I was prepared to have those serious conversations this weekend, not for a trip to the hospital. There are two hospitals near Hendersonville, but people always say no one comes out of the one alive. So we made sure to go to the other. She's going to hospice tonight, so we can celebrate that. She broke some bones in her lower back, but it wasn't near her aorta, so she can decline surgery.

I just finished the book Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo in the Emergency Room. It is such a fitting book for this weekend. No tears, no pleas shouted to God.  Just acceptance, compassion, and love.

But what should we do? Where do we go?

And yet, I still feel so selfish. I still want more.

Rotimi.

Labels: all the feelings, book recommendations, family

I thought all of my childhood-high school files had been deleted when my parents got their new desktop five plus years ago, but this past week I was searching for something and there were all my old photos. (Like most teenage girls I saved my photos with really obnoxious, obvious names. "Sleepy Jennifer." "A star is born." Seriously, I was once fifteen.)

I ran across these photos from a Paolo Nutini show I went to with Red. The one where he was so drunk that he took forever to come on stage & was pretty belligerent through his performance. I mean, he is Irish, and that is not an easy accent to follow when someone's talking fast, but still. We all knew. Sixteen and never had a drop and I still knew.

It was my first digital camera. My baby. I bought it my sophomore year, before my friends had one. Carried it around like a cell phone I was so attached. But the lighting wasn't great, and it wasn't what digital cameras are now. Those photos are all blurry, even if just a little. We met Paolo & his band after the show. I still had that awful uncool haircut where it was like a very thick, long bob. Love donating to Locks of Love, but I really don't like short hair on me. Plus that was a pre-straightener era when my hair was frizzy & big all of the time because of the humidity. Totally not one of the reasons guys never approached me.

Anyway, Paolo has some beautiful songs on his first album, but his performance that night was a sad mess. His big issue with performing in the US was being 19 & not a legal age to drink on stage. So he protested with a mean pre-game & broke our hearts instead.

Million Faces played on shuffle today when I was driving home. It turns out it is one of the few songs I can sing at my normal register and not butcher. So I now officially have two songs I am willing to sing in front of people. The other is When I'm Sixty Four. Paul and I do a nice melody, no biggie.

Paolo used to talk about his grandfather a lot. His family is Italian, so I felt a connection with his music and my own grandparents. This weekend is going to be hard. How fast can a disease wipe a person out? How big can a heart stretch with love? Where will this take me? I am here Lord.

Labels: be the good, concerts, live shows, Paolo Nutini, photography, stay in the light

Please don't go away.

Labels: heartbroken, memories of you, Rosebud

I'm on day two of a migraine that won't go away.  It's the first time in over a year that my over the counter meds haven't worked.  It's times like these that I can feel myself being tested.  I always feel like I'm running behind after a migraine, like I lost valuable time to get things done.  And I have, with four things just today, but there's more time.  That's what I have to tell myself to calm down I guess.

Don't stress.  Focus on what's important: family, love, and good health. 

Labels: migraines, priorities, Rilo Kiley

The first two songs on Jenny Lewis's breakout album with The Watson Twins feels like the musical version of a couplet.  I can't hear Run Devil Run without preparing for The Big Guns, and then they pair so well lyrically.

I took a half day at work today so I was able to drive in a little later.  The sun was shining beautifully, all the cars were going the other way and I was singing with that faint accent again.  God, it is so beautiful out here. 

Labels: accents, country life, I've got diamonds in my eyes for you, Jenny Lewis

There is a girl from my church who is at least ten years younger than me, maybe 10-13, and as a small kid she looked so much like I did at her age.  My family, of course, nicknamed her mini-me.  Though Mini-J might have made more sense, we were living in a post-Austin Powers world.

Her family was at church for the Christmas Eve service tonight and she was there all made up in a short lacy dress and jean jacket.  You see, somewhere around puberty our gene patterns changed drastically.  Her hair never dulled, it is a saucy bright red.  She is still as pale as I am and she has long, long legs like me, but otherwise she looks like a fantasy.  She is skinny, but not gaunt, with  a slender face, a cute slightly pixie nose, small chin, long wavy full hair.  Kind of exactly how I wanted puberty to treat me.  No wide hips, no round face, no intense breakouts that only birth control could stop.

Whenever I see her, and it's at church mind you, I think mean, cruel thoughts.  Mostly about myself.  I don't see her and want to pay her a compliment.  I see her and I see what I'll never be.  Or something like that.  There is just a lot of sudden self doubt and often self hate.

It reminds me of how much evil still lives in me, no matter how often I try to be good.  I was such a good kid, or I tried to be, and I tried to do the right thing and not be bad.  Kid logic, so simple, so often so spot on.  But I think there is something about being a teenage girl that just twists you up inside and brings out your worst.  It's not easy for a girl to go through puberty and stay pure, hold on to all that goodness, and not end up a little evil in the process.

I used to apply this logic to my relationship with my ex.  I kept seeing myself as the villain.  Like I could only do things to hurt him and I wasn't a good influence or a good enough person for him or like he was bound to hate me because, get this, because he did in my dreams and so that obviously meant I was a bad person and he felt like that in real life too.  I was a little too evil to be good.  I used to beat myself down real bad, and I can't explain why.  I tried in therapy, but there was no peaceful resolution to that feeling for me.  It's just, I did do crappy things.  There are several aspects I needed to work on.  No one's perfect.  And I don't want to forget the mistakes I made, because I don't want to make them again.

Emotions really are so damn overwhelming in dreams.  The fact that these false memories have the ability to haunt me in my waking life drives me crazy.  My imagination is not as pure and good as it used to be.  I think I definitely soiled that as a teenager.  My imagination doesn't run out though.  If you're worried about the bad that can come, my imagination can calculate all the ways it could be worse. 

So at church I'm praying on how to be better, how to tame down my evil, sinful self, and be a better person to others and myself and what can I say?  God doesn't talk to me.  My prayers aren't that powerful.  I just know that I can't stop trying.  That happiness is key.  I need to figure out if what I think will make me happy will be worth everything else it could set off.

Find the good.  Be  the good.  Do good.

Labels: be the good, find the good, how many secrets can you keep

This past week sucked.  Work kicked my ass.  I was in and out of "a mood."  Traffic was crazy.

I called my grandmother to talk and get prospective.  We're doing that thing where we ignore she's dying and it's totally normal to have hospice care.  I didn't realize she already needed hospice.  She's shared my post surgery tips with her hospice nurses already.  We're in such different places and yet we understand each other so well. 

She thinks that I seem more balanced, that I didn't need perspective from her, that I've been in such a good place since getting this job.  I'm more motivated.  I mostly believe her.  She doesn't know about Libby, but it is apparent I'm writing more, which is one of the things I factor in.

I told her about trying to find the good in my days.  I really need a big dose of good.  I need something to keep me in a good mood til the new year.  Not that I have anything planned for then.  I just feel like a need a big push of positivity and sunshine to get me there.

I've been writing more outside of Libby too.  Poetry twisted with all my confusing feelings. I'm trying to make something worth sharing, but I don't have any false ideas that it'll do anyone else any good.  My words don't seem to be as helpful for others anymore.  I wish they would.  I wish it was something I could be prouder of.

Labels: be more positive, family, i wish, writing

I'm obsessed with hair cuts.  Some of my favorite posts on Libby are the ones that are so adamant that life will be worth living as long as I have good hair.  Get ugly, get haggard, get fat, smudge all your makeup, stain all of your clothes, but you'll be good so long as your hair looks perfect.

With perfect hair you can find prince charming.  With perfect hair you can get that promotion.  With perfect hair your body will never get sick, or old, or wither.

Yeah, well I got my hair cut.

Labels: hair cuts, perfect hair

I had a bad day at work today, and at the same time a good day.  I really love my office, it's such a great fit for me.  The team I have there is supportive and creative and some of the kindest people I've ever met.  They get me too, which is why today was also a good day.  They stepped in as soon as they saw me go pale and quiet and they didn't complain about their own giant work loads at all.

The bad part of the day was this minor panic attack I had when I realized my low key group would give me the most stress in the spring.  They traditionally do a lot of the planning on their own and I do more administrative tasks for the event.  Except now they've decided to do Disney in March and they already have a contract they wanted me to review and it is less than 90 days away!

breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe, stop panicking, breathe.

I knew the most stressful times would be in October (when I had five meetings in a row) and in December when I had to finalize four contracts for the spring, now five.  I finished two, one will most likely push into January, and now two in progress.

I don't ever talk to my friends about this kind of work stuff.  Maybe I need to find a meeting planners group to do a cocktail & complaints hour.  Sip & Paint & Problem Solve?  I can just see myself with the poofy scarf, trying to stay balanced on a stool, sipping back my coke no ice with a straw that won't stay down and discreetly passing around a bag of chewy sprees to get rid of all the greens.

Everything is so diaries entry boring on Libby these days.  I haven't read much lately, haven't come across any real inspiring quotes.  There were a few really good lines in my book on tape, but I listen to it when I drive and can't write it down.  Hoping Practical Magic will inspire me like The Magicians did.

We're supposed to have white noise machines at work but I can hear everything all the time.  I ordered a portable sound machine that can generate fan noises, white noise and ocean sounds.  As soon as it arrives I am taking it to the office.  I wish I had it today.  Trying to squelch a possible migraine with this calming mix I made a few years back.  It's just making me tired though.

Labels: anxiety, meeting planner, meetings, panic attacks, playlist, work

I love this song.  Even though Doug Martsch doesn't have the most beautiful voice, there is this delicate balance he creates in this song between rough, scratchy vocals and this vulnerable, drawn out confession.  He does this with the two key words in the song, terrible and perfect.

The rest of the song is hardly delicate or soft.  I have in fact described it as a "clangy/clashy song,"  when I was struggling with word recall. Unpolished, the opposite of clean, definitely not girly.  It's one of the songs that I'm trying to use as my "vision board" for a new playlist, Less Girly.

The playlist is an attempt to get away from love songs.  Love songs are great, don't get me wrong.  I just don't try that hard to listen to new bands (or even newer songs) these days, and everything in my collection feels used.  Like I can't reassociate love songs with new people.  I would never regift a mix or associate the same song with multiple guys.

Most love songs make you feel happy and good, though.  I need more of that.  I would just rather have that without being reminded I'm lonely though, thus Less Girly.  They can still be about love, (I think Terrible/Perfect reflects on two widely acknowledged views of love), and hope and heartbreak and possibilities, but they also need to be about more than just love.

Labels: Built To Spill. Doug Martsch, Less Girly, love songs, mixtapes, music appreciation

Today I fought to stay in the light and it continued to shine even after the sun went down.  I faced several anxieties - driving in Atlanta with one bad hand, going out by myself with no set plans to meet others, the possibility of running into my ex, talking to strangers (/befriending a stranger), driving at night with one bad hand, going into unruly crowds with my injured wrist - and I came out smiling.

I saw the band Bully tonight and they played an unbelievably awesome show.  I found their music  really helpful this past year, first with angst and then with trying to steady myself. I mean yeah, you can feel the anger start to build and intensify, but then you can just shake it off and fall into the steady drum beat and killer vocals.  I really don't know how she is able to tour and not lose her voice.  Maybe she does.  I am so thankful for that. 

I am also thankful for my health, the good and the bad, this strange mix I have.  My anxiety was so crippling last year.  It was very clearly present tonight, but I didn't have an anxiety attack, I didn't back down, and I continued to challenge myself with the good kind of scary.

I'm not perfect though.  Tonight I recognized how much I need to improve my communication.  I knew good and well there was a high chance that I could see my ex tonight and I did not tell a single person.  Yes, that's not really other people's business, but if I want an effective support team I have to use it. I didn't want to be talked out of going and I think now that is not what a good support team would try to do after all.  A good support team should push you to face your fears, to eliminate them, but with aid. I think.

Labels: anxiety, Bully, find the good, live shows, stay in the light, thankful

When things don't go your way, try a new approach.  Maybe you just need to change the station.

Lemonade helped me get through all the extra work I had to do without losing my focus. If anything tried to bring me down I just imagined I was Beyonce in this video.

Labels: dancing all day, lemonade

Today has been a major disappointment.  Second time I was told I would be going into my brace only to get a new and worse cast.   Now it looks like I will be paying just over $6,000.00 in hospital bills for this surgery, with my insurance. Too upset to name this post because this day has given me a migraine and has nothing good about it and I will most likely delete this post anyway because I'm just complaining and rambling.

Labels: hate my insurance, in pain, new cast blues

Today is another day to be thankful for - sledding, singing, and good people.

I mean, it was some really bad singing, but I had fun trying to find the alto part in it all. It was a day of good, with plenty of light.

Tomorrow I get my last cast off.  I am so ready for this day.  Ready to be back on the road, back to washing my hair with both hands, back to cutting my own meat, back to wearing normal clothes and all the layers I need to stay warm at work.  Oh my gosh I can't believe how happy I am that I can start wearing gloves on both hands tomorrow!  The feeling in my hand is still not all there yet, and I have been praying so hard that it's just the cast.  Patience is not my best virtue, but I'm trying.  I will stay in the light and find the good and avoid sounding like a cult leader.

Labels: be positive, find the good, stay in the light

I can be pretty dumb.  When depression does find me, I close myself off.  I don't remember ever sitting any of my friends down and telling them what I was going through.  Did I ever tell you?  Sometimes I think it's those old friendships that visit Libby, to check in on what's new in my life, since I never call them up to talk about it.

I went to St. Augustine to visit my old friend in October.  I am so much more than just grateful that she invited me to visit her.  It wasn't like we picked up our friendship where we left off, because we don't have that anymore.  I got real weird and different and our friendship felt real damaged for years.  And still she invited me back.

We went to a concert like old times, except we walked there from her house.  We went for a walk on the beach one morning and collected trash and recycling to keep it from going back out into the ocean.  We went to explore the historical side of town and she gave me a guided tour.

I never expected myself to love living in the country so much. I didn't realize there was so much to discover about myself.  Meanwhile, living down in a sunny beach town, my old friend still has so much in common with this new me.  She has always been cooler than me though, so of course she's been at this longer than me.  I am grateful for all that she's shared with me - on composting, beekeeping, and how to keep an orchid alive and blooming.

I don't know if I can do that drive again by myself anytime soon, but if I am going to continue on this part of bettering myself and finding the good and the light and the ones I love, then I am going to try. Maybe we can make it a long weekend.

Side Note: I couldn't write this post about St. Augustine and not use an Avett Brothers song for the title, but if this post could have two unrelated songs, then it would also be Car by Built to Spill.

Labels: Avett Brothers, beekeeping, composting, depression, friendship, good will come, orchids, Red, St. Augustine, stay in the light

I tried to shut my head down, but there's too much on my mind. I want to spend more time with my grandma, to soak up as much of her as I can.  It's too late for chemo.  Stage 4.  Cancer everywhere.  It's not a genetic kind, so that's the one positive that she's grateful for.  They are giving her the really powerful pain medication instead.  The stuff that takes away your appetite and makes you really tired all of the time.

So I want to visit her as much as I can, but I know her health is going to deteriorate quickly and she might not be awake much or lucid much in the later months.  I want to be there for my PapPap too, so I don't mind showing up to clean and cook or popping in with groceries and new pictures of the family.

For my grandmother, I am going to go back to writing her letters.  She's never owned a computer, doesn't keep up with anyone online, and she doesn't keep mementos or clutter, but she's kept all of her letters.  So I am going to tell her all about the good that is going to come and all that keeps my wheels turning at night.

I am going to write about my recovery process, my dream garden, my trip to St. Augustine, the perfect woods to camp in, the names of my future cats, my niece and new nephew, the new environmental awareness & recycling program at work that I get to grow, the funny shapes of my scars, my successes and failures with her recipes, the good I get to do with my job, the seed garden at the library, my problems growing soy beans, beehives and composting, my writing dreams, discovering Cuban food, and the plot lines to all of the crazy books I read.

Labels: be the good, cancer, family, stay in the light

I thought next year would be this year of better things.  No resolutions, fuck resolutions, but better energy, more hope, more kindness, more good.  I'm not a child anymore though, so I don't know why my dreams are made with the unstructured, come what may mentality of youth.  Next year is a year that will test my strength, my goodness, and my heart.

I'm in this time loop from two years ago.  New job, new baby, new surgery, new loss.  I was in such a broken place when I went through this the first time.  I have to pray that the good that's come will keep me in the light.

Four to six months is all we have left.  I have to plan and structure the next six months of my life to love and cherish and adore this woman who I owe so much to. I have to prepare for all of it - the good, the bad, the ugly, the loss.

My sister is due with her second child at the beginning of that time frame.  One goes out. One comes in.  I know better than to doubt God's plan, it's not for me to know.  I'm grateful for the gifts He gives to help us through.  A new soul to love and hold and shape.

The thing is, I have to be strong.  The woman who holds me up is weakened and I will not be the one that makes her sad or drains her strength.  I have to be strong enough to weaken her fears.  I'm not going to go so far as force love into my life and lead her to believe I've found the person to take her place.  She could very well haunt me if I lied to her sweet face.

I think one way to start this process is to identify who will hold my hand.  My good hand, mind you.  If I'm going to be strong at the end of this I need to stay in the light.

Labels: be the good, cancer, family, find the good, stay in the light, time loop

Oh my gosh I need to delete more of my emails.  I was searching for something in my email and kept hitting the next arrow until I came across an old conversation with my ex.  It was this chat session from when we first started dating again and it is just total sweet sadness. 

I was so scared going into that second chance.  There are so many things I could say here, but if I couldn't say it to him back then I'm not going to broadcast it here now.  I wish I had gone back to therapy to sort out my feelings at that time and I wish I had asked him to join me.

One of my new friends brought up therapy the other week.  She has one therapist she sees by herself and one she sees with her fiance for the recommended pre-marital counseling.  She found therapists she really likes and had no problem talking openly to me about her therapists and why she likes them so much.  My friend is such a cheerful person, which most people don't normally associate with therapy, but that makes so  much sense to me.  I always felt so much calmer and organized and aware after my own sessions.

What did surprise me though is for pre-marital counseling she said they went back to the couples therapist they had seen previously.  We talked about that for a bit and it caused me to really reflect.  After the first time I dated my ex, I thought we might get back together in the future when he was more matured.  I was so blind to how immature I was in our relationship, how much I needed to change.  Which I didn't as much as I should have.  I feel bad about the whole experience.  It was my first real relationship, I had no real personal experience to compare it to, and my interactions with guys in the past had come to sting sharply at the end.  So whenever things looked bad I closed up.  I thought about seeing a therapist for myself, and I should have.  I had so much more going on, so much I unloaded on him, so much more I kept to myself.

What stung at the end of this particular relationship was how much we had fallen in love with each other.  Because you see, love can come to hurt worst of all.  Looking back, I really wish there was someone else before that who could have taken all the crap I did and let me rid myself of all my childish ways, but that's not how my story goes.

Anyway, my friend said that her couples therapist sees them each separately and then together.  I like that concept of couples therapy.  On tv or in books you see two people struggling to fix problems, one person doing all the talking, one person calling it a waste of time.  Working together to make a stronger connection before a problem arises makes more sense. I can understand her logic so well.  I think that's something I'll need to try in the future.

I need to continue to be more positive.  Maybe then the past won't hurt as much.  Maybe then the future will be better.

Labels: be positive, healthy decision making, processing, therapy

I was never the biggest George Harrison fan before my late twenties. Looking back I can see how underexposed I was to most of his tracks.  There is something that pulls me to Only a Northern Song in a much different way than While My Guitar Gently Weeps and Something.  I'm not big on psychedelic music, and admittedly the song isn't very beautiful, but it is a beacon of well channeled righteous rage.

Apparently George loved gardening and goes on about it in his autobiography.  Seems like something my library system should have.  A nice start to my 2018 Reading Challenge.  I'm thinking about going down to 40 books for this challenge.  It's closer to 3 books a month instead of 50 and would make it easier for me to travel more and do more next year without getting behind on my progress.  The competitive part of me wants to keep it at 50.  Reading feeds my brain.  Books are little pots of gold.  Occasionally, coal.

Back to The Beatles, because apparently I am turning Libby into a Beatles blog.  Maybe "The Month of Beatlemania."  Except I am obsessed and on a theme so it will be more like The Fab Four Months of Beatles Posts.

Sirius.fm has a little ol' website where you can submit your favorite four songs.  My Fab Four.  They don't go into the specifics, but they are choosing entries from celebrities and normal folk and playing them during a segment they call My Fab Four. Each person has an introduction to their list and at least one or two other clips about the songs they've chosen.

myfabfour.net which takes you to:

http://blog.siriusxm.com/tell-us-your-my-fab-four-songs-and-you-might-get-heard-on-the-beatles-channel/

I am going to compile a hundred playlists before I can figue out what my fab four are.  I am just so indecisive.  What are yours?

Labels: gardening, George Harrison, MY Fab Four, ramblings, reading challenge, reading list, The Beatles, The Beatles Channel on Sirius FM