figure out when to get off, and the prices posted online were wrong which made for an embarrassing first ride when I had to dig through my bag to find more money, but I did it!!

I rode the metrolink near school twice and taught someone else how to ride. Finding it was probably the hardest part for me since that is a task I have done numerous times between school and the other airport terminal…I definitely did consider taking the shuttle to the other terminal so I didn’t have to keep looking for the metrolink platform at the terminal I was at, but I didn’t and I eventually found it.

I used both Uber and Lyft. It is unfortunate I didn’t know how to use new rider deals until after I had used the app and wasn’t eligible anymore, but whatevs…it still got me from point A to point B.

I also paid tolls for the first time. It was terrifying at first, but by the time I got to the last one on my way home it wasn’t scary anymore. If I had it to do again I would have practiced with fast food drive thrus where handing money to a person in a window earns you treats before I had driving in a completely unknown area to contend with in addition to the drive thru without any treats, but I made it…and made a wrong turn shortly after that last one that took me on a detour through downtown Milwaukee during rush hour, but it’s over.

Oh, and I had a wonderful time “sightseeing” in St. Louis…it may have been my version of sight-seeing which mostly involved walking past an intersection and being like HEY I totally recognize this place! It is where I got lost last year!! And ooooh, that is really pretty trash on the ground!…but it seemed dumb to me to get on the metrolink for the sake of going only one stop so I walked. Yes, I do feel safe in St. Louis. My opinion is that it is just as safe as anywhere as long as you have your brain turned on. Not turned on like be jumpy and critical of everything, but turned on as in treat people how you’d like to be treated and if someone is holding a gun then probably you shouldn’t provoke him or her…(not that I remember ever seeing anyone with a gun who wasn’t in uniform…but…it is also a REALLY good idea not to bother anyone in uniform if you value your life…just sayin’)

Only moderately related, but whoever designed the keyboard to have m and n next to each other was not thinking of the consequences…lol…so one of the blogs I follow is The Great Umbrella Heist. To navigate to this page I type Um and the down arrow and enter and am brought to the homepage…unfortunately, this morning my fingers were a little off and I typed Un…and instead of cute kids on the top of my screen I was greeted by something completely different that made me mad.

Moderately related again: pinterest found some cool things for me…I know better than to pin them, but I’m pretty sure my blog has become safe again…so yeah…these quotes made me smile…

“Abusing someone then telling them not to act upset is like stabbing someone and telling them not to bleed.”

Laughing SO hard…this is currently on my desktop and makes me laugh every single day. So like I know it is kinda rude and derogatory but that’s what makes it funny…anyone who knows me knows that I would never intentionally hurt anyone…which is probably why I am an easy target and also why I love the bold statement this meme is making – it is so not me, but starts to break down my walls of I’m fine.

“Rule #1 for helping a victim: believe her. Her description is only the tip of the iceberg.”

I saw this and was like “oh my, I totally understand now.” And that is why pinterest can be a good healing activity.

Unapologetically

(Legacy – Nicole Nordeman)

So I experienced gender discrimination last night.

For Christmas I got an IOU for new skates.

My old skates were somewhere around a size 12 in Men’s that really only worked for me because they were lace up only so I could tighten the laces enough to make them fit albeit not the way they were intended to fit. The only problem was getting them back off once they were tightened around my feet…(you just gotta plan ahead if you’re going to need to go potty).

Well, I suppose that wasn’t the only problem.

They were a cheap garage sale find that had clearly seen quite a bit of use before I got them, and then I used them for many many years. At this point they were supposed to have 4 wheels on each skate, but currently have a total of 5 or 6 wheels total attached between the two skates. Some of the wheels are held on with rubber bands because the hardware got lost.

And some spiders apparently thought the skates would make a good home this winter and made a huge disgusting web inside one of the skates…

So all that to say that when I went shopping the first time the stores didn’t really have anything because it wasn’t really skating season and they suggested coming back in March.

So we called the stores we were recommended by some people who skate a lot and they said they had their stock in and were ready for skate sales.

In to the store we went. The first store employee was really trying to be helpful, but the store only had one pair of skates in my size, and they had a tiny spot of pink on them so I wasn’t interested. It wasn’t the employee’s fault; That employee tried really hard and looked at every box to try to find something that would work for me and it just didn’t exist – apparently the customer service’s assessment that they had their stock in wasn’t quite so accurate. In reality they had one or two skates of each style to start the display and that was all.

So on to the next store.

The next store clearly is ready more for ice skate than actual skate sales, but does clearly have a good amount of skate inventory. The problem at this place was the employee. I tell him what I am looking for and point out the like 9 different styles I really like. I also comment that a common thread of the styles I like are that almost all of them are red, so other styles in red I may also be interested in looking at.

The skates he takes out for me to try on are hot pink. I go along with it because a good idea of size isn’t going to change much with different colors. I figure out what size I need and the guy seems to think the transaction is done and I should buy the pink skates. Umm, no. Not interested. He eventually gets that I am not going to just buy the first pair that fits and shows me a lime green pair that is the most expensive pair in the store. I try them on to not be rude, but remind him that the ones I like best are the red pairs.

He looks at like two boxes. Two. Clearly not actually TRYING to find anything in my size. He then declares that the only skates the store has in my size are the pink pair and the green pair. I ask when more skates in my size will come into stock. His response is that they won’t; what he has is what he has. Umm, yeah. There is snow on the ground. I really doubt that you will never have any more skates in my size. I don’t have tiny feet or anything. If I had a twin brother with the same size feet would you really tell him his only options were the hot pink pair or the most expensive pair in your store? If so, you really need to take the word skate out of your store name so you stop embarrassing yourself. Plus, I probably wouldn’t even want that most expensive pair if it were red and cheaper – the reason it was expensive according to him anyway was that it had more plastic casing…and that plastic casing in my opinion makes the skate a lot less comfortable…

So off to a big box sports store to try again. They had no help available and clearly hadn’t started getting new stock for the season and had just taken out what was left from last year, but they did have a skate that fit comfortably and had no pink on it. The goal was red, but no pink is at least a start…a little more expensive than the same skate at the first store we were at was selling for, but they had it in stock in my size. They had a couple other styles in my size without pink…so I know it isn’t just that my size is only sold in pink…LOL, the dude at that second store was like but it isn’t that much pink…umm, yeah, only three quarters or more of the skate is pink…

Umm, if we were talking about shirts or maybe even pants I’d be willing to consider that perhaps you don’t have something that will fit well that has no pink on it (maybe…but I have successfully found pants and shirts marketed to males that I can wear just fine)…but we were talking about feet. Girl and boy feet are pretty much the same with the possible exception of nail polish which doesn’t affect how skates work. Pretty sure if a dude walked in looking for skates you’d have something with NO PINK to show him, so you ought to have the same respect for a dudette. Being a girl don’t change much about my search for skates except that I perhaps care more what they look like than a boy might, and my preference is no pink. If you can’t accommodate that preference then there is a problem, and that problem is gender discrimination. I know male feet don’t magically skip from like a 6 to a 10 or anything because I usually buy my non-dress shoes in the Men’s section (and I have a basic understanding of biology to know that isn’t possible). (Don’t judge…the men’s section has a lot better selection when you are looking for shoes without pink and without childish designs, and your X and possibly Y chromosomes have no bearing on feet).

The internet sells lots of skates in my size in red that look good, but the inability to try on and ensure correct fit is a problem since skates will be expensive to ship anywhere to return…