DRY Ink » Neuroses

In My Head

Erika — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 16:19:42 +0000

I feel all unsettled and can’t quite get comfortable. I have all these amazing things in my life. I have an amazing life, so run back and forth between them trying to settle things, but I just can’t quite touch it.
I think about quitting, but I’ve been a therapist, in training to be a therapist or planning to train to be a therapist for the past 20 years. Without that I’m unsure of who I am, so I take more pictures. Then they go in the pile to be edited and stack up with the other things I’m neglecting because somehow I can’t take pictures without you telling me what to take pictures of. That’s not art. So I think I should get my MFA and become a “real” photographer. That will somehow settle things.
Maybe it’s Jacob moving out and doing so well, and the youngest cherubs are just getting so damn big and we have been on the adoption list for years. Maybe it’s time to move on, but then Emme talks about a sister and my heart breaks, but there is nothing I can do about it. So I don’t dare go there. And they have just been so in my face this summer, but school starts in mere days. It’s just so unsettled.
The 5th anniversary of Katrina is coming up and I think I’m ready to talk about it, but you can’t have Gustav. Not yet. So I plan road trips and I go and travel and visit and take pictures. I love that, but eventually it all has to slow down and I stop and things still aren’t right.
I’m not happy with my body, but I’m size 4/6, so that just seems ridiculous. I should start working out again. I should drink less diet Dr. Pepper. Or maybe I should just stop caring and live in a bikini for a week. That seemed to work out well while I was at the beach.
And my period is coming, can it be that simple? I listen to music and decide I need to create, so I start another project around the house that either works or doesn’t work and then I work on it until it does. But then it ends or I wander off and I’m in the exact same position as when I started all this.
I’m drifting around aimless and can’t seem to find my place. Maybe it’s time to try some of the new generation ADHD medications. Maybe that will fix this. But then I would have to go to the doctor for regular med checks and that just seems to end up in the ‘to do’ pile, see above. Besides starting new medications is always such a pain. I can’t even talk myself into going back on the pill, when I know it clears my skin up.
Maybe I’ll just wait until next week when my period is over and see how I feel. And maybe I’ll call right now to make an appointment to go back on the pill.

Update?

Erika — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 18:45:29 +0000

I’m thinking of updating my blog.

I’ll let you know how it turns out.

When Parents Work in Mental Health, the Sibling Torture Gets a Little Twisted

Erika — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 16:42:17 +0000

We ride bikes to school every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Jack has taken to leaving early. Earlier than us so that he can ‘ride by himself’. This means he doesn’t wait for us at dismissal either. He rides home ‘alone’ too.

Yesterday morning Em met me at my bath room door crying.

It would seem that Jack told her that he was going to school and never leaving, so I would be arrested for child abandonment.

I love being the parent.

How to Make a Hero Race Car Driver Proud

Erika — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 19:52:40 +0000

I had a dream last night that I was flying a helicopter. Which is normally pretty fun, only at some point my level of consciousness became aware enough to register that my eyes were closed.

Here is where the hero race car driver kicked in. “Do you realize how unsafe this is? And not just for you and anyone in the car/train/plane/helicopter/boat, but for everyone on the road/track/air/river/ocean with you. Really what are you thinking? I taught you better this. I can’t believe you would act like this.” All the years of lectures kicked in a single moment and spent the next who knows how long trying to open my eyes. Only I couldn’t. As I struggled, I was occasionally able to open them, but I couldn’t actually see anything when I did. When my eyes were closed my field of vision was perfect, but in the brief moments I ‘opened’ my eyes, everything was fuzzy like the little blonde girl in front of the TV in Poltergeist.

But I could shake the hero’s training despite the reality that it obviously didn’t apply in this situation, and I continued to try to get my eyes open. I had to be safe, damn it. After much struggling I was finally able to open them and do you know what happened? Yep, I woke up. There I was eyes wide open staring at the ceiling at 7 am.

Thanks, dad. Thanks to you I can’t even be unsafe in my dreams!

I Should Be Embarassed By How Excited I Am About This

Erika — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 22:36:23 +0000

This is my new planner.

I may need to be alone now.

Just Thought You’d Wanna Know Edited with Pictures

Erika — Wed, 30 May 2007 03:07:25 +0000

Funk Watch ’07 is officially over. Em is on the mend and is almost done with all medications. The final, official diagnosis? Damn if I know, but the best guess is a secondary viral infection to a recent case of strep throat and an allergic reaction to um, well, um, something. We never did figure out what.

Yea, I feel all better now.

Thank goodness the Little Miss’s dad was there to step in and treat her, even if he didn’t get nearly upset enough, about the fact that MY DAUGHTER WAS DYING! Okay, so maybe she wasn’t dying, but he still shouldn’t have been so damn calm. (Thanks Willydo.) I can only imagine what would have happened if he wasn’t there, what with the swelling and turning of funny colors.

So this concludes this year’s funk disease, the Em edition.

Thanks for playing along.

Edited to Add: I guess it’s not over. Click Here and Here and Here for the funk in all it’s many forms and glory.

Ode to Spring, or What Happens When Bad Mothers Collide

Erika — Wed, 09 May 2007 16:59:40 +0000

This spring a bird managed to worm its way into my fireplace chimney. How do I know you may ask? Because she then proceeded to build a nest in the top of my chimney, lay eggs and hatch them up there. She ran around collecting food for her new chicks, feeding them until they were big and strong. Then she pushed them out of the nest. Into my fireplace. And here’s where they became my problem.

I hear scratching on my fireplace glass. Curious, I open the fireplace door and screen. There is a tiny little bird, who can’t quite fly yet. He/she has more of a hop and glide system going on at this point. The little bird hops out of the fire place and proceeds to run/hop/glide around my great room. No problem, I eventually, with the help of magazine, shoo the little guy/girl out the front door and hopefully onto a better life.

Or what ever, not my problem anymore.
Problem solved.
For a few days anyway.

Two days later, I hear scratching going on in the fire place. I got this. I can do this. I open all the window and doors. I’m ready now. I open the fireplace doors and screen again. But this time three baby birds fly out. Fly out. Zoom. Oh shit. That’s right, these bad boys FLY!

There are birds flying around my house. MY HOUSE. Emie is screaming. I manage to corner one little guy/girl and herd it out the front door. I move onto the others. I try to corner the next one and it is to-tal-ly freaking out. It flies straight into my entry way mirror and falls in convulsions onto my brand new entry rug. I have never seen anything die before. I would have preferred to never see this poor thing die. But I was in denial at this point, so it was still okay. I grabbed a near by sweater and picked it up. It felt warm through the sweater, so it’s okay right? I threw it outside with an arching motion still hoping it would recover and fly off into the blue. (Hey it could happen, only seconds before it flew around my great room with such vigor.)

It landed with a thud.

It was only then that I realized it was really was dying/dead.

I eventually calmed Emie down. Jack came home from school in the middle of this and I spent the next several hours keeping all the neighborhood boys from playing with the dead bird in my front garden. Jeff eventually came home and threw it into the trash.

I never did find that third bird. It either flew out in all the commotion or is lurking for me in some corner waiting to give me a heart attack.

Either way.