Loving Luka

F/NF words

What do I have to say here, that hasn’t been said before? It’s an ongoing battle, repetition begets boredom, boredom, depression. I’m weary from all our conversations that end up the same way, one of us hanging up on one another. I can’t do that anymore, I won’t.

I’m sitting in a coffee shop, near your apartment, trying to drink a cup of black coffee in a white mug, my hands shake, while the rain continues to flood the streets. I just think about trying to jump over the massive puddles but I don’t have any more energy in me to even try. When I was younger that was my favorite thing to do. Not now.

View image | gettyimages.com

I feel paralyzed from pain, the pain you inflicted on me. Once, I used to be carefree, like a child, happy and silly and stomp in the puddles.  I am so ANGRY at you. In the past I cared too much and where did that get me? No where. So, instead of being disappointed like I have been in the past, I am turning into myself, safe guarding my heart and not showing it anymore, at least not to you.

I don’t WANT to care anymore, I’m past that point. I’m not lying, I have cared too much in the past, believe me, you know, I wasn’t always like this. People who have known me for years will reassure you that yes, I have changed but I have chosen that change. Why? Self protection. I’m tired of being bullied and pulled apart like a hungry street dog lunging at a piece of a steak.

You know who you are. You blame me but you never look inside yourself. You need ME? That’s not good enough. You don’t treat me well enough to be on your side. You accuse me of everything you do to me, did that ever occur to you?  I just handle it better. I don’t

need to whine and carry on the way you do, I’m an adult now.  Yes, I went through hell to get here but I survived, barely, but I survived and I am strong.

Don’t you see how your view is warped? I don’t live in the past, I do acknowledge it but deep inside YOU are the one who hasn’t moved past it. Why is it that your true emotions only come out when you were bare to the bones, out of your mind? You loved me then, you needed me then. Not since then with all your false bravado. Because if you did love me why would you be so mean to me all the time?

It’s not a big dark secret, it’s an illness. Like diabetes or cancer, get over yourself. I know you think the world revolves around you, you make it that way, you make it that way. Not everybody else does that.

View image | gettyimages.com

I know you put yourself first, well, who doesn’t know that? You admit it with pride. ‘A great quality of yours, I’m sure you think.’ Me? You don’t care about me as much as you think. Because if you did you wouldn’t be a bully like you always have been and you still carry on the same way, even after all these years we’ve been together. You could work on a compromise instead of saying “Well, I  just can’t do it, I won’t do it. ” Maybe you can but you have never tried.

I was happy in the past to mediate to reach a solution we can both live by, I will not be influenced by your outbursts anymore. I will stay away. I don’t trust you since you have broken the rules of our relationship time and again and you know you have.  Deep inside you are a very troubled child. I can’t see our relationship continue on the way it has, not at my expense.

I need to put myself first, to care about me now. I hope one day you will be happy without making others unhappy.

 

At The Movies Or In Real Life

I wanted to have an old-fashioned cry. Long and hard, wailing, sobbing, letting all my feelings out but I couldn’t even do that. I put on the movie “Beaches” my past cry-your-heart-out movie that used to have me in tears, my guaranteed tear- jerker and while I was as Babs would say “verklempt” I had no tears.  Nothing, no sobbing, no release, “bupkes.”

Cover of Beaches (Special Edition)

Now, not only was I disappointed but I was cranky as well. What the heck happened to me?

I was more interested in the different styles of cars and clothing than the actual premise of the movie. I loved Bette Midler then and  actually I love her more now. Barbara Hershey kept me fascinated only because I couldn’t remember if she was dead or alive but I did remember that her lips, at one time, had grown larger or had doubled in size.  Allegedly.

I think one main reason that I didn’t cry was unfortunately, life has toughened me up quite a bit.  I’m a lot older now then when I saw this movie and things like that really seemed to be out of the ordinary, way back when. It was shocking and unreal. Sure, you sobbed at the incredible morbidity but when you first saw it, let’s say twenty, thirty years ago? The world was a different place, yes, a kinder, gentler place. I’m sure of it.

Now, if you want to sob, read a newspaper, watch the news, keep yourself informed about what is happening in the real world today. That is depressing. Before 9/11, and after 9/11. That is how I phrase things in my life like “before my dad died” and “after.”

I find the less I read about what’s going on in the world at night the better I am. Am I in denial? Absolutely. I KNOW what’s going on but I just can’t handle all that atrocity all the time, 24/7 so I stay away from everything except the bare minimum.

Hearing news stories today are the very things that nightmares are made of, flashbacks are happening from lifetime events. So, if I’m cranky by not being able to cry, I can surround myself with the news, and not only will I cry, but they would have to medicate me around the clock and put me in a psychiatric hospital where the lonely padded cell, at this second, would feel appealing. AND, NO, I am not making fun of the psychiatric community, believe me. I am part of that community.

I get anxious and take medication to try to calm me down. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Realistically, it’s a cruel world out there and in our defense we try to get stronger and stronger. Why? Because we have no damn other choice. We sink or we swim.

In case you hadn’t noticed, there is a war, there are many wars out there. Life is far from fun. Life can be very, very sad. You don’t need to watch a Bette Midler movie to cry, real life is sad enough.

Please watch below:

 

I Pay My Shrink In Candy Corn

It’s true. I am lucky enough, (SO lucky) that I have a therapist that won’t charge me money while my husband isn’t employed full-time. I love this woman and it is the furthest thing from transference ever.

She asked me last time I saw her, “How on earth did you get into my practice, I don’t accept new patients”? I grinned widely and said ‘you liked me on the phone, I present well.” Sure enough that was the truth. My old shrink, Doc, had retired somewhat against his will, to Florida and I looking for someone new.

Finding a good fit is the hard part. My doctor is a really good fit. I asked her once “what happens if I move?” she answered “we Skype!” How can you not love that?

For me, there is absolutely NO SHAME at all in seeing a therapist, in fact if I had the money I’d probably do it more often and with great pleasure. I do feel that we need MORE FUNDING for mental health and more trained people in the schools. I really do. I think that if each elementary school had really good therapist they would be able to track problems at the beginning and should follow through, working with middle school, high school etc.

Obviously, I have anxiety issues and I’m HIGHLY emotional and sensitive. I’ve told her that I want to be less sensitive and be a cold, hard woman. This way was just not working for me.  I was getting hurt and misled and I am too gullible believing the good in people. She looked at me intently, her blue eyes facing my green eyes, her red hair, wild like some sort of plant in the dessert and she laughed.

#175846600 / gettyimages.com

I said “I’m serious!” and she said “I know you are. But, you can’t change who you are. You are sensitive and that’s good and bad. Yes, you will get hurt but you can’t all of a sudden change and be a cold-hearted, feeling-less person. It isn’t you, it’s not who you are.” Inside I gurgled with disappointment and took a deep breath. I knew, down deep, she was right. How could I change the way I am?

The only thing I could change were my reactions (maybe) and not to get so emotionally invested in the beginning (maybe.) So, I am planning to greatly appreciate my wonderful, happy times that are greater than great with detail when they are positive and ride out the storm just like everyone else when bad things happen, when so-called friends disappoint. I take things way too seriously and if I find out a friend is disingenuous and fake, not to mention a back-stabber or liar, I admit I hate it but I learn again, not to trust everybody.

I KNOW who my true friends are, I cherish them with all my heart.

Crazy Looks Like Me, Crazy Looks Like You

It’s raining sheets, like unfolded plastic wrap falling from the sky. The clouds overhead are not dismally gray or black, nor are they white and cheerful, they are just the background for the rain, a neutral color of uncertainty.
.
My younger sister, Shelly, sat at the kitchen table in the dining room, alone, her head down, her eyes unfocused. She had a tiny silver spoon in her hand and she was stirring her coffee, over and over again. I don’t think she even realized she was still doing it. I said “Good Morning” to her but she never answered.” She wouldn’t speak to any of us.

#87401011 / gettyimages.com

 

Shelly was wearing her same  blue striped pajama bottoms, the dingy white tee-shirt and a pair of thick, pink socks. She hadn’t brushed her hair, it seemed, for weeks. She wanted to just stay in bed and be alone, the only thing she would say was “I’m not crazy, do you think I’m crazy, because I’m not.” I bit my lip.

I wasn’t trying to be mean, honestly, but I had begged her to see a therapist and our parents forced to talk to someone and she went with them once, kicking and screaming the entire time. She never even went inside.

 

#200335330-001 / gettyimages.com

 

I didn’t know what to do, but I did know that this was not helping her. Staying in bed all day, getting up only for coffee or her one meal, a bologna and cheese sandwich on white bread with mayonnaise  that our mom would leave her in the fridge. Shelly told all of us “it was none of our business” but of course it was our business, we loved her and hated seeing her fall apart, a little more each day.

I didn’t know how long I could take looking at the shell that was my little sister, curled up in bed with the light off and no life coming from that room. She slept all the time. Once, I started playing music in my room, music I loved and thought she loved too. I thought she might enjoy it but she screamed and moaned for me to turn it off in such a violent, out of control way, that my parents immediately came and scolded me, they turned my music off. It was upsetting Shelly.

She needed help, she desperately needed help, she was getting worse and my parents and I couldn’t handle her anymore. Now, she was not sleeping at all and roaming our apartment at all hours demanding attention. I had a full-time job as a Customer Service Representative and I was already in trouble for missing too many “sick” days. Our parents were older and not in good physical shape and our little brother, Josh, was just eight, a mere baby himself and, of course, troubled and confused.

For a week we whispered among ourselves to arrange for an intervention, we knew something had to be done.  Time moved quickly, it was 4 pm on Tuesday and the day had come. I sat in the corner, biting my nails. I wanted my sister to get better but I did not want to be part of the intervention. My parents made me so II also felt like an accomplice and hated that feeling. I hated being in the middle of everyone.

We were all assembled in the living room, Shelly was in her room, sleeping. The people from Edgehill Hospital were waiting right out side the door. They decided that our dad should approach Shelly gently by first calling her name and asking her to come out of her room. She refused.”I’m tired” she murmured.”Maybe later.” After several more attempts and being exasperated, our dad asked her to come out again but I could hear the strain in his voice… Finally, in a fit of rage, he broke the door down, and started yelling at her. He screamed for a couple of minutes, his patience worn and suddenly stopped to find Shelly on the bed, still, not breathing, and cold. He called 911 immediately but we knew she was gone.

She died from an overdose of pills that she had accumulated for many years. We found two empty bottles of alcohol on the floor next to her bed. The note that she scribbled with a purple pen said this: ” I hate my life, it’s all black an” that was the end. She couldn’t even finish the sentence about her young life.

#186854530 / gettyimages.com

No one could speak after the initial gasp of horror, we each sat in our own corner, after the ambulance came and pronounced her dead. No one  spoke to each another, harboring our own guilt, our own excuse, our own irresponsible part we had in Shelly’s life.

All of us thought we killed her. I know I did, for sure.

 

 

 

The Day After Robin Williams’ Died

I sit in shock even as the news about Robin Williams’ death is sweeping the country on every possible news outlet. Shock moved to sadness and even though I didn’t know this marvelously talented man or his demons, I am feeling his pain. Everyone’s pain. The world is so fragile right now, you can feel it in the the heaviness of the air, the full moon,  in the tension of the world. For some of us, called Empath Intuitives, we feel more deeply, we take on other people’s pain as if they were our own but I am trying hard to separate this one.

#115133085 / gettyimages.com

I wrote this in response to my friend, the great Jenny the Bloggess, aka Jenny Lawson on her wonderful post about the death or apparent suicide of Robin Williams. Please take a look at Jenny’s site (I reblogged it here if it worked) to read the whole thing, if you don’t know Jennifer Lawson, you really should. My goal in life is to be mentioned on one of her side bars one day! She will cheer you up, crack you up and has been one of my inspirations. She has really creepy (sorry Jenny) habits/hobbies like taxidermied animals but she also does beautiful things for others and that makes you want to be as awesome as she is.

Not to mention, you have never really met the true Beyonce that we, in the Jenny Fan club know. “Knock knock Motherfucker.” You’ll see. It makes perfect sense.

Jenny wrote a heart breaking and heart warming post about suicide and mental illness and all of our challenges in life. This was my reply to her:

I’m usually good for a laugh or a witty response but sorry, I just can’t this time and that’s okay. I know I will get it back but Robin Williams’ suicide hurts in a place where childhood was, we grew up with him. WHY DOES MENTAL ILLNESS STILL HAVE SUCH A NEGATIVE STIGMA, IT SHOULDN’T. WHAT IF CANCER WAS SUBSTITUTED FOR MENTAL ILLNESS? I don’t understand. It is an illness like any other illness and needs to be treated by a professional. I have an anxiety disorder and take meds for it, like Jenny, and it is treatable. Sure, there are some bad days but there are some bad days for everyone. Isn’t it time that mental illness can come out of the closet and be accepted by everyone instead of being a hushed secret? Come on, people, give those of us who struggle with something different, ( I have an anxiety disorder) an encouraging word, a smile, a chance to say “I feel sad/anxious today.”

More money is needed for mental health providers but I’m sure Robin Williams could have provided that for himself. PLEASE, talk to each other or call a suicide hotline. If not for yourself, then for your children, your mother, brother, best friend, your partner, your pet, for me and for Jenny. There’s always someone waiting to listen. I promise. Signed, your friend, Laurie F. hibernationnow.wordpress.com

Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

1-800-273-8255

Search results

1. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

   www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org

   “Because Hope Is A Marvelous Thing” by me.

   #136267742 / gettyimages.com

Haiku Horizons: HOME 4

English: Image of comet C/1996 B2 (Hyakutake), taken on 1996 March 25, with a 225mm f/2.0 Schmidt Camera (focal length 450mm) on Kodak Panther 400 color slide film. Exposure 0:56 to 1:06 UT (10 minutes). The field shown is about 6.5°x4.8°. Note the prominent disconnection event in the comet’s ion tail. Stars in the image appear trailed, as the camera tracked the comet during the exposure. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

 

 

Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys image of Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 fragment B on 2006 April 18, 19 and 20. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

1)

Small, deaf, sun-filled home,

Corner shadows, two adults

Lost in the echoes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

2)

Where will my home be?

Old, runny eyes, gray hair, death.

Misery, Alone

 

 

3)

There is no home now

walking on red glass, blood, pain

There won’t be, ever.

4)

Spoons of honey drip

into drooling mouths, no teeth

I hope I don’t know.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Slipping Xanax Under My Tongue

English: Xanax 0.25, 0.5 and 1 mg scored tablets (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There’s a Xanax under my tongue. I’m not proud of it but I’m also not ashamed either. I feel the stirrings of a big anxiety attack about to kick in and I’m trying to head it off at the beginning. I am trying hard to head off having a complete melt down like I had four weeks ago for the same situation so let’s just call this preventive medicine. Preventive psychiatric medicine intervention? That’s a mouthful but I do like the sound of it.

If “my friend,” the always funny and creative blogger, Jennifer Lawson “The Bloggess” can write about Xanax and mental health I sure can too. This isn’t my first posting about anxiety I have plenty of those but in this one I am telling you what I am worried about, out loud in real-time. Maybe that will lessen the anguish, probably it will be just the same. Or maybe I will just worry about worrying. It ‘s anyone’s guess.

There are so many things that are out of my control and they all involve a common theme, as I used to call it “Health and Welfare.” I’m worried about the health of three very important people in my life. Yes, all at the same time. Initially I wrote down who those people are but then I had a funny feeling and I knew that if those people saw this blog they would be mad as heck and I would worry about that too. So, problem solved. These are all my anxieties wrapped up in a tightly knit, wound up ball, the kind you make out of twine, beige, scratchy and unforgiving.

There is an expression in German that my dad used to say and that I have said for years : “nur gesund sein.” Loosely translated, “Just stay healthy, your health is the most important thing.” I really mean it, I’ve never been the type who has needed a wake up call, I’ve been on the edge of that wake up call since I could probably talk. I don’t ever take that for granted but now I’m being tested not with just one thing but many and all at once. I need to rise to the occasion,my fears and worries aside, there is no other choice.

Another thing my dad taught me which frankly is not easy to achieve is staying in Neutral. If we all could do that successfully, we wouldn’t need Xanax or Valium, bags of chocolate or pints of ice cream or whatever your soothing pleasure is. If a cup of tea worked, believe me I’d be sipping it right now. Since I am not sobbing in hysteria, nor am I in ecstatic denial all I can see in my future, tonight, hopefully, is sleep. If I can get that, a good night’s sleep, I will feel that I have accomplished at least a little something.

Those weird protesting people in my stomach are rabble rousing again. They aren’t rioting like they were before, those angry protestors. Now, it’s more like they are marching silently, still carrying signs. But, they are still there, they know it and so do I. I’m truly hoping I can surprise them and wipe them all out before I turn out the lights. Wish me luck. Please.

FWF Kellie Elmore

“We started dying before the snow, and like the snow, we continued to fall.” — Louise Erdrich, Tracks

I was weary, weak beyond anyone’s mind could see. It wasn’t just my physical pain that had failed me, I was used to pain. It stayed with me like a shadow every day and night of my life. This was different, this was emotional, mind pain that wrapped itself around my neck and pulled tight. I knew I could breathe but I felt like I couldn’t, like some evil demon was choking me, I could practically see inside myself, red, raw lines around my throat from the choke marks. This would be my undoing. I hoped it was.

I knew I couldn’t fight and the hysteria that I felt came bubbling up like a spring on a hot, dry day. I was out of control, lots of pills, lots of pills. Weed too. I could see the water but I couldn’t taste it or feel it. As much as I knew that logically, it didn’t prevent me from continually trying, again, the pain getting deeper, the vice holding my throat deepening every second. I was only thirteen but I had lived a thousand years already, I wanted to die, I was not scared of death. That was not a fear I had.

I knew what I was up against, I already had been living on the streets my whole life. It didn’t matter. No pills I bought from the street, that I dry swallowed, could lessen that inside feeling of feeling out of control. It was a horrible feeling, so I tried more pills, pink, blue, white, lots of colors. Like in a magazine, little pretty children wandering alone, not being able to find their mother in the middle of a busy city, constantly calling out, yet nobody would answer them. They were lost but not found. It did not have a happy ending. All these children could do was cry and be afraid and the story would finish just the way it started. I knew better than that. I kept popping more pills, nothing was happening to me. Yet.

Sometimes that’s the way the world works. Not everything gets tied up perfectly with a pink, lace ribbon, curled on the ends. Not everyone is a tiny ballerina on stage, showered with perfect red roses after a performance on their pointed pink ballet shoes. No, that was for dreamers and I was no dreamer. That was for people, the very tiny amount of people that lived in the rich life I never came in contact with but I heard about or read about it. My mother was a junkie, she lived on the streets, sometimes but not with me, no. I saw my mom who I called “Destiny” shooting up heroin in a corner, on a street. We didn’t say hello to each other. Usually she was so out of it she wouldn’t know me. When I recognized her, I pretended I didn’t. Me, popping pills, her doing heroin.

I was a street child, a crazy one at that. I lived here and there, whatever place I decided was mine for the night. The only name my mother ever called me was “gutter-child.” That’s the only name I knew.

FWF: Kellie Elmore

Sad Little Girl (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

everything i could never tell you

I’m sorry, baby girl, I was barely a teen then, I didn’t know there was a name for what your mama had. I just knew she closed herself in her bedroom, turned the lights off and had me babysit you every afternoon. She hid under the covers because she was really sad and all you could hear from her bedroom was her sobbing. I kept the television on to try to protect you from the sounds.

You know, back then, it didn’t even have a name, just crazy. Your mama was chronically depressed and it is like every other illness but years ago it was shameful. Thank God, now, people know more and there are medications and no shame involved.

When I would walk up one flight of dusty, gray stairs, your smile would brighten your entire face like sunshine and your cheeks would turn rosy pink as soon as you saw me. Your mama would scream sometimes, but she couldn’t control herself. Oh, I know you pity yourself but I’m sure it was not easy for her, she was very sad every minute of every day. Yes, it WAS hard for you but you are a grown-up now, can you now think about what it was like for her?

What I remember most, for some funny reason, is that she used to make two pale chicken legs in the toaster oven. Oil or butter turning into bubbles on those nasty looking legs. You must have eaten them after I left but I kept thinking “where was the rice and the salad?” Was there bread and butter to eat?  I could picture you and your mama eating one sickly yellow chicken leg each and you drinking your glass of milk.

Your mom never let you have candy so with my babysitting money I would hold your hand and take you into the candy store and let you pick out a chocolate bar and tell you it was our secret. I didn’t care about lying to your mom, she wouldn’t even have noticed. I just wanted you to have a little happiness in your life, I wanted you to be able to be a kid for a short time, anyway. Your eyes would glisten like stars on a dark night, with happiness and excitement, you were lit up like electricity in a lamp.

I met you for lunch once when we were both adults, I didn’t know you anymore. You hated your parents,  you hated everything, nothing but hate and coldness inside you. This was way before your older sister became sick too and I adored her as well. I know you were wonderful to her, you did everything for her and everyone knew that, there was the goodness in you.That sweet little girl came back to be her sister’s angel, but when she died, it died too.

We didn’t know about the funeral, no one told us. As soon as we found out we raced to your mom’s apartment where your cold, icy, blue eyes looked through us. I wanted to hug you, but you didn’t let anyone close enough to even say we were sorry. Why? You were blaming us for something we had no control over but you were the queen of control, right?

You built a wall around you of law books and court rooms and tennis-playing friends. I hope you are happy now. But, I wanted to say something that I never could say before: I missed my sweet baby for a long time. The little girl you were, the innocent, happy child that would race to sit on my lap.What happened to her? My one question is “do you even remember her, that sweet sunny child, you were?” Because if not, that would be a damn shame. A damn shame.

Something Was Wrong, It Was Me

High Anxiety (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It arrived every evening like a suspicious stranger, its presence like black fog slipping under the door. It was deceiving at first, mist, started slowly and then it changed in a split second and attacked me. I felt like I was being stabbed with an ice pick, repeatedly, the chill of cold anxiety running up and down my spine. The goal apparently was to shock me and knock me totally off-balance. It won, I didn’t stand a chance.  I don’t know why it came. I certainly didn’t invite it nor could I prevent it and its malicious presence only showed itself to me after dark.

I don’t know why it happened and I never completely understood it but the displeasure was here, every single night. I tried every trick I knew: deep breathing and meditation, but I did not stand a chance, it felt like I had been swept up by a tornado. Actually, I  lived in the eye of that tornado, I felt helpless, yes, out of control, out of control, out of control…

In past years during this same time period I felt sad, weepy. In the past eleven years I have known grief and a feeling of longing but not anxiety. Major life events happened, I felt loss , my dad was deceased but fear? This year without the regular Thanksgiving plans, control escaped me and anxiety with its octopus legs strapped me in and squeezed me so tight I could not breathe properly. Maybe Thanksgiving, without check lists and red lines crossed off made me feel undone. Would it be five people or nine? Last minute? I used to be so flexible, what happened to me? I missed feeling in charge, in control. I was alone in the world, it put me off-center, dizzy with fright.

I had trouble sleeping and eating and with my chronic pain disorder, Fibromyalgia, I questioned if this could have been a flare-up? Very possibly but I don’t know. The physical pain is the same but the IBS and the anxiety are on over drive.  Anxiety rolls in my stomach like one of those slippery aqua blue water park slides that I hate, wet,  flying down way too fast. I went on one of those once when my children were little and pleaded me to go on one of the rides with them. Trying to be a good mother and show them that fear should not stand in one’s way I relented, seeing their shiny little faces. Big mistake. I laid on my back and flew down the twisting spiral of hell screaming all the way down only to see them at the bottom, laughing. “Why did you lie on your back, Mom, didn’t you know that is the fastest way to go down?” OF COURSE NOT!!!

I felt like I have been on that water slide for at least two weeks except in my head and my body. I’m in my own zone of panic. Nothing worked, nothing helped, my last resort was to try to listen to music which has helped in the past. No luck. Maybe I’m just so excited that tomorrow I will be seeing my children, home for the holiday? Maybe I am feeling out of control not knowing if we will be five or nine people? Or maybe the last four, stressful weeks have finally caught up to me: my husband got laid off, I had to have painful uterine biopsies and on the way to my doctor’s appointment I had a flat tire. I found out my friend and her husband both needed surgery, I took on my friend’s problems too.

Maybe I’m anxious now because I couldn’t allow myself to be anxious before. The food lists are really not important, there will be plenty of food, no matter who comes. My friends will be fine. My husband will eventually find a job and we are not living out on the streets. My tests results came out perfectly. AAA apologized for dropping my call, twice and they paid for the private road side assistance. I’m taking a deep breath, it feels good. All of a sudden, I feel like listening to music and I’m getting a little tired. That’s got to be a good sign. I hope.