Forgive us...we know what we do...but we can't stop.

Not the fun kind of "we can't stop" (though Miley Cyrus might be a hell of a lot more insightful than she knows with that party anthem).

There are few things in my world more frustrating than being unable to control the skating, scathing, incessant rumble of thoughts like a coal fired locomotive moving down the mountain of my consciousness. It is fueled by stress, both good and bad, and driven to a catastrophic speed in times when I do not have sufficient distraction or sheer force of will to deprive it of fire.

Once upon a time, when I was a younger woman, I seized the reins of this train and rode it through long periods of manic productivity all the way to a Bachelor’s degree. I thought it was normal – a testament to my own genius – that I could go days without sleep. When I was in college, my relative success fell to this “personality quirk” which I know now to be a form of mental illness.

A week went like this: Sunday night, I got off work and drove 45 miles to home. I got home about 6 p.m., poured myself a drink or 4 and typically procrastinated my homework and studies by bleaching floorboards, rearranging cupboards, or some other meaningless task. My roommate and I were in possession of the cleanest college apartment in Arkansas.  I’d play on Napster (ha!) and AOL chat rooms (double Ha!) until 2 or 3 in the morning and then I would study, rightly and properly drunk, until 7, when I would shower and leave for the day. (My roommate worked nights and eventually so did my boyfriend and then, after I burned every bridge I could – I lived alone. Very alone.) I’d be on campus from 8-3 with long, smoky, meandering time at RZ’s Coffee shop on the University of Arkansas campus, maybe a study break here or there. Then work from 4-11, bartending at a local restaurant. I’d get smashed after work while sitting in the dark talking with co-workers who thought college was lame. After that, home to study/clean/drink some more. This repeated Monday through Friday night when I would drive to the bar 45 miles away, bartend, crash at my grandparents’ house for 10 luxurious hours of sleep, work a double on Saturday, party, then Sunday and I’d repeat it.

You can see, then, why my undergraduate GPA was so lackluster. Nonetheless, I learned a lot about myself and about the world and I spent crazy amounts of time in my own head writing, painting, drinking, and reading. I cared about my grades, I did, I just didn’t have the tools to work through the amazing left turn my life had taken. Freedom is intoxicating.

So my mania kept me afloat where so many others would have sunk. But here at 32, things are a little different. Biology is such an asshole and the body doesn’t hold up to sustained stress any more. Add to that a few energetic kids, three dead-end jobs, and a disagreeable climate far from a family you love and you have a recipe for manias ugly twin sister – depression. Disclaimer: This is wallow-y and I don’t need another lecture on how I should “buck up!” or “turn that smile upside down!” or any other well-intentioned bit of advice you want to give me.

 

Here’s the thing, people, being bi-polar means I AM SICK. You go tell my grandmother, who is ill with cancer, to “positive thought” away her cancer. Then you can come back and tell me to positive think myself better. You aren’t helpful. I love you. But you aren’t helpful. Don’t minimize people that way. It only makes it worse. Because then, on top of everything else, we (the bi-polar…as if it were some faction in a dystopian young adult novel) then spend hours agonizing about how everyone else can shake their bad moods and why can’t we and how pathetic is that? And OMG I’m such a freak.

In point of fact, the mantra/motto I have on my mirror, the self-affirmation I read EVERY DAY is meant to remind me that even if it sucks, I shouldn't wallow:

 

So what can you do, people who love people who are bi-polar? You can listen. And hold our hand (well…not mine, ‘cause, you know…no touch-y!). And you can keep trying to get us to remember the things we love. And you can keep forgiving us for being such total assholes. Because we know we are assholes. We do. But we just can’t shake it every day.

I cry at the drop of a hat these days. My 19 year-old self would have laughed and teased my 32 year-old self mercilessly. This wallowing, emotional, unreliable period of my life is growing more and more tiresome by the day and I feel entirely incapable of changing it. I am nearing the place where the medication that (very effectually) manages my moods but comes with terrible side effects may have to be taken once more. Luckily, I stock-pile in the good times and I’m quite adept at titrating my own on and off periods.

I see people around me struggling just like I am. The days when I feel the best are the days when I am able to help someone else. Service has always been the best drug for me – it is almost certainly the best and most likable characteristic I retained from my years on the farm.

I sometimes believe it is my only truly good quality.

And I so want to help others – not just because I know they need it, but also because I am someone I don’t want to be these days. I am merciless with myself. I am unrelentingly judgmental and brutal with my own emotions and heart. So much so that the husband is sometimes alarmed at the vitriol that spews out of my mouth about myself. And it isn't directed at anyone else just yet, but given my history, it's only a matter of time. And while my 19 year-old self didn't know how to stop it, at 32, I'm able to retain control most of the time. Because while this isn't something I can wish away, it is also not a hall pass into Dick Town either. Especially not with my husband.

Because I realized yesterday that no matter what I do, who I become, how overwhelmed I am, he still sees the woman he married; the fresh-faced 24 year old with bright prospects for the future and a buoyant sense of humor and self-deprecation and hope for the world. She had not yet morphed into the self-loathing mess that I am today.

But he sent me a text this morning, with this cute little meme – 

And I remembered that most of the weight dragging me down right now is made of things I can’t control. So I have to keep carrying them and wading forward. They are leeches that will fall off me when they are full and have done their damage. Pulling on them only makes it worse.

It is no matter that each step I take is mired in thick and viscous mud trying to remove my boots. It is no matter that some days just leaving the bed leaves me wanting applause. It is no matter that I haven’t genuinely smiled in weeks.

Because smiles are coming. And my boots are laced tight. And the water gets clearer and clearer the further I go.

This is being bi-polar. This is being bi-polar. But it will not always be so because nothing is permanent.

The Fabled Texas Male

So, last week, I was making a macchiato for a mumbler man who was mumbling to my co-worker how it was wrong when she made it last time. I prepared a cutesy quip in my pea brain and was about to say it out loud but before I could, this happened:

 

Fabled Texas Male: "It wasn't the way I wanted."
Co-Worker: "I know. It's because I didn't listen very well."
FTM: "Well, you are a woman."

She was facing him...I had my back to him...she saw my face as my mouth dropped open and steam began billowing out of my ears....he didn't.
Co-Worker: "But I make excellent bread."
FTM: "You'd better have some skills."

And at this precise moment, I realized that I'm never going to be thrilled every day to live in Texas. But I DO think that once I'm no longer in a service position, I will be overjoyed in my role as educator to these men. Because while he has certainly been the most overtly sexist so far, he isn't alone. Many of the men I've encountered in Texas so far have viewed me as either wife, mother, servant, or server. And while it is true that I am all of those things, I am ALL of those things at once.
And this is the thing that I believe men still living in the chauvinistic capital "S" South can't move past: people in general, but women in particular don't fit into molds any more. Women are, in general, more educated than they've ever been. But I'm not sure the capital "S" Southern Lady is yet comfortable being defined by her mind rather than her skinny jeans and rhinestones. Even the perfectly coiffed Dallas women who I keep cowering from in the corner are likely a hell of a lot smarter than their braggadocio men-folk know. I watched a woman hide her copy of "Atlas Shrugged" last week when her boyfriend arrived at the bakery. Now, questionable reading material aside, why would she do that if she is actually as educated as I believe? I believe that it's because Southern Ladies are very comfortable being well rounded, but they know that in being so, they become much harder to objectify and, as such, possibly unmarry-able.
And let me just go ahead and say it...it's harder being with someone who is smart. Ask my husband. Hell, ask me! I have dated the spectrum, from whip smart to puppy dog dumb and it has ALWAYS been the case that the bright ones are harder to deal with sometimes. But lo, how much more pronounced was the self-growth when given a worthy opponent with whom to mental shadow-box?!
So, hey, Fabled Texas Men...Get over yourself already and seek a woman of substanceAND beauty. And for the love of the universe or sweet baby Jesus himself, ladies, get over the idea that you can't be smart and attractive. And if we, as a society, could find it deep inside us to stop objectifying and start valuing women for more than a pants size or skillful use of a Bump-It, we might all reap the benefits.

 

Then and Now

As I have changed, so has my writing. I found this buried in my ipad notes from last year. I remember how blissful the morning was. I was cozy, comfy at my favorite coffee shop.

Leather hands and cautious words defined my childhood. Living without the benefit of Dick Clark to guide my decisions in music or TGIF to fill my Fridays, I stayed inside my own head a lot. I hadn't given this much consideration in my twenties, I was way too busy drinking. But now, in the early days of my thirties, I am beginning to understand some of the choices I've made over the years. Some of them are intensely embarrassing, some are selfish, some are incredibly prescient, and some are just...bittersweet. With that being said, I am always trying to collect good ideas and thoughts. I know that my writing is very introspective and I know that I am prone to histrionics. Still...when my children go to college and try and forge a life for themselves, maybe they won't be as lost as I've been all these years.

 

So: good ideas and bits I've learned so far on April 20th, 2012 at 8 a.m. At Caribou coffee on Blue Ridge Road, Raleigh, NC.

 

1. The best way to identify your BEST friends is to find the people who not only listen to you, but also hear you. People who do more than sympathize and tell you what a shit the person who has upset you is...you want someone who will push you...call you on your mistakes and drive you to do and be better.

 

2. There is no place better to write than a local coffee shop with big, comfy, old leather chairs.

 

3. The best way to identify places in which you need self growth is to spend time in public listening but not talking. See number 2.

 

4. You don't have to always have the best story. Or the last word.

 

5. If you talk quietly, people will be forced to listen harder. Don't always talk quietly.

 

6. Yell when you have to.

 

7. Opposing views help you ensure you actually know what you believe. Seek them out.

 

8. The person you marry should be the person you would want with you the day you die. Not the hottest, not the sexiest, not the sweetest. The person who makes you better than you are alone.

 

9. You are never too old to fix a broken dream.

 

10. Do no harm. It's the tenet of the Hippocratic oath, but it applies all over. In all things, do no harm.

Breaking Bad (Just a Little Late)

For those of you who have been a part of the "Breaking Bad" phenomenon for these past years, you already know that Walter White was a high school chemistry teacher who was diagnosed with Stage III-A non-small cell lung carcinoma. He began using his Nobel Prize caliber chemistry skill-set to first manufacture methamphetamine first from pseudo-ephedrine then old school from methylamine when his "pseudo" source dries up. This "slip" into a moral wasteland was driven first by his desire to support his family after he is gone, to pay for his medical bills, and finally, we find, because he likes it and was good at it.

I read a headline last week entitled "Why People in Other Countries Don't Understand the Premise of Breaking Bad" and laughed cynically inside. But this blog isn't about socialized medicine or why America is the last bastion in the developed world that allows it's citizens to go bankrupt due to medical bills. Though my own current financial crisis has been precipitated in part by the $250 a month I have to pay on old medical bills (a trip to the ER for Archer, times 2, one for Aidan, and one for me...we've been paying for four years and we HAVE insurance). If you want to read that incredibly interesting story, click here.

No, this story is about Walter and a comment that my sister made when I sat down three days ago to watch the Pilot of "Breaking Bad" for the first time. She said, "Yeah, the pilot is okay, but it gets really boring after that." And she was right...sort of.

The reason episodes 2-5 of Season 1 don't speak to my sister is that they are all about Walter and his family living their normal lives and about Walter trying to find a way to wrap his mind around his own ingloriousness and/or accept his moral elasticity. The only overtly riveting moments in "Breaking Bad" involve the horror that Jesse and Walt experience when dealing with the upper echelons of the meth trade. It is no wonder Walter couldn't resist the illicit world that made him special.

We've all been told we are special, right?

Now, I'm only on season 2...two episodes in, in fact, so my analysis is totally irrelevant to you, the rest of the world. But I still felt compelled to write this because to some degree, I AM Walter White, crouched low and shining up the wheels of his student's car at the car wash where he held a second job. I AM Walter, looking around, wondering where all my "special" went.

And I think that his commitment to special, albeit in cooking methamphetamine, is what made Walter so important to so many people. We all want to feel that something sets us apart from the world and validates our being. And while I'm currently trapped in Walter's car wash job, unable to move just yet, I'm hurtling toward the day I steal some glassware, head to the desert, and get to cooking up something spectacular. Metaphorically, of course.

 

 

Sticks and Stones... Amiright?

A little under a week ago, I got off work from the bakery and came home to find my sister, who lives with us, had still not registered for school. For the past year, nearly daily, I've asked her, gently, "Hey, did you apply for a new job today?"

"How's the search for a major going?"

"Called your parents today?"

"Will you please do the dishes? If I have to do another thing in the house I'm going to puke all over you."

And her answers were varied..."No." was just as common as "Yes."

You see, she's a really good person, my sister. She loves puppies and sunrises and such. She's the flip side of the coin that I am. Where our shared life experience pushed me into the superlative and gave me some serious brass, it made her gentle. It made her quiet. It made her avoid confrontation At. All. Costs.

So, sometimes, her desire to avoid confrontation comes off a little bit like being a huge effing liar liar pants on fire. But she isn't...she just isn't going to speak her mind if you bulldoze her. Which is why I had to learn this past year how to be more empathetic. How to stop. How to repeat. How to listen. She taught me that, my sister, when no one else has been able to.

So when I came home from my shift at the bakery, already raw from being told what to do all day and cleaning the espresso machine to the extremely detailed specifications of my manager and delicately handling pastries so as to not destroy them...when I got home, I needed to see some progress. Any, really, from my sister. Because she has been telling me for a year she was going to enroll and hadn't yet. And on this night she did. And I was so proud. I still am, especially in light of the shit show that ensued.

I have loved Facebook for nine years now. It has chronicled my life through my wilder twenties, through two pregnancies, a wedding, and lots of holidays. Facebook was there for me when I lost a baby I desperately wanted. It was there for me when I got my degree(s) and for so long, it has served as a tool to connect me to my family, who are so far away.

So I posted her acceptance into school onto Facebook. Before she told her mom. Before she told her dad. And they noticed.

It is a long conversation that happened. And it was ugly. There was miscommunication stemming from a visit to her mother, a voiced willingness to think about the idea of moving home with her parents (our parents) and a decision on her part to not do that. And a conversation during which I displayed what my friend Vicki would call an heroically level head. I am not a level headed person. I'm Kali...destroyer of nations and feelings and relationships. But I love these people who spoke that night. Intensely. And so I kept my head. Until 2 am when weeping in the bathroom and wondering how everything went so wrong.

I don't tell you all of this, dear reader, for sympathy. This was implied in the conversation that night...that my "pathetic attempts to garner sympathy from the internet are sad" and how stupid am I to have gotten my PhD when so much money can be had without one. It is not for your sympathy that I write, my friends, it is so you can know what this struggle is like so that if you ever experience it, you aren't alone. If you know someone who is less prone to introspection than I, you know how to help. And yes, it is a vent for my boiling, churning, undercurrent.

Because I didn't realize how angry I am about my life right now. But I am. And I am fighting like a woman possessed to change it. And now you know more about what it is to be under loved, under paid, and under appreciated.

P.S. The next day, my chosen family in North Carolina, out of the blue, called to tell me they were going to clean our house because "It wasn't dirty, but it'll sell better if it smells clean and fresh."

Just because.

Just because THAT is what family does.

 

Every Time You Leave a Tip, A Baby Seal Claps His Eensie-Weensie Hands!

Oh my. How much fun is the bakery before the sun rises?

Today I got to meet our resident intellectual. He's a Catholic school literature teacher who takes his coffee sweetened...but he doesn't open the raw sugar packets. That's up to the lowly baristas.

This morning, clad in his gingham Izod shirt with plaid Izod boat shoes and chino pants, he took the time to explain to me that he knows "its kind of tough to remember these things, but his coffee should be 25% black and 75% Mexican Chocolate with enough room for four raw sugars. Not regular sugar, it's bad for the human body, you see? The brown has less additives."

Seriously?

Thanks for the pseudoscience, buddy.

 

Then he sat in a corner and highlighted his brand new copy of Wuthering Heights...and his bible.

And I couldn't help wondering what kind of comparisons to Cathy and Heathcliff he might draw in his class. While I always thought the enduring shadowboxing of two souls doomed/destined to be together was poetic, it never smacked biblical to me. Because I never went to a parochial school, beyond Gilgamesh and C.S. Lewis, I didn't spend too much time drawing biblical comparisons. But if this guy is an indication of the caliber of instruction, I'm feeling lucky to have been educated at good old public RHS.

Seeing these people every day and serving them coffee gives me pause. I keep being struck by the terrible feeling that I was also once guilty of such unintentional, blatant douchebaggery. Having worked in service, I've always been ultra-polite and kind of an over-tipper...but maybe I've done this to people too? The power of our words and their tone is constantly on my mind these days.

And speaking of tips: your barista, on average, spends more time making your tall, skinny soy macchiato with an extra shot and double drizzle than your bartender does pouring you a Bud Lt. Tip appropriately.

 

 

Pushers

There is something effortless in transitioning back to a service mentality. It feels sometimes like I never really left it in the first place. My life has always centered around ensuring that people have enough: love, food, advice, data, beer, coffee. Six of one...

I think the most startling difference in where I've been and where I am is how unaccustomed I now am to people doubting me. For nearly five years now, I have been in the business of being in charge...these days, I'm a worker bee, a grunt, a rent-a-brain, a towel with legs.
The owner of the bakery and I were chatting tonight about how she needs to increase volume and can't figure out how to get people into the building. I said I thought the ambience didn't fit what people are looking for. She has the lights up, the music on 80's, 90's, and today, and there is no real swagger to the place. Then I realized I'd thrown my opinion out there and expected her to take it as law...so I back-pedaled a little and mumbled something about spending lots of time in coffee shops during college. She kind of non-committal nodded and then walked away. I put together some more pastry boxes and shut the hell up.

I wonder at my ego. It was beaten out of me during graduate school, but it was clearly reborn. Do we all eventually begin to define ourselves by what we do rather than who we are? When does this happen? Does it happen to everyone? I have been fighting the impulse to explain this job away to every customer who looks at me with even a hint of curiousity. "I am grateful for this job. It's honest. It's lucky. It's temporary." I say it inside like a mantra thousands of times a day. On the inside. I bite my tongue...because in a rare bout of sensitivity, I realized that several of the people working there do not have a mantra. They want to be there. They have enough. The bakery, baking, being a barista, its enough for them. And who the fuck am I to belittle their choices?

For my entire life, I have expected to do work that changes lives and changes the world. I have never, until now, doubted my ability to do these things. But I left an admission to the Physicians Assisting program at ECU to come to Texas. There is every chance that ECU was my shot and I won't get another. I'm certainly not getting younger. So there is a sense of panic bubbling under my surface. "This is how people get caught up and then turn around and they are 65 and a new career doesn't make sense any more. You're too old. Don't be ridiculous. It's too late. You already missed that boat. Accept your life as it is and stop wanting more. You have enough. There is never enough..." And on and on my mind rambles.
But it's enough for now to work hard, pay my bills, and pray that this is, in fact, temporary. Because like it or not, like the fabled Ms. Norbury from the cult classic Mean Girls, I am, in fact, a pusher; of myself, of others who is reaping the consequences of my world view by working three jobs and feeling a skosh hollow. And I don't know when or if I will ever be satisfied. But even if I never am, I will almost certainly never have my fill of trying.