Twenty-Four

I am so very sad today, for many reasons. The weather- it's dark and blustery and raining out. My husband- he is home so little that I actually talk to my chiropractor more often than A. Life- today a bird got trapped inside our garage, and it died of terror and exhaustion, and I haven't stopped crying about it all day. Isolation- my only connection to the outside world is through emails and Facebook and my other blog. A is too busy to talk to me during the day, if he does call me it is a real treat but very short, because he's always so terribly busy at work. He still likes to check in on me, though, to see how I'm feeling, but sometimes I am just stumped for something to say to him. Imagine that, a wife who can't think of anything to say to her own husband. Not like I'm 12 and this is the cute boy from school I have a crush on, and I'm tongue-tied. This is my main man, my heart, my everything, the man I have slept beside for six years now. But I am just like, yeah, okay, whatever, when we talk. Probably why he doesn't call every day. Probably why sometimes he just reads the paper in the morning at breakfast, because I don't have anything to say. I know he would listen, as he always does when I need to talk, when I need to pour my heart and my thoughts out to him. Isolation sucks, and moving to a new city isn't as easy as just going somewhere and starting up a conversation with a stranger, and suddenly pledging our undying sisterhood and loyalty to each other. Yesterday in line at a fast food place, the lady who walked in with me talked on end about the beautiful flowers planted out front. Nice chat, but I am not going to be making friends with an elderly black lady at the Chick-Fil-A over advice on planting perennials. I was polite, and thanked her for her advice, and moved on. I've always had good friends, although I don't know why people even like me. But I've also always had a job, and had 40 hours a week to connect with people. When we moved in January, I left behind super wonderful girlfriends whom I adored, and who loved me back. I have a twisted sense of humor, and I am blunt and honest, and I don't take bullshit from people and I also don't dish it out. I am not a typical girly-girl, as far as gossip and margaritas and skirts and manicures and the tanning booth. That's not me. So the women I've been friends with over the years, were ones who accepted me for who I really was, and who appreciated me for it. I've always been an oddball, and I don't care, I even enjoy the fact that I am not a bloated, boring, superficial soccer mom. So, my friends have always been the non-mainstream type. One of the good friends I left behind had been divorced well over twenty years, and likes it that way. My other good friend was as sensitive as I was crass, but we seemed to all three balance things out when we were around each other. They email, they call, they invite me to come back and visit. But it's not the same. I miss seeing faces, hearing voices, even a light touch on the arm while talking over coffee, five mornings a week and sometimes at dinner out. I know whenever I go back to work, I will make friends. At least I hope so. Everywhere I've worked, I've made at least 1-2 good girlfriends. At least at the jobs where I stayed for awhile. I was at my last job for 8 years, and I was on top of the totem pole, and one of the boss' favorites. Everyone loved me, everyone respected me, everyone depended on me, everyone looked at me for answers. It was a hard thing to give up, I would have worked there until retirement, if I could have- I had finally finally found the place I belonged and the place I loved to be. But I gave it all up because I love A more than I loved that job. He pays the bills, with his six figures, not me with my measly hourly wage. How could I tell him not to accept the big promotion in favor of me keeping my lowly office job? A depends on me too, but the things he needs from me- cleaning the house, picking up his dry cleaning, running to the bank, cooking dinner- are not things I really want to be doing for even myself, much less for the two of us. I swear to all that's holy, if I was a richer woman I would hire a personal assistant to do all that shit, that mundane but necessary crap that is required by life. A may not have made good new friends since we've moved, but he actually lived in this town once before, back in the late 1980's, so he still has friends here from back then and they get together. Guy friends, no room for the little wifey, although he invites me occasionally (I politely decline). I don't think A realizes the depths of my loneliness, the pining that I have for my old friends, and my desire to make new friends. I tried once going shopping and to lunch with his boss' wife, but she was a dull, bleached, young, skinny mom and I had absolutely nothing in common with her. It was painful to make conversation, and that was months ago and she's never called me again. Guess it was painful for her, too. I don't need to go back to work for the money, although extra income is always nice, but I need it more to socialize than anything else. But with the economy, and this little country bumpkin town, my choices are limited. And I don't want to drive 40 minutes to the "big city". A has forbid me from working a retail job, because he wants me at home at night and on weekends, our only time together. He said what little bit of money I would make, wouldn't be worth us losing our few precious hours that we have with each other every week. And we do seem to go out of town almost every weekend, and Wal-Mart is probably not going to let me have every Friday night and every weekend off. So. I sit at home, friendless, quiet, watching the clock and counting the hours, the minutes, until A gets home. Some nights it's six, some nights it's after nine. I never know. I feel as though if I stay trapped in this house much longer, I really will go fucking insane, in the true sense of the word. A nervous breakdown. Can someone have a nervous breakdown and get overly stressed out, because they have too much silent, alone time on their hands? How can I be stressed when I don't do anything or see anyone all day long? I have to wonder about that. I do get out of the house. I see the chiropractor 3-4 times a week right now, I get a massage once a week from the same lady, every Friday morning I go to my weekly support group, I go to the same dry cleaner 2-3 times a week, I even joined a gym and met with a personal trainer. But, those are not places where I'm going to make a good friend. Those are acquaintances, and there's a huge difference. I am not going to strike up a long talk on a deep subject with the old guy on the treadmill beside me, you know? A doesn't understand why I'm not "meeting" people, and I look at him like he's gone bonkers. Meet people? At the bank? At Target? What, are you kidding? He doesn't get it. He also doesn't work here in the town where we live, he heads off north towards the super big metropolis near where we live. He barely spends any time here in our new "hometown", even on the weekends we go look for entertainment elsewhere. So, he doesn't realize how damn small it is here, and how there is nothing to do, and no one to do it with. My favorite hobbies are even ones I do alone- reading, painting, writing, sewing. Even our subdivision is dead during the day, and if there are people at home they must be deep within the caves of their own houses because I don't see anyone. The house beside us has been empty for six months now, the house on the other side has two white-haired old Germans living there who barely speak English, and across the street is an empty field because no house was ever built on that lot. Behind me are many many acres of woods. I even live on a cul-de-sac at the very very back of the subdivision, how much more isolated can we get? Oh yes, did I mention we are the only subdivision out here, on this long country road? I am surrounded by pastures filled with horses and cows, and a goat farm. That is isolation, truly. Gone are the days when a new family moves in and the neighbors all come over with fresh apple pies and baskets of cookies, to introduce themselves, to have a block party or BBQ. We all have our little cocoons, and most of us stay in them, and rarely do we let anyone in from outside our already long-established circle. I know it will be a long time before I have a good friend here, someone I can meet for coffee on Saturday morning, or go shopping with at lunch, or gab with on the phone at night about what happened in the office that day. Sadly, I am craving that so much right now. I would like to say that I'm basically an antisocial person, but now that I'm alone all day long, I am more miserable than I've ever been in my entire life.

Twenty-Three

I am trying to force myself to feel better about life, since I have a light at the end of the very long, black tunnel that has been my existence in the most recent past. Another round with the therapist this week left me bruised and out of sorts again, but I know I have to go through this more intense pain in order to be rid of the old pain. Make sense? I am trying to work through it. She says that once she releases all of my contracted muscles in my leg and back, I won't need to see her again, this will not be an ongoing therapy. She will either cure me in a few more visits, or cut me loose, she is not going to suck me dry of all my hope and all A's money. I feel myself getting better with every session, but as with all things, I am impatient impatient impatient. Now that I am starting to feel better physically, I am starting to get more stressed out mentally and very frustrated. I don't want to wait another month, another six weeks, I want ALL the pain gone NOW. Only it doesn't work that way, short of some trauma that would leave me paralyzed from the waist down. I don't remember what I was like before I fell into a pit of chronic pain, and I don't think A remembers either because in our years together, the last nearly four have been with me in this state, this mood, this eternal cycle of waking up hating my life and going to bed at night hoping it will be over soon. What scares me the most is that, once I am cured of my physical ailment, will the emotional aspect of it get better as well? With the chronic pain, I have stopped going out of the house much, I do as little moving around as possible, I have given up almost every hobby that I once loved, I gained an excessive amount of weight, I've forgotten about our once hot and passionate sex life, I've gotten in the habit of ignoring my housework due to the pain, I make excuses constantly for being tired and in a pissy mood and not wanting to do things or go places. Once the pain is gone, what will be my crutch? How long will it take before I can lose the weight, initiate sex again, find a job, scrub the kitchen floors, start painting again? How much patience will A have for me then, because he has been insanely patient with me so far, because he says he understands I can't help it, I can't do certain things. Now when I snap at him, I apologize and say I'm sorry I'm just in a lot of pain today, and he is okay knowing that. Once I am pain free, what will I say when I get livid and want to throw something, or storm off and slam a door, when I want to be left alone? Last night I expected A to be gone until late, he has a standing Friday night out with a guy he's been friends with for almost 20 years. I encourage him to go, why should he stay at home like a lump on the couch just because that's what I do? Instead, he was home by 9:30 last night, and instead of being tickled pink to have him home early, I got stupidly disgruntled and not long afterwards I had picked a fight so that I could have an excuse to go on to bed. It left A very confused, and he came in our room later to ask me why I was mad at him. I sighed, kissed him on the cheek and said I wasn't mad, I was just not feeling well and I didn't mean to take it out on him. I love A so much it scares me, but I am also relieved when he is not here, when he has to work late, when he wants to go out with his buddy. I feel like I almost push him out the door sometimes, because I want to be alone, but I am miserable with desire for him the minute he leaves, and I am more lonely but more relaxed at the same time. A is actually younger, but in many ways he has always represented a father figure to me. X was SO immature, despite being older, and so irresponsible that in our 13 years together, I felt the weight and the burden of running the household and paying the bills myself. X was unemployed at least once a year, and although I did take the richer or poorer vows, somehow the fact that he actively enjoyed being unemployed SO much so he could sit at home and stay high, used to piss me off as I went off to work every day. Water under the bridge now, but I grew up in a family where my father worked two sometimes three jobs so my mom could stay home and raise the children. That was my model of a man and a father and a husband. X fell short in almost all of my expectations, which was surprising, because both of his parents were hard-working and self-made millionaires, and he apparently had not inherited any of their drive or determination, or pride. On the other hand, A was raised, poor, on a farm in the country, and he worked hard all of his childhood, he said his parents never let him have a moment of playtime in his entire life. And he is still that way now. The man easily works 60 or more hours a week, and loves it, loves his job, loves his company and everything about it, loves the mere fact that he works. And he earns every penny of his six-figure income. A holds a very high position at his company, he has about 400 employees under him, and he runs about four or more large departments. But he's good at it, which is why he has climbed the company ladder so quickly, and will continue to climb I'm sure. He has ambitious goals in mind, but if he stayed at his current position for another twenty years, I think he'd be happy too. A's whole job is comprised of making decisions all day long, of being responsible, of expecting perfection, of taking no bullshit from his guys, he's a leader and motivator and mentor. Then he comes home to me, a pathetic dinner that he usually has to help prepare and clean up after, a dirty house, litter boxes full of poop, an unmade bed, laundry sitting wrinkled in the dryer for two days, crumbs and dust bunnies all over the hardwood floors. His wife who can barely function, let alone get her ass off the couch and do all that stuff, which for anyone else would be such a simple thing. He says he doesn't care, but I also think he's a damn good liar, because he doesn't want to hurt my feelings so he says it doesn't bother him that there is cat vomit drying in the carpet of his new half-million dollar house, while his wife is sitting right there flipping mindlessly for hours through reruns on the TV. I care too, but I never can seem to will my body to get up and do it. I am revolting. And if I sicken myself that much, how can A not feel sickened at the mere sight of me as well? How?? And as much as I love A, as much as I wish I could spend every waking minute with him, I feel numbing relief when he calls to say he'll be about an hour late for dinner, because that is another hour of my night where I don't feel the burden of being his wife. When he's not here, I can't disappoint him, I can't annoy him, I can't disgust him- he doesn't ever feel those things towards me, but in my head I feel like he should, so I get myself all worked up about my behavior because he is there to bear witness to it (and yet he doesn't judge me for it). Home alone, I just don't give a shit, and no one is here to remind me that I should give a shit. But as soon as he comes through the door I suddenly see all of my flaws, I see the breakfast dishes still sitting in the sink, I remember the clean towels from the weekend that I haven't folded and put away yet, I know he will inevitably ask me how I'm feeling, what did I do that day? Not to point blame, not as in "what the fuck have you been doing all day you stupid lazy bitch?" which is what X would have said. A means it like "hi honey I'm glad to be home to you, did you do anything fun today that we can talk about at dinner?" It doesn't matter, I have nothing to tell him, and instead of saying that, I start trying to make excuses as to why I didn't finish the laundry or clean the toilets. A doesn't really want to hear all of that, he doesn't care, he just wants to come home and know that I'm okay, and he wants to hear that I'm feeling better, and he wants to know that I love him. A would gladly take me out to dinner every night, and take me away every weekend, and get me a maid, if that's what I wanted, because that's how much he dotes on me, that's how much he just wants me to be happy. But, I don't want those things, and how do I tell my husband that being with him, because he's so wonderful, is just a reminder for me about what a failure and a loser I've become. So when he says, hey, Best Friend and I want to go out and drink a few beers, play some pool, but is that okay with you sweetheart because you and I can instead go out and do something just the two of us if you want- I look at him and say, gladly, go out with Best Friend. I want to scream STAY, stay here with me, stay here and keep me company and try to make me happy, but then all I can do is just sit on the couch and zone out, and why should he have to do that too? Even tonight, when Best Friend called him, I told A to go out and have fun, A got as far as his car and while still sitting in the garage called me from his cell phone and said are you sure you don't want to go out with us, we'll have fun- I just said go, I will see you when you get home. On the inside, I was dying, to be with him, to have him be with me, but I just don't want to go or do anything and I'm not going to punish him for that. Most wives bitch because their husbands go out too much, stay gone too late, and I am the polar opposite because I feel bitterness mingled with joy whenever mine wants to go out, and I never say no, never get upset when he calls at 10 to say it'll probably be after midnight when he gets home. I don't care, the later the better, which is what my head is saying as my heart feels the loneliness. Just to get me out of the house, into the sunshine and fresh air, A took me for a ride out in the country today, with the top down in his sports car, and we had a nice lunch on a lake. And on those occasions, while I'm away from the house and alone with him, I really do feel good, back like it was when we were dating and I was happy. But as soon as we got back into the house, the first thing I did was look down at the cat hair on the carpet and start to feel like shit about myself again. Now that A is out for the night with his buddy, I can relax and go back to not caring anymore about anything. Because whenever A is around, all I do is care about him and about our life, when in reality I want an excuse not to feel anything at all. Not even love. Being around A makes me feel more, and I just don't want to.

Twenty-Two

First, I want to say thank you for the comment, Ms. MJ is not my thing, in fact one of the primary reasons I divorced X was because of his addiction and obsession with it. But, I appreciate your intention, and I do think it's a helpful tool for those who need it. I am not against it, I just didn't like what it was doing to my marriage with X, it caused a great deal of trouble for us. I am actually a complete square, I don't smoke- anything- and I don't touch alcohol, not beer not wine, never have- I didn't even drink my champagne at my wedding reception, A drank it for me! But I will take Vicodin like it's free on the street corner, so go figure. I am doing better, which I guess is why I haven't been on here lately. I have finally found someone who may have the cure I've been looking everywhere for. After all these years of expensive medical tests and procedures and hospitals and pain clinics, of great amounts of every type of pain pill out there, of doctor after doctor being stumped and not being able to help me...it has come down to a simple massage therapist. Yes, that is right, as un-fucking-believable as that sounds. Someone suggested I go see her, and now she is my saving grace, the person who can put me back on the road to recovery and sanity, and hopefully, normalcy. She specializes in trigger point therapy, and for the first time, someone has actually put their hands RIGHT where the pain is, and is addressing it. All the other doctors who thought it was my back, treated me for back problems, but never stopped to listen to me tell them it was not "my back", it was my groin and thigh. I couldn't sit down, it was extreme torture to drive, because my groin felt like it was on fire, my leg felt like it was being ripped away from my body. Even at night when I would try to relax to sleep, the pain and the burning tightness in my leg would not allow me to get comfortable, and I would get very little sleep unless I resorted to about 2-3 sleeping pills every night. I would wake up the next day, haggard, exhausted, still in pain, very angry about it, and very much in an ill mood that would last throughout the day. Each day, each night, the cycle would repeat itself, I would wake up and wonder why bother and I would go to bed praying that I wouldn't wake up the next day, but I would, and I hated life for it, and it has been three very very long years of this. Still, each and every doctor and specialist that I would see decided that it just must be something in my back, I had a pinched nerve perhaps although no one could see it on the Xray or MRI, they couldn't tell me that for sure, they were all just guessing. They would all try something different, a different pill, or more pills, another epidural in a different place in my spine. Nothing, nothing, nothing ever gave me relief. Another Xray, another MRI, another doctor. The massage therapist talked to me, listened to me, had me point out on a diagram of the human anatomy to show her exactly where I hurt and how I hurt. She took my history, and finally we came to a conclusion that my pain was due to contracted muscles in an area where I had a medical problem several years ago, a common female problem that left me doubled over in pain for many months. The medical problem and the groin pain started at the same time, but when the medical problem was cleared up, the staggering pain remained in my groin and upper leg. She told me that when people suffer an injury or have a trauma to their body, it's very common that the muscles and tendons in that area contract with the pain, and that in some instances even once the pain is gone, the muscles just never ever let go and relax back to their normal place. It can last for years. My pain has been haunting me every day for over 3 1/2 years now, the entire time I've been married to A. So the therapist started to work on the muscles in my groin area, using the trigger point technique, which in itself is actually quite painful and bruised me for several days afterwards. But once the bruising was gone, my old pain was gone with it and as of today, I do not have pain in the part of my leg where she worked. But that was only a small area, and I do still have the pain where she has not yet worked on me. I go back to see her again this week, and she will concentrate on another area of my leg. She said that's why nothing ever showed up on the ultrasounds or CT scans, or MRIs and Xrays. That's why the many many epidurals I had in my back gave me no relief. That's why the mountain of pain pills I took every day never helped. Tightened muscles would not show up on any test, and no pain medicine would help it. The only thing that helped was the pill I took at bedtime, which was a very very strong muscle relaxer, and completely knocked me out. Sadly, I would wake up the next morning in agonizing pain again and the day would start all over again. I will continue to see her, and my hopes are that within the next few weeks, I will be completely pain free for the first time in well over three years. I have had crippling pain every single day, and I've forgotten what it feels like to be normal, to move about freely, to sleep soundly, to desire sex with my beautiful husband, to walk down the sidewalk, to drive to the grocery store, to be healthy even. The extreme amount of weight I gained with the inactivity, the wallowing I've done in self-pity that eats away at my soul every day, the awful names I've called myself because I can't get my housework done or I don't feel like having sex- I will have to work on those myself, and it will take time, I know. But I hope that it all will end very soon. And I hope with the freedom from pain, I can start to feel better inside my head as well, to clean out the dark and heavy thoughts, to replace them with the love I have for my husband, and hopefully, for my life again. Hating myself, hating my life has claimed a part of me that I want to get back again. I spent SO many years unhappy when I was married to X, because he was a dirtbag and a prick and he treated me like shit. But A, when I started dating him, it was the happiest time of my life because he is such a prince among men, so open and loving and wonderful and, he loved me back, he is still crazy about me even through all of this misery, he still desires me even with the extra weight, and he still tells me he loves me every single day. Our marriage has been so difficult, because of how much I've changed, inside and out, with the chronic pain. He says he understands, but he can't, this is a man in his 40's who has never missed one single day of work in his entire life due to illness. So, he can't say that he "understands" my pain. He may say that to make me feel better about it, and I know he means well, but he doesn't understand. It's not possible unless you go through it, and I certainly do not want him to ever go through something like this. I have always struggled in my life- with my weight, with my violent tendencies, with my dark perceptions. But the pain only compounded it over the years. I wanted to be free of it, but I was too much of a chicken shit to take my own life. Sometimes I would be driving and wish for a fatal car accident- I would be gone but A couldn't blame himself for it. But I was too chicken for that too. I decided instead that I have fight- to fight for my life, to fight against my body and my mind to rid it from the poison, to fight simply to survive my life day to day. I do want to live, and I do want to be happy, and I do want a normal life! If my physical pain is gone, surely my mental and emotional agony will leave me as well. I have to believe that. I have to keep holding out hope. I have to stop looking at my beautiful home as a prison, I have to stop looking at my life as a black hole that is sucking me farther down into it. I know that the pain caused my mental instability and depression, but I also know the depression deepened my physical pain. I have to believe that with one gone, the other will follow, surely. When I was in my 20's all I ever wanted to do was be a novelist, I didn't care what kind of book I wrote, I didn't want any literary awards, I just wanted to write full time and be paid for it. I've been writing again lately, and it feels good, and it is freeing for me. I lose myself in this little world I have created, and I can forget about the world that I actually have to live in. Once my pain is gone, and I can sit at my desk for longer periods without it causing such stabbing discomfort in my leg, I know that I will move forward with my dream of writing. I don't think A believes me, but it doesn't matter, and even if I suck as a writer at least it gives me something to do during the day and something to think about and something to look forward to. A is not at all a creative person, he is very technical and smart and likes results and hard work. I love to read, to write, to paint, to take photos, I am very artsy. But the worse I started to feel, the less interest I had in those subjects. I found no joy in a beautiful colorful piece of art, I felt no delight in a perfectly photographed landscape. I would read but the words went right through me, instead of finding their way into my heart. I want that life back, and for the first time in a very very very long time, I actually believe it is possible. All thanks to a massage therapist in a tiny little office in an out of the way shopping center. Who knew?

Twenty-One

It's 6:30 in the morning as I start this post. A is already gone to work, and he won't be home for at least 13 hours. That's how long he was gone yesterday. The hours are unbearable in this house, because I am alone with my pain. A read the paper this morning, showing me an article about a place in town that needed volunteers, to help sort items from donations. He shows me these things not because I'm interested, but because he hopes it might give me an idea of something to do with my time, out of the house. A neighbor came over last night to invite me over to a girls-night-out at her house, of Bunco, of socializing. I said yes to be polite, but I don't really want to go, I couldn't care less about meeting my neighbors or making new friends- but I will go and be charming and laugh and play, all the while I will be thinking how stupid these women are. One of them will probably piss me off by trying hard to convince me to come by their church on Sunday- I get that everywhere I go here in the South and it annoys the hell out of me, no pun intended. I think A is more excited about me going than I am, he was even mentioning it this morning at the breakfast table, where I sat like a dull lump, already in pain as soon as I woke up. Yesterday it was excruciating, one of my "9" days, as in on a scale of 1-10, how bad is the pain? 9 is the closest I've ever come to wishing I was dead. If I ever reach a 10 day, I just may do it, I will say fuck you pain you won't win. Two days ago I started to try and wean myself off my pain medication. I started out at 3 pills a day, now the doctor has me up to 8 a day and another one at night to knock me completely out. Over vacation, everyone seemed aghast at how often I took the pills, while I was still in pain even with 8 a day. I see how people become addicts so easily. I could, if the pills were available to me in unlimited quantities, and I didn't have to lie or cheat or steal to get them, because that's not in my nature to break the law to get something I want. My pain medication is not a narcotic and as far as I'm concerned it doesn't do much more than any over the counter drug, although while we were away, my mother slipped me a full bottle of Vicodin that she had, unused from a recent dental surgery. I will horde them away for the really bad days. I just used my last Vicodin two weeks ago, and even taking those did nothing for my pain. I don't have a prescription for them, but I get them from relatives who have them leftover from their own medical procedures. I have a bottle with five Valium left, too, but they also have little affect on me. Those were from a medical procedure I signed up for but didn't go through with, no refills. I have no desire to go back to the pain clinic, and I won't, I didn't like the doctor and he wouldn't write my pills for more than 30 days at a time, so screw him, I'm not running in there every 4 weeks just to get a refill for shit that doesn't even work. So I have no refills on my current pain medication, both of which are meds used for nerve damage and pain. I take 2400 mgs a day of one, and no relief. I take 200 mg a day of another med used to treat moderate neuropathic pain. Even adding four of these a day to my routine two months ago has given me very little relief. On top of my prescribed pain pills I take Aleve and Tylenol and Motrin like it was free. Nothing helps. Sometimes heat does, but only as long as I am in the scalding hot water of the bath tub or applying a heating pad directly to my skin- once I remove the heat, the pain returns almost instantly. Last night I took my pain pills, and a sleeping pill, and went to bed with my iPod on and a heating pad under my hip. Sometimes music distracts my brain long enough that I don't notice the pain as much, but last night it was so bad that even that old trick didn't work. This morning I am already at a 7, and I know a 9 is not far off from finding me. It sucks, I hate it, and the pain has changed my personality SO much in the three+ years since I hurt my back. I've gone the medical route, going to pain clinics and having injections of medication directly into my spine. Nothing has worked. So now I am going to go to a chiropractor, as soon as I can find a reputable one with a long-standing practice, and not some quack with a sign up in a shopping center window. I've never been to one, because until I hurt my back I never needed one, but I watched my parents and my sibling all go to one all their lives, as a regular part of their routine. An adjustment here, a quick pop there, and they were on their way. I have avoided one so far because I wanted to see a real doctor first. Yes, I know chiropractors all over the world will tell you they are doctors, and my best friend from high school is even a chiropractor. But I don't know anyone who has only gone to a chiropractor just once- it becomes a habit, like flossing your teeth or washing your hands after you pee. I just didn't want to jump on that carousel, not able to get off. I think it has come to that, I am desperate to try anything, because the pain has only become worse now that I'm not at an office all day long. I try to stay active here around the house, because sitting only antagonizes the pain. I want the pain to go away completely, and I want to feel better again, and if that means some dude popping my back or hooking me up to a machine that will stretch my spine (what my dad gets done, and swears by it), then I am to that point. Everyone I know loves their chiropractor, so maybe I am finally ready to fall in love with a new man, too. A feels terrible because he can't do anything for my pain, this is one thing he can't fix. He asks me ten times a night, is there anything I can do, anything I can get you, can I rub your back, your feet? He is equally desperate for me to feel better. If a chiropractor doesn't work, then I will try acupuncture, or yoga, I don't care. I will let them run me through a meat grinder somewhere if only the pain will go away, I can't take it anymore. I am only in my 40's, I can't live another 30 years like this, I will either go insane or I will kill myself. It is that bad. I want my old personality back, the one where I smiled and meant it, the one where I could keep up when A and I went places, the one where I didn't lose patience with my cat for rubbing up against me and wanting attention, the one where I liked my life, all life. I haven't felt any of that since the pain took over everything, every movement, every thought, wiping out anything else I might feel. I only feel the pain. Today I already can barely move, and I dread the housework that looms ahead of me today- laundry, cleaning the kitchen- things that will, for me, be almost impossible to accomplish because I can't even bend over to pick up a dirty sock off the floor. A helps around the house as much as he can, since he is hardly ever here that is very little. But he shouldn't have to, he works 60+ hours a week in order for us to afford our life, and the man shouldn't have to wash his own clothes, too. That's why he has a wife, and one who stays home all day long. I've tried to explain to him how bad the pain is, and when I told him I am to a point where I don't want to wake up in the mornings, I think he thought I meant I want to sleep in longer. I meant, I don't want to wake up, at all. If that's what it takes for me to stop feeling this agonizing pain, then I am to that point. I know my physical pain plays a role in my great emotional pain, and my growing depression. There are a lot of things I could be doing here at this house while unemployed. But the physical pain keeps me from most of it, so the mental anguish gets deeper. If a chiropractor doesn't help me, I don't know where to turn to next. The possibility of that scares the shit out of me. SO many friends and family members have told me their miracle stories about the chiropractor, I have to hold out some hope. I am at the end of my rope, though, and I am ready to hang myself with it.

Twenty

I have not been blogging lately because I have been in deep, grief-filled mourning for Michael Jackson, and have locked myself away since his death, trying to make sense of his untimely demise. Hah. Sorry, I have a sicko sense of humor, he was a loser and it's all now being treated like a head of state passing away. Makes me ill. No, I'm back from a few days spent on the warm and sunny beaches of Florida, where A and I met up with all of my immediate family. There were a total of eight of us. I managed to act normal the entire trip, although I had my moments, but I kept them all inside. A and my father have become good friends over the years, and they have a lot in common and are very much alike in many, many ways. When we get together with my parents, A and my dad have a tendency to go off and do things together, which in a way I appreciate because my parents always hated X, and he equally did a lousy job of tolerating any time spent visiting with them. But, as much as I am gladdened by my parents' love and adoration for my newer husband, vacationing with them leaves a bit of a sting in my heart. A and I barely spend time together, which annoys me because it is our vacation as a couple as much as it is as a big family. While A and my father went off every afternoon and evening to do manly activities together, I was stuck mostly with my boring but sweet mother and sometimes my snobby sibling and her children. Not to say that I didn't enjoy seeing them. But while I was trying to be a good daughter and sister, I was inside a wilting tree that was needing attention from A. I got very little of it, although one afternoon we did manage to spend a few hours together at the beach, taking in lunch on the water. But that was it. I would sit around with my mother talking, or go shopping with her, or to lunch with her, or trying to smile when my nephews did something funny, or politely listening to my sibling's advice to me about my life. It even got to a point where my mother and I were sitting around doing puzzles out of the newspaper, and I just wanted to excuse myself and go into my bedroom for a few minutes, by myself, but I was too afraid of upsetting my mother so I stayed attached to her hip. There was not a moment of quiet on this vacation, as I was never alone for even five minutes, unless it was at bedtime and by then it really didn't matter anymore. I know A had a good time, and while I inhaled the warmth of being surrounded by a loving family that I only get to see two or three times a year, I tried to exhale and to let it all go and have a good few days. I guess I just have a different opinion of what a perfect vacation is, and it's not having someone in your face every minute of the day. A is not the type to slow down, even on vacation, so he had to be doing something all the time, and usually it was with my father because he is the same way. I am happy to sit in one place for long hours, doing nothing, taking it all in and trying to find a centered place in my mind to throw away all of my issues, at least for a few days. But, short of buying my own island somewhere, I don't see that ever happening. I did come back home with less anger in my heart, less hatred for the world, and I know it won't last, as much as I will fight against it overcoming me again. But I also came back to the great, empty nothingness of my home. A got up before dawn and headed off to work, and I slept a miserable 13 hours, refusing to get up and face the day, back to the old routine. Errands awaited me already today, errands that A was depending on me to take care of because he doesn't have the time, so I spent hours driving about town. Everything I did, every place that I stopped, I felt empty inside, with no thought or joy in my actions, I was mechanical. I am "not living in the moment" as they say on the talk shows. My head is somewhere else, and not focusing on the grocery list as I wandered the aisles of the despicable entity that is called Wal-Mart. I stopped at five places around town today, only hours ago, and I can't recall a single thing about what I did, I can't give you one detail about any of it. My mind is already blank, the pressure of a migraine already building on my first day back home. There are things here at the house, calling out for my attention now that I've returned- the cats, the garden, the laundry, the whole home itself. Today I am doing my best to block it all out, to ignore it for as long as I can. I do not want to load the dirty dishes into the dishwasher right now, and I don't want to wash the dirty clothes we brought home from the beach, and I don't even want to go out in my own yard to tend to my dying flowers, my wilted vegetables, my empty bird feeders. They reflect how I feel now. Today I opened up all the shades in the house. We recently installed two-inch, real wood blinds on all the windows, the expensive ones because A thinks that nothing is too good for his wife, and the last few weeks we've kept them closed to ward off the unmerciful sun that beats down on our house and yard, day after day. Trying to keep the house cooler. But the last few weeks have also kept me shrouded in gloom, in darkness, the blinds closed so tight I can't even guess as to the weather or time of day outside. I can't stand it anymore, I had to have the sunlight in my house, the glare in my eyes, to let me know that yes, it's another day, and yes, I'm still alive. My mother had a long talk with me, about keeping up with my housework and taking care of my husband, now that I'm at home and unemployed. She told me to be a dutiful wife, that's her exact words, she is so old-fashioned. So I will come back to this life now, and I will do what is expected of me, what A needs me to do so that our life runs smoothly. I will vacuum up the cat hair, I will haul the newspapers off to the recycle center, I will take his dress clothes to the dry cleaners, I will water the house plants, I will chop fresh vegetables so we can eat a healthy dinner. But I will not want to do it, and I will find no love in doing any of it, and I will do it with anger and resentment in my heart, and I don't understand why. I love A, but I do not love our life together. It would break his heart in a million pieces to know this, so I still wear my phony smile and I hug him as hard as I can and hold on as long as he'll let me, and while my heart rages, his heart can remain intact and full of love for me, ignorant about the truth, my truth. I do not deserve his love. He deserves a better wife.