on: resilience, patience, and other things in progress

[editor's note: this is really long and some of it may be borderline tmi for some of y'all.

also, i apologize if my blabbing about all of this here and not directly one-on-one with any of you makes you feel some kind of way. most, if not all, of you know how to find me outside of the blog if you want/need to chat or yell at me about any or all of this. it's a lot, as you'll see, and putting it all out here seemed to be the best way for me to process/deal with a lot of it. please don't take my not coming to you individually and/or offline as an insult or an affront to our friendship. i love y'all like i love bacon and chocolate and ll cool j and books and quiet time and alcohol.]

quasi-landlord and i were having dinner a few weeks ago with her other tenant. the two of them joined a fitness center recently and they were going on about the various classes and services offered. apparently they have access to a steam room, which quasi-landlord said no to because she's somewhat claustrophobic. i can understand that - what if something goes wrong and you can't get out of the room, etc.

"not unless eulalia was there. maybe i'd go in if she was with me."

me: what? i don't understand.

"i mean, i know that if something went wrong and you were there, things would be ok somehow."

me: are you calling me an optimist? b/c i know you know better than that.

"no, no. you just have this...resilience about you. even when things are falling apart, you manage to figure something out and you keep going."

me: ok. i guess. sure. i suppose that's true.

patience, on the other hand? i swear the universe has been and is continuing to conspire to teach me a lesson or 50 on patience. my life feels like one big exercise in delayed gratification and, given the way the past 4-5 years has played out, that makes sense. i get it. i couldn't come back to chicago until it was time. the full-time job search took way longer than i ever thought it would. now, of course, i'm chomping at the bit to do all of the things and reestablish myself as a functioning adult in my own space. that resilient part has to come in occasionally and remind me that even baby steps still count as progress, even though i feel like things aren't moving fast enough. like i'm not doing enough despite evidence to the contrary. a friend of mine shared this post earlier this week and i almost started crying at my desk because that whole lack of patience thing is so very real for me.

like the whole moving thing. i was a very responsible adult and used a sizable chunk of my bonus from work to make a settlement offer to my former landlord, which they accepted. once i have a copy of the court order vacating their judgment against me, that's one major thing i can get removed from my credit report and i'll feel a little better about apartment hunting without that blemish on my record. this is a good thing. this is a very good thing, especially since my tax refund basically covered all but $400 or so of what i used from my bonus to pay this. it was all sorta kinda free money, right? this is awesome. i'm excited, and yet i feel like i'm still floundering because i'm not out there looking for places and shopping for a new bed and other furniture. then i feel silly for beating myself up and then i get impatient b/c i wouldn't feel so damn silly if things would just hurry the fuck up already.

another reason for the moving delay is the surgery i need to schedule to have my fibroids removed. i knew when my gynecologist first diagnosed them back in 2010 that this would need to happen. i am trying to convince myself to just have a full hysterectomy because if i'm going under the knife, they might as well take all of my reproductive equipment.

y'all. i am freaking the entire fuck out about this. if you know about my hospital phobia, then you probably understand why i'm just like "holy fucking shit i can't believe i'm doing this" even though i haven't even scheduled an official surgery consult, let alone the actual surgery. i probably don't even need the full hysterectomy, but, again, if i'm going in, just do it all at once. i know at least two people who were diagnosed with uterine or ovarian cancer after just having their fibroids zapped away vs. a full hysterectomy and that is NOT a life i want to be about. #fuckcancer all day, every day.

i refuse to accept any blame for being scared about this. both of my parents went into hospitals and never came out alive. i just powered through my father's birthday and the anniversary of his death, and the anniversary of my mother's death is coming up on tuesday and james' death anniversary is next week and...hold on. i need to remember how to breathe properly.

*pause for station identification and/or to take a drink*

ok. sorry about the interruption. where were we? oh, right - freaking out about a surgery that isn't even on my calendar yet. the only thing that is keeping me from full out panicking all the time about it is knowing that i have a support system in place that will make sure i get to/from the hospital and bring me tacos and make sure i actually attempt to follow doctor's orders. also i can work from home (yes i have already thought this part through even though i haven't talked to my boss about it yet b/c, again, no surgery date). that's resilience for you, i guess - thinking shit through to something that could be construed as a logical conclusion so you know wtf you're getting into.

here's the thing, though. being resilient and trying to maintain a modicum of patience ain't easy. if you've been reading for a while, you know i've become more committed to following my empath/caregiver tendencies. i know it's been paying off, but what i didn't know is how fucking taxing being resilient can be when you're trying to be in tune with your feelings and those of the people you care about. my patience reaches a breaking point b/c i just want everyone to be ok. like, if y'all are good, then i can focus on my own shit and process it and then come back and help y'all out if necessary. but if we're all sorta kinda broken and fucked up, i am more likely to tune into what other folks are feeling/thinking and what they need and push my own shit to the side. yes, i know that's unhealthy. if you follow me on twitter, you've probably seen how that impacts my sleep pattern (or lack thereof).

this past week was exhausting. i was working yesterday and at one point, i told one of my teammates that i felt like i was juggling all of my projects in the air and one or more of them was going to drop and everything would be screwed up. he, of course, told me that no such thing would happen because i'd pull everything off and it'd be fine just like it always is. i'm not so sure about that. this week may have been the first time since i started in this position where i honestly felt like i wouldn't be able to do my job the way i'm supposed to. that a deadline might get missed. that something might go horribly awry. i still kinda feel that way, honestly.

i know i wouldn't feel that strongly about work if i wasn't so stressed out about everything else in my life. the downside of being all resilient is that you get all kinds of things thrown at you and no one expects you to flinch. you will just deal with all of it and come out shining and everyone will just be like "oh, eulalia, you always manage to pull through!"

being resilient wears me out and i think i really hit the tipping point this week. trying to power through all of my shit and everyone else's shit was a bit too much. plus my social calendar was packed this week, so i was out every night after work like i have a life or something. and the hits kept coming. every time i thought "ok, i have a grip on what's going on and i can deal with this," i'd find out about something else that happened to someone, or i'd have an anti-epiphany of my own, and i'd throw up my hands and add it to my pile of things to tackle.

and then my lack of patience kicks in. "why do i have to be the one tackling all of this shit? i need some of this shit to get resolved so we're not all walking around stressed out. i need a vacation. i should take a vacation. no, it'd be silly to spend money on a vacation when i'm saving up for my own place. but if i'm not moving anytime soon, i might as well book a flight somewhere. i haven't been on  plane since may 2010. i deserve. no. sit your ass down and keep working and keep being resilient and trying to be patient because all the chips are going to fall like they're supposed to."

i swear that internal dialogue happens about once a week normally. this week? at least a few times a day. i was so fucking over everything and yet i caught myself still trying to be tuned in to what other folks needed. never mind that i was (am) sleep-deprived and, if i'm being really honest, would love nothing more than to leave all of this at someone else's feet and go be a carefree black girl for at least a day.

please let me be clear. i do not want any of you to feel like you can't come to me if/when things are bothering you. please don't feel like you're upsetting me, or that you're a burden, or that you need to deal with all of it by yourself. you know better. you know you can email or call or text or dm or tweet or leave a comment here or send a letter or a postcard or a letter or schedule a lunch/dinner/coffee/drinks date or what the fuck ever and you can tell me what's up. that's not going to change. i promise.

what i need to change, though, is how much of these things i internalize and start thinking i can fix or solve or otherwise address. on a cerebral level, i know that not everything is my problem. the empath in me knows that it's my job to stand with you (besides you, behind you, whatever) while you're going through things. i'd do that for a fair number of you even if i wasn't committed to being an empath/caregiver, b/c we're friends and that's just what the fuck we do. we show up and we stand up for each other. this is how it is and this is how it should be.

but - and this is difficult to type, let alone admit to myself and to y'all - there is a limit. this week left me reeling and i cannot function like this. it's not fair to me and it's not fair to y'all. at least i was honest enough to tell some of you this week (and possibly longer than that) that no, i wasn't okay and no, i wasn't really in a space where i could talk about it. we all know past me would've thrown up a grin and lied and said everything was fine even though my heart was shattering for reasons i couldn't even articulate.

don't get me wrong. my heart is still shattering and there are things i didn't write about tonight that are still weighing heavy on me but since they're not really my stories to tell, i'm keeping all of them close to the proverbial vest.

i can say that this is the most relaxed i've felt all week, though. never mind that there are giant knots in my back and stress/hormones have done a number on my face all week and i have no fucking clue what's going to happen next. i might actually get more than 5 continuous hours of quality sleep tonight. i should probably start winding down if that's gonna happen, huh?

i love y'all. remember: we are seen and we are heard and we are safe and we are loved and we are stronger than we think. good night.

recipe review: sausage and cheddar muffins

trying these muffins out was a bit of a no-brainer. i was home on #adventuresindogsitting duty last friday night, so i had plenty of time to make dinner and do laundry and then try this recipe out.

thing i learned while making sure i had everything i needed for this recipe: quasi-landlord doesn't have a muffin tin. i'm pretty sure i have one packed away somewhere. quasi-landlord's other tenant had a couple of jumbo muffin tins and also some "muffin-top" tins, so i decided to just make 6 giant muffins instead of the normal 12. i used more than the cup of sausage called for in the recipe, and i didn't really measure the cheese, so i probably wound up with a little bit more than a cup of cheese total.

y'all. i put a couple of these in the freezer so i wouldn't eat them all over the weekend. they're so good. quasi-landlord's other tenant tried one out and immediately asked me for the recipe. i used "regular" pork breakfast sausage, but i might try turkey or chicken breakfast sausage the next time around. i'm also thinking about using some sort italian sausage and mozzarella cheese, or maybe parmesan, or some combination thereof because in my head, that sounds fucking delicious. if it turns out that these freeze decently, then it is entirely possible that i will be making these on a regular basis so i have an easy option for breakfast during the week.

it's the most wonderfully depressing and emo time of the year!

january kinda sucked for a lot of people, so i was happy to see it go. i then realized that my glee would be short-lived, as february and march are historically difficult months for me and this year will be no different. my annual wallowing in all of the feelings has nothing to do with the weather, though.

now i get to embark on my yearly quest to power through february and march without falling apart. whee!

— auntie lori is my og (@queeneulalia) February 1, 2016

i don't know exactly when the death anniversaries of my mother and father started to impact me as an adult. my father died on february 27, 1997. my mother died on march 1, 1984. maybe it was after james died in march of 2009 (march 8, for those playing along at home) that i realized that hey, there's a method to this sadness.

dealing with those three anniversaries would be enough, but this year marks the first anniversary of lori's death (february 4, 2015) and just typing that makes me want to cry.

every year at the beginning of february, i tell myself that if i can make it to march 15 without completely falling apart, then i'll be ok. i am usually able to get through those 6 weeks or so without any major meltdowns. sure, there's crying and there are days when i just wanna wallow in my feels, but nothing too traumatic.

i'm not so sure about this year, which is why i'm writing about it and putting it out here for y'all to see. i might need to lean on y'all more than usual between now and the ides of march.

gonna try to be better about reaching out for support or just saying i need to stfu for a while during this timeframe. i know y'all got me.

— auntie lori is my og (@queeneulalia) February 1, 2016

my annual swan dives into a pile of emo have already started. i was at work earlier and a song came on that reminded me of some recent conversations i've had both with myself and with some other people, and i felt that being an empath/caregiver wasn't really worth it if i couldn't actually fix at least some of the things we're dealing with. i wanted to reach out to someone who would basically put me in check and remind me that i am not here to solve the world's problems and that there's only so much i can do. i wanted that person to be james, or lori, and the reminder that i couldn't text or call them just about shattered me. i was already missing james thanks to a different song i'd listened to earlier in the day, so i was already susceptible to a grief fit or whatever one would call it. i managed to pull it together by watching highlights of game 6 of the 2013 stanley cup final, which will always make me shed happy tears b/c holy shit that was awesome.

when i was at the bar later tonight, my friend asked if i was ok. i said yes and they immediately called bullshit, b/c they saw something in my expression that wasn't quite right. i amended my answer, saying that i was ok overall but that i had some things on my mind, which was true. i was still processing the wave of grief from earlier and trying to figure out how the hell i'm gonna get through the next month or so without sobbing myself silly.

i don't know if it'll help that i currently have plans on lori & my father's death dates. maybe it'll be distracting enough that i won't completely fall to pieces and if i do, maybe i'll be lucky enough to do it in private and just sob myself to sleep.

this is one of the many reasons why i tell people that there is no timetable or proper way to grieve. i know i can still be knocked flat (figuratively and literally) by grief after all of these years and therefore everyone should be allowed the space to mourn in a way that feels right for them.

i have no idea what's going to feel right for me this year. i know enough to know that i owe it to myself and to y'all to be a bit more vocal about how this season (for lack of a better term) impacts me so it's not completely out of left field when (not even gonna lie and say "if") i have some sort of reaction.

so, yeah. happy february! :P