lose yourself.

I didn't do the laundry. You know, the pile of darks that's been sitting on the basement floor accumulating centipedes since Saturday.


I didn't take advantage of the nice weather and go for a walk, or a run, or a bike ride, or an anything.


I didn't plant the flowers (now wilting) that my sister gave me a week and a half ago.


I didn't articulate myself the way I wanted to.


I didn't follow my own advice.


I didn't want to be misunderstood, and yet, somehow, I keep promoting the misrepresentation.


I didn't live up to my potential.


I didn't follow through.


I DIDN'T MEAN TO BE HERE. But then, I never planned to be anywhere specific, so wherever I happen to be right now - here, there, anywhere - would be a place I never planned to be.




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My six-month follow-up dermatology appointment is tomorrow. You know, the one to check on "the progress of the lymphoma." Which is a crappy way to phrase it, because doesn't that imply that I HAVE lymphoma? 




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...And I don't, right?




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Mamatots introduced me to a new blog. Amalah. I'm in love, slash jealous as all get-out at her trajectory. Then again, you can't really be a mommy-blogger if you're not a mommy. So there's that.




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I have a new yellow sweatshirt. It's sunshine yellow, summer yellow, the color of my family room walls. Obnoxious, in-your-face, Big Bird yellow. Actually, I bought new clothes for the first time in a few years. Every once in a while, I'll grab a new shirt from Target or the secondhand store, but I really hate clothes shopping. I do it all online, and I hadn't for years (laziness? Clothes budget diverted to house? I don't know). Turns out, it's hard to dress myself when I feel like I've lost myself and who I know myself to be. Is it appropriate for the program director to wear T-shirts designed for 22-year-olds? Is that an appropriate dress length for someone my age? Is it inappropriate to wear the same yellow sweatshirt (sunshine via fabric though it may be) for days on end, though it accumulates the Boogers of Many Small Children Who Are Not My Own? They say you're supposed to dress for the job you want to have, but I feel like it's not okay for me to go to work dressed as a reclusive writer ("eskimo vagrant"?) with frosting on my face.




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The right-click option on my mouse is malfunctioning, which makes copying URLs for blog links supremely annoying. Also annoying? J.J.'s TV laugh. Also annoying? EVERYTHING, thanks to consecutive nights of weirdo insomnia, wherein I fall asleep reading around 11:24, then wake up and stare at the darkness (you know I'd link to some good old-fashioned Kim Jong-Il Looking At Things right now if my mouse weren't being a bitch) for an indeterminate amount of time. While staring, I actively avoid picking up my book again - even though I fell asleep reading it, like, six minutes ago - because I fear it'll wake me up more. Then my legs get restless and hot and itchy, and I move them and massage them and take my socks off and put them back  on and take my pants off and lose them in the comforter and then I'm freezing. Then I'm pissed at my brain for mistaking six minutes of sleep for a full night of sleep (WRONG, BRAIN, YOU'RE WRONG). Then my mattress turns into a lumpy rock of doom and porcupines poke through my pillow. Then my clock takes three hours to change from 12:54 to 12:55. Then a robber definitely breaks into my house and sets my snake loose. Then I fall into a vortex of anxiety nightmares (the oldie but goodie "I-need-to-dial-911-but-my-fingers-keep-slipping-on-the-phone" is back). Then it's 5:02, and every single morning, there's one damn bird squawking in the tree outside my window. Then it's 5:16, and J.J. furiously leaps out bed and slams the window shut. The bird is all, "Dang, man, I was just singing. Someone furiously leapt out of the wrong side of the bed." Then it's 5:18 and the bird starts squawking again. Then, like every cliched insomnia story ends, I drift off to sleep as my alarm sounds.


Then I am sad all day about the resurgence of unbidden (unwarranted?) anxiety. But I hold it together and deal with All the Problems (through a combo of CBT mantras and blessed denial optimism, and the self-flagellating reminder that my "problems" are so...nothing, compared with the real problems of the people I'm around). Then I come home and melt into the couch like the sad sack of accidental grown-up that I am, and it's only then that I remember how tired I am, and then I fall asleep for an hour, which might contribute to the midnight wakings, genius.


(And OMGGGG I knowww this is what every night as a parent is like and three hours of sleep is enviabllle until your child is of drinking age so if I don't like this I shouldn't become a parent everrr and everything will suck foreverrr when I dooooo, suckerrr!)


(And OMGGGG, that isn't meant to diminish how hard it is when your damn kid won't sleep...that's just me leaking my frustration at all the negativity about parenting out there. It's getting increasingly hard for me to validate the difficulties of parenting when I'm looking for some sign - any sign - that reproducing is worth it. HINT: The Interwebs are not the place to research positive parenting anecdotes. Or? Hope regarding cutaneous T-cell lymphoma symptoms and prognosis. Or? Hope.)




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Wait, wait. And the funny part is? I'm actually in a pretty good mood right now. Mmm, mood stability. An important part of this balanced breakfast. (A breakfast that shall be eaten in a kitchen that reeks of progress and caulk...updates soon.)