My husband's brother died yesterday. In the daily update from the 21st called Wednesday 8pm, my FIL said that they had discussed going ahead with the chemotherapy. The doctors felt that the potential benefits outweighed the risks. My BIL agreed. He wanted to fight. The first dose was given with the next dose scheduled for 2 weeks later. After about 10 days, they figured he would get an infection from the affects of the chemo on his body, but it only took a few days. The next update was really disjointed. BIL was having a hard time of it. On Monday, we got a call that he was doing really poorly and DH should make arrangements to come out and say good-bye. He and his other brother were supposed to fly in on Thursday and a few friends were coming down on Tuesday. Then Tuesday my FIL called my husband, sobbing on the phone. BIL was doing so poorly, he couldn't breathe, he tried to scream but couldn't scream. He was suffering. He wished he had an off switch. They gave him morphine to sedate him and continued with that as long as he needed it. He was gone by the next morning.

I've been very sad. Much sadder than I thought I might be. I was worried about him, and really rooting for him to pull out and survive. I have shared his condition with my family and people at church. We put him on prayer chains. He seemed to be doing better at one point; he talked wistfully of the things he wanted to do with people. He wanted to take my husband to Great Adventure Park. He didn't want a funeral, but wanted a party before he died instead. But he lost the few weeks he might have had as the chemo did him in. My husband got a letter from his mother that arrived Monday afternoon, after he had already made the arrangements to fly out. His mother was saying that BIL had decided to go ahead with the chemo, and she had been hoping he wouldn't. I guess she knew as much as anyone that mind doesn't always triumph over the physical. She has seen him in some really bad spots through the years with his Cystic Fibrosis. He had no immune system to speak of because of all the anti-rejection drugs. He barely survived the first infection, and it was unlikely he would survive another one. She was asking my husband to come out and see him, that the time had come. That as much as she knew how we wanted him to see our children and for our children to meet him, the vision of any kind of a relationship was not to be. She wrote that on Wednesday, the same day we got the e-mail from FIL. I wish she had called.

DH left this morning to go and see his family. There will be no funeral. He didn't want one. There will be a small memorial when his ashes come back. Only the family in the immediate area will be in attendance. Even his brothers won't be there.

I think it's crap. Funerals are not for the dead, they are for the living. They are a chance to come together, to mourn, to grieve, to share memories and feelings and love. I've been so sad, I've been crying for two days. It feels as bad as when my father died. My feelings are so heavy and my emotional response surprises me and my husband. No one in my husband's family know about it because they don't know me. They barely see me. I am the one who stays home when the other people come to celebrate at weddings or birthdays or holidays. Mostly my dh stays home too, but sometimes he must go there and be a part of things.

I've had such a hard time dealing with the fact that I moved far from my family. That doesn't seem right at all, not at all. I never saw myself as an overly loving person. People have thought I was cold or shy or indifferent. I was accused of being a loner in my own family. When my father was in the hospital when I was in college, I never told my roommates. At least one was amazed that I would be so cool about it, not openly sharing. Somehow through the years I must have changed. I couldn't believe I would move away from my family, but I saw how DH's family seemed to manage it just fine. Don't a lot of people?

I liked my BIL. I exchanged e-mail with him a few weeks before he got sick. It was our first personal correspondence, and it related to Bug's jog-a-thon at school. We talked about school fundraisers and how we resented the high prices they charged for crap and how they got the kids involved with the promise of fundraising rewards. It was very short, but I felt a sort of camaraderie. I sometimes was in the joint e-mail loops between DH and his father and brothers. They exchanged a lot of short things on a weekly basis, with funny little comments about the stories or links they were sharing.

I've heard stories about my BIL over the years. I've always known he would die, but I always hoped he would live a long time, for his sake as well as him family's. My husband looked at the bright side, that his brother got to live a longer life than many people with Cystic Fibrosis. He got to have a girlfriend, a wife and a stepson, he got to have a career. He got to travel. In fact, FIL had just taken him to London in April, just weeks before he entered the hospital. I remember wondering about the timing of it, it seemed rather sudden, but that was kind of FIL's way. They only stayed for 4 days, because FIL doesn't like to linger anywhere. He is always busy with some project or another, and he usually only stays 2 or 3 days when he comes to visit us.

Fortunately he has the wealth and leisure time to make these visits. My family doesn't. Every time I think about flying back to see my family, I look at the expense. Something always comes up--a roof repair, and air conditioner repair, a tax bill, something. DH bought a new computer, DH bought a $1600 round trip ticket to go to see his brother. I was happy he was going even though it was expensive. I had been urging him to go and see his brother from the moment BIL got sick. I wouldn't begrudge that money, even if we have to carry the credit card debt. We try not to do that, so I don't feel like I should buy certain things or spend money. I feel guilty about how I spend so much money on groceries and gas. I end up not driving to as many things because I want to conserve. We are not very conservative with our money--it just seems like there are too many expenses, and I don't have a job.

But now, I just don't know. I'm going to visit my family. I was still living near my dad when he died, but a year later we were 3,000 miles away. I have missed so many things, visiting with my aunts, my one aunt's 90th birthday, and then later her funeral. I've missed seeing my sister's kids growing up. For 10 years they were practically like my kids, and now I feel like they are practically strangers. I might have felt that way anyway as the entered the teen years, but I'll never know. I know that there are so many good experiences I've had in branching out on my own, but I've missed so many things too.

I didn't get to go to my youngest BIL's wedding. It was around the time that Bean turned 1. When I heard he was getting married, I was so excited. I knew it meant a trip back to see them. I wanted to see my husband's family as I didn't get to very often. My husband was in the wedding party. And then it turned out that kids would not be allowed at the ceremony or reception and I would have to miss the wedding. I still wanted to travel to meet people, to have people meet my new daughter or even both my daughters for the first time. I wanted the ones who already knew Bug to see how she had grown. I wanted to walk along the beach with my children or just hang out. I wanted to go. It was an expensive wedding, hugely expensive. My FIL was paying for the airfare and hotel for my husband. Neither of them thought it would be worth the airfare for me to come. FIL happens to be very frugal and conservative and the itinerary was probably chosen more for price than convenience. It involved a very long flight, two layovers, getting in late at night on the first night, and flying back the next night. It made no sense for me to go. I thought maybe we could somehow make a longer weekend of it, but dh had no desire. He thought I was crazy for even wanting to go. He thought I was lucky for not having to go. FIL said I was welcome to fly along, but it was clear he didn't think it was a good idea. I decided I was selfish and unreasonable, and decided just to give up. I would stick to visiting my own family.

So I didn't get to see my late BIL and his wife, even though they were the two I wanted to see. I knew that our opportunities would be few and far between. Maybe if I were the type to say pish posh and just knew what I think people really needed even against their protests, I'd have a better time of it. But I hate when people treat me like that, and I try to be respectful. So here I am, the person who just stays in my house and never gets to visit anyone, save for the people in my family who I pay to fly out. That is they only way they will ever get to visit me. I feel like I'm crazy to be so sad, but I'm sad anyway. I'm sad for my BIL because I know there was a lot more he wanted to do. I remember from the one time he did get to come visit (FIL and the 2 BILs came out while I was pregnant with Bean, and stayed about 2 days--of course) that it was clear he didn't feel that getting to do so many things that other people get to take for granted was necessarily a blessing. I really didn't either. It wasn't fair, but there you have it. It was OK to want more, as far as I'm concerned. No one is guaranteed a long, healthy life, but I think it is totally normal to want one.

Now I'll never get to talk to him again, I'll never have another chance to visit. The times I suggested visiting, it was always made to seem impossible or unpleasant. My husband had finally agreed that we should go and visit this summer if BIL got a little better. DH's hatred for the climate of Florida knows no bounds. He would never willingly visit there, so we never have, save for the time that BIL got married just a few months after my wedding.

In some ways I feel like my mother. I know there were things she wanted that my father was not on board with. My father had these dreams, he could be intemperate in spending money. My mom was a forceful personality who seemed to get her own way so much of the time, but I think it was because she had to give up the big things, like staying in one house until it was paid off. My husband has dreams too, and I can see how they seize a hold of him and he just assumes I'll go along for the ride. I've made big moves twice, uprooting my life both times. I'm still not back in Virginia, I'm still not near my family. I know my husband truly does not feel a need for anyone in his life but me and the children, with only short exposures to them. He could move to Alaska and not need anyone. He loves his parents and brothers, but he doesn't need them the way he needs me. I feel like I need more. I have dreams too, and they don't mesh with DH's. I honestly thought that if he bought another RV (we've owned two already, but dh sold them when he decided they would not work for our family), I would leave him. We need different things. About the only thing that would keep me from leaving is knowing that it wouldn't be all hearts and roses moving back to Virginia and being with my family. There were a hell of a lot of thorns in the past, perfectly normal ones, but good and bad. It wouldn't be perfect.
There is no perfect. I like my life here, but I feel guilty for it sometimes. I know my one sister feels almost betrayed that I left and stayed away for so long. She feels like I don't care.

I just took a walk with my children. It is beautiful, breezy and sunny and just a great day to be alive. So I can't carry on with my rant. I feel somewhat restored. Monday night my husband was holding me and telling me that his life is only happy because I am in it, because I love him. He feels like I'm so strong, and a good patient mother (I chose to accept the compliment even though I don't feel I deserve it). He said the fact that someone like me could love him makes life worth living. So I feel like we can reconnect, and I am sad now that he is gone.

He won't be gone long. His father asked him to change the return date of his ticket from Sunday to Saturday. So he'll arrive tonight around midnight, spend all day Friday doing something, and return at the crack of dawn on Saturday. It seems insane to go through all the hassle and expense of traveling to not stay, to not try and connect with his family. But I'm sure his father is weary, his father wants to sleep, his father doesn't want to have to deal with others who haven't been through his hell for the last months. At least that is my guess, I don't really know. I do know that people grieve in different ways, that people have different personalities and different ways of recharging. I am the have to be around people, even if I don't ever talk to people type. I want to be able to say "No funeral, my foot. People need funerals." But it's not my choice and I don't even know if everyone needs one. Friends and family are gathering. MIL wants DH to meet with some old friends of the family on Friday. DH doesn't want to, but feels like he will have no choice. It doesn't seem quite right, and yet I would want to fulfill a simple wish of my mother's if one of her children died.

My mother is 80 and not in the best of health. She wants me to come and visit her soon. I think I will, and I will stay for a nice long visit.

Good-bye, Jim. I wish I could have known you better. I wish you could have lived for a hundred years. I wish you could have done all the simple things you wanted to do before the switch turned off. I wish you could have seen your brothers one last time. I know your family was proud of you and loved you. Your oldest brother never said it, but he loved you very much. I hope you know that somehow. I am glad you are at peace.

It's 4 am and I'm awake. Bean went down for a nap around 5 yesterday afternoon, and was out for the count. The night before the same thing happened, but at 7 pm. We woke her up around 9ish and all she wanted to do was sleep. So last night I decided to go to bed at 9. I had been tired all afternoon, but I had a hard time falling asleep. Eventually I did, probably around 10. My husband said she'd probably wake up at 5 or 6, but it wasn't quite 4 when she gave up on sleeping. I had just woken up myself and was adjusting in the bed. I heard Bean chattering quietly about something, and when I leaned in I caught, "stuck in a iceberg." What was stuck in an iceberg, I wanted to know. "A penguin was, a baby penguin. Penguin is a bird, it has black and white on it." Eventually I realized she might be thinking of Wonderpets. Sure enough, a few minutes later, she asked to go downstairs and watch the show, saying she didn't want to "go to bed."

I had fairly vivid dreams. I've been having them for the last few days. My dreams are often very detailed, but sometimes they are more a mass of impressions. The last three days I've had lots of dreams that I've remembered upon waking; dreams that involved different people in a variety of clothing and with different looks. This morning's dream had me waiting in a line to get a drink of some sort. As I moved into the line, some other people came up and stood to my left and the line branched off in that direction so that it looked like I was not in line, but trying to cut. I let a woman go in front of me, but then I tried to move up and the other people wouldn't let me. It seemed like there were a lot of middle-aged women, but I remembered this one woman with blondish wavy hair wearing a white dress with fuschia floral designs outlined in black. There was another woman in a more subdued type of pink, a mauve color combined with gray. Eventually I got to advance in the line after being a little forceful, but many people had already gone by. Then a younger woman started to talk to me about a check I had written for a book that had bounced "all over the place". I apologized and said I didn't know how that had happened as my account has overdraft protection, and my bank hadn't notified me of any problems. She told me again that it had bounced and caused problems in her account. I apologized again.

Then something was coming down from the ceiling through the acoustical tiles, so we moved out of the line. Well, I didn't, I just got dripped on. I finally moved away and the man selling the drinks asked who was next. I said I was, and got my drink. Then I was over at a hot food counter and Bug's kindergarten teacher was there. Exact same voice and face. I was sounding demoralized and bought a slice of pizza for me and my mother, who had been waiting all this time for me in a booth somewhere. She felt sorry for me, so she offered me a carton of cigarettes. I said no but hesitated a bit because I know cartons of cigarettes are expensive. She said, "No, really, what kind would you like? Kool Lights?" I said sure. She gave me a carton of Kool Light 100s, and it was a light green and white box. I took everything over to the booth where my mom was sitting, and there was a big cigarette carton display thing like we used to have at 7-Eleven when I worked there. I started to put the cigarettes in there, but then decided I could probably sell them somewhere.

I don't know what any of this has to do with anything, but I'm wondering if the cigarettes being pushed on me was from some discussions about formula samples being pressed on new mothers in the hospital. I got very few samples of things like formula and prenatal vitamins from doctors, and I kept them around because I thought they

Just a little bit ago I was driving home with my children. We were listening to Betsy Rose's Seeds of Peace album, since my 2 year old, Bean, has been singing snippets of the songs here and there. So Betsy was singing I am planting a seed of peace, a seed of peace on Earth and my 7 year old, Bug, wanted to know what a seed of peace was. I explained the concept of seed being used for ideas like peace, hope, joy and love that you wanted to plant in a person's mind or heart and have grow and flourish to promote peace on the Earth. Bug said, "Oh, peace, I thought she said seed of pea." I told her no, it was seed of peace and basically expounded on my first explanation, ending with, "But there isn't peace on Earth. People are violent and hurt each other."

So Bug said, "First you say there is peace on Earth, then you say there isn't. That doesn't make any sense. That's like the Professor and the space honey." That's a Futurama reference in case you're wondering. I said, "Well, she want for there to be peace and for people to love one another, but do you think the world is peaceful? OK, it's pretty peaceful in this country and we have a nice life, but it isn't like that for everyone. Children are dying in Iraq."

Bug wanted to know what Iraq is. So I explained that it is a country with whom we are at war and that we don't have fighting in this country, but we invaded theirs and families are dying as a result. I was getting teary-eyed at this point so I paused for a moment and then said, "It's very sad."

So she said, "Well, but there's Heaven...I think Heaven is going to be like having a party every day!" She sounded so excited that I said, "Oh, really, a party every day? That's cool!" And she said, "Yeah, and there will be snacks and punch!" That really made me cry.

People have to believe there is something more than this life, but I want to live like this life is the only thing we have to express ourselves as human beings, that life is precious and shouldn't be destroyed so readily. I believe in life before death. I go to church and I find our interim pastor so inspiring and heartfelt that I can almost believe it's all true. My daughter believes in God. I never told her about God because I can't talk about the Bible without getting seriously pissed off. Once she wanted to know why Adam and Eve's daughters were not named in the Bible, and it was hard to give an explanation without going off on a long rant. I had people tell me it was wrong of me not to tell her about God. I wanted her to form her own opinions free from me indoctrinating her, but I ended up sending her to a Christian preschool and figuring she could learn about it and ask me. She believes in God with the same pure faith that she reserves for Santa Clause and the tooth fairy. I don't know what will happen in a few years.

Just a little while before we had the Seeds of Peace discussion, Bug made a comment about how if God and Jesus know everything, how could God have known as a child that he would create the whole world. She doesn't think he knew. I said I didn't know.

My BIL finally seems on the upswing. Things have not been well since the surgery almost 3 weeks ago, but he got his breathing tube out yesterday in favor of a tracheotomy. He thought maybe it was rejection, but doesn't yet realize it is cancer. My husband checks his e-mail vigilantly every day now. His family probably doesn't realize how emotionally affected he is by this. I think they think of him as being willingly segregated and non-paticipatory.

We had two pieces of bad news today. The first is that DH's brother might be dying. He had emergency surgery today, to figure out what was wrong with his bowels. My FIL called my husband to say that if they didn't find what was wrong, he would probably die in a few days. Well, they found what was wrong--cancer. They've removed a foot of his bowel, but they don't know what kind of cancer it is.

The second thing is that one of the accounts we have our money invested in went bankrupt.

This morning I was sitting at the kitchen table with Bug. She was eating her breakfast and I was drinking some water and signing her reading log. Bean was busy doing something, and it was actually pretty quiet. Bean went and got a cup to get some water out of the water cooler. Then she said, "Shit! This watuh is fucking cold!" Bug and I looked at each other and started laughing, and then I was trying to stop us from laughing. Bean was just sitting on the floor, holding her forehead and complaining about the fucking cold water. Then she said she had to pour it out, and she did so into the water cooler reservoir.

Bug was not much of a curser. She wasn't a defiler of walls or tables or chairs, and she wasn't a hitter. One time, just after she turned 3, I was encouraging her to draw with crayons on the glass topped table at the restaurant we were visiting. Another three year old in the party, seeing my example, started scribbling with abandon. Bug got really upset and told us that we are not supposed to draw on tables.

Another time I was really in a rage and yelling at a woman from inside my parked car. It was when I was pregnant with Bean, and this woman put her cart right next to my car as I was getting ready to pul out, so I had to get out and put it away before I could back out, even though I had just put my own cart away in the corral right behind where the woman was parked. I got a little hot under the collar and started yelling things about her to make myself feel better. Bug girl got upset and told me that I shouldn't call her names, and she wasn't those things, and I wasn't being nice.

Bean girl does all the stuff I am constantly telling her not to do. Today at the dentist's office, she climbed on a stool to better see the fish. Then she colored with a crayon all over the outside of the fishtank (or water cage, as she calls it). Grrrr. It was easy to clean up, but geez! Stop! writing! on! things! It's not like I've ever encouraged her to draw on a table.

Both my girls, however, like to engage in sword fights and grocery cart demolition derby. They run around the house yelling, "Oh yeah, want a piece of me? and spitting at each other. Not real spitting, more like a raspberry sound, but it drives DH crazy. When we go to the grocery store, they both want to push the "baby carts" and inevitably they start crashing them into each other, bumper car style. A woman at Wild Oats was clearly pissed at me and them when they banged their carts together a few times, so I made them stop and took one of the carts away eventually. Actually, I think it got abandoned once I stopped the fun, so I had to put it away because I'm a little like Bug. Not well-mannered, just a little bit neurotic about things in some cases. It's OK, to crash the carts together, just put them away when you are done. I have no manners, and I guess my children show the results.

Later on this morning, Bean was at her baby gym class, and some of the children got the little hula hoops down off the wall. Bean immediately challenged another child to a hoop fight, you know, where they hold up their hoops and bang them into one another. The little boy just seemed confused.

This morning I was dreaming about my body being on a different realm. I had to wake up to nurse a toddler, but I knew that in my main character was at least still getting sleep. Then I woke up enough to realize I was here on Earth, there is only one of me and I'm not, in fact, getting any sleep. So I nursed Bean until she went back to sleep, and I got up.

I was worried about Bug's birthday party and the invitations for it. She wanted to have a birthday party at the house, not go anywhere, but have food and party games like pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey at home. We had a party for her at home when she was turning 4, and I invited her friends from playgroup and their families. It worked out well, but it seemed a little crowded, and was stressful for me. The year after that we had a party for a bunch of kids at a gymnastics place. Last year we took Bug out to dinner and let her invite one friend. Then the next day we did a tea party at a local teahouse for Bug and 2 of my friends with their children. I picked Bug up from school before lunch that day, and she stayed out the rest of the day. These things ended up being as pricey, if not more pricey, as a big party especially given that I had to actually buy her some presents, which isn't something I feel the need to do when she has a big party. I figure the party is the present. However, even though it was still just as expensive, it was so much more low stress. Figuring out the invitation list kills me.

If we are inviting kids in the class, I feel bad not inviting the whole class. Bug really doesn't want to invite the whole class, but she has about 8-10 kids she'd like, half boys, half girls. The boy she mentioned last year as being her new boyfriend was not on the list. If we invite half the class, we should invite all the class, or just invite a few close friends. Bug wants to have the party on her actual birthday, which makes things even harder. We discussed going out to dinner or to a movie on a weekend. I offered her a bowling party, which she didn't think was "special" enough even though she was begging me to go bowling last week during spring break.

Sigh. Oh yeah, and if we do have a party on the weekend, it would have to be the weekend before her birthday, not after. Ummmm, think again, kid!

She was willing to compromise on the birthday party, and invite a few friends for a party, or out to dinner. She had no problems coming up with a final list--she can be quite decisive like that. Her list included 2 girls, but not the two I was expecting. I asked her how she came up with this list--why was she inviting E, I hadn't realized that she and E were that close. Turns out E is T's best friend, and she wanted to invite T. It occurred to me that she had just gone to T's birthday party at the gym on Palm Sunday, was that why she was inviting T to her party. Yes. Wow! Not that they aren't friends, but this just seems weird to me. Although last year's tea party was with friends who aren't her best friends either, so maybe you just have a celebration where you can.

Bug can't invite her 2 best friends because that would be too stressful with them together, and I guess she didn't want to slight one. Although she showed a preference for slighting K., the obsessive best friend who doesn't go to her school. They see each other all the time on the weekend, or they talk on the phone, and K. is jealous of Bug's other friends and even of Bean, and just can't share Bug's attention. So finally we hit upon a plan that would let her invite a few more friends, have the party on her actual birthday but would still be small enough to be manageable. We are having it in the evening at a paint your own pottery place. It will be from 5-7 and I will provide dinner of some sort. I called and reserved the party and paid the deposit. Yay, it's settled!

Except...the same damn issue with the invitation list. We can invite more, we still can't invite all. The party is for 6 painters, so Bug and 5 friends. Do we invite more figuring some won't come, and even if 2 or 3 more come, I can just pay for the extra settings? If we invite all the girls in the class, that is a potential of 10. Nevermind the fact that there are some boys Bug would rather have instead. Excluding a gender seems to be more acceptable. But why should it be? It's not to me! I don't want to be encouraging a social division and artificially inflating differences when there already are enough differences. But I just follow along like one of the sheeple because 1) it's so convenient and 2) I am a sheeple.

So this morning I woke up with this burning desire to come up with some invitations. I also decided to call my sister, knowing my sister never had parties for her kids and didn't have these stupid issues. "Poor people don't have birthday parties," my sister told me. Or as DH said last night, "Stop making birthdays an OC housewife production." Even though his family was far from poor, he never had a birthday party in his life, and he says now he understands why. It was more or less the same for me, and we understood it. Birthdays were family affairs, with cake and ice cream on the day of your birth after dinner. We had a party with a magician and lots of kids once. I still remember that. It rocked!

I want to do something special on my kids' birthdays, and parties with their friends seems to be the norm these days. So I do it.

My sister told me, screw it, let Bug invite her friends, don't invite someone out of a sense of obligation, don't invite the whole class, just invite the ones important to Bug. But I don't even know who they are anymore. The ones I see her with, talking with, playing with, hugging? The girl I saw her out on the playground with the other day? The girl who was her good friend the year before in her kindergarten class. When I let Bug decide, she leaves out a few of her actual friends. It's as if she knows that this will be too stressful, and she'd rather just invite a group that gets along well together. In fact, K. the possessive friend, will not be coming. Bug even called K. and K. said she doesn't want to come as she doesn't want to share Bug with others and she would rather have a separate party with Bug alone. Ummm, yeah, maybe DH wasn't so wrong about her growing up to boil someone's pet rabbit. BTW, I related this little story to my sister, and she also thinks there is something wrong with K., and that this level of attachment is not normal for a 7 year old. Her words were a little stronger, however.

Bug doesn't really see not inviting someone to her party as slighting them. She is going to have donuts or cupcakes or something to take into the class, so they will get to partake in that. If someone had a party and didn't invite her, she probably wouldn't notice or care for the most part. Her other best friend, Allie, does things at her house with her friends and Bug has to come home. And once Bug had a play date with K. and Allie came over, and K. got so upset that I finally had to send Allie home. She was totally fine with it. I didn't tell Allie she had to leave, I just explained how K. was feeling, and Allie said in a sincere voice, "That's OK, I can leave." I actually hugged her before she left.

Maybe I am just projecting my own serious rejection issues along with my people pleasing tendencies on my children, and I shouldn't do that.

So I printed out some free invitations from the HP site and was going to write all the information inside, including the fact that I hoped people would RSVP soon as space was limited and I needed to know exactly who was coming. I was trying to think of a diplomatic way to word it, and I realized I needed to trim the invitations because they didn't fold quite correctly. Oh yeah, and they are clowns or airplanes and balloons because that was all I could find, so they aren't the nicest invitations I could have come up with, but I was in a hurry. The invitations are going out with less than a week's notice because I was kept procrastinating the party issue because I just didn't want to have one. Yeah, nevermind all that, because I ended up talking so long on the phone to my sister that by the time I got them off the printer and was done folding them, it was time to leave to take Bug to school. I managed to get the pertinent info onto 5 invitations along with word of caution to Bug not to make a big deal when giving them out. And she still got into her classroom before the final bell. I'm wondering if anyone will actually come to the party now, but I guess I can find a few last minute painters in the form of myself and Bean, if it comes to that.

But my sister thinks I'm a close-minded weird hippie. I swear, if I were any more open-minded, my brains would all spill out!

I have been feeling in crisis, lately. I feel very on edge, like I need to discover what direction I need to move in, and it has to be completely different from what I've been doing. I have this feeling of wanting to run away from my life. Not from my children, just from the setting of my life. I'd take my kids with me. Hell, my husband can come too.

I felt like this a lot when I was in my 20's. I just wanted to pack up and move somewhere else completely, some place new and different where I could start over again. I knew even then, though, that this quest for the ideal and thinking I could find it somewhere else was just wishful thinking. And I knew very strongly that what I wanted to escape most from was myself, and I couldn't do that no matter where I went.

I don't think I want to escape from myself, just all the ideas that others might have of who I am, all the expectations or impressions they have of me. And maybe I do want to rework them in my own mind. I wrote in my rarely used LJ of wanting to go on a spiritual retreat where I could just meditate and free my mind, so maybe there is a little of wanting to escape who I think I am at this point.

I physically feel very ill-at-ease in my body. I have gained weight, and I feel like I am constantly retaining water. I never used to feel particularly bloated, maybe at the end of pregnancy, but that was about it. To feel this level of water retention is disturbing to me. I feel unusually cold just sitting down, like my metabolism has dropped down to nothing and I'm not even burning enough calories to keep myself warm. It isn't a chilled from the core type of cold, but this feeling of coldness all along the exterior of my torso that penetrates in a little. Like I can't warm myself fully from core to epidermis, or that when I get in the swimming pool and there is this cool water all around my body.

Usually around this time of year, I start to feel some island fever. Like cabin fever, just on a little larger scale. I don't go anywhere in winter, other than the small circuit that my daily living requires. I love the smallness yet completeness of my life here, the way everything is so close to me. But usually by spring, I feel pretty constrained and constricted. It snowed yesterday and the roads were icy this morning. I have no idea the snow in the mountains, but chains are probably required whichever way I go. My sister just had weight loss surgery last week and is off from work through the rest of the month. I wish I had realized this, and that it corresponded with Bug's spring break. I would have arranged to fly out there and spend some time with her.

Yesterday I sang at two church services and felt fine and functional, but when I came home I had a headache behind one eye, and I felt incapable of staying awake or processing anything. I went to sleep for awhile, but felt worse when I got up. It was like I was in some sort of illness induced trance. I finally felt better at night, so I stayed up too late and am tired again. It is an endless cycle.

Amusing child anecdote. My 2 year old, Bean, was in the car with her father, driving to pick up her sister from a birthday party. My radio station is mostly left on NPR, and some sort of classical music was playing; symphony by Frederick the Great, as it turns out. Her father asked her if she liked this music. She said quite decidedly, No! She does not like classical music and will ask me to turn it off when we are in the car. So DH said, "You don't? It's by Frederick the Great." To which Bean replied, "He NOT great!"

The other day my husband told me that I was about 2 notches from OCD. "You aren't on the edge of OCD, but you can see the edge." This was because I told him I was looking at an article in a travel magazine about bridges, but I got a little freaked out and had to stop reading it. I don't like water. I once got freaked out while looking at a map--too much blue which indicates too much water. But it's always worse when I'm shut up in the windowless bathroom.

Then today I remarked in the car that Bug was being a smart ass, out of her hearing, but due to a comment she had made. DH told me that she was being a literalist. Interesting that we had two different interpretations, I liked that actually. I asked him why she was a literalist, thinking he might say it is because she is a child. He said, "I don't know, mental defect?" So I admitted to being a literalist myself sometimes and he said, "I know." But then he admitted he was too. I actually try not to be too literal, and I don't like to be deliberately obtuse as I find that annoying in others. At the same time, I get resentful if I'm expected to read between the lines too much. So I am close to OCD, am not always good at picking up on some social cues or seeing the big picture, and I have mood swings. I don't have quite enough to warrant any kind of medical or psychological attention, but just enough to make me that weird woman.

I've been planning on blogging something new for awhile. My blog could be filled with little abstracts of the posts I never made, because it seems like I think out these great little entries that I never write down. So I could tell you about how I took the girls to the grocery store and Bug hugged an endcap of Count Chocula/Frankenberry/BooBerry cereal while waxing rhapsodic about the cereals. Or how she handed me a box of Hamburger Helper and asked me to buy it and I did, even though I said No, No, No to most everything else she wanted. Then I bought ground bison to go with it, and it turns out she didn't much care for the Hamburger Helper. Maybe ground bison makes better burgers and tacos than it does skillet pasta meals.

I could talk about how I lost Bean in the mall and actually got the security guard before I found her. Or how sad I was that I planned an outing with Bug 2 Sundays ago, and upon returning from my bedroom where I had been getting ready, I was told that she didn't want to go after all. She would rather go to play with her friend. The same friend who says she wishes that Bean didn't exist, and that Bug can never say Allie's (the neighbor girl) name again. We were getting ready to walk out the door and I was looking forward to going, but we didn't go and I was depressed for 2 days.

Two days ago I was in a fantastic, positive mood. Today I was feeling depressed and antsy again. I love that my moods never last more than a day or two, maybe a week at the most.