Tracking tip: Use lemon juice to hide your scent. Does this really work? Well, I don’t know since you are tracking dead things but it gives you something to do with all those lemons life throws at you.

Well, I was mostly going to blog about my follow up to my Hail the New Year post but I had to write this instead. Because right now, life just keeps on throwing me lemons. And I mean that both literally and figuratively.

Literally: Look at the poor tree growing way too many lemons!

And every time I go outside, it throws another lemon to the ground.

Some are as big as a grapefruit, some are barely big enough to be called a lemon. Some taste good and some I can tell are bad and don’t bother to try to juice. I now have three gallons of lemon juice in the fridge and more frozen and STILL haven’t seen the last of the lemons.

Figuratively: just when I have gotten most of the previous lemons (issues) squeezed and managed, the tree throws more at my feet. In preparing to write the blog post about my successful handling of problems in the new year, my friend called to tell me she has breast cancer.

If you have read my previous posts, you know about my best friend that passed away from breast cancer 3 years ago and I still miss her horribly. I have gotten very close to this new friend and the other day she mentioned that I was her best friend. I hesitated and mumbled that she was my best friend as well. I don’t know why I was reluctant to admit it. We have lunch all the time, text and talk regularly, share our innermost thoughts and feelings and seem to have bonded. Maybe it’s like telling someone “I love you” too soon, maybe I didn’t want the commitment, maybe I felt I was betraying my other friend who passed. I don’t know but the news of her cancer hit me like a rock.

How can I make lemonade out of this lemon? I mean, I am an optimist (though perhaps you wouldn’t know it by my blogs) and I have made almost everything have SOME positive spin.

Daughter has severe depression: At least we are dealing with it before she goes to college and life gets REALLY tough.

Too busy to write: At least I am earning a bit of money and spending time with my daughter who will be gone starting her own life before I know it.

Marriage on the rocks: At least we are learning to communicate, even if it is fighting.

Kids growing up and leaving: At least I have time to discover what I want to do, for the first time.

New best friend diagnosed with breast cancer……. sorry I can’t find anything good to get out of this. Wait….nope. Nothing.

I have enough lemonade, thank you. So no more lemons, life, please.

Please.

No tracking tip this week.

And no, my husband was not my best friend.

This was so very hard on me. It is interesting to note that when a family member dies, no matter how distant, everyone is so attentive and “I’m sorry” and “How are you doing?” and many cards and well wishes sent your way. But when a best friend dies, you get “I’m sorry. Seen any good movies lately?” My best friend was my number one supporter for everything. She held my hand when upset, yelled at me when I needed it, encouraged me to have and follow my dreams, helped me without expecting anything in return and brought so much into my life. Just as much if not more than any family member ever did. Her loss was devastating to me and the worst part was, nobody else cared about this.

Did you know there are all sorts of grief counseling for losing a family member and NONE for losing a friend? At least there weren’t when I was grieving. I searched long and hard but got the general feeling of people saying “It’s just a friend, get over it.” So I hid how devastated and sad I was. I tried reaching out but people would nod, say they will call and I would never hear from them again. I started pretending I was okay, doing fine because no one wanted to hear how lonely, sad and lost I felt. It didn’t help that her family pretty much cut off any communication to the outside world, wanting time to grieve but there wasn’t even a funeral and to this day I don’t even know where she is buried.

I still managed all my responsibilities but gained 20 pounds, became exhausted and I realized I needed to do something about the crushing sadness I was hiding from everyone. I got brave enough to tell my husband I was going to see a counselor. He was SURPRISED! “What do you need a counselor for?” Seriously? My best friend just died, I sleep 10 to 12 hours a day, and have gained weight even though I am not eating.

The counselor helped but after 8 sessions, decided I was fine. She said call if I needed but three weeks later I found she was leaving the state, turning over her practice to others. Crazy as it sounds, I felt abandoned. Here I had found someone to let out all my feelings to and she left! And around this time, my best friend’s husband started seeing someone who I knew was the absolute wrong person for him. 3 months after she died, he was dating. The only good news is that it didn’t last. Did I mention the one he started dating is my sister-in-law? I had to pretend to be okay with this as well.

All this anger, depression, grief, unhappiness in marriage, trying to work and raise two kids when hubby gone 2-3 weeks every month, finally took a toll on my health. As I kept feeling more tired and the weight kept piling on even though I was trying to exercise and diet (the typical answer to everything these days), I decided to see a doctor.

I didn’t know it at the time but I was suffering from Adrenal Fatigue. It took two years (not kidding) to figure it out and I did it mostly on my own. I came very close to hospitalization and looking back on it, I can see how it snuck up so gradually until I was firmly in its grasp.

My struggles to find out what was wrong with me was a long drawn out process and that story road is one (or even two) blogs worth. So next time. The good news is I think I only have two or three more negative, dark blogs and then my life starts to look up. And no one gets the credit for pulling myself up except myself!

Until then, try to de-stress and find ways to be happy and take time for yourself or you will be heading down this dark path as I did.

Blog hug. ((( )))

Tracking tip of the week: 

Follow your nose. Enough said.

Ok, where were we? To sum up from the last blog telling how I started down the dark path. No, not the dark side but the road to unhappiness. So subtle I didn’t even notice. Ok, summing up. Husband decides I am useless unless making money, best friend losing fight with cancer, dealing with usual stresses of motherhood and extensive family.

Guess I didn’t mention an alcholic brother, a grandfather recently passed, mother stressed to the limit helping them, and just everyday life. We’ll just accept those as added stress and move on.

How did I deal with this latest hubbie issue? Well, here was my first mistake. I started looking for work. I should have said how stressed, insulted and unhappy he was making me but I didn’t want to make waves. Didn’t want to fight in front of the kids. Didn’t want him to get angry at me and leave me. Didn’t want him to think I was lazy or couldn’t get a job. SHOULD have asked him what changed his mind (we’d always planned for me to raise kids and go back to work when they were in college). SHOULD have continued with trying to publish (argued to myself that I could continue after kids were older).

I tried very hard trying to find a job that would still allow me to be home with the kids, take them to sports and activities, keep up with the housework, etc. Needless to say these are few and far between. I tried home sales, more piano lessons, and other small-paying jobs but nothing was enough. I applied for part-time as a pharmacy tech but they wouldn’t hire me because I hadn’t worked for several years. I found a balance with the home sales and lessons. I applied to be a substitute teacher, figuring that would be the best way to work during the day and still be able to take kids to stuff.

To get through this time, I still wrote but focused my efforts on my best friend. I knew she was going through a rough time so once a week I sent her a funny story I wrote to try to give her a little laughter. Our weekly calls went to every other week, then once a month, then only a few emails. I kept sending the stories, hoping to hear but she did not want to talk to anyone but her husband and children. Very hard on me but I tried to distract myself with the pitiful attempts to make money and be a full-time mom.

I started gaining weight even though I was not eating very much. I lost my workout time because I worked during the day and then as soon as kids were home, bam, out the door driving them to many different things. I often got home just in time to cook dinner, finish laundry and get the kids to bed. My only consolation was I had some time at the end of the day to write for about half an hour.

After a year of this, I was coping, getting by, making a bit of money and keeping things off my mind. This was when it all got worse.

My husband who swore he would help out at home, driving kids to their activities etc, suddenly got promoted and was traveling every other week or more.

My best friend died.

More next week on the continuing downward trend.

Tracking tip of the week: Follow a flock of seagulls (not the band although those who do follow might be close to death) or better yet look for fighting seagulls. Whatever they are fighting over is most likely dead. Or at least we hope so. Oh and the correct term is a “wreck” of seagulls. Figures.

Well, since I last posted I have been waaaay down again and now mostly back up. It is strange that when you have been unhappy then happy, the plummet back down is even worse and lower! But I swung back up fairly quickly and I think I am ready to start blogging about how life tends to kick you and keep on kicking when you are down.

How did I up up in such a dark place? I will try to talk about events as they happened.

Years ago, (yes years), I was happy. I didn’t even know it until recently someone asked me  when was the last time I was happy. Took me an hour to figure it out but it was over 5 years ago. Five YEARS of unhappiness. Yes it started slow but the slide continued down and down until… well getting ahead.

Things were a little stressed, but no more so than anyone’s life married with two small children. My best friend was fighting breast cancer. She had beat it before and was still doing well and going strong. I was going to writing conferences, writing nearly every day and felt very close to getting published. Agents and editors were asking for manuscripts and I was getting positive feedback.

Then the hammer fell.

I was out to dinner with my kids, something we did whenever their father was out of town on business. He was always tired of eating out so when he was home I made home-cooked meals. Well me and the kids loved to go out so I figured this was a win-win.

He called on the cell while we were out, I told him where we were and he said “What are you doing spending my money?” I was floored. I was a stay-at-home mom, yes, but I also taught some private music lessons and made money in other small jobs. When he got home, I threw money at him, saying I earned this teaching so here was money for the dinner.

“That’s not what I meant.” “What did you mean?” He shrugs. We fought for a while but it came down to this last sentence I said. “So basically if I am not making money, I am not doing anything worthwhile?” He said, “Well…” and spread his hands out. So I had to give up conferences, etc. (I NEVER stopped writing but it did slow quite a bit) and try to find some sort of job where I could be a full-time mom too. I love being a mom and homemaker, was in the middle of redecorating our house, and writing was my passion but I had to give it all up to keep peace in the family.

Being the peacekeeper that I am, I kept making excuses for him. Maybe he is losing his job. Maybe he doesn’t make as much as I thought. Maybe he doesn’t realize how hard I work.

Then I found out that NONE of this was true. He had just got a promotion, along with a raise and was looking at another soon. We weren’t in debt at all, socking away lots for college and retirement and basically didn’t need more money. Despite me explaining what I do all day (mom stuff, cooking, cleaning, etc) I am convinced he thought I sat around eating bon bons. I tried talking to my best friend who has always understood me without me having to explain hardly anything. She replied that she thought I would never be happy unless I had a job making my own money.

Again, floored. She had never been so off the mark. I was happy being a full-time mother and striving to be a published writer. But I realized she sounded tired and a bit short with me and I understood. She had been hiding the fact that she was losing the fight with cancer. I decided to stop bringing her my petty problems.

So, found out hubbie had no respect for me if I didn’t make money and lost my major shoulder to lean on. Thus began the downward spiral. More on my next blog on how I coped.

#2 – Predator birds such as hawks, falcons, owls and such will lead you to live things that will shortly be dead. Do not follow too closely as you don’t want a bird with sharp claws and beak to think you are taking their dinner. Ow.

Why was I in such a dark place and how did I get out of it? Loooong story but I will give the bare bones and go into details of each in future blogs. Would be here for days if I said everything. It was mostly a case of a thousand straws on the camel’s back and I finally got brave enough to wrestle those straws into a bundle and kindle a fire with them. This fire is my life and I am determined to be myself and not try to make others happy by being someone else.

What were those straws, you may ask?

Here are just the highlights, the large straws, not even counting the little daily stresses. Number one, my health has been bad for some time, mostly due to stress (adrenal fatigue is REAL, people!)  #2 and most recent – father died suddenly. Before that (#3) my grandmother’s growing abuse of my mother caused my mother to have nervous breakdown and had to care for them both. Before THAT, best friend passing away after a LONG fight with breast cancer. #5 (I am thinking the beginning of the major stresses) the first indication that my marriage was not all I thought it to be.

As you can see, a lot of shit. Not sure which is the best way to tell the stories. Probably how it all happened although I am not really sure how things fell out the way they did. So I was in a funk, not depressed in the clinical term but very unhappy and not even realizing it until suddenly I was happy again. And it was like a light. And not one thing but a series of wonderful experiences happening over four days.

Next blog will be an upbeat one but keep checking back for the details of the darkness. I hope someone will read them and learn how to dig themselves out of the hole before it buries them like it did to me.