It's a little bit like that terrifying mouse roller coaster at Lagoon

A couple years ago I started taking Paxil (see previous post for reason why) to help me get out of bed and take care of my kids and not kill someone or myself and on and on. I have this to say about selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors:

THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART TO WHOEVER CAME UP WITH PAXIL.

YOU SAVED MY LIFE.

I needed it about 7 years ago when I had postpartum depression that turned into regular 'ol depression then into homicidal, home wreckin' lunacy. Yeah. That happened.

Fast forward to the day after my 31st birthday. I love the strange birthday connection. 

It went something like this:

Dr. Jones: So...it looks like you've been going at this for about two years. What do you think about...

Me: DON'T MAKE ME!! I'M SCARED!!

Dr Jones: GEEZ! Get a fucking grip, lady! 

Me: I'M SCARED!!

Dr. Jones: The only way to know is to try.

Me: NOOOOO!

Dr. Jones: Maybe you need something a little stronger, PSYCHO!

Ok really. I was scared and Dr. Jones (in his infinite wisdom) told me that I could go back on it if it turned into a disaster and that made everything better. We made this really tricky weaning plan that had something to do with serotonin sickness and Jedi mind tricks. He assured me that my friends and family would DEFINITELY tell me if I needed to get back on it. The Weather Bunny promised that she would tell me if I was being a whack-job and that she would be right there waiting for me when I got over hating her for calling me crazy. Jennie and Greg (team of therapists. not joking. i like therapy and believe in voodoo doctors) would support me if it got hard. Bri promised she would point and laugh when I cried over lambs. (I did it to her so I deserve it)

Here I am. 3 weeks in. It has been uneventful for the most part. I have not done anything that is alarming to anyone and I have not felt like I couldn't lift my arms or get out of bed at any point! YES! YES! YES! I'm doing it!

There have been weird physical withdrawal symptoms, a little bit of yelling and a whole lot of crying. It all seems pretty normal! The best part of it is that I KNOW that I'm going to be ok. I can laugh at my crying and I can look at myself and say: That is reasonable, that is crazy talk, that is being creepily codependent, those are terrible boundaries, that is a great place to be vulnerable, that is not about you, it's ok to cry about lambs and Peregrine Falcon eggs but it's not ok to obsess about one person's raised eyebrow or lack of returning phone calls. YOU, Sarah O'Dell, ROCK! In and of yourself regardless of how anyone else behaves. 

Now to the best part where you get to laugh and point about my withdrawal:

I have a lot of tears in there and they are mostly those happy or deeply touched tears. Not sad tears. 

I have cried TODAY about Peregrine Falcons, Jamie, Warren, 3 songs, and an old blog post. It's only noon.

I diagnosed myself with Restless Leg Syndrome at 4am this morning. Thank you WebMD for fueling the imaginations of hypochondriacs everywhere. 

I added TuneWiki to my Spotify apps so I could sing sad songs really loudly and sing the right words.

Funny crazy roller coaster ride. Not so bad. Thanks for the fun, Paxil. See you on the flip side!

Remember This?

Our challenge. Does anyone want to do it again.?

I went to the doctor today. OH. MY. GAWD. Gross. I am a happy girl these days and you know what they say! Fat and Happy!

Are you in? I'm a girl who needs accountability.

The First Point Of Aries

It's here, it's here! Spring is here! My favorite time of the year. I could wax poetic about rebirth and new beginnings but I give you this picture instead. Right in my backyard the trees went from bud to bloom in just one day and my plum trees look amazing!
The vernal equinox is also known as The First Point Of Aries and I think you know what that means?!
IT'S MY BIRTHDAY! I like to celebrate birthdays for a while so I have decided that The First Point of Aries will mark the beginning of my birthday. That would mean that my birthday doesn't end until the First Point of Libra (Autumnal Equinox). I think I will spare you the non-stop partying/gift-giving and it's subsequent liver and wallet damage and end my birthday with a culmination party on April 14th. Costumes will be worn! Will you come?

Assignment

I wrote a letter to myself as an assignment for a class. It was pretty broad but I knew exactly what I wanted to write about as soon as the assignment was given. I won't share the whole thing here but I want to share a bit of it and for a reason.

Bri has this annoying little habit of reading me all of the shocking or depressing news going on in Boise and it sounds something like this, "Whoa! These people...bla bla bla....dead hooker and coke." I never read that stuff and not because I'm not interested in the news (I am) but it seems more like tabloid fodder and less like news. So today...After the 5th crazy news story Bri looked up and said, "It seems like between Thanksgiving and like right after Valentine's Day people are just crazy." I say "Bla bla bla..statistically..bla bla...making shit up...yeah. Holidays are prime crazy time."

Huge slightly irrelevant story and now to the point: The Holidays are prime crazy time and not just for people who like to kill hookers and do coke. It's crazy time for a lot of people. I am on large amounts of drugs to curb my crazy and December still makes me nuts. December made me sad today. Really sad. Because I thought about those crazy people and how a lot of us are on the verge of doing something really stupid to dull the pain/feel the pain/make someone else feel the pain. No, I'm not going on a tri-state killing spree but I do know what it's like to feel so desperate that you do things that are downright INSANE!

Ok. Stop me. Here's the letter. I think it speaks for itself.

A letter to myself on my 25th birthday. April 10, 2006


Dear Sarah,

I know that you are so sad right now. I know that you feel really desperate. You envisioned things for your life that were exciting and adventurous. You envisioned a relationship that fulfilled you in beautiful, meaningful ways. I know that you are going to go out in the backyard when the kids are napping and scream at the top of your lungs. It will only make you feel worse. I know that you sometimes feel so depressed that you can’t even lift your arms to put the dishes away. I know that when he gets home you will walk into the bedroom, crawl into bed and stay there until he calls you in to kiss the kids good night. You will go back to bed and lie there until he comes in. When he does, you will silently cry. You will move further away and just wish that he would reach out to you and tell you that he loves you. He won’t.
Tomorrow, the day after your 25th birthday, something will happen that you think is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Later you will make the biggest mistake of your life. It will not make you feel better. Not that day, not ever, and it will end your life as you know it. You will begin to blame your husband for the depression you feel. You won’t reach out to him and he won’t reach out to you. You won’t tell anyone. You won’t get help. Even when it gets so bad that you can’t get dressed anymore. You will live silently. Raging.


There is just one thing that you can do, right now.

On the day of your 25th birthday you can stop what hasn’t started.

Please do exactly what I tell you to do: Get up. Put the kids in the car and drive to your parents’ house. Go inside and find your mom. Ask her to watch the kids for a little while. She will do it. If she asks you why, you tell her that you are going to get help before you can’t go back. She will understand. She has seen this coming for a long time. Drive to your husband’s shop and go up to his office. Sit across from him and look in his eyes. Please don’t look away. He has to know how serious you are.
Say this, “I love you. I want to have a relationship with you. Right now I am so depressed that I’m scared for my life.”

He will tell you that he loves you. He does want to be with you. He will cry when he says it.
Leave his office and go to your doctor. Even if you have to go to the emergency room. DO NOT let this go on for one more day. THIS IS AN EMERGENCY! You are not being dramatic! Get help now!

Dr. Jones will send you to Jennie and you will spend the next 6 weeks in therapy everyday. You will get medicine that pulls you out of that dark void. You will start to see the real light at the end of the tunnel.
Your husband will go with you sometimes. It will be hard. You have to say what you feel. You have to lay yourself open and tell him how scared you are. You have to ask the hard questions and listen to the answers. When he disappoints you (he will) do not quit. Please be vulnerable. PLEASE! Tell the truth. Tell him that you have been terrified since the day you told him you were pregnant with Olivia. Tell him that you feel invisible. Please tell him that you love him. Don’t start a fight to cover up how you feel. Don’t be tough.

I don’t know what will happen after this. If you do what I told you to do then the future is a mystery. An unguarded one. A truthful one.

But I do know what happens if you don’t.

Your husband will find out. You will finally go to Dr. Jones and Jennie but it will be too late. If you thought what you were going through was hell, you were sadly mistaken. What happens next is the real inferno. You will spend a year fighting and crying and begging. You will beg him to come back. He won’t. You will tell him that you love him. It doesn’t matter anymore. You will lie in bed at night (in your parents’ house because you don’t have one anymore) and you will torture yourself with your mistakes. Your girls will cry to “come home” and they mean the place where both their mom and dad live. It doesn’t exist anymore.

When he finally gets a beautiful, blonde and thin girlfriend and introduces your kids to her you will wish you were dead. When you meet her you will wish she were dead. You will endlessly compare yourself to her.

You will finally give up. You will finally begin the grueling process of divorce. It will start out amicable. You’ll have long talks about what each of you need. You’ll be hopeful that your kids will be ok. You’ll move into a cute rental in the north end and feel like you may survive this after all.

He will fire you. It will not be so amicable anymore. You will have to fight to keep any shred of the life you once had. You will shelter your kids from the fighting. You will shelter them from your desperation. You will spend hours at the attorney’s office. You will spend hours going through mountains of papers. You will go back and forth between walking away and fighting with all you have. You will have to sell your car to pay your lawyer half of what you owe her. In the end (2 years after the day he found out) you’ll choose some stupid halfway point on the scale of walking and fighting and you will have to start your life over. This will cost you 10,000 dollars in attorney fees alone and you will have NOTHING.

This is not the path you should choose.
I know that today, on your 25th birthday, you feel like it is his fault. You feel like the only answer is to run away. It isn’t the answer. Only you can fix this. Stop right now.
It is possible to not feel the way you do today. Please get help.

With only the love that you can give yourself,

Your 30-year-old self

I'm a Crafty Bitch!

A Batman cape for Chance

Leaf and Bow Cuffs for a sweet co-worker

A garland for my tree!

Upcycled Sweater for Dagmar

Scarflet for a sweet nurse.

Upcycled sweater for Leah

Bri and I were crazy crafters all day yesterday and today. It was Bri's first foray into sewing and she did some hard stuff! Bias tape, buttonholes, cuffs! She was determined and her stuff turned out so cute!

More to come next week!

Gardening Into Winter

Even though we are wrapping up the last of the summer garden I am still gardening in my head! We are thinking, planning and preparing for next spring:

>We have plans to make a little grow house and canning kitchen in the big shed.

>Maybe when we get a little tougher and stop crying over dead chickens we will add a meat chicken chicken coop for those temporary ones. The more I learn about industrial food proccesses I get less icked out about raising our own meat.

>There are still brussell sprouts, kale and onions out in the garden. They like the cold weather.

>There are fall greens that Bri planted about a month ago. Yum!

>Up until a few days ago our tomatoes were still flowering and producing more tomatoes! Crazy weather.

>We are composting everything we can get our hands on to amend the soil for a small orchard where there used to be a gravel driveway.

>Fence designs are being researched

>Flower catalogs are being drooled on

Happy Autumn Everyone!

I have a little somethin' happenin'

This is my basement about a week ago

Keeps Me Moving

This helps me remember that it could never be fixed:

What kills love? Only this: Neglect. Not to see you when you stand before me. Not to think of you in the little things. Not to make the road wide for you, the table spread for you. To choose you out of habit, not desire, to pass the flower seller without a thought. To leave the dishes unwashed, the bed unmade, to ignore you in the mornings, make use of you at night. To crave another while pecking your cheek. To say your name without hearing it, to assume it is mine to call.

-Jeannette Winterson. Written On the Body.

This helps me remember that it's been worth it:

The minute you begin to do what you really want to do, it's really a different kind of life.

-R. Buckminster Fuller

This makes me UNBELIEVABLY happy:

Sissy,

Dad and I are so proud of you.

Love, Mom

-Pam O'Dell (my mom)

And this speaks for itself:

98/100 A :)

-Christine Moore (one of my professors)

This Kid Is Funny

A father writes about the mother of his children

"Her mind holds the tiny bits of every day life that weave the very fabric of our beings. In a world so large and often daunting we have her. And she has us. She gives with all her might but is never afraid to lean back. To collapse and fail and weep and let in the sadness. We see all of her and through that act of bravery we show our selves in return."

Steve Soule

Someone tell me how it can be done

Changed up the bloggies over there to reflect what I'm actually reading right now. ------>

I know it doesn't matter to y'all but I go to my blog to read blogs.

I have some tidbits that I would like you to know but I can't form them into a coherent blog post because the part of my brain that writes has retired for the day. I, very stupidly, wrote a paper an hour before it was due and therefore fried my brain (and produced an absolute crap essay).

* My babies started school on Monday and they are now in 1st and 2nd grade. I horned in on their first day of school even though it was officially a dad day. There was NO WAY IN HELL that I was going to let that day pass me by. I met them at school, took the required first day of school photos and helped them get settled. I cried a bit too but don't tell because I'm supposed to be a veteran at this.

* Very inconveniently I started school last Monday. Not the teaching kind but the student kind. Yep. Full time student right here. I have no idea what the hell I was thinking but I did it. I don't even have a job! But it's working and I love it. If I could just remember that I'm 30, not 18, that would help with the frying of the brain thing.

*Another very inconvenient thing: I realized that I still have that pesky job of mother. Not only to my beautiful little girlies (hard enough) but to the chickens, the garden and the house. (And Stella, the cat and the goldfish) The problem being that I would much rather be the girl/chicken/garden/house mama than be spending all of my time at school. Don't get me wrong. I am all for a college education but I often sit at school and wonder, "How the hell am I going to turn all of this into the ability to do the job I really want to do?" I don't really want to be a teacher. I don't really want to be a lawyer. I just want to be the person that I am already but be able to make a living doing it!

Suggestions? Hello? Tap, tap.

I know that it is a measly two years (been doing this college thing off and on for a while) of the many years that I have ahead of me but I feel like this beautiful time in my children's lives is slipping away too easily. There are days that I want to go get them from school, take them home, make cookies and begin our lives. The real ones. The ones where we can spend our days outside with the chickens and tomatoes and flowers. Where we can learn what we want to learn and do it in a way that enriches our lives everyday. Where we can spend an entire day sitting around reading, snuggling Stella, eating raspberries and still learn as much as we would have spending all day at school.

(Oh gawd. I'm ranting and sound like a damn hippie. Someone get me some sleep!)

The summary of my life today after a horrible dream, a shitty morning at school and really missing my babies. I think I will take a nap and try again. Optimism is on the horizon!

New-ness-ish

**I love adding "-ish" to the end of words. I think it really fits my personality. I'm a grey person. Not a lot of black or white in my life, no siree.

Some examples:

"Hmmm. I'd say that it's pink-ish" or "It's been ten years-ish".

**I love Post Secret and even thought I've read thousands of secrets over the last couple years, many sad, thought provoking, deep dark secrets. Many funny secrets. There is one that remains my favorite:

"When people add "-ass" to the end of a word I mentally move the hyphen one word over"

**I added some new blogs over there ------> Check em out! Also check me out on Pinterest.

In Other News

**There are some truly beautiful and inspiring thoughts on motherhood over at Soule Mama.

I am feeling particularly inspired by these words:

With joy comes sorrow, with sorrow comes joy – and the cycle continues. The yin and yang of mothering, if you will. So many of us have lost babies, had a child with medical challenges, social or learning difficulties, or have worried about a child for various reasons. Often, we don't talk about it. Sometimes we don't talk about it because it's too painful, or we fear that, in reaching out, we will find ourselves alone. But we also don't talk about it because, eventually, we heal. Life becomes livable again. We become comfortable with our “new normal.”
As mamas, we are never alone in joy, and we are never alone in sorrow. Behind the scenes, we are all the same. Some of us, at any given time, feel like things will never get better. And then things do get better. We mamas befriend each other and reach out with understanding, and a clear message: it will get better. You will belly laugh again. We get by with a little help, and reassurance, from our fellow mamas.

From Meg at sew liberated

**We have harvested lettuce (3 times). 8 strawberries. And some planted and forgotten radishes! They are beautiful!

**The chickens are doing so well! They are huge and funny. My chicken, Janet, has the cutest grown up chicken sound and she saves it just for me.

**My house is slowly and surely coming together. Planning a few gatherings here and there helps me stay motivated to keep working. There is always a burst of project finishing right before.

**It's summer break around here and so far it has been so lovely and not too hot. I know that it will be scorching hot before we know it so for now we are enjoying being outside. Next up: Hours at grandma and grandpa's pool.

Wrestling

My Mother's Day was at once perfect and flawed. It was perfect in that I lazed around, had breakfast with some beautiful girls and a leisurely stroll through the garden store.

It was flawed in that no excited children woke me up way too early, those beautiful girls were not my children and that leisurely stroll was strangely lonely.

I think Sunday embodied my difficult relationship with "joint legal and physical custody".

I am a better Mother today than I ever was when I was a wife/mother/maid/nanny/housekeeper. When I was weighed down by the day in and day out monotony. When I isolated myself from the rest of the world. When every move I made was tinged by the guilt of not financially supporting my family. When my contribution was made to feel like nothing.

Today I have dreams. Goals. Hope. I feel known. Heard. Loved.

Yet...I can barely stand the loss of knowledge. Constant contact. Oversight for every single thing that happens in their precious young lives. I worked so hard to do things right. To help them become successful human beings. To live their childhood so fully and beautifully. And now they spend 5 out of 10 days without me. And I wonder. What do they do? Think? Feel? Are they scared? Do they miss me? Are they happy? Are they learning those life lessons that I so desperately want them to?

I ran across an article that I loved because it made me laugh but somehow explained what I needed to embrace.

Yes it is hard to not know. But in the long run I am setting an example of how a woman should live her life.

A Mother's Prayer For Her Child by Tina Fey

“First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches.

May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty.

When the Crystal Meth is offered, may she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half And stick with Beer.

Guide her, protect her when crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age.

Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels. What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit.

May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers.

Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen.Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For childhood is short – a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day – And adulthood is long and dry-humping in cars will wait.

O Lord, break the Internet forever, that she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed.

And when she one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it.

And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, that I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back. “My mother did this for me once,”she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget. But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes.

Amen.”

-Tina Fey

I'm Ruined!

About 2 weeks ago I squished my camera between my huge ass and the floor and broke the screen. I pulled it out a few days ago to take some after photos of my house and realized that it doesn't have the hole thing-y to look through! No damn viewfinder on a camera? What the hell?

I decided to try my hand at taking a picture on the fly without a screen or an eye hole thing-y and guess what? I'm an idiot. I am sure that my inability to do a puzzle, estimate size and distance, play the Memory game and take a flippin' picture are all related to a missing piece of my brain. Something to do with spatial relationships and hand eye coordination. D'oh!

Attempt at chicken picture:

If you look closely you can see a tiny bit of chicken head on the bottom left.

Several attempts later. A blurry and poopy (literally) shot:

Homeowner Update

The Dead Acorn provided us with a gripping account of the goings-on around here. There is a fish head and some "blood" involved. Consider yourself warned.

Since I'm knee deep in chicken poop I'll leave it at that for a day or two while I take some after pictures.

We planted strawberries today and tomorrow we are getting our chicks! Just call me Mother Earth!

Stepped on a RAILROAD SPIKE today. Owww! It hurts real real bad.

I'm not sure what this means

Me: Jamie, you are hilarious.

Jamie: You can't use that word in this family.

Me: What? Hilarious?

Jamie: Yeah. You can't say 'hilarious' in a Mexican family.

Me: What?

Jamie: Yeah. We live in Mexico and you can't say 'hilarious' in a Mexican family.

Sneak Peek