I am a week away from turning 40. Never in a million years did I expect this life for myself. My teenage self would be shocked. My 20s self would be shocked. In my teens, I wanted the world. In my 20s, I didn't know what I wanted. In my 30s, I wanted a child.

I have the child, finally. And little else. Oh, I have so very much going for me on the surface. I have a home, a loving husband, there is steady income, healthcare, food on the table. We have 2 cars, enough money to feed and clothe and entertain the baby. The baby is happy and healthy and fun and funny and annoying and scary and breathtaking and beautiful and awe inspiring and heartmelting and dumbfounding and confounding and we laugh all the time. But I cry as much as I laugh.

I wonder, would I have kept a handle on my depression, kept it from becoming Post Partum Depression, if there had been more people in my life? I've tried everything I can think of. I joined 2 different mommy groups. I've tried to include the families more. I set up a weekly get together with my sister-in-law.

I just can't get around it - there is no one in my life, not on a regular, daily basis, other than my husband and my baby. I have no Best Friend. I haven't in years. I barely have friends. Most of my communication with the people I care about is over the internet. I have no one that I can call at 3am in an emergency. I have no one that I can call at 2pm with an emergency. I have no one that I can call and just say "I'm crying, can you please come over?"

How do you go about fixing that exactly? I've looked online. That is a joke. If somehow you can get around all the people you have nothing in common with, then around the people who insist "no drama" and "you must be sane", then around the people who don't write you back even though you have a million things in common, THEN how do you write something not completely needy and desperate? This is my life: I'm writing to no one on the internet, crying my eyes out as my husband and daughter sleep blissfully upstairs, won't you please be my friend?

How did I get here? Oh, lots of ways actually. People I've distanced myself from, people who have distanced themselves from me. Shyness. Being shy is the hardest obstacle. Fear of being myself around others because I'm so "different" I won't be accepted, so I don't reach out. When the "true" me is this carefully wrapped mess barely hanging together, it's hard to go out in public, let alone be yourself. And when you're not being yourself, it's hard to connect with people.

I'll feel better in a few days. My routine was messed with and I got off my medication. I'm back on now, I just have to wait for it to kick in. The difference in my thoughts is night and day. But being on the medication won't fix my dilemma: I'm still lonely and friendless. The medication just keeps me from spending all day weeping about it.

If I wasn't so lonely, would I stop being so bitter about my childhood? Would I stop resenting my family for not protecting me? Would I stop being so angry at people who insist on being positive? Would I stop resenting other people's success? Would I stop wanting to shout at Christians who are so thankful for their god who gave them such great lives and allowed me to grow up abused?

For as long as I can remember, it's not horror movies that terrify me, it's real life. For the longest time I lived my adult life waiting for the other shoe to drop and I thought I had finally gotten past that. Maybe not. If anything, now that the baby is here, I am more terrified of the randomisity of life.

Today, the thing that I am most angry about is myself. I have found another Proof that the Christian god does not exist: me. If a truly all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful God existed, my child would not have been born to me. My child would not have to grow up with a mother suffering from depression. If "God" existed, I would not have have been abused as a child myself, thus creating that depression. "God" allowed my father to be abused as a child, allowed him to grow up and abuse his own children, then allowed me to have a child who will suffer because of the incorrect coping strategies my childhood beat into my subconscious.

Tomorrow will be better. I just have to keep telling myself that.

A few years ago, someone I cared about very deeply said something about me being selfish. I was flabbergasted and affronted. I've had the time to realize that not only was she right, but that I think it's due to the depression. Both having and trying to heal from depression keeps you constantly tuned to yourself. When the depression is at its worst, I spend a lot of my time seeking out anything and everything that will make me feel better, everything else be damned. When I'm on top of my depression, I am constantly analyzing and re-analyzing my inner-monologue to make sure I'm not thinking "crazy thoughts". I spend a LOT of time in my own head.

And now it's late. I was attempting at some sort of cohesiveness here, but my thoughts are just all over the place in a million different directions lately. Comes from not writing when I should. If I write more often, I can write about one topic at a time as it comes to me, instead of going weeks or months and then having to jam all those thoughts into one short session. The problem is, my current weapon of choice against depression is mind numbing it with useless interneting. Writing makes me think just a little too much about my problems. It's so much easier to pretend they're not there and spend my days clicking mindlessly...

I had originally intended to write about Forgiveness in two parts, as I had two separate experiences/ideas to write about. But the universe did its thing, throwing all sorts of relevant conversations and stories at me this week. There has been so much to think about and digest, I can't keep up with it all! For now, I go back to my original plan and the topic I had meant to write about next. I imagine some things from this week will filter in. I'll have to see when I'm finished how much is left unsaid that still needs to be addressed later...

In my last post, I wrote about my need to learn how to forgive my mother. Today, I want to talk about my inability to forgive my father, something that may not just be impossible, but that can be argued may or may not be in my best interest to attempt. I don't want to talk about my father in specifics. There is too much there, and it is all very painful, which will make what I'm attempting to do here much more emotional than I'd like. I'm trying to examine myself, my feelings, the way I think, my opinions - to reconcile this with the outer world, the "normal" world. I don't want to dwell in the past, I want to deal with my present mindset.

But I need to be clear about a few things. First, I believe my father to be the second most evil individual I have ever met. Two, during my childhood my father was violent, alcoholic, quick to anger, extremely volatile - I believe he was/is suffering from schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, or some other psychotic personality disorder. Three, my mother on the other hand was/is merely neurotic. Four, I believe my father should be rotting away in some prison right now for the crimes he has committed against me and my family, as well as others with the misfortune of having been in his life. Five, the most evil person I have ever met was my father's step-father, the biological father of my dad's brothers - but not genetically responsible for my father or his sister.

. . .

I had a full session with my therapist this week, knowing I had more to talk about than just the usual half-hour check-in appointment could allow for. I talked about my bitterness, how hard it is for me to forgive anyone for even the smallest infractions, about my negativity and pessimism. She wanted to know where my pessimism came from, if it was something my parents or others from my childhood might have instilled or modeled for me to learn. The answer to that is while my parents are likely hugely responsible for my negativity and pessimism, I believe the extent is merely through the self-defense mechanisms I developed in response to their actions. I don't recall my mother or father being pessimistic or optimistic. I remember my mother encouraging us to follow our dreams and telling us we could do whatever it is in life we wanted to try. I remember my father always chasing fantastical dreams of wealth.

My earliest memories of pessimism are from a volleyball game in the 7th grade. I was not horrifically bad at volleyball, unlike 99% of the other things inflicted on me in school during PE. On this occasion, my team was winning. Every time we made a point or thwarted the other team's attempts to score, all the boys would cheer and trash-talk the opposing team. This infuriated me. I saw no reason to celebrate a game that wasn't over, a game that we could still lose. We shouldn't count our chickens before they had hatched, because it would tempt fate.

Lessons learned through this memory: I was (irrationally?) superstitious from a young age, I am not or at least was not a complete failure at physical activity, and - drum roll please - school kids may be the root cause of my pessimism. Huh.

Today, I feel I am a total failure at anything physical, completely lacking any grace or delicacy of movement, a true "bull in a china shop". In the 7th grade playing volleyball, I already believed this. Why? Because of years of heckling from teammates in PE. It wasn't enough to be fat or white or shy or poor or lacking fashion sense - all the sources of school yard taunts. No, my level of unawesomeness carried over into the classroom, where it was a daily ritual for most of the boys and some of the girls to mock and ridicule my physical ineptitude during Physical Education period. Moving around, this was something that didn't change: co-ed PE was brutal for me in both Hawaii and Port Orchard. Thinking back, I should probably have been more thankful for middle-school PE in Port Orchard, where class was not co-ed, and team sports were rarely (if ever) played. There just isn't room for mocking when every last girl in the class is winded and hating the teacher for assigning yet another day of Cross Country running.

I have always believed I suck at sports. Completely and utterly. A belief in your own worthlessness is pessimism, right? This belief was indeed prompted by actual suckage on my part, but the point was truly hammered home by the voices of cruel little boys who hated losing games by having me on their team.

So my pessimism isn't from my parents. Who knew? But the bitterness, that is another story. As an adult, I have avoided all things physically demanding and voila, I don't suck all the time! But I seem to be incapable of avoiding childhood memories of the cruelty of my father. So pessimism I can work on. Actually, I personally believe I am a closet optimist, because no matter how bad things get, I always hold on to at least a smidgen of hope. This isn't very healthy either, clinging to the hope of miracles in the face of impending doom/failure.

I see my pessimism, my negativity, my bitterness, my difficulty giving forgiveness, as one thing. Maybe it's not? Maybe they're just related? But I definitely see my bitterness as caused not only by my past, but my current inability to forgive and/or let go of the past. I don't want to be a pessimist. I don't want to be bitter. I don't want to spend my entire life dwelling on past hurts to the extent of not being able to forgive. But how?

Actively working on forgiving my mother has been helpful. Time has helped partially heal the scars caused by childhood bullies. But time hasn't helped in the case of my father, and I cannot or will not forgive him. Leaving me to wonder, do I have to forgive my father to let go of my past and finally be happy with my present?

This is my dilemma, and one I don't really have an answer for. Of course, blurting out this statement only came at the very end of my therapy session. Ha! But she didn't shut down the conversation before telling me that it didn't have to be necessary for me to forgive my father. That there are ways of letting go of the past without forgiveness. Now there is a solution I'd like to pay money for! Unfortunately, if it was something simple, it would have been dished out by now in therapy. Nope, I'm thinking it's going to be rather complicated.

This hasn't really been much about my father like I expected, so let me steer back in that direction. I am the only person in my family who does not have a relationship with my father. My mother, my sister, my brothers - they all allow him in their lives. Hell, not a single one of my mother's relatives have ever put a foot down and banned him from anything - it's always up to my mother to convince him that everyone would be more comfortable at Thanksgiving dinner if he didn't go with us over to Gramma's house. All of this passive acceptance of him has added more bitterness for me to deal with. Because I don't understand. I don't understand how he can do the things he's done, treat them just the same for years and years, and still be allowed in their lives. I just don't understand it. It's confusing to me. It hurts, actually. It's been more difficult than I feel it should have been to communicate just how serious I am about not being in the same room with him, ever, for any reason.

My step-grand-father, the most evil person in the world, was never disowned by anyone in his family. Not even by my father, who was an actual victim of physical abuse usually shared for non-family members. Usually. You would think that violence in the home would give weight to accusations by outsiders, but it didn't. You would think that the violence against his stepchildren would give weight to the accusations of his grandchildren, but it didn't. You would think that he would have eventually ended up in prison and then some state graveyard only to be identified by a number, when in fact he lived out his last days happily at home, then was buried right next to my grandmother with a name and honored remarks on his tombstone.

Have all these people forgiven? Just put it out of their mind? Lied to themselves? Denied and remained unbelieving against all evidence? I don't get it, not in the case of my father or his step-father.

The same day CNN carried a story about forgiveness and Casey Anthony, I followed a link to Why people stick by scandal-plagued pastors. The article touches on money scandals, infidelity, sexual coercion. In all cases, there are people who "jump ship", but there are others who "stand by their man". What. The. Fuck? Apparently, disbelief is a big part of it. Cases where there is just no evidence that could possibly come to light to change the favorable opinion of a few loyal followers. Some people are voyeurs actively interested in watching the scandal fallout first hand. Again, WTF? Some "view themselves as participants in a cosmic struggle." Uh, what now? This has got to be my favorite though:

None of this appeared to matter to Kirkpatrick. He said Long would have to answer to God, not him.
"I don't think Bishop Long can do anything worse than what Judas did, and God still loved him," Kirkpatrick said.
Kirkpatrick compared pastors to doctors.
"There are people who we trust with our lives every day, like doctors, who do all sorts of things, but we don't question them. This is our spiritual medicine. We come here to get what we need and then we leave."
When asked if there was anything that would cause him to stop attending New Birth, Kirkpatrick lowered his head and paused before he finally said:
"The church would have to close."

I thought that the article might shed some light on my family's (un)reaction to the crimes of my father and his step-father. The closest that any of it came was the concept that a parishioner (child) can't leave a paster (parent) to whom they attribute a positive action in their life like help with drug addiction or a failing marriage (or... giving birth???).

"There is a suspension of common sense, a refusal to put two and two together," Thompson said. "For a lot of people, this is the man who gave them the keys to a whole new way of living. They can't separate the good they received from the man himself, so they feel it would be a betrayal to turn on him now."
When outsiders ratchet up criticism against an embattled pastor, members often go into battle mode, said Thompson, author of "The Prodigal Brother: Making Peace with Your Parents, Your Past, and the Wayward One in Your Family."
"They circle the wagons to protect their guy," Thompson said. "They don't want to see, and they don't want to be made to see what 'the world' sees. They believe the world's view is false, so they form the firewall."

In the end, I am no less confused. I'm just more in awe at some people's capacity for stupidity and/or ability to self-delude. Some things are just unknowable, unexplainable, to someone not experiencing it for themselves. Even when we're talking about two people having two completely different reactions to the same event.

And I'm no closer in my quest to understand and grant forgiveness.

And dammit if now there has to be a Part 3 in this series.

Forgiveness has been on my mind lately. I think it started when I was inspired by My Life List to make a life Goal to "forgive my mother". (It's an interesting concept, a website to declare and track your goals in life, combined with social media if you'd like to get public support in your endeavors.)

In case you haven't noticed, I'm a very bitter person. I am alternatively snarky or silent on many topics based on the emotional echoes from my past. I've only recently realized the extent that bitterness has infected my life, and it's become important to me to try to reverse. How does one reverse bitterness? Let go of the past, stop living your life there, and keep your past in your past. And forgive. Forgive yourself and others. Unfortunately, forgiveness does not come easily to me.

But the day after declaring to the world that I intend to forgive my mother, I stumble upon some thought-provoking pieces on CNN. The first was the most relevant, Casey Anthony and the challenge of forgiveness. For those living under a rock, Casey Anthony was found not-guilty of murdering her own daughter last week, after a very public trial, to the outrage of the American public. I personally think that trial-by-media is a horrific form of yellow journalism that is both detrimental to those involved in the case, as well as those who get sucked in by the media coverage - the first group doesn't get a proper trial (and in return receive unwanted attention at the worst possible moments of their lives), and the second group is whipped into a riotous feeding frenzy by news agencies. A "trial of peers" is not a trial by every person who has access to a television, it's by a 12 member jury picked to represent the public at large. There are rules about this sort of thing, and those rules are in place for everyone's sake. It is not healthy to become obsessed with media coverage of anything, especially not a murder trial that has nothing to do with you. But after an acquittal, the resulting public outcry is... ferocious, monstrous, and really fucking scary. An entire nation on the verge of rioting is frightening, but when it's caused by something that has nothing to do with them except to feed an obsession... can I just say, holy shit?

So Patrick Wanis wrote this piece for CNN about forgiveness, with Casey Anthony as the focus, but only as a greater lesson.

staying stuck in anger, bitterness, vindictiveness or a desire for revenge does not bring about positive results. As a human behavior expert and therapist, the most common denominator of the pain, mental and emotional affliction that I see people suffer is the lack of forgiveness - the anger and pursuit of revenge against mom, dad, brother, sister, aunt, uncle or self for something that someone did or didn’t do.

Without forgiveness, there is only pain, recurring memories that hurt again and again and again. There is a line between seeking justice and revenge, and holding out for revenge just destroys us from the inside out. Wanis gets all spiritual in his article, but even as an atheist I can understand and take to heart the examples in scripture and real life of forgiveness. He talks of Jesus, he talks of a Holocaust survivor, he steers back to Casey Anthony.

Look in your heart and ask yourself what effect the poison of anger and revenge have on you and your life. We have all wronged and we are all imperfect. Of course, murder is not the same as the wrongs that most of us commit.

But if Jesus could ask God to forgive the people that were about to murder him and if a Holocaust survivor could forgive the people that poisoned her and tried to exterminate her family, then what holds you and I back from forgiving anyone? The next time you commit a wrongdoing, won’t you be saying “Please forgive me?”

This is very powerful stuff. And relevant to my personal struggle with my relationship with my mother. I don't want to talk about what my mother did or didn't do, what was justified or not, whether I'm in the right or not. I love my mother, I know I hold the past against her, and I know that our relationship can't be healthy until I let that go. I have to forgive her.

But how? How does one forgive? There are obviously varying degrees of slights, and varying degrees of forgiveness we must find within ourselves to move forward. I am cut from the cloth that finds forgiveness of almost any level hard to grant. This is so shameful for me. So often, I know I'm being unreasonable, but I don't know how to stop myself. In the past, I have told people I forgive them without actually meaning it. Or meaning it at the time, only to realize later that I'm still holding bitterness against them. Neither is true forgiveness, neither is healthy for me or the other person.

Once again, I'm going to blame my crazy brain and its obsessiveness. I can't really speak for other people's brains I guess, but I've been given the impression that it's not normal to be constantly reliving a moment or emotion or event or series of events. I can be distracted - my mind is constantly going and going and going like a hamster on a wheel, and I'm constantly interrupted by all sorts of stray thoughts. But there is always something that my mind is holding on to like some rabid dog, and the only thing that relieves it is when the thought is replaced by a different obsessive thought. I am seriously exhausted just by what's going on in my head all the time, every minute of every hour of every day.

I'm thinking... Post Traumatic Stress Disorder coupled with Obessive Compulsive Disorder. Somehow, the OCD magnifies the PTSD, so that every negative event gets seared into my brain for reliving in Full Living Color and Smell-o-Vision over and over forever. My memories don't fade. The pain doesn't fade.

This is not really true, not in the long term. I do eventually "get over" most hurts. Most. Eventually. But the constant marathon reliving of the pain in the short term makes the process so maddening, so hard to live through, so hard to come out on the other side at all. Sometimes, I don't. For the most part, the things I can't forgive ever are from my childhood. My brain may find other distractions over time, other things to worry or obsess about over the years. But the smallest thing can set off a memory and suddenly it's as if it just happened. How does a person defeat that?

The answer is therapy of course - it has taught me how to actually notice that my mind is stuck in a rut. Noticing helps you actively distract yourself so you can get out. But... unfortunately, that's about it. I notice I'm doing it and I actively try to stop it. This isn't really all that much more pleasant than not noticing. At least there is some relief more often though.

So, let's see... Bitterness and revenge are bad, forgiveness is good, forgiveness is difficult to achieve, forgiveness of childhood hurts is more than difficult. Guess where my bitterness against my mother stems from? Childhood.

Time is helping. Talking is helping. Life is helping - you hear from other people about their similar experiences, you watch it unfold in movies, you read about it on CNN. It can be chipped away at over time. It just can't be forced.

There are some things that I'm convinced that I'm never going to forgive. But none of them involve my mother. I love her, I need her in my life again, I have done so much more harm through this bitterness - to her, to my siblings, to myself. Can actively trying to put those memories away actually help? I really, really hope so.

As mentioned previously, I've had some epiphanies quite recently. Here is another:

I want to talk to you, so why don't I call you?

I visited a small support group for chronic illness last week, which was an amazing experience because we all spoke the same language. We used the same phrases without having to explain ourselves, we shared similar emotions and histories, we listened to each other without question, we spoke without having to defend ourselves. Still, there were new ideas. I cannot stress enough how important talking out loud can be to getting your mind to think in a slightly different way so that you can come up with new solutions.

The subject of isolation came up, and hearing someone else talk about it allowed me to think about my own isolation differently. I know that I am mostly to blame for my own isolation, because I push people away. I don't want to talk about myself, so I remain quiet. For some reason I open up to strangers more easily than to friends or loved ones. Why?

It's simple really. I don't want to burden anyone. I don't want to be a complainer. And I am so wrapped up in these things that I'm not saying, that I don't know what else to say. I see the only two ways I can contribute to conversations is to either (a) bring everyone down, or (b) bore people to death.

But I do want to talk to people. "I don't want to talk about myself" is a lie. I am so desperate to talk about myself that I open up to strangers. I've been known to freak people out by revealing too much too soon upon meeting them. So why aren't I talking to you, my friends and family?

Because I need your permission. I am so out of the loop, so down on myself, feeling so guilty for being such a crap companion, that I just won't open my mouth and say anything of any real consequence. I will sit there and quietly listen to you talk for hours if you like - I find it kind of enjoyable. But to talk back about myself, I need one of two things to happen:

1. if you mention feelings or problems or a history similar to that which I'm keeping to myself, it's like lighting a fire on a cartoon bomb: the desire to talk will burn through me until finally I can't stand it anymore and I'll blurt something out. If you don't immediately shut me down, I can become positively manic in my need to say as much as possible about myself as quickly as possible.

or

2. if you ask me about myself, something pointed and direct, or just express a genuine interest in my emotional state, the floodgates will open and be quiet impossible to shut down again. See above under "manic".

Permission... where on earth did that come from?? I've never felt the need for permission for anything else in my life. So why do I lock up my mouth when I'm around the people I care about? I put on a fake smile, a pleasant demeanor, and keep to myself. I've become fed up with the fake emotions over the past few years, but kept up the silence for the most part. Which has led to me looking miserable but not telling anyone why. Facebook and this blog occassionally allow me the illusion of distance to say things I normally wouldn't reveal so easily to the people I care about. But not enough. Not enough to change this pattern I've created for myself.

On top of all of this immediately came another epiphany: just because I don't know what to say, that doesn't mean you wouldn't like to hear from me, or that I wouldn't enjoy hearing from you. In fact, I'm so set in my ways, I relish hearing other people talk about themselves. But because of guilt and this need for permission vs. a desire to hide, I don't call people and I rarely pick up the phone when people call me.

So, here's a solution: call people. Talk to people. Answer the god damned phone once in awhile.

This will also help with epiphany #3: despite not wanting to burden you with my problems, I need people in my life that I can share this burden with. What is the point of loving someone if I can't trust them with the truth? I want to talk to you because I'm lonely, but I need to talk to you because I can't do this alone any more.

On Monday I drove to Port Orchard to see my mother, and we also had lunch with my sister. We talked about cats and home ownership and pest control. We each mentioned a little about our health. My mother and I seem to have developed this pattern of not discussing our health and mental state to each other. We're each hiding bits of ourselves for reasons I'm not sure either of us knows about anymore.

I'm not fixed, all new and shiny and ready to take on the world once more. But it's a step, and for once it's in the right direction.

I've had a handful of small epiphanies over the past month or so.  I think the first one, the biggest one, led to all the others. It opened my mind to possibilities I don't think I was even ready to just think about.

Epiphany #1 is this: I do not like the person that I have become. This has been a long time coming, from a train of thought and inner-conversations over the past year, but also building on 11 years of therapy and self-examination.

The short explanation, the one that's easier to say, is that I've been spending a lot of time lately thinking about high school and wondering how on earth I got to here from there. Not just the excitement and energy and possibilities that come with youth for just about everyone. But the things that were important to me then, the way I defined myself, were completely different than now. I was hopeful and generous and my mind was engaged. The future was enormous and kind of scary, but I knew I would find my place in it. Yes, there was cynicism, the "glass-half-full", the "don't count your chickens before they hatch", the "let the dust fall before celebrating." But hope and eagerness and even tenuous confidence was at the forefront.

Today, I do not recognize myself when I look back on that person. Most of her is still in me, buried deeply, covered up by the cynicism that has turned into bitterness. "Let the dust fall before celebrating" has turned into "waiting for the other shoe to drop," coupled with a constant need to look over my shoulder for it. I am still hopeful, but  it seems only ever to my detriment: when it looks like something isn't going to work out, I latch onto hope that has no reason to be there, continuing to take a beating instead of letting go when the going is good. My mind is engaged, but only because I am constantly in my own head analyzing and re-analyzing myself. I am still generous, with a tendency to excess, but only when my own problems aren't looming largely in front of me - which is not very often. The future is smaller, but scarier, because I'm still looking for my place in it and see no real hope of finding my way. Just small, hopeful wishes that at least I'll survive this current mess and regain something of myself before the next disaster.

That didn't seem like the short version, did it? Well the long version is that this has not happened overnight, or recently, but it has been a long, long process. When I stand Mysie @ Graduation next to Mysie @ Today, it makes no sense that these two are the same person. But when I look back over my life, I can see the events and decisions that lead to other decisions and consequences until I got here. Each individual decision seems perfectly rational. But chart them out, and it leads down a dark path of failure, of giving up, of checking out.

Mysie @ Graduation was a fighter. I fought for every win growing up, fought tirelessly to succeed in school so I could get out of the house and my childhood and go be my own person doing the things I wanted to do without every authority figure breathing down my neck to judge and cajole and make decisions for me. When I saw the kids around me with advantage, money and popularity and confidence, I quietly assured myself that I was going to achieve just as much or more than they possibly could. I would be the best, because my fight had been the hardest. I actually thrived on these inner challenges to compete with people who had no idea they were my competitors.

Mysie @ Today has been crushed by challenges. I'm full and I don't want any more. I don't want success, I just want to survive and come out the other end pain free. Now the thing I crave the most is an authority figure to hold my hand and guide me through this minefield. Or better yet, carry me. Yes, please GOD, someone pick me up and carry me OUT of here!

So what now? Unfortunately, epiphanies don't solve problems. They merely cast light on possible solutions. You still have to implement those solutions, you still have to fight. And I'm still so tired and bruised and ready for a nap.

That first epiphany has led me to name my regrets, to remember my dreams. I believe my future depends on two lines of attack: rectifying my regrets, and going after new (or old?) dreams once again.

My most deep regret is pushing away my family. My most important dream was always to make a difference in other people's lives, to make a lasting impression on humanity if only in the smallest way.

Still, realizing isn't doing. I'm not so good at the doing.

Today is my surgery. A hysteroscopy to look at and remove a "polyp" from inside my uterus, followed by a laparoscopy to look at and possibly remove one cyst from each ovary. My ovaries are pretty much useless to me now, so that's not a big deal. I was worried they would have to cut into the uterus so we would be off track for baby-making for months while I heal. Apparently, that's not the case. Either they go in the "natural" opening, or they make such a tiny incision it heals right away without stitches.

Of course, they make you sign all sorts of forms saying you understand that things can slip and they can puncture things or sever things and you may need a colostomy bag for the rest of your life if you're really unlucky. But that's not what I'm worried about.

I'm worried about the pure chance element of dying during surgery. Supposedly going through a successful surgery in the past is a good sign you will again. But it doesn't rule it out. Nothing rules it out. It's a fact that people die during surgery for no good reason. Now, I understand those odds are smaller than the doctor nicking an artery or being hit by a bus on the way to the hospital or Mt. Rainier exploding and really fucking up traffic, but... Those are the kind of things that I truly have no say over.

But today, deciding that yes, I'm going to let people poke around inside me with sharp objects and remove stuff and pump me full of chemicals and some tiny anomaly somewhere may kill me during the process. That is a willful choice of putting myself in harms way. So it's what freaks me out.

Yesterday I talked to my mom. Her best friend, my "Aunt" Frances, has liver cancer and is expected to live another 2-3 months. She said she had been worried about my reaction. My reaction was that I didn't have one - except to decide that yes, this was a phone call I should return. I told my mother that despite being sad, and especially sad for her, there wasn't any real "reaction". It is just not real to me. I told her if I was told there was an asteroid headed towards earth and we were all going to die in 24 hours, I'd probably just say "Huh." Because it is all just unreal to me at this point. Some point a few weeks ago I got too much information, too much bad news, for me to fully process anything else. There is only so much that the mind can fathom before it just... stops and calls bullshit. Right now, there's so much, my mind doesn't really grasp that it's all really true.

In the context of this and the surgery and my fear of the microscopic chance of unexpected death, I told my mother that some people see the human body as a miracle. All these crazy systems and organs working together to make us walk and talk and move about, etc. And I admit, it's pretty damn miraculous. But then I look at my body, and I have the opposite reaction. My organs, my systems, they DON'T work together. Not well. And they're falling apart, getting more out of sync. Some people have a miracle. I have a nightmare.

My mom told me a joke. Apparently, we have a common trait: we forget jokes. But this one is very simple and I really liked it, so here it is.

God and a scientist are having a conversation. The scientist proclaims he can make a human life, from scratch, just as easily as God. God agrees to see him try. The scientist bends down to grab some clay from the earth. God steps in and stops him, saying, "Go make your own."

I just thought that was hilarious.

We listened to a short segment of "This American Life" last night, with Dan Savage as the storyteller. His somewhat quiet, mellow, even demure voice just does not match the flamboyant sex columnist I've created in my head! He was talking about being a lapsed Catholic. The kind that doesn't go to church, but when he's on a plane he crosses himself, and when his boyfriend is driving them at 90 miles an hour passing someone, he prays to god. But when it's over, he goes back to being an agnatheist (his word). He said something about how not only does this make him a hypocrite, but also an ingrate.

It's nice to know that there are other people out there that can see the oxymorons in their life, acknowledge it, laugh about it, but not having any power to do anything about it.

Well, the valium has kicked in and it's time to leave for the hospital. Wish us luck.

ps: here is how I define irony: going to the video store yesterday to pick up some mind-numbingly dumb but sweet and at least somewhat satisfying romantic comedy to distract myself. I pick out "Couples Retreat". 10 minutes into the movie, it is revealed that they all need to go on this retreat to help save on of their marriages. Because they've been trying to have a baby for a year and the stress has been so much that they're starting to question their relationship and why they're even together. And then later that night hearing Dan Savage talk about his lapsed Catholicism in the face of watching his mother die somewhat unexpectedly in a hospital.

Fucking irony.

I am pissed off. And bitter. And I am pissed off that I'm pissed off and bitter. I don't like the feeling, I don't like what it does to my emotions, I don't like how it makes me treat other people.

I just can't seem to end it. Because OTHER PEOPLE are pissing me off. I'm not pissy about traffic, TV programming, Republicans... I'm pissed off at individual people. This is compounded by the fact that a lot of the people doing this are people I know and care about, and they're not even aware of what they're doing. I'm pissy, but I'm afraid to say anything about it because I don't want everyone else to get pissy at me!

This has been brewing for a few months now. Obama turning traitor, the anti-gay marriage crap, the holidays approaching adding stress. But the past 2-3 weeks have gotten me to the point where I don't want to be around people because I'm afraid the next word out of their mouth will make me EXPLODE.

I want to say it right now: I am pissed off with the concepts of Christian "bias" and righteousness.

1. Yep, some non-Christians started to complain that "Merry Christmas" was annoying them. Some higher-ups tried to be more accommodating and/or inclusive, putting up some Menorahs - Yay! Some higher ups went to the point of changing their professional phrasing to eliminate mentioning Christmas - erm, not really necessary in most cases! Others went just plain bananas, allowing every voice to be heard (even the crackpots) or shutting down all religious holiday speech at all. WTF?

Yep, it's gotten annoying. I'm an atheist and I find much of it ridiculous. But I would really appreciate it if when someone says the phrase "Happy Holidays" you refrain from sneering, judging, or proclaiming bias. No one told YOU to stop saying Merry Christmas. You keep on with that - you and the MAJORITY of Christian Americans can keep on wishing each other good tidings and cheer, yay! But a VAST minority not saying it is not bias, not a conspiracy, not anti-Christian, nor anti-American. The even SMALLER minority who are annoyed with Christians wishing them well for religious holidays they don't celebrate, well they're just ungracious. But them voicing their opinions is not bias.

2. Ever heard of institutional racism? Here's the definition I learned in college: The term "institutional racism" describes societal patterns that have the net effect of imposing oppressive or otherwise negative conditions against identifiable groups on the basis of race or ethnicity. The example used that finally made me "get it" was something like this:

A white man with a 4.0 GPA and a black man with a 3.5 GPA apply to the same college. White man is accepted based on merit. If affirmative action steps in, maybe so does the black man, or just maybe he gets in and the white man doesn't because the school is now full. Affirmative Action sounds ridiculous in the context, right? Well let's go back a few years: white man born to middle-class family with steady jobs, lives in the same house all his life, goes to a school with adequate funding. The black man born to a lower-class family living in an inner-city, father was shot in a random drive-by, mother loses her job trying to manage family on her own, family forced to move to a tiny apartment in a worse neighborhood, no longer can they afford new school clothes each year, the address change put the boy in the worst school district in the state. Now compare the two: white boy with advantages got perfect grades, black boy too busy babysitting siblings to do homework somehow manages to get a 3.5GPA despite this. What if the black man had been born in the white man's neighborhood? Surely someone with his intelligence and without dangerous distractions could achieve a 4.0GPA in that situation. This is the RESULT that Affirmative Action tries to correct. Institutional Racism is the fact that black man's family live in that neighborhood because a generation ago the grandparents didn't have anywhere else to live on their salaries because they were born to a previous generation who couldn't get a fair wage because of their skin color, because a generation before that the family were ex-slaves living in a shack. Slavery has been outlawed, but the ramifications are still there. The entire government is set up in such a way to favor well-off people, who tend to be white because they tend to come from more stable homes and neighborhoods. But it's the non-white populations that need the most help.

Boot-strap it is the answer from Rush and others. An entire racial population is born to a system that works against them, and it's up to them to crawl out of the hole? We have no duty to fill the hole, put everyone on level playing ground?

I think Affirmative Action often does too much, at the expense of too many. But I believe it is the right thing to do to try.

3. Now, change the story a little bit: imagine a Christian and a Muslim. Imagine a government built to favor Christians, but you are born a Muslim. Imagine Christian money, Christian flag pledging, Christian holidays where everything closes, swearing on a Christian bible to prove you are truthful. The Christian guy loves his life and his religion - it is reaffirmed everyday in a million little ways. The Muslim is annoyed that his money only has white faces on it and praises a god he does not believe in, he is singled-out when he is the only one who doesn't pledge allegiance because it is too much like worshipping a false-idol, imagine having to cram your Ramadan traditions into one afternoon because it's a school night but later everyone at school gets 2 weeks off to celebrate the birth of a god you don't believe in, imagine being seen as untruthful because you won't swear by a book you don't have faith in. Now imagine Christmas sales and television programming and neighborhood decorations popping up everywhere the day after Thanksgiving and continuing until the end of the year. Imagine co-workers asking you to recommend a good place to buy a Christmas tree. Imagine office parties where everyone exchanges gifts because they all worship the same god that you don't believe in. Imagine your mosque's newsletter being stamped with "Merry Christmas" by the Post Office. Imagine every store you walk into, every restaurant hostess, every bank teller, every customer service representative wishing you a nice time celebrating their holiday that you won't actually celebrate. Imagine the President going on national television to send Christian blessings for a Merry Christmas to his citizens, assuming they are all Christians who will be celebrating, with not even a shout-out to all the Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, etc. who voted for him but won't be having Christmas dinner.

I'm thinking Institutional Religionism sucks ass right about now. I'm not getting a single paid holiday off to celebrate my god, so is it really any wonder that I'm going to be grumpy? Maybe grumble a little? Maybe write a letter to the newspaper? Asking your local representative for equal acknowledgement of your religious holidays? I'm not in a movement to take your religion away from you, nor am I biased against you. I'm sick of the Christian favoritism, which in its very nature is bias against me!

When I wish you Happy Holidays, I'm not disrespecting you, I'm being nice!

3. You have every right to publicly rejoice in your god, just as I have every right to point out how ridiculous I think you are for doing so. When you tell me two men shouldn't be allowed to marry because homosexuality is a sin, I'm going to mention the fact that marriage has nothing to do with what your god thinks is sinful or not - it was here before your religion even started! When you claim the answer to youth violence is prayer in school, I'm going to point out that I didn't pray in school, I'm an atheist, and I'm not a gang-banger either. When you claim that the only thing keeping humanity in check is god's law, I'm going to point out that I don't believe in god or any laws you think he wrote, and I haven't become a serial killer or pedophile. When you decide it's fun to play devil's advocate by retorting that you question my definition of morality, it's really just singling me out in need of correction if you don't also retort to your other friends' religious exclamations by posting witty anti-god arguments in response.

4. Until horns grow out of his head and he opens the doorway to allow fiery hell to consume the planet, calling the President the Anti-Christ is a bit alarmist. Urgently forwarding an email claiming proof that the president is evil, without even looking up some sort of confirmation elsewhere, is hysterical - and I don't mean funny. I have a problem with the word hysterical, because the Greeks liked to use it to describe menstruating women as psychologically ill, so I don't use it very often. But stumbling upon one nugget of information and then foaming at the mouth while screaming to the world that you now have proof of supernatural evil is irresponsible, unconscionable, and, yep, hysterical.

5. People who refuse to acknowledge scientific facts because of religion or politics are out of their minds. Just because Al Gore says it's so, doesn't make it true. Ditto Glenn Beck. Move beyond the headlines, the manipulated numbers, the accusations, and read the scientific results. And keep in mind that new facts that don't support the old facts 100% is not proof of anything. Doing the same test 10 times with 9 positive results and 1 negative result does not automatically invalidate the test or the positive results.

6. I a seriously questioning just how much Christmas tradition I want to keep in my life and involve my future children with. I thought I had decided this years ago: tradition - yes, religion - no. But both religion and tradition are so overshadowed by commercialism. And I'm not just talking about Christmas sales before Thanksgiving.

Why do we give presents to each other to celebrate the birth of god? Why do we go out of our way, our budgets, and our minds making sure everyone we love knows that they're loved because your bought them the perfect gift on someone else's birthday? Why is it that one present isn't enough? Just how many presents, how many dollars spent, how many decorations hung, how many deals gotten does it take to show our love for each other is genuine?

Humans seem to really like gifts. Often, both giving and receiving. We like to celebrate. It is in our nature to shower gifts on newborns and have a celebration, almost as ingrained as the innate need to love and protect anything with a small face and big eyes. So we keep giving them gifts, because we keep gushing over them and those eyes and our need to bend over backwards for them. It becomes habit. Tradition. Ritual. Once something hits ritual stage, it's too big for its britches - a giant convoluted mess that overshadows everything that was originally celebrated.

Don't let the ritual of shopping and materialism and one-upmanship make you lose sight of your holiday, your loved ones, your budget, your sanity.

In closing, this seems long, but for the points I've hit, I could swear I've missed some stuff. But other than being a little bleary eyed from staring at the monitor, I feel a million times better!

ps: Christmas is not the reason for the season. In our part of the world, December brings the season of winter, which is brought about by the earth rotating away from the sun. Winter is in July in Australia. I'm pretty sure Australia doesn't celebrate Christmas in July. All together now: Christmas is a holiday, not a season. Now birthdays on the other hand, now there's a misnomer. The phrase should really be birthweek. An entire week of celebrations and feasts and honors and presents! Celebrating birthmonth might be nice, but even I think that would be a little excessive, especially if 1/12th of the population sat around and did nothing every month except waiting to be adored and showered with gifts.

pps: but can there really be too much excess for birthdays??! I'll have to ponder this one.

ppps: yep, I'm a materialistic shopaholic. I can't quite believe it myself that I'm complaining about the overspending at Christmas. Who'da thunk it?!

Just change a few of the facts, the timeline, remove the father's saintly make-over, and you have my story. Holy. Fuck.

From a Dear Prudie column courtesy of Slate:

Seattle: My father was abusive to me and my youngest brother, and in addition to the physical and verbal abuse, I was also molested by this man. I told my mother, or tried to tell my mother, a couple of times when I was younger that it was going on, once when I was 11, and again when I was 14. She ignored my attempt to ask for help, and swept it all under the rug. It was just a non-event.

Several years later, when I was about 16, my parents got divorced because my father was having an affair that he was not willing to give up—just one in a string of others. I saw this as a sign that my mother was finally seeing him for how he truly was, and took that opportunity to talk to her about the previous years of abuse. She claimed she never knew about it (a convenient go-to excuse for everything regarding her husband apparently) and swore to never try to rekindle their marriage now that she knew about this.

Fast forward ten years later, they have remarried each other. She says now that he was 'saved' and goes to church with her every Sunday, and that I must have been mistaken about some of what I 'remember'. In other words, she is happy to just have her husband back and is eager to sweep everything under the rug, once again, even if that means thinking of me as a liar.

I have since moved to the west coast—they live on the east coast, and have a family and four children. My parents have been re-married for many years now, and after several years of frankly avoiding speaking to her and her new-again husband (I refuse to call him 'dad' any longer), I finally started accepting phone calls from her a few years ago for the sake of my 3 daughters—her grandchildren, who are teenagers now. My youngest son is 5 and has never met them.

She occasionally makes remarks about why I don't visit, or suggests that I let my daughters spend the summer there with her.

She is clearly in the complete denial phase again, and I just don't know how to respond. Normally I just say we're busy or we have a trip planned or some other excuse. I have no intentions of EVER visiting these people (my parents) ever again, and I have no desire to ever have them around my own children. I barely tolerate phone calls, which is my limit, for the sake of my kids, and those are only with my mom, never my dad.

I do not want to dredge these painful memories out of the closet again, as I feel I have moved on and dealt with them. But what can I say to my mother to get her to close the 'visit' topic forever without cutting off all communication with her, which would hurt my kids?

Emily Yoffe: Your mother suggests you send your daughters to spend the summer! Is this so grandpa can find some new victims? You need to tell your mother what you've expressed so well here: you are willing to have phone contact so your children will have some relationship with her. However, there will not be any visits because your father is a pedophile who sexually assaulted you, and you will never, ever allow your children to be in the same room with him. You can tell your mother if she is unsatisfied with this arrangement, you can go back to having no contact whatsoever. And your letter leaves me worried that your father is still out there in the community, possibly hurting other children.

OK, I did it. I put myself out there - let's see if I manage to see it through. I've emailed my Aunt to help me determine if/when I can interview my grandmother.

So let me back up. My father's mother died the summer after I graduated from high school - I was 18. There was no money to send all of us to the funeral, so only my father went. At some point in the past, my mother had "smuggled" some stuff out for us kids as momentos since everything was picked over by family in Hawaii. Not one item came from them directly. And apparently we weren't mentioned in the will either. This just highlights some of the lighter offenses of my Dad's family against us, and they wonder why I don't keep in touch them?

Knowing what I know now about my step-pig-fucker-"grandfather", I'm more neutral about not getting to know my paternal grandmother. What kind of person was she to allow so much abuse in her own home? Still, since the moment she died, it has been a serious regret of mine that I didn't get to know anything about her. When she died, I was just coming into adulthood, so it was her death that made me realize how much I was going to miss by cutting them out of my life.

And now that I've cut my immediate family almost completely out of my life, I see my mother's family once every year or two. When I do see them, I've recently been struck by the fact that they all seem to be involved or at least informed of each other's lives. My cousins chat with my grandmother like they're long-time buddies who last saw her a few days ago. Probably because that's exactly what their relationship is like.

For this, there is regret. Deep regret. But as my mental health has made it more difficult for me to face my family rather than easier, I just haven't known how else to proceed. And until recently, my mind hadn't really thought of her as a person, but as an icon. It wasn't until my little sister was in her 20s that I realized she was a person with a history, a story, emotions, hang-ups, interests, and an ability to communicate in ways other than mimicing me and driving me insane. I think that even losing my maternal grandfather didn't really wake me up to this idea that my family members are individual people.

Last fall I came up with this idea. Well, 2 ideas really. It started when I found some old letters from my mother to me. Re-reading them I could remember what strong reactions I had to each one, and how they could still invoke the same intense emotions. I thought that I should collect them all and transcribe them and then write about my reactions/responses for each letter. Kind of a limited-aspect auto-biography.

Then I got to thinking about my grandmother, and I started thinking about ways to include her. And include my mother in a way other than passively - actually talking to her instead of just transcribing the things she's written in the past. I decided I was going to interview them.

My freshman year at The Evergreen State College, we all had a project to collect an "Oral History" from someone. I chose a favorite teacher, and had one or two "interviews" with her that were really just long conversations, that were taped, transcribed, and then used in a paper to summarize everything and include my thoughts on what I'd learned.

I realized it would be an amazing experience to do this with my mother and grandmother. It would be for me, and for them. We could talk about everything and/or anything that they wanted to talk about, and they could ask me about myself as well. I planned on "interviewing" them both separately, and then once together.

Worst-case scenario: I have a personal learning experience, as do they. Hopeful scenario: I transcribe everything to share with the rest of the family. Best-case scenario: I eventually write a memoir that has more to it than just my side of things.

I chickened out last year. I had problems figuring out how I was going to record everything. I had problems determining a format for just how much Q&A there would be. I searched my house high-and-low for a little auto-biographical booklet my grandmother gave me as a girl. I had intended to read the questions and her earlier answers to her, and then see what she thought and if she had different answers now. Then I finally found the booklet and realized it would take hours and hours, if not days, just to get through the booklet - it was much longer than I thought. I contemplated grabbing a few key pieces, and also asking her about the blank spots she'd left, and to fill-in her family tree a little better.

But in the end I lost my momentum, and then I lost my nerve. And now my grandmother is leaving us. If I had done this last year, maybe I could have had an actual relationship with my grandmother over the last few months. Now it all just seems morbid. And even if I can convince people I have higher-intentions than morbidity, there is her failing health to consider. She has cancer, she's dying soon - I imagine she is on a lot of drugs that make her sleepy and week. I just don't know how much she would be up for this, since I haven't talked to anyone who has actually seen her recently.

I made a decision this morning to stop being a chicken-shit idiot and just TRY. Just try, and see how it goes. I feel that it is too little too late, and that the rest of the family will think so as well. But part of me is certain that she will enjoy having an actual conversation with me. As the years have gone by, I've become more and more aware of how much I'm hurting my family by staying away. I'm not sure how to deal with that. I have not thought of how I can remedy the situation and still keep my sanity. And not hurt them more. Because part of the distance is also to keep my negative emotions away from them until I've learned to process them better and they are willing and able to talk about more than the weather and their health with me.

There is a confronation that I have to have with each of them, or at least a serious discussion. My sister and I have had many discussions since that cup of coffee at FPH about a decade ago, and we actually have a good (but flimsy) relationship. But there are some serious conversations that need to happen with my mother, my father, and my brothers. Most will be bitter and angry and scary, except for my baby brother, which will be mostly apologetic for not being in his life since I moved out at 18.

I just don't know if or when they or I will be up to it.

There is guilt about my lack-of-relationship with my grandmother, but no negative feelings at all. So while it may be sad, I think the conversation will be easier and happier. We can talk about whatever she feels up to talking about.

So I emailed my aunt to start the process. No backing out now.

From an email that should have been a blog post:

You know what? Life sucks. I'm so tired of getting my footing back and then life throwing a curveball and I land in the gutter. Last weekend I had a wonderful time spending it at a Scrapbooking retreat with Eric's mom. I decided to see my mom on my way out of town, since I don't see her often and she's in a recovery center for a broken foot. And I wanted to show her all the pages I had just scrapped of her wedding. Do you have any idea how hard it is to scrap a wedding for a couple that is divorced and completely wrong for each other?

So I show up as they are changing out my mom's IV stuff. I might have been fine if that was all it was. But because of an infection, they have her hooked up to multiple lines on one row of her arm. I instantly felt queasy. I had to sit down on the opposite side of the bed and look away from her because every time I looked at her I could see her other arm and the nurse STILL messing with it. It seems that because of my surgeries last year, I've become worse around needles and blood and IV's, rather than better.

OK, so imagine me sitting there, holding my mom's hand, and I'm all clammy and sweaty and trying not to bolt from the room like an idiot. And then my brother walks in with my Father in tow. Have I told you that he now invokes panic attacks when I see him?

After 5 minutes of me not making eye contact or talking to anyone, I mumble that I need to leave. Mike took pity on me and suggested that he and Dad give us some time alone and they'll come back later. Dad called out that he loved me, but at least he didn't try and touch me this time - that's what started the panic attacks about 3 years ago, when he hugged me against my will at Christmas.

The nurse FINALLY left about a minute after the guys did, so I could finally make eye contact again. We talked briefly, but I wasn't going to be able to pull myself together until I got out of there. I tried to race to the ferry so I could cry during the ride - I kept repeating myself that I'll be ok, I just have to reach the ferry on time. The ferry had not yet left, but it was full so I had to drive around. But not before pulling over at this little store a block away and balling my eyes out for 15 minutes. Then I went inside and bought 4 candy bars and a mini pecan pie, gorged myself, dried my eyes AGAIN, and then I finally left for home.

No more crying since then, but I just haven't felt myself since. Sunday night and Monday I just felt totally defeated. Yesterday I forced myself to take a shower and put on make up, play with my hair (I have lost the knack on how to straighten it when it's this long), and go out to run some errands/do some shopping.

I returned a cryptic message from my sister when I got home. That's when she told me that our Grandmother has cancer (apparently it's a recurrence), it is resisting all chemo and meds and radiation, and she has between 2 weeks and 2 months to live.

Now I have to figure out what I want to do about that. I feel so guilty about never learning more about my Dad's mom before she died, but that is all on my Dad and his family for treating us so bad that we had to remove ourselves from all of their influence. And now because my family refuses to kick him out of their lives, I am forced to distance myself from my own immediate family. Which means I never see my Mom's family. Thanks again Dad.

We're all getting together to see her next Saturday, but I feel I should do more than that. I'm just not sure I have the balls to do it.