on: resting and not doing all of the things

first things first - a huge thank you to everyone for the calls, texts, tweets, dm's, emails, flowers, cards, etc. during my surgery and recovery. i really appreciate it and y'all are the best.

as of this writing, it's been 2 weeks since the procedure and while i'm definitely doing better than i was immediately after i got home from the hospital, i know in my heart of hearts that i'm still not 100%. it's mildly annoying for me because i sorta kinda want to do all of the things and my body is just like "hahahahaha go sit down somewhere."

i went back to work this past week and managed not to fall asleep at my desk, so that's an accomplishment in and of itself because i'd gotten accustomed to taking at least one nap a day while i was at home recuperating. this weekend has been a test for me in terms of resuming my usual drinking and other shenanigans and fuckery, but when i found myself turning down tacos last night after lots of beer and my first shots in 2 weeks (yes, readers, i was as shocked as you are now by this), i realized once again that i'm not back to my previous form.

don't get me wrong. on a logical level, i totally get that it's only been 2 weeks and the fact that i'm moving around and have gone back to work without being in too much pain is a good thing. i also know that my sleep patterns were trash before i went into the hospital and therefore my inability to get a decent night's sleep is impacting my recovery. i understand all of this.

and yet i beat myself up for not feeling as productive or social as i think i should, which is ridiculous. i think it's great that no one has put any pressure on me to go out - if anything, you guys are all "hey, are you sure you're ready to have drinks/go to a concert/sit through a lecture that you wish you could get your time back for because it was awful" or whatever. it's all internal. i even gave myself grief for this post b/c i'd intended on writing it before today but i didn't get around to it until now. that's just silly.

i have to remember to continue meeting myself where i am, even if that means taking it easier than i think i should be. it's ok for me not to be 100% yet. it'll be ok if i only get to, say, 98%. my health is what's really important here and clearly i'll be no good to anyone if i'm passing out from exhaustion, so if my body says "hey slow down there for a while," i have to listen and block out the voice that gives me grief for not pushing through.

t-minus 2 weeks and counting

as much fun as i had this weekend - and if you follow me on twitter and/or snapchat, you saw just how much fun (and booze) i had - i was also plagued by anxiety. more than the usual amount of anxiety, really. my subconscious was on a roll. nightmare that combines some of my worst fears? check. panic attacks? yup.

it took until early yesterday afternoon for me to piece it all together. i went to my nephew's wedding this weekend and i was prepared for familial drama b/c as y'all know, nothing about my family is simple or easy, especially when it comes to events like this. plus mother's day is coming up and my feelings on that have been well documented (yes, i will be drinking myself silly again this year, thanks for asking). those two things would be enough, but then i did the math and realized that my surgery is in 2 weeks and that really kicked the anxiety up a notch or 12.

everyone knows that hospitals freak me out and i start feeling claustrophobic if i'm at a hospital for more than 90 minutes or so. i am the one who asks for xanax whenever i need an mri because my nerves just can't take it. some of you also know that a big part of why hospitals freak me out is because both of my parents were hospitalized during their illnesses and never came home. one of the few regrets i have when it comes to james is not going to visit him during his multiple hospital stays, even though he knew why i was really staying away and didn't make a big deal of it, bless him.

and now i am having surgery for the first time ever and, in the parlance of peg + cat, i am TOTALLY FREAKING OUT. at least once a week, i have to give myself permission to flip out for about 5-10 minutes about this routine surgery that will only have me hospitalized overnight. yes, it's technically a voluntary procedure, but my doctors and i understand that my fibroids have minds of their own and i'd rather manage this while i have the opportunity to make decisions based on what i think is best for me. also doing this while i'm still living with quasi-landlord makes sense b/c she'll be around to drive me back and forth and enough of you live nearby to bring me tacos if when a craving hits and i'm not up for walking around yet, b/c tacos.

never mind that i have the logistics figured out and have to date avoided the potential pitfall of over-researching the procedure because then i will definitely have a major moment of panic and that i know in my heart of hearts that this makes sense. if i am being logical about all of it, then yes, this is a good thing and there is minimal risk. i am not a logical person when it comes to this stuff, though - hence the weekly freakouts and the overabundance of anxiety this weekend.

one of my friends is particularly good about reminding me that i tend to worry too much about certain things, especially when i have little to no control over them. i can't help it. my ocd and type a-minus tendencies can be a bit strong and sometimes i just need shit to make sense even if i can't impact the situation. that friend has been advised that they need to issue these reminders more often during the next week or two. i have to meet myself where i am and trust the process even though the thought of staying overnight in the hospital makes my skin crawl and i already know i'm going to take the world's longest and hottest shower when i get home after being discharged. another friend has promised a recovery bottle of booze while i'm at the hospital, so at least i have that to look forward to. also i know my body needs the week or so i'll be home from work to rest, although this won't be a vacation by any stretch of the imagination. 

a number of us are on an ongoing quest to own up to our shit, and this is me being upfront about what i like to call my medical anxiety. i know that while it's justified, it's not really helpful or healthy and as much as i would like to control and manage this situation in its entirety, i have to try to not dwell on things as much - hence my asking the aforementioned friend to help me try to keep the worry in check. i won't even lie and say that this is going to work and i will be totally chill between now and the 16th because insulting y'all's intelligence like that is just rude, even for me. i'm gonna try, though. wish me luck.

i only wanted to be some kind of friend...

[note: this will probably be way more disjointed than usual, for reasons that i'm sure will become obvious.]

i think i was about 7 or 8 when i saw "purple rain" for the first time. my mother was dead and i was staying with my mother's best friend, who had a daughter around my age (we'll refer to her as rb for this story) that was also my best friend. rb and i shared a room, we went to the same school, we liked the same music - we weren't so much inseparable as we were...oh, i don't know. we were best friends even though we didn't get along all the time but we made it work.

somehow, rb's older brother had a copy of "purple rain" and we all watched it one day after school. yes, ladies and gentlemen, the first time i saw this movie was on a bootleg and it is entirely possible that it was a bootleg betamax. yes, i am that old. shut up. was i old enough to be watching purple rain? absolutely not. rb and i both knew her brother was doing us a major favor that we couldn't tell anyone about. imagine going to school the next day wanting to tell everyone that you'd seen this movie but you knew word would somehow get home and then everyone would catch hell. instead, we just giggled about it to ourselves and i have a vague memory of us playing records backwards and wearing some godawful paisley (it was the 80s, remember - we didn't know any better) and having a great time.

fast forward to high school. my friends and i were old enough to be left home alone to watch "graffiti bridge" and delve deeper into our prince fandom. i met kb after i transferred schools midway through my junior year. our circle of friends would sit together at lunch and/or in whatever classes we had together. i worked in the principal's office my senior year during a free period and i would totally forge passes to get kb and the crew out of classes.

kb was a year behind me and he was definitely our little brother, though i'm sure he harbored crushes on at least one or more of us. the summer after i graduated, kb and i made a pact that if we were both single in 2010, we'd find each other and get married and listen to "purple rain" as many times as we could stand it. this was 1994. 2010 seemed really far away to us back then.

hey, remember when i got divorced in 2010? if i was on facebook, i'm sure i would've found kb years ago and though i'm not convinced that we would've dated, let alone gotten married, i can pretty much guarantee that we'd be listening to "purple rain" as much as we could stand it.

and then there was last thursday. honestly, i'm still in shock. i totally had to leave my desk a couple of times that day to go cry in the bathroom. i've only listened to "purple rain" twice since then. that song, both on its own and in the movie, makes me weepy on a good day, so needless to say i'm still having trouble getting through the song without flat out bawling. y'all have been so great, though, with the emails and the tweets and the texts to check up on me and i love you guys for it.

km reminded me of an outing we took to wrigleyville one night b/c i wanted to try to win tickets for what i think was the musicology tour. beer pong may have been involved. i think someone left their card at the bar and had to go back the next day. none of us won, but the fact that i had this crazy idea of winning prince tickets and managed to rope some of y'all into coming along on this pursuit says something. it says a lot, actually. sometimes we do crazy things in the name of friendship and the shit just makes sense in that moment so you go with it.

i wound up seeing prince twice on that tour, both here and in dallas. dallas was first and i was by myself and when "purple rain" started, i went into full ugly cry mode. i remember looking around and everyone in my immediate section was caught up somehow. there was a moment being had and i hesitate to call it spiritual for everyone, but it sure as hell was spiritual for me.

there's power in that, i think, and i like to think that prince knew and understood the kind of power he had and toyed with us anyway, the bastard. i still can't believe he's gone. i can't even say or type his name and "dead" in the same sentence because denial is not just a river in egypt.

jb (yes, i'm just using initials left and right in this post and you will deal, lol) tweeted me yesterday about a prince tribute on chirp radio. i managed to catch the end of it during my ride to work and the last song was "sometimes it snows in april." i sat in the lobby of my office building sniffling and wiping tears because that's another song that hits me in the feels even on my best days, and i hadn't listened to it since the news broke and dammit i am totally getting teary again now. fuck.

anyway...apparently the universe decided i needed to hear that song twice yesterday, b/c i stayed up to watch d'angelo's tribute on jimmy fallon's show and i have the video playing in the background while i type this b/c i'm gonna link to it and christ jesus i am about to start bawling again. hold on.

saying "thank you" to prince doesn't seem like nearly enough and yet i feel like that's all i have right now. thank you for music that has impacted me for 30 years and counting. thank you for giving voice to emotions that i'm sometimes unable or unwilling to express. thank you for sharing your genius even when i couldn't always understands your methods or your madness. thank you for "purple rain." thank you.

recipe review: slow cooker saffron rice with chicken sausage

i was on #adventuresindogsitting duty friday night, which meant i'd be home to do laundry and watch hockey and drink beer and eat dinner and maybe actually break out the slow cooker and do a little meal prep. i knew i had a pack of italian sausage in the freezer, so i started looking through my recipe files with that in mind. i'd saved a copy of this recipe from one of giada's cookbooks and it looked like something i could adapt, so i decided to go with it. here's what i did differently:

--used the aforementioned italian sausage instead of chicken sausage
--used 1 cup of short-grain brown rice because i had some left from a previous recipe and figured i might as well put it to use
--6 small cloves of garlic
--there was some leftover orange bell pepper in the fridge, so i added that with the red bell pepper
--chardonnay instead of vermouth because i was not buying a bottle of vermouth to only use 2 tbsp of it
--closer to 1/2 pound of green beans
--skipped the fresh parsley
--adjusted the cooking time a bit since i was using brown rice. ~3 hours on low and then another 30-40 minutes or so on high
--added pepper (i eyeballed it, same as the salt)

i'd make this again with "regular" rice to see what the texture differences are. i'm ok with the brown rice version, although it doesn't give off the "paella vibe" giada mentions in the introduction to the recipe. if i had shrimp on hand, i'd throw some in during the last minutes of cooking and i'm sure that would be fine.

on: having or not having role models for living to a ripe old age

my boss' great grandmother celebrated her 107th birthday this past weekend. 107. there are days when i can barely count that high, let alone dare to dream of living that long.

and remember the 106 year old dancing with the obamas at the white house? that video makes me weepy every single time i watch it. there is just so much joy there, y'all. it hits me right in the feels.

but then i get to wondering about having those kinds of older women in my life; or, to be more precise, not having those kinds of older women in my life. my maternal grandmother died before i was born. my paternal grandmother died while i was in my early 20s. i'm not sure anyone in my immediate family has attempted to trace our ancestry beyond my grandparents and if they have, i certainly haven't heard anything about it. i'm sure i could and i probably will at some point just out of sheer curiosity.

instead of having older relatives or friends to marvel at because they're still alive and active and dancing and raising hell, i got to attend a funeral on saturday for a family friend who died at the ripe old age of 53. i know it's selfish to want an extended circle of folks all living long and prosperous and happy lives, and i know i obviously have no control over how or when folks die. the logical side of me can process all of that and accept it as valid.

can you blame me for wishing i personally knew a 100-something year old so i could listen to all of their stories like i'd never heard them before? that i could share their joy over dancing or music or a good meal or just laughing themselves silly? i totally plan on being the crazy aunt on someone's porch drinking spiked iced tea and saying whatever comes to mind and doing whatever the hell i want (within some semblance of reason, i suppose) and i'm just saying it'd be nice to have some personal role models for that kind of thing. thank god i can live vicariously through other folks' connections to the elderly.

i'ma go watch that dancing video again.

what they don't tell you re: growing up

if you were anything like me back in the day, then you couldn't wait to grow up and be on your own. occasionally a family member would say something like "aw, don't be in such a rush to grow up. you'll have to pay bills and be responsible and you only have one childhood," or something along those lines. that was a trade-off i was willing to make, dammit. i'm more or less willing to be responsible and earn money and pay bills and do what i want, within reason.

here's the thing, though. i don't think anyone bothered telling us that one particularly sucktastic part of growing up is coming to terms with the fact that you will begin to lose family members and friends at an alarming rate.

some might think that since i've lost so many family and friends throughout the years that i'm more resilient than most when it comes to dealing with loss. oh man, would those folks be wrong as hell. i found out on friday night that another family friend from church passed away that day and the news sent me reeling. luckily i was sitting down when i heard about it and by the time my brain actually processed the words, i was mid-sentence and had to stop talking because i wasn't sure if i was going to start crying or screaming. neither happened, but there was lots of swearing. lots. a tapestry of obscenities may still be floating near the ceiling as i type this.

at one point, it slowly dawned on me that i am at the age where i have to be prepared to say goodbye to my play aunties and my play mothers. i do not like this. this is a pretty fucked up part of adulting and i would like to opt out.

i have been beyond fortunate to have a circle of older (relatively speaking - they're all older than me but i wouldn't call them "old" per se) black women, both from church and from other spheres of my life, that i can call on for advice or gossip or a quick word of encouragement or to read me the riot act or to just be there when i need them. this circle has been in constant formation for as long as i can remember. these were the women i could lean on when my family was driving me up the wall and i didn't think i'd survive high school without losing my mind. they held me up. stood by me. sometimes stood in front of me when i couldn't defend myself. they still do, but i have to accept that death will remove some parts of that circle and it hurts like hell. it really fucking hurts.

i told someone that this timing was particularly egregious because i'd just gotten through the stretch of february/march with all of the death anniversaries and other remembrances and now i can add april 1st (seriously, god - if this is your idea of a joke, I AM NOT AMUSED AT ALL) to that list. the hits just keep on coming and i might have to start adopting the tuck and roll position because attempting to remain upright is exhausting.

recipe review: slow cooker jambalaya

a funny thing happened a couple of weekends ago: i had an entire sunday free. no plans. nothing on my calendar. no need to leave the house unless i really wanted to. this was exciting because i couldn't really remember the last time i'd had a saturday or sunday that was completely free with no errands to run or no laundry to do or not going to church or brunch or lunch or dinner or to a party or a concert or to the bar or anything. it was going to be great.

the day before this lazy sunday, i looked in the freezer for something i could cook on sunday that wouldn't really require much effort. i spotted a pack of andouille sausage that i'd bought with some vague idea of making "cajun" pasta at some point. the sausage went into the fridge to start defrosting while i went to my recipe files for ideas.

i realized that making something in the crock pot would be a great idea because i could do all of the prep either late saturday night or whenever i got up sunday morning, and it'd be done by the time i was ready to have a late lunch or early dinner. that helped narrow things down a bit.

this was the first recipe i found in on my laptop that looked promising...until i realized it had no seasoning. none. i just looked at it again while copying the link here and there is no salt, no pepper, no garlic, no herbs, nothing. obviously this would not do.

off i went to my folder of hard copy recipes, where i found this one. i didn't really want red beans and rice per se, but at least this recipe had more seasoning and other things i could make work.

what i wound up with was a combination of elements from these two recipes. here's what made it into the crock pot for 4 hours on low:

• 1 package (16 or 20 ounces - can't really remember right now) of andouille sausage, cooked and broken up into pieces
• 1/2 pound of shredded cooked chicken (the jewel near me sells "leftover" shredded chicken from the rotisserie chickens in the deli case. i've used it before for other things, like nachos, and it was fine, so i decided to buy some for this as well)
• 1 red bell pepper, chopped
• 1 yellow bell pepper, chopped
• 1 large(ish) sweet onion, chopped
• 2 ginormous cloves of garlic (i used a garlic press, but you could mince them the old fashioned way)
• 1 15 ounce can of red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 14.5 ounce can of fire-roasted diced tomatoes
• 2 small stalks of celery, chopped
• 1 12 ounce can of beer (i had a yuengling in the fridge, so that's what i used)
• salt and pepper (i eyeballed both - no actual measurements)
• creole seasoning, which i also eyeballed - maybe a tablespoon and some change? i dunno.
• dried thyme - this was also eyeballed but i doubt if i even used a full teaspoon, really
• a couple sprinkles of garlic powder (b/c garlic)

verdict? i should've drained the tomatoes since i was adding more liquid with the beer. i also wanted, and this will sound strange to those who are aware of my intolerance of spicy food, more spice - i probably could've added another teaspoon or so of creole seasoning without potentially injuring myself. the yield was probably closer to 6 servings than 4 - i had a couple of helpings that sunday and monday, and there are two plastic containers of it in the freezer. i made some microwavable brown rice with it, but obviously you could use whatever rice you wanted or not use rice at all.

on: being a disappointment to family

i saw a tweet a few days ago that discussed being a disappointment to your family. i said it kinda depended on how one would define both "disappointment" and "family." y'all know that i think of a good number of you as family - i've said countless times that the family i've created is preferable to the one i was born into, and i stand by that.

here's the thing about being a familial disappointment, though: i've learned that i can still function and be myself without worrying as much about their expectations. don't get me wrong - there is still a really small part of me that wishes, and probably will always wish, that i could fit into the box certain family members set up for me decades ago. but i don't, and i won't, and i likely never will, and that's ok.

one of the things i mentioned in response to that tweet was how, in my opinion, my independence plays a large part in the how and why of my family tends to be disappointed. it's noteworthy to me because they raised me to take care of myself and be independent and resilient and all those other things, and yet the fact that i'm independent enough to not rely on them is always in the background.

i told myself when i finished high school that i wouldn't move back in with a sibling of mine unless i absolutely positively had to, and i've stuck by that. even through the eviction/couch-sitting/quasi-nannying period of 2011-2012, going "home" was a last resort that i only seriously considered for the briefest of moments. see, i knew and still know that going home would be the end of that independence. not just because of the relative geographic isolation, but feeling like i had to fit into the box of expectations and, well, y'all know how stubborn i can be. that would not end well.

i gave up on being the "good little girl" decades ago. it was me - or at least i tried to make it work - when i was younger and lived at home and didn't have any autonomy. this is not to say that i've developed into a super duper evil person, although we all know i can be an outright bitch at times. :P


y'know how i keep saying that i'm working on meeting (and occasionally leaving) people where they are? i have to remind myself to do the same thing with my family. i remember ages ago being upset that they just didn't get me the way i thought they should, and i had to make peace with the fact that they probably never will. hell, i don't really get them 100%, either, and i am more than ok with that. i can meet them where they are and then leave them there because if i've learned nothing else, it's that i can't expect everyone to travel on this journey the same way i am. it's unfair to everyone involved and if that means disappointing someone as you try to be your best, most authentic self, then so be it.

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

imagining home

"a house, even borrowed for a little, but all your own, would mean a place to imagine and be safe." © sandra cisneros

— gwendolyn/maya/zora (@queeneulalia) January 26, 2016

i came across that line while finishing sandra cisneros' book this week. i totally agree with the notion of a house, if not somewhere to call home, being a place to imagine and to be safe. no argument from me on that one.

during the past week or so, i have been wrestling with the fact that i won't be moving out as soon as i'd hoped. i was aiming for the second quarter of this year, and while it's still possible on paper, it just doesn't make sense. at my checkup last week (the same one i alluded to in my attitude of gratitude post a while back), my doctor and i pretty much confirmed that this is the year for my fibroids to come out. surgery has been an option on the table since i was first diagnosed with fibroids some 5-6 years ago, but, y'know, i was kinda preoccupied with other stuff and therefore surgery wasn't super high on my priority list.

surgery still isn't super high on my priority list, if i'm going to be honest, but i have resigned myself to the fact that it should happen sooner rather than later. hence the delay in moving. i spent a lot of time weighing the pros and cons of moving out and then having surgery, or having the surgery while i'm still here with quasi-landlord and then moving out. the latter just makes more sense. quasi-landlord works from home and can drive me to/from the hospital and anywhere else i need to go. i can work remotely if i'm not ready to go back to work right away. depending on the surgical option my doctors and i decide to go with, i could be out for a couple of days or a couple of weeks. i know without any doubt that if i asked y'all for help, we'd make it work, but just thinking about the stress of getting settled into a new place and then having surgery was enough to make me want to pull out my hair.

none of this is set in stone. i haven't even followed up on the referral my gynecologist gave me to see which surgical option is the most viable. but, me being me, i had to start thinking ahead in an attempt to figure out what was going to make the most sense in the not-so-short term. of course quasi-landlord is all "you can stay as long as you need to and if you have the surgery before you move, that's fine," which almost made me cry even though i knew that was gonna be her response all along.

my overall goal of being back into a place of my own in time for my birthday is still viable. i just have to be ok with getting some other shit handled first. what's a little more delayed gratification, right?

recipe review: jamaican country ribs

thanks to quasi-landlord's current dietary restrictions, we're sometimes left with ingredients that she can't eat and that i more than likely forgot we had in the house. like black beans. there were a few cans of black beans lying around and quasi-landlord can't eat them, so she reminded me of their existence so i could do something with them at some point.

off i went to my recipe files while i happened to be making a grocery list. jewel had pork country ribs on sale, so my original thought was to buy a couple packs and freeze them for later use. then i found this recipe and realized i could make it this weekend. i bought a red bell pepper instead of the green pepper called for in this recipe, because organic red peppers were on sale for less than what i would have paid for either an organic or a "conventional" green pepper. 5 cloves of garlic instead of 4 because garlic is delicious and the cloves i had were on the small side. i didn't bother with the scallions at the end because lazy. oh, and i used a tablespoon of arrowroot instead of flour because i was out of flour. 

i didn't want to buy jerk seasoning because my spicy food tolerance is practically nonexistent and i didn't want to be stuck with a bottle of something that i couldn't actually use. i did a little digging and found a recipe for a jerk seasoning blend that i figured i could adapt for my own purposes. turns out we didn't have any onion powder, so that was omitted. i used maybe 1.5 teaspoons of cayenne pepper and skipped the crushed red pepper altogether because i'm a wimp like that. the seasoning isn't really that spicy, which means i probably could have added another 1/2 teaspoon or so of cayenne pepper and been ok. i still have some seasoning left and will probably use it on some chicken thighs or chicken wings. maybe i'll add more pepper then to see what happens.

in the midst of doing my prep work last night, i decided to rub some of the seasoning on the ribs and refrigerate them overnight. i do not regret this decision; in fact, i recommend you follow my lead on this if you have the time before making this recipe.

end result? i'm happy. there are plenty of leftovers so i'll get to see if the flavors develop more as the food sits. 

a not even remotely close to complete list of things i'm grateful for right now

i feel as if it has been ages since i've blogged or tweeted about #attitudeofgratitude. i've been in a weird mood the past couple of hours, like i'm waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop on something or just an overall pending sense of DOOM. maybe it's because i'm going to the doctor for my annual exam on thursday, even though i was just there in november to confirm that my fibroids haven't morphed into something more life-threatening. that's something to be grateful for right there, obviously. also grateful that i have health insurance that is accepted by both of my main doctors, so i can go have my annual exams and any other follow-up visits or tests or prescriptions and not go overboard with worrying about how it's gonna get paid for.

but i digress just a tiny bit. i tweeted a few minutes before i started writing this post, basically saying that i need to go back to being about that #attitudeofgratitude life. just because i have plenty, and oh boy do i mean PLENTY, of things to be worried and concerned and stressed about, doesn't mean i can't take a minute or two to focus on some of the good.

like my job. i have been at this job for a little more than 6 months now and even though i still don't have a full grasp on all of the things i think i should know by now, i'm doing good work. i know this because i have a manager who is actually capable of sharing feedback, both positive and negative. my teammates are cool and i like to think that i've gained the respect of some of the other teams i work with on a regular basis. i'm not saying this is going to be the job i'm in for the rest of my life, but i like where i am right now, career-wise.

my job also helps me boost my #attitudeofgratitude in other ways. the steady paycheck is a big help. i'm able to donate to charities and other worthy causes. i can pay my bills on time if i choose to, if not a little bit early. tonight i bought theatre tickets for quasi-landlord's birthday next month, and i didn't even flinch about the (admittedly discounted) cost or if i had enough in the bank to cover the expense because i know the money's there. i can treat myself to nice dinners or hang out with friends or decide that yes, i do want to go out for lunch or stop and get tacos on the way home from work (b/c tacos) and not worry myself silly about the cost. there is such a blessing in that, and if you were around back in my couch-surfing and quasi-nannying days, then you know that this isn't something i take lightly.

i am thankful for my friends, which might sound a bit repetitive given yesterday's post, but it's true. you guys are some of the most talented and intelligent and hilarious and just flat out wonderful people i know, and i am beyond grateful that i get to be a part of your lives. it's no exaggeration to say that i literally wouldn't be in this place right now if it weren't for some of y'all. i love you to the moon and back and i can't wait to see what kind of adventures we have together in the coming year.

i also love that we're still able to dream big. that sometimes i will share a totally ridiculous idea and we will run with it. or that one of you will share something and i'll be all "yes this is a great idea let's do it!" regardless of the logistics or cost or anything rational along those lines.

we haven't let life beat us up to the point where our imaginations have gone dormant. we're still here, thinking and dreaming and plotting to take over the world. if we miss, we're here to hold each other up and come up with a new plan. when it feels like the world is attacking us, we're here to hold each other up. when those voices in our heads get a little too loud, we're here to hold each other up even if we're just being silently supportive.

we're here. we are here. i am so fucking grateful that we are here. we are here and we are seen and we are heard and we are loved and we are more than enough and i am thankful. amen.

on: the friend(s) who got away

a friend of mine sent me this article a few days ago and asked me to share my thoughts once i'd had a chance to read it. since i'd been meaning to write a new post for at least the past week and a half, if not longer, i figured this was as good a reason as any.

"If our friends are the family we choose, then wouldn’t it stand to reason that our old friends must be treasured?" 

you would think so, right? with all of the work we put into choosing our friends, we'd want (need?) to hold our dearest friends as close as we can.

and yet sometimes the best possible thing we can do is let some of those friends drift away. sometimes it's due to a major break, like the one the author describes in her article. other times it's because life just gets in the way and it's hard to keep track and keep in touch.

i've experienced both. i identified so strongly with the author's "breakup" with her friend because similar circumstances led to my falling out with my former bff. like the author, i've resigned myself to knowing that former bff and i will probably never talk to each other again, and if we do, it'll be nothing like it was when our friendship was active and intact. the last time we saw each other, i laid into her with a laundry list of reasons why i was pissed the entire fuck off at her, even though i knew my yelling wouldn't change anything about her behavior. and it didn't.

"The strongest friendships are ones that have withstood the test of confrontation. It isn’t easy, I know. Our voices shake. Our palms grow damp. Our hearts beat a little faster. But when we tell our friends the truth of our hearts—even when it’s scary, especially when it’s scary—we are allowing ourselves to be seen and known."

there's so much truth to this. i am probably more transparent on this blog (and twitter, to a somewhat lesser extent) than i am in real life, but i would like to think that it's a work in progress. that most of my friendships are at a point where we can own up to our shit and, if necessary, call each other out on our shit. it's not easy and i'm not sure it should be at times. and that's ok.

"You don’t need to like each other all the time. Just show up. Tell the truth. And be kind." 

i swear so much of being a good friend can be defined by simply showing up. sometimes i just need to know that someone else is there, even if i can't articulate why i need someone there. i think we all do.

maybe that's our charge for 2016. to show up, to tell the truth, and to be kind. i already know i won't always be successful at it, but i can at least try, especially since i know that i can count on y'all to remind me of how valuable our friendships are and therefore i shouldn't completely fuck them up. :-)

recipe review: sausage and pepper pot with collard greens

i decided to make my collards and black-eyed peas on new year's eve, since i'd be gone for most of the day on new year's day and didn't want to worry about having to cook them this weekend. as has become a tradition in and of itself, i wanted to find a recipe i hadn't tried yet to start the year off. this one looked appealing enough, so i decided to go with it.

here's what i did differently (because as y'all know, i almost always do something differently with these recipes):

• i used italian sausage instead of turkey sausage because italian sausage was on sale when i went grocery shopping
• yellow instead of green bell peppers because i wanted a bit more color
• 3 garlic cloves because garlic is fucking delicious
• i added a can of drained and rinsed black-eyed peas to the pot when the sausage went back in

i let the collards cook way longer than the "simmer for 10 minutes" because i like my greens to be a bit more on the tender side. oh, and i used salt and pepper and possibly some seasoning blend that i randomly grabbed while i was in the kitchen, but i didn't measure any of them.

i think i can scale back on the chicken broth (maybe 4-5 cups instead of 6) and on the peppers (one of each, maybe?) if i decided to make this again.

oh, and this serves way more than 4 - probably closer to 8. there are two containers of this in the freezer and i'm sure each of those containers has 2 servings, plus whatever i ate and kept in the fridge this weekend.

merry new year!

on: leaving and redefining "home"

yesterday, i read a tweet from a woman that really struck a chord with me. she was basically saying how she needed to go on a journey to become who she wanted to be and that she couldn't do that at home. i can so identify with that.

as longtime readers and friends know, "home" has always been a bit of a tenuous concept for me. i actually wrote about this a couple of years ago and it still rings true.

there are those people who wonder(ed) why i didn't just move back home when my life started falling apart in earnest back in 2011. the simplest answer is that i don't really consider any of my siblings' domiciles as "home" for me. moving in with one of them would be disastrous. this is my life and i know it sounds incredibly selfish, but i need to live it on my terms. i can not afford to move back or look back. i have worked too hard during the past 20 years and some change to make myself into the person i am and i don't want to risk reverting to the person i was in high school when they still had a major influence on me. hell, the fact that i still haven't actually told them about everything that happened with the eviction and couch surfing and bouncing around should speak volumes. i mean it when i say that i love my family, but it's best if i continue to love them from a distance.

in hindsight, that stretch of time i spent couch surfing and quasi-nannying and housesitting and whatever else it took for me to get back "home" to chicago taught me a lot. it showed me once again that i have some of the most amazing friends on the planet. it reminded me that i am way more resilient and resourceful than i tend to give myself credit for. it was difficult and if you were around back then, you know there was crying and gnashing of teeth and i might've pulled out some of my hair and banged my head on both proverbial and literal walls. there were times when i could not figure out how the hell i was going to make this shit work. there were a lot of times when i thought i'd fucked everything up beyond repair and i might actually have to phone "home." that was enough to make me cry even more, to be quite honest.

chalk one up to my tenacity, or stubbornness, or both. some positive things happened and i made some steps forward and look at me now. i am hoping to be in a place of my own by my 40th birthday and there's no way i would have publicly committed to that kind of timetable a few years ago. hell, just reading that sentence has me freaking out a bit like "omg what if it doesn't happen by then?" it's ok. i am in a stable place and i have the luxury of time to figure out what i really want to do in terms of moving and i don't need to rush into anything.

this has been one helluva journey and if i'm truthful with myself, i wouldn't trade it for "moving back home" at all. no way. i think it laid a lot of the groundwork for the whole "this is all part of the work" thing i've been focused on this year. it was worth it. i'm proud of myself and thankful for y'all at the same damn time. :-)

a song* for you on saturday

(*-no actual songs here)

it's no secret that i am one of the biggest and best (worst?) enablers my friends can possibly have. you can have an idea that, on its face, sounds like the most ridiculous or silly or impossible thing in the history of everything, and i will be the cheerleader in your corner like "do it! #embracethecrazy! let's go!"

i have told countless friends to take care of themselves because there's no way they can be there for other people if they're not their best selves. i believe that. i really do. i know in my heart of hearts that for me, dispensing black girl magic is impossible if i don't at least feel a little magical myself. this is a thing that is true.

i also know that yesterday i stayed in bed and didn't get into the shower until about 1:45pm. that is not normal behavior for me. i shower every day the good lord sees fit to bless me with because hygiene is important. even if i'm not leaving the house, i will shower and throw on something that resembles clothing and proceed with full laziness.

i woke up around 4am friday morning and once my brain realized that hey, i'd only been asleep for about 2 hours at that point, i passed back out. i was awake again around 7am and pretty much spent the morning and a good chunk of the afternoon alternating between sleep, dreaming, crying, daydreaming, and just being quiet.

the crying part kinda took me aback because, well, it was the morning after my birthday and i felt like i was in a pretty good place emotionally. in one of those quiet moments, i realized i was worried about that crying fit because i didn't want to revisit that weekend in october when i really thought i was going to end it all. i didn't want to allow myself the luxury, silly as that sounds, of breaking all the way down.

but i did. i rolled around in this bed and cried and dreamed and slept and daydreamed and thought and stayed quiet. a part of my brain was all "OMFG why aren't you up and moving?" and i had to remind myself that i didn't have anywhere to be until about 6pm or so. yes, i felt a bit guilty b/c i knew housekeeping would eventually want/need to come in and refresh my room and i was throwing the staff off schedule, but it's not the first time i've been that guy and i got over that relatively quickly.

i remembered a day off i had when i was still living in skokie. i'd talked myself into not getting out of bed until i absolutely had to and i don't think i showered until well after 3pm that day. a friend came over later that day and when i told them about my morning/afternoon, they were kinda surprised because they know how i roll even on my off days. i wasn't sick. i'd just decided to let whatever emo feels i was having that day take over until i felt like i could shower and get moving.

i think that's what happened yesterday morning/afternoon. i wasn't feeling depressed. i wasn't sad. a part of me was just like, "oh, fuck it. you don't have anything scheduled and you're not at home and you don't have to wear pants and SO THE FUCK WHAT if you just wanna stay in bed for hours and hours and hours?" don't get me wrong, guys. i tried getting up a couple of times and my body was just like "NOPE" and i said ok.

giving myself permission to wallow is still something i struggle with, obviously. by no means do i want or need to wear a superwoman cape b/c that shit is fucking exhausting and i am not built for that life. that much i know about myself. i also know that sometimes i have to shut the entire fuck up and take my own advice. if my body and brain agree that it's a perfect time for me to have some feelings and stay in bed because i won't be interrupted, then i should probably honor that.

not everything needs to be scheduled. bff was kinda shocked when i said that i didn't have a totally packed schedule for my birthday week(end). i told her that i knew i was going to want/need a little time to decompress so i could be ready to power through the rest of the year and get ready for 2016 and whatever it was going to throw at me. she got it, even though i didn't really believe myself when i said it.

i mean, really. how i am going to keep telling people that they deserve every and all good things that come their way if i can't or won't convince myself that i deserve that same kind of greatness? take today, for example. i decided that i wanted to watch sports and drink wine and not wear pants this afternoon, and i am doing just that. it is as glorious as it sounds. i deserve it. i know i'm going home tomorrow and going back to work on monday and real life will be all "here, have some fuckshit" and i will need to be ready. said fuckshit might not even be directed at me, but i want/need to be prepared just in case. "you can't be good to other people if you're not good to yourself" or some variation thereof is a thing i have said/typed to who knows how many people this year. i know i have to do the same.

this is me owning my shit, which has been one of the major themes of 2015 for me. as a dear friend told me earlier this year when i was going on and on about meeting people where they are (another major theme), i have to also meet myself where i am and be ok with whatever and wherever that is. it's not easy, but it's worth doing because it's part of the work (yup, another theme this year).

and now i will go pour myself another glass of wine (yes, i am actually using a wine glass today) and continue watching sports and remain pantsless for as long as possible.

for a colored girl who had a rainbow connection on her birthday

i was in my hotel room last night flipping channels (there's a channel called planes trains and automobiles and i totally got sucked into watching it for a good half hour or so) before i went to bed and "the muppet movie" was on amc. it was technically no longer my birthday since it was after midnight, but i was still counting it as a birthday miracle.

i love the muppet movie. it is one of my all-time favorite movies. i mean that without any irony. i love that movie even though i cry at the ending every single time like i don't already know that "the rainbow connection" won't hit me directly in the feels.

so to close out my birthday with the last few minutes of one of my favorite movies was great, especially since i actually heard from more family members than i thought i would on my birthday.

my family, my brothers in particular, hated the muppet movie. family legend has it that my parents took me to see the muppet movie in theaters and when it was over, i bawled b/c i wanted to see it again. my father had to bribe my brothers (i feel like this is something james would've had to do as the youngest brother, but maybe all 3 of them were involved) to take me back the next day to see the muppet movie again.

i have no idea how my family feels about the muppet movie these days. i honestly have no idea how they feel about a lot of things and i'm ok with that. what i know is that yesterday was my birthday and they managed to get their collective acts together and call/text me to wish me a happy birthday and actually mean it. and then i closed out my celebration by crying while singing "the rainbow connection" for the 5011th time. it was almost too perfect and i tweeted that i had to tell this story today b/c i knew i was a bit too sleepy (and, let's be honest, a bit too unsober) to do the story justice last night.

thanks, universe. you sure know how to make a girl feel special on her special day. more of those kinds of awesome coincidences and not so much the ones that completely suck, mmkay? thanks.

39

i woke up feeling like prince akeem: "why yes, it IS my birthday!" where are my royal bathers and rose petal bearers?!?

— eulalia (@queeneulalia) December 17, 2015

holy shit i am now 39 years old. i just read through my blog entries from 2015 and i can't believe i'm here. no, really. those suicidal thoughts i had in october could have developed into something much more serious and dangerous, if not deadly.

i'm glad i'm still here. i'm glad that a lot of the things i've been working on this year, like meeting people where they are and owning up to shit and making peace with this empath/caregiver walk of mine, have proven to be the things that i really should be focusing on. i'm glad that i still get to play enabler and cheerleader for so many of you. that we're all working on embracing the crazy and dreaming big and living our lives as fully as we can.

the coming year (fucking hell i'm going to be 40 next year!) is shaping up to be a helluva ride. i'm excited and, not even gonna lie, a little scared at the same time. i don't know how things are going to play out, let alone if they're going to play out in my favor or how i would like them to, but i am going to try my damnedest to trust the process.

thanks for sticking around for another year. hopefully we can look back on 2015 (after punching it in the face) and laugh ourselves silly about some of it when it's all said and done.