six months and going

Well, it's been nearly six months six my husband became unemployed--and there are no prospects at the moment.  Every day, I think about all the mistakes we've made--financial decisions, moving here when it meant leaving a good-paying tenured position for me, getting into bad housekeeping habits, etc.  I wake up every morning and have to deal with all my failures.  I have to make difficult phone calls and difficult decisions, all the while supporting my husband through his own emotional response to this situation.

My heart is heavy.  While I know things will be okay eventually, some days it's just really hard.

when is it tmi?

I've had a couple blog entries running around my head recently, but I haven't been able to bring myself to write them yet.  They deal with pubic hair styles and women's perceptions of their, um, private areas.  In order to write about any of this or explain why this is even an issue, I would have to tell a couple stories of my own--about getting older, about getting heavier, about being middle-aged, about trying to spice up my life a bit, about . . . well, you get the picture.

What is TMI (too much information)?  On one hand, I have no problem sharing things about myself.  It's my life and my body and if someone doesn't want to read about it, then they can choose not to.  I would provide lots of warnings--but wouldn't some people choose to read on and then have certain pictures they could never get out of my head?

Although I write here and don't often think about people reading it, I know that they do.  I have the link on my Facebook page, so it's available to all my Facebook friends--friends from gradeschool and high school, colleagues, relatives, my husband's relatives, my kids, my kids' friends, . . .  So then I thought that maybe I should just remove the link from my Facebook page.  But I like having it there, and I like the fact that people who've been out of touch for a while can find out what I've been up to in my life.

So for now, I am refraining from making the pubic public.

Is this the right choice?  Could I write about it in a way that would be entertaining enough to cancel out the TMI factor?  And would that make it okay?  And what about the fact that when I share the story verbally, it's still mine--but when it's on the web it belongs to everyone who links or copies it.

I'll have to continue pondering this, but I'm curious what people think.  What is TMI?

unemployment sucks bigtime

It's been almost five months since my husband lost his job. Our finances are in the toilet, our stress levels are high (even the kids are anxious a lot), and some days I think I've forgotten how to dream.

I know it will come back. I know it's a phase. But right now it just feels rotten. :(

lessons learned at the Wisconsin Highland Games

1. Men in kilts look much more manly than I had ever imagined...
2. ...especially in the heavy athletic events.
3. Some large men who say "but it's all muscle" are telling the truth.
4. Sometimes the caber turns over.
5. Total strangers sitting next to each other on the bleachers can have the most hysterical conversations.
6. A 150-member bagpipe mass band can reach into your soul in an unimaginable way.
7. Sometimes, when a man bends over wearing a kilt, it really is a good thing when it turns out he's not a true Scot.
   

who do I know?

How is it that we can connect so deeply with the people we know only online? And what does it mean to know someone, anyway?

Last week, I talked with someone I hadn't seen in several months. Her daughter has a serious drug addiction that has led to legal problems, a pregnancy, and a probable stay in prison. I asked her what kind of support she is getting, and she went on to tell me about the online support group she'd found for parents of addicts.

In a family that feels dysfunctional in comparison to her friends, neighbors, and colleagues, with her online group, she feels understood in a way that doesn't happen in her daily life. Her friends know she's stressed and worried--but the other parents of addicts really "get" her. They provide an understanding mirror, to help her see the positive coping strategies she's developed and a way of seeing how functional she is in such a difficult situation.

I talked with her about the hysterectomy support website I'm part of and how normalizing it can be to simply have an understanding "me, too" in response to a question or concern.

It really struck me how much I have valued the understanding I get from the people I don't know, but who know me so well.

It hit me again tonight. I was chatting with someone I met through the hysterectomy support site. She recently lost her father, which made her grieve not only that loss but the loss of her mother many years ago. We were in an online chat that lasted two hours. I don't know if I would recognize her if I bumped into her at the mall, but for those two hours, online, I knew her very well. Although her loss isn't all we talked about, it was there, and I gave her virtual (((hugs))) and validated her feelings as best as I could. I think it helped a little.

In this online world, I don't have words for some of my best friends, the ones I know online. When my son had his accident and I posted about it on Facebook, many of the people who immediately responded were people I don't know face-to-face--but they care about me very much.

My mom sees that I currently have 186 Facebook friends. "How many of them do you really know?" she asks. "All of them," I say, "even the ones I've never met."

so how are you doing?

Every year, the end of August is filled with the joy of greeting friends and colleagues I haven't seen since May. This year, I'm finding a little less joy in the reunion. At the end of April, we had our nightmare of car crash/no insurance/job loss. After several months, people who genuinely care about me naturally want to know how things are going. So they ask. And it's horrible.

I got a message from a friend asking me why I was so aloof with her at a meeting yesterday. And here's why.

I'm so sorry, everyone. I'm anti-social because it's just too hard to be something else. You want to know how I am? Really?

I have a hard time answering the question, "How are things going?" because they're not going well. We still have only one vehicle (one that squishes my family uncomfortably), my husband doesn't have a job yet, and our finances suck. I get no paycheck in September, so they're about to suck even more. When you are nice and ask if I'd like to have lunch, the answer is that I'd love to--but unless you offer to pay, it isn't going to happen. Going out to lunch is, well, not in the wallet. And my husband is having a hard time, too, and is sitting around on his butt all day. He applies for jobs online (there's really not much out there) and he makes some phone calls, but he isn't doing any projects around the house and I'm still doing the laundry, loading the dishwasher, etc. When I'm at home, I'm trying to be supportive of him. This is really, really hard when I'm terrified. And I hate being home because when we're behind on bills, we get phone calls that I simply cannot bring myself to answer. The house is a mess, because when I'm at home I can barely drag myself off the couch to function. It's that hard.

My babies are growing up so fast and I feel like my life as a mom is passing me by. My oldest child will be a high school senior, and his younger brother and sister will be freshmen. I don't know where the time has gone, and now it feels like there's so little time left. Is there anything I've done right as a mom? Do I have enough time yet to still make a difference?

And when I seem to brush you off when you ask me how I am, it's because I don't want to burst into tears. It isn't just you. I blew off a good friend's party last week because I couldn't bear the looks of pity from people who care about me or the "and what does your husband do?" questions from people who don't know what's going on. I got trapped in the copy room last week while I was making handouts for a workshop. A well-meaning colleague gave me a half-hour of "I'm so sorry for you" and "Let me know what I can do." What can you do? You can treat me like I'm still me and not like a broke and broken person who has made stupid decisions and is afraid she won't ever get her life back.

So generally, things are not so great, but I've mostly been coping fairly well and am usually able to be positive.You are so sweet, and I know you care, and I just have had to stay superficial with a lot of people because it's the only way I can cope sometimes and because I don't have the words for my frustrations. And see, even writing this has me on the verge of tears that will pour down my face. I hate to cry because each time, I worry that I won't ever stop.

So, that's how I'm doing.

test

I'm trying to figure out if this twitterfeed thing is working for my blog. It makes me a bit nervous (especially because of one of the subjects I've been needing to write about), but there's only one way to see if it works!