Feeling Forty-Four

The dreams are always so vivid. I usually don't remember them clearly, but in the moments when I realize I am awake - I am WIDE awake - and I remember my dream. This one was my own personal House, MD episode... I love Hugh Laurie, and House, MD is one of my favorite TV programs. So in my episode, I dreamed about the relationship between Cuddy and House - always threaded with an undercurrent of sexual tension. Appropriate, since I am still hung up on the most recent "inappropriate" guy - I can relate to the tension. The story line was very convoluted, but the jist was that it turned out that Cuddy and House actually had four children together; children that made it to adulthood but somehow, all ended up dead. Appropriate, since I tend to contemplate a lot on death and dying.

I remember thinking: I need to be careful getting out of bed. My thoughts tend to go verrrrrry slooooow when my blood sugar drops; it's funny, because it's exactly that - the speed of my thinking - that clues me into something being wrong. I know I have to test my blood sugar, but it's more important about getting over to my laptop so I can blog about this experience. It's my mission and compulsion: sharing my innermost thoughts and feelings with the world - it's my connection, my addiction. It's my savior. It keeps me tied to reality. It keeps me from floating out in space. It keeps me from floating away.

The other thing I always notice is that I can only think about one thought at a time. This is definately a departure from normalcy, because normally my brain can hold about fifty thoughts at a time - and I am actively thinking about half of those thoughts simultaneously. I get myself out of bed. I have to go pee, so I head over to the bathroom to take care of business. My dogs - always attentive to my every move - follow me. Winnie, the boxer, comes all the way into the bathroom and sits by the tub, watching me. This is unusual - I tend to think the bathroom scares her, because she rarely walks in like that; usually waits just outside the door... it makes me think that her doggie sense is telling her that something is off. I love Winnie... I'm glad she's been here with me. She was here when the Bunny was here, and she kept me from being lonely right after he left.

My laptop! Oh yes, I remember. I make a left out of my room, and I walk through the laundry room on my way to my office. "I need to do some laundry" - this random thought pops into my head, and immediately my body complies. I turn back around and head into the bathroom where I had a pile of whites piling up... I grab them, throw them into the washer, add some detergent, and turn the machine on. I have to get to my laptop... but wait! I really should test my blood sugar first.

I grab my medical stuff (cleverly disguised - I keep it in a makeup bag that I carry around with me - it just looks like a "girly-girl" thing rather than a "sick person" thing), and I pull out the machine that conducts the test. It takes a little bit of brain power here, and I start to cry. Low blood sugar always puts me really close to my emotional triggers... I'm not sure what makes me cry; I can't even assign any thoughts to it - it's purely feeling, it's undiluted emotion. I can't think... I can only feel, like a blind person feels heat from the sun. You don't know why you feel it, or what's causing it - you just get warm.

After an eternity, the machine beeps at me. Yup, my blood sugar is low. "Zero" means dead, and the number that's displayed is only in the double-digits. An intelligent, coherent person would probably stop everything she was doing and go drink a glass of juice, make a piece of toast, have a banana. But right now, I am neither. I'm on a mission. Where's that damn laptop? I need people to know. I need people to understand. I need to write.

And when I can finally get these thoughts out of my head... then, THEN it's time to eat. My second favorite activity.

Stop This Ride I Want To Get Off

A few days ago, I woke up with a really bad low blood sugar reaction. Or rather, didn't quite wake up. I ended up tumbling out of bed, and, in a very disoriented and disorganized fashion, proceeded to walk through my house, running into the walls and furniture... mostly with my face. Long story short, I ended up in the emergency room with a splitting headache, a sore shoulder, and a small but messy cut over my left eye (I made the mistake of looking in the mirror after my pinball episode through my house, and freaked myself out when I saw blood covering the left side of my face). It was actually the fact that I had hit my head to the point of senselessness which convinced me to go to emergency - I mean, how ironic would it be to die of a head injury - the widow of a man who had died of a head injury? I just couldn't bear for the story to end in that fashion.

It's been kind of interesting, walking around in public. Clearly, strangers take one look at my face and think that I am a victim of spousal abuse, or maybe my boyfriend beat me up... but, true to form, my story is much more fascinating and improbable than that (i.e. "story of my life"). People kind of look at you, then don't look at you again... they never ask what happened, because they think they already know the answer. It makes me feel kind of strange, and a little bit defensive that they would assume that someone like me would stand for some asshole beating up on her, or even worse, that they would imagine my husband would be such an asshole as to beat up on me. I have to fight the urge to scream and rage at those people, insisting that the Bunny was the best husband on the planet. Yes, irrational. Probably the product of me being under an overwhelming amount of stress as of late. That's my newest buzz word: overwhelming.

My remodel has taken over most of the rooms of my house at this point. The good news is, the entire process is almost completed... probably just a handful of weeks left. The bad news is, I have nowhere to escape - for now, my "sanctuary" simply does not exist. And I can feel the effects of it. I'm a little stir crazy, a little on edge, a little more crabby than usual, a little more short-fused. It's like I can't get anything done, but tasks keep getting added to that "to-do" list. I kind of just want to curl up in a little ball and cry my eyes out... what happens when the "strong" person melts down? It's times like these that I really feel the loss of the Bunny. He was my rock, my foundation. He was strong enough to stand up to me, to not take my shit, but also to be my anchor - something I could hold onto when things got... overwhelming. Just like they are right now. I really miss him, then I want to kick myself in the ass because it's mostly because I am being selfish, and feeling sorry for myself. What a pussycat.

I realize I just need a few things to end... the remodel will the be first; I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Then I can get back on track with the training for my hike - yup, the wheels fell off the old exercise wagon again. I was telling my trainer just today that it was hard to work out regularly because 1) I hate exercising and 2) I'm lazy. Did I mention I hate exercising? Anyway, I've been thinking more and more about the hike... I decided I don't actually have to do it "in optimal condition" - I just have to do it. Who cares if I feel like shit afterwards... in fact, feeling like shit will probably make me feel better, at least emotionally if not physically. I'm kind of looking forward to physically exhausting my body - pushing myself to the farthest limits I can - to prove to the Bunny that my life with him was worth it. That he was worth all of this pain, and frustration, and anger, and sadness. Because that's how stinkin' happy I was with him. And I want him to look down on me, pushing forward with life... and for him to know I am not ready to lay down and die. Not even close.

No matter how many walls I run into along the way.

Soup Kitchen

This past weekend I decided to invite some of my girlfriends over - partly to celebrate my birthday and partly to acknowledge those of us in my social circle that are single... which for the most part isn't a BAD thing, until you get to holidays like St. Valentine's Day. Yes, the constant references to love/gifts/flowers/candy/expensive jewelery are a bit nauseating to those of us who are in between "adoring males hovering nearby." So my idea was to invite my single gal pals over, and treat them to a little adoration in my own style: cooking with love, as my son calls it.

The crew working on my remodel worked really hard to get my kitchen put together in time for my party, and so when Saturday rolled around I actually had counters, a sink, and a stove to cook on (although I had a back-up plan already, just in case the day came and I wasn't able to cook anything for lack of kitchen functionality). I planned a menu of five different kinds of soup from one of my new cookbooks, loosely organized around my invitees' preferences with a few recipe experiments thrown in for good measure. I admit, some were a little on the ambitious side; a few were selected specifically because I had bought myself a new food processor for a birthday present (never having owned one before) - I am always a little apprehensive when a piece of cooking equipment comes with it's own instructional DVD! But, as it turned out, operating a food processor is easy and fun, and I am already thinking ahead to the world of food preparation now open to me. Whoever thought up a food processor was surely a genius. I absolutely LOVE food processing.

The day of the party rolls around, and I start early in the morning with my soup preparation. Remember, five different soups takes quite a bit of preparation! The first recipe I tackled was Indian Mulligawtawny, which had the longest cooking time but also gave me my first opportunity to use my food processor (basically you mix up all the ingredients, run it through the food processor, then throw it in the pot and cook it on high for about six hours). When I got the Mulligawtawny set up on the stove, I focused my energies on the next soup on the list.

I believe the next soup was Cream of Sun-dried Tomato, and I seem to remember there was a period of stirring in the recipe steps - so I was staring into the pot of Tomato, stirring, watching - and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, something wet and warm hits me in the face! I look up and over at the Mulligawtawny, happily bubbling on a high flame... then I look around. I see soup everywhere... all over the top of the stove, on my microwave (which sits directly above the stove, attached to the wall), on my cabinets, all down the front of the oven, on the floor.

If you recall, before I started my soup adventure, my kitchen was not only clean, it was NEW. And now, in a mere couple hours, it looked like it had been hit by a soup nuclear bomb. But I was on a schedule, and no time to stop and worry about the mess at that particular moment. So I pushed ahead, and managed to prepare the rest of the soups in time for the girls' arrival. They all thought the soups were delicious.

After a successful party, I devoted the rest of my weekend to restoring my kitchen to its former glory - I'm an unwilling housecleaner, which is kind of funny especially if you know that when I was in my early twenties, I cleaned other people's houses for money. I think I got it all out of my system back then, because now there are about a thousand other things I'd rather do than housework. Ha. I have already decided that once my remodeling is done, I am going to bring in a housekeeper on a regular basis... it's funny because the Bunny would never let me do that before; he thought I should clean my own house. But I guess now that it's just me making the decision, I can do what I want. And I really want a housekeeper.

I took over some leftover soup to one of my neighbors; when my kitchen was gutted a few weeks ago, she was nice enough to bring me dinner one night knowing I didn't have any way to cook anything for myself. I like that; it's nice when people do nice things for you - I don't think those in the position to be recipients of such acts of kindness allow it nearly often enough. So this gal comes over to thank me for the soup (she was out when I went next door, so I left it with her husband), and I tell her the story of the Mulligawtawny. We are standing in my kitchen, and she is listening to me tell the story, and she happens to look up and says, "Oh yeah, you even got soup on your ceiling." Sure enough, I look up and I see soup splatters on the ceiling and on my air conditioning vent. I didn't think to look up there before, but fortunately she pointed it out so I made sure to get everything cleaned up before my crew came back Monday morning - "got rid of the evidence," so to speak.

I'm going to take another whack at the Mulligawtawny, but this time I am going to use a splatter screen (an impulse buy while I was grocery shopping the other day) and see if that cuts down on the resulting mess. Usually splatter screens are used when someone is frying bacon, so the grease doesn't pop up and burn you. I think it might work... it is nice to know my new kitchen can stand up to whatever I can throw at it. Even if what I am throwing is soup.



Postscript: In redoing the Indian Mulligawtawny soup recipe, I discovered I mis-read an important step - reducing the heat to "simmer" the soup for the six hours (instead of cooking it on high heat). That's what happens when you DON'T read the directions slowly and carefully... ha!

Blood Is Thicker Than Water

So, I was working through the mountains of mail that I have a bad habit of collecting on my coffee table - it's funny, because I used to love going through the mail; now it's just one of the things that annoy me, probably because I don't devote any attention to it until it's this big paper monster in the middle of my living room. I had some friends over on the weekend, so I grabbed up all of the mail in my arms and dumped it on the floor of my home office; forcing myself to step over it when I wanted to sit at my laptop and do a bit of work.

I remembered there were a few important papers in the pile; one having to do with my prescription coverage, a few bills I needed to pay, some student loan paperwork - and I come across this envelope from an address I don't recognize. Typically, these are cleverly disguised advertisements for something - upgrading my air conditioning unit, offers for group life insurance (which I think is incredibly funny, considering that I AM a life insurance agent), or other miscellaneous products and services. I open the envelope.

Damn envelope gave me a paper cut. Curses. I take a closer look, and I realize - it's a letter from an attorney's office. I am no stranger to attorneys. As a member of the financial services industry, attorneys are an integral part of my profession - I frequently refer my clients to attorneys for their estate planning. But this isn't business... it's personal. At the top of the letter, I see the Bunny's name.

In order to tell you the rest of this story, I need to tell you another story first. That last day - the day the Bunny went for his bike ride and had the accident - he was riding with a group of his motorcycle buddies. One of these guys was a very good friend of his; someone the Bunny had worked with for almost twenty years on the job. For anonymity purposes, I'll call him... Dave. So, the Bunny and Dave were very good friends. Dave was also married with a family; he was about the same age as my husband, and Dave and his wife were already grandparents. At the time I worked at the company, I also worked with and knew Dave. Over the course of mine and the Bunny's relationship, we interacted socially with Dave and his family - attending family barbeques, birthday celebrations and the like from time to time.

Dave and the Bunny were riding tandem (i.e. side by side) down the hill that night. The circumstances of the accident were never fully explained - it was hard to know what actually transpired without any eyewitnesses - but what I know is that for some unknown reason, as they were coming down the hill the Bunny swerved to the right and went off the road. The authorities who investigated the accident supposed - based on the skid marks on the pavement - that Dave, in seeing the Bunny go off the road, purposely laid his motorcycle down in the street in an effort to come to my husband's aid. In doing this, another vehicle crested the hill and ran Dave over. He died at the scene.

That night - before I got the call from the hospital - I was getting phone calls from Dave's wife (she was starting to freak out, where I was like "don't worry, I'm sure they will be pulling up any minute"). I would not call us true "friends" in my normal sense of the word, but I believed were were "friends by default" - our husbands were good friends, and so we interacted socially because of that relationship. We were certainly different types of people, she and I; but I didn't mind spending time with her, however infrequently that happened. When Dave was killed and the Bunny was in ICU, I tried to be as much of a comfort to her as I could, considering I could relate to what she was going through. It made me feel good about Dave to think that his last act on earth was to try to help his friend - my husband - even above considering his own safety. It was... noble. Dave was a good guy. So was the Bunny. They were just two decent, good guys that shouldn't have died "by accident." It just seems so unfair.

As far as family planning - the kind of thing I help my clients with (the "unexpected death" and how will the survivors survive thing) - our family and Dave's family were diametrically opposite. At each end of the spectrum, the Bunny and I had our life insurance in place, our wills, trusts, durable powers of attorney - it was important for me to get all of that stuff taken care of. The Bunny cooperated because it made me happy. I did it partly becuase it was the responsible thing to do - especially as a life insurance agent; I mean, how could I sit there and counsel my clients on the importance of planning if I didn't even have my own planning done? - but also because I wanted my family to be taken care of when I died. I fully expected I would be the one to go first. I mean, I'm the sick one! The Bunny was the healthy one: going to the gym all of the time, worried about eating the right foods, being too overweight...

But back to my story-before-the-story. So, where we were all planned out - Dave's family was not. Dave's wife was a stay-at-home spouse, taking care of children and household - Dave was the primary (sole) breadwinner. When he died, Dave's wife didn't have very good prospects for ongoing income. Which might not be a concern in the short-term... but in the long run, yeah, it was going to cause problems.

Shortly after the Bunny died, I received a letter from an insurance company. The letter was notifying me that "someone was suing my husband's estate" - three guesses on who THAT someone turned out to be! I was outraged, and horrified, and shocked - the actual suit wasn't based on anything concrete - but it doesn't have to be. Rather than waste a lot of resources fighting it, the insurance company decided it was in their best interests to settle.

Dave's wife never called me - to tell me that she had no other choice, or that she felt really bad, or to apologize and assure me that she wasn't really trying to malign my husband's memory - that the suit was just a means to an end. But that's how I took it: that she would reduce our husbands' decades-long relationship to nothing more than a dollar amount, and in the process imply that my husband - Dave's good friend and colleague - would have in any way been responsible for Dave's death.

So back to today's letter. The attorney was notifying me that the insurance company had finally paid the settlement to Dave's wife and the case was officially closed. I threw the letter on the top of my desk, to be filed with the rest of the Bunny's paperwork (the pile on the desk isn't high enough for me to be forced to deal with it yet).

I had to let it go. The anger, the feelings of betrayal, and - unfortunately for Dave's wife - my relationship with her. The good news is, we weren't true friends to begin with. I would like to think that if she HAD been a true friend, she wouldn't have done it no matter what the circumstances. Last I heard about her, she was struggling to come to terms with everything... again, we are diametrically opposite. And even with a blood money payout... I guess between the both of us, I came out ahead after all.

Into The Fray

I recently celebrated my 39th birthday... sometimes it amazes me that I have lived this long! Yes, I realize time is all relative, but to me it feels like I've lived an eternity already. I think back on the different roads my life has taken, the people I've met, the things I've learned, done and seen... I've managed to be involved in some exciting things, and I credit the Universe for orchestrating most of it - I just went with the flow, I guess.

So I was having dinner with a good friend of mine, and we were talking about some of the exciting things going on right now - I am trying to get more involved in doing music (this particular friend is one of the musicians I collaborate with frequently) and out of nowhere I was suddenly overcome with anger and sadness that the Bunny saw fit to "leave me here alone" - emotionally it feels like I've been abandoned, having nothing to do with the fact that had he been given the choice, I am sure the Bunny would have chosen to stick around here with me.

A few weeks ago I was mulling over this "being alone" thing; I am overly sensitive to the possibility of being potentially manipulated by anyone I might become intimately involved with. I entertained the thought that I might be destined to be alone for the rest of my life. I can't picture it - my gut tells me I wouldn't be very happy in that condition - but it IS a possibility I cannot ignore. Who's to say the Bunny wasn't my only shot at long-term intimacy with another human being, someone I am in love with? As time goes on, I feel farther and farther away from a possible relationship that has the ability to fulfill me and at the same time, respect my need for individuality. Several of my friends think I'm a great person, but they aren't intimately involved with me either. I happen to believe that I am too much trouble for most men to bother with. I'm too... different. Unusual. Unpredictable. Aggressive. Opinionated. Emotional. Who's got the energy and patience to handle me? Sometimes I can't even handle me!

Speaking of energy, I can tell that I am starting to look forward to spending time with people outside of my house. I'm still not altogether comfortable with initiating (i.e. "Hey! Let's go to the movies/lunch/etc."), but I am more likely to say 'yes' when my friends suggest things. I'm making some new friends, spending more time with old friends, and feel my life gaining some momentum. That's important; keep moving forward, no matter what.

I'm still having crazy dreams - some are so vivid it's unnerving - mostly about people that have the power to hurt me emotionally. I only admit to it in my subconscious; the "have the power to hurt me" part. My heart doesn't see it that way, but my brain's got it all figured out. My musician friend tells me that everything doesn't have to mean something, that I should just let go of some things. But I disagree. I don't know what it is, or what the impact on my life will be. Anyway, it's impossible for me to let go. I could sooner cut off my arm. It's that arm that's caught in the snare. So I am staying put for now.

Things don't stay the same forever... of that I am absolutely sure.

Rock & Roll Heaven

Three days ago, I attended the funeral services of the husband of my good friend Peggy. Cliff had been fighting cancer for the last few years, so the Bunny and I had already started to mentally prepare for the day that he would lose that battle. Funny how things never happen the way you expect.

So there I am, sitting with about three hundred other people - friends, family, acquaintances - people whose lives Cliff had an impact on for his 51 years; he was a musician, and he and Peggy were very involved in their church so many of these people had interacted with him regularly. I listened to a few friends close to Cliff give his eulogy, each from his or her own perspective and experiences; it's interesting because they described a Cliff that was different from my own interaction with him. It makes sense, because I met Peggy first (years ago) so my strongest connection would be with her. But it made me wonder: when I die, what will the people that knew me throughout my life say about ME? It's fascinating because my gut tells me that their recollections would be very different than how I see myself. I guess that's okay... I don't understand what my friends see in me, truly (I think I am a big pain in the ass) - but I get regular positive feedback most of the time. I just try to not let it go to my head.

As I was watching Peggy, I remembered back to a year ago when I was in that position. The grief-stricken widow. She held it together well, looking so calm and at peace. But I know - I KNOW - the deception of it. The inner turmoil. I understand now why people would constantly tell me how "strong" I was. What can I say, I'm a good actress. But you know, the funeral isn't for the widow - it's for everybody else.

So, needless to say, I was blubbering the entire time. I was crying for Peggy... knowing that her world had just undergone this massive shift - not one of her making. This is where the whole "letting go of control" thing comes in. In school right now we are discussing how a person's ability to let go increases their "openness" to creativity. To change. To opportunity. But it's extremely difficult for human beings to do. Me included... although I do try to be aware of the hints the universe drops for me every so often.

The priest was off about one thing. In his homily he said, "Nothing changes - your life, your love, etc." That's not quite accurate. From my point of view, EVERYTHING changes. It is literally what I imagine surviving a nuclear war would be like. And then you go into survival mode. Survival mode lasts for a long time. Peggy lost her husband AND her best friend - a double-whammy. Not to say the Bunny and I weren't best friends - but I am fortunate enough to recognize that I have people in my life that know me as well - if not better - than he did. So I don't feel so alone, even now...

The love is still there, though. It HAS to evolve... the caterpillar becomes the cocoon becomes the butterfly. It must, or it's impossible to keep living. But it never goes away... I've said this in previous posts and I will repeat it here, because it's important: I will never stop loving my husband. And because I will not, it allows my heart and soul to recognize and be receptive to all of the love around me - where most people wouldn't imagine love exists. Love exists everywhere.

You just have to be open to it.