Reading about the Brain

Ok....so when I am faced with difficulties, I research. Those close to me are normally the ones where all of the information I recover is thrown upon. Not that I expect those close to me to want to know what I am reading and researching, but they are stuck with it anyway. I guess that I could probably give you a taste of all the stuff that I read about...I warn you though...it will be even harder to follow my line of thinking...

Earlier this week I have posted about depression....and I do not under any circumstances want to have to go on medication for this...and this means, Yes! Research! Chemically, depression shows itself as lower levels of dopamine and seratonin. You can take pills to increase your levels, you can eat foods to help increase your levels, but because these things are entering your bloodstream they are not going to be as effective in your brain as if they were produced naturally by your brain. From my reading (and oddly enough this played into alot of the reading that I have done about PTSD and the brain) talk therapy, where you learn coping mechanisms to deal with emotional issues, has shown itself to be much much more effective in the long term in dealing with issues of depression, PTSD, and overall mental health. Another way of naturally raising your seratonin and dopamine levels is by having sex, because the endorphins released create the natural seratonin and dopamine that your brain really likes. Of course, in order to use this method to help counteract depression...I need Mr.3 to be home. :)

This lead me to want to do more research on the brain...and of course a book purchase. I bought a book called "A User's Guide to the Brain" and it has been fascinating to say the least. Basically with your brain it is "use it or lose it" when it comes to neurons and synanpasis' and such. There was a study on some nuns in Minnesota who stayed very actively intellectually and not only lived longer but also suffered much much lower incidents of dementia. The book has also talked about how the brain can re-train itself to handle certain things that it has lost the ability to. So like in the case of PTSD, prolonged trama can lead to short term memory loss and affect decision making abilities...but with therapy in which coping mechanisms are developed to help with memory the brain can re-learn to act within normal perimeters. With practice, a skill can return...just like riding a bike.

What has really sparked my interest in my reading today was reading about how the brain initially develops. At conception, cells begin to divide and divide and divide. By two weeks into this process the cells are folded into each other into a long tube, this tube is the beginning of the spinal column and the brain. Two weeks into conception! How friggin' cool is that?! The book gives a figure of 250,000 nerve cells are being created every minute at this time in development. And while the brain is one of the first structures to form in a fetus, it isn't fully developed until 8 months, and after birth it begins this process of testing all of the neuron pathways it has formed to see which ones work well and which ones the body would do better without. Constantly revising itself, over and over and over again, until we die. Oh so cool.

While reading this I was overcome with the feeling that I really wanted to be pregnant (and I think that this is separate from the baby lust thing), just because I thought that it is so cool that being female that this fantastic development process could be happening inside my body. And one day, when it does happen, I want to make sure that I appreciate every single moment of it, and every moment of my child's life because what happens in nature is so completely wondrous...and to use the same word that I have been using through this entire post...something so completely...

cool.

Update

Mr.3 just called. I was stunned, and shocked....and exquisitely happy to hear the sound of his voice. And for 17 minutes and 26 seconds I got to speak to my husband, bliss.

Well the news is that the group he is in has been told that they will be released on Monday or Tuesday. If this is true it is wonderful news! If it isn't....who knows what shape I am going to be in on Wednesday morning.

But I got to talk to him...and just that calms me down. My anxiety goes up when I don't hear from him....partly because I worry that I am going to miss my window to chat or speak with him. At least this week he let me know what his schedule was going to be like...and even though I was online the same amount of time, if he didn't come online it was because HE missed his appointment, not because I was not vigilant enough. Odd line, but it makes sense to me.

I feel so much lighter now that I have talked to him. 6 days since I have heard his voice last. I think that I will be able to make it through the rest of the day now. :)

depression regression

You could say that I haven't been posting because it is the end of the semester, and that would be partly true. What would be more true to the situation is that I am so hopelessly depressed that I haven't been able to function. This last week has been bad. I have been doing alot of reading on depression and how to handle it, and I have my up days.

Today is a down day.

We had an Outreach meeting today and we talked about the June workshop...it is kinda the crowning achievement of the year. And just thinking about all of the work that is going to be dumped on me just fills me with anxiety. All of our volunteers are wanting their own rooms and we are running out of rooms to begin with. And I want my own room...in fact I want to stay for a second night because last year I was so run off my feet that if I could have stayed another day I could have felt a bit less run down. And last year I decided that I was going to stay the second day...actually Mr.3 and I made the decision because he helped out last year---and did much more work than our volunteers. But I can't even plan on him being around in June, let alone tomorrow or next week.

This week has been horrible with communication with him...or rather no communication. Of course, I heard nothing from him over the weekend. On Monday he called me when I wasn't online waiting for him and because of a work thing I could only talk to him for a minute. He said that he was going to call that night and didn't. Tuesday nothing, Wednesday a chat online, Thursday nothing, and Friday a chat online. And now it is another weekend...where I probably won't hear from him...and I feel myself cracking at all the hindges. And to make matters worse, he keeps telling about all of these breakthroughs that he is making....and that he testing normal on all of his baselines and that the doctor said that he is going to be able to come home....except it isn't happening. You would think that the one week that is supposed to be his last he would contact me more. I sent him the following email this morning...but I fear it will have no effect. I am so scared that I am caught in this horrible cycle that will never end...or it ends when I finally snap. And who knows when that will be be...but it can't be long. I can't keep this up anymore...

Hi Honey!
I left you a phone message last night. I hope that you are able to get a call or some internet time this weekend. No contact from you on the weekends really ticks me off.....I try to be all nice about it but it really makes me angry and sad.

I have an Outreach meeting this morning from roughly 9-11. I don't expect to be home until noon though. Other than that my day is unplanned...I can try to be online for most of the afternoon, but it makes if really difficult for me if I don't know your schedule.

I am curious to know what you and DeWitt talked about last night. It obviously wasn't the news that we both wanted. If you are showing normal in your testing there is no reason for you to be there. And I will not tolerate you doing what you did for an entire month last Fall which was that every day you were planning on coming home and it didn't happen for one reason or another. The longer you are away the more room I have to doubt...and the more that our marriage suffers. While I am incredibly excited about the breakthroughs that you have made in the past two weeks (and I can see them change in your tone and in your excitement...something amazing is happening with you!) we must remember that for this entire time, I have gotten no help....and definitely no validation about your situation. I am afraid that the longer this goes on....the more contempt I am going to build up with this...and I worry that I will not be able to get rid of it all...and if I can't purge that contempt, we as a couple will not last. You have had enough "you" time...things need to transition, and that transition needs to be immediate.

Saying that this is an ultimatum would be silly...because I am not going to leave you, and definitely not in the immediate future. But it is our future that I worry about. You being gone for 8 months out of our 14 months of marriage is not acceptable by any standards...and definitely not acceptable because I have not been able to verify where you are this entire time. The only thing that I was sure about was when you were in jail. How sad is that? How much longer do you really think that I can manage living in this uncertainty? I think that my strength has been tested long enough.

You need to come home, my love. I am tired of being a wife without a husband. I miss you. I miss us. I just want to be able to move on and feel happy everyday again....because it has been so long...

I love you!

By Far the Coolest Thing that I have seen in a month

See more photos at this site, aikarin.com

End of Semester Silence

Yeah, I've haven't been blogging much because I am trying to finish out the semester. I am quite happy to announce that I have finished my Syntax take-home final a full 3 days before it was due!!

Libby and I have been trying to buckle down in our studies and have been meeting almost everyday for the past week at the coffee shop a few doors down from my house. Which oddly, has worked really really well. I think that it has been partly due to me working without the distraction of my computer. My presentation for course design was last Wednesday and on Tuesday we were at the coffee shop for 5 hours just working on school stuff. My notebook smells like coffee. And it payed off. My presentation was fantastic. I am going to be egotistical and say that my presentation was the most polished of all that presented and I looked like I was really on top of my stuff. And best of all, after my presentation I was walking up to my teacher to ask her if I had improved when she rushed up to me, grabbed my arm with eager excitement, and told me "well done!".

I nailed it. And hopefully salvaged my grade and my graduate career.

Now I just need to slowly plod along and finish the rest of my project. The presentation made it look like I have done alot of work on my project, but I really haven't. If I work on it for several hours every day for the next two weeks it should be great. Wednesday is the last day of classes, and while I would like to have everything done for then, it won't happen. Our teacher hasn't given us a specific deadline....she just told us to get it in to her before grades are due, which is May 15...so I am shooting for May 1st.

The only downfall of working at the coffee shop is that you feel obligated to buy something each day in exchange for taking up their table space...so I am going to have to budget for this. Because I think that I will probably do the majority of my thesis work there this summer....you know in those times between the second job that I will have to get.

Re-Violation

I was reading in the coffee shop at the end of our street when I had the unpleasant experience of having the doctor who so mangled me at my last girlie exam come into the shop (you remember, the one who even though I talked to her about my latex allergy, still used latex gloves on my exam...my internal exam). At first it was this strange look between us and I was trying to remember who she was and why I was getting the bad vibe. When she finally turned around I recognized her and felt a flood of emotions that I still cannot categorize.

Anger. Rage. Confusion....and the final one.....a flood of panic. Panic at the violation she had imposed on me....panic because all the feelings of inadequacy, the feelings of the physical pain of the aftermath....panic at not feeling right as a woman....panic with the worry that she might have caused irreversible damage.

I had to leave....I had to get out of there....being in the same room felt like it was all happening again. In fact I burst into tears as soon as I got outside the shop. I am still trying to heal from that January appointment. January! I wonder if this is how people feel when they face rapists.....

as if the violation is happening all over again.

PTSD Protest Songs?

So I have been seeing signs around campus for David Rovics, a peace activist/musician, to be performing. Back in my "protest days" (which sounds funny because I will always be a protester at heart) I went to a concert of his, and fell in love with his music. Hearing of him coming back in town I thought that I would review his music...and I found that his music only has a certain time and place in history where his music still resonates. The album I bought was made in 2002 and I felt that it was absolutely perfect for what was happening in the world at the time...and as I am listening to it now I find that I still agree with it. Then I decided to go to his website and see what he has been up too....first thing I notice....an endorsement by Cindy Sheehan. Oh god. Readers of this blog already know what I think of her and her ill-informed celebrity crew of protesters...and now David Rovics has sold out and joined them.

He had a couple of songs on his newer albums about returning vets and PTSD...I listened...and was horrified. Obviously no clue what someone with PTSD thinks about and like....obviously never talked to someone about it, who was there. It was cliche after cliche after cliche....

Needless to say....no longer a fan.

If you want to listen to good protest music, listen to Shake Your Peace. Much better and more realistic in my opinion...and they are currently doing a bike tour across Utah. When they play someone rides on a bike to create the electrical current for their amplifiers...which is pretty cool.

Oddly enough, they are playing on campus this weekend.

**An update to the Easter weekend post, Mr.3 and his doctor have been discussing my "enemy" idea (and it has also been a subject of discussion in his group sessions). He and his doctor think that I am on to something, and it sounds like it has been helpful in his therapy progress....but who knows when they will think that he is ready to come home. Hopefully soon, because at the rate I'm going I will have eaten all of his Easter candy...oh well! Seriously though, I hope that his serves as the breakthrough that we need....I have felt better since I had the idea, so if anything it is a breakthrough for me.

5 dollars for a story

In the same light as the snake charmer....if I give you 5 dollars for anything I get to write about you in my blog. So this post in dedicated to Candace the young work study girl from the projects of Wisconsin who "axed" me to buy some magazine subscriptions from her so that she can get a $1000 scholarship to some college.

I gave her money for several reasons:

1. I didn't really want any magazine subscriptions.
2. It takes guts to go door to door trying to convince people of a story that sounds like it is out of Office Space.
3. If she really is trying to "work" her way through school....she needs $5 as much as I do.

Baby Lust

I have mentioned this a couple of times...but I have baby blues REALLY bad. I suspect that I want something to bestow all of my love on and to have a piece of Mr.3.

Last Friday the old outreach assistant came in with her little boy. He is just about two and he kissed me. Oh, his skin was so soft. And today, a Graduate student who I haven't seen in a year and a half came in to defend his thesis. He has a nine-month old boy...with the cutest dimples.

Both of these incidents had the same outcomes...I played with these adorable children until I had to abruptly excuse myself so that I could go into my office...

and cry.

Cry because I wanted the same....cry because when they all asked me how married life was, and I smiled and told them that everything was ok....cried because I want a little one of my own that looks at me with Mr.3's eyes.
One day...

Easter Weekend

This was a quiet weekend. Jimmy and I drove down to Price to spend the weekend with my mom. It has been over a month now since we have seen her. The most amusing thing that happened was my brother dropping all of his candy down the stairs...an unexpected Easter egg hunt. This weekend was marked by several things....a whole lot of Shirley Temple movies that my mom and I watched....and an absence of both my father and my husband. Now my Dad bothered to call this weekend, but Mr.3 did not.

It has been an interesting weekend to say the least. I have been trying to figure some things out...about how I view our relationship, how I view myself....even how I interpret Mr.3's behavior. In some respects, this weekend scared me...and not for the reason that you might think.

Last Friday, after the Model Arab League dinner I went out to a bar with some of the people on the team. It has literally been years since I have been out. And oddly....I ordered two drinks without caring about the price, and I bought nachos for everyone...again, not caring about the price. I felt free....and I found myself realizing that if I was single, that I probably would have gone home with someone that night. And that is what scared me....I had never really considered what it would be like to be single again, and after thinking about it....there are alot of things that I would like to change about how I live, but being married to Mr.3 isn't one of them. When he comes back though....we are changing some things...we are going to go out as a couple. We are going to live a little, we are both young....we should act like it, instead of like senior citizens. I am also going to be more aggressive in "marital relations"...we are newlyweds for goodness sakes! We should act like that too.

Something that Mr.3 typed on Friday had me thinking...he said that life was so much easier when he knew who the enemy was. And then....I had this brainwave, and so I sent him this email.

You had mentioned in your last chat that you didn't know who your enemy was anymore. Well your actions show exactly who you think that you enemy is....even though on the surface it doesn't seem to make sense. Perhaps you should bring up what I am about to say at your individual meetings today.

Right now, your enemy is me. Let's look at this in logical steps, I represent in the enemy in two ways: the government and the active enemy you are fighting.

First the government: when we first met, I was enamored of you..your intelligence and background, something clicked between us and I took you in. Compare this to your recruitment into the service. I covered all expenses, I never got mad at you in the beginning because of finances (even though I was devastated when you quit the Marriott--it put so much pressure on me)....you were completely taken care of by me. All you had to do was go to school. I became a means for you to go to school because you even used my financial information to go to school. I became a tool to get what you wanted....the government did this for you as well. You see me as an entitlement, just as you see government services as an entitlement. Let's go into this further shall we? When you were hurt, you had two enemies...the government that put you in the position to get hurt and the enemy who shot you. By my demanding that you give an equal share into the household, in your mind I became the government. It is perfectly ok for you to feel that the government is entitled to take care of you but it is not ok for you to get hurt.....it is perfectly ok in your mind to have me take care of you but it is not ok for me to ask for you to help share in our financial fight.

Let's go to the enemy shall we? You are actively evading me. Last year when I asked you why you were going eastwards based on your phone records, you shut off contact with me by phone. You have done the same thing this time when I commented on the phone records. Last fall, everytime you called me you entered in the code before you dialed to show up as a private call. I thought that this was odd because when I would contact the VA...caller ID always showed a number. This time you are arranging all of the calls so that they appear to go through the cell phone. You are covering your tracks. In fact last time the only time you did not cover your tracks was when you were arrested...the enemy was real then and you came to me "the government" for help. You have even covered your tracks with how you contact me electronically...last time you only used hushmail, which cannot be traced for locations, this time you only contact me through the gmail chat, which also will not disclose any location information. Some other similarities between this time and last time: the doctors not calling me, the fact that you are again in a 3 week program which for some reason will not let you out. I am not the enemy and this is not a war game.

Everyone is an enemy to you, especially the ones that care for you.....your parents have been the enemy, until you have needed something...you push away and then return....I am the enemy because I ask things of you and I am trying to find you...I will continue to be treated as the enemy until a more defined enemy comes alone...then and only then am I safe ground.

Of course, on the surface all of this seems absurd. Of course your wife isn't your enemy, she only cares for you and wants you to come home. Or if your wife is the enemy it is because she has betrayed you in some way...she cheated, she was greedy....just like the government let you get hurt and told you that you were going to be left behind. I am only waiting for you to decide what my grand sin against you is....so that you will be able to fully leave me without guilt.

All I can say is that I am not your enemy....but I know that it is a hollow statement because you are going to react to me as if I am. You are going to continue to hide the truth from me....give me the bad intel....because I made the misjudgment of loving you.

I hope that this email has reached you.... I expect that once again you will just say that you are sorry and that you know that it is all your fault. But deep down you won't believe it....because of what I have said above. Until you learn who your enemy really is and how you treat the ones that you love as the enemy....we will not be able to have a life together. No matter how good I am to you, no matter what I do....it will all be worthless if you still treat me like the enemy. And no matter how much I ache for you to be home, no matter how much I love and miss you....maybe you shouldn't come home until you can ensure that you can treat me with the respect that I deserve....as your equal, your friend, your lover, your brother (sister) in arms, and your wife.

I love you
d

His response was...limited, to say the least. Here are parts of our chat online today...

me: I sent you an email with something in it that I want you to discuss with DeWitt

Mr3: I see the email.

I am asking for a pen to gist it so I can discuss it. We have no printer support

11:10 AM I think it might be an interesting thesis but I don't agree with it

me: well I can't find any other way to explain your behavior towards me. adn last week I heard an interesting expression....

11:11 AM what seems like a crazy idea one day can be a breakthrough the next

Mr3: Maybe it can be. I didn't say the idea was crazy

11:12 AM me: no, the expression says that it is crazy....I on the other hand think that it is right on.

11:13 AM Mr3: OK, I am confused

me: about what?

11:14 AM hello?

11:15 AM trying to communitcate....

apparently it isn't working....

hello?

Mr3: No I am confused about your expression thingy comment

I amtrying to figure out where I misinterpreted

11:16 AM me: the expression says that an idea can be crazy....I on the other hand believe that the comments expressed in my emai are not crazy but an accurate assessment of the situation

why didn't you call this weekend?

11:17 AM Mr3: I don't know. I really don't know. I am just so down ...
I know it brings you down and I live for our conversations, I just couldn't

I spent so much of the weekend in a state of despair

11:18 AM Outside of sessions I just moped

The holiday made if worse

11:19 AM me: there you go again....making these decsions that are wrong. you have been doing this routinely...not contacting me makes it worse. but no matter how many times i tell you that you are not alone in this....you make the decsions to ensure that you are.

11:20 AM it isn't fair and you know it....yet you still treat me llike I am the enemy....withhold the information and you sttay in power

Mr3: I don't see them as wrong, I see them as protecting you and I guess they are wrong

I don't withold information from you

me: you are protecting me....you are alienating me.

Mr3: I don't intentionally alienate you

It isn't about alienation

me: well you do, and you do it ALOT

11:21 AM Mr3: It is about I don't know that's why I am here ... I don't know what's wrong in my head

me: all you needed to do was wish a happy holiday....I had pretty much figured that you weren't going to come home anyway and told you so on Friday...so it wasn't like it would have been anything new

11:22 AM that is why I would like you to bring up my email to DeWitt....you seem to listen to her

Mr3: I am trying to listen to you too. I really am trying to

I know you don't see it and I know I cannot provie

it

11:23 AM me: and while you are worrying that you might be the next guy to get upset and pull the phone cord out of the wall...at least remember that that guy had the opportunity to talk to his wife and did...at least that wife got a call ffom her husband and that she knows that he is alove

i get 6 minutes on average on the phone with you....I wait around for you all day....

Mr3: I realize that

I know that

11:24 AM me: I spend alot of time.....to get nothing from you.

Mr3: I understand that and I cannot tell you what a 2 minute or 20 minute call means

Yes you do.

You spend a lot of time for very little return

me: 2 minutes or 20 minutes doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of things when I just don't get calls.

11:25 AM I am investing my life in you.....do you really realize that?

I haven't left you.....I have been supporting you...even through alot of oopposition.

11:26 AM maybe when you decide not to be stubborn anymore and have to do everything for yourself they will let you out

Mr3: Maybe that is the problem. I need to once again become completely self-sufficent to appreciate how to share

11:27 AM me: you call this self-sufficent?

is this your way of telling me that you want to end everything?

Mr3: No I don't want to end anything and certainly not us

No this is not self sufficient

11:28 AM I am merely saying that perhaps it is something that I need to really explore with the doctor and this is the breakthrough that I need

me: maybe you need to realize that it is your idea of having to be the one in control---the self suffiencent one--that got you into the place that you are int.

Mr3: that we need

me: you need to learn how to trust

Mr3: It may be that idea

11:29 AM The idea that was a crazy suggestion

Maybe this is it

me: I am trying on my end....I am trying to help both you and us.

11:30 AM and we need a breakthrough or I am going to break apart and I can feel it happening.

You probably have to go soon, and I am supposed to go and interview Ibrahim

Mr3: I am sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen

I miss you so much

11:31 AM Go make me proud honey bunny

:)

I love you so much

me: I want to tell you that I love you and I want you to come home...but only if you are better and really really willing to make US work.

I miss you.

and I love you.

Mr3: I want us to be us .. :)

I love you

You can decide what you think happened....I felt liberated. I am so proud that I stuck up for myself and my future. I think that things will get better.

A Letter To Mr.3

*I found out some disheartening information this evening, and the best way to present it is by posting the email that I sent to my husband. I don't want to give up on this....he is sick and I know that if given the chance we can work through a lot of this. Psychologically, I can't give up...or the past few years of my life have been a waste, and that is something that I cannot accept.

I am probably going to leave a phone message, but I will probably be able to focus my thoughts more clearly here. I appreciate that you thanked me for doing all of the reading, and trying to understand what is going on. I feel like I have been doing quite alot of work on this end trying to keep our marriage going. It is important to me, and I thought that it was important to you.

It is clear to me now that you will not be coming home for Easter, and you might not be coming home for a long time.

Your lack of trust in me is disgusting....you must think that I am the most naive and gullible person in the world. You must think of me as stupid.

I so want to believe that you are in Utah and that you are getting help. I want to believe that you want to make this work. But you are lying to me. When you were in jail, you lied to me about your phone and wallet and wedding ring. When you were in Florida, you lied to me about the cell phone...even after you promised me that you would never lie to me again. I gave you a second chance and you are ruining it. Why tell me an elaborate story about you coming home on a train....telling me in a chat on gmail that you were on the train, coming home...when the phone records show that your calls were still originating from Washington DC? Now the records only go to February 28th, but as you were telling me that you were elsewhere at the time...I have already caught you in a lie.

How many more lies do I have to find out? Why do you keep telling me that you want to be with me...that you want to spend the rest of your life with me, when your actions clearly show that you do not? This, you cannot blame on PTSD....this stems from choices that you have made. And choices that you actively choose, even now, to make by not telling me the truth...even when I have promised not to be upset.

I am not sure what my feelings are anymore. My gut still tells me that you are seeking help....but I don't know where or with whom. I don't know when I will see you again, or how you will get home. Because you probably have no money to buy a ticket from anywhere as you have probably already pawned MY camera and OUR portable DVD player, leaving me to try to pay for the library stuff that you took out and racking up the bills on. I almost feel like it was pointless to even ask if there really was a job. Although I still think that there was. And if you lost the job, I can only assume that it was because you had a problem while in DC. I wondered if you were alright when I talked to you and you had been out drinking with friends. I wonder if it was then that something happened....a flashback based off of our conversation when we were talking about Rwanda...you were so angry with the UN and I was trying to calm you down.

I am oddly calm, and I don't even know what that means.Did I expect this? No. I wanted to believe in you, to trust in you...and I don't know what is real anymore. I do know that I don't want to spend my life alone. I want my husband and the future that we have planned. But I don't want to be strung along, to be lied to. I don't want this uncertainty anymore. I had thought that we were making a breakthrough. You sounded so confident this morning when you said that you didn't regret that you had turned yourself in for treatment. And I was so glad that you were happy with your treatment, that you were learning new things. Maybe I can understand now why coming home frightens you so much....there is so much that you would have to come clean about. So much error. And maybe this is me, being Penelope, endlessly waiting, weaving tales of hope during the day only to unravel them each night. Penelope whose Odyssues comes home briefly, only to have him leave again. I wonder how this story ends? Can we create a happy ending?

I love you.

Day One Completed Successfully!

My dear editor Amira on Global Voices is taking a much needed vacation this week, and I get to cover her duties while she is gone. Besides checking the other authors in our region's posts before they go onto the site, I am responsible for finding 5-10 interesting weblinks a day from regional bloggers. I have just completed my first day of tasks...and I am sooo excited. Everything was posted correctly...hooray! I think that I will be less nervous as the week goes on, but I am really excited about getting this opportunity. Plus, I like to watch my author post count go up and for the first time ever I am listed on the awesome authors of the week list....I hope to make it to the list for the month too!

ok, gush off.

sunday downers

I have nothing to say, yet I am compelled to write...which obviously doesn't make for interesting reading.

Sunday is seeming to be quite the downer so far....even with sleeping in. I actually slept in! The only problem with that was that I had dreams that Mr.3 and I were cuddling in bed, and it was a disappointment (to say the least) to wake up and find that there weren't arms wrapped around me after all. He didn't call last night, although I talked to him early yesterday morning. I wish that my moods and emotions on this wouldn't move as drastically as they seem too. Of course, to everyone else I am just friendly and emotionally aloof.

After I finished the Operators Manual to Combat PTSD, I was feeling REALLY good about things, even my anger issues. I felt good about the situation. Now I am in a general downer....but I think that it is a whole list of other things today and not just Mr.3. This could be a good side, that I am worrying about things other than him today.

I got a D on my Course Design midterm, and while if I do well in the rest of the class I will still be able to get a B...it worries me. After getting the C in Syntax last semester and having to petition to be able to retake it....getting another C in something and having to go through this process again will more than likely get me thrown out of the program. And it would be horrible to get to the end of my Masters program, only to be kicked out of it. I was really shocked by my mid-term grade...like thrown off my feet kinda shocked, because I really thought that I understood everything. Another cosmic curveball. I hope that this isn't like repayment for blogging about being annoyed with the bug and JB....cause that is just uncool. In any case, I need to start working on that project anyway.

Yesterday's seminar went off without a hitch...like everything was perfect. It was great, and most importantly....Linda was really happy with me. I live for those moments, of knowing that I did a good job...but also that someone else was really happy with my performance. And even though I am saddened that I didn't get the Outreach job with GV, I expect it is for the best...besides it should be enough to be great at one Outreach job...can the world really handle me with two of them?

Well....as this rambling post continues on...I am trying to have an active Sunday. Jimmy has been complaining about his need to do laundry, which is fine, he just needs to finish it. And as I have laundry to do today too, so I have been riding him on it everytime the dryer stops. hee hee. I made a list of things to do today, a list that for once is quite achievable for one day and I have been making fairly good headway on it...if anything, just to keep myself busy.

I really really really want Mr.3 to be home, if anything just to talk to him. Even with all of this drama, we understand each other...and I know that he would make me feel better.

No, he isn't home yet

Yesterday was a hard day as I heard absolutely nothing from Mr.3. I kept it together, but I am sure that I felt distant to some of the people I was around. They apparently are staggering the release of the gentlemen in the pilot program. 3 were allowed to go home yesterday, and today there are going to release 3 or 4, but those individuals will not find out if they are going home today until after the group meeting...which ends at six. I asked Mr.3 to ensure that he got a phone call this evening regardless of the news. While I have been able to chat online with him twice today....hearing his voice is so much better.

A couple books came in the mail yesterday, and the one that I have started to read is absolutely fantastic. It is called "An Operators Manual for Combat PTSD" it has gone into alot of what is going on in the brain of combat vets, specifically what is happening during flashbacks...and it explains exactly what is going on in the brain during a dissociative state (and why things happen like they do). Initially, it was really hard for me to comprehend that Mr.3 didn't really know where he was last Fall....not concretely anyway. And even if he was told, while he was in that state, it wouldn't have mattered anyway because his brain wouldn't have let him comprehend that information.

And last night Jimmy and Libby went with me to a talk by Dr. Jonathan Shay, who has written the book Odysseus in America-Combat Trama and the Trials of Homecoming. While he waxed poetic in the speech, focusing more on the elements of the story the Odyssey that portrayed Odysseus as a combat veteran, he could have talked more about PTSD itself. For the audience there though, it was good. I would have liked to hear more. Libby and Jimmy talked on and on about how they had a hard time focusing during his talk....but I was riveted because the actions of Odysseus mirrored Mr.3 to a tee. I bought his book, and had him sign it for Mr.3. He was very polite and asked if he was a combat veteran. I said that Mr.3 was and that I was his Penelope. I was starting to well up the tears, and after that point I couldn't talk very much beyond "thank you". But when I said the comment, Dr. Shay looked up at me with such compassion and understanding...it was the understanding that really struck me...because I haven't met someone who really understands what I am going through, and what I am trying to accomplish. He said that he hoped the book helped, but he said more than that with his eyes.

Mr.3 has said a couple of times that I should write a book about this....and most of the time I have dismissed it, but I have been giving it serious thought today. Maybe I should. Maybe I would be able to be a resource for the other Penelopes in the world. I even have a working title---which I copyright now---Embracing Penelope- Finding Hope and Strength for the Combat Veteran Wife. Sounds pretty good to me, now we just have to see if I will do anything with it.

well....here it is...

I talked to Mr.3 for 8 minutes before I went to my class. Not much was said except reiterations of what was typed about earlier.

I cried. Of course.

And in the few moments that I had I told him a little about the anger that I am housing. I am sure that it didn't help him, but it helped me. He said that he would call me again between 8 and 9...which as of 10:30 this evening hasn't happened. So in many ways nothing has changed and I sadly have proven my prediction abilities correct.

Mr.3 is due to be released around 6 or 7 in the evening tomorrow. I hope that it is closer to 6 than 7, because I want to see a speaker at one of the local colleges who will be speaking on PTSD. I tried to find his book in the library ...before I heard about the lecture actually.... but the one I wanted to read was not there. So if I am lucky they might have copies of his books there...and if not at least I will get to hear what he has to say. His books have taken Homer's Iliad and the Odyssey and applied the basic themes to today's veterans. It sounded pretty cool, but the library only had the one focused on Vietnam vets and that demographic doesn't have the same specific issues as the newest vets...which is what I am more interested in.

In my class this evening, it dawned on me that I prefer to hang out with the two military guys in the class than anybody else. I was talking with Jared and we got on the subject of not sleeping and how when he was deployed in Iraq his sleeping schedule was all messed up....then we started talking about sleeping medications and the need soldiers have for them. It struck me as strange after we both started to talk about being startle sleepers...I never thought that I would be able to have a conversation like that with a military person before. It is amazing how Mr.3 has changed my worldview. And while I am frustrated and angry alot with the current situation....I am grateful that I have been given the honor of being able to see this world, even with all of its craziness.

My question is, can you handle all of my moods? I am not sure if I can, and they seem to rule me.

I hope that Mr.3 can come home tomorrow. It would be nice to have him around again....although the transition will be difficult. I still would like to have him back.

I am in that awful transition state between being at work and finding my way to class. I can't focus on reviewing and I really don't want to go...but you kinda have to if there are only 10 people in the class.

I typed with Mr.3 today for about 20 minutes. He says that he is due to be released on Thursday. I don't know what time, or much specifics because he refuses to call me. It seems that rather than dealing with my disappointment at getting bad news from him...he decided that it would be better just to not call me at all. I guess that it is the "out of sight out of mind" mentality...which doesn't really work for a marriage.

I am furious with him. And I have every right to be. Him not calling me or arranging it so that I have little contact time with him is creating more frustration....but he seems determined to ignore things and hope that they will go away. You would think that by now he realize that things just don't go away like that....but then again, that is why we are in this position in the first place.

When I typed with him this morning he said that he would call me between his break from 11:30 to 12:30. Of course, no call. Then he has a break between 3:30 and 6...exactly when I am in class. So my only real hope for him to call me is after 8...which means that he will not call me at all tonight. And that angers me even more.

I am torn as to whether I should even bring my phone with me to class....this doesn't categorize as an emergency by any means. And I haven't yet figured out how to put my phone on silent...vibrate yes, but not silent.

I wish that this was easier.

And then I miss him again....

I had been waiting all day to see hear from him...and the one time that I am away from my desk, I miss his message. I was so upset I just broke down and cried at work...shutting my office door so that other wouldn't hear me...despite the 80 degree heat in my off because the air is broken.

2:01 PM Michael: are you online?

2:02 PM We get released on thursday. It will be 21 days of treatment not counting the 3 days of tests and evaluations

I got your vm and spent my whole session with the doctor today going over it

it was a difficult message, but I think i understsand what you need and what you mean, so i will happily arrange for myhoney to pick me up

2:03 PM I will try to gt online later and I will call you as well

I love you

xoxoxoxox

7 minutes

2:10 PM me: god dammit, I just barely missed you!!!!

I miss....

...burying my head in his chest, knowing that his arms will wrap around me, and for a moment the world and all of its worries are gone as I enjoy this time in a bubble of his scent- breathing.

....his weight on the opposite side of the bed-subconsciously knowing that he is there protecting me in life and in dreams...instead of me waking up in the middle of the night, lost and alone-searching.

.....hearing the sound of him shaving in the morning while I shower, knowing that when all is quiet that I can expect to open my eyes and see him peeking through the curtains at me-smiling.

......the normalcy of love and companionship-waiting.

See I Told You...

I told you that Mr.3 wouldn't come home yesterday. Even after all that he said yesterday on the gmail chat about being able to come home after his group session and that he would call me after his meeting to let me know what was happening. Well no call and no Mr.3. I guess that I am not surprised. He was going to come home any day, today, for 5 months last fall.

In some ways I have made progress. I have learned to let go of the responsibility of his PTSD. But that is partly because he will not let me be involved in the process. And according to the books that I have been reading, my repressed anger is turning into depression. Big surprise. I can't deal with my repressed anger however until I can have him around on a regular basis...so it is back to the status quo of me waiting...

and waiting....

and waiting.

Sad Sunday

It has come to my attention that once again...I have been married together with Mr.3 just as long as I have been married apart from Mr.3. It truly is depressing.

And in theory, Mr.3 is supposed to be released tomorrow. Although there has been nothing done about bringing in the family...just empty promises made to the patients about it. Supposedly something is going to be talked about in group about coming home....but again...I think that it is an empty promise.

I hate where I am right now. I hate being married in name only. I hate this uncertainty...I hate being told that I have to just deal with all of this. I hate having the burden of supporting everyone else but myself on my shoulders.

I bought myself a badly needed pair of tennis shoes this weekend....and all I could do is feel guilty for it. I finally got my hair re-permed after almost a year....and I felt guilty about it. And of course, everyone says that I deserve it and that I need to treat myself from time to time. Well fuck that! Why do I have to be the one to treat myself?! Why can't someone treat me for a change?! Why can't someone help me out with everything that gets dumped upon me?! Why do I have to be the one who is the silent and obedient support?!!

And yes, I am angry. And yes, I am frustrated. Mr.3 is supposed to come home this week....and I don't think that he will. Part of me feels that he will never come back....that I am again stuck in a neverending loop of only him getting help and him telling me that he will be home soon, be home soon. And that soon never happens. What is there to make me feel like this time will be any different? How am I not supposed to feel abandoned?

In any case, if he comes home this week I am ready for him. The house is clean, I finally went through all of the piles of junk mail and shredded what needed to be shredded and filed what needed to be filed, the laundry is done, the mattress is flipped, I even re-did the spice cabinet and inventoried everything with scary efficiency.

On the surface, everything looks like it is alright. But it isn't. I feel broken, hopeless and hollow.

The Call of Africa

I just finished watching the Constant Gardner, for the second time. I saw it several months ago--back when Mr.3 was gone the first time. I thought that it was a great movie, nice love story...all that jazz. This time it was very different. Again Mr.3 is gone...but now I have all of that reading about Africa under my belt. I find Africa heartbreaking and haunting. So much pain in so much beauty.

And the UN can't (or won't) do anything. Drop the food and hope that it gets to the right people. Evacuate as soon as something goes wrong....no effort to resolve anything. Or you could take the opposite view that nothing can be done in Africa, that it is a hopeless cause. Which, just the thought of is more horrible than the reality.

Useless Information that I think I need

So I found this link today to a collection of bios about all of the New York socialite scene. My first response was, "wow! this is great information, I should bookmark this!"

Then reality hit in.

When am I ever going to need to know who the whos who of New York is? I live in Utah for goodness sakes. And the one time that I was in New York, it was at the JFK airport...no one would help me figure out how to go from the International Terminal to the Domestic Terminal....I was incredibly sick with diarrhea from Typhoid exposure in Turkey...and I had to run outside of the airport with all of my luggage in the street from the International terminal to find the entrance to the other terminal. The closest I got to New York life was almost being hit by a taxi cab.

But I think that I am going to bookmark it anyway....just for shits and giggles.

Well being the Princess is still pretty ok.

You Are a Drama Princess (or Prince)

You're not over the top dramatic, but you have your moments. You know how to steal the spotlight... And how to act out to get your way. People around you know that you're good for a laugh. But at times, your drama gets a bit too much for everyone. Tone it down a tad, and you'll still be the center of attention.

Are You a Drama Queen (or King)?

Hummm...I don't know. What do you think?

Your Personality Profile

You are pure, moral, and adaptable. You tend to blend into your surroundings. Shy on the outside, you're outspoken to your friends. You believe that you live a virtuous life... And you tend to judge others with a harsh eye. As a result, people tend to crave your approval.

The World's Shortest Personality Test

Listening for Scooter...

I did two great things this week...one, paid the rent (Hooray!) and two, gave 500 badly needed dollars to my parents. I also have the satisfaction of a completely full pantry (and a secret stash of girl scout cookies that my brother hasn't found yet). Tomorrow I am taking off from work and I am going to -finally- get my perm re-done. The straight hair grow out is only 8 inches long. I think that I have waited long enough.

I have given the turtles a bath and they are now running around the house. Or rather, Scooter is running around the house and Zippy...moved. It is a little easier to keep track of them now that we are in a house with hard wood floors because you can hear them clomping around. Although I am sure that they would rather be able to run around on carpet. I am also reminded of just how old and feeble Zippy is getting. Zippy has definitely hit his prime. The oldest that most box turtles get is to be 25 years old...and Zippy is pushing the 25 and beating all of the odds. When they were given to us over ten years ago....the previous owner did not keep them in the best of conditions (too wet) and most of Zippy's undershell is gone, it is bare bone on the carapace. The vet didn't think that he would live a couple of years with the shell like that...well 10 years later...he is still kicking...sort of.

After their bath I placed both of them in the living room on the rug. Scooter took off to explore and Zippy kinda hung out in the towel. After about an hour he poked his head out of the towel and it looked like he was watching television. (I know that the computer has fascinated Scooter when I have had it on and on the floor before---and of course if you are taking them in the car anywhere they like to look out the window.) Then Zippy kinda hoisted himself up, took the equivalent of feeble-old-man-steps for about three feet and then deposited himself in a corner to go back to sleep.

I wonder what a walker made for a turtle would look like?

An update: Zippy has woken up again and is watching my brother intently as he is drawing on the floor. And Scooter I think has himself stuck, wedged behind a bookcase (he isn't too good in reverse)....he is giving me that "Can you get up and help me?" look. One day he will realize that he just can't make himself flat to fit into places.

Or maybe he won't. Probably not.

Newroz (Kurdish)/Norouz (Persian)

Below is a reproduction of an article I did for work on Newroz, the holiday marking the beginning of Spring and the New Year for many Middle Eastern Cultures.

Norouz- Happy New Year!

Norouz is Persian for “New Day” and marks the New Year’s holiday for people in Iran, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Albania, India, Turkey, Zanzibar, various countries of Central Asia, and among ethnic Kurds. The holiday is also a holy day for those of the Zoroastrian and Baha’i faiths as well as some Sufi sects of Islam.
Rather than celebrating the New Year at the end of the calendar year, Norouz is celebrated on the first day of Spring, the vernal equinox, which occurs each year around March 21st. Traditions vary depending on the community for the celebration of Norouz, but we thought that we would share some of the more interesting ones here.

The Haft Sin-
One of the major Iranian traditions of Norouz is the setting of the Haft Sin- the seven ‘S’s, seven items starting with the letter S or sin in Persian. The seven items on the table symbolically correspond to the seven creations and the seven holy immortals protecting them. While some of the items on the table have changed, the symbolism remains the same. Common items (and their symbolism) found on a traditional Haft Sin table include:
-sabzeh- wheat, barley or lentil sprouts growing in a dish (rebirth)
-samanu- a sweet pudding made from wheat germ (affluence)
-senjed- the dried fruit of the oleaster tree (love)
-sir-garlic (medicine)
-sib- apples (beauty and health)
-somaq- sumac berries (the color of sunrise)
-serkeh- vinegar (age and patience)
-sonbol- the hyacinth flower (the coming of Spring)
-sekkeh- coins (prosperity and wealth)

Others items found could include: traditional Iranian pastries, lit candles (enlightenment and happiness), a mirror, painted eggs, a bowl with two goldfish (life, and the sign of Pisces which the sun is leaving), a bowl of water with an orange in it (the earth floating in space) and a holy book.

Hajji Firuz-
The traditional herald of the Norouz season is Hajji Firuz. He symbolizes the rebirth of the Sumerian god of sacrifice, Domuzi, who was killed at the end of each year and reborn at the beginning of the New Year. He uses face paint to make his skin black and wears a red costume. Then he sings and dances through the streets with a tambourine, spreading good cheer and announcing the coming of the New Year.


Chaharshanbe Suri-the Iranian Festival of Fire-
Celebrated on the last Wednesday before the New Year (Norouz), this festival is a celebration of the light (the good) winning over the darkness (the bad). The tradition includes people going into the streets and alleys to make fires, and then jumping over the fires to symbolize passing their bad health and luck from the past year to the fire in exchange for the good.
It is said that the living are visited at this time by the spirit of their ancestors on the last days of the year. Children often dress up in shrouds to re-enact these visits. They go from door to door to “visit” and ask for treats, very similar to Halloween in the West. There are also several other traditions on this night, including the rituals of Kuzeh Shekastan, the breaking of earthen jars which symbolically hold one’s bad fortune; the ritual of Fal-Gush, or inferring one's future from the conversations of those passing by; and the ritual of Gereh-gosha’i, making a knot in the corner of a handkerchief or garment and asking the first passerby to unravel it in order to remove one’s misfortune. Prior to the beginning of these celebrations, tradition holds for a through spring-cleaning of all homes in order to welcome in the New Year.

The Legend of Kawa the Blacksmith-
There are many stories that tell the tale of the beginning of the celebration of Norouz; one of the more famous myths surrounding the holiday is the Kurdish Legend of Kawa the Blacksmith.
Once upon a time there was an evil Assyrian king named Dehak. The king and his kingdom were cursed because of his wickedness. The sun refused to shine and it was impossible to grow any food. The king Dehak had the added curse of having two snakes attached to his shoulders. When the snakes were hungry he was in great pain, and the only thing that would satisfy the hunger of the snakes were the brains of children. So every day, two of the children from the local villages were killed and their brains fed to the snakes.
Kawa was the local blacksmith and hated the king, as 16 of his 17 children had been sacrificed for the King’s snakes. When he received word that his last child, a daughter, was to be killed he came up with a plan to save her. Instead of sacrificing his daughter, Kawa had sacrificed a sheep and had given the sheep’s brain to the King. The difference was not noticed. When others heard of Kawa’s trickery they all did the same; at night they would send their children up to the mountains with Kawa where they would be safe. The children flourished in the mountains and Kawa created an army from the children to end the evil king’s reign.
When their numbers were great enough, they came down from the mountains and stormed the castle. Kawa himself cast the fatal blow to the evil king, Dehak. To tell the news to the people of Mesopotamia he built a large bonfire, which lit up the sky and cleansed the air of the evilness of Dehak’s reign. That very morning, the sun began to shine again and the lands began to grow once more. This is the beginning of the “New Day” or Newroz as it is spelled in Kurdish.


Sources:
Wikipedia- http://en.wikipedia.org
The Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies- http://www.cais-soas.com
Kurdish Media- http://kurdishmedia.com

spring break day 1

I swear, I have spent most of today thinking that it was Tuesday.

Nothing really to report, but I feel compelled to blog...maybe I should go and do something productive, like read. Or not. I did manage to not only make dinner today (I made hamburgers!) but I also managed to finish the dishes before 24 came on.

Work was great today...the campus is sooo peaceful during Spring break. No students, isn't that the way it should always be?

Sunday Sunday

Quiet day today, even if I have been up since 5am. Talked to Mr.3 for a little bit this evening. I can't shake the feeling that he is avoiding me....just like I can't shake the feeling of being abandoned. It takes me awhile to process these calls. I am not sure if I handle them well. I live for them though.

I am aging rapidly. My skin is breaking out---quite frustrating to be dealing with acne at 27---and no matter how much I wash my face and how much moisturizer I put on, I still feel like my face is sagging. I am probably imagining it....or maybe I feel like I am aging so because rather than smiling I clench my teeth alot. I did that when Jimmy was in the hospital for his mental stuff. Rather than breaking down, I just clenched my jaw to stay focused for the rest of the family. My teeth suffered dearly for this...I had to get a crown because one of my teeth crumbled under the stress. And I know that I need to go back to the Dentist, my teeth are going to fall out at this rate. I wonder what the average age for getting dentures is? Although I am not sure that I want to raise children having to expand to them why mommy keeps her teeth in a glass next to her bedside.

I miss smiling. Mr.3 makes me smile.

My mom said something interesting tonight that struck me. I was telling her that I would feel so much better if only I could get confirmation that Mr.3 is where he says. She told me that during the times that he has been gone, I was happiest when he was in jail, because at least then...something was certain. Nothing is certain anymore.

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

The Drag Show I Never Told You About

Sometime in January, I think, the Utah Pride Center held a small benefit for their youth group TINT. My brother has been going to the Center since he has moved up here and I think that it has been a wonderful experience for him. Each year they have a drag show called Vanity. What makes this show different than the ones that they hold every month, is that Vanity is the one time that parents and members of the community are allowed into the facility. Of course I took this opportunity...and I dragged Mr.3 along.

I got to meet some of Jimmy's friends (and love interests) and it was a good opportunity for me to donate money to the Center. Jimmy eats there alot and while their services are free, I still feel like I should contribute, if anything for the food that he eats there.

Whenever I talk about this show, I talk about how cute it was...the little draq-queens in waiting. Some of them were really good, some were horrible....but it is interesting to watch this transition, this process of these youth trying to find themselves.

The best performance by far was done by a young man named Tim. Dressed straight out of the 80's with matching tights, heels, and legwarmers he performed a remix of the song "I'm so excited". While the video below does not do justice to the energy in the room and how funny and original the performance was....you can still get a taste for it.

early, early morning

I wish that I could sleep through the night. Rather than what does happen. I go to bed at 10:30 because I am exhausted....but don't fall asleep until 11 or 11:30. And then I wake up between 4:30 and 5:00, still exhausted and confused as to why my body woke me up. I try to go back to sleep, which I manage to do until 6:30 when I normally get up to get ready for work...which for some reason is really super hard to get out of bed. The rest of the day I spend tired.

It is the weekend for goodness sakes, I found be able just to sleep and sleep and sleep.

After yesterday's post, Mr.3 called me for 11 minutes. We talked about his day, it felt like pulling teeth to get any information about his appointments and such....and very little about mine. Not that it was spectacular or anything, but I sorta wanted to tell him about the Zonta Club of Salt Lake Website that I am developing. Oh well. The site is definitely in its rough stages, but I am proud of the banner because I made it myself....even down to finding the pieces so that I could create the logo in the "approved" manner of Zonta International.

hu-blah...

Well I finally have a weekend off, and with no impeding deadlines I am not sure how to handle myself. I have been so tired lately that reading has been difficult--hard to get my eyes to stay focused. The past 2 days the phone calls that I have had from Mr.3 have been about 7 minutes long, with promises that they will be a second call that is longer. That call never comes.

I am frustrated. A married woman without a husband...or rather a married woman who is not allowed to see her husband, whether it is him or his doctors that have made that decision I don't know. If only he would call. It is hard not to feel abandoned.

I read alot about PTSD and coping with it and all of that fun stuff, I find new things every day...I am pretty sure that Mr.3 and I are not in a codependent relationship....if we were I would really be going off the wall. Everything says that this is something that has to be worked on together. And that this isn't something that I can control. Well that's great, like I have any control or any say.

I didn't call the VA and beat down doors to get us therapy, because Mr.3 wanted to be the responsible one to do it. And I let him take that role because I didn't want to be overbearing. The result....he is getting help somewhere and I have been completely pushed out of it. I understand that what has happened to him is his, and that there is nothing I can do to make it go away for him. However, what effects him, effects me...and I feel like I have been put into the put-up or shut-up position.

I have never criticized him for not being able to provide. Never. I felt that he beats himself up too much about it anyway...I didn't want to create more tension by letting my anger out. But I am angry, I am hurt. He was so busy worrying about the job that he lost, that he completely pulled away, and any help he could have given me was taken away. So the "paycheck" that we desperately needed....never came. I bit down on my pride, and gave him my trust to let him go and take this job.... that was a huge thing for me. I don't think that he really realizes that. And then he let a small mistake go to his head and he completely shut me out. Completely.

I can't trust my husband to fulfill the promises he has made to me. He gives me no support. And every time some crisis happens, I know that I can count on him to not be there. I know that I will not be able to count on him being there for holidays. I want to have children with him someday...but I plan for that knowing that he will not be there when I need him. When I think of our future....I look at the plans that we have made, and I know that I will always have to be the one bringing in the money. I will struggle all of my life to try to live the appearance of a comfortable existence.

I wasn't asking for the world, I was asking to be met half-way.

My problem is that I love him completely. That even through all of this loneliness and gloom, I still hold hope that we will be able to get past all of this. That one day we will be able to live a happy life that resembles normalcy.

And now, I am going to admit some fears that I haven't admitted to anyone. I believe that my husband pawned his wedding ring last year. He seems to treat it like it was just something trivial that he has misplaced. He doesn't seem too concerned about getting it back or getting it replaced. I feel like that is how he is treating me. I am a trivial object. I also think that he pawned my camera and the portable DVD player that we got as a christmas gift this last Christmas when he went to DC. Why? Because I just can't see his friend "loaning" him $200. I believe that even now he is still lying to me. And stupid me..I am always going to be gullible enough to believe him....and foolish enough to never leave him for it.

Can it be that his getting therapy is ruining our marriage? He has lied to me for so long, asked me to accept so much....and I can't even get confirmation that he is getting help like he says he is. When I talk to him, he tells me about how wonderful the treatment is, and how he is learning so much about himself. And he tells me that he is frustrated that I haven't been brought into this process yet....Big fucking deal...How is this not just more of him stringing me along?

And of course he will read this...and call me with that quiet little voice of his, trying to apologize. I can't take any more apologies because the words feel empty, rehearsed. I need action. I need him to be a man, I need him to show me that he really does care about me and about us and about our future.

I try to hide my feelings, my hurt. I have always had to be "the strong one" for everyone else. When do I get to break down? When do I get the luxury of having someone care for me? And no matter how much I want to break down and give in to my inner drama queen ...I know that I can't. I've got work and school, and Jimmy and my parents and my husband....all of those things that I have to care of.

I stupidly answered the phone earlier, it was a call from the bug. I have been invited to dinner at her house tomorrow and I don't know how to get out of it. I can't think of any way to do it and not leave someone with hurt feelings. While Wendy and Hamida are going to be there, two people I like and feel comfortable with....I can't shake the feeling that this is an attempt on the bug's part to finally find out all of the gossip. And of course, if I tell her that I can't go because of emotional reasons...she will just push more and more and more. I can't trust her anyway. I can't find a way out of this.

To make it all worse, I don't even know what to tell people anymore anyway. To some extent, people haven't been asking about Mr.3....maybe they are all worried that I will crack and they will be flooded with a situation that they really didn't want to hear about. Maybe no one asks anymore because I just don't leave my office. I work and work and work...and hope that people can leave it at that.

I guess that if I have to accept all that I do, that they should be able to do the same.

And I wish that I could tell this to someone and have it matter, rather than just pouring my heart out to a keyboard. But why go to some therapist who is just going to tell me to run away? I don't want to run away. I want to make this work. I want to be able to be given the chance to make this work. Just to be given the chance. I am not even asking to be met half-way anymore, because that was too much. Just a chance, a toehold in the door...something, anything.....please.

My Brother is the one to blame for getting this stuck in my head.

You Are A Good Friend

You're always willing to listen Or lend a shoulder to cry on You're there through thick and thin Many people consider you their "best friend"!

What Kind of Friend Are You?

You Are Olive Green

You are the most real of all the green shades. You're always true to yourself. For you, authenticity and honesty are very important... both in others and yourself. You are grounded and secure. It takes a lot to shake you. People see you as dependable, probably the most dependable person they know.

What Color Green Are You?

oh so busy....

I feel like I have hardly been at home lately....and the smelly dishes in the sink confirm it.

Midterms this week....I think that I passed them, but probably not with flying colors.

I finally went to a Zonta meeting again. It has been forever. We had a speaker last night that was pretty good, she was one of the co-authors of God's Brothel, a book about escaping Mormon polygamy. She only spoke for 20 minutes and then 10 minutes of questions....definitely not enough time. I think that I am going to try to arrange some volunteer hours with her organization, Tapestry Against Polygamy. It seems like they are doing some fantastic work. And of course, every time I go to Zonta I want to be more involved...I just think that my personal life has lead to some distractions. They want me to update their website, and I think that we should definitely create a google group for them.

News on the Mr.3 front. Therapy has been going very very well. He says that he is making alot of progress. And they are allowing him more access to things like the internet. They let him chat online with me for a half hour yesterday....and a phone call. It was really nice. Not as nice as it would be to have him home, but sometimes you just have to take what you can get. One day someone will allow me to be a part of this process...until that time I guess I get to mine reserves from my finite amount of patience.

Anyway, should pretend to work at the moment. Hopefully the next podcast for work will be approved today and i can get it up on our website.

Spring Frustrations

The weather is beautiful today and I would love to be walking around the neighborhood with Mr.3 at the moment. And as I have been craving grilled cheese sandwiches...I also wish that he was hear to make me one of his clog-your-arteries grilled cheese sandwiches right now. And a hug. That would be nice.

I left work frustrated today. I am in this constant struggle to get my boss to be happy with my job performance and I am just not feeling it today. I have learned that you need to work on her schedule....if she is working on something, you better be too...or you will just get frustrated. But even though she is predictable it is the unpredictable that I can't handle. All last week and the week before as well...she told me not to worry about the podcasts....don't deal with it, we don't have time, she said. Well now this week...as I feel like I am scrambling to finish what I couldn't get done last week because we were working on her schedule...she wants the podcasts done....NOW. It really isn't that much, and it is partly spring fever hitting me and latent stress....but I am feeling it today. I want her to be proud of me, but I can't tell at the moment if I am letting her down, me down, or just plain over-reacting.

Heavy Breathers

Just barely made the elevator after class in the library today. When I ran in there were 3 people already in there. The two women in the elevator were on opposite ends with a guy in the middle. All throughout the 1 minute ride I could only hear the women....

breathing.....

heavy
slow
raspy
congested breaths

One would breathe....then the over....

It was creepy. All I could do was hold my breath and wait for the ride to end.

conversations

the past two days I have been able to talk to Mr.3 a little bit more. Yesterday for a full half hour! It was nice, we just prattled on to the other about nothing in particular just to hear the other one speak. And i just got off of a short phone call with him now.

An update on that grad student, 2 cracked ribs....and he has been removed from the unit. There are 14 other people in this program, and only one of them is from Vietnam. Mr.3 likes this because there are more guys there who are closer in age to him and have been through similar things. Apparently all of them are having to deal with not being able to see their families...Mr.3 just hopes that they are trying to baseline everyone to see when they are ready for that next step. He has an appointment with the female doctor today and is hoping to hear good news. He has, after all, been in this program for 7 days and there is only 2 weeks left. They should start bringing in family soon anyway.

I finished "In the Company of Heroes" yesterday, it was really good, and I cried throughout the ending. Mr.3 told the guys in his group that I had been doing a lot of reading to try to understand more of what he went through and they were quite impressed. I am going to read Black Hawk Down after I finish "Shake Hands with the Devil". It was written by the UN General that was stationed in Rwanda during the genocide. He has had a long battle with PTSD as well, so I hope that I find it somewhat enlightening.

Other than that, I am super ticked off because of daylight savings...I didn't have that much energy to be sapped of to being with.