I have been experiencing a case of blog block. I haven't seen a cure that wouldn't cause a 4-hour erection, and nobody wants that. The holidays brought so many emotions out of me, that I think I haven't been able to express myself without being wildly all over the place. How that's different from any other communique with me, I don't know, but I've felt unfocused.
Part of that has been due to the fact that I went about 4 days without Cymbalta. Through no fault of my own, in fact, it involved theft, I ran out of Cymbalta before my refill could be processed. Do you know what it costs without insurance? About $340. Not only is that utterly ridiculous, it made me think about unemployed people who suffer from depression that don't have insurance. Not all of those people have the luxury of sitting on their asses while someone supports them...I have to change topic slightly before I unleash some Jerry Springer on the world...I will say this and leave it at this; my dad used to say constantly that he and my mother could not have imagined creating three more different children. And in most ways, he wasn't necessarily proud of this fact.
My brother-in-law had surgery on Tuesday. They found a tumor in his throat, which they are 90% is benign, but we won't know for a few days. For a period in November, another doctor told him it was malignant, which made this surgery all the more nerve-wracking. Most of you that have known me for a while have heard me talk about Gib. It dawned on me the other day at the hospital, that essentially he's been my brother for 16 years, and I've probably known him for 21 years or so.
I remember one day when I was about 15, my friend Bebe and I and my sister and Gib were going to the Country Club or maybe we had already been, but Gib wanted to show off in front of us, so he picked my sister up over his head and squatted like he was doing that crappy exercise all coaches make you do like you're sitting in a chair with your back straight....anyway, he did this, and ripped the back of his swim trunks, like wide open...he turned red, ran away, and we all died laughing.
I'll fully admit, we did not always get along, I got on his nerves, he got on mine, but in the last 10 years or so, we've settled into a brother/sister relationship. I'm sorry to sound callous, but I consider him more of a brother than the brother I actually have. And so while at one time, I might have thought it weird that I teared up when they told us he came through the surgery fine and was being moved to a room, after the last year of loss and hurt and heartbreak and coming to terms with the fact that you can't will people to care about you and understand what you need, I'm not really surprised I was tearfully relieved. I have a strong support system that works for me, and he's a big part of it. Plus, my niece and nephew are like my siblings almost, and I don't want to see them suffer either. So, the horrible part is mostly over until we get the biopsy results, and I have faith in God that he has a plan that doesn't include my sister losing the heart of her family.
On another note, I think I understand why depression and suicide rates spike during the holidays. It's not the people who are alone, it's the rest of us, the ones with straight crazy running through the leaves of our family tree. When people say I'm a pessimist or that I'm negative, I eventually find that amusing, because if you knew what I know, that I genuinely root for things to have a positive outcome, and when they don't, I'm crushed like ice in a frozen margarita, that I am in remarkably good spirits for someone who's experienced some of the things I have. I will never understand why those who are supposed to love you the most are the ones with the greatest capability of destroying you.
I don't really make New Year's resolutions because I don't agree with setting myself up for failure and making stupid self-improvement goals that if I need to implement, I should've made in May or August or whenever, but I make these commitments to myself:
1. I will figure out how to better cope with stress and shut out the toxic personalities that stalk me
2. I will become healthier; I will NOT become a crazy exercise junkie weirdo, but I will eat better and exercise when I want to, doing what I want to, and I believe that feeling better and being healthier will naturally follow. It's not rocket science.
So, there, thank you for allowing my wildly erratic blog to start off 2011. Sometimes, I just need to write.
And from my deceased partial namesake:
"Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul - and sings the tunes without the words - and never stops at all. "
-- Emily Dickinson
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