I think I'm in Love

I've been spending a lazy Sunday afternoon reading and surfing the net, when I should really be spring cleaning. I think I'm in love with this and it's match . My mother always say's I have expensive tastes. One of my favourite sayings of her brother's is, "champagne tastes on a beer budget."

A girl can dream right?

Family Conclave

I was planning on writing about what happened that brought me to the point where I sought medical help for my problems. However, this weekend had other plans. A family meeting was called after much discusion amongst all the siblings and with my parents in regards to the upcoming wedding of one of my brothers. We've decided after much discussion, that we need to have a heartfelt discussion with the groom as soon as humanly possible to discuss his marriage and the upcoming wedding. The wedding is in a month and we're having some serious concerns about his bride-to-be, her intentions and feelings.

I hope that my brother will be alright, regardless of what he chooses. I also hope that he can listen with an open heart to what we have to say. I love my brother's fiercely and all I want for them is nothing but the best. Either way, what ever happens will be a difficult road to walk down- whether it's the marriage or a seperation. I just wish it didn't have to be this way.

Down Time

Work has been kicking my ass all week. Between the early mornings and shifting over from student life to a highly regimented work schedule I come home so tired in the evenings I can't stay awake through dinner, let alone long enough to produce any sort of quality writing. I was going to write tonight about how I came to be in the doctor's office in this post. However, it's still difficult for me to talk about, and I'm too tired right now to do it justice.

I just remembered that I had written a short essay about my initial experience a few days after I was diagnosed. It was posted on a message board I frequent, but I don't really want to give out where that is. Instead I'll repost my story here:

Tears stung at my eyes as the words formed and tumbled out of my reluctant mouth. I was wading through the overwhelming depths of sticky blackness in my mind, searching for the words to describe what was happening to me. I sat there, pouring out my troubles to a stranger; eyes riveted to the wall, trying to avoid his gaze. The sound of a pen scratching paper interspersed the poignant silences in our hushed conversation. My voice trembled as I ran out of words and came to the end of a very one-sided conversation.

Then it was my turn to sit silently, stunned, while this man proceeded to rip through the fragile threads of my well-constructed denial. Confusion quickly followed, and a whirlwind of explanations and administrations followed. Before I knew it, I was sitting in another sterile white office, again recounting my little dark secret to another stranger- but there was something different in this person. She was smiling, forgiving, and compassionate. The mischievous twinkle in her eye told me that this too would pass. She slipped a little package of tiny bright pink pills and a stiff white note into my hand and made me promise to return in a few days.

I slowly walked out through the glass doors and stepped into the bright sunlight. As the sharp breeze played on my face I mused over the past 24 hours. It hardly seemed like it was the same world I had walked out into that morning. I scowled at the brown, dried and curled leaves that swirled around my angry feet. How could this be possible? How could my life have turned so upside down in the blink of an eye?

That evening I reluctantly swallowed down the little pink pill and hoped for the best. I gazed into the bottom of my empty glass and resolved to understand my situation and embrace the people that would help me find a way out. As I lay in bed feeling drowsy and emotionally exhausted I fell asleep with the thought that tomorrow would bring a new day, with a new start.

In the Drive-thru

I began my summer job this past Monday. Due to a myriad of confidentiality agreements I signed I can't write about it at all. Which is unfortunate since it's a rather unusal work place and almost everyday, particularily in the summer, there's some sort of action going on that would be blog worthy. Alas, the restrictions.

There is a mandatory four day training session every spring for returning students, regardless of how many summer's you've been there. This is partially due to union stipulations, partially for legal reason's and partially since legislation can change dramatically from year to year and we need to be up on it all, since everything we do is mandated by various pieces of legislation. The training days can be long, boring and mentally exhausting to say the least. This morning I managed to leave myself enough time before the 8 am start to pop into the Tim Horton's drive through and grab myself a coffee. As usual, the drive through was busy and I had to que up with the rest of the early morning commuters.

I noticed the guy in line behind me almost immediately. There was some weird hand actions going on, but because of the slight curve in the drive through I couldn't really see what was going down, but it attracted my attention immediately. I kind of figured the guy was picking his nose, because as every commuter knows- in the safety of the car, you can do anything undetected, regardless of the tinting. Just as I came to this conclusion, the line moved forward a bit and I could get a clear view of what this man was up to. He was vigorously flossing his teeth! It was a performance that went on for several minutes while we all waited for our coffee. He would joyfully alternate between a brisk floss and sucking off the food particles from his dental floss while examining his pearly whites in the rear view mirror. I just wish I had my digital camera to get photographic evidence of the performance. I couldn't help but laugh, since he clearly had no idea we could all see what he was up to. Not to mention the fact that perhaps he might have thought of flossing after his morning coffee, instead of before?

In other news, I turn 24 today. I'm not a huge fan of birthday's and celebrations, not because they represent aging but rather because I like to fly under the radar and keep a low profile. That's kind of hard when you're the reason people are gathering.

Emotional Lockdown

About two and half years ago I went into emotional lockdown, in what I assume was a bid to protect my fragile mental and emotional state. A doctor on campus desperately wanted to send me away to a very nice facility in the area that deals with mental health and addiction issues, and has been doing so for the past 118 years. I on the other hand had other ideas. The birth of my oldest brother's first child, my only niece, was a month away and I had an education to attend to. I used some fancy word magic and somehow she let me out of her office with only a prescription for a few medications and a promise not to do anything untoward to myself over the weekend. I also had to report to her office again on Monday to see how things were going. Thus began a long journey into mental illness and bi-weekly doctor's visits.

It was a traumatic time for me. I had difficulty formally admitting I had serious clinical depression with a touch of situational anxiety and the occasional panic attack. Even now it’s not something I’ve really told anyone about. I can be an intensely private individual and I’m afraid of the repercussions that such a disclosure could have. I think I fear the stigmatization that comes with it- or perhaps the loss of privacy, as my immediate family would become vigilante to my every move and mood. It’s not something I want to deal with in the near future.

Somewhere in this whole process I became numb and started to shut down emotionally for fear of losing control of myself. I have no idea how to snap out of it now, even though I desperately want to. In this whole process I left the six-year relationship with the love of my life, became “that girl” that I never wanted to become, you know the girl with all the baggage, and lost all desire for any kind of a physical relationship. I can’t remember the last time I have wanted to have sex with anyone, let alone someone in particular. That fact alone is depressing. So here I am, emotionally detached from a large section of my life and not knowing how to let myself feel again, without wondering if I'll end up in a doctor's office or worse this time.

Why a Blog?

Why did I start a blog? Well for a number of reasons. I was introduced to blogs through my brother J2, who had several friends with blogs, and started his own for a six month trip through out Europe. I slowly started reading some really great blogs and over the last few months I felt compelled to join the masses. My desire to blog started slowly. I was looking for other women bloggers that I could identify with. Perhaps I'm not looking in the right places, but I still haven't found a group of twenty-something, single women either in grad school, or starting out in the working world. What I did find were a lot of Mom's and Dad's, newly-married twenty-somethings, a Merry Widow at 26, and girl who's Bitter with Baggage at 30-something.

While I love reading these blogs and a few others several times a week, or even daily, I still didn't find anyone I closely identified with and could relate to on a regular basis. So here I am. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the most witty writer, or even the most interesting anecdotal writer, but what I am is honest. I needed a place where I could finally be completely honest with myself all the time. There's been a lot of upheaval and change in my life in the past year and I'm still sorting through it. It's my hope that through writing I can make some sense of it all, and find out what it is I really want out of this life.

Blogger Issues

I thought I had posted an entry earlier this evening, but apparently blogger did not register it. I'm having issues- and blogger is the least of it tonight.

I'm Home

I made it back to my parents place late last Sunday night, completely exhausted. At times it seemed like the weekend that would never end, especially on the drive home when we were a tad lost in the back country. I think I've seen enough cows, corn fields and rocks for one lifetime.

I ate great food, drank very good wine and spent way too much money on things for myself here . It wasn't nearly as horrible as I thought it would be.

I had to run back up to school early Tuesday morning to show around my long-lost best friend from highschool who's shopping around on campus for a graduate advisor in horticulture. I stuck around a few extra days to take care of some administrative details surrounding my thesis work and a side project and arrived back at my parents house just in time to help out in the orchard. Not a monumental task, but my father and uncle were cutting down two rows of dwarf cherry trees and needed a quick hand to move brush and pull out some buried irrigation- an experiment that didn't work out for my Dad.