A Word From Wonderland
"I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person then."
A Word From Wonderland
"I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person then."
A Moment
7-8-2021
Sometimes it's just a twinge, hearing a child's laughter or seeing a Mom and her daughter chatting at a store. Sometimes it's a longing, seeing families outside on walks or Sunday bike rides. Sometimes it's a slow burn, anticipating seeing family, watching nieces and nephews, and biting the inside of my lip. Sometimes my eyes well up before conscious thought. Then other times, it's a delighted giggle as I pick out toys or a warm feeling as I gather hand-me-downs. The discussion of whether we repaint a pre-loved bookcase white or paint it pale pink. I've never wanted something more or dreaded something with such consistent intensity. Sometimes going into our lavender room filled with toys and clothes and a dismantled crib leaves me feeling forlorn and inadequate. And sometimes I sit in there in my worn-in pink chair, reading a book, imagining what my baby's face will look like and what their voice will sound like when they are teaching me about a passion of theirs. I often feel overwhelmed by impending sleep deprivation and not always knowing the right thing to say. Deliberately choosing to wait can feel like a self-betrayal rather than a responsible decision. I've felt selfish at times in my pursuit. Maybe the heart is selfish; I've found it to have little regard or respect for practicalities and timing. But if only left with a brain & no heart, people probably wouldn't ever take on something as perilous as parenthood.
Versions
6-10-2021
2010- I leave the light on for her.
2011- I walk for her.
2012- I search for joy with her.
2013- I ache for her.
2014- I dance with her.
2015- I ride out the storms with her.
2016- I try with her.
2017- I question with her.
2018- I grieve with her.
2019- I resurrect with her.
2020- I sit with her.
2021- I hold on to her.
thirty two
4-3-2021
The night was dark and gently quiet. We relied on the stars to find our way down the dock. The rustle of the waves spoke peace to my soul. There was a stir in the water, and a salty mist fell over me. I smiled. I heard an unmistakable exhale, I looked to my right side, and there was an orca. I knelt to the ground without a word and stretched my arm behind me to grab Austin's hand. It was a firm clasp but not an anxious one. I leaned out over the water with the rest of my body and stroked the orca's head. Smooth and gentle, he waited for me. I looked back to Austin longingly. I wanted to stay with this creature, but it wasn't the time. Austin lifted me, and we walked gently across the dark dock away from the sea, hand in hand.
I awoke thinking, "Heaven came for me, and I chose to stay." I described my vision to Austin and said out loud, "I choose to stay."
Every day since then, I remind myself that "I choose to stay." There used to be a lot of days that I'd think, "I can't do this anymore." And so is the wild ride of mental illness.
Vulnerable
2-17-2021
We are stuck at home because of snow in Austin, Texas. We have icicles hanging from our roof; we haven't left our house in days. I look outside; the once powder-covered street looks more like melted popsicles. I feel sad. Thirty minutes ago, I felt angry; an hour ago, I felt afraid. I feel selfish; we have maintained our typical power and water while loved ones have had to leave their homes or store food outside because their electricity has gone out. Some drinking water has become contaminated, and there's a boil water warning. There are articles online of Texans burning their belongings in the fireplace to keep their children warm. Some people have to boil water to drink. Videos of pipes bursting, flooding entire apartments or houses. People are accidentally perishing from carbon monoxide poisoning, trying to stay warm. Homes have burned down because fireplaces have been left burning overnight. Millions are without power or water. Things feel heavy.
Today I realized that I was about to be out of two crucial prescriptions that I take. After I couldn't get ahold of my regular pharmacy, I googled Walgreens, and all six in the area were listed as closed. I called a couple of locations that appeared to be open, and after being on hold for 15+ minutes per call, I hung up and assumed the worst. There are no deliveries right now and hardly any stores open, and we don't have the luxury of driving around to find an open pharmacy because of icy road conditions.
During Hurricane Harvey in 2017, I daydreamed about the danger of being stuck in an emergency without access to my meds. This past weekend, I knew I was low on my prescriptions, but I forgot about getting them refilled because of how preoccupied I was with the upcoming storm. While I waited for a call back from my doctor, I counted pills, figuring out how to split them up to get more doses. Any plan involved drastically lowering the dosage I depend on each day. I figured I could limp my way to Friday before being completely out of everything. I felt so scared and so guilty; I could've filled them both last weekend; I wasn't thinking; I had no idea pharmacies would close. How long would they be closed?
Going cold turkey on psych medications is especially dangerous. Every minute I didn't hear back from my doctor, the more I worried about having to be hospitalized because of complications from withdrawal. And not knowing if hospitals were all full because of Covid and this freeze. I decided to start checking all the CVS in the area, and finally, a pharmacy tech answered the phone. Yes, they could fill them, but they closed in twenty minutes. I contacted my doctor again, and he sent in the scripts. After all that, I'm hoping they'll be open tomorrow.
I didn't like that feeling, the feeling of being so dependent. The feeling that my life depended on something that was out of reach. While worrying about being physically sick for the next several days without my medications, I thought, well, at least I can lay in bed and watch tv in a lit room in a warm(ish) house as I withdrawal.
Snow; How can something be so beautiful and so debilitating?
January
2-4-2021
To the only month that feels like it's eight weeks long, I resent you.
You are the pinch in the back of my favorite dress as I try to get the zipper up past my bra line. The call I can't get myself to return.
A little too late for last year and a little too early for this one. You are only better than November. We spend every year together, and all I had to show for it was a lousy new insurance card- until you officiated my wedding. I still don't forgive you.
You laid with me on the floor of my apartment in the Philippines because you couldn't hold my hand up the stairs. You overheard me on the phone, saying I wanted to go home to California to heal. You couldn't get me a plane, so February stepped in instead. I'm glad I left you behind. In 2017 I cried to you when the bricks that I laid began to break. I hung pictures in front of holes in the walls, fooling myself and my friends. In 2018 you and I cried in bed, slept restlessly. I wanted May to marry me, but you forced my hand. Now we are buying a house while you tarnish my silver. You're like an ex "liking" my Instagram posts, I don't want to think of you but your name shows up in all of my notifications. I don't steal the magic legumes from your garden, but I can still see your shadow on my walls, threatening.
Today I thought of you and realized it is February.
Bubbles
3-18-2020
As I sat outside a couple of days ago, in the backyard where I work, the sky was bright. The sun was finally out, after weeks of gray skies. It was a much-needed respite, for both my nanny toddler and me. Looking up at a cloudless blue sky, I felt happy. I sat with Sunny*, in the grass, as I tightly held a tall, dark blue container of bubbles in my grasp. Two-year-olds are masters of self-sabotage, and I was determined not to let Sunny* dump the solution all over the ground, and then turn to me and ask where the bubbles went.
Things have been hard.
I've spent the beginning of this year mourning my inability to have a baby. I hurried out of Target the other day, after walking past a Mom and her young daughter as they looked through a display of glittery dresses, bright leggings, and tutus. The little girl was giggling, with a couple of outfits already slung over her shoulder as she asked her Mom, "someday can I get another necklace?" and her Mom laughed, "Sure." Then the little girl grabbed the jewelry and held it up with a big giggle, and her Mom laughed and said, "No, silly, not today!" That warm exchange between mother and daughter launched a tidal wave of emotion, and when I finally crept into the safety of my car, I started to cry. So much has felt out of control lately. I've spent many years bottling up; heartache, grief, frustration, sadness, anxiety, hopelessness, fear, concern, and putting a cork in it all. From time to time, things bubble up.
As I sat in the grass with Sunny*, I dipped the bubble wand soaking each curve thoroughly, and with each exhale, I imagined blowing away my visiting thoughts of grief. It was an intricate bubble wand, it had several different shaped slots, and as the bubbles blew out, there seemed to be hundreds, some of each size. Sunny's* face lit up, and he looked at me as though I had some sort of magic. His delighted giggles consumed the air, in a moment, I thought, "I want to bottle up these giggles, like these bottled up bubbles." I began to memorize each tiny detail. In that space, I had so much, this beautiful child who I adored, that I've spent thousands of hours with since he was a little 3-month-old baby burrito. I bottled up the blue sky, the one I had missed so profoundly during the winter hours. I bottled up the view of the bluebonnets that line the highway on my commute to see him.
In this time of vulnerability, I'm trying to fill up my oxygen tank with all of the tiny, beautiful, and joyful tender mercies that I cherish. So that when I'm overwhelmed, I can take a breath and be reminded of how beautiful my life already is, and that everything will be okay.
Look up at the stars, hear your breath, listen to the sound of your feet beneath you. In the quiet, we often find what we are looking for.
Daylight
1-30-2020
This morning I woke up feeling happy. Yesterday was interesting. I had a super productive therapy session. Ideally, I try to walk into each appointment with a list of things I'd like to discuss. Yesterday I went in with a mental checklist. Which typically results in me leaving the session with regret. I'll spend the rest of the day remembering things I wanted to talk about, dreading that I have to wait a week to get that chance. When I sat on the couch yesterday, it'd been over a month since I'd seen my therapist. I was worried it'd be a sloppy retelling of recent events, and nothing feels worse than leaving a therapy session feeling more tangled up than when you arrived.
Instead, it felt like an answer from the Universe.
I rarely ask about my therapist's personal life because I'm worried that I'll overstep my bounds and don't want to hurt our professional relationship. However, my inquiring about her recent flu bug (aka who she got it from) led to her disclosure that she is currently in the foster care system and hoping to adopt eventually. Between this experience and a conversation with my boss last week, the concept of fostering made its way back into my realm of possibility.
A while back, I was struggling with something that kept stealing the show in my therapy sessions. I talked about it forwards and backward and reran the script in my head, from all the different players' points of view. I knew it was time to let go of the issue, but just when I thought I was over it, I got sucked back in. Going to therapy feels like a literal regroup- like getting called off the field by a coach, or pulled aside during a theater production to get feedback. A coach or director sees your performance for what it is. Unlike a family member or friend, "coaches" aren't emotionally invested in you- which allows them to be impartial. They aren't afraid of giving you feedback or calling you out.
As I sat on the couch one day, rehashing my situation, she waited for me to come to a pause- then she said, "You have done harder things than this." My therapist has seen me through thick and thin for nearly five years now. It's surreal to have someone who sees me once a week hold intimate details of my life. As I confided in her yesterday, she knows me better than most of my teammates, waiting back on the field. Leaving that office is like getting off a plane, one big exhale and back into work, life and relationships. I've always found it strange being on a plane and crossing over another time zone. It feels like losing time, yet some times you aren't losing any. You've been sitting in a room, nowhere else to go or be.
I prefer therapy much more than sitting in an airplane, although sometimes it invokes the same feelings of impatience and anxiety.
Lately, when I think about the next phase, I struggle to see how the pieces will fit. I have years of school ahead of me, we don't have our own home yet, and it turns out, bringing a child into your home without your own body is incredibly expensive. I think about buying a home, completing my degrees, and successfully getting a baby through adoption, foster care, surrogate, etc. and it feels like I am stuck on a plane unable to land. But, I have done harder things than this. And that statement will always remain true; each new day brings a new challenge.
Sometimes the end of a therapy session carries with it jet lag, and I want to go home and sleep. Sometimes when I get out of therapy, it feels like walking down that Jet Blue ramp and on to the tarmac at Long Beach Airport, new air. "It's golden, like daylight, you gotta step into the daylight, and let it go, just let it go."
Mountains of Could'ves
1-24-2020
I've built a house in the hills of could'ves. A house where I stay and stare out at the lake of "almost happened." I sit on a rocking chair reading a newspaper, the print is fading and dirties my fingertips.
Beneath the lake lies almost. It whispers in its wake, reminding me what could've been or almost happened.
The dock creaks to the tune of my worries, a steady rhythm that keeps time with my thoughts.
It's Okay It Won't Be Forever
1/17/2020
I reached out to my Mom via text today and was unloading about health issues. Between travel and the holidays and my schedule being erratic, I had been feeling flu-ish and fatigued since Thanksgiving. I told her I'm feeling a lot more rested lately, and I sheepishly admitted that the reason I was finally sleeping through the night again was that I increased my sleep med dose. I worry about the long term effects of medication on my body despite blood tests that provide a clean bill of health. It's interesting that as a society, we have applied shame to mental illness when every other system in the body depends on communication with our brain.
Having a chronic illness is defined by compromises. Every day, every dose is an active choice between annoying side effects or the risk of winging it on my own. Sometimes I buy into the shame of having a mental health diagnosis. It's so easy to compare myself to my life before am pm doses and doctor appointments. It's easy to feel vulnerable, forgetting my meds at home means driving back to get them. The other option is looking for a nearby pharmacy and hoping I have refills to buy a single dose out of pocket, which sometimes costs around $15 a pill. I think about things like traveling or living out of the country, and it pains me that my life is no longer as flexible. I'm not very spontaneous by nature, but it still depresses me to be chained to a pharmacy no matter where I go. I envy people that can wake up and start their day without worrying about medication. I mourn that my brain can no longer self regulate; it's frustrating that I cannot live by skills alone to keep myself stable.
When I lamented the fact that I had to increase my dosage to my Mom, she said, "It's okay it won't be for forever," and it's true. The brain is incredibly complex and continually changing. I have good days and rough weeks, happy seasons, and difficult seasons. I am continually evolving, and with that comes, changes in doses and frequency of therapy and doctor visits. There is a power that comes with self-care, and loneliness that accompanies those quiet decisions that happen behind closed doors. I want to be a little louder and a little more honest. I want my words to find solace with one another, and help to stitch me back together because the most beautiful parts of me are those that I've tucked away.
Paper Dolls
12-31-2019
Yesterday I reached out to my psychiatrist through email. As I typed, I knew his medical opinion would align with mine. The beauty of chronic illness is in the intimacy and depth in which it connects your soul to your body, my hard-earned gift of intuition stemming from hundreds of hours of hard knocks. For six years, I have emailed, texted, called, laughed, and cried with this good man, my doctor. He has ordered blood work, prescribed meds, met my boyfriends, offered me advice on jobs, and listened to me talk about my family. He has sat in his office chair across from me, looking with quiet concern and genuine interest as I stumble over my words, determined to express myself.
Yesterday I reached out to my psychiatrist through email. I emailed to see if I could increase the dose of one of my medications. A medication that has kept me from being able to get pregnant.
April 2019
I sat on that ocean green couch in his office, accompanied by him in his wheeled office chair. With solemnity, he listened as I cried. I felt so small. So embarrassed. I couldn't look at him. I brought up, getting pregnant. I'd been med stable for a little over a year at without any significant, sustained mood swings. Stumbling over myself, it was as if I was saying, "Hey, I really wanna have a baby, but I totally understand if I can't get off this medicine or whatever..." This "whatever," that's so important to me, it's eliciting a full body shake as I write this in permanent ink for all to see.
Monday, January 6, 2020
I am encased in this room, sitting on a couch too soft to allow me to sit upright — natural light peering through the windows. I stare in front of me at the giant bookcase that I haven't fully explored. I cried, frustrated about my "lack of progress." My doctor comforted me and said that in three months, we could re approach the idea of me going back down on the med.
Like paper dolls, my med regimen is hand in hand with my inability to carry a baby.
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