The Music in my Head, the Dance in My Limbs

The 9-5, the days that repeat, are a line dance. Each step is predictable, a veritable march towards the next careful half turn. Comfort in knowing exactly what comes next. Half asleep and apathetic is fine as long as you know when to turn to the left

Small ballets slip in. They are moments, fluid and beautiful, that take you by surprise. Sometimes the tears come, and the breath catches. We are held, and sometimes it's painful, the sadness, the beauty, crystalized into razor sharp shards.

R&B/Rap throbs, is heat and rhythm. Physical, primal, hands and sweat. Sex with a sting. Pride, and anger, and showing the world that your the hardest, the basest, the meanest.

Seduction slides along a Latin beat. The steps are known- the rules there, but unspoken. Gazes lock and the world falls away. A slow burn, a buzz born in the hips, building, smoking, slithering. Passion carefully leashed, exploding on cue.

An industrial beat clutches my heart, skewing the rhythm; coursing adrenaline and anxiety build. Talons shred my grey matter with each off kilter beat, too fast, breaking all the rules. It's a cat 'o nine, licking your back, each painful lash driving you forward in a frenzy of total madness. It's tearing my hair out, letting go, ideas beating against my skull, choking me with the need for their release

Depression is a modern dance. It's jangled, tangled and painful. The music is pieces that have been injected into a blender, and spewed out in a confused slurry of sound. There's falling, stuttering, disjointed movement. The body bends at impossible angles, trying to keep pace with sounds that make no sense.

There are moments so pure their are Broadway- clean, loud and obvious. Country moments reach out to God for comfort and strength. Jazz moments skip along and slide smoothly when called for.

A dance step. A syncopated beat. A flutter of life.

Back on the Horse

Life takes us in seriously strange directions sometimes. Looking at my last blog post (Ridiculously long ago) it struck my as funny at how many things had changed since then, how I had changed.

One of the biggest things that occurred in this time, was a giant upheaval in my battle with depression. While its hard for me to admit out loud, I've always struggled with depression, and now, more than ever, I realize just how important it is to talk about that openly and honestly.

This past spring, things came crashing down around me in a big way. My health was in trouble, and I had to leave my job. Debilitating depression swallowed me whole. I was mentally comatose, frozen in my helplessness, sinking into darkness.

With the help of my family, in large part my mother, and the aid of new medication, I was finally able to claw my way back to a semblance of life. I sucked it up and made a go of doing my jewelry full time- and it worked! Through my daughter, I rediscovered my passionate love of horses. I lived in the sun, and had one of the best summers of my life.

And now, during the slow season for jewelry, I've taken and office job through a temp agency and am catching up on winter bills. While being back in an office is a struggle for me, I can now look ahead to the sun, and not let it bring me to such a dark place. There is hope, there is faith, and for once, there is the promise of light.

Bad, Bad, Bad....

So, I've been bad. Bad, bad- the world's worse blogger.

Sometimes life just moves to fast to distill it on a blog page. Sometimes it's just so slow that there don't seem to be any gems to share. And sometimes....well..... I'm just plain tired......

Since I last touched base with the blogging world, I've gotten a new job. After almost two months of searching, I'm working in a warehouse running auto parts. It's hard. It's dirty. I have bruises, scratches, and pain everyday. I've also lost almost 20lbs now. There aren't many things that are too great about it, except for the fact that I get to work with one of my best friends, and I have a steady paycheck again.

On the kids front, well, G has decided that school is boring, but is doing well in all of his classes. He got shot over the eye by a neighbor's pellet gun. He's loving Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and working on writing his own book with a friend. The same one who shot him in the face.

K is not doing do hot in school this year. According to her teacher, she's been having a much better time socializing with her friends than doing any actual work. We're having a parent teacher conference on Tuesday, and I'm not looking forward to it. She's far to smart to be acting like a dumb ass......

GH is working a new job as well and is enjoying it. Good for him.

The dogs are fabulous. You can always visit them at www.chihuahuapages.blogspot.com

I promise to be here more often......

And Life Goes On

Well, it has officially just passed a month since I've been out of work.

This month has taught me a lot of things. For instance, being a full time mom is hard work- and I love it. I think I may even be getting good at it. I've even "adopted" a few kids in the neighborhood to take with us on our various day trips. These kids have told me I'm a cool mom, and those words have meant more to me than any praise I've ever received at any job.

I've also learned how to live on virtually no money. This is a lot of work as well. During the week I've been taking the kids to the free lunch program they do through the school system. At first, I was a little embarrassed to go, but frankly, we need it, and the kids love it. The people there are really nice and have never made me feel ashamed. Through that program we even learned of a free monthly community dinner that we went to the other night. I've learned to swallow my pride along with my food.

In order to make money, I've held a yard sale, done some dog sitting, and sold as much of jewelry as I can. I squeeze pennies 'till they cry. And even now, amongst the stress of having no money, I feel better than I have in a long time. I'm finding myself again, and feeling good. I've stopped taking my antidepressants, and focused on the things I love.

I still have decisions to make about my life as I continue to apply for jobs. If I can make it work, I'd love to find a way to stay at home. If not, I'll take another job and not allow it to eat me from the inside again. In the meantime, I have craft shows I'm registered for, kids to entertain, dogs to play with, and, well, life to live....

360

Once again, I vanished from the blogging world to deal with life issues. I was so mentally ill due to harassment I was receiving at work that I could barely function, let alone blog.

I'm happy to report however, that thanks to my doctor, my counselor, and the support of my family, I found the strength to leave that toxic environment and take back control of my life. Even after a few days I'm already feeling more like myself than I have in a long time.

It was impossibly hard to make the decision to leave my job. After all, I'm the main financial support of our family, and in this economy, it's harder than ever to find a job. But I had to. I was suffering, and in turn, my family was suffering.

And now it's all about getting back to things I enjoy, and that includes blogging. I know I'm going to have to work hard to reestablish all of my bloggy relationships, but I look forward to getting to know you all again :)

It's All Relative

Lately G has been really interested in the Bible and going to church. Even though my husband and I don't have an active faith, we both agreed we would never deter the kids from exploring religion. Unfortunately, G asks a lot of really technical questions about God and what not that I just don't know how to answer. I told him the next time he saw GH's grandma, he should ask her about it, as she's an avid, but not fanatical, church goer.

When GH's grandma came up for a visit a few weeks ago, they talked a lot about the Bible. While we were driving to the beach, grandma began telling G the story of Moses. At one point she told G that Moses' mother taught him all about the faith and the history of the Israelites.

G thought about this for a moment.

"I bet she didn't have to tell him a lot of things. There wasn't a lot of history way back then."

Leave it to G to glean this piece of information from the story of Moses.

Back

So, a week or so ago I decided to take down this blog. Things have just been so stressful lately, that I felt I no longer had anything worthwhile to share. I figured my little blog wouldn't be missed.

But surprisingly, things have happened this past week that really made me want to write a post here. And you know what? Hell with it! So waht if I'm not as witty or entertaining as other bloggers? Who cares if sometimes I'm a total bummer? This is my blog damn it, my outlet. So there.

Now that I've gotten that out of my system, here's what is currently stressing me out:

1.) Our basement has been flooded with sewage, along with the apartment building next door that's connected to the same sewer line. The carpet, and furniture in our basement guest room is soaked in sewage and causing our house to reek of mildew and plague me with nightmares of eColi. The landlord is doing what they can, but it's just not enough, or fast enough for my peace of mind. Last night GH and I were on our hands and knees in the basement removing sewage soaked carpet for the rent reduction our landlords have promised. The verdict? I do not look good in disposable coveralls and rubber gloves. Go figure.

2.) Work has been a challenge lately. I'm feeling a bit burnt out, and having fantasies of starting my own dog grooming business. Nothing unusual there. If only I could hurry up and win the lottery already.

3.) The kids have been stir crazy from a long winter, and are expressing it by generally irritating the crap out of each other. I'm so glad it's finally nice enough to send them outside.

4.) Owning our first house seems so close and yet so far. I've done all things that are humanly possible to fix our credit, and now it's just a waiting game for the scores to go up. I'm terribly impatient. I want to be in a new house NOW! The waiting without being able to do anything is just killing me.

And of course the others. Money. Not sleeping well. The upcoming craft fairs I'm not prepared for. Figuring out what to do with my life. So, as I muck through it, I will continue to post here. It's much better than strangling friends and family.....