First Anniversary of 30

Five AM and not a bad start to a Monday, my first day of my first year officially over 30: a Starbuck's giftcard from Kristan, an 8 layer cake from Jon (God bless his soul for aiming for 31 layers), a Happy Birthday IM from Alex at midnight, and a countdown of text messages from Michele my belle.

Oh, I can't forget an email from my favorite band, Cowboy Mouth and a birthday coupon for SHOES! LoL

Where did I go wrong

Life is pretty sad when 2 songs looping endlessly in your head say it all...How to Save a Life by The Fray and Hate Me Today by Blue October.

Step one you say we need to talk
He walks you say sit down it's just a talk
He smiles politely back at you
You stare politely right on through
Some sort of window to your right
As he goes left and you stay right
Between the lines of fear and blame
You begin to wonder why you came

There are so many people in my life I just want/*need* to sit down and talk with about our friendships (what the friendships are, what they were, what they are lacking or not now) and about other topics driving our everyday lives. The problem is I do not feel like the people I really need to talk with are available to me. People don't want to hear the truth no matter what the topic, if it is not peachy keen. I think that is why the real issues stay bottled up inside just eating away at me all the time. Things, and events, I should shake off, I replay over and over (thanks, PTSD). The one thing that eases the pain and stress is talking out the stressor, but to who? The person I need to talk with just avoids any and all real in depth conversation or is a person I cannot even approach any more. What the hell? Is this what it is all about? I hate it. People often say they would never go back to the social aspects of high school. At least, back then, every thing, as far as I know, in my life, was brutally honest with my friends. Life was simple. I knew where I stood with people. They knew where they stood with me. I never was killing myself from the inside out with my own over thought. I am not blaming every one else. I know I can be just as guilty but so many people make themselves unavailable making me fear if I open up and expose myself and how hurt and falling apart I am...I'll be nothing. I have no one to trust.

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

As he begins to raise his voice
You lower yours and grant him one last choice
Drive until you lose the road
Or break with the ones you've followed
He will do one of two things
He will admit to everything
Or he'll say he's just not the same
And you'll begin to wonder why you came

How to Save a Life by The Fray

Decompression Stop - 30

A decompression stop is a period of time a diver must spend at a constant depth in shallow water at the end of a dive to safely eliminate absorbed inert gases from the diver's body to avoid decompression sickness

Today is my last stop of my 30th year. There is a lot to be to eliminated today, but as much time as I have spent decompressing this weekend. I am failing at fully decompressing this year and the past 30 year's events. I do not know how to let go. Damn the PTSD. Damn life.

My birthday wish tomorrow is to be able to stop, decompress each year, and leave the toxins in my life behind me. Push my reset button. Clear my cache. Delete my temporary internet files. I must past 'Go'. For once I want to see the screen, "Please wait while your system reboots..."

I am not by any means saying 30 was a bad year. I just wish I knew how to let things go. I wish life's replay didn't eat away my brain daily. It hurts. It hurts bad. There are countless times a day one of my replays brings a flood of flashbacks and tears to my head. My only defense is to squeeze my eyes tight, hold back the tears, let the memory play out, distract myself, and keep moving forward. Forward progress is mandatory.

Back to the point of the last paragraph, 30 wasn't a bad year: new relationship, new job, new friends, new songs from The Real Me (finally), friends having gobs of new babies, friends (esp Becky) getting married, waking up from anesthesia, picking up an old hobby in cycling, riding 100 miles in the MS 150, spending 99% of my year drink free, and surviving 30 years, 363 days thus far in life.

Yet, with every good point, there is the counterpoint: break-ups, floods at work, having to leave friends at my old toxic job, friends losing parents and children, losing my gall bladder, losing my dog, losing friends, watching my friends hurt, PTSD, depression, court date being pushed back again, feeling trapped in life, money, drinking when I did last year, knowing people won't tell me the truth, feeling alone, and suffering through 30 plus years.

And, of course, the bittersweets:

• Chris, the ex-husband, and Lisa are engaged. Congrats! - I know. And some, who have known since day 2, have totally avoided the topic with me. And Chris, promised to let me know himself, has never bothered to call and let me know.
• So-called friends have endlessly let me down this year, which continues to make me feel like I have no one to turn to in life when I really need to fall apart. I just want to know someone is there when I finally decide to open up...but...more let downs...real friends please. Fake ones need not waste my few brain cells that are not at war.
• Therapy-Therapy costs lots of $$. Money doesn't grow on trees. Without therapy, I feel awful, but with it, I can't survive.
• Same goes for good jobs - not sure what to do about the 2 - Year 31 will clarify b/c year 30 did not work, at all.
• Brother 1 is talking to me again, but I still don't have the means to help lure him out of this relationship. I know if I was in the position I was in last year or the year before I could probably have him lured out from the witch, yet, the whore still triumphs. I wish I could make thing better for him.
• Ok, I better stop now. I went from probably a good idea to a 3am rant. Good night, back to bed for me
  

I need a bath

Anytime I feel really sick, or anxious, I used to take really hot bathes and just bury myself in the water. Nothing is as soothing as hot water; nothing relieves the pressure like soaking in a big tub. Almost scalding hot water slows me down, warms me up, and allows me to drift off to sleep. Yes, I sleep in the bathtub. Drowning myself in the warmth of the soothing water where only my mouth and nose, and occasionally feet, peeking out to feel the cool air. Listening to the distorted sounds of the world through the water, I find peace in metally sounds of the air bubbles rising from my hair or my body occasionally shifting and moving the water around me.

I need a bath.

Scars

I can't make them go away. I can't make them stop hurting. I feel like I swallowed a million razor blades tonight...and the only thing the scars beg for is release, or maybe more pain. I just want to stab them with a needle to feed the pain, or maybe release it for good. If I feed it, maybe it will sleep for bit and let me be.

Every time I forget the scares are there, I accidentally brush against one of them or scratch an itch and there they are...jagged little edges...no meat behind them...shallows on my own body....holes where someone got inside of me, but a piss poor job of putting me back together whole. Easy access so maybe they can cut me open again? or just permanently marking me as imperfect.

No one wanted to scare me, and tell me how awful it would be in the end. Everyone just provided me with hope-filled wishes that when it is all over every thing will be better. You'll feel so much better when it is over. HA!...later as I still deal with the constant pain and complications, the truth comes out...It was awful, totally rearranged my insides. I haven't been the same since. Screw hope. I wish I would have known the truth and what the future really had in store for me.

Waking up, feelings as though they were trying to suffocate me...the pain...walking around, holding my insides in, fearing if I let them go, everything would fall out. I didn't care enough to ask for help thought, continuing to push myself further and harder only to cause more pain. The tearing and pulling, at what little of my insides that were still intact, only to in the end, hurt more.

Still, I rub, I scratch the scars. The depressed, rough scar where there once was perfection and the reality of imperfection now stakes claim.

Outside Looking In

Socially awkward. Yes, the adaptable extrovert in me still cannot handle social events sober.

I am not drinking. I do not drink in groups. I have in a couple rare situations this year drank in groups and later regretted it severely. For the most part I have only had a single glass of wine, or drink, in rare one on one dinner situations. I don't want to be the idiot drunk, but it is so hard being the only sober person sometimes.

When everyone else is drinking and I am not, I need to escape. I get antsy, panic-y, and self-conscious. Why should I, the only one not acting like an drunken fool, feel self-conscious???? because I don't know how to relate to the drinkers. I am, also, at the point that I don't want to take care of the drinkers either. I usually seem bored or ADDish. The later in the drinking evening it gets the more I want to run away.

I am permanently out of my element.

A toast to Becky and Rob

I met Becky the first day she moved back to St. Louis from Omaha. It was the first day of our freshman year at Ursuline, our first big day in high school. She immediately became part of me and my family. In fact to this day, my nineteen year old brother, who was just 3 when he met her still refers to her as "Becky-sister".

So, today, we are all here (thank you for being here) for Becky and Rob's wedding, albeit 50 years early from the best laid plans we made in high school. I think the original plan was for me to be pushing Becky in her wheelchair down the aisle around the age of 80. Thanks for screwing that up, Rob, but I'm sure Mom and Dad Clemens are very greatful....because the UA "boobsie twins" were not always known for planning well, or making the best decisions....

Cooking for example - Beck and I CANNOT cook. Simple things, like Uncle Ben's boil rice bags...eh, not so much. Evidently, you can burn boil bag rice. Yes, somehow two bright girls like ourselves could not handle the simple things like boiling a bag of rice, soooo we knew if either of us found a man who could cook...we should keep him. Rob, you can cook, right???

Driving - anyone ever ride in a car with Becky??? Don't blame me. I tried to teach her to drive...being 10 months older and driving a land barge at 16. Becks wanted to learn to drive. I thought I could teach her. Again, ehhhhh, not so much. All I remember is driving through our friend, Colleen's, subdivision and suddenly seeing Becky heading for mailboxes and parked cars screaming, "NOOOOO, the other peddle, the other peddle"

Drinking - Dad, do you remember in your toast you mentioned those little infractions....hmmmm, yessssss...I think you busted us on a few of those back in the day. Our first party with alcohol, Becky and I had not acquired a taste for beer, but that did not stop us from wanting to fit in. I remember us walking around all night with cans of beer in our hands, the same two cans of warm beer....occasionally putting the beers up to our mouths acting like we were drinking. Then, Mom and Dad Clemens show up to drive us home. Next morning, Becky and I are down in the kitchen, Becky asks me what I want to drink. Jim (Dad) shouts from the living room, "Hey Sheila, How about a beer?" BUSTED. Busted and we didn't even really drink. I remember Becky and I just looking at each other with looks of shock.

Fast forward to many moments I wish to forget at Tremors. Musical influences that changed as much as we have...MC Hammer, FU Schnickens, DePeche Mode, NIN, a brief hiccup in country music, an uncanny obsession with Jessie's Girl. Our friends getting married, having kids, finding our first gray hairs.....then Becky meets Rob.

Sarah and Wayne married 2 years ago in San Diego. Becky and I flew out there for the wedding. On the trip out, we read together, "He's just not that into you". Many of you have heard of the book, it is by the author of the show "Sex and the City". It is one of those pump women up and tell you how great guys should be treating you. As Becky and I read, and giggled, and related stories of the past and present. There was a constant theme. Everything ended with, "Rob's soooo great. He does that for me all the time." I knew she found her one.

Rob, Mrs. Kjar's husband, there are a few things you need to know.

Becky loves to be woken up to someone singing "Can you take me high enough"...the louder and more out of tune, the better. Its your job now, since I don't think we will be having any more sleepovers.

And if she ever shows up to really important events with yellow bleached out bombshell hair. Just smile and tell her how beautiful she looks. (that was my wedding btw)

And most importantly, if she EVER tries to set me up on another blind date with a blonde horse mullet guy with hair longer than mine (fifteen years later and I'm still not over that). Please tell her no. I'll take care of my own love life. After all, she can't find success in love twice. She found you for herself.

Please raise your glasses.......