The Berry Patch

D-Day

2020-04-19T02:24:00.000-07:00

Not sure if I'll leave this status up very long, or if even if I'll actually hit post when I'm done. I don't know exactly what I want to say, how I want to say it, or even the idea I want get across.

Today is the 19th anniversary of my last first date. In 3 days, it'll be the 2nd anniversary of the day I left. It's been 33 days since quarantine started and 11 days since my divorce was official.

I spent most of February being reminded of why I was okay getting married young, why I went out with him in the first place, and why I gave up on love, romance, marriage, and men at 19. I've spent 9 months reliving the reason I gave up again at 20, having met someone who changed me as fundamentally now as another guy did back then. I've had 13 months to come to terms with the lies. 2 years of distance from all the things that went wrong, all the fights and pain and awful. 3 years since I accepted the truth of what was really going on. 7 since I told him I was done, 5 of which we lived as nothing more than coparenting roommates keeping up appearances (because heaven forbid people know we were doing something *weird* like learning to be the friends necessary to be the parents we needed to be for our son, and surviving the only way we could financially). Almost 10 years since the day I fell into darkness, emotionally abandoned and alone with my newborn who couldn't stay asleep and had no tolerance for cuddling. A few months more than 15 years since shame, blame, disgust, rejection, and worthlessness replaced my value and existence as a person, a wife, and a woman.

Just typing those last three has my heart racing in fear. People aren't supposed to know. To see. To hear. Hide it. Bury it. Paint the pretty picture and let it rest. If they know, he'll hate me. Hate himself. Hate everything. I can't live in the hate. In the cold. In the silence filled with seething drama. He would never hit me, not with his fists. Mine was a better life than many because of that. But his words? His anger? His off-hand dismissal and calculated disgust? They hit even harder and left no mark for anyone to see. He didn't do it on purpose...usually. He was always so scared. Of failure, mostly. Of people finding out the truth. I'm not sure what truth, only that it was buried within him and no one was allowed to get close to it, including me.

I knew 3 months after our wedding that he didn't love me. A year after that, I knew he didn't even care about me as a person, not all the way down. On the surface, where he was supposed to, sure. But he would have let me die without lifting a finger to help. Even though it turned out to be panic attacks and not a heart attack, he didn't know that. I can't watch My Name is Earl without transporting back to that moment when my reality fractured. When I wasn't even worth saving.

"I thought you just wanted attention," he told me later. Of course he did; he knew that's what my parents used to tell me because I trusted him with all my secrets. All of me. He knew that saying it would hurt me all the way down, leaving me without the power to be angry with him, to hold him responsible for his actions. Just like he knew that calling into question my love for my baby and my fitness as a mother would keep me from remembering that he went to work instead of getting me the help I needed. Just like he told me that maybe if my thighs were thinner, he'd want to sleep with me three months after our wedding. Maybe if I weren't so demanding, so emasculating, so much work, he'd want me. If I wasn't such a chore, maybe I would be worth desiring.

My heart is beating erratically as I type this. My hands are shaking almost badly enough I can't keep hitting the right keys. My body is trying to keep me safe. To keep me from tripping the wrong wires. To keep me from making him lose face as a man, as a husband. I never had panic attacks before that day, 15 months into our marriage, and I haven't had one since about 9 months after I left.

How did I spend so many years with a person who made me feel like nothing? Especially when I didn't even really want to go out with him in the first place. That question plagued me from our 15th anniversary in November until a night I was sitting at my cousin's bar beside a very drunk girl making out with a guy she just met.

I was 20 when we started dating. I was done with guys - the Universe had handed me the boy I was supposed to be with in no uncertain terms, and we didn't even make it to the first kiss before he started treating me like I didn't exist. If I couldn't make that work, obviously it wasn't my path. And I was okay with that. "I'll just turkey-baste my babies," I figured. I didn't need a man for the parts of my life I dreamed about, just a donor and a solid enough career to raise a family on a single income. But I also didn't want to get to be 40 and regret never finding out what the fun parts of dating were like. So I decided I'd go out with the next guy who showed an interest. (And maybe, I thought, my problem was actually that I always chased the boys who didn't want me and never gave the ones who did a chance. Might as well try it the other way for once.) He just happened to show an interest in the window of opportunity.

Boy, did I pick wrong.

But I've also had months since that realization to understand - and accept, which was harder - that he was wholly committed to keeping me. Even though he knew we were a terrible match. Even though I told him I wanted things he didn't, and had no intention of being what he did want. I showed him my cards because I believed in honesty and openness and honor. He...didn't. He lied to me for 18 years about his integral nature and beliefs in marriage, sex, and life in general. 18 years of deception. 18 years of incongruity and pain, of isolation so no one - including me - ever found out the truth.

No wonder he was always exhausted, his emotions explosively close to the surface.

I tried to mark the day of my divorce. My brother made me cake. I got beer delivered from my safe haven. But in the middle of quarantine, it still doesn't feel any different. I can't move on until I get a job - the one thing I'm most terrified I'll fail at because he leaned on it and my surrounding weaknesses so hard, like my social anxiety. I can't get a regular job due to the virus (my son's already been hospitalized once for pneumonia; I have no interest in letting it happen again). And I have a way to make a job for myself from home...but I'm too scared. I have too many years of terrible things told to me about me stacked up between me and success. And that feels like such a cop out. I want to do it, even if I didn't need to. And yet...I can't make myself actually start. His voice, his fears, his "supportive criticism" still drown out everything else in my head.

What if I can't hack it? Not because I'll fail - I learned to fail well way back in high school - but because if I do, it'll be proving him right.

So many things still scare me out here in the real world. But I'm getting better. I kicked my social anxiety's ass. I've worked through so many things, enough to ask a guy to lunch (which I'd never done before), to hang out in a neighborhood pub where people can talk to me, willy-nilly. I've started making friends and letting people in again (TERRIFYING). I've done so many things that prove I'm not what he always said I was, what he made me stay in order to not outdo his male ego. And yet still, I have this one block I can't shift.

19 years ago, I went to the museum and had a nice day with a nice boy. I want to be able to say that everything that came after it was a huge mistake, but I can't. Because the one thing I've come to understand over the last two years is this: I am exactly where I'm supposed to be. Just like when I got my first job 20 years ago, I'm standing at a cosmic node of awesomeness where synchronicity, connection, and weirdness rule everything. All I can do is hang on and believe. Knowing it doesn't stave off the loneliness or the impatience or the worry, but it does offer a sense of deep peace.

The last 19 years may have been almost entirely painful and destructive and toxic (minus the last two - those have been pretty good, if exceedingly challenging), but it's okay. I am where I'm supposed to be, meeting the people I'm meant to, and forging forward the way I can. I get to do everything from a place of love, honesty, and delight, and I'm kind of in love with that place. It hasn't stopped me from crying really hard for the last week, or kept me from feeling like a loser, or dispelled the loneliness that comes from missing my people. But I've healed SO MUCH, and that's what matters most. I'm me again, and that's worth all the worry in the world.

{Note: Emotional abuse is painful, destructive, and no less serious than physical abuse. There is no point at which the abused's behavior will reach "appropriate" levels because the tiniest slip will cause the same consequences as the biggest slip. We are not perfect. I know how shitty making excuses made me feel; listen to that feeling when it shows up. Get help if you need it. And if there's one thing I can pass on above all others, it's this: Nice, good people can still hurt the ones they love...even on purpose. People are complicated; "goodness" or "such a great catch" doesn't go away when they hurt us. My ex is a decent guy. He doesn't wish other people ill, and he agrees with the concepts of helping others and being kind. He buys homeless people food. Cheers people up when they're having bad days. He's a fantastic manager and everyone who works with him inevitably loves working with him. None of that kept him from being an abusive spouse or emotionally abandoning me whenever I needed him most. Nor do his actions as a spouse change who he is to other people. He doesn't fake it; he really is a good guy. He's just also abusive in the places he was abused growing up. They can and often do coexist within a single person. "He can't be abusing me if he's a good guy," was the false truth that kept me stuck for years, especially because it was often reinforced by others. Abuse is abuse is abuse; extenuating circumstances don't change that fact. Love shouldn't make you feel worthless.}

Of Triggers and Teachers

2019-09-24T23:40:00.000-07:00

[Trigger warning for my classmates, fellow Coloradans, and mass shooting sensitives.]

I expected last night's active shooter lockdown meeting to be hard. Sitting in a room full of angry, frightened parents trying to understand what happened and how a miscommunication could affect their children so enormously was always going to be rough for an emotional sponge like me.

I didn't expect to have to cope with jealousy.

The school was so quiet on Friday when I picked up Gooseberry, and it wasn't just because so many of the kids had been taken home early. I know that quiet, where somehow the wind and the ground and the sky are themselves subdued. It's the sound of fear. Of heartache. Of lost innocence.
I remember exactly three things about my high school graduation. 1. Standing in line outside the theatre, hoping not to screw up. 2. That we had no idea what our commencement speeches said, because the sound system was in place for the audience, not for us. And 3. The gut-clenching moment of hushed voices as we, 17 and 18 year-olds without adult suggestion, pinned blue and silver ribbons and CHS stickers to our lapels - to walk carrying them with us across the stage.

Watching the parents last night struggle with the fear and shock of a chaotic afternoon that ended in, "Oops, never mind," 99% of me overflowed with compassion. "You'll survive it," my heart whispered. "Your kids will be okay. They'll carry those minutes with them, possibly forever, but they'll be okay." But that last 1% made me angry.

"These parents got so many more years than we did," it growled. "They didn't spend their child's first year here learning to exist with the fear of an open campus shadowing every drop-off and pick-up. What does a life like that even feel like? We should have had the chance to find out!"

And then the superintendent said something about, "Whether it's the classroom or the cafeteria or the library..." and I had to squelch a pained gasp. Every parent story about how their child spent Friday afternoon and the weekend in between summoned up unwanted images.

The cheerleaders in my PE class, collapsing into each other's arms as we listened to the radio.
The news, replaying over and over the line of high schoolers sprinting across the field to safety.
The pictures I built in my head that accompanied the stories of classes trapped in bathrooms, in hallways.
Of the ones who didn't make it.
Of talking to a friend in Home Ec days later about the bomb threats and suggestions that our school was going to be next.
Of how that quiet seeped into all our classrooms and stole the joy and color from our last few weeks of high school.

I want to help the parents now. To reassure them. I want to stand with them in ensuring the safety of our children. But I can't. It bothered me a lot that I couldn't, all weekend leading up to the meeting. Through the whole meeting, until a commotion at an adjoining door prompted the explanation that the girls' basketball team was practicing next door. So oddly coincidental, it covered me in goosebumps.

The kids will be okay. They have teams of people watching over them. The parents will be, too, eventually, once the dust settles on their new worldview. I can't stand with them for the simple reason that they aren't my charges to help.

In the weeks after Columbine, our teachers spent their prep time between classes standing guard over the hallways. It scared me, that constant reminder that they needed to. The one image I keep seeing, again and again without reprieve, is of the girls' basketball coach - normally a jovial and smiling fellow with a mug of tea casually in hand - his face made of stone, eyes sharp and hard, arms folded, positioned at a corner for maximum visibility. Who he was inside had fundamentally changed, and in that moment, I recognized the difference with a shock that went all the way through me.

It was the moment I truly understood love and connection and sacrifice. I realized in one glance that every one of my teachers, beloved or otherwise, and every adult in the whole school would willingly die for a single one of us. It wasn't part of their job description. They weren't trained in weapons or security or rescue; they wore no armor and no helmets; yet when it was asked of them, they set their jaws, lifted their heads, and stood sentinel over us all.

No one talks about the adults in school shootings, except to note exceptional acts of heroism. And no one in the meeting on Friday voiced any concern for them, either. They expressed appreciation for those that handled the situation well, but the teachers were, as they always are, discussed as employees. Not as victims of trauma. Not as civilians in a horrible circumstance for which there can be no adequate training. Not as people. As responsible parties to whom we could assign blame or praise for their contributions to our children's experiences. End of sentence.

I spoke to the principal afterward, to express my concern (which, considering the state of my social anxiety at present, says a lot about my level of concern). She listed off what the school was offering to staff, clearly trying to reassure me. And I, with my impaired emotional state, couldn't explain properly.

Our teachers and staff are not hardened security officers. They are, especially in elementary school, human beings made of compassion, generosity, patience, joy, and so much love that they won't blink at being asked to make the ultimate sacrifice for the children in their care. And we fail them every time.

It's not enough to offer them access to trained therapists (to whom, I'm told, only six staff members spoke in a K-8 school). It's not enough to bring them coffee the next morning. "Thank you" only goes so far. As a parent, I can offer a hug and a deeply heartfelt outpouring of gratitude to the adults who kept my child safe and calm. And that's important. But it's still not enough.

I have been one of those children, and I have seen our teachers' hearts and their eyes and their souls when they've become bodyguards and warriors on the inside. For us. For me. They deserve so much more than the cookies I sometimes bake them on any normal day.

They deserve our honor.
Our gratitude.
Our support.
Our encouragement.
Hugs so tight they can feel them hours afterward.
And so much love and respect from the whole community that they will never doubt that we understand and appreciate in our heart-of-hearts what we ask of them should the unthinkable happen.

I can't do much else for them (the Century shooting fallout having stolen my ability to organize), but I can carry forward what my teachers did for me. I can be their sentinel, watching and listening for danger others might not notice. Ensuring they don't fall between the cracks. In such a small community, I don't know that they need to feel seen or connected more than they already do, but it doesn't really matter.

I know what they did for our kids on Friday, who they became in those terrible minutes before they knew it was a false alarm. And that makes them mine to shelter and protect.

Every single one of them.

Always.

Where Are We?

2018-12-30T20:54:00.001-08:00

Whew! It's the end of 2018 already. WOW.

Gooseberry and I moved in with my mom back in April, so we're in California now. Pretty much as soon as we got here, I started getting sick. By mid-July, I was wheezing constantly, without respite. My doctor tried all kinds of asthma meds, even though I didn't think that was it. I first saw a pulmonologist in August, and he's trying to help me figure out what's wrong. Current running diagnosis: Massive laryngopharyngeal reflux (basically, reflux that affects the whole throat) that gave me paroxysmal vocal cord dysfunction (my vocal folds frequently seize up). I've been on massive doses of stomach meds for almost five months now, and I STILL have stomach problems. I have to find a GI doctor for the next step, but I'm having horrible flashbacks to 2017's awful GI doc, and...bleh.

I got a job at the local library. It was basically a perfect job. And after three days of standing in one place, my pelvis basically came apart. (Chronic issue that I thought was fixed, but the wheezing - which made it painful and difficult to breathe - kept me from exercising for several months so it came back.) Could barely walk for a week. Had to quit, which sucked. Still hurts. I'm hoping to go to a pelvic specialist PT soon, and then maybe I can get back on track.

Because this is not how I anticipated this going. I was going to move in, get a job, make money, save money, buy a car, save more money, get a job farther away or in another state, and move out. By, you know, NOW. Instead, no job, no car, still trying to figure out what's going and manage it. It is, at least, getting better! Very, very slowly, but better. :)

Gooseberry's new school has been good in some ways, and really hard in others. His last school was wonderful, and knew exactly how to handle his needs without asking. This school doesn't have the same level of experience with autism, so I feel like I have to fight to be understood. But, it's also MUCH better funded. Like, SERIOUSLY funded. And that is really nice (harder for me, since all the fundraisers involve $75 dinners and things I can't afford, but still). He's pinpointing more of his letter sounds, and he has conversations that blow me away. He is well and truly 8 now, even if he has a few deficits in language and processing compared to his peers. (He also reads very well - though for some reason he now hates it D: - and super-excels at math. And he loves logic puzzles and problem-solving. Woohoo!) He misses his dad like crazy, but he gets to play a lot of video games because I'm working on so much all the time that I fail to make him do anything else. :/

I've been writing like a mad thing since I got sick. I finished the book that's taken me two years to write, and I'm finishing up the line edit for it now so that it gets a January release (YAAAAAY!). I wrote a whole book in six weeks, and am looking forward to repeating that once school is back in. I'm going to be self-employed shortly, too, which is both terrifying and exciting, and will hopefully pay for things like physical therapy and a car, if nothing else. (The town we live in is very small. It's 10 minutes to the grocery store and 40-60 minutes to pretty much anything specialized.)

There's more to talk about, but I'll be posting it on Facebook where I can control my audience. I think. Maybe. If I can summon the courage...

Anyway, I see that I still have folks popping every week or two! Let me know who you are and what you're wondering about, and I'll share. :D

And Here We Are in 2018...

2018-03-24T03:11:00.001-07:00

Hi there!

Been a long time, huh? I gotta say, I'm both sad and glad that blogging has sort of fallen by the wayside. Sad, because it used to be a big part of my self-expression, personal journaling efforts, and everyday writing outlet. But glad because it was an awful lot of blah thrown out into the universe. Except the baby stuff. :) I really wish I had more baby stuff to talk about...

Let's see. Gooseberry is going on 8 now. ("Whaaaaaat?!" you may ask. And to that I answer, "I KNOW!!!! GAAAAAH!) He's been in an absolutely phenomenal structural program here in Phoenix for the last three years. Did I write posts about that? I don't remember. I wrote some big entries for Facebook, so I...doubt it. Anyway, he was fairly nonverbal when he started kindergarten. Within three months, he was talking. Now, we can't get him to stop talking. He still has a lot of letters that he doesn't pronounce correctly and the way he puts sentences together sometimes is strange. But he is wonderfully expressive when he wants to be, and absolutely hysterical. I mean, this kid is FUNNY. I know most parents think they're kids are entertaining, but even his teacher has said that she notices a significant difference when he's out sick...because they all laugh so much less. He is a Leo, no doubt about that, and very much his daddy's kid. Silliness abounds! But he's also very much my kid, too - he reads a grade level ahead and is one of the peer examples in class. (Except in math. He's awfully sneaky about finding ways not to have to do math...so...I guess he gets that from me, too. :/ )

Let's see. He loves people. Makes excellent eye contact, to the extent that I have to remind myself to actually look at him when we're having conversations. It didn't make a difference before, since he wouldn't notice. But now, I definitely lose out on connection opportunities, just like with a normative kid. He's also gotten more into playing with toys, now that his friends showed him how much fun they are. Not too thrilled about the level of violence that shows up in the way he talks about things, but I guess that'll be a future battle. For now, it's enough to get him away from electronics and into his imagination. Oh! And Jeremelon's grandmother moved in with us back in November. She's been giving Gooseberry piano lessons. He ADORES the piano, as I knew he would. All instruments, really. I need to get better about teaching him to practice. (A significant challenge, as I never learned very well, myself. He's got my impatience, too...)

So he's doing awesomely.

Jeremelon got a new job last summer. He is now a field technician for a company that services movie theatres and the like. He works on projectors and audio equipment and televisions and electronic menu boards. And because we live in a not-so-dense region, he often travels between states. He was in El Paso on Monday, and next Monday he'll be going to Vegas. He goes to Vegas a LOT. (Not nearly as fun as it sounds...most of the time he leaves early, does his work there, and then drives home in time to go to bed. It's a LOT of driving.) We acquired a used minivan a few weeks ago which makes that driving more convenient. Now if it would stop being weird long enough for the mechanic to work out the minor bugs enough to get an emissions test so we could register the silly thing, life would be MUCH more self-sufficient. But in all, Jeremelon is doing well. He likes the job and the driving vents some of his nomadic need to move.

Speaking of moving, we're supposed to be joining the in-laws in their other house. They moved over three weeks ago, but I've been dragging my feet. HARD. After almost three YEARS with them, I'm out of tolerance. And when I'm out of tolerance, it mostly means I spend all day every day in a wet heap of tears and despair. My social well is so tapped out, it's going to take years to refill it. I'm worried the same is true of my creative well, which is apparently tied to my ability to persevere. The longer I have to hold on and expend all my energy surviving (emotionally and mentally, anyway), the harder it is to find my imagination. The spark of joy has gone out of my writing. That, on its own, has been a hard thing to face. How does one lose the fire that makes them who they are? Will I ever find it again? I certainly hope so... But right now, I don't feel much like writing. I mean, I still love crafting stories...but the writing is so much WORK that I just...don't seem to have it in me right now.

And, of course, being fully honest, a lot of that is depression. Fear. MMmmm...no, let me rephrase. It's sheer terror about the future. Not, thankfully, the kind that used to be with me every day that made me terrified of being evicted and winding up homeless on the street. But the kind that comes with a complete and total unknown. We humans tends to have issues with question marks where our futures are supposed to be. Jeremelon and I are changing...well, everything, really. I can kind of imagine what life might look like come, say, this October. But this time next year? ........I got nothin'. I'm trying to embrace the excitement and the freedom and the possibilities that come with that, but...nope. Thinking about it too hard gives me a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. And that is all I'm going to say about that.

I guess that catches us up, huh?

I'm going to try to get back to blogging. At least a little, here and there. If for no other reason than to get back in the habit of writing every day for an audience larger than my own issues. (Seriously - they've had ENOUGH of my attention these last three years.) Also because I'm trying to wean off of Facebook. We still need it, by and large, to keep us connected easily (where "connected" means able to contact each other easily, not actually connecting on an interpersonal level); but that's pretty much all it does anymore. (And I am ENORMOUSLY glad to have it, as my cousin Eric has been tremendously sick for the last five months, and FB ensured his sister and fairy godmother could keep us all in the loop. Much love for the platform!) I want to find a better way of creating content, connection, and, you know, actual back-and-forth. The way we internet freaks used to, before it got trendy (which was before it became absolutely vital to our cultural existence). We did internet friendships better than anything does it now. I want to see if I can get back to that, at least for myself.

And that, my friends, is all she wrote (for tonight). Drop me a line and say hello, or ask any burning questions you might have. Let's catch up!

Drinking Quiet

2017-06-21T23:37:00.003-07:00

I'm sitting here at the keys, drinking in the silence. The boys went to bed two hours ago. My in-laws packed it in half an hour ago. Normally, I would take the opportunity to exercise (the only good time to exercise in Phoenix in the summer being between the hours of 10pm and 8am, even indoors). They've been sick, though, and my MIL is sleeping in the living room. I don't want to wake her.

So here I sit, reflecting. I haven't had much time to do that lately. In fact, that's my first thought - how fantastically appreciative I am that I can just sit and be alone. Without panicking. Without worrying. Without needing to distract myself from everything going on in my body and brain so that I don't induce a panic attack.

(Stand By Me just came on my Pandora. How I love this song. :) )

Lately, these moments have made me cry. Like, a lot. We're talking shirt-soaking sobbing. Purging the emotional overload, I guess. I often take these moments to work through thought patterns, emotional issues that I can't seem to just let go of. Sometimes it makes me feel obsessive, but I know myself. If I can't work through things, let them go, it means I'm not done with them yet. Work remains.

Tonight, I'm feeling solid. Present. Creative. And yet I can't seem to settle myself. Not on anything productive to work on, though I have several projects to choose from. Not on a mental thread. I want to imagine. To daydream. To play. To dance. To laugh and love and be alive. To connect. With others, with myself. Just...somehow to expand on this moment of strength and softness. I want to sit back and soak it up.

I feel at peace with my issues this evening. No ghosts haunt me. No messes writhe around my feet demanding to be unraveled. There's motion in the pipeline of our lives. Change is coming; I can feel it in my very being. I could, even before that motion began. It was scary before I could see anything. Now that the canvas isn't completely blank, I'm more more at ease. I still have no idea how to build the future I want, how to mold what I have into what I need. That's still frustrating me. But tonight, it's okay. I've made progress. I'm okay with my unknowns.

Less easy to make peace with is the loneliness. I shouldn't be lonely. Our house is full. And yet I feel like loneliness is the only person who lives here. When I really stop to pay attention, that's what takes up most of my spirit.

But I don't want to think about that tonight. Tonight, I want to enjoy the imagination that's slowly coming back to me. The refilling of my creative well. I want to delight in the fact that Gooseberry and I flew to the moon on the bed the other day, and it only took a short discussion about the difference between "what really happens" and "imagining" for him to join in. I want to giggle over the number of conversations he's forced his dad to have this week between Lego dinosaurs. I've had dinosaur helpers doing the laundry, writing, sleeping. For the first time, he's having the typical kind of childhood summer - filled with games of his own making. This is new, and it's beautiful.

I still want to fix things. To share things. To find answers that will help me move forward. But for now, I'm just going to sit here and enjoy the quiet, and try hard not to miss the people my heart believes should be beside me.

For now, this quiet is enough.

The Great Undertaking of 2017

2017-03-08T16:20:00.003-08:00

2016 was my Year of the Great Emotional Purge.

I spent 13 months facing old relationship baggage: digging into the mess of dirty laundry inside to figure out why I had packed it so full in the first place; tracing the roots within myself that led me to choosing the wrong people, over and over again; acknowledging my patterns as what they are so that I can let them go. In the process, I remembered boys I had forgotten, made peace with the girls who made my preteen years hell (which turned out to be more about accepting my preteen self), and faced one truly awful truth about my first adult relationship that's still processing four months later.

I did a darn fine job purging it all. It was a hard, grueling year emotionally, and it was absolutely worth it.

Here in the third (how did that happen?!) month of 2017, I've realized something. 2017 is going to be my Year of Addressing All the Health Issues I've Been Too Poor/Poorly Insured to Deal With Before.

Almost 1 in 5 people in America suffers from an anxiety disorder, but only 10% of them receive adequate treatment. Many of us refuse to believe our symptoms are that bad. Often, we go to significant lengths to hide them. I've spent over two decades learning to control the outward expression of my anxiety, to the extent that I can now have a moderate panic attack detectable only by heart monitors. I've been called cold, distant, and stuck up, even by people who've known me a long time, because of behavior that's really just me, trying to keep a handle on my anxiety.

But last summer, in the midst of grieving an old friend and making peace with one of my big fears, I decided I was done hiding. Done pretending. Done keeping secrets. Secrets drive anxiety like a big rig at a monster truck rally. They don't care what relationships get in the way or what good things in life they roll over for their own protection; they just plow straight on ahead. I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a small sense of satisfaction in keeping them. There has to be, otherwise why do it? But I've discovered in twenty-plus years of putting secrets in the driver's seat that they really just eat us alive.

So, even though it goes against so many years of my own experience and self-training (and even though it scares the living stuffing out of me), I'm going to share my experiences as I seek the healthy version of me. Doctor visits, panic attacks, thought patterns--it won't be pretty. It may come across as whiny and self-indulgent (since culturally, we are taught that talking about health and especially mental health is a mild taboo). It'll probably be dreadfully obnoxious to people who don't want to hear about it. And that's totally cool. I'm not sharing it for those people.

I'm sharing it for people like me, who spend so much time hiding their anxiety (or other health condition), they forget they're allowed to have all the other feelings outside of it. Who have sacrificed big chunks of their lives to keep their problems a secret. Who answer postpartum depression questionnaires with false answers to avoid detection, even though they know they're hurting themselves. People who've lived with it for so long that any other kind of life seems impossible and terrifying.

I'm also sharing my experiences just in case someone needs to know they're not alone in their health and healthcare frustrations. Because some people have quick and easy diagnoses, and I've heard from many of them how much better life is afterward. But I've also heard from just as many people who, like me, have suffered from symptoms that defy diagnosis. The despair that arrives at the end of doctor visits is real. So is the depression. I'm at the beginning of my fight to find underlying causes, and that's a good time to start recording.

But largely, I'm doing it because it's self-supportive. Because it forces me to be brave and strong when I feel at my weakest and most broken. Because allowing myself to share (in writing, my most comfortable form) is an act of love and self-acceptance.

With my arms overflowing with specialist referrals and the sun shining in my window, today I assert that I will do better. For me. Because I can, and because I deserve to live a real, full life. We all do.

I Am a Feminist

2017-01-21T21:23:00.000-08:00

Today, women the world over march for solidarity. For rights to body and to legal autonomy; for respect. For things our foremothers marched and protested and were jailed to secure for us. I can't be there with them, so instead I'm going to share my story of feminism.

My grandmother was three years old when the 19th Amendment was passed. She lived to be 96. And we are STILL fighting for the same sort of respect. The "opposition" uses the same phrases, the same tactics. It makes me angry. Angry in a way usually reserved for my older brother, or video games like Mortal Kombat. Because of this, I am a feminist; because it's still necessary. But that's not the only reason.

I am a feminist because of my grandmother. She was a teacher, my bedstemor. She wanted to be a PE teacher, for she brimmed with passion for sports and exercise and the outdoors. She was accepted to the Colorado School of Mines, though it was an all-male college at the time. Her name, Aase, made them believe she was a capable, intelligent young man named Ace. Since she clearly was not, she wasn't allowed to enroll. Because she was female, she couldn't teach PE. Instead, her first classroom was a one-room schoolhouse in the middle of nowhere on the Colorado plains, something I have always believed took a crazy level of courage. Out there, alone, in the middle of the Great Depression with kids who didn't have to follow her instructions? A lone young woman, protected only by the respect of her position and the support of her community? A spine of steel, my grandmother had.

She married late. Didn't have children until she was 40 (not so strange today, but in the '50s?). She lost her husband before she turned 60. I never knew him. I knew only the blue-eyed, pursed-lipped woman who demanded strength and excellence for my own good.

I am a feminist because of my mother. My mom is, in a lot of ways, the opposite of my grandmother. She's a woman of softness and comforting arms, made of love. She married relatively young, had babies right away. At the opening of the '80s, that made her anti-feminist to a lot of her contemporaries. I know, because I watched it happen. The way some women looked at her. The way they spoke to her like she was weak, unenlightened, or part of the problem. I watched it happen again when, at the opening of the '90s, she had her second round of kids in time with her friends...and they ignored her decade of mother's wisdom while still lifting their noses at her lack of career. My mother wanted to be a Home Economics teacher. She fought - through most of my childhood - to finish her degree around the demands of hearth and family. Her board of professors labeled her too trendy and immodest (in other words, too modern); the anger of unfairness still courses through her when she talks about it. I was so unbelievably proud of her when I sat in the enormous university gym for her graduation. She had a life, full of demands and responsibilities that challenged her to find ways around them, and she determinedly earned that degree.

My mom is the very definition of "homemaker," a term she insisted on using instead of "housewife," choosing to be recognized for her tireless work instead of her marriage to a working man. She is magic, my mom. She can look at a space and, seemingly with no effort whatsoever, turn it into a home that welcomes, invites, and nourishes both the body and the spirit. She taught me to sew and to bake, and to pick myself up by the boot-laces and face forward no matter how badly I might want run away. She drilled empathy into me the same as her mother drilled the virtues of self-comportment.

I consider myself immensely blessed to have had two such role models standing behind me. Through them, I aspired to independence, self-sufficiency, strength, and excellence, even as a child. Because of their vast differences, I learned that women can choose any path with any number of options and still be excellent examples of what it means to be female. Hard or soft, sweet or sharp, career or family or somewhere in between; all choices are equally viable.

But for all the lessons they taught me, all the strength with which they imbued my little self to go forth and be great, they couldn't teach me how to break the glass ceiling.

I remember very clearly the moment I realized that no matter how hard I tried, I was never going to be allowed to be as great as they wanted me to be. As a tomboy, I had plenty of opportunities to experience the differences between boys and girls. I made the choice for myself to be judged on the boys' scale, because even at five years old, I recognized it earned greater accolades and was considered to be more challenging. For better or worse, I was born loving a good challenge. So I ran faster, played harder, shot straighter. I aimed to be the equal to boys three and four years older, with bodies practically twice my size. And on fields where physical differences meant nothing, like video games, I fought all the harder.

My big brother had a neighborhood friend who was the height of video game awesomeness: His family was Japanese, and his dad frequently brought him games from Japan. Japanese games were harder, see, and some of them never made it to our watered-down American market (or so the belief went). I frequently tagged along over the years and across my brother's friendships (something that drove him to no end of irritation). This particular boy I only visited once. We sat down to play - I don't remember the game - and, after much difficulty, I won. My brother fumed, but this boy looked at me with astonishment bleeding over into being impressed. His eyes sparkled, his mouth hung open just a little, like he had never seen anything quite so surprisingly cool. "Wow," he said, with the ring of honesty, "You're really good." And then, so fast I didn't have time to blink, a wall slammed down between us. His face went from open and shining to cold and blank. He shifted his gaze to the floor. "For a girl."

In that moment, I understood with soul-wrenching depth, the truth of what it meant to be a girl. No matter how hard I tried or how well I did, I could never be better than a boy. Or rather, I could be light years better than a boy; I could blow them all out of the water at their own games, but it wouldn't make a difference. I was a girl, and I wasn't allowed to win. Not on boy terms. I would never have their respect as an equal, let alone be king for a day.

I am a feminist today for that little girl. For all the little girls like her who deserve to smash through that ceiling built of culture and pride and fear.

I am a feminist because I believe in equality. I believe in the goodness of my male counterparts. I believe in the oneness of all human life, existence to existence, culture to culture. And I know, from personal experience, that a lack of gender equality hobbles a lot of men from being who they are as much as it hobbled me.

Equality is the way forward. The way up.
But inequality is still built into our systems, our culture, like an old, corroded water main. We've done the principle work of adding a new, clean pipeway that can carry more water to more places than ever before, but we've left that old, gunked up central line where it is. Still carrying water it turns to sludge. Still causing metallic seepage. It's not there because we need it, or because it's important to our way of life. It's there because we're too afraid of relying on the new system. What if it breaks? What if our water flows in a way we don't understand? And it's there because we're lazy, and we don't want to have to do the work to shut off the water and pull out the old, sludgy gunk. And because some of the people with homes on the main line worry they will lose their status or their "better" water when access shifts a little farther away. And I get it, I do.

But here's the thing: The new pipes will never reach their potential, or our society through them, if we keep hanging onto the old because it's familiar. Or because we're afraid.

And so I am a feminist, and I will keep insisting on new pipes in old neighborhoods. I will get upset if someone attempts to reinforce the old ones. Especially if I love them. Because that is the kind of feminist I am - a soft, intellectual woman with worn boot-laces, a magical gift of empathy, and expectations of excellence from those near to my heart. And I believe we will be better, as individuals, as Americans, as human beings, because I believe in us. In all of us.

<3

In Long-Lost Memorium

2017-01-07T17:57:00.000-08:00

The day has been overcast and raining off and on. One of those days that looks chilly, but isn't really. They're common in a Phoenix winter. I've been walking at a nearby park whenever I can lately--it helps keep me sane in a household full of too much noise and not enough space. Normally, it helps me feel better. The fresh air energizes me. The sunshine makes me smile.

But not today.

Today, I hit the cement walkway ready to be invigorated...and I started crying. Groundhog's Day, I thought. I should write a blog post on Groundhog's Day. For her. I haven't been thinking about her lately, though I spent most of the summer holding back tears for her. Her birthday was February 3rd, the day after Groundhog's Day. I didn't know why I thought of it right then, let alone how I remembered such a far-off fact. But there it was, intruding on my nice, comforting walk.

I spent an hour on the same 3/4-mile path, treading it over and over, glad I happened to grab my sunglasses for the first time since I started going to the park. They let me cry without worrying the strangers I passed would see.

Her name was Christine. She was, without a doubt, the single most obnoxious person I had ever met when we sat down in 7th grade science class together. 6th grade had taught me that friends were a liability, that girls weren't to be trusted because they would smile to my face while seeking ways to destroy me when my guard was down. So when 7th grade started, I was committed to keeping my head down and my company to myself. The absolute last thing I wanted was a lab partner who seemed physically incapable of shutting up. Yet the day we were assigned partners based on our seats, the chair next to me was the only one open when she showed up just ahead of the bell.

Our first unit was taxonomy through entomology. In other words, we had to catch, kill, pin, and classify a variety of bugs. She whined about it. A lot. I spent most of two weeks trying to ignore her. I remember half-heartedly chasing down grasshoppers on the playground with the smell of fingernail polish remover wafting from my bug jar, wishing she would just take the bleeping hint. Just. Shut. Up. PLEASE!

Somewhere along the line, as the best stories go, we became best friends. I learned to love people who talk a lot, partially because it took the pressure off of me. But I don't remember having a whole lot in common. In fact, this many years along, I don't remember much about what she did or what she liked. She was a band geek; flute, I think. We had Spanish together. And math. And English. She spent a lot of her time doing homework.

Who she was, however, I will never forget.

Christine was a fountain of energy. She didn't just talk a lot; everything she did occurred on a shorter, more excitable wavelength than anything I could muster. She was sunshine to my moonshadow. Happiness to my depression. Loud to my quiet. Where I had already begun to truly embrace being a gifted slacker, she was ambitious, driven, and self-demanding. She got As on everything, including all the extra work she might or might not have asked for. When we performed A Christmas Carol in English class, she locked down Scrooge's long-ago love, Belle. Not because it was the best role, but because it was the one she wanted. (I was the Ghost of Christmas Past...because it *was* the best non-strictly-male role. (If memory serves, my arch-nemesis landed the role of Scrooge for one of two performances, in spite of being female. She was not the one I admired.))

Looking back, the things I loved best about her were the things I had already lost. The trust in and connection to teachers that earned a teacher's pet label. Belief in the self without the crush of peer pressure. Childhood innocence. The freedom of learning that came with knowing school was a safe space. Personal drive and determination. Her spirit made her seem younger than she was, though the know-it-all, Hermione-esque side of her also made her sharply authoritative at times.

Halfway through 7th grade, when our best-friendship felt like it had been in place for forever, but was still only four months old, my family moved to Parker. She introduced me to a friend of hers who went to my new school at her birthday party a couple weeks later. In 8th grade, that friend and I had theatre together with a couple of her other friends. That's how I met and got to be friends with Amanda, the other half of what our people now call the "Holly-n-Manda entity." In a beautiful life circle, Amanda introduced me to a girl who not only had the same sort of spirit as Christine, but who looked like her enough that even my mom commented.

Christine's family moved to Canada in 8th grade. We were pen pals far longer than we were in-person friends. Somewhere in storage, I have a box full of Lisa Frank stationery and glitter stickers and letters that use a lot of exclamation points as they describe the life of an energetic and delightfully youthful girl. That first Christmas, she sent me a critter-in-a-can because she thought it was hysterical. And because she thought so, I did, too. Her enthusiasm was contagious, even in print.

We lost touch eventually, as tends to happen with childhood friends. And then, through the magic of the internet, she found me again. She had graduated from college and was now in grad school. I was living in Albuquerque, trying to make a life of my own the way I wanted it to be. We were both gamers now, and internet addicts, and writers. We were going to exchange stories, but the holidays got in the way. We only chatted once or twice, but it was a delight to have her back in my life again.

After Christmas break, I waited for her to get back to school. I watched my AIM buddy list for her screen name, the significance of which I hadn't gotten a chance to ask about yet. Was she a roleplayer, like me? Did she, too, have a community of online family filled with ridiculous drama? Had we really grown up to be so very alike, in spite of the missing years? But I never saw it. I figured she was busy; grad school, and all. I figured that one day we'd catch each other online at the same time and go from there.

A year went by. Then two. I got married. Fell apart. Moved to Florida. Pulled myself back together again. And then Facebook arrived, and I thought for sure she'd be there. But no luck. I started Googling her. Surely there must be a record out there somewhere. Graduation. New job. Maybe a story publication, because if anyone was going to beat me to it, it would be her. Never so much as a whisper. I started hoping she had forgotten me, and tried to convince myself she had gotten a job that was best done without an internet footprint. My best friend from fourth grade only has his law office page, after all. It's not so unheard of. Even for an internet addict...

For years, I Googled her periodically. Searched for her on Facebook. I racked my brain time and again trying to remember her little sister's name, but it always eluded me.

And then last May, elbow-deep in purging past romantic relationships and sorting out the mess of issues that followed, I went to bed one night thinking about something completely unrelated. And there, before my eyes, played out a memory on the night-dark wall beside the bed. Christine, yelling at her sister. They had a loving yet volatile relationship, so I probably heard them yell at each other dozens of times. My fingers shook as I typed her sister's name into Google.

As I had dreaded for so many years, she hadn't forgotten me; that same winter break we reconnected, she had an asthma attack that stripped her sunshine from the world.

It's amazing how much you can miss someone you haven't seen in over two decades.

I spent the summer trapped in grief, in the unfairness of it. Tortured by all the things she never got to experience, all the amazing things she would have done if only she had been allowed the chance. By the fact that so many years had gone by, and I never knew. That I couldn't say goodbye. That I never got the chance to hug her mom.

And today, I went to the park and I cried for my long-lost friend. I scripted half of this blog post and a dozen more beautiful sentences that I didn't write down and have now forgotten, in fresh air that felt like spring but smelled of autumn. And I said goodbye as the sun set behind our scraggly desert "mountains."

I checked her obituary when I got home. My brain didn't remember, but my heart did.

Rest in peace, my energetic, youthful friend. I will do my best to remember your example, to embrace the sunshine and reawaken the driven little girl I put away so very long ago.

Save me a seat at the next science table, okay?

<3 <3

In Loving Memory of Christine Lotz, 2/3/81 - 1/7/04

I Forgot to Be Thankful

2016-11-25T00:23:00.002-08:00

Ah, Thanksgiving. I've said it before and I'll say it again--I don't believe thankfulness and gratitude are things to practice one day a year. This year, though, I was given cause to stop and think - really think - on what I'm forgetting to be thankful for this year. That's a tall order, considering most days I feel like gratitude is all that keeps me from losing my way. Having spent all of my adult years on the verge of (or in) poverty after enjoying a youth built by the 1%, I can attest to the fact that the less you have, the more grateful you become for it.

Sometimes, though, even living in a perpetual state of gratitude isn't enough. It doesn't make us any more aware of what we're forgetting. So when the reminder showed up unexpectedly, I balked. Of course I'm thankful for what I have. For my loved ones. For the opportunities I've been allowed at the hands and generosity of others. Of course I am. Those things are never out of my mind or my heart. In fact, they're kind of in my face every moment of every day, whether I want them to be or not! But when I separated out the resentment, I found something else hiding beneath it. That it happened right before Thanksgiving is a coincidence (if you believe in such things) only.

So this year, I'm not going to tell you what I'm thankful for today. I'm going to tell you about the things I forgot to be thankful for all year long.

I forgot to be thankful for my resilience. That no matter what life throws at me, I take a breath and dive in. Sometimes, when life throws a seemingly endless barrage of storms at us, it's hard to remember that we're weathering them. This has been one of those years. But I forgot to be thankful for all the times I've picked myself up in the past, all the times I've offered an umbrella; all those things that became a resilience that may stretch thin, but never breaks. All those troubles gave me strength, which in turn allowed me to do what I needed to do this year.

I forgot to be grateful for my downtime. Instead of beating myself up for being lazy, for missing all my writing goals and not filling out enough job applications, I should have jumped straight on into my great project of the year. The one that has nothing to do with productivity or words written or money made. The only reason I could do what I've been doing for myself this year, to make me healthier and happier in the long-run, is because I didn't have to focus on a job, or on writing.

I forgot to be thankful for my heart. I always thought it was the reason I accrued so much baggage that I had to take this year off from life to sort through it. Turns out, it didn't deserve the blame. It wasn't my heart, it wasn't my head. Much of it wasn't my fault at all. I worry a lot that I feel too much and overwhelm others too easily. I should, instead, be thankful for being given my mother's tenet to love without conditions, my father's ability to give without reservation, and my grandfather's example to be the rock in the storm. Those are so much the core of who I am, and I should be proud of them.

Those are the things I should have been thankful for this year. The things I forgot to see, or pushed away because they felt too selfish. I will be thankful for them tomorrow.

Today (okay, I guess I lied about not mentioning them), I'm thankful for friends who surprise me; relationships that age and change and yet stay exactly the same; silly siblings; memories; and my grandma's mashed potatoes (which I am always for on Thanksgiving, and for which I will stop being grateful in a week when the scale forgets which way it's supposed to move).

But most of all, I'm deeply thankful for my great project. The one thing I've held onto all year is how proud I am that I reached a place where I could face it and grow stronger. It's been weird and scary and heart-crushing and eye-opening and painful, and I haven't enjoyed it one bit. But I am thankful that I am strong enough and peaceful enough to face it, and that I found the courage to begin.

O Captain (Picard), My Captain

2016-09-09T22:38:00.000-07:00

Most people who've known me since my teens years know that deep down, I'm a Trekkie. I mean, my mom was awesome enough to hand draw and then paint the Enterprise D on my bedroom wall; if you spent any time at my house at all, it was pretty obvious. I still have several boxes full of "action figures" and "sets" that mostly gathered dust in my closet (and starred in a couple school projects from time to time). When I attended the Colorado Symphony's Music of Star Trek night, I'm not ashamed to admit that I cried.

The first book I ever really intended to finish writing was a Star Trek novel with Wesley Crusher front and center (yes, I know. But he was kind of my hero - brainy kid who has to learn to hold his own with adults because he doesn't quite fit in with those his own age...). I only made it about a chapter in before my brother, in a fit of brotherly amusement, deleted it. He's alive still only because my heart was broken, and I therefore had no oomph with which to do him in.

The only club I ever got into in junior high? Star Trek club, where I furnished most of the movies we watched every week. My cousin fed me a steady stream of novels and took me to conventions (though I never managed to dress up). Many an hour did I spend reviewing the classes I could take at Starfleet Academy, if only it were real.

Most people knew I was a total nerd. For the most part, I was okay with that. I accepted the friendly teasing and the elbow jabs with small smiles and only a twinge of pain.

What most people don't know is that Star Trek saved my life.

Fifth grade was a hard year for me. It was the year of the Great Cootie Division, when I was suddenly not allowed to be friends with my friends. All the boys who kept up with me, mentally, physically, or creatively; all the people I could talk to, share things with, and feel comfortable around; they were all gone. I didn't know what to do with girls who stood around and talked about things I had no interest in. Girls who either couldn't or wouldn't keep up. It was the year I would have skipped a grade, except my social skills couldn't handle sixth grade. I spent most recesses talking to the teacher's aid. When everyone else went on a trip to Estes Park for a few days, I stayed behind and spent the days grading papers for my fourth grade teacher (whom I adored). And then I had to sit and talk to the assistant principal about how we had agreed I would push myself socially, and how I had failed to do that. How I had disappointed her.

The perfect setting for a geek to be born, right?

I managed to eke through to summer eventually, wherein I got a tv in my bedroom. Oh, the glory! Originally, I watched my dad's tapes of the original Star Trek series to have something to do. With no friends and not enough to occupy my brain, I would have been happy with anything. But by the time I started sixth grade, I had blown through all the tapes, lots of the books, and firmly embedded myself in Next Generation.

And then came sixth grade.

Sixth grade was the bane of my existence. I was bullied almost every day by girls who made fun of my clothes and my hair, who called me ugly and disgusting until I believed it with every fiber of my being. My teachers were busy at best and downright mean at worst. My brother shunned me and forbade me from talking to his friends. I spent many a lunch eating pizza huddled against a wall (which wasn't so bad, since it often took all but five minutes of the lunch period to get through the lines to buy food).

Since I had no friends, I made them up. I immersed myself in Gene Roddenberry's world of truth and honor, justice and altruism as deeply and completely as I could. On the worst days, the days I didn't know how I was possibly going to keep surviving, the crew of the NCC-1701-D came to school with me. Sure, I made them up. Sure, I knew they weren't real. But in the absence of friends or safe spaces, they were real enough. They couldn't stop the bullies, but they could tell me things I needed to hear. I could help them out of interplanetary binds or show them how to navigate the '90s. I played pretend - Master Level - and some days I never stopped.

26 weeks out of the year, Captain Picard and his stalwart crew taught me something. They showed me the power of true friendship, of camaraderie, of holding to one's principles no matter what. They taught me tolerance of things I didn't understand and how perspective can change everything. Above all, they taught me that things could be different. They could be better. That someday, somehow, humanity would grow up and come into its own, if only we just push ourselves to be a little stronger, a little less self-serving, and a lot more aware.

Some days, it wasn't enough. Those days, I would lie in my room and think through the best ways to end the loneliness and torment. I knew myself well enough to know I was too scared and too weak to run away and fend for myself. Where would I go? How would I make money? On the worst days, I thought about the mess I would leave behind. I thought about my little sister being the one to find me. I thought about how unfair and selfish of me it would be to leave my mother broken, and how I would be taking her away from my siblings...

And then I turned on Star Trek and choked down another day.

Next Gen got me through to second semester, and the launch of Deep Space Nine helped me make a friend.
A couple months later, it helped me recognize that I had become a foul-mouthed jerk whose friends had grown into black-magicking, smoking druggies who were having sex or getting high in the bathrooms instead of going to class.
It was there to welcome me back after my arch-nemesis staged a coup that not only stole all my (bad) friends but also destroyed any semblance of belief I had left in myself, my brain, and my creative abilities.

Star Trek was there when my teachers yelled at me instead of asking important questions.
It was there when my peers told me they hated me. When I hated myself.
It reminded me that I didn't want to be a girl who lied, cheated, and swore her way through life, and then gave me a better example to follow.

By the time I hit eighth grade, I knew who I was. I knew I didn't need people to like me in order to survive. No amount of peer pressure would have made me cave on anything important because I wasn't afraid of being alone.

So I let my friends - good, real friends - tease me because I liked a geeky show. I let them think it was just because I was a geek, too nerdy and too anti-social to be into mainstream pursuits. I was okay being weird because it was easier than ever admitting the truth.

But the honest truth is I'm not a geek by today's standards. I don't geek out. I don't express extreme amounts of enthusiasm. I don't love Star Trek just because it's awesome sci-fi (although it is).

I love Star Trek because it's part of who I am. I love it like the dear friend it was, with loyalty and gratitude, the same way I love the real people who made a difference in my life.

The truth is, I didn't sit at the symphony and hold back sobs as the orchestra launched into the gorgeous, somewhat haunting strains of Deep Space Nine's theme song in a fit of extreme geek love; I cried because the music reminded me of the little girl who almost gave up. I cried because it climbed inside my soul and touched the wounds it once helped to heal.

So here, in the week of its 50th anniversary, I say thank you. Thank you, Star Trek, for all that you have been. Thank you for being there. Thank you for the dream of a better future. Thank you for helping me find the best parts of myself instead of giving it all up.

In honor of Gene Roddenberry and his beautiful world: May we all live long and prosper; enjoy a quiet cup of Earl Grey, hot; and laugh with those who stand beside us in battle, whether our foes are angry, hot-blooded warriors or a mindless cultural hive whose only goal is to force us to be just like them.

Peace and long life, my friends.
And from this Trekkie to all of you:

Never stop exploring.

1st Grade

2016-08-31T16:53:00.000-07:00

Gooseberry is now in first grade! He missed the first week because his uncle gave him chickenpox. I thought that was the reason I was feeling a little...off. We just didn't settle in. Plus, Jeremelon's brother and his family (wife, two-year-old, and newborn) are living with the rest of us, and it's not a big house. Big enough, that's what I keep telling myself. But honestly, four adults and three kids bathing in the same bathroom is...problematic. We've been making it work, but I think everyone is constantly on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Heck, we caught Gooseberry's back to school cold, and I just can't shake it. Stress, stress, stress. It doesn't help that Jeremelon and his brother are complete opposites.

So, it was understandable that we were having trouble adjusting, and that I had hesitant feelings.

Except yesterday, after their first half-day for meetings and whatnot, I got a call from the principal. They're moving Gooseberry to a new classroom. (Actually, she said, "The District" is...) I have no idea why, as I got the message after hours and woke up today with laryngitis. So I'm sitting here, freaking out about what's going on and how he's going to handle it. He made a wonderful transition from his K classroom to his 1 classroom because they spent three or four weeks sending him over for an hour. And now we're going to uproot, probably give him a new teacher, possibly all-new classmates...and he only JUST started getting used to this one. Maybe the district has good reasons. Maybe it'll be better for him. But there are SO MANY variables when switching any young child's environment, and it's at least double the stress for spectrum kids. I'm trying REALLY HARD to stay calm, not panic, and not be angry. There are only four kids in his class right now, so the obvious answer is restructuring to conserve resources. But who knows?

Did I write an update post to show just how far he came last school year? I don't remember. If not, I need to do that. Today's post isn't about that. Because although I *want* to remember that stuff, today is a frustrating day.

Gooseberry is six. It's not uncommon for autistic kids to hold off potty training at all until now. Thankfully, Gooseberry has been using the toilet with no problem since preschool...with one exception. Last year, we had finally gotten him to a place where he was fully potty trained. He had the occasional potty accident when he got really focused on something and didn't want to have to stop to go. Like playing a video game. But we had a good month or so when we had no serious accidents. We had a free and clear horizon ahead.

And then he started school. He was in the functional class, where they work primarily on teaching kids functional skills to be able to take care of their own kiddo needs...like going to the bathroom. We could always tell when he was either learning something really hard or stressing over something, because he'd have a week or two of coming home in a different pair of pants. It was particularly bad at the end of the year. But in kindergarten, they scheduled potty breaks. They taught them to ask to go in between breaks, but they also made it part of the daily routine. For most autistic kids, that's probably a good thing. They need to learn to use the bathroom first, and schedules are their best, most favorite tool. But for Gooseberry, it made him regress. He went from being in charge of his own needs to needing reminders. From having control to being able to forget.

We spent the whole summer working on going #2 in the toilet. And he was getting better. But he's back to coming home from school in the wrong pants at least twice a week. Maybe it's just getting used to his new environment. Maybe he'll even out and we'll be able to retrain him to pay attention to his body. But if he changes classrooms? Then what? If he gets a new teacher he doesn't know? New classmates he's never met? He's a pretty darn resilient and brave little boy...but he has his limits.

And I'm going to have to write a note to his teacher that says, "Please stop throwing away his underwear. We don't have the money to keep buying new ones." And that just adds insult to injury...

March Update

2016-03-15T11:22:00.001-07:00

My goodness! I haven't updated since September! I've been thinking about it. Listing in my head all the things I should comment on. All the progress Gooseberry has made since starting school. But then I think of all the emotional energy I have to pour into that, and I go work on something else, instead. And the tribute to Alan Rickman I need to write? Forget about it.

Living with the in-laws is a study in lying low. Making us as small as possible. It's better than the first go-round in 2012; I don't feel like *I* have to be smaller, just that we need to make as small a footprint as possible. I'm worried about the next month or two, though. My mother-in-law snapped an old rod in her knee a couple weeks back and had surgery on it yesterday. Because of the damage done by a rod that was apparently too small, they had to put her in a whole-leg cast...which she can't lift because of her extremely advanced rheumatoid arthritis. So I have no idea how she's going to do things she needs to do - private sorts of things - when I'm the only person in the house. Suddenly, getting a job seems even more enticing than usual...

Life is stressful right now, mostly because our spring break was cancelled due to lice. We were supposed to spend ten days in California with my family after spending a day at Disney. Instead, we got the notice that someone in Gooseberry's classroom had lice the day before we were supposed to leave. So we spent that night and the following morning shampooing and washing and doing our best to mitigate the problem...because all three of us had evidence of the nasty little buggers. But the washing machine sort of broke, making things even more difficult. I didn't want to infect my mom and brothers, so we ended up going to Disney for a day, driving up to have breakfast with my family, and then coming back to Phoenix. It was a LOT of driving, and exhausting. We still have to go through the follow-up treatment tomorrow or the next day, and then maybe I can stop worrying about. (Except I won't...because Arizona is a superlice state, filled with little bugs who genetically aren't affected by the over-the-counter stuff. GROSS.) Really, that's my life right now. GROSS.

And that's really all we've got going on right now. Exciting, right? I could tell Disney stories - Gooseberry was wonderful and loved it SO MUCH. But I have to get to my professional stuff now, before the day is gone and I've frittered it away. :)

Enjoy your spring (Yay, spring!), and may you never have to learn how to kill lice. (Also, never ever EVER do an internet search to find out what they look like, even for reference. Just...don't.)

Aging Up

2015-09-30T19:25:00.000-07:00

Oh my gosh, it's almost October! Months usually creep up on me, I have to admit. But October?! Living in Arizona is really throwing me for a loop - it's still averaging about 104 out. I hear tell that in a couple of days, we get to drop down to "fall" temps...and average around 93. So...Colorado summer. I don't remember it being that toasty when we moved here the first time...but maybe that's my memory. I wasn't exactly building good memories back then. Anyway, the fact that it's October tomorrow is very confusing (which I just typed as fusconing...) because it *looks* like autumn - the sun slanting through the window, the hour at which it sets, all that good stuff - but it sure as heck feels like we're stuck in the July that will never end.

Also, "monsoon season" was a serious let-down. We had like...4. 4 storms for a total of 4 days of rain, and 2 or 3 haboobs. Seriously lackluster. :P But everyone here is like, "Oh my gosh, the pollen count is so awful! We've had SO MUCH RAIN!" Yeah. It's ragweed season, and their "awful" topped out around a 7.8 on a 12-point scale. I suppose I should complain about that, though, huh...? :/

This has been a big week for us. I started studying for the GRE (verbal half, done in thirty minutes; math half? Math half is going to take me at least two weeks just to get through the review. Makes me miss my friend Apricot, who was in College Algebra with me and would undoubtedly help me breeze through these silly questions about factoring and complex fractions, no problem. (I LOATHE complex fractions; conceptually I completely understand what's going on, and yet I was only able to achieve the right answer about half the time. Boo!)). Scary for me, but also exciting. If grad school doesn't pan out, I'm about 85% decided that I'll go for my LPN license, instead. Nurses make good money and they're needed everywhere in great numbers. And it's been in my mind for at least 5 years, sooo...

Jeremelon turned 37. 37! How in the world are we this bleeping old?! My dad retired (unhappily, but very well-off) at 39. I was in high school. So insane! It's made Jeremelon pretty depressed, though, and he's freaking out about having to start a new career. Less the prospect of starting over (it's not like he climbed very high up any initial ladder), and more figuring out what to do, I think. I feel bad for him, because I get that. But at the same time, I'm also kind of glad. I've been trying to get him to consider new paths and figure out where his interests lie for...well, five years. (Longer, probably, but I got rather pushy about it after having a baby...)

But the really exciting (and wrenching news) is that young Mr. Gooseberry just cut his first adult tooth! Big ole lower incisor that takes up as much room as two of his baby teeth. Completely took me by surprise - I didn't think kids started losing teeth until 6 or 7, so I guess I imagined he'd lose his first one around his sixth birthday, because his first teeth started coming in at 3.5 months. I was brushing his teeth last night (we need to get MUCH better about making sure that happens every day now) and almost missed it. I freaked a little, had to make sure this wasn't crazy early (thank you, internet), and then got immensely sad. Losing baby teeth and growing permanents is such a big thing. The last of the "baby" anything. I now have a big kid, and I barely remember our baby years. :(

But, it's still really exciting for him! I'm a little worried that his baby tooth isn't very loose, but it does wiggle a little. Ordinarily I don't think it would concern me, but I had to have two of my baby teeth knocked out by the dentist because they were still solid and unmoving by the time my permanents were most of the way in. Gooseberry has yet to be able to sit for a cleaning (the noise freaks him out tremendously), or for x-rays. The idea of having to hold him down so they can extract his teeth is...well, it's unthinkable. So at least it's wiggly. We can help a wiggly tooth work its way out. :)

Augh! My baby!!

Guess it's officially time to find a new dentist...
Or three, actually. I need to get a mouth guard (not to mention a way-overdue checkup), which the wonderful, aforementioned Apricot suggested I seek at the local dental school. And Jeremelon...poor, poor Jeremelon. He hasn't been to the dentist the ENTIRE time I've known him. For the first time in 14 YEARS, I heard him say, "I know I need to go...I can feel a hole in my tooth." Ugh. He has a massive dentist phobia, but I will make him go now that I know that (and his mother can nag him here, too). A root canal has to be so much worse than a filling. Then again, he'll have to be at least partially sedated either way, soooo...

Good thing we have dental insurance!

Magic Day!

2015-08-29T17:23:00.000-07:00

Gooseberry finally went through official testing for Autism Spectrum Disorder last week. (It reminded me of how important it is to keep a record, because between this blog and my Facebook posts, I was able to piece together developmental information that I wouldn't have had otherwise. So I may be posting more frequently, just for that!) This week, we got confirmation that yes, he is very clearly autistic. Having it confirmed was difficult - more for Jeremelon than for me. I had suspected since he was teeny-tiny brand new and he cried and kicked at me every time I tried to snuggle him. I got a funny feeling the only time we took him to get professional photos done, and he glanced soulfully at the camera but never stared or laughed or even cried during the shoot, no matter what we did to change his mood. The bottom fell out of my stomach the first time I watched him play with Duplos on his Lego table, matching the colors to the squares on the table instead of building. Deep down, I knew. So when they did his initial testing about a year ago that suggested autism, that was my hard day. That was the day it was official, for me.

That was the day I sobbed, and the day I realized I had to give up a lot of my mommy dreams.

See, a lot of autistic kids can't play pretend. Their brains are wired for things they can see and touch. At the high-functioning end of the spectrum, this predisposes many of them to being good with logic, numbers, and technology (I've mentioned before, but one of my Anthropology professors hypothesized that one reason ASD is on the rise is because our environment is selecting for it - the more we rely on technology, the more we use it and it changes the pathways in our brains, the more successful people with ASD and ADHD will be compared to those who aren't). Gooseberry taught himself to count to ten by the time he was two and a half. He'd already have been reading at his fifth birthday if he understood how language works. With help, he will learn how to use language; learning how to think in a different way than what's natural for him? I'm not sure that's possible.

We've never seen any real signs that Gooseberry can think abstractly, that his brain is wired for abstract play. He's never made cars go "vroom-vroom." He lines up his dishes and play food on the table but won't ever "cook." He smooshes any stuffed animal that pretends it's alive and throws it across the room. He will not pick up a stick and use it like a gun, a sword, or any other such object (which at five, I feel confident in saying many, if not most, boys do). The most he ever does is giggle at the silliness of me drinking from an empty cup. To him, a cup is used to drink real fluids (preferably milk). A stick is something that belongs on a tree.

The tantrums, the lack of communication; none of the challenges that come from parenting a child with ASD have yet compared with the heartbreak of believing I would never be able to share the magic of imagination with him. That magic makes up so much of who I am and how I live that when I dreamed of having kids, I dreamed of creating otherworldly childhoods. I couldn't wait to be able to infiltrate enemy bases and survive in post-apocalyptic wastelands or even just cook a glorious banquet with my kids the way I did with my siblings when they were little. I still spend copious amounts of time daydreaming. I still play pretend at least a couple times a week to keep my sanity and creative well filled up. I have conversations with empty space. I use my Kindle like a tricorder. I duel imaginary enemies - sometimes with plastic swords. I get angry. I cry. I fall in love. Those actions and feelings become scenes. That empty space becomes a character. I play out the fiction I write, and I write down my fictional play. It provides a glorious creativity feedback loop...and just makes life a lot of fun. That was what I wanted to give to my kids, to my Gooseberry, since long before he was born. And that was what I realized I had to give up the day they told me he's probably autistic.

It took me most of a year, but I finally reconciled my heart to concrete-only play, to puzzles and science and mechanical toys only. After all, I watched my older brother find wonder and amazement in astronomy. Chemistry lights up my youngest brother's world. Dinosaurs rock. Heck, I even find rocks pretty cool. I'm not just a creative writer, I'm also a scientist. I grew up in a science-positive family that filled my head with plants and geology and logical thought processes as much as it fueled my love of fantasy and wonder. I still love puzzles of all kinds. So it's not like I can't fill his life with wonder...it would just be a different kind of magic.

Except today, Gooseberry played pretend.
Not just a brief, "Hey, look - the horse is eating! What silliness!" But half an hour or more of full-body, individual play.

His only prop was his blankie, which became at times a cloak, a scarf, and a boat. Though I could only make out one or two words every three minutes (like "catapult" and "They disappeared!"), he talked nonstop the entire time. He used the entire house, adding in some "floor is lava" techniques between rugs, and avoiding people like giant boulders standing in his way. Clearly, he was starring in his own action-adventure story. He even came over twice to say, "Give it a try, Mama!" He didn't actually invite me into his play, but I was still part of his story.

For my part, I stood beside the table, crying. Standing, because the second I sat down, he stopped playing to sit in my lap. Crying, because I could see in his eyes the same thing that happens when I write. Gooseberry had filled the house with an entire world of his own (I could tell, because his adventure involved a lot of travel). I can't describe what it looked like, but that world was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

While I stood there at the table, my body growing uncomfortably hot as I lingered too far from a ceiling fan, I was completely okay with never sitting down again.

Today is Magic Day, and I never want it to end.

Summer Update

2015-07-30T14:17:00.001-07:00

I have about five drafts in my post box that haven't ever been finished. Some of them are whiny. Some of them are lengthy. None of them ever seemed to say anything important.

But, I still want to update, so I will endeavor to do so quickly (try not to laugh...).

We have moved to Phoenix. It's stressful and hot and a massive lesson in patience and communication. It also provides a roof over our heads and food on the table without worrying that either will be taken away. So it removes as much big-picture stress as it adds daily stress, and the former is much more weighty than the latter.

Berrykin is officially no longer a berrykin! Henceforth, he shall be known as Gooseberry! (I started calling him silly goose, which someone became silly gooseberry, and it stuck.) He's been in my arms for five whole years now, and it's flown by in a blink. I really want another berrykin, but I don't think it's in the cards. At least not for several years and until our lives change significantly. I could just choose to have another one...and some days, looking at Gooseberry, I'm almost willing to do it. Almost...but not quite. Our lives are such a mess that bringing another baby into it would just be...unfair and irresponsible.

But! Now that my inner life has reached a point of calm and self-acceptance and self-love (ha! I never thought that would happen again some of those years...), I can focus on the external. I can start cleaning up the mess and start living the life I want, as opposed to the life that my anxiety, depression, fear, and self-disbelief created for me. (Which may sound super hokey...it does kind of, even to my ears, but there it is. It's true.)

Gooseberry and I have spent the last month in California with my mom and the Camerpillar and Andybug. It's been blissfully restful and exactly what I needed. They live in my grandmother's old house, the one my mom grew up in. It's the last bit of my childhood space we have left, and even if it looks a lot different than it did, it still feels the same. The floors creak the same way they did when I ran across them when I was Gooseberry's age. My mom's picture books from when she was kid - and that I always loved reading when we came to visit my grandmother - are sitting on the shelf, waiting to be enjoyed. The orange tree still gives oranges, the plum tree still makes the driveway sticky, and our spaceship tree still awaits blast-off in the corner of the yard. This house contains an unbroken chain of family memories that stretches back to the '50s, and it's palpable in the air (which smells of eucalyptus and dry earth and vaguely of the ocean). It's been so amazingly good for my heart and soul and mental sanity, and I'm so grateful we've had the opportunity to be here.

We head back to Phoenix on Monday, and I have to admit that I'm dreading it more than a little. The heat, the dogs, the non-stop stimulation it all provides to Gooseberry and the never-ending exhaustion his non-stop overstimulation builds in me...ugh. It's draining just thinking about it. Gooseberry starts school a week after we get back, though, so there will be downtime for me. A chance to escape and do things I need to do for me...which always got pushed to the very bottom before (largely because I refuse to fight for them, but I'm working on that...). I'll be able to hit the gym and write and think and rest as needed.

Because Gooseberry is going to all-day kindergarten! I...don't know how I feel about that, really. He was only in preschool for six months or so, so it feels really fast and way too soon. My professional side, however, is barely containing itself. I will get to have a professional side again! I will have time to focus on everything in its own little bubble, which I've never figured out how to do as a work-at-home mom. I have a feeling that our lives will clean themselves up significantly, just because I'll have time to think clearly again. Just because 100% of everything is no longer weighing on me when I'm trying to play with Gooseberry, so I won't end up doing both things badly. And maybe I'll figure out how to cut myself some slack for being only human... :P

So, that has been our summer! We had two weeks of moving hell, a month of hellish, 115-degree weather keeping us cooped up with two yappy, hyper dogs all day every day (while my mother-in-law worked from home, largely on the phone - fun stuff), and then a month of blissfully cool coastal winds and relaxation. Ahhhh.

I'm hoping to be a better blog updater for the remainder of the year...but I also have to admit that blogs are dying. It's a slow death, but the rise of the smart phone has changed the way we share our lives with each other, so I suppose it was inevitable. Still, it's my preferred method for long posts (you can go ahead and laugh here, where I fully admit I failed to update quickly). So we'll see how it goes!

Stay cool, stay sane, and enjoy the last bit of summer you have left!

Moving...Again

2015-04-26T13:37:00.001-07:00

It's been 2 years since we moved...I guess we're due. :P

Our return to Phoenix is official as of yesterday afternoon. Jeremelon starts at a new theatre on the...8th, I think. So he's leaving the 6th, and Berrykin and I get to stay here for another 2.5 weeks while he finishes the school year and I pack. And pack. And pack. And then figure out how to move it all into a storage unit without my more muscular partner and no babysitter...

It's nice knowing. The waiting was killing me. I have done very little the last week or two but sit and play video games. Some of that has been with my sister and her boyfriend for much the same reason on their end - it gives them something to do before he deploys. It's been fun. Relaxing. Except the part where we all got a nasty head cold and the berrykin picked up a tummy bug that...uh...let's just say it's a good thing they'll be replacing the carpets when we move. :O

I'm a little worried. Okay, a LOT worried. We're moving to the hottest place in the country right as summer kicks off. Which means I will be stuck inside with berrykin and the two small dogs he loves to chase, and my mother-in-law, who works from home. Just us. I had visions of going for walks through the neighborhood to ease tension until I realized how hot it's prepping to be. I mean, it's already near 90. One of our first purchases will be a small A/C unit to put in our bedroom so I don't melt while the in-laws sit around all snug and toasty. But the aerobic dance studio I fell in love with last time just closed a couple weeks ago, and the zoo will be too warm and busy for that to be a good de-stresser like it was last time...so I just don't know what I'm going to do with myself.

I'm also worried about Berrykin. I don't know what the schools are like there, how the district fares, if we'll be moving somewhere else before summer is up. Everybody has a lot of ideas, but nobody has yet settled on a plan. And that's okay. I just worry. Last time we moved there, Berrykin went through his 2-year regression (somewhat common in Spectrum kids, I hear) and I failed to recognize it. I missed it. I blamed it on the move and all the changes, and the fact that Jeremelon and I were fighting all the time. I'm scared it wasn't an Autistic thing after all, and that moving again with all the stress and changes and restrictions that comes with living with the in-laws will destroy all the progress he's made in the last six months.

But, with the rental price increasing by at least 10% each year, there's no way we can stay. And so I am resigned. I have a writing goal for the summer, the promise of getting one day every week to myself, and gratitude that we have somewhere to go.

We'll do this thing. And I'm also determined that this time will be different, so we'll do this thing big and bright and awesome. So long as I don't melt first...

Good Day/Bad Day

2015-04-22T15:59:00.000-07:00

We're sick. Again. We have spent probably 3/4 of this year sick so far. I was REALLY hoping we were past it, here in April. No such luck. But at least it's just a head cold! Could be so much worse.

Well, it's a head cold...and a tummy bug. That tummy bug just caused a pretty icky mess in my living room. And then Berrykin stepped in it - like, whole foot in it - and came down the hall to find me. (In the span of washing my hands after cleaning him up.) I'm actually impressed - I could only find one spot where it got on the carpet. Yay for improved gross motor skills!

So I cleaned that up, cleaned me up from finding that one spot on the carpet with my toes, and declared today a Bad Day.

I got back to my computer to tell my sister why I'd disappeared in the middle of our chat, and started laughing. And laughing. And laughing. The hysterical kind where you can't stop and can't really breathe. While laughing hysterically, I had time in my brain to think, "Oh, good! Stress relief time!"

Because we've been so incredibly stressed. We've been waiting two weeks to hear from Jeremelon's company at a location in Phoenix to see if they're going to hire him (since I guess they don't transfer - they get hired and their *paperwork* transfers with no interruption in employment). I finally decided to just stay in our current apartment and do everything I could to find at least a part-time job so we can pay for rent. (Because after a little searching, I discovered Denver is in the lowest vacancy period in its history - there are, in fact, fewer housing options than there are immigrants from other states. This has caused rental prices to skyrocket - they go up an average of 10% a year. The apartment we left in 2012 the first time we moved to Phoenix? 2.5 years later, it costs almost $300 more. Jeremelon's 30-cent raise each year can't keep up with that rate of increase.) The likelihood we'd find a place as cheaply and actually qualify for it (because they all weed out potential renters by requiring we make 2.7 - 3 times the rent each month - something that only the swankiest pads required five years ago) is slim. So why not stay? Work up from here? Remain independent, keep the Berrykin in his school district where I know they have good services, and not rely on a faceless hiring board in another state to determine our future. Except they rented our apartment the day before I made my decision (coincidentally, the same thing happened last year with the apartment we were going to move into next door, except it was the one that got rented an hour before we decided to take it), and I hadn't checked yet.

So, lots of stress. The laughter was clearly a release of stress.

Berrykin heard me from the other room and ran in, worried about me. When he saw I was laughing, he laughed with me. Which made me laugh more. Then he pulled me toward the living room, and we laughed even MORE. And then, standing in the midst of the storage room disaster that has been our living space for a year and a half, I started crying. The berrykin got really upset and worried. He tried to kiss me, saying, "Happy mama!" to cheer me up, but my face was all wet so he got upset (he doesn't like being wet unless he's in the tub). I didn't want to upset him more, so I went to the bedroom to cry on my own. Except I hear him shriek as he runs down the hall after me.

He brought me a tissue. "Nose," he said. I wiped my nose and thanked him, and picked him up for a grateful hug. "Wet," he said. And he took the tissue from me to wipe my cheeks. "You okay?" he asked. Three times, just to make sure. "Kick-es," he said, and kissed my cheek, which was all wet again. I hugged him some more, told him that I was having a bad day, but he was such a sweet boy. Then he sat back and smiled at me. "Happy mama!" And then, when I smiled for him, he hopped off my lap and took my hand. "Boys and girgles stand up. Stand up, Mama!" Whereupon he took me to the living room to fill up his milk cup and tuck him into the blankets on the couch so he could go back to watching Octonauts and feeling icky.

And now I'm crying out of joy. Because my little boy may not be able to string together more than three words together (that aren't phrases he repeats in their entirety, almost as a single word themselves), but his autistic social qualities aren't hopeless. He showed empathy and concern. He brought me a tissue to solve my problem, totally unprompted. He took care of me, and he communicated while doing it. All of that - or rather, the lack of it - took up a big portion of the IEP meeting I had with his specialists last week.

What was a horrible, awful day became a wonder. A good day that has left me feeling SO grateful...if quite stuffy.
And now it sounds like it's going to rain, which would be a delightful addition. Might even let us open the windows, pollen or no pollen...

March!?

2015-03-15T17:26:00.000-07:00

It's March! But today, it feels like May. The sun is shining, I have the A/C running, my open windows are filled with the sounds of boys shooting each other with water guns in the pool. It's close to 80 degrees out there! It's supposed to hit 80 tomorrow and then drop back to around 60, where it should be.

Whew!

I'm so thankful for the sun and the warmth, though. It means I can get outside, get some sun, and my brain will stop going wonky and depressed. It does so every year between January and February, but this was one of the bad years. I have so far had the flu and two cases of bronchitis this year. Berrykin brought home the last case, and ended up with pneumonia during a massive snowstorm. Between the nebulizer and my inhaler (confirming one and for all that I have a BAD reaction to albuterol), I got flashbacks to ten years ago and the horrible reaction to albuterol that set my anxiety in motion. In a way, this bout of not being able to breathe and listening to Berrykin cough and wheeze and be miserable was actually freeing. Because it was the albuterol that triggered so, so many of my anxiety and depression issues, I don't have to feel broken any more. I'm not necessarily enormously predisposed to all these problems...I just can't handle my albuterol. :)

In other news, Berrykin has started talking a LOT more. He's still hard to understand at times, especially as his pronunciation is changing so words that used to sound one way now sound that way sometimes, and sometimes a new way. But he's actually expressing his needs most of the time, he makes jokes, says yes and no (that one is HUGE) in response to being offered things, and just generally interacts more. At this rate, he should be talking close to normally by the time he starts kindergarten, which is a HUGE load off my mind! (Speaking of which, I should probably get him registered... :P ) Now that I know he understands me and I can understand him better, we're working on discipline. It's incredibly difficult to discipline children who don't grasp language - there's no way to explain what's going on, what they did wrong, or what they can do instead. There's just screaming and tantrums and awfulness. But now that we've progressed beyond that exhausting stage, he really needs more discipline. Of course, that is going to be harder for me than for him - I grew up in a largely undisciplined household, and I keep hearing my mom's responses come out of my mouth. I love my mom and she's a great mom...she just...never figured out how to be okay with being "mean." I have almost no idea how to offer discipline and boundaries, so it's a major learning curve for me as well as for him.

Berrykin also makes me want another baby. I mean, I've wanted another one for a long time now, but there's very little likelihood it's going to happen any time soon. Jeremelon and I are...we'll say not where we need to be. It's a lot worse than that, but I don't want to discuss it in such a public forum. Still, I'm getting baby fever in a new way, a way that hasn't happened since I had the berrykin. We met an old friend of mine and her kids at the museum a couple weeks ago, and Berrykin led her older boy, who's about a year and a half younger, all around the museum. They held hands. A lot. It was so adorable. He loves little kids, and he would be such a good big brother! I really want to give him the chance...but I don't think it's in the cards.

Instead, we're looking for ways to make our lives more stable. Denver is rapidly outpacing our earnings (considering we have still never managed to pay for all of our bills ourselves for a whole year, that's...bad), so we're looking for a new place to call home. An opening I've been watching for in Florida opened up for Jeremelon recently, so that's on the table. I'm considering going back to school for my Master's in Anthropology, and right now my best option looks like the U of Wyoming (or possibly Arizona State, but it's so HOT down there...). Wyoming is blessedly cheap. Orlando is less so, but there are a lot of job options available there. We have friends in both places, though more in Florida. I love Colorado - it will always be home - but the reasons keeping us here keep shrinking every year.

And that...is pretty much all I've got! We're stressed and recovering and I have a lot of writing I'm supposed to be doing but managing to procrastinate on happily. But in all, we're working toward better things!

Letters

2014-11-17T17:53:00.001-08:00

So, the Berrykin has known his ABCs - upper and lowercase - since he was about two and a half. (I got really confused when discussing it with the women who tested him, because they asked if it was rote or spontaneous. Finally, they said, "Like, does he do them out of order?" And I went, "Ohhhh. Yes. Always. He can name them and find them." Because he's NEVER done them by rote memory, like singing the alphabet song, or saying them in order. He does that with numbers, but never letters. It didn't even occur to me that he might have.) He loves letters and numbers.

He does not, however, get into coloring or drawing. This is probably because he colored in the bit of the wall behind my in-laws' door while we lived with them, so we stopped letting him use them much. But. Even back then, he didn't much care for them. I was crazy surprised when he imitated the lines and shapes the testers drew because I had no idea he could come close to that much control.

Tonight, we steamed up the bathroom to help his new cough (he and I were sick two weeks ago; Jeremelon picked it up as we were getting better; we picked it up again yesterday). I drew a heart on the mirror. He drew a circle. I thought he was going to draw a person, but no.

He drew his name.

He's been coming home with papers since the first couple of days that looked like a kid with good handwriting wrote his name. Not quite adult-level, but not "I just learned how to hold a pencil yesterday" level, either. But I'm pretty sure he's been writing his name the whole time he's been going. Probably with help, but still.

He's been in preschool for three weeks, missing half a week because he was sick. And he can write his name.

He also recognizes that words are their own space in a sentence. He's accumulated a handful of sight words. Which means he's learning to read.

But he still doesn't really use language yet. All his words are rote words - sentences put together from memory rather than spontaneous collections of abstract concepts. Friday, his favorite was, "Goodbye, everybody!" which he said about twenty-five times between the classroom door and our apartment. Every time he's pleased with himself this weekend, he's taken my "good job!" and made it his teacher's "good job, buddy!"

He is, however, *trying* to talk more. When he was using my finger to write his name on the mirror (because once he saw I'd let him, that was apparently more fun than using his own), I'm pretty sure he was telling me all about the letters. Probably what his teachers do when they're helping him. Most of it was babbled imitation, but I know when we were drawing the 'l' that he said, "L is long and tall, up and down."

We were watching Princess & the Frog the other day (it's one of the Andybug's faves), and he started singing along. He sang! He used to do it all the time, and then he just...didn't anymore. So I was thrilled to bits to hear it. Then he acted it out while he was singing. And then he recited the words and acted it out, and then forcibly had me join in (I get to be the frog). In fact, he forcibly includes us in a lot of his play, which he never used to do before.

So that's the end of week three/beginning of week four. I let him stay home today because he was a drippy and coughy and it was crazy windy and dry today. Judging by the state of his cough tonight, he probably won't get to go tomorrow, either, which means he'll miss the library again. He's no longer falling asleep on the way home from school, but he's eating less...might be the sick and might be that he's bored with the limited foods I've been feeding him. :/ (More on that, btw, on my renewed Berry Patch Farmhouse blog! It's for all my homemaker projects...'cause I've never taken the time to try to BE a homemaker, but I really want/need to start. I don't remember if I've mentioned it yet or not...)

This preschool thing is pretty darn spiffy. I'm so incredibly grateful he gets to go!

Preschool!

2014-11-07T12:57:00.002-08:00

Berrykin started preschool on the 27th. It's an integrated special ed program, and he has something like 9 teachers that float between two classrooms. That includes occupational and physical therapists, speech therapists, special ed teachers, and regular teachers. We met with two of them ahead of time and came up with an individual education plan for Berrykin in conjunction with the specialists who evaluated him. Essentially, this year's plan is to catch him up to being ready for kindergarten. I'm not thrilled with the ultimate goal set to a school standard, but they're addressing all of his delayed areas so I'm not complaining, either. :)

He has class three hours, four days a week. He usually falls asleep in the car on the way home. ^_^ And of course, he brought us a cold on day four, and we spent Halloween and the next four days sick. Jeremelon has already taught him how to say, "Yay! No school!" which...well, it made me laugh when he said it, but now it bothers me. Jeremelon HATES school, with a rare, fiery passion. The hatred is justified - his first grade teacher frequently called him stupid and made his life such hell (at 6!) that he developed an ulcer and he shifted to homeschooling. So yeah, I get that he hates school. I know he's scared that Berrykin will end up in the same situation. I'm going to have to help him watch how he talks about it, though, because he wants the berrykin to enjoy it...he just...doesn't know what that's like. He won't appreciate my help, but better he be mad at me for being a nagging cow than Berrykin grasp any idea that school is bad. :/

Anyway! End of week 2, and so far, so good! Berrykin loves it...I think. His verbal communication is still pretty limited so there's no way to ask him. But he doesn't throw a fit or freak out - though yesterday he did say, "No school. Go home," when he saw it. But I think that was probably because he hadn't been there for five days, and going back is always harder after a break. He's a little nervous going in every morning - he makes me carry him up the hill to the classroom, snuggles into my shoulder, and lets his whole body swing limply in my arms. But he's so good about going in anyway! And he gets to play with kids and try all kinds of new activities that I never exposed him to (and it's all so freaking adorable!), and it lights him up in a new way. It does, as I mentioned, exhaust him, though, so I'm going to have to be more diligent about bedtime limits. Otherwise, he turns into a kicking, hitting, shrieking monster who thinks it's funny to bite. It doesn't help that he's decided to start getting up at 5:30 instead of 7 every morning. Ugh.

After the first week, he recognizes his name in writing. He says his name more, though it's still kind of unintelligible if you don't know what he's saying. Three-syllable words are still really difficult for him, but holy cow! His two-syllable words are perfect! (Except "bunny," which is still "bunky.") His scissor skills and coloring skills have improved. And, for the first time in a loooooong time, he's talking to himself again. Narrating what he's doing, talking to an imaginary friend, telling a story...I'm not sure what, as it's still Berrylanguage babbling, but he's okay with using words again in a big way, and that makes me so happy. :D He also wants to try new things and get involved with activities he's never shown that he's even noticed before, like doing the dishes (he started unloading the dishwasher last night all on his own). Mostly, the biggest change is the way he plays. He played actively and explored and did what normal 2-year-olds do...until we moved to Arizona. And then I don't know if he had an Autistic regression or if we placed so many limitations on him (my emotional situation messed him up a lot, I know) that he just...stopped. Whichever it was, school has opened up his mind and energy again. There are moments when he even seems like a totally different kid - both in good ways, and in hyperactive ways...but mostly the good. :)

And all of that is after a week! I'm going to try to remember to update here when I notice changes, to keep a record. I'll probably forget, but fingers crossed!

My Berrykin

2014-09-27T02:07:00.000-07:00

I've been waffling all day about whether or not I wanted to post something about this publicly. I'm still processing, after all, and sometimes that makes for bad posts. But, really, I feel like I need to post *something* and I don't want to do it on Facebook. Not yet, anyway, until I've had a chance to wrap my brain around it.

A month ago, Berrykin had a low-level skills evaluation to see if he qualified for free preschool. Based on the results there - "yes, he has some delays" - they scheduled him for an in-depth evaluation with three professionals. We had that exploration today.

They were all lovely women. They commented several times about how lovely and sweet Berrykin is, and what a gentle soul he has. It was nice to hear, but the entire time, a voice was whispering in my ear that they were prepping us for bad news. Reassurance before it's needed.

My 4-year-old talks like a 2-year-old. I knew that already, but they made it official. The way they evaluate, they give a "he talks solidly for __ age," and then they average all the skills together to arrive at a general age of development. So Berrykin talks solidly for a 15-month-old, and all his skills averaged together put him at 2 years.

I knew this, but it was still kind of devastating.

Worse, though, were the red flags.

There's a good chance my baby has an autism spectrum disorder. Since today's ladies weren't medical professionals, they weren't qualified to made a diagnosis. But everything they pointed out were things I'd noticed before. Things I've been worried about. Things I was too scared to tell anybody about. Like the fact that he's only just started hugging back. Or how he likes matching the colors rather than building with his blocks. He gets really preoccupied when his hands are dirty, and freaks out over loud noises. And he get so intensely focused...

Part of me says, "Look at how your brothers turned out - they're awesome! Brilliant! Good people! And they're definitely on the spectrum even if they weren't ever officially put there." But then the other side says, "But it made at least one of their lives so HARD as a kid." And then I try to remind myself that help for this kind of child has improved enormously since then. That he'll get to go to his free special ed preschool where his teachers will be wonderful and he'll get the sort of help I'm not qualified to give him.

And then all of me just sobs, because...my baby. I ache for him, and I can't make it stop. I feel guilty for not addressing it sooner, but mostly I just ache. It's an ache that pervades my soul and breaks my heart, over and over and over again.

Ironically, that ache is exactly the reason I decided not to have kids back in 2008. That decision lasted for all of two weeks before Jeremelon convinced me that kids were my everything and I would regret not having them forever. He was right, of course, but I think on some level, I knew.

The day got topped off by the berrykin running a fever. I freak when he gets sick - I was okay originally, but when he had trouble breathing from croup and flu at 2 and a half, I lost all ability to be okay. Most of the time, I have the energy to tamp down the freakout and carry on, but right on top of this...I'm so tired.

But at least he felt yucky enough that he was okay with me snuggling him a ton. That's a plus...sort of...

Chaos in the...Everywhere

2014-09-09T15:19:00.001-07:00

I don't know how it happened. It swoops in several times a year and disrupts everything, steals motivation, screws with schedules, and generally makes life hard. It's called exhaustion, and it's a problem.

Actually, I know where this exhaustion comes from. It's a personal thing that doesn't belong to me so I'm not going to comment on it, but it messed with my sleep. Then it messed with my daily schedule. Then it destroyed my emotional stability. Then my parents came to town, and we hauled boxes and furniture around storage on a couple freaking-hot days. Then Sims 4 came out. Plus, Jeremelon's been having a ton of work issues to deal with, including picking up extra shifts. That, I suppose, is how we got from doing supremely awesome mid-August to feeling like we're barely hanging on today. I mean seriously - the 9th?! Of September?! Come on!

All of that is making the Berrykin a monster again. Whenever we get stressed, he gets overly physical. He's started biting everything he can get his teeth on, just for fun. He hits, he kicks, he flails, and he laughs the whole time he's doing it. All he wants to do is play video games and watch tv (though I did manage to get him to play with his kitchen yesterday, even BY HIMSELF, which was a miracle on its own), and he throws enormous tantrums when those get turned off.

I'm kind of glad now that his full speech evaluation isn't until the end of the month, so he can't start school until next month. 'Cause I wouldn't wish him on any preschool teacher ever right now. I love him to bits, but wow.

With the intention of fixing all this chaotic awfulness, I've gone on an unannounced Facebook hiatus. Like, five minutes ago. It will last until I get my mess together. Sleep, food, living space, writing, outings, exercise, errands, cleaning. All of it is a mess, and all of it needs to be addressed ASAP.

I will still be using Twitter, 'cause it's a business thing, and posting on my various blogs. (My first work project might be going live tomorrow! Of course, you can't play it until you've gone through the first three chapters...and I got stuck just shy of completing the first...so...yeah...the likelihood that anybody I know will ever read it is pretty slim. But is okay! I get paid to write a video game! :D Oh...so maybe I'll pop onto Facebook when I hear it goes live to announce it...but that's it!)

I'm hoping it won't take months, plural, but honestly, we have so much stuff to get through and fix and figure out, that it might. : / Stay tuned for my heroic battle with organization and self-discipline!

Legally, I Can't Say More

2014-08-19T20:57:00.000-07:00

I think I mentioned previously that I got a job, yes? It's contract work. I didn't want to say anything before I knew what I was allowed to say.

I signed my Non-Disclosure Agreement, so now I can officially say:

I'm writing dialogue for Idol Minds' "Tales of Honor" game.

The level of awesomeness involved in this job is way, way, WAY up there! I get PAID to write dialogue for characters in a military sci-fi setting. (It's based on David Weber's Honorverse series.) There's a bunch of design involved, too, but I'm still learning that aspect.

Paid. To WRITE. FOR A VIDEO GAME.

Don't worry - I'll wait while you get your envy under control.

........

Seriously. I'M jealous of me. That's how cool my job is!

In the empty space between work sessions (did I mention I work from home?), I've plotted two new novels of my own and an extra short story to go with one of them.

The only problem is that my body doesn't appreciate being forced to sit in my crappy office chair. My lower back isn't real happy with using my exercise ball, either. First chance I get (meaning we have a surplus of cash after all bills are paid - so maybe for Christmas), I'm getting a new chair. One with arms that support mine and a gorgeous, luscious curve of lumbar support.

But, you know...not complaining! I have essentially Dream Job, Level 1 here. Nothin' to complain about there! :D

Gettin' In the Game

2014-07-23T00:20:00.002-07:00

I really need to ante up and kick in.

I did really well with my new food regimen until last Monday...when I sprained my other ankle. At that point, I wanted comfort food. I still refused all heavily dairy foods and stayed away from yeast products, but I had cheesy popcorn, chocolate, and all kinds of lesser (but sooo tasty) evils. As such, I can't tell if my stomach gets queasy from a little milk or a lot of sugar...oops.

It's kinda hard to get stuff done when one is immobilized. Despite this sprain not being as bad as last month's, it still took just as long for me to be able to walk on it without whimpering. It's still bruised. Actually, I think the joint itself is off, 'cause putting pressure on the heel in a forward direction makes my foot feel like it's coming off. Creepy? Why yes, yes it is! My chiropractor will adjust it tomorrow morning when I go in...did I mention before how much that HURTS? Part of me is shrieking, "Don't do it! Don't do it!" But I will. Because it will feel better once the momentary explosion of brain-numbing pain recedes.

I've decided to give up cardio for a month. I mean, I can do little things - go for gentle walks (in the sweltering heat...), swim (if I want to brave all the kids at the complex pool), that kind of thing. But no jogging. No dancing (except the kind that basically stands in one place, like hula or belly). Nothing with "bootcamp" in the title. My joints need more support from my muscles, and the only way that's gonna happen is with more strength in my muscles. (Although I would like to note that the little bit of jogging I did this spring helped tighten up my knees! They're back to sliding all over the place now, so that even standing up out of a chair can make them fall off the track. Good grief, that hurts...)

My friend Katie put together some awesome little strength training workouts for me last winter. I'm committing to 4 weeks of those, right here, right now.

Also, that whole "kick in" part needs to happen with regards to my food. I've decided to start from scratch with 5 days of nothing but healthy, spinach-based smoothies (well, and anything that goes into said smoothies, a la carte). That way, I can get used to handling fruits and veggies on a regular basis...and shopping for them. And reaching for them when I'm hungry. And remembering they're in the fridge (why is that so HARD?). Shopping is problematic currently, 'cause my car trunk doesn't stay closed. (My dad's friend tried to fix it so it wouldn't pop open on bumps...but now it doesn't stay closed unless it's motionless.) I can drive to the store and back, no problem, but I don't like to leave the carseat in there in case some hoodlum decides to steal the car. Silly? Maybe. But we also take Jeremelon's car if we go anywhere as a family, and those seats are unwieldy. (Excuses? Why yes, yes they are!)

5 days of smoothies, and then I'll add in chicken and salmon, rice and quinoa and oatmeal. Maybe some hummus. Maybe find a way to turn fruit into a salad dressing that doesn't involve vinegar. That'll be another week or nine days, I think. And then after that, after I've had two weeks to find recipes and whip my stupid kitchen back into shape, I'll launch our all-new menu. Full family meals. Full cooking, though still sans cow milk and yeast. Unleavened bread from scratch. Maybe homemade pita. Desserts for the fun of making desserts. Mmmmmm...

I might have to hold off starting until Monday, after we celebrate the Berrykin's birthday...on the food, anyway. Tomorrow starts my strength training. Thundercats, HO-O!

Day 10

2014-07-08T02:11:00.000-07:00

I'm on about day 10 of no milk, no yeast, no barley. I think that means I'm on day 4 of no artificial sweeteners.

I spent the last week furiously writing a sci-fi tv pilot for...something I'm not going to talk about yet. ;) But really, it was the WHOLE WEEK. I was up writing until 5 or 6 every morning, then the Berrykin got up between 7 and 8. Normally this wouldn't be such a big deal 'cause the Jeremelon gets up with him, but this happened to be a weird, random week where he was scheduled to open. Every shift. Fun stuff! So I'd get up with the Berrykin, try to doze on the couch while he played video games, and then collapse into bed when Jeremelon got home around 2. Then I'd be up three hours later for dinner to do it all over again.

Whew.

What all that means is that I didn't really have time to be upset over my lack of food options, and that made the bulk of those 10 days not so bad. Jeremelon's been grilling a lot, 'cause it's quick, easy, and doesn't heat the apartment. I'm so very, very grateful he's handled most of our meals all week! But...it kinda means the insanity that would have been mine is now his. :/

On the up side, I'm feeling better. We had an icky 24-hour stomach bug that I managed to catch twice over, but since then my stomach hasn't been having any troubles. Between my nightly Activia routine, cutting out most fast food, and the absence of milk, yeast, and barley, my GERD is almost gone. Too much liquid will still make my stomach bloat painfully, but I haven't been bloating from food at all. Which is...weird. Nice, though! I've also been getting these weird energy surges, but that could be the lack of sleep. Same with the nasty headaches. (Although today's is, I think, largely due to the giant storm blowing through. Ever since we lived at sea level, pressure changes make my head feel like it's going to esplode.)

I've also shed 5-ish pounds, but that's mostly because I stopped taking Zyrtec. (Which I can now officially say is the majority factor behind my spring weight spike every year. Oh, wait. Usually I take Claritin, which isn't supposed to do that...hmmm...well, it's the majority factor in my inability to shed weight at the end of the summer, at least!)

Next on my agenda is to compile a list of food I can eat, spooled out into snack lists and meals and recipes I'd like to try. Because oatmeal for breakfast, grilled chicken and green beans for lunch, and pasta and peaches for dinner is fine and dandy, but I imagine I'm going to get tired of it pretty quick here... Then again, that whole "Let's start eating whole foods at home!" project is kind of taken care of... :)

Also, exercise.

Also again, I wish the Berrykin had playmates. Not just so he'd have playmates (which he REALLY needs), but so we could invite people to his birthday. I still have to get his speech screening scheduled so he can qualify for a special preschool program and we won't have to pay for it. He's been doing AWESOME the last couple of days - I think he told me all about the socks he had been wearing yesterday when he was falling asleep (pretty much went: *point at feet* socks. *point at left foot* Blue. *points at right foot* Red. *wiggles both feet* shoes! Socks socks socks! With a lot of babbling in between that sort of sounded like words. All because I like to box in my yellow gox box socks). But there's still a lot of nonsense babbling, and he won't answer or ask complex questions. Largely, his problem is because he's mine, and he gets really self-conscious about answering questions or talking when people are paying attention. :( My poor baby.