Blog Archives

Project 365- March 31

03/31/2011

March 31- It's five o'clock somewhere.

Project 365- March 30

03/30/2011

March 30- Mother Mary, Match Maker

My husband was reading my blog last night just before we slipped under the covers for a stupid movie and some cuddles. The stupid movie and cuddles only happened after he played one more game of Black Ops and I was nearly asleep, but it truly is the thought that counts. Plus, I have it on good authority that only a selfish bitch would stand in the way of her husband reaching prestige again. So, Johnny is reading this blog when he turns to me and says, "It doesn't bother you that the people we know here are reading this?"

Now, this could mean one of two things.
One. Johnny is bothered that the people we know here are reading this blog. Or
Two. He really wants to know if I am bothered that the people we know here are reading this blog.

You have to know Johnny to understand that he could only mean number two in this scenario. (Oh, that makes me laugh so much... "he could only mean number two!" YES!) Or maybe you don't, friends. Maybe your menfolk are the same as my Johnny. He just means what he says and says what he means. There's no hidden meaning or secret agenda. He honest-to-God just wants to know if I am bothered by the idea of people I know and see where we live reading this blog.

I guess, I never really thought about it. I mean, I know folks read my blog. The website will get close to 128K hits in March and not all of those hits are from people looking for a free sample of deodorant or my latest recipe. (Although, I did just post my lo mein recipe and it is to die for.) Some folks are looking for a ride on the Crazy Train over here on Mother Blogger. It's who those folks are that I never considered. I guess I think of my readers like some men think of the people who populate their porn- nameless people they will never know.

Now, don't be offended by that comparison, friends. I make that comparison with love and no judgment. I swear to God, I just never seriously considered that people who know me now, where we live, would be reading this. I imagine there is some force field keeping the bargain hunters on that side of the website while I work out my crazies over here. Johnny wasn't talking about people I would "know" through the frugal blog or even my CovNews column. He didn't mean facebook folks or via email friends. Not people we knew back in the day in Satsuma and Mobile or people we knew in Biloxi or more recently, Danielsville and Elberton. He means people I see as I go about the busyness of living. Johnny means our band parents, his students, our neighbors, his family, our wave at each other friends, his co-workers, my volunteer buddies, the parents of our children's friends. He means people I know in real life.

I felt so embarrassed, so naked all the sudden. I suppose, in my head, I had this filter set on the world wide web. Everyone that lives in Covington, Georgia just couldn't read my Mother Blogger bullshit. They couldn't see me like that. They'd see the column and the sweet mama and they may even get a peek at my crazies, but only what I wanted to show them- the nice, positive outcomes version of mental illness and soul work. Not this. Not me, standing in the middle of the school yard in my underwear, holding a Strawberry Shortcake lunchbox and a busted up satchel. (For the record, I did have a hand-me-down, dented Strawberry Shortcake lunchbox and a busted up a satchel at one point in my early academic career, but I never really had the naked at school dream. I just figured some of y'all had, so I was just tryin' to make y'all understand the whole vulnerable vibe I was going for there.)
Come to find out, my readers aren't like nameless, faceless porn stars. They're the people that pop up in my everyday life and I need to get a handle on the idea that I've let them see my deepest, darkest crazies. See, if you read this and don't comment or email me, it's like it never happened. I keep forgetting that these words go out there and anyone, anywhere can access them. I imagine the closest they get to me is just east of here in the big city of Atlanta.
Johnny asked me that question because this isn't some hypothetical situation. This is not a drill, Beth. People know I'm insane. Not just because I act like it sometimes, but because I've openly declared it right here in this blog. People are bringing up what I write here in casual conversations with my husband and my teenager. I can't help but feel embarrassed for them, even though they both tell me how proud they are of me. You have to know Johnny and the teenager to truly understand they really don't care if anyone knows how bat shit crazy I am. I'm more worried about them weathering this storm of mama's crazies than I am about what folks are saying to them about it.

Johnny and my teenager don't care who knows what or what those people might think because they really only have one version of themselves they give to people. They are who they are no matter who is watching. They are real. I know that working through this insanity will help me heal. This healing will lead to realness, that level of authenticity I want for my own life. I may live with purpose. I may live passionately. But it is the realness I crave.
Even though my life is crazy and weird right now, it's still my life. I put it out here because I know intuitively that part of being real means being who I am in an arena where people from all the segregated corners of my journey can be present. I have no choice but to be this thing that I am. Prescriptions, breakdowns, oatmeal pies and all. I need to throw this madness out where it can see the light of day because it won't be so easy for it to crawl back in later on when things start looking normal again.

Even though, the people I see everyday may be reading this blog, I'm not going to cover anything up and pretend like nothing is going on over here. If you know me in my everyday life and you're reading this blog, don't ask my husband if I'm feeling better. Crazy isn't like the flu. I'm not going to recover after a round of antibiotics or bedrest. You may have been raised to not talk about such things in public, so I'll give you an easy out- I'm insane. I'm on meds. I'm in the middle of a very long journey. You can send me well wishes like I have a head cold or you can stand beside me and let me know you may not understand, but you got my back. I'd rather you stand beside me, but if you can't do that, it's cool.

So, Johnny, my love, I am finally ready to answer that question of yours. No, it doesn't bother me that the people I know here are reading this blog. Because this is me up close and personal. People here can read this to be supportive and we can love them for it. People can read this and identify with it and start their own healing process. They can read it because they are douchbags who want to gossip about how your wife is insane. It don't make no never mind to me, because you taught me I only have to be myself. I'm going to make like you and the teenager, baby, and I'm gonna just do this thing called life as the real me. Peace, B.

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Project 365- March 29

03/29/2011

March 29- B was here

Project 365- March 28

03/28/2011

March 28- Yogata Get This Blue
O.P.I.'s India collection (natch), my swap meet rhinestone flip flops, and my drag queen size 11 feet.

I'm the boss of me

03/28/2011

I'm starting to fritz last night because it finally hits home that I have to go back to the crazy doctor today for my follow up appointment. I ask in my super-manipulative-but-he's-so-on-to-me voice for the recent issue of People magazine. This means a trip to the Stewart Holler Mall (read: the Dollar General). It also means Johnny will have to put his pants back on which is asking a lot of him on a Sunday evening, but I saw that Brad and Angelina were on the cover of this week's People and I loves me some Brad and Angelina and their Coat of Many Colors family. I made Johnny promise he wouldn't tell anyone he was getting a People magazine for me, because it is such a guilty white trash pleasure of mine. I mean, it's a step up from the National Enquirer, but not by much. Anyway, I swore myself off of all the stupid magazines like Us and People about a year ago because they fill my soul with garbage and I'm working hard on getting rid of the garbage. Ugh.

I also ask Johnny to bring home several other items that are bad, bad, bad for me, but oh, so good in preventing a full blown Beth meltdown. I scanned the list briefly before handing it over and it could either 1.) be a check list for developing type 2 diabetes or 2.) mean I have a sour cream deficiency because no one needs sour cream & onion dip; sour cream; and sour cream & onion chips. The sour cream & onion food group would be well covered, but I'd need something from the crack rock for fat people food group- Little Debbie oatmeal creme pies AND a movie size box of Nerds.

Johnny came back home with everything but the People magazine, which got me really, really worried that I would have nothing to do besides talk to my family while I pretend to be normal before I binge on the aforementioned list of crap. Plus, how would I know what was going on with the Jolie-Pitt family? I mean, I haven't read a single People magazine report in over a year and they must have adopted at least one, if not two, more beautiful babies in that time and I need to know what brands those kids are wearing and what steps Angelina and Brad are taking to give them a normal life. Doesn't everyone think like I do when it comes to Brad and Angelina and their beautiful United Colors of Benetton family?

With no People magazine, I looked briefly at the positive coping skills I've learned on this healing journey- writing, meditating, and walking. Nah, says I. If I can't get lost in a gossip rag, I'mma eat my really bad food and go to sleep. And that is just what I did.

Enter Sandman
Sleep with one eye open, gripping your pillow tight...

My dreams weren't terrifying and they had nothing to do with Mettalica, but they let me know that I can try my old bag of tricks with the eating and escaping, but I can't just unlearn these truths. I can't just run back into the cave once I've experienced the light. I mean, obviously, I can try (bring in the copious amounts of sour cream and the oatmeal pies), but running from what is real is just about the most ignorant thing there is, friends. It may be ugly. It may be rotten. It may be that your parents were pieces of shit and you weigh enough to be an offensive lineman on a pro football team, but it's real. And being real is what this is all about for me.

I had some pretty heavy dreams (okay, no more fat jokes, y'all.). In one I was an adult moving into my childhood home on Juniper Avenue in Satsuma, Alabama. This is a recurring dream for me. Terrifying, because it means I never escaped. This go 'round, I'm living with my mother and my two adult sisters. I know, terrifying, right? One is controling & manipulative and one is certifiable, but still to this day, I love them both deeply. Anyway, this roommate mix is unique for this old standby of a bad dream.

We're all thrown together by unknown circumstances. My mom and two older sisters all have jobs as administrators in the healthcare industry. It should be noted, my oldest sister did this in real life before she met and married a prison guard she found online. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Online love matches, prison guards or any combination of the two are great. I'm not judging. (Okay, maybe I am. Just a little.)

I'm unpacking. One of the two ratty bedrooms will be my new/old home. I'm placing my things just so, hoping that my possessions will lay claim to the space and not the other way around. I unpack my three prescription bottles and suddenly, I'm so worried I won't be able to get my prescriptions filled for my crazy meds when I run out at the end of the month. I left to come to my childhood home so abruptly that I didn't make the follow up appointment with my crazy doctor to get refills. I am frantic with worry over this. I know there is no way I will survive being back there, back on Juniper Avenue, without those meds. I am dependent on my mother now, so I'll have to ask her to help me figure out how to find a new doctor and how to get to that doctor and how to get the money to pay for the doctor and the meds... everything hinges on my mother who is stepping into the shower after a long day at work.

On my way to see my mother down that terrible, dark, pine paneled hallway of my youth, I am swatting at the roaches that infested my childhood home. This was a serious issue for us. Those nasty sons-a-bitches were everywhere. We couldn't have guests over, we couldn't leave food out. It was just the grossest, nastiest part of being so poor. Their presence in my dream really signifies the despair of being back home. Adult Beth, marooned on the Island of Misfit McAfees, is thinking about how she'll figure out how to get her mother to hire an exterminator when she's asking her about getting those crazy meds.

Even though I am an adult, I imagine my mother must be the same exhausted, trapped, unhappy woman I knew as a child. I can't see her, because she is in the shower, but I can hear her. She just sounds tired. Like no amount of sleep will take away her weariness. Like she's lived too long and too hard and she's doesn't have the time or the inclination to live another way. I'm asking her about the medicine and giving her the long, drawn out story- the story I would speed my own children through if they were doing the talking here- when she cuts off the water and starts to get out of the shower. I am mortified I may see my mother naked.

Now, in real life that just seems gross, but in my dream, it was terrifying. Like my mom was suddenly Freddy Krueger and I was going to need to do some serious thrashing about to wake. up. now. I watched the door slide back, saw my mother's bare, wet leg emerge from the steam, and I braced myself. You know how you squint your eyes before the terrible thing happens, like seeing it through your lashes will somehow make it less than what it is? Yeah, I was doing that when I saw my mom's tired, old, flabby body- stretch marks, vericose veins, and all. Like any good straight from the Universe, higher Self inspired dream, someone else stepped out of that shower.

I'm pretty good at analyzing my dreams. Every now and then, I seek the help of others to help me decipher any difficult to reach meaning in the symbols and scenarios that unfold each night for me. Usually though, I'm dead on when it comes to anything the Sandman delivers. Granted, my dreams aren't usually quite so textbook, so obvious. Okay, okay. Thank you, most benevolent Universe and my highest Self. I get it. I'll go to my apointment. I'll keep doing this thing. (Jeesh.)

Even with the power of that dream driving me, I still had to force myself to get in the car, force myself to make the drive, force myself up the two flights of stairs and into the office of the little Indian man who is doctor to my crazies. Dr. A. is brown. From his head to his feet. His complexion is the color of the caramels you melt to coat apples in the fall. The two times I have seen him, he has been a study of the color brown: brown shoes, brown socks, brown pants, brown button down shirt, brown sweater vest, brown sports jacket. I imagine his jockeys and wife beater are brown as well, but going there has got to be some violation of our doctor-patient relationship. I imagine he is either color blind or he dresses to blend in, to soothe his crazy ass patients.

I'm sitting there, forcing myself to listen, to do this thing, to heal. I'm trying hard to focus on the soothing shades of Dr. A, when I finally allow my internal voice a chance to speak. But, I'm crazy, so I don't speak. I yell. And, as I'm sitting there in the second story office of my very own United Colors of Crazy (if they were all brown), I scream to myself, "THIS ISN'T WORKING! YOU'RE KIDDING YOURSELF! YOU ARE NEVER GOING TO GET BETTER JUST TAKING THESE PILLS."

I'm so loud, I think surely Dr. A. has heard something, but he keeps scribbling his notes about the dosage change we'll be implementing and the next steps in my treatment. I count the sails again in the benign paintings hanging on the wall. I did this on my last visit to keep myself from bolting out the door. This time, I'm counting to give myself a chance to breathe, to think of a comeback for that crazy voice inside my head. Five sails, I count. One. (Breathe in.) Two. (Breathe out.) Three. Four. Five. Five sails. Five McAfee children... I only avoided an outburst (what Dr. A. might have called a "psychotic episode") because I couldn't decide whether to laugh or to cry. This breakdown/breakthrough/ten minute break time has been all about my slow and steady unveiling. It's been about not just seeing the monster, but becoming her- my mother.

Little Dr. A. hunched over my chart, doing what he's supposed to do, what he's been trained to do. He writes prescriptions for really heavy duty meds to treat really heavy duty mental illness. Dr. A. is doing his job and I have to do mine. My job is healing. I have to do the work. I took ownership of my journey in a new way today while I counted sailboats in Dr. A.'s office. I'm the boss of me. I'm not my mother, despite the stretch marks and varicose veins.

I have ownership of all that was, that is, and that will be when it comes to the care and keeping of Beth. I have simply settled into my role as healer now. I believe we could officially call me "large and in charge," but that's a little crass even for my taste and that ain't sayin' much. Remember, I like Little Debbie oatmeal pies and People magazine, but don't you ever say that to my face or, so help me God, I will cut you.