Sitting back and enjoying the ride.....

Sometimes you just need to stop questioning everything and just sit back and enjoy the ride.

Quit wondering if you're upping the ante by wearing make up and sexy sandals. Don't question why he didn't hold your hand in the movie theatre.

Love the fact that he actually calls when he says he will. That sometimes he just calls to say good night.

Enjoy how he presses his arm against yours as you sit together on the couch watching a movie and apologizes profusely when his arm falls asleep and shoulder cramps up and he has to move them.

And wonder at the fact that when you rest your head on the right side of his chest and he wraps both arms around you, that you can still hear his heart beat on the other side of his chest.

But most of all, take comfort in the minutes he holds you, clings to you, like there is no one else in the world.

Quit questioning anything else. Let that be the answer to your question.

Friends, More than Friends???

Who the hell knows?

And just when I had got myself to a particularly horrible place in my life. Seriously, Intensive Outpatient Psychiatric Treatment.

You have to love Treatment Resistant Depression. Okay, well, you actually have to hate it. Seven drug alterations and I lost the ability to hope-this-will-be-the-one-that-does- it! somewhere around number five.



So we've moved on to the touchy/feely shit. Just between you and me, I don't really believe in this stuff. I'm a scientist. I work in medical research. Whether or not I was breastfed (beyond the intrinsic nutritional and immunological value of breast milk) and my potty training have NOTHING to do with my emotional well being as an adult. NOTHING.

So, as I'm going along through this month long group therapy ~ where they tell me daily that I have no self esteem (also know as a symptom of depression) ~ we talk about self love, parenting, defense mechanisms, etc. Terms that never came up in the grad level course I took, "The Epidemiology of Psychosis." An obvious oversite on the part of Hopkins School of Public Health, I'm sure.

And it becomes apparent that they don't even seem to be reading my chart. "Jennifer is beginning to learn the signs and symptoms of Bipolar type II disorder" reads my first progress report. SERIOUSLY? I've been living with this disease since 1995. I've figured out ALL the signs and symptoms at this point. And if they think one of their objectives is to teach me ~ well, let's just say a whole lot of time is being wasted...

Having decided this last resort treatment is a waste of my time, I just can't bring myself to get out of bed to get there. They threaten to throw me out of the program and actually begin to realize how much pain I'm actually in. I think someone actually reads my chart even.

And then something really strange happens.

A very attractive, single, age appropriate man joins our group. Almost immediately, everyone is aware of the attraction between us. We connect on so many levels. We have shared life experiences, shared family relationship difficulties, shared loss of friends to marriage and parenthood.

We're not allowed to socialize outside of group until one of us is discharged ~ which is me, a week and a half after he's joined the group. We've already spent breaks together, walked out to our cars together and talked before group every day.

On the day I'm discharged, we rent videos and get pizza and hang out together. Some time during the evening we both admit the we hadn't intended to get involved with anyone until we had straightened out our own lives, but meeting each other had changed things. We decided to continue hanging out together and see what happens.

He holds my hand and when I leave, he walks me to my car and hugs me, holding me close and not releasing me for a long time, as if to say exactly what I'm feeling ~ I'm lonely. I'm so lonely, it's palpable, but keep it at bay. ~ I have no idea how to interpret any of this, but I feel like if we started to kiss, we wouldn't be able to stop.

When I talk to him, we chat for hours until we have to go to sleep. Every evening together ends with the same hug, but I can't help but wonder if one of these days instinct is going to take over and when we pull apart he might just kiss me without thinking about it. And I'm not even sure how I'd react.

But I worry, what if we cross that time where is you don't become more than friends, you just stay friends forever. It's not the worst thing in the world, but I do think I'm falling in love with him.

Oh NO She did NOT!

Well, yes, I did.

I've decided to separate out my blog into two separate blogs so that knitting can actually be the main topic in one and folks who actually want to read about my knitting won't have to wade through my political rantings, etc, etc..

There will of course, be some double posting since some stuff is just too good to keep to only one site. Wait, let me take that down a few ego levels... There's just some stuff that fits into both places. Not that's its Wordsworth or anything. (rolls eyes)

So fear not, you will not longer have to hear me rant and rave about why on earth ESPN feels the need to do a thirty minute intro on the DUKE lacrosse before the Quarter Final match between Johns Hopkins and Navy. Maybe the Navy will bomb ESPN ~ you don't screw with the Academies....

Just a suggestion. If you actually give a shit about the Duke Lax team, you'd probably best not read any of my blogs. It's for your own good really.

Isn't It Time You Got Over How Fragile You Are

It's been weeks now.

I've been feeling like I'm missing a piece of myself; like I misplaced it somewhere.

The concept is nothing new. In deep depression one loses all sense of self.

And it's a struggle, trying to grasp for things that you think might bring you closer to the person you're supposed to be instead of the ghost that wanders about haunting your life.

This is different. [Somehow, every time it's different so that just when I think I have the hang of it, I really don't.]

I'm not sure if I'm losing myself in stages or pieces are falling off or if this time I'll just lose parts and not the whole. And frankly I'm not sure what's more frightening.

So, I'm sorting through all these old photographs trying to see what part of me is missing. Maybe if I can identify what is missing I can remember when I last saw it? I'm not sure when that statement stopped sounding rational, but you have to understand that sense of missing something ~ it's like I left it in the pocket of a pair of pants that I haven't worn in a while or it's packed in some box I haven't unpacked in the two years since I moved.

The obvious answer to the part of me that I have lost is the part of me that can feel happiness and hope and love, that can look to the future and see more than darkness. I can't remember ever being happy. I'm not sure I've ever been loved. The one great relationship of my life ended with him saying, "I don't love you anymore. I'm not sure I ever loved you."

Can you even imagine HOW much I want to get him on the phone and make him take those words back? I can't even look at the photos of the two of us because I'm convinced they'll reinforce his statement. There will be something in his expression or body language in the photo that will SCREAM, I don't love this woman and I never did.

I asked my mother if she ever remembered me happy. She mentioned a number of different things but one of them clicked and now I cling to it.

It was a late weekend afternoon and I had gone for a walk in Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens. It was nearly the end of a special butterfly exhibit they were have in one section of the new glass conservatory. I had been in no rush since I had gone to a similar exhibit at the Museum of National History in NYC not too long before, in fact I had planned to skip it. But after wandering through the orchid room in the conservatory, I decided to check out the butterflies. The Gardens were set to close in 5 minutes and I expected to be kicked out, but instead the garden personnel just left me alone with the plants and the millions of exotic moths and butterflies, letting me know to make sure the door was fully sealed with I left.

I can't remember the last time I had seen such beauty or was filled with such wonder. It was like being a child again and rediscovering the magic that surrounds you. Everything else, every crazy stress, left my mind and I was completely alone with the flutter of tiny colorful wings. I remember just stopping everything and sitting down on a bench and taking in all that surrounded me until tears of joy ran down my face. It was exactly the transfusion that I needed for my crazy life and my crazy job and everything else I just couldn't stop juggling.

So now as I risk losing myself to disease I hold on to what I believe is a vital part. I remember the beauty and the joy and the wonder and the happiness of that afternoon and I remind myself that I am more than capable of that.

And I sing along with my theme song....