When I die

I don't expect to die any time soon but when I do someday, I have a few requests:
1. Donate any possible part of me for organ donation, science, whatever. I'd prefer to be useful.
2.  If there is some cost effective way by then, press parts of me into 3 jewels and give one each to my sons so I can be forever with them.
3. If those are not an option... do not embalm me! If I end up embalmed,  I swear on all the soul I have left that Im coming back to haunt whoever made that decision! Ill figure out a way! DO NOT preserve my body in an unnatural state after I have left it and moved on! Just dont!
*exception made if I'm donated to science. I get it. It'll be necessary to do something like that in that case. It's cool as long as I'm being useful. After I'm done being useful proceed to the other options.
4. Return me to the Earth. My absolute preference is to be buried in an unsealed box (or no box at all) so that my body can do what all bodies are meant to do and become food and fuel for nature. Yeah. Yeah.  You don't want to think of me all gross and getting eaten by worms and whatnot. Listen, I'm not going to be there anymore. I'll have moved on. My body will be food. As it should be. Don't think too much about it. Just remember I want to feed the flowers. Those flowers and grass and trees will be part me. And that is beautiful. And as it should be.
5. Ok. So it's possible there are laws against that sort of thing. It's also possible that I was donated to science and/or all split up into worthy recipients of awesome parts of me. MAYBE I am all embalmed and hacked on and used up from being useful. No worries! Burn me! If you bury me now that I'm all preserved, I'm not natural food anymore. So Burn me!  Cremate me and return me to Earth. Preferably half on a mountain and half in the sea. Just as long as I'm returning to the Earth, I won't be too picky. The yard is fine if that's all you can manage. No urns or trashbags or god forbid a tomb! Earth! Sea! Fish food! Yes please.
6. Erect a memorial if you must but don't lay me down next to 1000 others in a sea of Grey markers that all look the same. Give me a memorial that says "THIS IS SHANO! She was unique." Make it small or big or whatever but make it unique. *Sparkles preferred.* And I've never been grey. Who would describe me as grey?? No one hopefully! I'm deep black or colorful blue or black and white checkered or vibrant red or neon pink! I'm not grey.  Don't make my forever memorial grey either!
7. Regardless of how anyone might feel about this statement, I am not a Christian. I am Buddhist. Please don't have a pastor/priest do my funeral service and quote bible verses and generally droll on about how I'm tromping up the Stairway to Heaven. I'm not. I've moved on. I'm already starting my next life and my soul is probably in or on its way to another living creature just beginning. Instead, please gather and laugh and celebrate this life I had and wish me luck in the next one. Maybe you'll cry and ok. I mean, I understand. But laugh more. That's an order! I want to be remembered with a smile and an eye roll and a laugh and stories that make me live on forever. Do Not remember me with somber tears and silly talk of my new castle in the sky. I don't even want to live in a castle!  Remember me for my shiny moments and make guesses on where and in what form I've moved on to! (Hopefully I'll be reborn in Fiji. Fingers crossed!)

PS. If you happen to hate my guts and we are arch nemeses and all that life sort of stuff: I demand that you dance at or near my funeral. Show up and do it.  It's only right. And I would totally do it to you! You know I would.

Restless

What am I doing?

I have no purpose. I'm so restless, I can't keep control of myself. I cannot blow up my life again. I have nothing to run from. Nothing to blame these feelings on. Nothing is wrong. Is this a midlife crisis? Didn't I already have one of those? Aren't I just wasting time? I've nothing to run from. Everything is peaceful and calm and good. And I feel useless and unfulfilled. There is no passion.

And it makes me angry. And sad. And empty. And uninspired. And restless. So restless.

What am I DOING? How do I do nothing? I cannot blow up my life again. I cannot. What am I doing? Why am I doing this to myself?

What do I need?

Lucky

Sometimes, you cry. No, not cry. Beg. Sometime you beg for help; for support. For anything resembling support. For hope. For something in the neighborhood of love, even if it misses it by several blocks. Just a little bit of something resembling love and help. For something you have never really had. But it doesn't come. It doesn't come because you are so damaged that you don't even know how to find it. You don't know how to set yourself up for the very basis of what you might need. You don't know how to lay a foundation. And all you have ever really needed is a foundation. What a terrible Catch 22. And people don't understand why people commit suicide. Uh. Because of that terrible Catch 22. Because of old deep pain that never resolves itself and then the terrible choices you make after that that don't give you what you really need; even when you have enough self awareness to beg for it. Beg. Like a pathetic child. And that's what you are, isnt it? A pathetic child begging for help and shelter and a little peace. Ever elusive love.

On giving up the career I chose...

A long time ago, I fell in love with helping people. Years later, I realized through a mine field of good therapy that I had simply learned how to profit from my dysfunctional codependence. Whatever works.  Two days ago, my boss asked me if I'd ever considered counseling (belly laughter) after I cried for about 4 hours straight the day after I sent my resignation letter. The day before that, my Mom had some side eye comment about how all jobs suck and that's why they pay you. The day before that, my guy looked at me with an amusing terror while simultaneously telling me that he was totally on board when I had a long talk with him about needing to quit my job. He hugged me and I imagined that while his face was out of view, he probably had the wide, gaping, fearful eyes of a man who just realized he'd coupled with someone who actually meant all those head-in-the-clouds, wander-lustful, Buddhist sorta things she says that made him sort of love her.

Three days ago, I officially put in my resignation notice on my career.  It's not like this has never happened before. I've resigned. I've run off to Mexico to chase my dreams whilst losing my mind and finding myself. I've stayed home and raised kids and depended on someone else to make the money while I did whatever I did. But, I always knew I had my career in my back pocket. I always knew what I intended to be doing. I always knew that I'd return some day to the tumultuous, drama-filled, adrenaline rush of my career. It's addictive. I've always been well suited to it. It feels a bit ingrained in my me-ness. But, life throws some curve balls and I'm Babe Ruth reincarnate.

A few years ago, I got the diagnosis. I'd suspected the diagnosis for, sheesh, 12, 13, 15 years. I'd been afraid, no-- petrified, of the diagnosis since, well, as long as I can remember. But I got it. It became a reality. And somewhere in the back of my mind, I guess I've thought all this time that I was simply a fully crazed hypochondriac who had manifested these symptoms out of sheer projection and I was not, in fact, a sick girl. A crazy one, SURE, but not a sick one. And then, they gave me that damned test. Some marvel of modern medicine that keeps you from getting to pretend you're just nuts and instead, have to stare shit right in the face. Damn science. And that was that. I no longer got to pretend, I had to deal. And the doctors (plural. ugh) had a lot to tell me about how I couldn't fuck around anymore. Face sufficiently slapped once again by that asshole, reality. I hate that guy.

Sometime around the millennium, I was working in the basement of some insurance company where the CEO only knew me as "sweetie", and going home to a husband who liked to punch me in the face sometimes. I had two little babies and in hindsight, a horrifying lack of insight. I went to a psychotherapist and tried desperately to get him to tell me I was hopelessly mentally ill. He wouldn't do it. I think it frustrated him that I preferred having a diagnosis born of chemical imbalances or genetics instead of just a wretched string of circumstances that led me to feel like I did. You can just take a pill to deal with a clinical diagnosis. He was proposing that I had to, like, gain a bunch of awareness and work out my shit. Who the fuck wants to do that when your mind is fully occupied by your small children, your full time shitty, unsatisfying job, and a gem of a husband who thinks you are Mike--um...Mika Tyson. I preferred to be fully crazy in the clinical sense. So, I'd go to therapy. I'd get mad at him for saying I wasn't a giant fruit basket. And he'd get mad at me for saying I was. Probably the best therapy I ever had, for the record, and I've had a lot. (Have you thought about counseling. hahaha)

So, I did what any self respecting, barely 20something, screwed up gal would do. I divorced my therapist (not my husband) and decided to volunteer in a field that fights the very thing I came home to every day. I became a Court Appointed Special Advocate for abused and neglected children. Yes, I appreciate the irony of it now, and in a far less mature way, did then.

 I fell in love. THIS was my calling. You just know when you find it; that THING that you're SUPPOSED to do. I wasted no time in stopping all that volunteer stuff, divorcing the asshole, and going back to school for the express purpose of becoming a Child Protective Services Investigator. There was no other goal. That was all the goal I had. 3 years later, I graduated. Two years after that, I finally got the job. Ironically, my husband (a different one) was in a mental hospital the day I started, but that's a story for another day.

I didn't quit that job the first time. I mean, I technically did, but I didn't want to. Life threw me more curve balls (Babe Ruth, baby) and it all just fell apart. I was pretty much forced out of the job by life, a bit of a mental breakdown, some hearty misunderstandings, a murder-suicide plot (I was the murder victim piece of that) and a trio of paranoid, bitchy bosses.

I did a lot of things in the interim, including running off to Mexico and getting that goddamned diagnosis, but I reapplied for the career I chose over and over again until finally, 8 months ago, I got the job again. And I was overjoyed. I truly was. I loved that job! I'd wanted it back for years. It was everything I liked about work. I'd have preferred to be back in Mexico sipping margaritas and not giving a shit about anything, but who wouldn't, right? But that wasn't the reality I was in.

Two months after I started my job, I missed a doctor's appointment. This may sound like nothing to most of the non-chronic-diseased world, but when you have that damned reality happening like I do, that's kind of a big deal. Because I missed that appointment, I ran out of medication. Because specialists in our lovely healthcare system are as they are, I couldn't get another appointment for almost 2 months.

Some PA I'd never seen before took mercy on me and gave me a few of my meds back because his wife had my particular diagnosis and he (and his polka dotted bow tie) were beautifully sympathetic. But I didn't get the important ones back. The ones that make you really sick when you start them and take 3 months to adjust to. I had to quit those. Cold turkey. That went pretty well for me. Two months later, I started them again. And so came the really sickness. Two months after that, I had to quit them again because I couldn't do my job. And I got sick from that, again. If you're keeping score, my 8 months is up. And I've spent 6 of it in health nightmare.

And then I took that damned test and had that damned Come to Jesus moment with my doctors (plural). And it all came crashing down, again. I was sucking at my job. I was sucking at my health. I was sucking at my happiness. All around, I was just sucking. And then the doctors (plural) tell me (in a nutshell) if I keep doing what I'm doing, I'm just going to die. Let's not mince words here. I will just fucking die. My disease will attack the important parts like those two flaps in your chest that make you breathe and that muscle that pumps your blood around with it's rhythmic thump thump thump. So, for all my denial, I mean strength (ahem), it was face slapping reality time. I had to give a shit. And I had to give a shit now.

So, I quit my job.

And the next day I went to my office and I was relieved and happy. Until about lunch. Then I cried for 4 hours. (Have you considered counseling. Bwhahaahaha).I didn't cry for the job, I guess. I mean, I hadn't particularly enjoyed it this time, given that I was doing it whilst feeling like I'd run a marathon, with the flu, after being run over by a truck, for 6 of 8 months.

I cried because I'd never had to quit a job because of this (far too many expletive pronouns) disease. I'd never had this dumb thing - a thing that I stayed in denial about, that sent me to Mexico, that made me throw my bucket list into high gear, that had caused more tears then all 47 or so of my failed marriages and abuses and traumas combined -- have any real effect on my career. What? My life, yeah. My relationships, fuck yes. My thought processes, uh huh. My ability to open a jar of pickles, damn skippy. My entire outlook on life, Oh yes sir.  But my career, um. no. I guess I figured it wouldn't until it was straight up time to go on disability and rev up my electric, off-road, hybrid flotation device wheelchair. No, that didn't occur to me.

I never HAD to quit a job because I just couldn't DO IT. I had to leave my dive instructor course one day because I couldn't swim against the current towing a grown man in decent surf once. ONE DAY. Another day, I managed it. I had to take a leave of absence for a couple months once because life sucked too much. I've quit because I just didn't want to anymore. But I'd never had to quit a job so I didn't DIE. For fuck's sake, I'm 38 years old. I'm THIRTY EIGHT YEARS OLD.

And I am chronically broken and have to figure out how not to die.

And it was devastating. It IS devastating. This was my chosen career. This was my favorite job. This was my calling, my AHA job.

Not to brag or anything, but I'm the strongest bitch I know. What the fuck is happening?

Then I had to realize, it isn't just this job. I won't be able to do a lot of jobs in my profession. Stress is not allowed. Stress makes me sick. Stress will kill me. Wait. What? Stress is an integral part of my career. It's in the job description. It's like, the thing I like. I can't just not work as a CPS investigator, I can't work as a crisis counselor. I can't work as a case manager. I can't work as a social worker. I can't have a job that has my very favorite part of my career, DRAMA. I'm not allowed. Because I will fucking die. What the fuck?

What the hell do I do now? No, seriously, what do I do now?

In case anyone is wondering, travel the world and live on beans and rice in third world apartments has crossed my mind at least 374 times in the past 10 days or so. I'll let you know if I can work that out while maintaining my brand new car payment and raising the two kids I have left in the house. Somehow, I feel like maybe that time hasn't come yet. But, then again, I haven't had any Jack Daniels yet either.

(Maybe I should consider some counseling.)

Still my little blonde firecracker

And still... going into college. My little blonde firecracker.

Raising myself

Updated on May 11, 2012

Paying for my raising more and more...

I’ve learned that there is little that can help you learn about yourself more than raising your children.

My son. My darling little blond-haired firecracker. My sweet little man who inspired me more by his mere birth than anything ever has or will. My baby…

Is turning into a teenager.

He yells and screams. He says things to me that he knows will hurt me and he says them because he knows they will hurt me. He looks me in the eye and tells me, in his own way, that he thinks I am stupid and old and can’t understand. He looks at me as though I’ve slighted him. He looks at me like it hurts him somewhere inside to have to tolerate me. He looks at me like he wishes I would disappear so he could go on with his self. Talk to his girlfriend. Keep his secrets. Throw a football to his friend and use curse words. He looks at me like I can’t possibly understand.

I understand. Every scream that comes from his lips. Every jab he throws at my psyche. Every eye roll. Every secret. Every curse word. Every overly over reaction. I understand.

Because he is me. I am my mother and father. I can read his mind because it was my mind once. I know what is bubbling under the surface of his resistance.

It is reassuring. Reassuring because “I turned out OK.”

It is distressing. Distressing because it was a grueling, tumultuous road from the first bubbling to the OK I feel today.

My little blond firecracker with his over achievement and his maniacal passion. Will he have to endure the pain, the terrible mistakes, the lifelong repercussions? Will he survive and someday be strong, armored, self aware, open and closed, happy? Will it take so long? Will it be so hard? Will he survive? Will he learn and grow?

The hardest thing I’ve ever learned about the human mind is that knowing does not give an automatic answer to knowing how. I know my little firecracker. I know him from his pinky toe to his uncut hair. I know what’s bubbling there. I don’t know how to guide him. I had to guide myself. I resented anyone who tried to guide me then and now. I have my own compass. Can I be his? Will it drive him away if I try? Does he have to find his own way? Will he survive?

Will he be contented?

Polar Bear in a Snowstorm

So I was looking through an old blog and came across this post. I wrote this years ago.... It's interesting. I remember feeling this way pretty much all the time. Like I was too tired, too worn, too fuzzy to move forward. I wrote it in a time when I wasn't really battling with any real emotional things. It was just life that was wearing me out. So. Very. Tired. I know why now. And I don't feel like this anymore (or well, most days anyway). I remember distinctly telling my doctor; "Look. I just know something is wrong. Other people can get get up in the morning and do normal life things and still have energy. I don't. Haven't for a long time." Heh. There's a diagnosis for that. And although I'd always suspected it was some sort of manifestation of chemical depression, turns out, it was just two little asshole letters: R.A. 

Polar Bear in a Snowstorm

Some days it's hard doing it on your own

On days like today, I just don’t know which way to face. I try to face to the north. To me, the north is looking up. Forward. I guess because on a map, north is up. It seems optimistic. If I face south, I’m looking down. But the beaches and sunshine and beauty are south. The places I’d like to be now, instead of where I am. The east has the sunrise and the west has the sunset. So I guess north is really a disadvantage. All the things I love are other directions. In any case, I’d like to be looking up.

I’m not.

I feel like I’m drowning in this cesspool of everyday things. Why does it seem like everyone else can handle these things and I cannot? Wake up, go to work, work all day, come home, cook dinner, go to a baseball game, watch TV, go to sleep. It all seems so simple.

It’s not.

I wake up feeling yesterday. That first waking moment, I’m confused. Every morning, I’m confused. What day is it? What am I supposed to be doing today? Where are the children and have I missed something already? What will my life be like today? Which hat do I need to put on first? Who am I this morning? Which Shannon? WHICH ONE?

Then comes the panic. Funny how I should wake up every morning in a panic. I reach for the phone or the appointment book or the kids school calendar. I reach to see what I’ve missed. What I’ve dropped. Who I’ve let down now. I look around to see if anyone is beside me and listen to see if my kids are making morning noises. I look at the clock. The clock. Every morning, without fail, I look at the clock and wish for it to rewind. I want more time. More sleep. More, more, more. Please. Just a little more.

I lay back down. Always. Why? Because that’s when the air around me gets really thick. Thick, soupy, oppressive air. It pushes down on my shoulders and legs, my hands and feet. It pushes and I concede. For those few minutes in the morning while I’m wishing at the clock, I let it hold me down. I just give in to the crushing, oppressive air and I lay there. I let it win. I let it hold me down. I wish for more time just to lay there and let it hold me down. I’m tired of fighting it. I’m tired of trying to beat it. I just want to stay there.

I can’t.

The thoughts of everything that is my reality bustle around me. I feel like I’m inside a TV with no reception. I am behind all those fuzzy white dots somewhere. I’m the image you can’t see. And all those fuzzy white dots are all things I need to care about, need to do, need to accomplish, need to say, feel. They’re swirling and churning and buzzing. I’m drowning under them. And the noise makes a pain in the back of my head and I want to turn it off. It’s a swarming mass, like gnats or fruit flies, hitting me in the face and blurring my everything. I catch little snippets of all of them as they pass by my ears. All at once yet one at a time. And I just lay down and wait for them to devour me.

They try.

And the urgency sets in. As much as I want to give up, I cannot. I think, every morning, that I could lay there and let it all just take over if not for the children. I must get up. I must work. I must eat. I must gather all of my eggs and begin juggling because I must maintain this life for my children. I must feed them and feed myself to stay alive so I can feed them. I must give them everything. I must maintain. I must. I must. I must.

And I get up and I go on. And I take ibuprofen to ease the ache of the world pushing down on me. And I look around for someone who can understand. Someone who can help. Someone who can turn off the TV. Someone who can help me juggle the eggs so that none of them break. And I drop a few here and there and they break.

But I go on 

Oh yeah? Well Im going to go live with my Dad then!

So often I find myself being kicked in the rear by karma. Even if it is a silly, simple declaration about how much I hate cats or that fibromyalgia is not a real disease, life has this way of taking my very strong, misinformed, declarative s and showing me how my words taste with Sunday dinner. And sometimes, karma has a really hard, painful lesson waiting for me that's years in the making. Lessons that inspire phrases like "If I knew then what I know now..."And my teenage son is the catalyst for one of the hardest lessons I have had to swallow. Wisdom, I've found, rarely comes with ease, but at the end of a long treacherous road of bad decisions and soul pain.

Im at an age where my friends are in varying stages of parenthood.  Some have planned carefully or maybe not and are becoming parents just now or have adorable little toddlers wrecking their sanity yet stealing their hearts 100 times a day. But many are like me. They find themselves with teenagers embarking on young adulthood and the image of those little pudgy babies and sticky hands are far in the past. (If they're a lot like me, they can't even imagine going back there at this point and don't know how all those middle aged new parents find the energy.) Teenagers. They'll teach you a thing or two. If you've never called your own parents and apologized for ever being a teenager, consider yourself lucky (or ignorant to reality). Either way, teenagers are a challenge under the best of circumstances. But I've never claimed to have the best of circumstances, now have I?

Back to karma. There's a trend I see with my peer teenager parents. It wrenches my heart every time. I feel for them. I feel for them because it has happened to me. I know how much it hurts. How terrifying it is. How it feels like a divorce only from someone you love far more deeply than a spouse. Someone you've literally poured all your energy and love and strength and care into. Someone you'd die for.

And then they say "Im going to live with my Dad/Mom/Grandparent/whoever because they love me more and you SUCK and I hate you."

Knife meet heart. Anger. Rage. Indignance. Tears upon tears upon tears. Paralyzing Fear. Self doubt. Depression. More anger. More fear. More rage. More tears. Determination. More self doubt. Mounds of regret. Blame. Shame. Guilt. More depression. More rage. More indignance. And then, if you're lucky, some clarity and acceptance.

But in all those feelings, 99 percent fail to realize the karma of it all. I haven't. My son has done the Dad thing more than once. And I blamed Dad as a "brainwasher." I was angry at my son for his hurtful words but I always managed to employ a self defense of believing my son was brainwashed and didn't REALLY feel that way about ME. He always came back, after all, when he realized that the grass on Dad's lawn wasn't made of gold and perfection either and maybe he didn't hate me so much after all. It was when he "ran away" and decided to demonize me and move in with my parents that I really had to soul search. That's when the knife cut deep. Because I can demonize his father all day, but did my parents brainwash him? They're not always my biggest fans but it was a far stretch to believe that my parents would do what I'd believed his father had done in the past years. I'm not saying my defenses didn't go there, they did, but it took a lot of stretching to believe they would intentionally try to take my son from me while my poor innocent son was simply a victim. No, this was on my son. He said and did the things to convince my parents that he was better off out of my house and influence. And even more of a shock to my reality, he'd probably done that with his Dad as well. And I'd pitied him. And coddled him. And helped him learn how to act this way. Hello karma.

Here's the mistake I made that makes ME responsible. Here's my karma. I taught him that it was ok to hide from his father in my arms. I taught him it was ok not to respect his parent. I taught him it was ok to demonize his parent in favor of ME. I even ENJOYED (yes.) when he demonized his father. I didnt do this when he was younger (regardless of what his father may believe) but when he became a teen and started to see what that grass was made of, I openly played along and was glad that he'd finally "figured out" what a (insert whatever here) his Father was. And we bonded over making fun and being disgusted by his parent. Sigh. Hindsight. If I'd known then and all that.

But guess what? It wasn't just his father I'd done that with. It was in other relationships as well. I'd let my sons participate in angry or petty or downright ugly sessions cursing and plotting imaginary fantasy revenge against other men I'd ended relationships with. As a disclaimer, I never did any of the things and I did DISCUSS with my sons that venting was ok and even necessary sometimes but that you shouldn't act on those things. But acting wasn't the problem. It was the disrespect for the human. The lesson I taught them about ending relationships and dealing with feeling wronged. I taught them that it was ok to hate, even for a little while. But more importantly, I taught them how to demonize and detach with total disrespect.

I taught my son how to treat people who he was hurt/disappointed/angered by or even just needed to healthily detach from. I did that. And karma showed me that it wasn't innocent. I was wrong. And that boomerang has now hit me square in the face.

My mother told me, when this all blew up: "You taught him to be this way." I was so angry she'd said that. There was so much she didnt understand at that moment. But, as with many things that truly infuriate me, it was because there was a recognition of truth to it. I had taught him a thing or two about how to be this way. There are a few things he did in this process that I didn't teach him. Those things are someone else's karma. I wont address those because thats just more fingers pointing away from me. And that's not the point here.

I taught him with no bad intentions. I taught him thinking all along that I was being fair to the other people involved. They "deserved" my anger and disrespect and hate. I taught him when I wasn't even trying to teach him, but was only trying to survive myself. I taught him how to treat ME right now. Because he needs to detach from me. (The hundred normal and abnormal reasons for that are for another time) And in his detaching, I am learning valuable lessons. Humbling lessons. Painful karmic lessons.

So, here's my advice to every mom and dad and otherwise child influencing person that's earlier in the process of learning than me. No matter how much you hate the other parent (or otherwise authority figures), pay attention to the lessons you're teaching them about how to deal with those feelings. Because when you find yourself with the inevitable "I hate you" teenager moment, they're going to treat you just the way you've taught them to. Coparenting will pay off in the long run no matter how much teeth gnashing you have to do to accomplish it. (And trust me, I get hating the other parent for immensely justifiable reasons. But that's between you and you only.)

As a caveat, I want to add that I think there's a significant societal problem that is being created by the prevalence of divorce and one parent households and all associated things that is creating a generation of children who can "get away with" running off to another parent/grandparent to avoid discipline or working out normal conflict and challenges. A problem we, as a society, need to overcome by learning to work better together and put our own feelings aside. I failed at that and even when I tried, the other parties failed at that. And now, my son is living with my parents and running away from BOTH of his parents. I cant speak for his father, but I can quell my self doubt enough to know that I dont need to be run away from. Im not perfect, but Ive been a good enough Mom.

But Karma.