The Different Parts of Me

So this month I have been doing something amazing. Something I have talked about for 20 years, but never had the courage to actually do. It has been wonderful.

Many of you know I have been struggling with depression and realizing I needed to do new things and get out of my rut. One day at the end of last month I had decided I was going to attend an author reading at Parnassus Books. This might not seem like a big deal, but it kind of was b/c I didn't have anyone to go with. My book/author friend moved away last year and things like this just aren't really interesting to most of my friends. Well for me, part of depression is a social anxiety that makes going out hard. Going out alone...yeah, even harder. But this was an author I really loved and wanted to hear speak so...I was going to go.

Then I got a text from one of my Best Friends, Sylvia. It said she was auditioning for a play that her theater professor was directing at school and I should come audition too. That simple. Now I had two options. I could go, alone, to the author thing where I didn't have to do anything; or I could go, with her to the audition where I obviously would be participating. Pros and Cons obvious to both sides. I am not sure what made me choose the audition. I remember thinking to myself though that if I was going to do it, I was going to go all the way. I had not been in a play, or to an audition, in about 20 years. I was scared out of my mind. I don't know where the thought came from but I had this flash of an interview I saw once with Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor about Moulin Rouge. They were talking about how different of a part it was and how nervous they were about looking crazy. So they made a pact with each other to just 'go for it 100%'. I kind of made that pact with myself. If I was going to do this I wasn't going to be shy or nervous but really go for it.

Well I don't know if I seemed shy or nervous to anyone else but for myself...I went for it. 100% I had a crazy southern accent and I was loud and I had a BLAST. I fell in love with this one character in particular that was just a crazy lady. I just loved reading that part. And a few days later I got the email that said...I was cast as her! The truth is...she was the smallest part in the play. So it wasn't some huge accomplishment in a bigger sense but for me...it totally was. It was exactly what I wanted and what I needed.

The month of March has been....well basically insane. We have rehearsed every single night. I am the oldest person in the cast and my cast mates are all college kids. They sometimes drive me insane b/c they are very different from me. But they also have reminded me how much I love working with young people, and how much I miss that. One girl quit oh about 2 weeks away from the play...SO I got another part!!

I have to be honest and say I kind of freaked out a little bit. The part I fell in love with from day one was one thing...I had gone in 100% ready to be that crazy lady. Now they wanted me to be someone else. This was not a loud crazy funny lady. This part was the former beauty queen. She was described as an elegant, rich looking attractive woman. That is not me. My 100% faltered. I admit it. I was back to my no confidence, I cannot do, I am not her, what am I doing here with all these young, attractive, talented kids anyway self. But you know what? I didn't stay there. Not this time. These kids and this director and this play, it was too inspiring for me. I decided not to wilt this time. I might not be what the playwright had in mind. Heck I might not be what the director had in mind at first either, but I did it. I am doing it.

We had our opening weekend this weekend. It was amazing. I mean, not without it's issues for sure. it is a small Community College without a lot of funding or support. But oh my gosh I remember how much I adore the stage. I have fallen in love again with the sound of an audience's laughter. I have been overcome with love for my fellow cast members and the heart they have put into this little production.

I am the crazy pregnant lady that I fell in love with. She is easy for me to be. I am also the former beauty queen. She is a blast to play. I am Karla and I love being an actor! I am so glad I found those parts of myself again. They are all so very important to me.

And....Just Kidding!!

So yeah if you read my last blog entry I am going to need you to just go ahead and forget about all that. Nothing true in it anymore. Well not much anyway.

There is some quote about life laughing at you when you are busy making plans. Or maybe God laughs at you. Somebody laughs. Possibly everyone. In any case that is precisely what happened since I wrote the last blog entry.

I went to a week of training at the insurance thing. Ridiculous. I mean I just hated it and it was really not training at all so I wasn't feeling great. BUT...okay I thought, I can deal. My first real day was supposed to be Tuesday at 3pm (Weird right?)

That Sunday on a whim I put down a deposit on an apartment in Hermitage. On Monday my dad's van broke down so I drove to Manchester to help him. Tuesday at 10am my dad had a Dr appointment that went bad. He ended up being admitted to the hospital and I consequently missed my first day. Also I got an email inviting me to an interview for a job with the State. I spent the rest of the week with my Dad. (He is fine btw).

The next week my Dad had surgery  (crazily enough for a different issue), I went to the interview, we took a trip to Indiana and I decided I don't want to do the insurance thing.

Basically I watched my Dad have 2 medical situations within a 7 day period and realized that if either of them happened to ME on my current insurance I would be paying for it for decades. I need the safety of good medical benefits.

So...I might very well be a sell out but I accepted the job with the state. I will be working with disability claims. It probably will be the hardest thing I have ever done. Not intellectually of course, but I have not worked anywhere in 11 months. Soon I will have to get up at 6 am (I hope no earlier) every day. I have not done that since high school. I get tired from taking a shower people. I will have no flexibility at this job and I have always had flexibility where I worked in getting in my 40 hours. Nope this is very much an 8-4:30 deal. And I will not be able to just get up and move about or take a break if I don't feel good. It will be SO different. Also, I have no joy in the idea of the job. My identity as a librarian was so much of ME, this job is nothing like that. So, I am basically terrified.

But...that makes it sound all bad. It isn't. I am moving into an apartment that I really like, and I am mostly excited about that. (I am sort of walking on eggshells about it right now. I have put down a non-refundable deposit BUT I have no real proof if income right now so I am just praying they let me keep it until my new job sends me something. I have asked for it but...so far no dice). And I know this is just a beginning. Change is hard and scary and never easy (at least for me). It could be a great thing. I might love it and/or find something else I love because of it. I know I will have medical care and security I would not have otherwise and that is important. To me it has to be.

So no big jump into selling insurance - for that I am pretty glad. But a big jump into new things none-the-less. Pray I have the strength to do what needs to be done. 

Surrounded by Death

This week I sort of fell apart. There was just too much to take and I felt it was closing in around me and suffocating me. I didn't handle life very well.

Most people who know me know that I  unapologetically say I am an idealist. I admit I don't know how to work everything out but I just believe there IS a best way to do things. I believe love is the answer - I don't settle for less than everything. I am just an idealist. Sometimes that can be hard. I shared this cartoon on Facebook the other day. It wasn't really funny to me though, it was exactly how I was feeling.

For a long time I simply didn't watch the news. I didn't want to know about the bad things happening. I have realized that is not acceptable. I need to aware and informed, but sometimes it gets to be too much. This week was that way.

Between the shooting in Chattanooga - which was not only an hour away geographically from my home but also touched the life of a friend of a friend, and the theater shooting, which was also not that far away geographically and directly touched the lives of several friends here in town, I was already shaken. Then on Friday of last week I found out someone I went to high school with passed away from cancer. On Monday Kim and I went to his viewing. We talked afterwards about trying to find some sense of closure and how hard that was to find. Then the next morning I woke up and before I even got out of bed I checked Facebook to find out about yet another death. A beautiful young mother I had been following via blog that I didn't know personally but that was friends with friends of mine.

I just shut down. I sent in an email to work that I was taking a sick day. Which was very true. My head was pounding and I was just sick. I pulled the covers back over my head and I just laid there for the longest time. I didn't even cry, I just felt shell shocked almost. It was just too much. I spent that entire day in my PJs, mostly in my bed. I just felt like I couldn't deal with the world - like I didn't have any more to offer. If everyone was just going to die what was the point anyway?

I finally decided to watch some Netflix and decided on the new Tina Fey show The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. It is a silly and kind of weird show about a girl who was kidnapped and spent 15 years in a bunker where she was told the world had ended. She is finally rescued and now she has to readjust to life in real life. Funny enough I think it was just what I needed. Kimmy was in 8th grade when she went into the bunker, she is not jaded by life the way everyone around her is. She sees things the way a child would. The way an idealist (such as myself) should. Don't get me wrong, the show is silly - don't watch it expecting some great revelations BUT the underlying theme is the unbreakable spirit. The theme song plays off the (annoying) habit of reporters to find the most unintelligent person around to interview at the scene of a big story - so when they are found this crazy black guy is singing:

They Alive Dammit - it's a miracle
They Alive Dammit - women as strong as hell

and between that there is chorus of voices singing "unbreakable"

I did watch all 13 episodes on Tuesday so understandably, the theme song has been stuck in my head. And honestly...it has been helping me!

Wednesday was my mom's birthday. One of the reasons these cancer deaths are so scary is that my mom has cancer. I hate hearing stories of how cancer came back and killed someone - I am so afraid of losing my mom that way. But you know what? My mom turned 60 on Wednesday. She has had cancer for 9 years now I think. We are blessed. My brother wrote on Facebook that the day was special because it marked one more year she was our mom. He was right! So...I got up and I got dressed. Luckily I had the day off again (this one was planned already) and I spent the day with my parents. We didn't do anything especially grand but we spent the whole day together. We had lunch together and pigged out and then mom and I watched Alias until bedtime. It was a good day.

And today, I am at work. I have to be at work...but also, I am ready to be at work. I am alive (dammit). I am strong. I still believe love is the most powerful thing in the world. I still believe good is more powerful than evil. I am still an idealist at heart. There is a Carpenters song that I have always sort of claimed as my own that says I know I need to be in love - but I have never taken it to mean I need to hurry up and find someone. To me it has always been a reminder that I know I need to believe in love. I know I need to be myself...even when it is hard. The song says "I know ask perfection of a quite imperfect world, and fool enough to think that's what I'll find"

This week was hard. And I shut down for a little while. But I will not live in fear. I am not afraid of being shot. I am not afraid of dying of cancer. And this one is harder to say but...I will not live in fear that either of those things is going to take away all my loved ones. This is our life and we have to live it - not in fear but boldly. Even when it is scary.

The C-Word

So this past month I have been going through what I can only call a "cancer scare". My mom has stage 4 colon cancer. She is currently doing awesome and is cancer free, but her having it means that it is more likely for my siblings and I to also get colon cancer. So last month when I started having abnormal bleeding, nausea, pain in my stomach etc. it was hard not to assume the worst. I went to see my doctor first, then she sent me to a specialist. They both agreed a colonoscopy was in order. Then I had to wait for that...all in all it took a month to get from on-set of symptoms to the procedure.

It was a long month. Truthfully I didn't really think that I had cancer. I am not sure why, I typically always assume the worst about my medical issues. I just didn't this time. But occasionally the fear snuck in. In some ways I had to let it in as I was trying to prepare myself in case it was in fact true. I was trying to get things organized at work in case I had to be gone for an extended amount of time. I was trying to get my house in order, my bills in better order (I cannot claim "good" order there!). It was almost impossible, I found, to prepare your life for cancer without thinking about having cancer.

I think it was maybe hardest for my mom, or my parents as a couple I guess. The thought of going through it again, of worrying about me...honestly I think that is a worse thought than I had of going through it myself. When I was worried it was mostly about - how would mom deal with it, how could I tell my nephew, would the family be able to go through it from the beginning...again? I don't say that to sound selfless. I know how bad cancer is. I hate the word. It makes me feel sick just to hear it or say it. I know I am not strong like my mom and that it would destroy me easily. I was scared for myself as well.

The good news...I don't have cancer. Turns out I just have some internal hemorrhoids (who knew that was a thing? Not me) and something called diverticulitis. Both basically have to do with my digestive system and essentially...I need to eat more fiber. Really? Eat more fiber? A month of cancer worries and...I just need to eat more fiber. Wow...

So I feel like I should have some big life changing comments or advice after going through this. Some new revelations about life I experienced. I don't. I guess I kind of already went through that when my mom was diagnosed with cancer and had to go through all the surgeries and the chemo etc. I already learned that life is too short for BS. Other peoples' and your own equally. I already know that every day is a gift, even the hard ones. I know to cherish those whom you love and who love you.

So...I am glad it is over. No cancer. Not now anyway. But I guess maybe the most important thing I learned, from both experiences, is that it would be okay. Even if I had cancer. That is just another kind of BS to live through. Life is worth living.

So go live it.

Down the Rabbit Hole with Nothing to Grab

It might not always seem like it,but I try my best to stay positive. I try my best to see the best in things. I have my moments of despair, but I always know I will come through it. I know things will work out one way or another, I know my depression will lift and life will go on.

I have always been a responsible person. For whatever reason (and truly I don't know) my life hasn't gone the "normal" route. No one wanted to marry me and have kids. I didn't become a teacher like I always assumed I would. Basically I am so far away from what I pictured I would be as an adult I wonder how anyone can recognize me. But despite all of that, I have always taken care of my life. I have always been in control.

I have never truly felt I was unable to take care of myself. My dad often fixes the car or does handy work for me, but I have always paid for it. I have never had "a lot" by any means. I never had a real security blanket where money was concerned, but I was good enough that I was not concerned. I have always been the one who could help others. I "lent" money never expecting or asking for it back. I paid more than my share of the rent b/c I could handle more than anyone else. I bought people things I knew they needed even if there were things I needed myself. I was just that kind of person.

I have always felt like my one real gift in life was taking care of others. Even as a child people laughed and called me "mother hen" and said I shouldn't give so much of myself to others. It was who I was, though. It was what made me me, and what kept me able to enjoy life even when things didn't seem that great.

Today I feel like nothing about me is true or real. I have no positive thoughts to hold on to. I often write when I am down so it probably seems I am often at this point, but in truth I am not. Today I am. I do not see how anything in my life will work out. I do not know how I can possibly live this life and deal with the things in it on my own. I cannot take care of myself, much less anyone else and that makes me feel worthless and like I have no purpose for being here.

I have failed in every way I can imagine and I do not know where to go from here. I am afraid and I am sad and alone. Every source of strength I can think of fails me and I feel that there, too, I have failed.