For Parick [to be continued...]

COMMUNICATION is the word of the day, [or rather the lack there of since I lost my phone last Saturday]. I've said this before, but you'd sincerely be amazed at the amount of communicating you can do without a phone. Yesterday, I was reminded of that as I had a life changing conversation with my brother, face to face, at the library in downtown Fort Worth. If I had a phone in that moment I know I wouldn't have given my utmost attention to the conversation at hand.

I would've been texting people, aimlessly.

PATRICK: They want me to come in today.
LIZ: What?! Why?!
PATRICK: Because they're fucking up at the store and apparently they can't handle it.
LIZ: That's fucking lame! It's your ONE DAY OFF.
PATRICK: I know, I'm fucking sick of this. They always do this to me on my day off. I'm exhausted and lethargic every single day. It's just getting old and I'm not happy.
LIZ: What are you gonna do?
PATRICK: I'm not going in.

My brother Patrick quit his job yesterday.


Even as I typed the previous statement, I knew it would sound grim, as the sentence stands on its own, solemn and alone.

Stands on its own, alone.

That's the theme here. But I should note that my brother deciding to leave his job is the furthest thing from grim or gloomy. In fact, its the exact opposite, and I couldn't be happier for him. It's an empowering feeling to realize that you're capable to do what you want with your life, and exercise your right to choose. It's also inspiring to see others around you, happy, doing the exact same thing.

Suddenly you're not standing on your own, alone.

So far in July...[a pictorial]

Adam on a boat 7.4.10

Me on a boat 7.4.10

Trying to reason with Adam...on a boat 7.4.10

Ryan backyard [It's summertime...]

Promo w/ Tonight, Tonight! @ The Prophet Bar in Deep Ellum 7.10.10

Pt. I - ACCEPT and EXPECT

It's been an interesting two weeks since the last time I sat down to write. I definitely have the desire to write. The biggest challenge is trying to recall the moments throughout the day that inspire me. Once I get home, it's hard to recapture those raw thoughts, let alone translate them into written words. I'm not giving up though and Ive decided to invest in a voice recorder next week. This way I can think out loud and listen to the ideas again once I get off work.

I know one thing for sure; my mind is entirely focused on the pursuit of happiness since I entered the ACCEPTANCE stage of my grieving process. I realize that grief is never completely gone but I also know that I'll never move forward if I linger on that fact. So I'm coping instead of running, learning to ACCEPT my losses, (pun intended), and more importantly, I'm learning to ACCEPT wins. This is probably going to sound strange, but for me, it's always been easier to ACCEPT losses over wins. Even though I'm feeling a trillion times better these days, I'm still paranoid and cautious because I'm EXPECTING tragedy around every corner. It's hard to break old habits and learned behaviors. Because of that, I ACCEPT that my anxiety isn't going anywhere anytime soon. However, I found a way to cope with the anxious energy in a completely UNEXPECTED, but tremendously positive manner.

Roughly a month ago I was asked by the Red Cross to join the inaugural class of the Disaster Assessment team. The purpose of the team is to prepare for disasters such as hurricanes, floods, etc...before they happen.  For instance, if there's a bad storm in or near our service area, the Disaster Assessment team gets in touch with the team captain and reports the weather conditions in their residence area. Then the team tunes into the national weather service's A.M. frequency and begins to track the storm. They communicate the information from those reports with the team captain and the chapter, as well as report the information to local police and fire departments. Once everyone involved is aware of the situation, the D.A. team begins mapping residential areas on detailed maps that show everything, including unnamed dirt roads, back roads and even utility transmission lines. With that information the team can assess high risk areas and large networks where utilities may become unavailable, if the worst happens.

Once the assessment is complete, the Disaster Team assembles at the chapter building and prepares supplies with the First Responder Team in case of an emergency. Then it's a waiting game until after the storm. If the worst does happen and people are affected, the teams take the supplies into the areas and the Disaster Assessment members take notes on how many people were injured, and where the affected people are so medics can find them. The D.A. team also assesses the residences that were damaged and are unlivable, and report that information to the shelter team so they can begin setting up shelters. If the disaster is large scale, the D.A. team gets in touch with government agencies such as FEMA and petitions for aid to be sent to the area, and in serious situations, the Red Cross will suggest that a state of emergency be declared.

When I sat in on the first meeting for Disaster Assessment, I felt like I found my new home.

LIZ: (To D.A. Captain, JIM) So basically you're saying we study, track, and wait for disasters?
JIM: Exactly. Now you're catching on girl!
LIZ: Oh my god, you have no idea. I've been doing that my whole life!
JIM: Well after I talked to you at the last meeting, I thought you'd be interested.  Hell, you even surprised me with how much you already knew!
LIZ: Yeah, I always feel the need to make sure everyone knows how much I love volunteering with the Red Cross.
JIM: Well listen, it's gonna be a lot of work because this is a new team our chapter of the Red Cross has started and if you join, you'll be in the first certified team of Disaster Assessment here.
LIZ: Where do I sign up?

So that's where 1/4 of my time has been spent in the past 30 days. I've been learning how to read every type of map known to mankind, practicing how to operate a H.A.M. radio, and helping the team build our official protocol plan. My team captain has a tremendous amount of faith in me and at our last meeting, he asked me to begin training to work as a government liason for our team. His belief in what we're doing and his belief in me is extraordinary.

Joining the Disaster Assessment team has helped me balance out my anxious habits. Instead of sitting alone, dwelling and waiting for tragedy to strike me personally, I've shifted the focus off my narcissistic self and now I'm using the anxiety to do something  positive for other people.  I never imagined there would be a group of people who actually love my need to prepare for the worst. I also never thought I'd see the day where my anxiety could be utilized to help save lives. I'd be lying if I said that doing something positive for others didn't make me feel good as well.

Our official certification test date is July 31st. My captain also mentioned to me yesterday that for our last training exercise before the test, he was going to drop me and my other team mates off in the barrio at night. If we can't find our way back to the chapter on foot; carrying our go-bags full of the required supplies, no cell phones, no GPS, only using an old school paper map; he wasn't coming to get us.

Wish me luck or come visit me at my new home in the barrio, next week.

July 2, 2010

After settling into the idea that I would have to cope with and face my wall of sadness, the weight of carrying it with me everywhere I go has lessened, even if only slightly. I also opened up a little more to Ryan about the issue. Not by choice, but to explain my recent frustration so he could attempt to understand, or at least know why things have felt distant lately between the two of us. Truthfully, I got the idea about facing and coping with the wall of sadness from Ryan, as he told me a few weeks ago that I couldn't move into a shelter just because of tension in my current living situation, as my mom is staying with me and my brother, indefinitely.

LIZ: I know I'm 26, but when I'm around her I still feel like a juvenile little girl.
RYAN: Well you're not. You're both adults. You have to address your issues with
her staying in the house and how you raise Adam.
LIZ: Can't I just move into a shelter instead? You know, start over fresh and build
something from the ground up for me and Adam on my own.
RYAN: No.

So I took his advice and asked for more hours Starbucks in order to save up money to either move Adam and I out on our own, or to buy a new car in a few months. In other words I've set up my [hopefully] temporary residence at the wall of sadness while I make and/or wait for my depression to subside. I've got to admit, the scenery near the wall of sadness is barren and mundane. Every morning I wake up and get ready for work, I have to pep talk myself into a good mood. It's a nagging feeling, this depression, and makes me feel like a complete mess most of the time. Once my day actually starts, I stay in pep talk mode and keep myself calm since I increased my cigarette intake to roughly a pack of cigarettes a day. I also started taking my lunch breaks at work to give myself extra time to smoke and allowing me a break from the forced chipper-ness I have to play at work.

When I get off work, I come home and try to stay out of my mother's way and spend time with Adam. After Adam goes to sleep my stress chases me wildly, forcing me to climb the wall of sadness. Then just before bed, I repeat the same pep talk I give my myself in the morning, and reassure my psyche that it will have time to rest for a few hours if I sleep. Half the time I'm telling my brain the truth and I sleep through the night. The other half of the time I'm a complete pathological liar and I wake up in the middle of the night from night terrors and nightmares.

RYAN: I feel completely disrespected you think I'm a liar and you still think that I don't love you. Look, I'm not one of your druggie, loser ex-boyfriends! And I know that you've never been with a real man before but...
LIZ: I don't think you're a liar. I just have some problems I'm trying to work out on my own.
RYAN: Your problems are my problems.
LIZ: Well then...we have a lot of problems.

Despite the other half of the time, hanging around the wall of sadness has made me a more honest individual. I know this because I'm slowly learning how to openly admit to my plague of depression. Coping with it isn't fun, but at least I've gained some sort of handle on it instead of running from it. Trust me, I'd much rather be hanging out at a different wall, like the Great Wall of China or even the torn down Berlin Wall.

Maybe if I spend enough time around my wall of sadness, I can figure out a way to turn it into something great, like art or tear it down altogether?

Until then my stagnant wall of sadness will stand.



July 5, 2010

In the shower this afternoon, I came to an exciting revelation! My decision to hang around the wall of sadness and deal with it was part of the final stages of grief, helping me to move on with my life. It's not so much sadness, but rather the stage called ACCEPTANCE. I suppose you could say that I haven't been grieving solely the loss of other people in the past 365 days, but I've been grieving my own death as well.

Standing naked in the shower, I closed my eyes as I leaned into the warm water falling from the shower head and rinsed out the shampoo from my hair. When I opened my eyes, I looked at my surroundings and for a moment, I was so completely lost in thought, I didn't recognize where I was at. I surveyed the shower liner and the blurry view outside of my cubed glass bathroom window. I pulled the shower curtain back and looked down at the brick red tiled floor. Slightly startled, I quickly shut the curtain and searched for the conditioner bottle, hurried through the lather, rinse, repeat routine and turned off the shower. Then I stepped out of the bath tub and grabbed the green towel off the edge of my sink and immediately wiped off the steam from the bathroom mirror.

I finally realized who I was and where I was, now.

I am no longer the naive little girl who built her life around tragedies and dangerous situations and people. Despite the fact that I grew up around these things doesn't mean I have to continue to emulate them in my life. Just because something is familiar, predictable and comfortable doesn't make it safe. Happiness can be found in the depths of the unknown. You just have to have the courage to face it all, the light and the dark, and embrace it to the fullest.

So where do I go from here, now that the wall of sadness has been knocked down?

I have no idea.

I can ACCEPT that.


Is this a dream?
You ask and I don't say anything
Because this may be
A dream.
And we come to this place
Like two convicts that have escaped
From the prison of everyday
And for the moment we'll have our stay
--Drilling/ Minus the Bear

There's a reason[s] & Weather it out

MONDAY JUNE 28, 2010


It's been a good minute since I've written. There's a reason[s].

What started out as a bad day a month ago turned into a bad week[s]. Let's see, first there was the public meltdown at work, then an attempted break-up with Ryan. Then there was the wall of sadness which also came along with writer's block, which is a serious ailment in the writing world comparable only to contracting the AIDS virus.. In an effort to start feeling better and get past the block, I decided to start counseling two weeks ago. The counseling session turned out to be a wasted hour of my life I'll never be able to recover.

I considered the time wasted time because the counselor told me everything I already knew. As she talked I couldn't help but assume she believed I was an idiot because she tried to convince me to apply for grant money from the organization she works with. This "grant money" set aside was awarded to those who were forced to relocate due to tragic situations in their lives. This sounds like a great program for people who truly need financial help with their moving costs, but I'm not one of those people.

"Are you fucking kidding me?! " I asked, then informed her, "I'm already on that because I'm writing a memoir so I don't need your money. I just need someone to listen and help me try to understand why I feel like shit. You know, someone to help me find some direction because obviously I'm lost."

Her response; "Wow. You write?"

I wanted to put my mouth around the barrel of a gun and pull the trigger at that point. Since there wasn't a gun in sight, I put her voice on mute and watched her lips move. If she wasn't going to listen to me I wanted to return the favor. It was like watching the crappiest silent movie. Nothing was truly accomplished and as I walked out of her office, I felt even more disappointed and defeated. I decided to stop fighting with my depression and surrendered to any and all of the above feelings, no matter how amazing or negative they were.

With that choice, I found the start of a familiar walk down a hopeless, shocking, self-loathing path I'd already been down. This path AKA Memory Lane included the all too familiar intersection at Night Terrors on Elm Street.

Walking down Memory Lane, I came across a new road I wasn't familiar with; Frustration. This feeling of frustration came from the anger within myself I've harbored. Anger rooted in confusion as to why I suddenly felt miserable when I came back from Oklahoma in May 2010, when this depression began . I mean, I can deal with being depressed as long as I understand why I feel that way. But feeling like someone suddenly died when someone[s] died 365 days ago? That made no sense to me. "Why am I still so upset?" I asked myself, "And why now?! What the hell is wrong with me?!" There wasn't an answer in sight to my un-rhetorical questions, so after trying out Frustration Road, I made a U-turn and headed back down Memory Lane.

So that's why I haven't written lately. I've been too busy running down Memory Lane hoping to find a rest stop, a new road to travel down, or an end to the road itself. Any end; either the beginning of a new path or a DEAD end.

On Monday I stood waiting at a crosswalk light after work. I watched the traffic go by; the SUVs and 2010 model cars zooming past me without remorse. Then it began to sprinkle.The drizzle turned into rain pouring from the sky as the crosswalk light signaled my turn to cross. I stepped out onto the street not paying attention until I heard honking at me. I and smiled and waved at the driver who nearly hit me with his car. He smiled back at me and I read his lips, "I'm sorry." I gushed back to him, "It's okay." Secretly, in that moment, I wished the car hydroplaned and hit me so I could take a break from the world, or at least from work for a week, and not be blamed or held accountable for my absence[s].

Once I reached the other side, I looked up at the sky to watch the water fall from the puffy grey watercolor clouds. The pouring rain covered my glasses' lenses so I took them off. I continued to stare up at the sky and let the waterfall wash over my bare, eyes open. I realized I was smiling slightly still and now I was entirely drenched in rain. Walking home in the rain from a long day at work was another one of those ridiculous situations I find myself in almost daily. Where most people would consider this a bad day, I found comfort in the familiarity of an unfortunate circumstance outside of my control. While most people would choose to find an alternate route or hide under shelter to wait the storm out, I faced it all the way home.

I trudged through the rain puddles, playfully kicking at the pools of water with my feet. I felt the coolness of the water between my toes, over my head and on my back through my soaked polo shirt. The unfortunate-ness of the inclement weather on my walk home was a surprise detour on my journey down Memory Lane. I stopped running so I could experience the rain and mild temperatures, which were welcomed changes from the summer hear and humidity.

The experience humbled me and veered me off Memory Lane. I was reminded of where I am NOW and who I am TODAY. Drenched in THE PRESENT, I felt immersed in strength and the chance to still be alive, to be able to laugh at the typical situation of being forced to walk home in the rain. This was a far cry from any stress I felt in the past.

When I got home and walked up the stairs, dripping water from my hair, my brother asked, "Why didn't you just call me for a ride home?"

"I think I needed to walk in the rain." I told him.

There's a reason[s]

 

 

TUESDAY JUNE 29, 2010
At least my writer's block has been cured, and that's a start.

After walking home in the rain the other day, I thought that I was going to go to sleep that night and wake up to a clear sky and a clear head. I was half right, it wasn't raining anymore. But as I pulled back the curtains on my bedroom window after I woke up, I noticed rain clouds still hanging around, though they were scattered and allowed patches of the blue sky backdrop to show through.

"Maybe it will rain today, maybe it won't?" I said to myself as I turned on the shower.

After my morning shower, I spent some time with Adam, then headed into work. I noticed the clouds beginning to clear out even more throughout the day, but I couldn't completely shake the somber feelings I've had for the past month. "Is everything okay?" my co-worker Amanda asked me. Her question caught me off guard, as I was stood in front of the bar, staring out of the window. I noticed my transparent reflection in the thick glass. She had reason to ask me questions. My face's reflection communicated the standard, "someone-just-died", look. Even I wanted to ask the ghostly image in front me if everything was okay.

"Yeah, I'm just tired", I told her, "its been a long week." I reassured her.

I've mastered the, "Yeah, I'm just tired, its been a long week", response. It's part the of the choice I've made to cope and learn how to adapt to the uncontrollable climate changes in my life. Before this year, I always ran from my feelings and my problems, sometimes relocating away from them entirely. In serious circumstances, like in 2009, this was necessary. My recent depression is far from serious and doesn't qualify for such a dramatic response this time. I would compare this feeling to hearing Linkin Park over and over and over on the radio; repetitive, uninspiring and slightly annoying. The only difference is that on the radio, you can turn the tuner dial and take your chances on finding another station that doesn't play crappy music.

We don't have that luxury with our lives. We can't simply turn from one life we're living to a completely different one in seconds. Even the action of scanning radio stations constantly gets repetitive. We make do with our trial version of time on this planet AKA our life, and make the best...or worst of it, until the trial period is over.

Though I'm fully aware of the impermanence of life and the events we experience while alive, I'd still give anything to stop feeling the same dread I wake up and go to bed with every night. Well almost anything, I wouldn't give my life for peace of mind because how would I get to experience peace of mind if I didn't have a life?

What's even more disheartening is that lately, music hasn't appealed to me. This is how I know I'm still hanging around the wall of sadness. I LOVE music. So for me to get into the car, scanning radio stations, not hearing a single song that remotely interests me, that's a red flag that something isn't right within my life. Because no matter what, music has always been there to help me get through the best...and worst of it. Suddenly, my one and only can't even save me or soothe me during the duration of this trip.

So without running from it, but not talking about it, and not turning to music, my options to get through whatever negative feelings I've had recently are all exhausted. I don't know what to do at this point except to weather it out.

"Maybe it will rain today, maybe it won't?"