time and circles and whatever's in my head

I either don't write for sometimes months at a time, or I am constantly writing, mostly in my head. Example: I'm standing in the shower today thinking of some real life issues that need addressing and somehow I start thinking of the bigger picture.

Things like; at one point in time, I thought my ex-husband was it. THAT was were I was supposed to be. But then I wasn't. Now I am sure that my purpose in life is to give my husband my time and teach him the things that he doesn't understand. Poor Mr. straight-and-narrow ended up married to me. He married a girl that just had one little tattoo on her arm from when she was 20 and she was a country girl. I've tried to be a country girl, a mid-western girl, and a west coast girl, but none of them ever worked for me.

Now the poor guy, the one who lives in a world where there are rules and SOPs (standards of procedure) and lines in the sand, is married to me. Somebody who these days has 4 or 5 tattoos and is planning to get more soon, has her nose pierced, and her hair is never the same length or color from year to year. I embody the tortured writer's soul occasionally. I ask him all the time what the hell he is doing with me. But somehow it works.

We got into an argument recently (married people argue?? who knew??) and I opened my heart and my mind and asked for guidance. I'm a Buddhist, so I asked the universe, the karma gods, and Buddha what am I supposed to do right now? The answer came to me as I meditated. Love is always the answer. Love the people you have in your life. Teach them and be open to their teachings for you.

I have spent my whole life saying "I want to go home.....I just don't know where it is". This gypsy soul has searched through the west coast, Hawaii, the south, and the Midwest for some place that felt like home, (see above) and it was only a few years ago when I ended up in a place I'd never thought to go. I got to Maine through a series of crazy unforeseen steps. I originally ended back up in Michigan and now I realize that I was there for a completely different reason that I thought. I was where I needed to be for my hip surgery, and then it was time for me to move on. I got to Maine and something in my soul whispered 'you're home' .

My point is you never know if you're at some point in your life for your own reason, is this the important stuff, or other, bigger reasons that you don't know yet. Some times you just have to close your eyes and wait for the answers. No matter what faith you have, they will come to you.

I am currently stationed back in Maryland on my husband's last tour in the Navy and although I wasn't thrilled to be here, and living out in the middle of no where presents some challenges. I am here because finally after all these years, I am really getting some where with my doctors, and I believe when we leave here in two years (because right now, I just can't see retiring here) I will have a diagnosis. Finally a firm diagnosis and an understanding of what's wrong with me and a treatment plan. So I hold onto that. My hubs is here to network with the people he needs to talk to as he nears retiring from active duty and I am here for some answers.

Like I said, you just never know if it's your own reasons that bring you to a place or if there is a bigger plan. The important stuff never shows up in your best clothes or scheduled celebrations. It creeps up on you in the ordinary day to day life, in the moments when you're not looking, and then....suddenly.....you get it.

the class of 1991

It's after 11 o'clock at night. I just took all my nighttime meds and hubs and I are settling in for the evening. The animals are fed and the day is winding down. It's time for bed soon, so why does inspiration otherwise known as (occasionally or sometimes my best writing) strike at these odd hours. I do more writing (even if it in notebooks or in my head) in these odd hours than at any other time during my day. Even when I want to sit down and write in the morning, but alas it comes late at night.

I have finally started (in somewhat earnest) writing my book. The first 1027 words are in a document saved to my desktop, so these days I find myself putting more and more things throughout my day in the context of how does this relate to my story? The memoir that I want to share.

Today I found a link to a business that somebody I went to school with forever ago is running. It got me to thinking. I see people that I sat in class with that have become chiropractors, massage therapists, business owners, business people, analysts, financial something-or-other....and I thought. What have I done? I don't have my own business or travel the world for meetings. So are they more successful than I have been? Out of the people that graduated in my class, what are we out in the world now?

Then I thought, wait a minute. I am a writer*, a blogger, a mother, and a Navy Wife (something I take great pride in). I serve our country too, just in a different capacity. I tell my oldest daughter that because she is a military wife now too. She'll be 19 tomorrow and she's married to a Marine. I make a difference with my blog and my Facebook page to women I know very well and women I have never met. I do the research for chronic pain conditions and I share the newest information with people that are struggling with the kind of pain that would make most people cross their eyes, and these people do it every single day. I know this because I do too.

And I'm a home schooler. I have taken on the task of raising and educating my youngest child because I honestly believe I can do a better job then the public school system. I have a college degree and I have the love and the hope of sending my kids out into the world to make a difference. My oldest is already out there, and she makes a difference in the people she has in her life and I'm proud of her for that. My son graduates next year, and he will go out there and be a good man.

So what really is the class of 1991? We're friends, and lovers, and fighters, and business people, and wives, and husbands, and students, and parents. I haven't kept up with the people that went off to business school and work in suits and offices with secretaries. But I found out that Steph and I share a bond of broken hearts and unimaginable pain. I found out after all these years that K and I share a chronic pain condition and we both know about live in and around the Navy. S and I are both married to the military, through our husbands, and through our service. We take care of everything when our brave husbands are away. And if it can break, blow up, or bleed while they are gone, it will. And we handle it with amazing strength and grace.

I myself have survived death, taxes and lightening literally hitting our house. Dead armadillos and cars that won't start, blown pipes, and birthdays spent far away from one another.

But out of the class of 1991, who are we twenty years later? Some of us are still friends, some of us drifted apart. Some of us bounced around for a while and then found each other again. I play Words with Friends with D. After all these years, I still get to hang out a little bit through game apps with the guy that I spent my junior and senior year hanging out with because we both took the new kid placement tests at the same time. I chat with Steph and share youtube videos posted by K. And even by one of my bestest friends who graduated in our year, but she was 6000 miles away when it happened. My Gingy. I graduated with her too.


                                                 LOVE IS GREAT AND SEX IS FUN
                                                     WE ARE THE CLASS OF 91!!


*I have been published. Once back in 1999, in  a book of poetry.so yes, I'm a writer =)

A New Way of Looking at It

I'm the kind of person that gets locked up inside my own head, so sometimes the simplest and best ways of looking at something don't immediately occur to me.

If, for example, someone from my past had reappeared in my life and influenced me making decisions that (at the time I thought were good decisions)but maybe didn't end up being what I needed in the long term but were some how just what I needed then, and because of those decisions I ended up being where I needed to be when I needed to be there, but after all of that, it was time to move on.

What I'm saying if that if I believed in a higher power and miracles, I got one 3 1/2 years ago and I was just where I needed to be when I tore the cartilage in my hip, and found the #2 surgeon in the country. And now it's time for me to move on and see what the rest of the universe has in store for me. I needed to be in Michigan for my hip surgery, but that doesn't mean that I shouldn't realize that the promises made to me were just lies in disguise. And I need to see them for what they are. And I need to know that the people that made promises to me are who I thought they were ten years ago.

People change, but seldom.

Wanted: Lots of hugs and hope

Everything is going to be okay. I keep telling myself everything is going to be okay, because right now I'm feeling a little like spaghetti. I've heard it said that men are like waffles and women are like spaghetti. Waffles have compartments and segregate what you put on them, or in them. Neat little squares that separate everything. Spaghetti gets all mixed up and wound up together. Every noodle is entangled in a bunch of other noodles and it ends up being one big ball, all bunched up together.

Right now I have a lot of stuff and I feel like spaghetti. If you've followed my blog for any length of time, you know I whine....sometimes...a little bit, when it all gets to be a lot to deal with. But right now I have A LOT. And I'm a little scared. And I wish I had parents. But I have really great friends, and wonderful kids, and a strong, awesome hubby. I just feel like this is a lot to put just on him right now though. So I'm asking for hugs, and hope.

I have five doctors right now. And procedures and blood tests and lots of needles scheduled over the next month. A primary care doc, a pain specialist, a pulmonologist, a urologist, and an allergist. I went to my urologist today and the good news is he is willing to jump right in and figure out what's wrong and ordered tests and procedures. The bad news is there is still an infection and blood in my urine and they don't know why. So I have blood tests and a CT with contrast and a cystoscopic procedure to schedule. That mans they are going to put me under a general anesthetic and take a look inside my urinary tract to see what the problem is.

I also have a thyroid panel, epidural shots, and allergy test coming up too. Two blood tests, three IVs, shots in my spine, and allergy tests. That's a lot of needles and I don't usually spook too easily, but I'm scared.

So, I know I'm a pain in the ass, and I know I'm whining a little bit, but I am asking for an extra prayer, or some good karma, or a little extra hope right now.

UPDATE:
My CT (with contrast, yuck) is at 6:30 am on the 4th.
My cystoscopy is the 9th, and as long as everything goes well, I should be able to come home that day. The doc will be taking a look in my urinary tract and taking biopsies/removing any kidney stones while he is in there.
My third and final set of epidural shots are on the 12th.

I'm pretty sure I'll be happy if I never see another needle again.

Is There A Plan?

So....Hubs and I just saw "The Adjustment Bureau" and it was one of those movies that I walked out of thinking that they might be just a little bit right. Just like when I saw "The Matrix" and I thought they might be on to something too. I know, I'm a freak. But if you've seen it, you're probably thinking .....they might be just a *little* bit right.

I have been writing a blog in my head for the last couple of days and the movie just tied right in. What if we meet people that are supposed to make a difference in our life? I met B over 20 years ago ....on a trip we both pretty much took to California for just that summer. Her father lived across the street from mine...and well, it was fate. =) I haven't seen her in over 20 years, but I love her just the same, and she is still one of my people.

I met Ging in Maine. On a whim, at the family picnic. Never saw her again until we both moved to Florida. And now she's my people.

I met C because out of ALL the wives hubs could have called to come get me because he couldn't, he asked her. We both wound up moving to Maryland, and now she is one of my best friends and the one that has stood by me when things got really, really hard. She is my people.

Crazy chances, all of them. But the most amazing story is me meeting and marrying the hubs. I met him before I knew it. But I had big, blond hair then and I smoked. Everything that he didn't like, but I made an impression and I was memorable. Then I went on with my life, moved around the country and finally met him again, and that was it. I have made all the difference in his life. He has made all the difference in mine.

So, if you've seen the movie (and if you haven't, I recommend you do), I pose this: What if you might be an agent for the plan and you don't know it? I have made a HUGE difference in my hubs life. I pushed (a little) to get married and I pushed (okay, a little more than a little) to have a baby. And it changed his whole world.

I have met people that have made all the difference to me. I have learned how to love. I have learned how to not walk away, even when things get rumbly. I have learned how to love someone like a sister even though I don't have siblings. And I have learned how to have a good friend, and how to be a good friend. All by chance. All just because someone walked into my life by fate, or circumstance. And these people have changed my life.

So, is there a plan that we don't know about? Have you ever wondered how a choice you made turned around on you?

What My Child Has Learned

.....because I've been sick most of her life.

My youngest child is eight and I am always worried about how my challenges affect her childhood experience. I worry that she knows words like "prescriptions" and "specialist" way sooner than other kids. She can tell which doctor I'm seeing by how far we have to drive. And she understands that I have case managers and referrals.

It scares the hell out of me sometimes.

But then I think of things like: she thinks it's cool that I have parking placards and we don't have to park as far away from anything. She calls it "rock star parking". She understands that people get sick, and sometimes they die because of it, but sometimes they don't. And both things are okay. That's the way life goes. It begins and ends. She's not scared of doctors, or tests, or needles, or blood.

She knows what an IV is, and they don't scare the crap out of her. I can't say that I was at the same place when I was eight. I don't think most kids are. She understands surgery and that it means the doctors are helping people.

She's not afraid of hospitals and when we see a fire truck or an ambulance, she asks me if they are on their way to help somebody. Her vocabulary includes words that most kids don't know, but she has a lot more compassion because of it. She gets that some people walk slower than others and she doesn't get frustrated when they do.

The greatest things about my child seeing me go through surgeries and doctor's visits is that she understands people are all different, and sometimes they're sick and you can't see it from the outside. She's not scared or squeamish. She doesn't see anybody as "different".

I hate that she has challenges and understands things that most kids don't have to deal with, but I love that all of this inspires compassion and strength in her.

Warning: Grammar Nazi Rant

I just got an email telling me that I had a message on Facebook. I went to check Facebook and read said message and I started to twitch. "What is wrong with me?" I thought. "Why doesn't anybody else have this tiny little grammar Nazi inside of them?"

The only thing that drives me more crazy than using 'to" when you really mean 'too'....as in: in addition, or along with, is using 'your' when one might really mean you are or "you're".

It drives me up the wall. And I have to wonder if I am just really that OCD? Does nobody else hear this tiny voice that growls when they read "me to"? Doesn't it bug the hell out of you when you read "your okay"? Did I get issued a little grammar and spelling correction officer in my head in elementary school and miss it? Why does this drive me nuts when essentially the rest of the population could care less?

I have been writing since I was in middle school and I have always had an affinity for language as opposed to say...math. So I'm thinking it may just be that I pay more attention to language than most. I know the difference between 'wandering" (meandering around) and 'wondering (pondering....thinking about). Or 'they're' (they are), 'their' (showing ownership), and there (pertaining to the location). I have a compulsion to make sure I use to, too, and two correctly and my biggest OCD is probably 'your' and 'you're'. (And, yes, I do alphabetize my DVDs.)

I don't expect the general population to know when to use who and whom correctly because most people learn enough language to communicate effectively and leave it at that....and that's fine. But for the love of gawd, hit the 'o' button just one more time when you mean to express inclusion and turn 'to' into 'too'. Make friends with the apostrophe key and express "you are" in the tidy little "you're".

I'm certainly no where near perfect in my language use and I got plenty of corrections on my papers in college. I rush through typing in guild chat and miss a letter, or occasionally screw up the entire word. I get it. I shut the Grammar Nazi up a lot. But she definitely pokes her head up at too, to, and two. And your and you're. "Shut UP!", I tell her, "nobody else cares.....and for the most part people get their point across".

She annoys me, that snotty little spelling tyrant.