Thanksgiving at Home

This year (or I guess last year now) I decided I was not so interested in having Thanksgiving with my family. Ahem. My sister and I aren't really speaking (ok, not at all), my mother went on vacation for her Thanksgiving, and I don't remember what my dad was doing, but I wasn't interested in that either. I thought about maybe spending it with friends or going to Utah to be with my friend's family, but eh... I was just "over it." My therapist said that it sounded like I needed some space from everybody after a few overwhelming months and that that was fine if it's what I wanted. And it was! I was totally happy with my Thanksgiving experience and really don't regret it at all. I spent the day home alone with my dog and two cats and I think we went to the dog park too.

As far as food goes, I got carved turkey and mashed potatoes from Jack's Urban Eats, my favorite cafeteria-style restaurant here in town. I made my mother's stuffing recipe, and decided.. eh... Vegetables? We can just skip those.

So here is our Thanksgiving dinner. The kitties and the doggie were all VERY VERY EXCITED over our gourmet, vegetable-free meal. My plate is the big one on the left, the two empty looking bowls have turkey in it for the cats, and the full bowl up front is the dog's kibble mixed with turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes.

Everybody was SUPER STOKED.

I have since cleaned my house up slightly since these pictures were taken. But only slightly. After all, I am still hoping the crew from "Hoarders" will come clean for me and I have to keep up my image as totally disgusting.

The Emotional Minefield of the Refrigerator.

*I wrote this back in January and never published it because I meant to add pictures. That's never going to happen, so here you go.*

Did you know a refrigerator could be an emotional minefield?

And no, I'm not talking about dieting.

I cleaned out the refrigerator tonight. For the first time since Matt went away. For the first time in sixteen months.

For some of you, that would mean there would be a few expired jars of pickles here and there. Not for someone like me, for whom "cleaning out the fridge" is pivotally important.

By the way, did you know it was possible to grow black mold in the fridge? Oh yeah. And white and green kinds too. It was the black kind that surprised me the most. Isn't that the kind that gives people serious health issues?

When EMILY says she "hasn't cleaned out the fridge in 16 months," she means that literally. If it hasn't been eaten, it hasn't been thrown away. All of those boxes of fresh vegetables and fruit I got from Farm Fresh to you? (Fresh fruit & vegetable delivery service). Still sitting pretty (black, mushy, and oozing in piles of liquid unidentifiable liquid) in the fridge. I found pudding that expired in 2009. Eggs. When was the last time that I bought eggs? Was it one year ago, or two?

 Don't worry, I didn't open the carton.

As I systematically filled two yard-sized black trash bags with item after item of mushy, expired, or health-hazard waste, I knew I really wouldn't be doing this if I didn't 'have' to. The reason I 'had' to was because I came home from Trader Joe's with one too many salads than will fit in the small coveted space at the front where I usually keep the things I actually eat.

When I got to the bottom shelf, at the back, I stopped dead in my tracks. Five Coca Cola soda cans, in their cheery red aluminum greeted me, along with their 2010 expiration dates. They were Matt's. We bought them for him for when he came over. I only drank diet. I swallowed hard, but I was okay. It was when I saw the bottle of Huckleberry soda right behind it that I lost it. I sat on the floor and heaved out sobs. Then I stood and cried. I stomped my feet and just... whimpered out this angry growl.

The soda is my favorite in the world. My dad and I bought it at Galco's, a specialty grocer in Los Angeles proper. They are Jackson Hole brand and we had never been able to find them anywhere else except mail order.  I coveted and carefully selected the time in which I would crack open each of the six sweet bottles. Except the last one. Which I had carefully tucked into the back of the fridge and saved. I wanted to share it with Matt. I wanted him to have this piece of me, this thing I loved, and tell him all about it. I wanted him to experience it with me and tell him all about my dad and how we found Galco's on a Huell Howser special in the mid 90's and had gone there every few years since for a few special things, which we'd then save and share and rub it into other people about how they had missed out on going. Sun Drop, Ni-hi Peach soda... old fashioned candy. It's just one of those special places. I wanted Matt to be in on that part of me and my life and this special ritual with my dad. One that I won't be able to experience many more times, if again.

He had never been to the house again after I brought the bottle back. It was still there, waiting for him. Right next to his soda. I've been waiting for him, all this time. I don't clean the fridge because nothing can change. I just put things in it and wait. It's truly like he died and just, all of his things were left here. Finding them is like a minefield of pain. You never know when you will stumble into one and get hit. The obviously ones... the ring on my finger, the pictures... they are easy to hide or pack away. The little things, like that little unassuming bottle of soda in the back of the fridge, hidden by sixteen months of garbage are harder to find.

When I opened my eyes I found myself staring eye to eye with the engagement ring ads I had ripped out of magazines to show him. Still on my fridge, attached with magnets.

You feel paralyzed and broken.

Maybe it affects me differently or deeper or in a more messed up way because of who I am. I am someone with a genetic predisposition to depression. I am someone who was struggling with depression before any of this even happened. But I was making it. The problem is, I think of so much of that time with him, the time I was with him, as this huge ray of joy and highlight in my life.

When everything before and after has been awful, it makes remembering this time when you were so happy, much more painful, and moving on... A fantasy.


And on that note. My fridge is clean. And I take another step in the right direction. My house isn't clean, and my heart doesn't trust, but my fridge is clean and that's a lot.

Give Away!

I just wanted to let you guys know over here that I am doing a GIVE AWAY on my work blog!

I shot my first BIRTH STORY and in celebration of baby Ray's birth, I'm giving away a copy of "The Business of Being Born" and "Baby Catcher." All you have to do is leave a comment!

(At least leave a comment and congratulate Mom & Dad on their new bundle! This baby was tried for for a long time, so they are VERY grateful he is here!)


http://eheizerphotography.blogspot.com/2012/02/baby-rays-birth-film-c-section-video.html

The First Public Panic Attack

I know. Such an exciting post title. I'm sure you're all squirming in your seats. But trust me, it's not half as titillating as when I tell you about how I got pulled over. Again.

But back to this story.

Over Christmas I went to visit my dad and his wife in southern California. I stayed with them, and brought Charlie Brown, Amelia and Toulouse. We all road in the car together for many hours. Everybody avoiding pooping or peeing on each other, which was excellent, however, Charlie howled for the first four hours of the six hour drive and only stopped when I covered him entirely with a baby blanket, wrapped my arm around him, and patted his butt continuously. Did I mention this was AFTER I gave him Xanax? (Prescribed by his vet for the drive.)

 yes, that is the dog sitting on my lap, HOWLING as we drive down the highway.

Anyway, we made it to LA. Charlie and Toulouse had a good time using the entire house to play chase in, which is much bigger than our tiny house at home, and Amelia made use of the double closet, which was empty so she could hide in it from both of those lunatics.

Pbbt.

At some point during the trip, my dad, Andrea and I went out to our favorite restaurant, the Blue Agave. It's a southwestern restaurant in Yorba Linda and I've been going there since I was 10 or 11 years old. It's my absolute favorite. I was excited to go.

On the way there, I sort of belatedly realized... I didn't think I had actually been in a sit down restaurant since before Matt.

Oh...

I wasn't entirely sure, so I figured, well, it would be fine. Plus I was excited and this was a place I had been going for years. I knew exactly what to expect. I even knew all of the servers because they were all the same people who had waited on us, seriously, for over a decade. A waitress [also] named Andrea is our favorite. (My mother's name is Andrea too. And it's my middle name. And my sister's middle name. And my other sister's middle name. COUGH.)

We were a few blocks from the restaurant when my dad's Andrea took a call from her oldest son Joe saying he wanted to join us. I first felt uncomfortable in her just getting a call from him. Christmas last year my dad tried to arrange for me to stay at the house alone and have Joe come over and hang out for a couple hours while he and Andrea went to a dance lesson. I went in hysterics and my dad walked out of the room and shut the bedroom door, unsure what to do with me. He's a nice guy, but I don't know him at all, I have mass anxiety around men, and he's very touchy. He gives hugs. He sits close, he's very friendly and outgoing. All things that are WAY outside my comfort zone right now. I've only met him 2 or 3 times in the last 5 years Andrea has been in the picture and they act like we're all best buds. And then they tell me these stories about him getting drunk and walking on his girlfriend's car and getting arrested and having restraining orders...

So, I'm tense. Then she say's he's coming too. I try to breathe. It will be fine. I just need to think about how to make sure he sits by them and not me at the table. It will be fine as long as he doesn't sit by me. I take slow, deep breaths in the car and think about how I can possibly DIVE into the booth once we get in the restaurant. We always sit in the same area, so, I just prep myself: I can DO this.

But I'm tense.

We get in and my dad makes a beeline past the hostess station to the crowded and noisy bar. I ask him where he's going and he says we can  wait in here. My anxiety level goes up another 10 notches. It's crowded, it's loud, and the space is really tight. People are drinking. The only place to sit are at high tables on high chairs. Very uncomfortable and very crowded. People bump into me. I try really hard to not "wipe off" their touches on my sweater. But okay, we're just going to wait in here. My dad and Andrea sit down on either side of me, so I feel a little protected since they "surround" me.

We talk a little, and Andrea talks to Joe again. Somebody says something about eating in the bar.

"HUH?" I say.

My dad informs me we are eating in the bar now.

In the almost 18 years we've been coming here, I've never even BEEN in the bar, let alone eaten in it. Why in the heck would we eat in here? I don't drink, Andrea can't drink (she had an organ transplant) why would we eat in the bar?! I tell him I'd really rather eat in the restaurant. Why would anyone want to eat in here? It's crowded, it's loud. Let's go in the restaurant. My anxiety doubles again. I can feel myself break out in a sweat and I start to get a little shaky. This is not the plan. This is not what I was anticipating. I look around at the room full of men staring at the TV screens and my skin starts to crawl. My dad is not responding to my questions and requests. Then he does the worst thing.

He got up.

He got up from that protective seat next to me, so I was in between him and Andrea, and moved next to Andrea, leaving one empty seat next to me. So when Joe would arrive, he would be sitting next to me, because now we were eating in the bar.

I started to shake. I'm sweating, I'm shaking, my eyes are welling up with tears and I'm trying REALLY hard to keep my breathing under control.

What's going to be worse? Sitting next to touchy- overly-friendly Joe? Or telling these two, who totally do not understand your PTSD at all, that you need them to move back into the seating arrangement they were just in because you can't sit next to her kid?

The chip I had had halfway up to my mouth before my dad moved is on the table now, being smashed into teeny tiny pieces as I try to cope with my almost-exploding anxiety. I can't eat it. I can't sit there. I don't know what to do. Nobody is noticing how incredibly uncomfortable I am.

I decide to speak up and say, "I need you to move back to where you were sitting."

"What?"

Absolutely shaking, I say, "I'm sorry," (crying) "It has nothing to do with Joe, but I can't sit next to men. I can't. I am afraid to. I can't do it. I need you to sit where you were before. I can't do this. It is really scary and upsetting to me." (Or something like that.)

My dad gets this really irritated, almost angry look on his face and almost starts to roll his eyes at me. Then Andrea turns to me and says, "It's JUST Joe!" with this patronizing tone.

And I was gone. GONE. I flipped my drink off the table, I think I almost knocked the entire TABLE off, and started to hyperventilate so loud everybody at least on that side of the room turned to stare. I half fell, half ran off my bar stool to get out of the room. It was like trying to run after being spun a 1,000 times while playing pin the tail on the donkey; I was so dizzy. Panting like I was screaming, crying like I was screaming, I made it to the bathroom only because it was so close and I knew exactly where it was from going to the restaurant for so many years. The noises I made in there were SCARY. The hyperventilating- it was just, it was SCARY. I couldn't breathe, I felt like I was dying.

As soon as I got in the stall a woman who must have been in there started asking me if I was okay, and I just could not answer because i physically could not speak. I didn't have a word in my head. I couldn't have told you my name at that point I was so far gone. I stood in that stall for at least thirty minutes with my head between my knees trying to bring myself back down. It was incredibly humiliating, and one of the worst panic attacks that I have had since the very beginning. And the only one I have ever really had in public where I couldn't get away. Worst of all, Andrea kept coming in and trying to talk to me through the door and insisting I answer her, claiming she "didn't know if it was me" and it would be "so embarrassing" if it wasn't me, on and on. Like I could really talk when I couldn't even breathe. I was crying so hard I wasn't even producing tears. I had no control over myself at all. And when I would regain some control, another wave would start up again, and then I would just be "gone" again. It was awful. Just thinking about how awful it was makes me upset NOW, more than two months later!

Eventually on one of Andrea's numerous trips in and out of the bathroom I calmed enough to unlock the stall and let her in, apologize and emphasize it had NOTHING to do with Joe personally. NOTHING. She kept asking if I wanted her to call him and tell him not to come or should we leave and how mad my Dad was I had run into the women's restroom so he couldn't follow me. I told her Joe could come, we didn't have to leave,  I just couldn't sit next to him, but she told him not to come anyway and we went back to the bar after a very long while. They had set up an entirely different table because of the mess I had made knocking over the other table and drinks and stuff and I saw people stare when I came back in. My dad asked it I was alright, and then wanted to know what was wrong, and then went on to say that I didn't tell him what was wrong, or talk to him openly about this stuff, and i had given him no indication there was a problem. I start feeling anxious again....I can feel my face heat up blushing, palms sweat and I try to breathe. I'm already so hyped up...

I try very calmly to explain to my dad about my triggers and what happened and what let up to my running out. Almost immediately he starts interrupting making jokes. After the third or fourth interruption and wise crack, I interrupt HIM.

I told him that this is why I don't talk to him as openly as I do Mom. He doesn't make it easy for him to talk to. He just asked me to talk to him openly and he won't even ALLOW me to. I just need him to sit there and listen and he won't stop interrupting. I'm so upset and he's making jokes. It's disrespectful. I tell him it makes it hard to be open and that with Mom, this never even would have happened because she is so in tune to my issues that she never would have changed seats to begin with. She never would have put me in that position. She asks me how I'm doing beyond a once every six months, "So is therapy helping? Okay, uh... good."

My dad says that, well, the whole thing makes him uncomfortable and making jokes is his way to ease his discomfort. I tell him that's all fine and good, but if he's going to do that, then I can't be open because he's not LETTING me.

It was awkward.

We made it through the meal and I managed to eat something, but all I really wanted to do was leave. And by leave, I mean run back to the house, grab all of my crap and go back home, to MY home. It was awful. AWFUL.

Luckily the dog did much better on the drive home.

:(

Talking about it in therapy afterwards, and with my mom, I talked A LOT about how much Andrea really hit the final nail there. The patronizing tone, the "It's JUST Joe." All these subliminal messages:

"You're making a big deal out of nothing.
This isn't a big deal.
Don't be a drama queen.
Your issues don't matter.
This isn't important.
You're just trying to ruin the evening.
You're trying to make this about you.
You're being dramatic.
That's stupid.
You're silly.
This is dumb.
You're ridiculous.
This doesn't matter.
This isn't a big deal!!"

On and on. It was a HUGE deal and it took a HUGE amount of courage for me to say anything to them about 1.) why are we sitting in the bar, and 2.) I need you to change seats and the belittling sounding comment... It was so incredibly difficult for me to speak up and the total lack of recognition of a problem and the realization that there was NO SUPPORT there put me over the edge. I was at a 12 on a 1-10 scale already and that heaping extra cup of "It's JUST Joe!" in that tone... Put me to a 20... when the max number was a 10.

I was hysterical.

My mom said that maybe it was good. She said that I look and sound so normal so much of the time that maybe them seeing something like that was good in that it served as a reminder that I am not okay. I am sick. That maybe it would be a wake up call to them.  ... Maybe.

It was definitely a wake up call to me. I realized that I really do live in a "safety bubble" of, I guess what you could call "approved activities" that I feel okay and comfortable doing, and doing something so far out of the box really was something I was not comfortable with and I paid for it. But as long as I operate within my "safety bubble" I can look and act like a normal person. but if you take me out... I'm like a fish out of water and I can't breathe. (Literally even.)

PS: I know my header has suddenly become out of focus/pixelated in the last couple of months and I have no idea why. I can just re-upload it, but I need to find the original and I'm not sure what computer it's on. It's driving me crazy too. :(

When you Start Over

I've started a couple of posts and not actually gone through with posting them. I received a nasty letter from someone back in December, which I have never bothered to respond to. Again, I defer those people to the post I wrote just a few weeks after I found out, which went something along the lines of... "If you don't have something nice to say, don't say nothin' at all." If it's not going to help ME, then why are you opening your mouth? (Or typing?)

Anyway, you know I have been trying to figure out how to start over for a long time. I had been looking for something new to do since I left law school in June/July of 2008. (Long time ago now. Sigh.) I've been looking for somewhere new to live since Matt has been gone. I wanted to leave right away but everyone kept saying to wait at least a year. It's been a year now... but now I am sort of paralyzed from making decisions. It almost would have been better to do it back then because I just wanted to flee. But perhaps I would have regretted it because I wouldn't have had a whole 16 months to stew about it. (Yeah, it's been 16 months now. :(  )

I've been trying to find direction, a career, models for myself of people who have made big random moves... I actually just stumbled into a photographer's blog who spent all last summer traveling around the US looking for a new home. They fell in love with Portland, OR and are now giving away two weddings there to get established and plan to move by year's end. (They are in Jacksonville. Don't know if that's Florida or Mississippi though. Are there more Jacksonville's? Probably. I do think they are in the south, so Miss is more likely).

So we have that example, a couple in transition, sort of the same position I am in, except they want to stick with photography, and they have a concrete location and seem to have a plan. Hmmm.

Then I recently remembered (5 minutes ago is recent, right?) a girl I knew in college. I hadn't really thought about it this way but she also had a sort of breakdown and started over. The whole process just took so long I never thought about it in that way.  Basically she was married to a wonderful guy who turned out not to be into the family and kids "thing" and she's raising the baby on her own now. She's moved on in her life and is doing a post graduate degree. From my perspective, she is doing amazing, has acomplished so much and I am so proud of her any time I think of it.

I want to be that. I want to be her. She went to hell and back. Everything she thought and knew was true... all of that was gone. She doesn't share her feelings much and I don't talk to her often, barely at all actually. I wish I did more, but I hate to pry because I know how I feel about these things. I think she is amazingly accomplished and has done so much on her own.
And yet, there are a lot of things in common between her husband and Matt. They had kids and they freaked out. The difference is, at least her husband was upfront about it and gave her a chance to move on and find a better life for her and her child. (Not that this was okay either, but huge improvement.) Matt didn't do that. It was all lies and deceit and I assume it continues to be that way. Neither of these people are normal, but, I think my friend is much better off than Matt's wife. And I think she's much happier too. I hope she is.

So, there's one person I know (who I totally forgot about because it took so long between disaster, transition and success) who started over somewhere totally new. I wish I had more examples. I wish I had a how-to guide.

There is something I NEED before I can do stuff, and what is that? A plan. I need a specific plan. If I scooped up all my stuff, picked a place on a map and moved in... what would the plan be? What would I do when I got there? I dunno. So I haven't done anything. Meantime, I look at real estate and rental listings for Provo and Denver, sometimes Boulder. I look at graduate programs at different schools (University of Denver, Colorado State University, University of Utah, Utah Valley University). I look at the course catalog for my local community college. I'm in German 2 this semester but it's already not going well, which suggests I'm not ready for grad school. The class is crowded, the teacher is loud and dramatic, and two boys tried to touch me or hug me out in the hallway on my second day, which sent me running and crying to the bathroom. Another accused me of being on drugs. (WHAT?) (All because I was out in the hall with my head between my knees because I felt dizzy from the crowd in the class during a group activity). If I stay in the class I HAVE to stay here in CA until May for the course. If I drop out... how am I going to get rec letters for grad school? If I don't study for the GRE and don't know what degree I want, why does that matter.

When will I know what I want and what I am supposed to do and how do I get there?

Apple Hill & Lake Tahoe in October with Charlie Brown

In October, I went to take Charlie Brown in to the kennel while I went out of town for a wedding and found out that his bordatella vaccine had inexplicably expired, despite the fact I had only owned my dog for 9 months. Apparently,the type of vaccine he had been given (nasal, rather than shot) was only good for six months. Our vet hadn't let us know it had expired. Our boarding facility required he be vaccinated at least 7 days prior to being boarding. I was calling to make the reservation (and finding this all out) like 4 days before I was to leave. Fantastic.

Anyway, the dog couldn't go in the kennel, so I had to find a pet friendly hotel with four days notice. (The whole wedding was planned in 4 weeks FYI).  We found a nice one, and Charlie had some issues with barking in the room and clawing at the back of the door. Oops. I guess he got lonely and anxious. I cleaned up all the teeny tiny pieces of paint chips off the floor, hide the evidence and checked out the day after the wedding! We made one last trip to the shores of Lake Tahoe so he could dip in his toes, and we also stopped at Apple Hill on the way home. That didn't go over so hot. lol It was really crowded and he was REALLY barky. He did like looking at the fish in the pond and he got to smell lots of cool stuff though, I'm sure! We stopped a couple times on the way home and went for short walks to smell the wildness of the woods! He liked that a lot!

Since this trip Charlie has started, and then graduated from kindergarten! I now know that he barks a lot in public because that's how he says "HI!" to people. He acts like a lunatic on a leash because he is sayinh, "HI HI HI HI LOOK AT ME! HI!" When he looks like he wants to kill you, really all he wants to do is be petted, which I never would have guessed. I really thought he was leash aggressive, but the trainer figured out he just has bad greeting manners and was trying to say "Hi" in a sort of rude way. lol As soon as you approach him when he is barking so nasty and mean, he calms right down and hushes right down. I had no idea. He just wants to be petted. That's all he wanted at Apple Hill too. He wanted to say Hi to all the people. I was afraid he was going to go around attacking everyone the way he was lunging and barking, but it's all... nothing. It's just him saying "Howdy Stranger!" Who would have thought that?  Now how to break him of that?! We start Doggie First Grade next week. Hopefully, we can keep working on it.

I was trying to find out Thanksgiving pictures to post, but no luck yet!