i'm darkness and light, bubbles and faerie wings. i am sparkles and glitter, shadows and clouds. i love purple, and faeries, and books, and music.
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 I love this time of year. Halloween everything, yo!
I have no cubicle to decorate this year. No desk or office space to decorate. First time in years. I had planned to dig out all the Halloweeny stuff from the basement to overload the house with spooky-goodness, but I have been in bed for most of the past three days, dealing with vertigo/dizziness that has had me in tears.
I have missed work. Missed out on a gorgeous fall weekend. And nothing is decorated.
But I got my blog theme updated on time. And now I’m off to bed because I AM going to work tomorrow. My head is finally not spinning, though quick movements aren’t appreciated.
I have been gone from my old job for almost a year. The end of this month marks the year anniversary of my last day in that life. I miss the people I worked with so much. To the point that when I did finally get some sleep this morning, I had the worst nightmare about visiting my old admin floor and no-one wanting to talk to me. Or acknowledge me. There was so much going on the dream that I woke up sobbing. I had been replaced, with a girl named Kitty (which I only realized the significance of after I woke up). Everyone I used to work with was so cold, and distant to me. And sometimes mean. And I felt alone, and abandoned. So alone.
So, yeah, I miss my friends most of all. Not the job, but the people. Badly. And being sick, and spinning, and stressed out because of that, equals stress dreams about my old job. Used to be stress dreams were about high school and elementary school. Like everything else though, they are evolving.
I miss friends that were (are) family.
I miss getting to decorate my workspace.
But it’s October, and I’m going to decorate my home and hopefully see some friends soon. We have something planned for almost every Saturday this month. I am excited! I love October so much.
Bring on the Halloween WHIMSY! *tosses candy corn like confetti*
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The helpful thing about journaling – whether on paper, or on this blog – is that I can reference patterns in my life. August and September seem to be months where my pain flairs and my mood drops. Pain and depression seem to be thrown at me between these two months. And this is all outside of the March 2013 PTSD issues. I haven’t even gotten to November yet, when I seem to have those triggers pop up.
BUT… I get tired of being tired, and in pain, and so sad that I feel like I can’t breathe. Sure hormones and medication (with/without) can factor into this, but mostly I find that this time of year is hard on my body and mind. And I need to watch out for that, and try and find ways to work through it.
I know when things are bothering me, even if I don’t think anything is bothering me. I know because all of a sudden I am plagued with an obsession with my hair. It’s wrong. It’s too long, too short, too pink, too blue, too MUCH. It has to change.
Earlier this month, I went to bed exhausted. I was sure I’d fall asleep right away but instead I tossed and turned for an hour. I got up and took my eyebrow piercing out. Went back to bed and fell fast asleep. I didn’t know I wanted to do that, or that I was going to do that. I just got up as if on autopilot and removed it. About 6 weeks before I marked the 12th anniversary of having it done.
This past week I have gotten up multiple times in the night, autopilot engaged, and cut my hair. A little bit at a time, but still enough to allow myself to fall asleep upon returning to bed. I knew I was going to change the colour soon, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do yet. But my hair was bothering me. Always noticeable. Always annoying me.
Today I cut almost all of my hair off.
I bleached it.
And I realized… I no longer want to do the Publishing certificate. Five (six?) years ago I had an idea about what I wanted to do to change the situation I was in. I went back to school. I was terrified. I was excited. I knew THEN that was what I wanted to do.
And I continued, slowly, through the courses. I had them as a distraction after the trauma. They gave me something to focus all my energy on. They gave me hope that I wouldn’t be stuck in the job I was in that wasn’t fulfilling me.
But then time passed. I got older. Life changed.
And now? I have moved on. I’m no longer interested in pursuing this. And yes, I had only two courses left and I’d be done. Thing is if I don’t want to do something, if I am 100% sure I do not want to do it? I can’t do it. You couldn’t pay me to do it. I think I’d end up destroying myself first. (That’s a lot harsher than I mean it to be.) I’m like a cat on a leash – I will NOT walk with you, stupid human. I will plant my feet on the ground and you’ll have to drag me.
And once I came to that realization, that I didn’t want to be in school anymore, I felt lighter. My chest felt less constricted. This isn’t the only thing I am having issues with right now, there are a couple of other things, but this one thing I can control.
So I withdrew from the courses.
And I dyed my hair.
And part of me feels as though I should feel disappointed in myself because I came so close to finishing something, but stopped. But I am not disappointed. I feel relieved. I feel refreshed. I have literally moved on from this in my head, and forcing myself to continue with something that I don’t want to do anymore wasn’t going to help anything. I lose nothing from this. I don’t want to work in publishing anymore. Not now, anyhow. I gained a whole bunch of knowledge and insight into the book world, and I am happy with that. I am happy that I challenged myself to learn something new.
But in the end I got what I, personally, needed from the experience and closed the chapter on that part of my life. I am content.
And my hair is short, and I feel like I can breathe a little easier. And I will continue looking at patterns in my moods and behaviours and work on figuring out what they are trying to tell me. And I think I will be happier in life that way.
But…maybe I could possibly stop wanting to chop all my hair off right before winter and decide I need to grow it out in the summer? Those are the complete opposite hair-lengths for those seasons! Argh! Me!
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1 – nothing throws you off kilter like sitting down with your coffee and browsing facebook on a Saturday morning and seeing a post that a friend of yours has been missing for a week. My heart and stomach dropped so fast, I think they went through the floor to the basement. I spent that weekend glued to my phone and laptop. I scoured google for more information, updates, ANYTHING that I could find that would tell me what was going on. Something that would say this was all a mistake. But it wasn’t. By the Monday it was announced that my friend’s body was found. One week after that, I found myself at the funeral home, surrounded by people I still consider family even though I no longer work with them. All of us in a state of shock that we were even there. August was a write-off for me. Almost a month later, I am still trying to find the words to write a blog post about this. It is insanely difficult to write about something you don’t understand.
2 – I get overwhelmed by possibilities. I want to do ALL OF THE THINGS at the same time. I get so overwhelmed, I shut down and do NONE OF THE THINGS. But then I am so restless, and agitated inside my body that I can’t sleep, or focus, or sit still. I want to read (sooooo many books!), I want to craft (sooooo many crafts!), I want to rest, I want to garden, I want to sing, I want an electric keyboard, or I want a ukulele, or I want to run, or skate – no! Clean! Clean rooms! Purge extra junk we don’t need! No! BAKE! I want to bake pies, and muffins– no! Cook! I want to cook things! Instead, I just sit here on the couch and stare blankly at my computer screen as I scroll through funny images. I want to do so much at once that it breaks me.
3 – sometimes I worry that if I figure too many things out, about how to live a happy life, and learn all the lessons I need to learn, that my life will be over soon. That sounds a lot more morbid than I intend it to be. You know how there’s always that thought that you’re forever striving for enlightenment, and to serve a purpose, yadda yadda? Well sometimes I feel like I have figured so much out, with all my struggles and life lessons, that what if that’s it? What if I have accomplished what I was put on earth to achieve? When I offer advice to people now I feel like I’m my own motivational quote poster. I am not saying I’m perfect. Not at all. I do feel like I have reached a higher point of enlightenment than I have ever felt I have had. Surviving trauma and a bunch of other stuff will do that to you I guess. It’s a very weird, and highly irrational, concern. But, hey. That’s who I am. (SEE how enlightened that is!?!)
4 – why is it that when I nap, I need to wear a tank-top, yet when I sleep, I can’t wear anything or I get too warm and feel trapped? I don’t understand that. (Suppose this is what’s keeping me from being TOO enlightened right now. Saved by mysterious sleeping habits.)
5 – I like that my husband knows me well enough that even though I am in another room, and adamant that I am not hungry, he will cut one extra slice of summer sausage than he needs for his sandwich because I will inevitably show up at the last second and steal a piece from the cutting board. And then, despite my total assurance that I do not want a sandwich, he knows that I will say “Hmm, maybe a sandwich sounds good” after he’s made one – and the one he had made was for ME. The way I like it. Knowing that would happen. And he was starting on his own sandwich making after that.
6 – it has been a year since I made the decision to leave my old job. I find this crazy. That I changed my life so much in the past year. But this also shined a light on the regular mid-August-to-September pain flare up that I tend to have. Always thought it was due to stress at work, but that’s not a factor anymore. But the giant sections of ragweed in a neighbour’s hard right now has helped me realize that this time of year’s flare-up is likely allergy related. And with pain flares come stupid lows, where I need to remind myself that I will not be sad and depressed forever. This too shall pass, as they say.
7 – I do not like frozen pizza, but I like to eat the crusts from it when my husband has one. He saves them for me. It’s a weird sort of habit, but it makes me happy.
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[Yeegads!! I started this post on June 13…Like, almost two months ago! I didn’t realize I hadn’t finished it. Totally a cheat post for Blogust. HAHAH!]
 Let’s Pretend We Never Met
by Melissa Walker
If it were up to Mattie Markham, there would be a law that said your family wasn’t allowed to move in the middle of the school year. After all, sixth grade is hard enough without wondering if you’ll be able to make new friends or worrying that the kids in Pennsylvania won’t like your North Carolina accent.
But when Mattie meets her next-door neighbor and classmate, she begins to think maybe she was silly to fear being the “new girl.” Agnes is like no one Mattie has ever met—she’s curious, hilarious, smart, and makes up the best games. If winter break is anything to go by, the rest of the school year should be a breeze.
Only it isn’t, because when vacation ends and school starts, Mattie realizes something: At school Agnes is known as the weird girl who no one likes. All Mattie wants is to fit in (okay, and maybe be a little popular too), but is that worth ending her friendship with Agnes? (goodreads.com)
First things first:
- I work at a bookstore. We sell this book.
- I know the author. We met because of my (now defunct) book blog.
- I am unable to be passionate or excited about anything that I do not actually love. No poker face.
Second things second:
- In the mid-80s I read a book titled Thirteen by Candice F. Ransom. That book had me in tears almost from the second chapter. I still own that book. It’s about being a kid and friendships changing as you start to get older (10 – 13 years) and how sometimes your best friend from childhood might suddenly have different interests from you as you grow up. That story has stuck with me all these years. I had to find a copy of the book because I lost mine as I got older. It’s one of those stories that clicks with you on such a personal level that you keep it in your heart forever.
- I have loved Melissa Walker’s novels since the first one I ever read – Violet on the Runway back in 2008. Melissa was the first author I met through my blog. She left a comment on my review and I felt like I’d won the lottery. Imagine! An AUTHOR who noticed something *I* wrote. It was amazing. Turns out she’s a wonderful person with whom I enjoyed chatting and whatnot over the years. I have bought every novel she’s ever written. I love her writing. So. Much. It’s almost as though she is able to write exactly what I feel, and think, and get that all on the page. She writes people, teens especially, so well. So realistically. (Realistic?) I have met her. I am not super close BFFs with her, but we talk on social media. I think she’s an amazing woman. But this has nothing to do with how much I love her novels. There are some I love more than others, but ultimately she just happens to be an author who writes stories that I fall in love with. Much like Sarah Addison Allen in adult fiction – and I have never exchanged any sort of anything with that author.
- THIS:
[and now, almost two months later…]
I loved this book. Seriously, I did. By page 174 I was in tears. There is so much emotion in this story. Emotion that I know I felt when I was 12. Emotion you will be familiar with. Melissa Walker has an uncanny way of putting on the page what you think in your head. In the two months since I read the book, I have hand-sold almost all of the copies we got in the store. I don’t read a lot of contemporary fiction, so I am more than happy to grab a copy of this book and tell young readers about it when they are looking for something without magic, or fantastic beasts, or fantasy. Thing is, like with Ginny Moon, I get goosebumps when I talk about Let’s Pretend We Never Met. I have said to a couple of young customers that MW can write out what you will find yourself thinking/feeling that you never express out loud. So far that seems to have interested them. I hope they felt I told the truth!
It’s hard being a pre-teen, (or a child, or a teen. You get it.) It’s scary, and difficult when you have to change something drastic at that age – going to a new school, leaving your friends behind. Worrying that because you aren’t there, with your friends, at all times, they will forget you. That you’re left out of everything. That you’re no longer a friend they hold dear. No more BFFs. That’s not a feeling or worry just held for pre-teens. It happens all the time. And Melissa Walker captures that feeling, that anxiety and sadness, so well.
The struggle of wanting to be friends with someone you think is amazing, but also not wanting to be friends with someone everyone else doesn’t like, so you don’t seem like a loser, or un-cool. That struggle, too, is so well portrayed in this story.
Every book I have read by this author has managed to put words to feelings I have had throughout my life. Growing up, being grown-up. She gets it. She gets what it feels like to grow up and manages to write amazing characters who bring real life to life in their stories. That sounds weird, but it’s the only way I can think to express it.
I loved this book. I have read a bunch of other stuff between this novel and now, and nothing else has captured me the way this story has. I now have my second favourite book of the year, after Ginny Moon. Wonder what book will round off the top three?
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August 7th, 2017 | my muse
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Cat has
read 1 book toward
her goal of
50 books.
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