Wedding Plans: A Disaster Movie

As I might have mentioned I've been planning (or attempting to plan) my wedding since we decided on a date around November. Since then, the universe has been doing its best to foil everything, to the point where it's seriously getting comical. XD

Well, from the start, as a legally gay couple, we can't have the thing in whatever state. All the states where our families live don't have legal gay marriage, though at least Illinois will recognize it as a civil union after some other state does the dirty work. Not that that does us a lot of good yet. Fortunately, Iowa is allowing it at least for now, much to everyone's surprise. No offense to Iowa, but it isn't the first place you think of when you think of inclusive rights. It's like, the first place you think of when you think of corn fields, pig barns and windmills. But who am I to complain. We even were living there when we started planning, and thought we would be for several years. Plenty of time to get married and enjoy the legitimacy, official status and things like me being on my transman's insurance even before he gets surgery. So we set a date, now only a couple of weeks away, excited to become bound together for life officially.

We had the thing mostly done after a few months when we hit a snag and decided to switch parks because of various constraints on what we could put up and rent at our original park. And, me being me, the lack of bathroom there posed a problem. We had figured out everything else except our hotel and the flowers. So we went down to the area we had chosen (the only place my relatives could easily fly into from Texas) and chose a better park we liked even more. We loved this park; everything about it was perfect. It was private, allowed our dogs, had a great pavilion with the perfect seating, and a deck onto the Missouri River (I have a thing for water). So we booked it, even more excited then before. While there we found a great P.F. Chang's for the rehearsal dinner (a restaurant famous for gluten-free options- If you're a Celiac and like Chinese food, GO THERE). We returned to our home in Iowa, pleased with ourselves.

By then we knew that we were moving back to Wisconsin for an indefinite period of time to live with my fiance's parents again. Both J and the school he was teaching at decided separately that he wouldn't be continuing with them next year. We applied all over the country for a new teaching position, but then everything changed when we realized J is going to go through gender transition this next year. After all, the public school system isn't really the best place to do that. Still, the wedding was on, mostly planned and going to be in Iowa whether we lived there anymore or not because it's the only state in the Midwest where we could do it.

And that was when all the flooding began. You've probably seen it on the news. The Missouri is closing roads and chasing people out of their homes, and because of where our perfect park was, it was the first thing to be underwater. We got an email from the county park people right after the flooding began. Frustrated, we started looking for somewhere else to have it.

It took us awhile to give up on having it outside, then awhile longer to give up having it on the Iowa side of the river. Meanwhile we were moving and I was coming down with mono. Everything was up in the air for awhile. Then J's older brother called us to tell us about a really nice indoor place in Omaha, complete with art gallery and Asian theme, that was full of natural light. We really liked it, and decided it was worth having our wedding ceremony happen across the river from the official paperwork. Relieved, we booked it and agreed to have two ceremonies: one five minute legal one and then one for our guests.

And then I got really sick and went to the doctor to discover that I have mono. I got put on lots of meds and spent the last week in bed, slowly starting to feel human again. Unfortunately, it was basically guaranteed that J caught it from me because we share glasses and other dishes (and make out >.>) all the time. Oh great, we thought. I'm almost through the worst of it and will most likely be totally fine by the wedding, but he's just starting to show fatigue. And that means, unless we're extremely lucky, he's going to be sick on the 9th. As a virus it could last any lengthy of time and all you can do to speed up healing is lie down a lot. But you also never know; he's very healthy most of the time, so fatigue might be all he gets. And because we don't know for sure, we don't want to cancel after all we've done getting the thing planned (not to mention all of our guests having bought their plane tickets).

So we're thinking, okay, so what else could go wrong? Volcanoes? A lightning strike right on the place we chose, instantly vaporizing it? I even put a joke in my mass email about it. Then we start hearing about nuclear reactors getting flooded upriver. Even I didn't see that one coming. Nuclear reactors? Really? So I asked my dad, who has worked in them before, if we should be worried about this because my mother-in-law is freaking out. He says that no, they were able to shut them down and therefore people in the area aren't in any danger. So I'm like, cool. At least my wedding won't give anyone radiation poisoning. (What is with all this?? Right?)

And then I start hearing that they might shut down the Omaha Airport. Now, out of all this stuff, that has the potential to kill it. There are only a few people driving and almost everyone is flying in there, including my parents. At least they've said they will drive if their flight gets rerouted, but the other guests I'm not so sure about. It kills me because at this point, I just want to get the damned thing over with so I can stop messing with it. Honestly, I'm not into weddings. I wanted to elope but J and I decided we would have a ceremony so our families could be there. Also, when it hasn't been legal for very long, it's almost a statement saying, look, we may be two women (so we thought at the time anyway) but we're just a normal couple. And we weren't sure how our extended families would react, so it was a way of including them in the process, allowing them to meet each other, and before it got irritatingly complicated, I was starting to actually look forward to it. J is changing his name when I do so it's also a step in his transition.

In other words, I want this to happen, but the world may not. I don't know which would be worse: changing the date to the fall sometime or just doing it in a closer county without any of my family or friends present. I don't want to wait, I don't want to plan another big thing some other time, and I don't want to have to leave it out of reach of my family. All the choices suck.

Now I'm left to wait and see. What happens with the flooding in the next two weeks will most likely determine its fate. I decided I don't want to cancel it all unless the airport closes because that way, people will get their tickets refunded. I'm afraid that if I cancel it short of that I'm going to regret it. So I might be getting married. Or, the world might continue to pretend to be the movie 2012. Fingers crossed is all I can do.

Me vs. Giant Piles of Stuff Everywhere = Disaster

Life lesson #1 learned in the past two months: moving four times in two months is a Bad Plan. Let me chart this out for you:

Step 1: Rental house in Iowa to RV park in Minnesota in order to escape sewage leak making us ill (half of houseful of stuff into RV, half into parents' house in Wisconsin). Two humans, two cats, two dogs, six potted plants.

Step 2: After job ends, drive RV back to Wisconsin, thinking we can live in the driveway until we can move into the downstairs of the house (which involves major work because we have to move my in-laws upstairs so we can be downstairs and I can therefore vaguely function in theory without expending all of my energy going up and down stairs).

Step 3: We find out there isn't enough power for air conditioning in the RV, and it's 95. I attempt to live in the RV anyway. but keep having to use the guest room upstairs because my dogs are overheating. The cats had to move inside immediately. Meanwhile, my fiance is driving a friend around the country for an entire week, which means it's me going up and down stairs trying to keep everyone alive and quickly burning out.

Step 4: While living with my dogs in the RV when it finally cools off enough, I find myself getting really sick with cold-like symptoms. My fiance gets back, roadtrip done, and it occurs to me that I feel worst while in the RV, which, because of lack of running water, we haven't been able to clean or empty the tanks of for two weeks. And so we move completely into the upstairs guest room, severely limiting what I can do.

The Result: I only have two or three roundtrips every day on the stairs before I'm unable to muster the energy to go up or down anymore, which means I have to think carefully to plan everything and my fiance has to do almost all the work taking dogs outside or cooking (formerly jobs I was proud I could do). Meanwhile, when we're upstairs the dogs are unhappy and have to be crated because we're living in a maze of box piles and it isn't safe for them to roam. When we're downstairs, the cats stand on the stairs and meow piteously the entire time we aren't up with them until everyone in the house wants to commit kitty murder. The result of this is two constantly stressed out and puking cats, my dachshund having diarrhea and needing no less than four bathroom breaks during the night, which my fiance has to do because I can't go up or down at all at night or I will fall on my face. I keep running out of food because I can't keep track of what we have since I can't go in the kitchen whenever I want to, I can't keep anything clean because a) everyone's throwing up and b) there are piles of laundry everywhere and boxes and everything I need is always on the other goddamned floor. When I'm downstairs, there's access to the outside for dogs so I can actually take care of my dachshund's needs, but there's nowhere for me to lie down. Meanwhile, I'm ill, my fiance is having a tough period and is emotionally a wreck (he hates them more and more as time goes by), we're discussing hormone treatment and arranging lots of doctor's appointments as we're trying to help my mother-in-law very slowly move ten years worth of stuff upstairs while trying to get my father-in-law to at least think about moving the furniture sometime this century, and it's still like everyone except me is dragging their feet. Which, if switching the house around had been my idea, I could understand- I never would have asked to take over the master bedroom because even if I need it, it's their house, they get first dibs, no question from me. But my in-laws, the ones dragging their feet because something is always coming up, were the ones who convinced me that it would be good to live on the first floor, leaving me in this ungodly in-between state. And over all I'm glad they did, because it will make my life possible instead of physically impossible. In theory, even the animals will like it better. If, you know, they can keep any food down for the next month as nothing continues to happen, I keep getting stuck on floors, my fiance has to do everything and I have to try to live in a giant forest of boxes with all of my stuff spread out over three different floors, waiting.

Life Explosion

Well, life is settling back down again finally. We were able to borrow J's family's RV for this last month he's working at the high school here, and finally got moved into it and out of the hotel. The entire saga had us moving us and our pets no less than seven times in and out of hotels, our broken rental house (which our landlord kept trying to get fixed) and finally into the RV just a few days ago. Our stuff from the house is packed in boxes ready to be moved back to Wisconsin, where we're going to flee as soon as school ends and J is done teaching.

The RV, while crammed full of stuff and animals, at least doesn't smell like sewage and affect my sensitive immune system. It is also less area to keep clean than the house, though the one thing that was nice about the hotel was the fact that I didn't need to clean anything. This was a good thing because I've been completely flattened from exhaustion. Between the stress, parents poking us constantly and needing to keep everyone updated, the lack of fresh food (thank God for GF frozen dinners or I would have been even more screwed), long hours in the car and keeping everyone healthy and safe through the upheaval, it must have been the longest three weeks in existence. Various things forced me to do too much (like my fiance getting really sick for two days, during which I had to take care of him and even drive to Walmart once) and then it would take even longer than it normally would for me to recover.

In the middle of all of this, we had planned months earlier to go visit J's parents over Easter weekend seven hours away in Wisconsin. My parents were even flying up from Texas, as we wanted our parents to get to know each other better (they had only met once at graduation). The afternoon we were going to leave, we found out that the sewage situation was still not fixed when someone came to disinfect the drained basement and discovered new flooding. So we left, hoping to bring the RV back with us after the weekend was over.

Despite us being exhausted and feeling down on life, the visit with our parents went well and I was relieved at how relaxed my parents were. We had good long talks and caught up, my parents got to meet the horses and our big dog, who they had only seen pictures of before, and reunite with my dachshund, who they adore. We drove them around to show them the area and had dinner a couple of times. It was really good.

I don't know if I mentioned it yet, but my fiance got called in to talk to his boss, the principal, a couple of weeks ago in the middle of all this mess, to find out that he's not getting hired back next year. The principal said a few pretty critical things that had my fiance's confidence in his teaching pretty well shot through for awhile. The most aggravating part is that most of the man's argument is based on something one of the administrators messed up and blamed on J. What really got my fiance, though, was the word "unprofessional". He has to be female for work, but gets paralyzed by anxiety and depression if he dresses too female, so he has to go pretty androgynous and we suspect that's part of the principal's problem. The only thing is that J hasn't come out at work and doesn't plan to, and we have no proof of actual discrimination based on J not looking "female enough". It's just a vague suspicion that I have. At any rate, we just want to get out of that town. After the house problems, all the drama at the school and feeling like we can't go out without seeing lots of people who know J as female, we really just wanted to leave anyway.

For the summer we already had plans to return to J's parents' house to help his mom with taking care of the horses and to allow his parents to go on vacation. We've applied all over the country for English teacher positions, but we know we may not get anything for this next year. If we don't, it'll be a long stay with my in-laws again. I would love that except that the stairs there make my life extremely difficult. Honestly, we aren't sure what to do in J's career next. I hear a lot of transpeople have to switch careers in order to get free of their past life as the wrong gender, and in a career as conservative as public school teaching we aren't sure transitioning would be well-accepted. My man is very sensitive about how people think of him and I worry for him. We've been thinking about how to get his birth certificate changed, but that won't fix his reference letters (which refer to him as female), his social security number, or his college transcripts, which are all things schools look at when considering you. Also, the fact that we don't know what state we're going to be in doesn't help us come up with a clear plan of action as every state seems to have a different process for something as seemingly simple as changing your name. It's very bewildering and we aren't sure where to go from here.

Another thing that has us wondering is whether or not I'm going to have health insurance next year after my 26th birthday, when my dad's company stops being willing to cover me. We had thought, as we are getting married in July and assumed we would be in Iowa next year, that I could be on J's insurance which would at least help. But, if we move to any state where gay marriage isn't recognized or at least converted to a civil union (like Illinois), we aren't married anymore and I potentially lose the ability to have health insurance through my spouse. I've finally decided to try to get on disability because we need the income (my parents are still buying all of our food) as well as insurance, but that can take years and multiple rejections. Transitioning to a straight couple might turn out to be faster.

The good news is that (I think) I should have a pretty strong case. I've never been able to work even part-time, and my mom found a form that allows me to really go into detail about what is difficult for me. As soon as I finish it, I'm going to post it here, as I think it's useful for anyone researching narcolepsy, looking for something to relate to, or for anyone to fill out to use with their application. I started it wondering if I'm really "disabled", but by halfway through I realized that was silly. Hopefully, I can convince the government of this fact.

It's too gorgeous a day to not live in an RV. The first truly warm day we've had in awhile, with the sun shining, and despite everything I'm thankful to be here. I'm thankful to be anywhere.

Somehow Surviving a Week of Total Insanity

Too tired to write... in... sentences...

1) Moved out of house to escape sewage leak and into a Super 8
2) Accomplished above at 10 PM with four animals
3) And with tons of GF frozen food and leftovers
4) Which ran out after 3 days and required me to eat steadily stranger things and rely almost entirely on a loaf of GF bread and lunchmeat from Walmart
5) Checked house every day to drop off laundry and were subjected to the horrible smell increasing until the cleanup people got there finally
6) Watched my fiance come down with horrible flu-like withdrawal symptoms from getting off of his anti-depressant too quickly
7) Nursed fiance back to health over three days while taking care of 4 animals in a hotel, one of which is a dachshund having serious back problems that require extra work
8) Drove to Walmart for emergency supplies and to the house for similar
9) Accomplished the above without crashing into anything despite sleep attacks and being exhausted, not having driven at all in months
10) Moved everyone and everything back into the still slightly off-smelling house to get away from the hotel
11) Had disappointing therapy appointment over the phone
12) Did three loads of laundry and washed giant pile of dishes (using water boiled on the stove because the water heater is still off)
13) Hoping we don't have to move out again while they bleach the basement
14) Called Mom to vent about above and started crying because it's just that insane
15) Now only awake because of blasting Britney Spears

The F. Family Traveling Circus

For Thanksgiving, we had driven seven hours to my girlfriend's parents' house in Wisconsin to visit them and our horses. We brought our dogs and cats with us and it worked out really great. Getting out of Iowa was awesome and the animals were really well-behaved for the drive and the visit and all seemed happy for the adventuring. We had a relaxing four days or whatever it was and were sad to leave. So we figured, why not do the same thing again for Christmas? And since it's much easier to fly down to my relatives in Texas from there than it is from middle of nowhere, Iowa (three hours from the nearest airport with direct flights to our destination), why not visit my parents, too? Our animals could stay in Wisconsin and be cared for by people we trust who had taken care of them before and we'd get to see my family, too.

So it sounded a bit intense, but fun, and let's face it- adventuring outside of our small town for two weeks seemed appealing. Then we found out our mutual best friend and former college roommate, who is at least as much family as the rest of these people, was going to be visiting St. Paul around when we planned to leave for our trip. So naturally we decided to go visit her and her parents for a night or two on the way after they agreed to hosting us and our two cats and two dogs. We had been missing her like crazy.

And so, last Tuesday after my girlfriend got off work, we all piled into the car. It took longer than we had intended to get going because it takes a lot of stuff to sustain two humans on special diets, two cats and two dogs for ridiculous amounts of driving and when they are going to be away from home for almost two weeks straight. We left about an hour later than we had been hoping, but at least it was still light out and we still had a good chance of making it to our first stop for dinner.

Three and a half hours later, we got into St. Paul, tired but not completely exhausted. Having been to this specific house many times each, we just called to double-check the exit off the highway, which was the right one in fact. But after that we passed our turn, then turned the wrong way in an attempt to double back, which landed us on snowy and icy roads going the wrong direction. We dodged a couple of careening vehicles, called our friend back for help getting back to her neighborhood, and spent an hour finding our way there. All the way, our cat was letting us know that he had had enough of this nonsense, and we were stressed out so our dogs were whining. To this rather aggravating chorus, we finally found where we were going, hungry, exhausted and ready to get out of the car.

We had a really good time visiting our friend. The dogs stayed in the laundry room, which we baby-gated off to prevent allergy attacks. They were left to themselves for most of the two nights except for two walks and one bathroom break a day, and of course, being fed. All in all they didn't seem to mind- they were very polite and mostly quiet. My dachshund was a little frustrated by being separated from his humans (he's a clingy little guy), but both dogs seemed to just sleep. The cats were shut into the bedroom we were all sharing and hanging out in to keep them separated from the somewhat antisocial cat of the house, but they did very well also and got plenty of attention. Mostly it was a quiet visit with lots of resting (good for both of us). We caught up, cooked GF lasagna and finished a puzzle.

After our second night it was time to go and make our way to Wisconsin just ahead of a storm. Otherwise we might have stayed longer, it was so nice and relaxing. I took advantage of being in civilization to get three packages of grocery store sushi and that kept me fed for the six hour drive. Even so, we were all exhausted (and bored) by the time we made it to my girlfriend's parents' house. Just sitting in the car tires me out pretty thoroughly (I don't drive at all anymore) and both dogs were whining at the end. Friday (our more vocal cat) was meowing indignantly along with them. It was at that point we decided "Traveling Circus" was a pretty good description of our trip so far.

We spent Christmas there, with a house full of people: six humans, three cats, five dogs, four horses and the miniature donkey. My girl's rather talkative brother and his girlfriend were there and we spent a lot of time with them and the parents. I met more of her family at a Christmas Eve party and (mostly) managed to retain who was related to whom for the evening at least. I also got way more exercise than I'm used to, between walking our dogs around the property and riding horses. I'm still working on just balancing and staying upright on a horse, but for me that's a difficult task, takes lots of concentration, and is therefore draining. I did well and was really proud of myself, but in hindsight it might have been better to save at least some of that energy.

Her family does Christmas a lot more than mine does- there was shopping, gifts (I got lots, which surprised me) and eating lots of meals together. My future mother-in-law is a good cook and mostly eats gluten-free anyway, so she knows how to make safe food and we let her keep us fed. Even though I've been pretty happy to cook lately, it was a nice break to have someone else in charge of it for once. But she doesn't cook quite as many fresh vegetables as we've been eating, or as insanely healthy. That was probably the beginning of us feeling exhausted and sapped of energy, between the food and the constant socializing.

By the day after Christmas and time for our flight south, we were both really tired. Her dad was nice enough to drive us to the airport, almost two hours away, which we were very grateful for. Our flight was delayed an hour but we didn't really mind. Neither of us was able to nap on the three-hour flight, so we were still really tired when we got there. My dad picked us up, so we talked to him all the way back to my parents' house, and then my grandparents were there, so by the time we went to bed that night we were both asleep at the table (me less obviously because I'm way better at faking). We way overate the enchiladas, and the next day there was a party with a bunch of my relatives and a big turkey dinner, so we stayed full of protein-rich, mostly vegetableless and sugar-containing food. My mom had made my two all-time favorite desserts- cheese cake and pumpkin pie- which I was not going to resist. They were delicious, but a far cry from the healthy diet we had been maintaining at home (we hadn't had any but tiny amounts of cane sugar in more than a month before the trip started). During the next two days we saw four of my friends at various meals (at restaurants, so again with the less strict diet), I had a gluten reaction to contaminated fudge, accidentally drank soy-containing tea (someone please explain to me why there needs to be SOY in TEA for Gods' sake), and didn't get a ton of sleep because of the loud city noise outside.

And so, by the time it was approaching New Year's Eve and we were waiting at the airport to fly back up, we both felt like we'd been run over by a steamroller. Of course, that was when storms were delaying everything coming through O'Hare and our flight ended up being delayed for three hours. Eventually we got back after a windy and foggy landing, her dad came and got us, and we collapsed in her parents' guest room at like seven in the evening.

The next day we spent collapsed in a state of no energy. I retrained the dogs (after they had destroyed a few things out of boredom and acquired a couple of other naughty habits from being without my strict rules for several days), convinced the cats that we were not abandoning them forever and ever, and mostly just attempted to recover. Neither of us had it in us to cook, so we ate frozen food, which didn't really help our energy levels. And the next day we packed the car, stuffing it completely with all of our presents, and drove all seven hours back to Iowa.

We chased the sunset for around an hour, and reached our town just as full dark came on. We both caffeinated in order to stay awake long enough to get everyone and everything inside. Then we slept. Yesterday we both woke up sick, our weakened state inviting a cold in. She went to get food because we had nothing in the fridge and we knew that was the key. We cooked three different really healthy vegetable dishes and ate way more than usual, and felt better afterward.

We're still recovering. It was a crazy trip, but it was great to see everyone. The more I'm away from most of my people, the more I realize how important it is to keep in touch with them. Plus, sometimes you have to leave for awhile to understand how nice it is to have your own place somewhere isolated and quiet. Boy are we glad to be back.

Accidental Buddhist

It might have been coming to terms with Narcolepsy that did it, or maybe moving to the country. It might have been partly a result of living in Tokyo for ten months during a time when I was feeling very vulnerable and looking for a new direction. It might have been various books I read out of my girlfriend's library when I was trying to figure out how to deal with life away from my parents making me plan everything. But one thing is certain: it snuck up on me.

I started out stressed out about the future. Like, really stressed out-- how was I going to make it in the real world, being so tired I can't see straight? How was I going to afford health insurance and my medication? Was I ever going to move out of my parents' house? During that time, part of me was annoyed at how stressed out I was. I would yell at my dog and feel terrible, but if I didn't yell it got pent up. I was also an anxious mess in a lot of ways, because there were no easy answers to my questions. I was more or less trapped. I didn't know what to do with myself. Then I found that my parents leaving for two weeks allowed me to relax a bit, and it felt right. I tried to carry it over to when they returned, but it was impossible. The tv was always blaring; someone was always complaining about work. The city outside was so loud that being in our tiny yard wasn't restful. Everything was too fast-paced for me and so even running errands was something that was supposed to be rushed. Only then, I would be back home again, still with nowhere to escape the tension.

I did find one place I could go to relax: I would take my dog to the park. The main areas were usually crowded and I'd end up having to talk to people, but there was a Japanese garden that had quiet benches where my dog and I could sit and soak up the trees and grass and sunshine. It was heavenly, but I had to drive there, so by the time we got home again I was a tense mess. There was nowhere like that within walking distance of my house.

Then I had an incredibly huge stroke of luck and found out that my best friend was, in fact, in love with me, too. So I left that place and came here, to the middle of nowhere, to live with my girlfriend and her parents. This place is not perfect, of course. It gets very cold here and there are stairs between me and the dogs and the outside world. But it was this place that taught me how to be still and quiet and relaxed. Here, I can step outside and come across no one who I don't know well- no pressure. The background noise is the sound of birds, ground squirrels, and horses, plus very distant traffic. Here you can really listen. It's the perfect place for meditating- though it took me awhile to figure out that's what I was doing.

Living here, life is determined by what the animals need- our dogs, cats, horses and donkey have various chores attached to them that happen throughout the day. Animals live firmly in the present and it rubs off on you as you care for them. It certainly rubbed off on me. So I ended up not planning my day out. Instead, I wait and see how I feel and what needs to be done, and then I do what feels right. I went from the "tomorrow at 2 PM" mentality to the "maybe we'll do it on Thursday" mentality, if that makes sense. And as I became more firmly rooted in the present, the past and future began to bother me less. I started to recognize their importance without attaching so much fear to them. I started to think calmly about what needed to happen that specific day instead of freaking out about how I'm going to be feeling in ten years. I'm still slowly thinking over what I'm going to do about health insurance when I'm no longer covered by my parents, but it's far enough away that I'm not afraid when I think about it- I'm just calm and thoughtful and able to think clearly.

And this is how I ended up accidentally a Buddhist.

Not Moving After All

After lots and lots of fanagling, endless planning and unplanning, and generally trying to make things work, we've realized the best thing for us to do is to put off moving for awhile. On the one hand, this made us both feel much better immediately. We really do need more time and more money before moving becomes practical. My girlfriend went from tense and worried to smiling and laughing within about ten minutes of making the decision, which is really, really good to see. We had been worrying over this problem for over a week since finding out that we were mistaken about how much my parents are willing to help us financially, and it was taking a toll on both of us. I also relaxed quite a bit. And I should mention that it was mostly my idea that maybe we should stay here before I go on. After all, I do like it here. I enjoy the lack of people in the middle of nowhere. I adore having all of our animals, especially the horses, closeby. I have a wonderful relationship with my future mother-in-law; I can actually talk to her about things that make sense to both of us, because mentally we're from the same planet (and I can't say the same about my own parents). She pays attention to us and helps out in a way that isn't at all intrusive. I love the property that we have out here, with a creek for my dachshund to get muddy in, trees to climb, fields to stroll in and explore with our big dog. And the countryside around here is beautiful.

But it has its problems, too, like any place. It's difficult to get good fruit, even after winter is over. It's still a bit chilly for me and I have to wear layers, which I hate. There might end up being one month of the year when I'm comfortable outside without confining my body in sweatshirts and feeling mummified by fabric. The house has stairs, which are getting harder for me to deal with, and the dogs downstairs don't get along with ours, making everything really complicated when trying to put them outside. And intellectually I do know there will be a few cons to any place we ever live, especially with my physical problems. But I did have my hopes up. I was so excited to be going home, to take my girlfriend (who means everything to me) back to where I grew up. I'm incredibly homesick, which is something that I didn't figure out until I realized that we weren't going there this summer. I went from stressed out to really depressed in that same ten minutes.

Part of it is that I miss my family and friends there. But mostly I miss the place. When I'm there, I feel so connected to the land. I'm not sure how to describe what I mean without sounding a little crazy. It's like there are roots growing down out of my shoes, through the asphalt, down into the earth. Every species of wildflower feels like a part of me; every azalea bush, magnolia tree, taloe, oak. The ocean is always there in the back of my mind, comforting me, whether or not I ever find time or means to go to the beach. Even the power lines and pigeons and smog are old friends. The people are my people; they have my accent and various amounts of Spanish and skin of many different colors. These are the things I miss the most— daily life things, existence things.

We are still planning to live there at some point. Maybe in December, if we can afford it, missing most of the winter here. And I'm hoping we can visit this summer for a week or two. In the meantime I'm going to try to wrench myself away from thinking about what might have been and try to go back to enjoying living here. But it does smart a little.

Parental Misunderstandings

A month ago exactly, we flew down to my hometown to visit my parents, go to a job fair in the hopes of improving my girlfriend's chances of getting a full-time teaching position, and to look at a promising apartment. The trip went really well. My parents were extremely supportive about our back-up plan for my girlfriend to work part time jobs, like substitute teaching or teaching karate, if she doesn't get hired to one of the positions she applied to. My mom went so far as to say they could help us with rent until the school year started and we had income. Feeling pretty good about things as a result of my parents being so supportive, we went ahead and agreed to go for the apartment. My mom wanted to pay our deposit and first month's rent because her dad did that for her when she first moved out, and we figured we were set and asked her to go ahead and sent them the deposit. We sent in our application shortly thereafter and proceeded to get really excited because we really, really like that apartment.

Last week I got an email from my mom saying that they were really worried about us being able to afford the apartment. I got pretty alarmed because I know my parents and when they say they're worried about something it generally means that they're really freaking out, and that usually doesn't bode well. So we talked to them on skype over the weekend. My dad kept talking about it like we were being irresponsible for moving in before we would be sure my girlfriend will have a job, and that part-time work wasn't good enough as back up. We explained everything again, exactly the same way we had before. Our plans were exactly the same as a month ago, when my parents seemed to like them, only now they seemed to disapprove. It was especially frightening because my dad seemed to have switched from offering to help us by allowing us to take on our own expenses slowly one thing at a time as we can afford them, to wanting us to be completely on our own as soon as we move. Our plan to take the apartment was dependent on that help- otherwise we wouldn't have said we would take it.

Now we're very confused and unsure what to do. We thought we had a plan that everyone had agreed on, and we thought we had financial support that we may not have after all. We don't want to give up our apartment if there's any chance we'll be able to afford it, but my parents are trying hard to convince us to move back into their house, which is insane. There's no way we would fit and it has twice the stairs as even this house, plus a list of about ten other reasons why there's no way it would work. Our conversation on Saturday ended in a kind of stalemate because we were caught completely off-guard. Now I'm thinking I'd better call them this week and clarify exactly what help they are willing to give us so we can figure out what on earth we're going to do. The problem is that I'm kind of chickening out. I want to know what happened, but I don't want to sound like I'm accusing them of flip-flopping or misleading us. I'm thinking I'll take the angle of we totally misunderstood and that's why we thought everything was fine. But it will be challenging not to sound like an especially cushy rug has been ripped out from under me, leaving me incredibly confused.

Part of me wonders if we did just misunderstand, or if my parents thought that my girlfriend has money saved up, or if they thought I meant moral support and not financial help. It's a very dicey situation and I'm worried about misstepping and making them angry. I love them and I don't want that, but at the same time I'm feeling a little betrayed. It would be different if I hadn't perceived, from things they said, that they were going to help us a lot. I mean, it's not like when I've thought about moving out in the past I expected them to pay all of my bills. But to offer help and then accuse us of being irresponsible... that kind of hurts.

On top of all of that, I'm not sure what we'll do if they are going to cut us loose as soon as we move. We don't have any money saved up; my girlfriend's student teaching takes up all of her time and doesn't pay her anything, and she's using a family fund to pay for her teaching license. My parents are paying for our food and my dachshund's needs and my medication. Most of my girlfriend's money from previous part-time jobs has been used up by now (a lot of it on necessities for her animals- it isn't like she's wasting it). I'm getting more exhausted every week and have completely given up driving because it's dangerous. I have the energy for art occasionally, but not in a way that could result in any kind of steady income, especially between now and July, when we were planning to move. Maybe I could help out if I get feeling better later this year, which is possible, but we can't count on that.

So I really need to call them and talk to them. I may put it off a little bit because I'm not sure how to approach this without making them angry or more worried (which is just as bad). We'll see what happens, but the whole thing is giving me one heck of a headache.

Corpse Ghost New Apartment Foster Family

It's been awhile since the last time I didn't have some sort of vivid dream interrupting my sleep, but last night was crazy.

The first one was a nightmare. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before now that dead bodies, especially rotting ones, seriously freak me out- it's like some bizarre phobia I have. In this dream I was still living with my parents, indefinitely, with no hope of moving out, which was an awful feeling I had for the year and a half after college. That feeling made the dream that much worse. So my parents had just moved into a different new house and I had come with them. It was a bit of an improvement- there was more space for me and my room had better lighting. Everything was kind of weird though. The walls were all painted red and had East Asian style details- including a really cool dragon statue attached to the wall between two rooms. The layout was very confusing and didn't make sense, so I kept getting lost even though it was a small house. In the middle of it there was a tiny courtyard with a young tree and a small patch of grass where my dachshund could do his business. At first I really like it out there- a small enclosed bit of the outdoors where I could be outside without being in public. I started spending more and more time out there and thinking this house really wasn't so bad. That's when the visions started- it felt exactly how it does when I'm hallucinating while asleep (which I'm sure I was), only inside the dream it would happen when I was awake and I would have to stop and wait for it to finish before I could see anything again. The flashes of images would come as I entered the courtyard. I started to get really scared because I realized a ghost was sending me memories and I suspected there was a body buried in the courtyard. The patch of grassy area was exactly the right size, and my dog liked to sniff it a lot- it was hard to get him to leave. This totally freaked me out because of my phobia. I started to avoid the courtyard and take my dog to a park instead. This worked for awhile until he started to dig tunnels. I would turn my back for a second and he would disappear underground and it would take yelling to get him to come back out. It's kind of hilarious because the tunnels were perfectly round, as if made by a giant worm, even though it was a dog supposedly digging them. Meanwhile, as the visions started getting stronger, my fears were confirmed- the ghost wanted me to dig up the body so that its murderer could be found, and I kept telling it that I couldn't because I was terrified. It started to get angrier and angrier and my terror got overpowering. I was afraid to let the dog go anywhere near the courtyard now that he was digging so much. It was getting harder to come up with excuses to my parents and they started to wonder what was going on. The dream ended with me trying to get ready to leave to go somewhere with my parents while having a vision showing me the rotting bones while I kept having to run outside and grab my dog because he had somehow escaped out there and was digging. I started to panic and that woke me up.

In the next dream I had, my girlfriend and I had just reached our new apartment with all of our stuff- in the dream we didn't have dogs- and were figuring out where to put our furniture. Our apartment had one room and was a really strange layout- there was a fireplace and chimney in the middle, and so many cabinets on the walls it was hard to figure out where to put furniture. We were really happy to be there and enjoying figuring it out though. I looked out the window at the view- it was really high up over a city at night- and it was amazing so I walked over to the sliding glass doors to see how the porch was. It was a tiny porch with really flimsy-looking railing. I made the mistake of looking down over it to discover we were about 100 floors up. I got serious vertigo and a stab of fear. That's what woke me up.

The last dream was interesting- I was a teenage boy (lol) who was meeting his foster parents for the first time. They were a really nice couple with a very strange house and really cool furniture. The man was big and gangly and bald, and really sweet. His wife was short and incredibly smart and had flowing reddish-brown hair. They were very welcoming and my thoughts (as the kid) were that this really might not be so bad. The house was really weird- there were windows (without glass) in the inside walls, including my bedroom, so even if I locked the door I didn't really have privacy- but neither did anybody else. The bathrooms were both really bizarre; one of them had a giant marble tub raised up in it, with a toilet literally hidden underneath a lid next to it. The other bathroom had two toilets and two sinks randomly without stalls or anything- just in the middle of the room. The main room of the house had random stairs everywhere and was a crazy shape- the walls were at weird angles and were varying sizes. The place was filled with ornately carved furniture from all over the world. I spent awhile admiring everything. There was a glass case full of shiny little statues and a mobile made of origami cranes, several really old-looking round tables, and tons of chairs (no two were the same). I ate dinner with my new parents and several of their relatives and then went to bed watching the tv in my bedroom. That's when I woke up. What a night.

Totally Drained

What a crazy weekend. My girlfriend and I flew to my home state of Texas so she could go to a job fair for teachers there. I don't know if I've mentioned on here (since I've been neglecting my blog horribly) that we've decided to move there in July. We made that decision based on a number of things, including the fact that if we stayed up north for another winter I might freeze into a human popsicle, but also because she's ready for somewhere new and different to live. And my hometown has the advantage of lots of connections (I have a huge extended family), parental support, and lots of school districts for her to apply to. So far we've found one summer school and five full time job openings there and she's applied to all of them. We were a little worried about when we could start apartment hunting since we may not know if she's hired until the summer, until we looked things up and crunched some numbers and realized that actually she could support us by being a substitute teacher if she doesn't get any of the other jobs. We would still rather for sure be okay, however, so we went down for the job fair, figuring it might give her an edge on her first choice full time position.

We left on Friday and said goodbye to our cats, dogs and horses. My girlfriend's mom looked after them while we were gone. The trip there went fine and we got to catch up with my parents (who I hadn't seen since January). It was really, really good to see them. On Saturday my girlfriend went to the job fair, which was pretty intimidating but went well. Apparently it was packed with people. She left her resume with a bunch of schools, even though only one in that district was hiring for English, so if something opens up they might remember her.

Right after that we went to look at an apartment complex that we found online. It's affordable but really nice and has great outdoor spaces for the dogs- and us- to enjoy. We liked it a lot and found out they had the perfect apartment available. It's exactly the right size for us and the perfect layout- it even has a well-lit space for my art desk. Plus it's on the ground floor, which was important because stairs are exhausting for me. They only allow two pets, which at first made me unhappy. But my girlfriend made the point that our cats could stay with her mom until our third college roommate could take them. She's their favorite person on the planet, and loves cats more than anything. So I think it will work out. The more I think about it, the more I realize that being in charge of two cats and two dogs during the day has been pretty exhausting. As much as I love them, I think our friend could take better care of our cats, leaving me with more energy to enjoy being with the dogs. The apartment has been put on hold for us and we're filling out the application tonight. It's very exciting and takes a load of my mind that we have someplace to live lined up.

After that we went and visited one of my high school friends briefly, then went out to dinner with my parents. By the time we got back to their house we were both flattened. Even though I slept in during the job fair, I still way overdid it on Saturday. But it was worth it for how much we got to do and it was our only day there after all.

On Sunday I woke up with no energy whatsoever. My mom drove us to the airport in the morning. I spent the wait for our flight in a total daze, and my girlfriend wasn't any better off- she had eaten something at the restaurant that bothered her stomach and felt nasty the whole way home. Even after sitting on the plane and napping for most of the three hour flight, I was so tired I was having trouble putting one foot in front of the other when we got off the plane. Then, to make things even better, we got lost looking for the train. It took most of a Starbucks tea to wake me up enough just to walk. Eventually we found the train. I slept. We got on a bus to the parking lot where our car was. When we finally reached it we still had over another hour of driving to do to get to the middle of nowhere where we live. My girlfriend needed caffeine in order to drive because she was so tired. We made it back after a stop at the grocery store (since we had no food at home). The dogs were in the front yard and very happy to see us. We went to bed early.

Yesterday I didn't feel any better. I was so tired I couldn't do any cleaning- I just read a book all day, or slept. I didn't feel up to doing the stairs, but my girlfriend's mom helped me by putting the dogs outside. I fell asleep on the table several times. The cats didn't mind; they were very clingy because they were happy I was back. I stayed upstairs all day.

Today I'm definitely still recovering. I've been able to do some cleaning, though, and I haven't been falling asleep when I'm concentrating on staying awake. I can do the stairs again, just not quite as much as usual. I'm looking forward to living somewhere without stairs. Hopefully I'll be back to my normal amount of lack of energy tomorrow.

Department Store Dog Whisperer

I had an interesting dream last night. I was with my mom at some department store in the changing rooms and I had my dog with me, only he was about half the size he actually is (therefore, tiny). I kept losing him in all the stalls. Luckily no one else was in there so I could go wherever I needed to to find him. When I did find him, we got in the car and drove over to my grandparents' house. My grandmother was there with this half-some-kind-of-terrier, half-dachshund that she had just gotten. He was way over-excited and pulling her down the street and when I tried to make suggestions she would brush them off. She needed to go somewhere, so my mom and I agreed to dogsit.

Then somehow we were in this fancy RV with nice furniture and everything, and we had my dog inside and my grandma's outside because he was going kind of crazy. I started to complain to my mom about owners who don't get their dogs enough exercise, and eventually decided to go see if I could tire out the crazy dog and calm him down.

It was so totally right out of Dog Whisperer, lol. I came outside all calmly and slowly claimed the entire yard while the dog went from barking at me and freaking out to calming down. Eventually I got him to sit, which was hard because he hadn't learned the command yet. And then I brought him outside. My tiny dog was sound asleep on the couch, and I was grateful because he's usually terrified of dogs. He didn't even twitch as I put the terrier mix on the couch, where he fell asleep right away. I watched them awhile and wondered if I was going to be able to control him in front of my grandmother since she belonged to him, and was contemplating how he did look a bit like a dachshund when he was asleep, when I woke up. Man it would be cool to have those mad skills in real life, hahaha.

Suicide Party Mansion Exploring

Last night I was at this reunion of sorts in a dark, dingy house. A lot of my middle school friends who I hadn't seen in a really long time were there. The party eventually turned into a sleepover, and I kept trying to catch up with people but I was constantly falling asleep and having trouble participating. At one point, one of the people at the sleepover shot himself and committed suicide, and it was really disturbing. There was blood everywhere. Everyone was shocked and scared. We started looking through his backpack, trying to figure out why he had done it.

Then the setting changed from this dingy house to my grandparents' backyard, where the party was still going on only now it was a roleplay game involving my cousins. We each had a different anime character we were supposed to be portraying, but it was difficult because I didn't really get who I was supposed to be. My cousin had made up his own character, and everyone was making fun of him because he was being all emo. It was pretty funny actually. I decided to follow him around instead of trying to be part of the game anymore, because we hadn't talked in awhile. So we ended up walking around this pretty fantastical yard, with waterfalls and rocks to climb on and secret passages between all these fences. It turned into us avoiding the other people, and then we went inside the house, which turned out to actually be my house.

Apparently when my parents moved, they had moved to this mansion. Like, literally. The place was insanely huge and had endlesss staircases and hallways. My cousin wanted to show me this extra suite of rooms he had discovered that had a balcony outside, down this back staircase that was carpeted. It was funny because the inside of the mansion looked exactly like my real house, it just had like ten times more rooms. I was thinking about how crazy my parents had been to move the three of us into a mansion that could easily house about fifty people, and my cousin explained that he knew someone who was talking to my parents about turning half of the house into a hotel. Oh, I thought, that makes sense. Anyway, we explored for awhile, finding a huge living room full of fancy old world furniture, a patio with a koi pond just outside, and a large cafeteria full of people eating lunch. I then got this awesome idea to move my room into one of the more secluded parts of the house, and to see if I could move in next to a patio with backyard access because I figured my dog would like that. Then I woke up, amused.

Interesting Stairs House

Last night I had a dream about an interesting house, and it was funny because it relates completely to stuff I've been thinking about.

It started out that I was at this tiny theater to watch a musical that one of my close friends (who I needed to email in real life) was directing. I sat down and it started, with a couple of characters emerging suddenly from behind a tree that had at first looked like it was painted onto the background. I thought this was really clever, but then the play turned out to be pretty bad, and most of the audience left. I ended up talking to my friend instead and telling her everything I had planned to email her about.

Then the dream changed and I was walking around this massive house with my dad. He was helping me apartment hunt so I could have some good options to show my girlfriend when she came to visit. The place had a lot of stairs, which I had reservations about, but it was pretty cool all the same. You entered the front doors, which were massive, dark carved wooden double doors, and there was a small entry room with a closet and a flight of stairs going up, with a beautiful carved wooden banister and aged but gleaming wooden steps. Up those stairs was a small sitting room, like a miniature living room, with more stairs going up. On the next landing there were two hallways going left and right. One hallway had the master bedroom and no less than four other bedrooms, obviously intended for kids by the paint colors, all off the hallway and right next to each other, sharing one bathroom. I thought at the time that this setup was pretty weird, with the parents and kids right on top of each other. This floor was carpeted in a soft blue-green carpet.

Down the other hallway was a tiny office space and a closed door. When I opened this door, I found myself looking into a massively gigantic room. It was carpeted like the bedrooms and looked identical, except that it was multiple thousand square feet by itself. The ceiling was pretty standard height but the room continued on so far that it was difficult to make out the opposite wall. I remember wondering what on earth you would use a room that big for.

Back on the landing, I went up another flight of stairs to find a couple more office-like spaces, with wood floors this time. Up more stairs took me to the top floor of the house. It was massive. There was a huge kitchen behind metal doors, looking like it belonged in a restaurant with steel countertops and huge amounts of workspace, plus a big walk-in freezer. Next to the kitchen was a small area with a few tables next to the stairs. Through another door was a massive room like the interior of a restaurant, with tons of tables set with napkins, silverware, candles and even menus. Beyond that I could see an empty area like a ballroom. The carpet up here was a rich shade of red and the whole place looked pretty classy.

I followed my dad back down to the front door, exhausted from climbing the stairs and seriously wondering why I was considering this house. I really liked it and thought it was cool, though I was trying to figure out what on earth we were going to use the restaurant and random huge room for. Plus I knew I didn't want a kitchen upstairs from my bedroom like in my parents' house. I resolved to discuss it with my girlfriend and then suddenly woke up, really amused.

I'm already feeling physically better and I only just dropped classes yesterday, so I'm sure now that I did the right thing. Plus my parents have agreed, more or less, to give me space on the health stuff. We'll see how long that lasts.

Dropping

Today I went up to my school and dropped two of my three classes. I was stressed out all morning, dreading it. It was pretty quick and easy, but I still feel really guilty about it for some reason.

It's not that I think I'm not doing the right thing. I already feel a lot less stressed out knowing that I just have one class to keep up with now. It really was too much and there's no doubt about that. It's just hard for me to let go sometimes, especially when I'm doing well in a class despite everything. Plus I'm a little worried I'm going to get crap for it or something, which is silly because I do have the best reasons ever.

I still have to sort out not coming back next quarter, but fortunately it turns out I can do it any time between now and the end of the quarter. That gives me a little bit more time to recover before I tackle the next hurdle.

I have been talking to my parents about it, and they reacted more or less exactly how I predicted, with my mom freaking out and resistant at first, but then getting it after a lot of explanation, and my dad taking it in stride. My parental drama now has to do with how worried they are about the state of my health.

It's not surprising. I mean, they really care about me and sincerely want me to feel better, and I do appreciate that- a lot. But it can be stifling- they want to direct everything, and get more involved than I really want them to be. Part of it probably comes from living with them still. Right now I'm just trying to get myself a little bit of space, and do some recovering before I go back to my neurologist. My parents wanted me to make an appointment as soon as possible, but I think that's rushing things. I want to see what effect, if any, not having classes to get to and get through and stress out about has on my health first. I really think I'll get feeling better in the next couple of weeks without doctor intervention. Also, I need my slightly raised Xyrem dose to settle out so I can tell if it helps or my side effects come back. Basically they want to rush over there and start interrogating my doctor about how we're going to fix me, and I just want to coast along and see how I feel. I think my parents still have this idea of a healthy me that may never actually happen. I have Narcolepsy, and I know that I may always have this interfering with my life. I'm okay with that at this point- I'm beginning to accept the idea of making the most of the situation instead of trying to live as if I don't have a chronic condition. I think my parents aren't quite there yet.

I'm really really grateful for their support and how much they care. But I'm also glad that my girlfriend agrees with me and supports my view of the situation. I might have mentioned that I have the best person in the universe as my girlfriend, so it's thoroughly unfair to compare my parents to her. It does mean that in the future life will most likely involve less freaking out, at least about this stuff, which is something I'm very happy about.

Old House Exploration Sleepover

Yesterday I got fed up with not sleeping very well and raised my first dose of Xyrem slightly, hoping that even if my stomach rebelled I would at least get more sleep for a few days. I did sleep better and had a couple really interesting dreams.

It started out that it was dark outside and I decided to take my dog out into the yard to use the bathroom before going to bed. I put his leash on for some reason and opened the door, and found myself in this fanastical Japanese garden. It was really cool- it had a curved wooden plank bridge over this little stream that had big waves in it, and there was a lot of wild-looking plants everywhere. I crossed the bridge and it was suddenly the middle of the afternoon, and I realized I was actually in the backyard of my old house. It was how I remembered it being as a child, before we did any landscaping, and everything was exactly how it was at that time. I ran around exploring it and just really happy to be back there.

Then I went inside the house and was exploring in there, and it kept changing into different dream variations on that house- everything from how it was laid out last week in my dream with the huge computers to some variations on it I hadn't dreamed about in years. I found some really neat stuff in my room, though I don't remember the specifics now. As I walked into the living room I instead found myself in this mall. Apparently my parents had started a mall out of our living room and as business grew they had built on to the front of the house. It was pretty crowded and they were selling some pretty random things. It was a bunch of tables loaded with piles of boxes of stuff for sale, a lot of it candy or little knickknacks. I spotted some stairs and started going up to see what was above.

There turned out to be floors and floors on this building, which had turned into an adobe style thing- all the walls were smooth and brown. Every so often the stairs would end in another room of merchandise, and in one of them was a pile of candy bars that were labeled "gluten" in large letters, which I thought was hilarious at the time. I kept running into food I couldn't eat while I was exploring, but I didn't really mind because I having fun seeing what all was there.

After that dream I had another one in which I started out in a class my best friend was teaching, and I don't remember much about it except that it somehow turned into a sleepover with my high school friends on a boat where I was taking pictures for my photography class with the fancy camera. I was trying to get nice portraits of people but it was like 3 AM and I was really tired.

Overall I think it's an improvement as I'm feeling better rested this morning. It was also nice having a night without frustration or disturbing aspects to my dreams.

A Good Cry

Sometimes you just need a good cry.

Every time I've tried to talk to anyone about my health lately I've ended up in tears before I can even really say anything. I'm in a pretty bad place with Narcolepsy right now. I've been going downhill for months and my neurologist is basically out of ideas, which makes me feel pretty helpless. I'm having more and more trouble doing the work for my increasingly fewer classes and I'm sleeping worse as the nights go on. I feel like I'm fighting an uphill battle and losing ground every day. To say I'm scared would be an understatement.

At the same time my life is changing for the better. I've been able to make plans to move out of my parents house (which I was seriously worried I would still be living in at the age of 35) to start a life with my girlfriend (who we have already established is the best person ever). It's such a wonderful emotional thing, and my health is such a terrible emotional thing that between the two I've felt like I've been on an emotional rollercoaster all day.

I talked to my mom this morning and my dad when he got home from work. Both parents are ecstatic about the plans and worried about the health. I had a heart to heart with my dad on the way home from dinner about how bad my Narcolepsy is getting and how helpless I feel in the face of it. When we got home he gave me the tightest hug in a long time and told me he loves me. I was already crying, but I lost it even more because I'm so damned lucky to have the parents that I have. I headed straight for the shower and cried my eyes out for awhile. I actually let all my feelings about my health come out for once; most of the time I shove the panic down and try to ignore it, to pretend like I can handle this.

My inner therapist is telling me that I need to learn to accept the lack of control. I think that's one of the major things I can learn from this illness... that I need to let things happen sometimes instead of getting caught up in frustration and disappointment when I can't change how I feel. But I'm so not there yet. At least the people around me are the best people in the world, and because of that I know everything will turn out okay.

Getting Exercise

Today I had a day pretty much off from class things, having been especially responsible about getting things done last week (or it might have been the caffeine, haha). So when I got up this morning I decided to catch up on some cleaning. When I'm as focused on getting through college (again) as I've had to be lately with my health going downhill, things fall by the wayside around my part of the house. I'm only responsible for my small bedroom and the downstairs bathroom but it still has to get pretty bad before I do anything about it. Now, we are talking about my grew-up-with-a-total-neatfreak version of bad, so I'm sure there are many worse bathrooms out there. But it was seriously starting to bother me. Besides that, dust has been building up in my room again so I figured I would tackle that afterwards.

I figured I'd just do my cleaning in the morning, so after I ate breakfast I got out all the bathroom cleaning stuff to drag back downstairs. Then I got to work. It took me awhile because I had to figure it out- it had been awhile since I'd done more than the vanity and with my terrible memory I had forgotten exactly how to clean everything. By the time I finished the bathroom was gleaming and I was overdue for a nap. I decided to take the dog outside first.

I got out there to find myself facing another accidental nap on the porch and just went straight back inside. I took an hour-long nap and was still tired after that. I definitely abandoned the idea of dusting.

I tend to forget how much cleaning takes it out of me. If you think about it though, if you're doing a good job it is pretty serious exercise, though it isn't valued as such. It does involve a whole lot of moving around, getting down on your knees and using muscles you aren't really used to using. I can remember countless times pre-diagnosis when I would try to do just a little bit of cleaning and end up completely flattened. I used to be very confused as to why it was so exhausting. Sweeping especially kills me- all that standing up nonsense. How dare I think about walking around like that, moving my arms, haha. It's too much physical work, so I leave it to my dad. At least these days I usually remember to save the cleaning I do have to do for days when I don't have anything else.

Every Time is Naptime!

Well, the day after my failed Ritalin experiment was awesome. It was like night and day, haha. I still had my usual amount of no energy, but it was so much better than the day before that I felt like I was doing great. I'm really glad the depression wore off so fast. It was also nice because the weather was awesome for my photography homework.

A couple of days later, though, and I'm back to the every time is naptime routine. On Friday my mom was home, and since she had lots of errands to run I went with her. It worked out really well, actually, because we would chat about stuff as she drove, then when we got somewhere she left me in the car to nap while she went in. So I didn't get too tired and so got a lot done, haha. There were a couple of parking lots where I felt kind of self-conscious sleeping. I mean, it's not like we were in a bad part of town or something, but it is kind of weird to be napping in your car, especially when you're pretty obviously over the age of 10. Luckily I've now officially mastered the ability to nap while still aware of my surroundings, so it wasn't unsafe. I bet I confused some random passersby, though, haha.

Speaking of confusing people, lol, last week in my photography class another student kept questioning me on why I take naps during every break. That class is pretty intense, so in order to get through the entire four hours without missing half the information I have to put my head down when I can. He kept questioning until I finally just told him that I'm really tired all the time. I don't like pulling out the word Narcolepsy. Either people think it's something it's not or they've never heard of it. I know I'm not helping to educate people and spread the word, but it's a pretty personal thing to me and I'd really rather not spread it around that I have this disabling illness. It's like, too much information to people I don't know. Plus there's the fact that I'm just too damn tired to explain all this crap. So I brush them off instead and let them wonder why I'm constantly napping.

Today I've taken two significant naps (more than five minutes, haha) already, but I think it's time for one more. Otherwise walking the dog will turn into napping while walking the dog, which is probably something that I should avoid.

Photography Homework

Last night I dreamed I was working on my photography assignment. I really do have one to do over the next two days, and yeterday I was having trouble thinking of things to photograph because I used most of my good ideas up last week, haha. But in my dream I was having no trouble coming up with lots of crazy but awesome ideas. I kept waking up enough to jot suggestions down in my notes. In the dream I got so preoccupied by setting up cool ideas that it got dark before I had time to actually photograph anything. Plus people kept getting in my way. A friend I haven't spoken to in awhile was at my house, trying to do a puzzle with her eyes closed. She wouldn't even open her eyes while I was trying to get around the giant table she was working on. My dad kept following me around distracting me by asking me to do other things. There were a bunch of other people wandering around too. It was a pretty interesting dream, and when I woke up I jotted down a couple more ideas for my homework. Then I looked at the list. It was hilarious because half of the stuff involved parts of the house in the dream that don't exist in real life. I can't get on this house's roof, for example, and we definitely don't have a waterfall in our front yard, even though that would be awesome. There were still some ideas I can use though, if it stops raining. It was also nice to have such a coherent dream again as they've been disjointed lately.

Today I'm starting Ritalin. We'll see how that goes.

The Earrings Saga

Just over six weeks ago I got my ears pierced. This was a pretty big feat for me because I have a pretty serious needle phobia. I survived the first piercing and was really proud of myself for not fleeing in terror (which I was definitely in danger of doing at the time). I figured that I had gotten through the worst part and the rest of this would be easy.

Well, the first six weeks passed and I was pretty excited to be able to change out my earrings. On Monday I decided to go ahead and do it in the morning. Before I knew it it was half an hour later, my feet really hurt (how dare I stand up for half an hour!) and my fingers were all sore from gripping the metal backs of the earrings, which were showing no sign of budging. My arms were even sore from holding my hands up, haha. I gave up for the day.

Several days and several attempts later I was seriously wondering if I was stuck with these earrings for the rest of my life. I started talking to friends about it and found out that I probably needed someone to help me. With my only friends in town really busy and both parents away on business I pretty much had to wait. I kept at it anyway though.

Yesterday morning I finally got them out. I was really happy that I had managed to do it all by myself. I got a new pair that looked easy enough to put in and then I found out that the worst was not, in fact, anywhere near over yet.

It was terrifying. I could get one earring halfway in, but I couldn't find the hole in the back. I had no way of seeing it. The scary part was that the digging around in my ear I had to do while trying to find the hole felt way too much like a needle to me. I ended up having a panic attack right there in my bathroom. I refused to give up, which admittedly was pretty impressive at the time, but it ended up just making me feel worse because it just wasn't going to be possible without help. I got really good advice to use neosporin on the earring to dull the pain, but that wasn't until after my disastrous first try to get it in.

I was panicky all day. I was concious of the fact that if I didn't get the new ones in before I went to bed the holes would start to heal shut overnight and all of this would be for nothing, because after how frightened I had been I was pretty sure I wouldn't have the courage to get them pierced a second time.

Luckily my mom got home last night and agreed to help. I ended up on the floor (because when I was standing up I felt like I was going to faint), crying because I was afraid, with my mom leaning over my ear trying to find the hole. It didn't hurt because of the neosporin- it just felt like a needle and I didn't like it. I managed to stay still and finally it went through. Thank god for moms.

I've decided these are staying in for awhile, haha. I'm proud of myself for going through with this though, and I hear that the first time always sucks. And as scared as I was I think next time will be better, and that this will help me to eventually overcome my phobia. Take that, needles!