First let me just say, if you don’t recognize the reference of the title of this blog, we can’t be friends. Or even acquaintances. In fact, you can’t even follow my blog anymore.
Just kidding, here’s a link.
Now that we’re all caught up and you have been sufficiently educated on one of the greatest songs. Like, ever. And that “lightning” is actually spelled “ligntnin”…
Prepare yourselves because this is liable to be a long post. Or leave, I mean, whatever. I promise there will be tidbits of knowledge and advice along the way. (Or is that just a ploy to get you to read my blog? Will we ever know? Probably.)
The last post I wrote was on my birthday, which was August 11th, so some could say I’ve been slacking a bit. They would be right. So to catch you up, for your convenience, here’s a numerical list of things I’ve learned in the time we’ve spent apart.
*Takes 10 minutes to listen to covers of The Thunder Rolls*
- Being pregnant is hard. It’s hard 7 years after your first child, it’s hard at almost 30, and it’s especially hard at 1:30 in the morning when you’re so tired and irritated from being so tired that you can’t even think straight, and also have to pee 48 times.
- More seriously, I’m learning just how often God closes doors lately. Sometimes He does it so cleverly that I don’t even know it’s happening. Which, I guess could be in part due to pregnancy brain, since I literally forget EVERYTHING right now, but I’m going to let Him take the credit He truly deserves.
- I’ve come to terms with certain aspects of my life that may not work out the way I always thought they would. Most of you know about my journey to mental health and the clinic I went to in Chicago. What you may not know is what exactly I went there for. Yes, the anxiety, the depression, the ptsd – all very vague “illnesses” that didn’t answer any real questions. Before attending Meier Clinic, I had seen just about every counselor in our small town, and one even 45 minutes away since I was 17. Along the way I was “diagnosed” the usual anxiety disorder and chronic depression at first, but as I dove deeper into my past and opened up, the diagnosis began to include avoidant personality disorder, mania, dissociative disorders, and post traumatic stress disorder. But why? Nearly 12 years of letting my guard down over and over to strangers claiming the wanted to help and I had NO answers. There had been assault, there had been breaches of physical security as early as 14 years old, and there had been relationships that to this day I still find myself looking over my shoulder and replaying situations in my head. There are scars that have never healed. All of these things spilled over into my adult life. ALL of these things have caused every relationship I’ve been in to fail, although not always just by my hand, but still I continually found myself back in relationships, craving that companionship, only to watch them fall to pieces. That being due to my lack of trust, my fears and issues with intimacy, my paranoia, my up & down mood swings, my reaction to those mood swings, my dependency of things I knew weren’t good for me but soften the blow of life, my fear of vulnerability and the wall I put up when things became too much, and my past. I’m finally figuring out after 12 very long years that this could very well be something I deal with my whole life and may never completely work through, and I have to trust God enough to accept that that may have to be okay. I have to believe He knows my heart and has my best interest at His. I have to find peace. I have to focus on what really matters, which is myself and my children.
- Enough seriousness. I’ve had it brought to my attention that I elongate my words while at drive-thrus. Yeah, MOTHER, I’m looking at you. To which my defense is this: I have had my order messed up SO MANY TIMES, and you guys – fast food is hard. Practically rocket science. Not just anyone can do it. (That was a little sarcastic, and kinda rude. Hormones, amiright?) I speak SLOWLY so they can understand what I’m saying and so I don’t have to drive back angrily to demand my order be made correctly. (I’ve literally never done that – I can’t controversy. Yes, that’s a verb now.) Not that my defense even matters because every time we’ve gone through a drive-thru and I find myself doing it, I have to dramatically turn and give my mom a dirty look because she’s sitting there, snort-laughing in the passenger seat. So, now I have a complex, which we can just add to the long list of things that are wrong with me.
- People probably think I have tourettes, am possessed by a demon, or have an abusive imaginary friend. Here’s the deal: Sometimes, my sweet, little, growing boy kicks/elbows/rolls/hammer fists SO HARD that I will literally stop dead in my tracks, gasp or yelp in pain and usually follow up with a low, growling “Stahhhhhhhhhp ittttttttt……”
- I experienced my first and hopefully last calf cramp last week. Not only did I experience it, I was woken UP by it at 5:30 in the morning, thinking I was surely dying. It’s really hard to register that much pain, where it’s coming from, and how to stop it when you’re only like 30% conscious. For all I knew, there was a shark eating my leg – all blame for that one to the National Geographic show “When Sharks Attack” that I had watched the prior evening. Once it finally subsided, I said a little prayer for forgiveness for all the times I watched a sporting event on TV, saw a player with a cramp, and yelled at them to “suck it up and be a man”. Never again.
I’m almost positive I’ve learned more than that in almost a month, but this post has just gotten weird, and I’m getting ninja kicked from the inside, so I’m going to take both of those things as a solid sign that perhaps now, at 2:30, I should attempt to sleep again.
If you’ve made it this far…
You’re welcome. Again.
Emily, in theory. 