Blood Roses

It's been a hell of a couple days. My depression has been getting worse and worse and my psych doesn't seem to give a shit about it. I want off of Effexor. It was a fantastic drug til it stopped working... now? I'm tempted to hurt myself and am, of course, occasionally suicidal. I can't fucking believe I'm back at this point... again. I'm trying so hard to hold it all together if for nothing else, my child. It's just getting so hard and God... exhausting. I can't think of anything more exhausting than all of this. I would rather give birth again than feel this way anymore... but then, this is more painful than childbirth. No offense to birthing mothers out there, but at least that pain stops.

I told my mother yesterday I wish God had given me an incurable cancer cause at least I would know that there was an end in sight. She was not amused, but sadly, it's so very true. I could handle a cancer far better than this stupid disease. I hate it. I hate that it makes me hate who I am. I hate that I can't just "be happy". I want that more than anything. I want to be happy.. I just don't know how. I'm so lost and so fucking tired. I just want to give up. *sigh*

oh yeah.. and I didn't get into grad school. Kentucky here I come...

Changes

It's been a difficult month to say the least. I lost a dear colleague to cancer and have been grieving that loss greatly. She was a fantastically talented, kind and funny woman and I will miss her greatly in years to come. My grieving process has kind of caused a rift between J and I. While we're trying very hard to repair it, I'm frightened that it's just not going to work and that there's too much damage there for it to work. I hope we can get back on track... but I know that there are two very strong willed people here that may want different things out of life.

I still haven't heard from UNI, which is insane because I should have heard 2 weeks ago. I've just taken to assuming that I'm not in, which stinks because I don't know if I can handle another year here in Des Moines. I have a lot of positive things going for me, but I hate my job and I miss academia so much. I just want to be embarking on the next stage so that I can acheive my goals and I hate hate hate being held back. I feel stifled and trapped here and I need to be able to experience my dreams at least trying to come true. I know that it won't be perfectly as I've envisioned (seriously, who gets to live in a penthouse apartment in NYC on an opera singer's salary unless they're Renee Fleming or maybe Anna Netrebko?), but I can still dream that it will be a partial accomplishment. I may not be a Renee or an Anna, but I can be just as successful as Barbara Bonney if I put my heart and soul into it. I lost my passion thanks to having it stomped on by RLL, but I've rediscovered it within myself. I may not have his endorsement, but who needs it? I have K's and had M's before she passed away. I can do this. I will do this and the world will see that I am STILL a force of nature to be reckoned with. I am Hera with Helen of Troy's beauty. :)

Pride and Joy

It's a Brandi Carlile day. I had the intention of including this in my last post, but it just seemed to lend itself to its own posting and rightly so. Last night I went out on my Valentine's Day date with my bugaboo. He was such a true gentleman. He pulled out my chair and seated me, told me I was beautiful and tried so hard to keep a conversation going with me by asking about how my day was. I am so proud of the young man he's so slowly becoming. It's nights like last night that I catch glimpses of the man he's going to be in 10 years from now and moments like that where I know I'm doing the right things for him and that I know that I will be just as proud of him then as I am now, if not more. I know he's only 7, but my God. He's such a loving, caring, intelligent and sensitive young man now, I get teary sitting in this coffeehouse just thinking about what a wonderful man he will be when he graduates from high school and goes to college. I can only hope that I have the ability to give him the world like I so very much want to. I know every mother says she loves her children and that she would do anything for them, but I believe in that sentiment with every fiber of my being. I would give L my very heart if he needed it because he is my very pride and every joy in my life. Somedays he is my very reason for going on. He is the person who taught me the very definition of unconditional love and the person I find the most amusing and interesting. I look forward to watching his story unfold and will always be proud of him regardless of the paths he chooses in the future. He could end up a drug addict, living on the streets somewhere and I will love him as much then as I do now and I will be just as proud of him. Thank you L for coming into my life and being my most loved person. I love you so much and I hope you know that.

The Story

I had the most wonderful Valentine's Day this year. I got to spend it with my sweetheart (J) and that was all I wanted. He gave me the most wonderfully precious gift and I can only hope he understands how very very much I love it. I nearly cried just looking at the glass heart shaped box he gave the actual present in - something that was so quintessentially me that I was utterly taken aback by it's perfect-ness. And that's not even the present... I make no secret of my love of butterflies. My favorite quotation is "Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly..." and is honestly the dictum I live my life by because oftentimes it feels like the world is ending for me and I received the most beautiful jeweled butterfly broach from him. I can't even begin to express how very much it means to me.

I'm not one for mushy sentimentality in a public forum, but here be the lyrics to today's song title.

All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I've been
And how I got to where I am
But these stories don't mean anything
When you've got no one to tell them to
It's true...I was made for you
I climbed across the mountain tops
Swam all across the ocean blue
I crossed all the lines and I broke all the rules
But baby I broke them all for you
Because even when I was flat broke
You made me feel like a million bucks
You do
I was made for you
You see the smile that's on my mouth
It's hiding the words that don't come out
And all of my friends who think that I'm blessed
They don't know my head is a mess
No, they don't know who I really am
And they don't know what
I've been through like you do
And I was made for you...
All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I've been
And how I got to where I am
But these stories don't mean anything
When you've got no one to tell them to
It's true...I was made for you

Fidelity

I'm a firm believer in fidelity. Maybe it's because I've been the one who was cheated on. But I was a firm believer before that too. Once I've made a commitment to someone, that's it. All other members of their sex are just... there. Not important in that special way. I've had a few friends who have tried to cross that boundary with me, and they're no longer my friends. I guess it all comes down to respect. If you respect the person you're with, you don't consider anyone else an option. If you respect your friends, you don't try to mess up what they have. It's kind of sad cause I'm down to only one man I can call my friend because of the lack in respect. I miss some of those who I've had to let go of, but they just couldn't respect my relationships of the past - which cost me a lot. Maybe not the relationship, but it certainly didn't help them at all. J is completely against opposite sex friends because of all of the above. I understand it, but I see the value of male friends as long as they remain just friends and as long as they can respect the boundaries put up around the relationship. Few people can do that nowadays though. And now that it's been brought to the forefront of my thinking, I'm worrying about it. Is this friend my friend because we get along and can talk about things without sex or anything sexual getting in the way, or is he my friend because he's waiting for the perfect timing to actually be with me in the biblical sense? *sigh* I rarely talk to him as it is, but golly is this making me think very seriously and hard about the nature of friendships. I know I don't keep him around for the purpose of having a back up. I'm not attracted to him as anything more than a friend. And ultimately, I know that the only person who I can control the actions of is myself, which then comes down to the question of do I trust myself? Of course I do. I have a very strong moral compass and get nauseous everytime I start down the path of something suspect. I follow my gut and my heart and it's not lead me astray yet.

I know that some people may wonder if I truly feel that way, especially when taking into account my marriage and past engagement. I can honestly say yes. From my marriage I got L. The sweetest, most generous little boy in the world and from my engagement I gained a lot of answers to questions I'd had since I was 15. From this new relationship, I'm already gaining things that are invaluable. I'm learning how a relationship is supposed to really work and that it's not as hard as everyone makes it out to be. I really love being with J. He loves me more for my mind than my body and that's the first time I've ever experienced that. It's more flattering than any compliment I've ever received. I'm not going to get into any detail though. Everyone needs a little privacy and that includes me. Just know that I'm a happy camper kiddos.

Onto other topics: ie the huge snowstorm that trapped me in my house for all of yesterday. Craptacular if I might say so. I had things I needed to get done, and being stuck in my house didn't help much with that. At least today the wind has stopped, the snow has stopped and it's all just clean up. There was huge snow drift up to my ears against my door this morning while the rest of the sidewalk was clean. Talk about a pain in the arse to clean up. Thankfully I didn't have to. Oh the joys of renting. :) L is home from school today and irritated with me cause I won't let him outside to play so we're catching up on chores. lol poor little guy. I've taken advantage of the day to finish my taxes though, so that is one less thing on my list of things to do. Thank God. I just don't understand people who wait. Why wait? Just get it the hell over with and enjoy knowing that you don't have to do it anymore. It's the one thing I can say with confidence that I NEVER procrastinate on. I love getting them out of the way. I can't really say I have anything else for today. Just relaxing with the kiddo once we finish up chores. :)

Stay

I'm doing really well. Like, really well. I'm actually looking forward to work with a smile kind of really well. J met my bugaboo the other day and that went really well. They both seem to like each other pretty well, which was really important to me (obviously) to have the two men I care about most actually like each other. It tends to make things easier. I'm just really happy about things lately. I spent the night at J's for the first time on Saturday and in the morning he made me breakfast. I have never had someone make me breakfast before. Just because he wanted to. It was really really sweet of him and I love him for it. It was just toast and eggs, but who cares? It was made out of love and that made it better than anything else could have been. All of this has just been like a dream. It's all I think about right now and all I want to do is just make him happy in some way. The weird thing is, I'm a chatty girl and when I think of him or am near him, I just... I have no words. I search for them and they just aren't there and I'm not used to being rendered speechless. I can only hope my actions can make up for that. I'm just so awkward and nervous around him still. It's cute, I'm sure. :)

On a seriously down note, I found out that a friend of mine from high school has been sent home to die. She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a while ago and she went to Mayo to fight and fight she did, but the doctors have run out of treatments. I honestly can't believe it. She's just such a vital woman. I don't really know her anymore, but she was one of the popular kids who actually liked hanging out with me. She was always kind, always smiling and very sweet in high school and I can only imagine that those attributes have deepened as she became a woman. I hate to think of her suffering or her leaving behind her small child and husband. I can't even begin to think of how hard it is on her, much less them. To want to live so very much and know that the end is approaching regardless of "fairness". I don't often pray, because I think God has better things to do than listen to me, but God had better listen now because she doesn't deserve to suffer anymore. She deserves peace and a pain-free release from the hell she's been through. Cancer is fucking unfair.

Rolling in the Deep

This has been a pretty trying couple of weeks. Most of it has been fantastic thanks to J, but it's still pretty hard. My car decided to be a bitch and that drained my bank account to the point where I'm actually starting to freak out about things. I generally try not to freak out, cause it really gets me nowhere fast, but *sigh* it's just not working right now. And on top of it all, my mother verbally lashed me when I called her with news of the car being a pain in the ass. Apparently, I'm not trying hard enough, I need to be begging for more hours at work, I need to tell my conductor to pay me for rehearsals - not just weekly performances, I need to get my voice studio up and running faster (more on that in a mo) and I need to actually be appreciative of all the things that she's done for me. *sigh* talk about being made to feel like a worthless burden. It pretty much ruined my day and I'm still pissed at her despite her calling me up later on that day to "apologize". I put it in quotations because the words "I'm sorry" were never even uttered. I am appreciative. And to be honest, I really do feel like a worthless burden most of the time when I think about my relationship with her. I hate being fucked over financially and I just want to find a job where I'm making a difference in someone's life and not just being a cog in the corporate capitalistic machine.

That being said, I'm working on starting up my voice studio. Nothing grand or anything, but I'm pretty excited about it. I've managed to hopefully get an accompanist who could help me out and I'm actually optimistic about all of it. I'm being proactive. Go. Me.