Happy New Year?

Well, here we are, it’s a new year.  I have ditched my iPad in favor of a Kindle Fire tablet gifted to me by Alison.  It’s become my new best friend and also made me extremely grateful for those who gift me.  I seriously couldn’t afford such tech or gadgetry for myself and I do appreciate it.

I love it and am especially happy that the keyboard I got for the iPad works with it as well.  I am, in fact, typing on it as we speak.  I play sudoku on it, read more on it, take it places with me, watch Pride and Prejudice endlessly on it while I do dishes, write on it and take pictures with it.  Eventually I’ll figure out how to text on it and then, oh boy, I’ll be set won’t I?  Unfortunately it also makes window shopping on Amazon even easier but hey, my wish lists can’t hurt me.

It’s snowing out there today and I’ve been thinking about so many things for future blogs.  My big, fat Israeli divorce.  My heart bleeding silently for Jerusalem.  My love for my fiance and home here under the permafrost.  How these two things can be compatible in my life – my two greatest loves which are so very far apart.  My son, who is growing up before me and how hard this is for us both.  How autism morphs and changes and we blaze new and unknown trails every day as he grows into such an amazing young man and I struggle, as always, to just keep up and continue to wonder why people praise me for being a great mom – really, it’s because he’s such a tremendous young man.

I’m crocheting now after my knitting just disgusted me to the point of giving it up for now although Knitpicks has my nickel plated interchangeables for sale and they’re really gnawing away at me.  I still harbor that intense hatred for Polish customs for throwing away my needles in case you’re still wondering.  Anyway, I am making a “starburst” square afghan which consists of a gabillion little kinda granny squares that are really little starbursts that will all hook together.  I need a gabillion and I think I have 17 done.  Tune in later for more on THAT one.

I’ve been baking bread that sometimes people eat and lately, most of the time they snub.  Along with most of my dinners.  Oh Scott eats everything and praises what I cook and since I cook as an art, that makes me happy but still.  I have a can of raspberry pie filling and a package of yellow cake mix….I’m thinking raspberry filled cupcaked for Shabbat this week.  If I feel like it, I MAY share them with the children.

Then again, maybe not.  Depends.

I spent most of December worrying because on the first night of Hanukkah I got a call about my old house – someone was interested in buying it.  It wasn’t in the greatest shape and really, not in the best location and honestly, I wanted to just get rid of it before someone torched it.  The median sales price for what I had was less than $20,000 so I was happy with what we negotiated and I agreed to a sales price.  Talk about a Hanukkah miracle.  Most houses where my house was are on the market for 3-5 years and houses like mine?  Usually just abandoned.  So…being the worrier I am, I worried until the sales contract was signed and then I worried until the closing because I knew it would either fall through, there would be some wild lien I couldn’t even fathom or someone would torch it before we could get pen to paper.  I asked everyone I could think of for prayers and prayed as much as I could and to my own surprise on 31 December, we closed quickly, easily and with no fanfare.  Just signed the papers, said “Well, that’s that”, said goodbye to the ex, and walked away.  I never felt so relieved in my life.

I set about paying off debts I never thought I could pay off – I can’t even describe the feeling.  I have been so poor for so long and remain poor even after everything is now settled but I know that I am building a better life that hopefully will reveal itself.

Miracles are afoot and I bask in them.  I learned a long time ago that sometimes the only thing you can do is ride the tide of the miracles and just let HaShem do his thing and take you where you’re meant to go.  Fighting it really doesn’t get you anywhere and to be honest, basking in the glow of miracles is a pretty amazing feeling.  I recommend you try it.

I still feel anxious and, I hate to say it, depressed.  Maybe it’s the winter time even though I enjoy this time.  I think maybe depression isn’t even the right word.  Sometimes tired seems more like the right word.  Like life just makes me tired.  The happys aren’t as sparkly but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel happy, it’s like Scott said to me one evening when I was watching something funny on tv – “why aren’t you laughing?”  I was amused, just not enough to make me laugh out loud.  It’s hard to describe.  I suppose it’s like you can see the sun but it’s just not sparkly sunshine.  The sky is not a birdsegg blue.  You just DO, you don’t BE.  I can’t explain but that’s how I feel about it.  Sometimes I wish I could just sleep all day but I can’t.  I know that that’s what keeps me getting up each day.  If it weren’t so cold out, I’d be walking.  Routine powers my day but it doesn’t mean it’s any less exhausting just going about the routine of life.  And I am okay with it.  The routine gets me up and moving and I try to make little bits to look forward to, to break up the monotony of the routine….but the exhaustion and boredom remain.  Maybe someday it will change.  Right now, I just don’t see that.

So anyway, if I haven’t depressed you to death or bored you silly, happy new year to you.  Have you made any resolutions?  I used to when I was little.  I’d make – wait or it….schedules and routines for me to follow.  Now, not so much.  I make changes as I go…I don’t necessarily see calendar dates as the big time to decide to change my life.  This year I will be walking a 5k at the Pittsburgh Marathon and I am raising money for Evan’s Miracle League baseball team that allows kids with special needs to play adaptive baseball  (DONATE HERE) which is one of the most worthwhile things I can think of EVER doing so I am training for that.  And as usual I am doing random acts of kindness like carrying my emergency dollar to help people with change at the grocery store, helping out when I can (like bringing in trash cans when people are at work and it’s windy) and just trying to be a better human being this year.

Life As A Headcase: Frustration

I love to use websites for inspiration for my writing, especially when I can’t seem to come up with anything I think is worth writing.  My favorite site is Thoughts From The Blue Notebook and today’s topic deals with frustration.  Which…I guess is a good topic for me because Frustration is a great friend of mine.

Back that one up, maybe not a great FRIEND but due to my physical issues, it is a constant companion.

Frustration comes to visit right along with the Darks.  I feel down and I get frustrated because it makes me feel inadequate, lazy and whiny.  I am afraid I am getting a reputation as a hypochondriac because I have so many things on my health plate.  I get myoclonic seizures which annoy the hell out of me.  Imagine having your reflexes tested non stop for minutes or even hours!  And there’s nothing I can do to stop it except take medication that I often run out of if I have a particularly bad month.

Frustration is there beside of me.

I want to take my son to the book store, have a mocha latte and read a magazine on home remodeling.  I can’t because I have seizures and my license has been gone since September.  I am optimistic though that I’ll get it back but Mr. Frustration mocks me now.  And the time drags.

I think time and Mr. Frustration are close, personal friends…or just in on this together.

I’m content and happy with my life but I have this part of me that longs for the
magical recreation of those happy moments in my life.  It’s like this part of me whom I call The Little Dreamer Girl wants to collect all the happy she can so we can just fall into it and roll around naked.  (Okay TMI, I know but that’s what it’s like).

And very often this quest to bring me baskets of happy blows up in her tear stained face because like a cat bringing home a dead rabbit, only to make it’s owner happy, other people don’t really understand what she’s all about.  Hell, I hardly understand all these parts of me.  How can I expect anyone else to get it.  And when they don’t get it, how can I even explain that it’s not ME doing this.  It’s Little Dreamer Girl and I really have a hard time stopping her from gathering those happy things and bringing them home.

Frustration holds her hand I think and I wish she’d quit going off with him.

Frustration digs deep into my soul, what little I have left, when old friends won’t talk to me anymore.  When people I thought would be there forever don’t want anything to do with me.  And especially when they stop by and say hi never to return. Frustration exacts his revenge and takes his pound of my flesh and blood, and mind, and runs, cackling into the darkness.

Frustration is a contant in my life.  Not MY constant (ala LOST) but constant enough that I am not surprised anymore when I feel his presence.  I just try to remind myself that Frustration comes and goes, although at his own whim.  I never know when he’ll show up or even when he’ll go.

He knows of my neshamale’s (Little Soul in Hebrew) deep connection to Israel and Jerusalem and he sits by the sidelines taunting me, enveloping me in sadness and homesickness, and making sure I know it will never be in my grasp again. He plays with my life like tinker toys.  Some days he let’s me be built up and other’s he pulls me apart.  His exaltation comes when there is absolutely nothing I can do, when I feel completely overwhelmed, powerless and empty.

But that’s how Frustration is.  And sadly, I have to learn, somehow, to live with him.  He will always be there and somehow I have to find a safe place and never let him win.