I'm a lot of things, but mostly I'm just Random and Odd.

  • Random and Odd

    And if I didn’t know better I’d think you were talking to me now.

    I woke up horribly sad this morning.
    I fell asleep to a book based on the Syrian civil war and I am hoping that doesn’t have anything to do with it, but it is a griping book that showcases different sides of war and how PTSD was portrayed in this book felt tragic and familiar.
    This morning I was thinking about my mom and her losing her mom.  I was 9 months old when she died and for some reason that hit me harder than it has in the past. It made my childhood make more sense.  My mom’s best friend her whole life died when I was a baby and how she coped with that feels exactly how I wish I could.  My mother had children that could help. She had a husband that took care of her financially. I am doubtful he was emotionally there for her, but at least she didn’t have to get up every morning and figure out what to wear to work and how to talk to people with kindness when inside she was crying and fighting to breathe.

     

  • Random and Odd

    Are you really gonna talk about timing in times like these? And let all your damage damage me And carry your baggage up my street And make me your future history

     

    I had a really, really long conversation with an old friend that I was no longer friends with anymore and we talked about a ton of shit that happened that ended our relationship.
    Was it a needed conversation? No. Did I need to hear it? Not really. Am I glad I did? Naw.
    I’ve been in therapy for awhile now and I am able to embrace my glorious flaws and I have accept what I can hear and what I don’t want to hear.  Do I need to hear about how shitty I was 20 years ago? Nope. Do I need to hear how I am acting shitty right now? Yeah.
    Did it make me feel better to tell this person that i had lost myself in them, turned into Meredith Gray…Pick me, love me, choose me. I had made myself smaller, quieter and more palatable and in the end I was still broken.  I didn’t like the person I was when I was with them, I’m not a big fan of the person I am because of them.  So why have the long talk?  Because I have grown into who I am now and I wanted to get to know the person they are now.
    Honestly I think it actually made things worse.
    In a way it did make my stand on things stronger.
    I know what I want and what I don’t want.
    I know what matters and what doesn’t.  It doesn’t really make it easier to navigate, but at least I am on the right path.
    Never again will I be that weak woman I was.

     

     

  • Random and Odd

    There’s an art to life’s distraction… To somehow escape the burning wait, the art of scrapin’ through

    So I did a thing.

    On a whim I decided to go on a little trip.

    What was the biggest take away from this trip?  ALWAYS fly first-ish class.  If you’re going to be on a plane for 16 hours, shell out the extra cash to get the comfortable seats.
    What was the coolest thing I learned from this trip?  I like fish and chips.  My travel partner ordered it and I decided to try a bite and I was hooked. I now kick myself for not ordering it the whole time I was in Ireland!
    What was the plan time?  None really. I did some research on where I was going and decided it would be better if I was just a passenger princess on the trip and that is what I did. It was the very first vacation where I didn’t have to plan anything.  I put in my headphones and listened to Taylor Swift as we road tripped across a whole couple countries.
    So what’s next?  Well, I want to go to Scotland, but this trip makes me want to see Italy now.  I want to sit in the same places as Marcus Aurelius and his band of stoics hung out.  I want to see the coliseums.  On this trip I only got to see one, but there are more I want to see.

    This trip has rekindled my wanderlust.  I loved being in a place where there were not many English translations and I was on my own for figuring shit out.  The signs, the languages, the food was completely different.   Standing there listening to all the people speak a language I did not know was exhilarating.  I must have googled a million different words when I was there. When I couldn’t figure out what it mean, I just made up a definition.
    Don’t get me started on the cobblestone roads that progressively get more narrow as you try to navigate.  I am writing a whole article on how Google Maps in the US is not the same in any other country.

    So yeah…I did a thing.

  • Random and Odd

    It was the great escape, the prison break, The light of freedom on my face

    It’s the end of January and I have read a book a day.  It’s actually the 29th and I have already passed up a book a day because I read FOUR books last weekend.
    I had forgotten how much I like James Patterson and once I get sucked into a series there is no stopping until I finish it.
    I’m waiting for the hyper fixation of reading to wear off so I can move on to something else.  I did pull out my ephemera stuff and decorated my travel journal. Oh, I didn’t mention that did I? I’m going to travel this year…a lot of travel.
    I have an opportunity and I am going to take it. No regrets.  Well, I mean if I die in a foreign country then there will be regrets…oh no there won’t, cause I’ll be dead.

     

     

  • Random and Odd

    The absence of itself.

    What a fucking delightful way to welcome the new year.  I spent new years day scanning old photos and 15 days later I am still paying for it with a neck issue that took me to the doctor.  Going in and having a different kind of surgery while your neck hurts was just FUN.

    Luckily my sister came down to take care of me because I wasn’t too sure how well I would hold up afterward.   It took me two days to remember the details of coming out of surgery. She kept asking me if I remembered this or that…and I would shake my head and try to remember how I even got home.  I was eating soup when I remembered asking the nurse if I missed Reputation dropping.  Of course I did.
    Now it’s been a few days and I am home now and it’s quiet in the apartment.

    I was thinking about changes and how certain people change you in a way that you can’t explain.  They leave you intact, but they changed something.  Like a Tupperware bowl after you put spaghetti in it.  That lingering stain that doesn’t ruin the container, it just makes it different.
    I’ve been stained by spaghetti.  I’m sure we all have that orange line on us somewhere.  Maybe you haven’t been, should I consider you lucky or unfortunate? I think I would go with unfortunate, but sometimes I feel like the people who have never been hurt are the innocent that we need to protect from that hurt.  Unfortunate because they don’t know the strength it took to overcome it.  *shrug*

    I have scrubbed the container clean and put new things in there, but it’s still there.  I have picked at that line and the slippery feeling below it and it never changed.  It is determined to remain there as a admonition.

    There is a cautionary tale in that orange lined container.

  • Random and Odd

    But I’ll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year’s Day

    No bottles to clean up this year.
    I did pack up my tree, decorations and did the last deep clean of the year to welcome in the new.
    The t.v. was brought back into the living room. During the great sick of 2023 it was kind of nice having it in the bedroom and having the boys of Ancient Aliens lull me into sleep.  That was something I was glad to revisit when I moved into my place was to not have a television in my room.  I had plans to get my sleep back without the use of media and start meditating again.  Well, Audible had another plan for me and now I fall asleep listening to different sempiternal worlds of war, love, kingdoms and the anti-hero.

    I started the first of a 8 book series.  My daughter said she was going to start it and I loved the 5 book series that I had read of hers before so I was excited to start this one.  This book isn’t as nearly as detailed as the ACOTAR series and so far there wasn’t any anxiety like the first book.  I think SJM had traumatized us all with the giant worm in that first series and is going easy on us.  There are 8 books so I am sure it will get worse…which is the most exciting part.

    The first day of the year is usually spent outside, but I am in love with my place and the quiet coziness of it.  Today I am going to make some pancakes and then go get the office in better shape.  There are boxes that I need to go through and decide if it’s worth keeping or if I am going to use this giant trash container to rid myself of it.  Life is short, get rid of the fucking boxes that were handed down to you that are just taking up space.
    I was looking up “minimalist cozy.”  It was not the look I want, but it’s the idea and maybe I will be able to create it.  Right now my place feels like peace, warmth and very intimate.  It is becoming exactly what I want.

    Happy New Year everyone.

     

     

  • Random and Odd

    I should’ve asked you questions. I should’ve asked you how to be.

    It’s the end of the year and it’s usually time to reflect, but I spend countless hours in therapy doing just that and I am ready to look forward.

    I had an anxiety attack in the dentist’s chair on Friday and it shook me as It’s been about 6 months since I had one that strong that it took my voice and made it small and filling my lungs with air felt like I was setting off a time bomb in my chest.
    God, I felt like I was falling apart into pieces and there was no way to come back from it.  Of course, I did. I was able to express my needs and then I took the time to recover.  I called my friend and talked through it while my hands were wrapped around a hot coffee in a red paper cup. The adrenaline in my system took too much time to finally dissipate, but it did.  It’s times like Friday that I keep asking myself, “When is this all over? When is this over?”  not the anxiety attacks, but all of this life.
    I guess the battle for me isn’t over just yet.

    This morning I woke up sad.  I was looking at my walls and how I have surrounded myself with my familiars and someday I will pack up these things and move again.  I don’t want to do that ever again.  That wave of sadness doused me and I tried to bring enough air into my lungs to stay buoyant as I rode the waves.
    My sister is in her struggle to. We count down the days before we will see each other. We talk about the beautiful things we saw in Ireland and both express how we don’t want to ever forget it.  She’s finding her footing after years of taking care of Mom and I don’t envy her journey as I am still trying to get through mine.  Greif is a fucking weird emotion that I have never felt at this level.  Give me a map and I will follow it if it means that this will get easier.  Yes, it’s been a year and it should feel easier, but it’s not.

    As I am going through this I am also working through my past and the people I allowed into it.  How they changed me to who I am today.

    I am finding that for the first time in my life that there are some things that are just mine, not to share with anyone.  If no one knows about these little pockets of my life, they can not judge, point and talk.  This last bit of my life is a mystery which allows me to wrap it around me like a cloak and be mysterious.  The damage I do is mine and mine alone, I don’t have to hurt and I don’t have to say I am sorry. This alone part of my life feels like a song I have never heard, but a chant that my ancestors have been singing and I can finally tap my foot to and say, “this is a part of me.”

    There’s a old me inside that I have been dreaming of and it’s time to let her out.  It’s time to wear purple.

  • Random and Odd

    The last 13th of the year

    I had a relapse this weekend. I could feel it coming on Saturday, but I had obligations and I wanted to be sure to make them so I powered through.  I got home early and started to feel the chills and fever start in. By late Saturday night I was back in the throes of pain and feeling very scared that this was it for me.  The thought of going back to the hospital was terrifying, even more so than actual death.  Yes, that sounds dramatic, but the last time I was feeling like this and had my ex husband take me to the hospital it was hands down the worst experience of my life…and I have seen some shit.
    I got a hold my primary and got him to send over more medicine with a promise of getting yet another CT scan when I was feeling better.
    It’s Wednesday and at 4am the fever finally broke. The last few days has felt like a complete haze.  My coworker brought me my sicky soup yesterday and I am holding on to the belief that it was the Lipton Chicken Noodle Soup with Real Beef Broth in the red box that broke that fucking fever.  I mean, yes…it could be the antibiotics, but that’s only a 2% chance that is why.

    My sister said she called me. I don’t remember that conversation at all. I had to go through my texts to make sure I didn’t text anyone and check my call list.  The last time they had me on this same pain killer I went all crazy Ambien-esque  and sent messages to people I had no right texting.  This time it seems like I was good.
    My dog had been my tie to the living this week.  He has not left my side and during the bad parts of the night has woken me up by kissing my face. I am not sure I was having a bad dream or just whimpering.  When I woke up this morning he did the slow look up from his cuddled position at my stomach.  He must have been happy at what he saw because he sighed and put his head back down. This dog deserves a medal for being the goodest boy.

    I missed therapy on Monday and feel the absence of it.  Even though I am feeling stronger mentally than I have in a long time, I am still struggling with a lot of things.  Even though I am happy with my choice of being alone as I work through things, falling ill made me question things like if I want to be alone forever which until getting sick the first time wasn’t something I questioned.  Being prepared for a lifetime of not having someone to depend on me or base their day on if I am having a good one or a bad one was something that I was truly ready for.  I have been on both sides of that burden and to put it down and go about this life without it sounded peaceful.
    I’ve decided somewhere that if I ever feel reminiscent of time I wasn’t happy then I need to be somewhere else.
    I’m being true to this and want to keep it as my goal for 2024.  I guess someone would say, “if the vibes were off…” but I think it’s more than that for me. If anything in my life feels familiar to a time, place or person I wasn’t happy with then I am going to respectfully back away.  Maybe I am still a little raw and everything is going to feel that way for awhile, but promising not to ignore those warning flags anymore is key.  In gaming a red flag is way to challenge a call. A moment to step back and look at the play and decide if it was right or wrong.  This is the year that I allow myself to step back from a situation without feeling bad about it, ask the questions of the people who are not in the middle of it and see if it’s worth continuing on.  Was the thing that was done or said that caused me to step back an over reaction or my bodies way of saying, “remember this? this doesn’t feel right. can we go? i’m not comfortable feeling this way.”
    This time in my life I am ready to listen and not just blindly go where ‘love’ leads me.  Remember I struggle with not being able to differentiate between love and those first few months of lust.  I struggle with serotonin and dopamine and when I am being surrounded with large doses of it I think that I will never be happy if I don’t have them.  They do go away and I am left looking for those hits again and they aren’t there.  Giving all of me at first is my guarantee that I will also get all of someone and that’s not always the reality of life…or at least my life.  I’m more reserved now.  I don’t think I will ever really know… whatever.
    Anyway, it’s the last 13th of the year and I am going be in bed with my dog watching horribly acted holiday movies.

  • Random and Odd

    4am is my nemesis

    Every morning at 4 am I wake up and all the bullshit of my life wakes me up and screams in my face.
    I’ve been up since 4 and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t go back to sleep because my anxiety decided it was time to catch up on all the things it thinks are important.
    I’ve got a vacation coming up that was not one that I had planned, but was presented to me where I get to be a passenger princess.  There has never in my life been a vacation or even a simple road trip that I didn’t plan.
    My travel agent did the leg work on both of my trips to Ireland, and the third one I planned it out.   The first trip I was a co-pilot and I was prepared for everything.  The second trip I was suppose to just sit back and enjoy, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to and I kept all the information in a book and good thing I did, because the person that should have done all that…did not do any of it.
    The third trip I knew I was going to be the one that had to do everything and I was okay with it.
    THIS trip I don’t know shit.  I handed over my credit card for the airline ticket and told Mick, “just get me there and I will be fine.”
    I didn’t really have any expectations of traveling in 2024 because I am planning my trip to Scotland for 2025 and that’s going to be a doozy, but when life presents you with a chance to have an adventure where you have NO idea what you’re doing….you take it.
    My brain at 4am though decided to brain-nap me and throw me in car where it drove me through all the anxieties I live with and shouted “SEE! THIS IS WHY YOU DON’T DESERVE GOOD THINGS!” and then before it tossed me out on the road it said, “Oh yeah, here’s a mental image you might want to dwell on for the next few days until I can come up with a better one…that might be real or might just be a fanciful one I came up with.”
    So just like it was designed to, I dwelled. I regretted. I ruminated. I did not fall back to sleep.

  • Random and Odd

    Conversations while solo decorating.

    I debated if I should put up a tree this year.  The cost of one was just stupid, my kids aren’t making it for Christmas and it just seemed like a waste of money.
    My friend who doesn’t put up their tree anymore gave me theirs, The box would now sit in my living room until I was feeling better.  Not that I was feeling any better yesterday, but because I kept having to walk past the box I decided that I would at least pull it out and see if the lights worked.
    “If the lights don’t work, I won’t put it up.”  Lights worked.
    “I’ll just put it together and do all the fluffing when I feel better.” Finish fluffing.
    “I don’t have but a small box of ornaments.”  Going into office and pulling out the piles of crafting shit I have.

    I used stuff I had gotten at the thrift store and the old crafting stuff I knew would take me 500 years to actually go through.
    During the whole process…. THE WHOLE process….. I kept asking myself why I was even putting up the tree. It felt so pathetic to be putting up a tree that only I would be able to enjoy.  therein lies the message I needed to decode.
    As the tree got closer to being finished and I looked at what was left to add and what could be left off to make room for a new type of tree I had not created before.
    It didn’t matter that this wasn’t the tree I thought I would create. It didn’t matter that I was alone putting it together and making it beautiful, I had been doing just that for the last 6 months.  For 6 months I have been creating MY life. Not my life with someone else’s influence, not my life, but with hope to share it with someone else so I should make it neutral so we could both enjoy it. No, I have been creating MY life for no one to enjoy but me.   This tree is symbolic of the last 6 months.  Not what I thought I would be creating, but perfect for me.

    Here is the first tree that I have ever created in my 51 years of life that has no color bulbs.  Just clean, white lights.
    Here is the tree that has no other colors but white and red.  My younger self would be rolling her eyes at the simplicity of it.
    Here is the tree that I created so when I am laying on my couch reading I can glance over and hopefully find some joy this season.  May this tree be a reminder that going at this by myself is the growth that I need to thrive and want to keep moving forward.