Social Media Newbie…

In actuality, I didn’t know that Facebook, Twitter, and LinkdIn, and Google Circles, and Tumblr, and. Pinterest, and… All the rest… Were part of Social media. Not a clue. I didn’t know they counted. Until a few days ago.  My husband asked if I would ghost write some updates, blogs, and statuses for his business. I believe it is called, “getting your brand out there”.

I said “ok”. Like it was no big deal. I didn’t want him to know how little I knew about social media. I mean, honestly, I had to be the last person on the planet to be on Twitter.  I was much more comfortable with checking Facebook a few times a day, and calling it good.

did it occur to me that these options could be used for business purposes, and for networking? Nope. (Even though I have about half of my home town friended on my Facebook account. how’s that for networking?) I just thought it was a fun way to catch up with people and see what meaningless recipes were out there.

luckily, this opportunity has fallen in my lap.

i have researched the ins and outs of many different options, making accounts for myself, and engaging in them.

Wanna know what I found?

a fantastic opportunity to chat with purpose. Sharing ideas and resumes and articles and pictures and posts… They have been there all along, but I just discovered it out now. So I’m behind. Sue me. But I am excited.

Now the work begins. I know what my husband does. It is just time to soak up the info and put it into words, articles, and posts. It’s exciting and I am out of my element. Except for one thing: I love meeting people, chatting with them, blogging, and researching. It’s my jam, if you please.

I won’t be an expert for a long time. But I am almost graduated from a newbie. Wish me luck!

 

The Good News About Some Crappy Stuff…

So here is another New Years Post. I’m not reading the ones that are out there because they seem very … fluffy. Fluff has a place. I write a lot of Fluff. Just not today. Today is a day that is me letting out a breath that I’ve held on to for the entire year. Lots of chaos happened this year. Lots of hard times, and “Holy Crap! How Did That Happen???”-ness. We struggled with medical bills this year. We always stayed on top, but we juggled A LOT. Why medical bills? Well, I was told that I have Bipolar, as I have said. I got to deal with medication. And a ton of Dr. Appointments. Thus the bills for medication and appointments. BLECH. But, I also learned that I wasn’t broken. I have huge up’s and down’s, still, but I’m not broken. ( I sure feel like it sometimes.) My husband got to recognize and aid me in the triggers that cause the up’s and down’s, and my grey-ness that happens in between.  That’s a lot of chaos for him too.  Our neighborhood struggled with the kidnapping and death of a child, and it took its toll.   And then there was the regular chaos that happens because that’s life.

What’s the point?

The point is that I was holding my breath, kind of, throughout the year, waiting for another thing to happen. I was waiting for more and more things to pile up, and I became a bit numb through the year. So I’m asking myself, “Do I have another year like this to look forward to? What else can possibly happen?”

As I write, I realize that, yes, more can happen.  More can happen because LIFE happens. This is life. This is what happens when I’m not on vacation, or asleep, or watching TV. It’s what happens in between appointments, and phone calls, and things to look forward to.  Sometimes life has terrible things go on. Things that just don’t seem to have a silver lining. And yet, bad things happen to good people. And bad people, for that matter. But as long as I am looking to dodge the bad things, I am looking to dodge life. And I simply can’t do it. In fact, I don’t, when I think about it, want to dodge life. Because life is full of the good stuff, too.

This year was full of good things. The good things came, sometimes, from the lessons learned when bad stuff happened. For instance, all the Dr. bills. A TON OF THEM!!!!!! The good news is that somehow, we paid them every month. And that took us learning, or exercising self-discipline with our money.  Something we really didn’t need or want to do before. We are breaking the habit of spending it all because we can. We now know how to budget and save. It’s only taken us 21 years, 🙂 But I don’t know that we would have learned this lesson any other way. So it’s good news.

Another thing is, believe it or not, with the lessons that have come from me living with Bipolar. I am learning to rely on other people’s ideas and advice. If you know me, you will know that I happen to have a hard time with anyone else but me being right. 🙂  Again, I don’t know that I could learn this kind of humility any other way. So I am thankful for this good news.

Lastly, I am noticing that bad things that happen, things that make me not want to even go outside my front door anymore… those things don’t last. The horrible things that I think will never go away…. they do diminish, a bit, with time. With a community, or a family, pulling together, trust can be built again. The real pain of crying and crying as I’m sick over worrying about that little girl and her family, and the heartache of knowing she won’t be with them anymore…… it’s painful.

And…

And, eventually, my body served me by stopping the tears. Letting me breathe and move and live life in all the minute details that it takes to run a household. I guess what I’m saying is that even with the pain, life let me move forward. Painfully, sometimes, but move forward, nonetheless.  I still grieve for a family and their loss. I still grieve for my change in life, for heaven’s sake, but life is letting me move forward. And that is the good news that goes with this year.

There are fireworks tonight. They will celebrate the end of my hard year, and the end of my blessed year. Ok, and the beginning of the New Year. I guess if next year turns out to be like this year, what I hope is to recognize the blessings that come from the lessons learned.  🙂  Happy New Year!

 

The Cheese Puffs Are The Schnizz…

 

 

 

 

I love cheese puffs.

 

 

 

I use them as rewards for me, because although they are not healthy, they taste like heaven in a puffy cocoon. I suck on them and can feel them just crush down into my mouth, the air going out of them. All that is left is the flavor that I savor as I finish it up and swallow. Ew? Well, to each her own. That is my reward that lets me do things like …. mop a floor, or write a story, or even perk up when I have made a mistake.

 

 

 

Because mistakes are horrible for me. I happen to believe that I am not allowed to make mistakes. 

 

 

 

I know, no one is perfect, but apparently, this only applies to other people. I am not supposed to make mistakes. I am supposed to do things correctly the first time, and be amazing all the time. I honestly have believed that. So I am very hard on myself when I have a human moment. Sometimes I wallow in it for a time.

 

 

 

So my cheese puffs are there to say, “Dur, it’s just a mistake. Get over it. Other people have moved on, and don’t give a crap about your mistake anymore. No one is thinking about you but you. Have a puff and move on. Sheesh.”  That’s what cheese puffs are about.  Which is why they are so vital to me when I make a mistake with the Bipolar part of my life.

 

 

 

I am not perfect while living with Bipolar. I have to admit it in order for me to move forward with it. It is my human moment part in my life, and it comes up at the most unexpected times.  Like when I stay up too late. Or when I don’t eat correctly, or when I forget to take my medicine with me on a trip. Or when I take my medicine late.  Silly things that have always been part of my life, and have been just part of me being a nerd are now things that trigger Bipolar Nerd.

It’s like my Nerd is magnified 100 times when Bipolar is in charge for the day.

 

 

 

 

 

English: Typical Dollar Store, San Francisco (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Like… Not caring if I wear matching shoes. (Erp.)  Or, spending a large amount of money on things that are just silly, from the Variety Store (it seems very important to buy them at the time.)  Or, talking on the phone, texting on the same phone, biting my nails, and forgetting to care if I stop at a Stop sign.  (Cause yeah, I decide to drive while doing all that earlier stuff as well. I DO stop at the sign, but I just don’t care about it.)  Scary? Yes.  Especially because it all seems perfectly normal when I am having an especially …human… bipolar day.  Mistakes could be made when I don’t stay within certain Bipolar rules. So you can see why making a mistake is something I just can’t afford.

 

 

 

 

And that is hard for me to admit, ergo the Puffs.

 

 

 

I just figured out that I cannot do this alone. You know, living with Bipolar, and living life. So I take medicine and the Bipolar days become Sharon Days. Woot. But I also know that I cannot live life without ……. living life.  I don’t do well with doom and gloom. In fact, my journey is currently consisting of finding the humor in the quirks that happen because of this new development. You know, being in the roller coaster of the ups and downs that are part of living with Bipolar.

 

 

 

So here are some funny things about me when I have an up. I mean a really…up…up.  I happen to get a bit narcissistic. It looks like me looking in the mirror a lot, fixing my hair a lot, and taking five pics of me to get just the right pic so I can post it in Facebook, and make it look like it was a casual look in the camera.  On a normal day, I’d look 3 time in the mirror and take the pic as is.   But on an … UP… day, I will look at myself in the mirror 3 times as many times in a day, but I can’t seem to concentrate on what  I’m looking at, so I will look at my nose for 1 time, and my ear for another, and maybe my mouth. But I cannot look at my entire face or body because, WHO HAS TIME FOR THAT?

 

 

 

Quarters (Photo credit: Jennuine Captures)

 

 

 

 

In fact that is my entire life on that day.  I am moving so fast that I don’t have time to think because WHO HAS TIME TO PONDER?  I will see a quarter on the ground and stoop to pick it up, but because i am going fast, I don’t have time to stop and pick it up with my fingers, so I miss it.  I stop, turn around and go for it again, and miss it again. This time, surprised that it isn’t in my hand, i squat down so i can get a good grip, and again, I miss it.  Now i’m a bit frustrated, and I think I will simply scoop it up with my hand. Nope. I get a bit of grime from the ground, but no quarter. I finally move on because i am sure that somehow the quarter has been glued to the ground and i am on candid camera.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My daughter is watching the thing perplexedly, comes by behind me, and picks up the quarter for me to see. She is 5 then.  I have been shown up by a five-year old. 🙂 that’s funny.

 

 

 

I need Cheese Puffs in my life to let me know that I have a reward for when my shoes do match, as well. Or for when I recognize that I am getting a bit too …UP…, and I just skip driving altogether. Or when I fold socks and stay put instead of spending money on dollar store toys.

 

 

 

Or for when I get the quarter on the first try. 🙂

 

 

 

I could get disturbed by what the …ups… could do in my life, and I have been. But I am at a place now where I am in control of it, and 99.9 percent of the time you will never know that I do battle with the Bipolar part of my life. I am safe to drive, to shop, and to dress myself. And, I guess, to write a bit. That is a win.

 

 

 

Now where did I put my bag of Cheese Puffs?

 

 

 

 

 

I Wilted Today….

I wilted, and I wasn’t even outside.

Today was 93 degrees…In My House. How did that even happen? I had all the windows closed except for the designated “Juuuuust A Hair open, so the cooler will rush out through it, inadvertently hitting us beings and making us smile” window. All the blinds were closed, making us look as if we had a questionable substance shop going on in the place. And we did.

A sweat shop.  A. Sweat. Shop.

I couldn’t leave it behind. It was in the kitchen, when I went to get a popsicle. (The popsicle didn’t help. It just teased my throat a bit.) It was in the bedroom as I decided to lay down for a nap, just to while away the time and hopefully getting a time warp into the future where it is less than 84 degrees in the air.  I couldn’t even leave it behind when I went into the magic room with it’s own cooler (yes it was cooler, but only by a bit, thereby making my sweat cold on my skin. ugh.)

So I wilted.

I could tell because first, my hair stopped loving itself. It lay limply on my head, and refused to play nice. It schlumped around, throwing a temper tantrum, and let me tell you, it did a good job. Hair sticking to my scalp in odd places, and jumping up in the air in other spots. Rude.   Then, my clothes got wind of the hair going AWAL. I know this because they started to climb, ride, and stick where they had no business being in the first place. Surprising, when I got up to answer the door, and I had to do a quick talking to for all of it. Blech.  Next came, well, my temper. It rose, and bubbled and boiled. Just ask my husband. He was on the short end of it. When we were in nap mode, my temper let him know in no uncertain terms, that he had sticky elbows, large arms, and WILL YOU GET YOUR FOREHEAD OFF MY PILLOW?  (he just looked at me and shook his head, but non-threateningly. He is used to that skill after 21 years.) Lastly, my wilt became complete when I found myself laying on the sofa of the main floor, and just staring at the ceiling. Willing the time to go by. Waiting for…something to break up the heat, and being just fine with the sheen of moisture that popped out all over my neck and face. (The highlight of the afternoon came from the texts that were sent to me. You know who you are. Thank you.)

At 9:00 PM, the temperature dropped to roughly 85 degrees, and I have felt like someone watered my spirit with gatorade and happiness. Does it matter that tomorrow will be just about as hot? Nope. Because today has taught me to live in the moment. My hair agrees. My clothes are calm again, and I have energy. Thank you, anti-wilt fairy. Remind me to make you some brownies. I will make them, of course, when it isn’t so hot in the kitchen. Check back next week. Whew!

 

What’s Up With Finding One’s Purpose, Anyway?

 

 

I just knew, at the age of 9, that I would be a Trumpet Player. The best in the entire town. At 10, that turned into the rush of knowing I  would be the best trumpet player on the planet. At 12, I knew my purpose was song writing. 5 months later, I just had to become the most passionate baritone horn-ist in all of Small-Town, USA. At 15, my purpose turned back to songwriting, but this time from the seat of the piano. I was a girl with purpose.

My trumpet days are behind me, for the most part, left at my high school graduation. That baritone horn keeps it company.  I do have horns next to the piano in my home, but they have a bit of dust on them, and that’s okay.

 

I’m 38 now, and today I had no purpose. In fact, I felt a bit disconsolate about it. Especially because I have been asked in the last week, “Oh, and what are you up to NOWADAYS? What do you DO?”

Harrumph.

 

 

I am a mom of 5, and run a home 24 hours a day. My kitchen is a revolving island of comfort and conversation, messiness and mopping up. I have kids in High school and Elementary, and 1 that is a welder, and out of school completely, on his way to his own life. I cheer my husband when he has a bad day, and I balance the budget. I make all the appointments and phone calls, take those that need to, to appointments and back again, and sooth them into going there in the first place.  I take and pick up kids from school and work, I take them to get clothes and shoes, and I listen to hubby relay his day, every day.

 

I have spent time in the work-field, but am currently raising a family full-time. And I couldn’t answer the question of “What Do I Do?” definitively.  I felt keenly empty.  Why was that?

 

Well, I would say it is because I lost my purpose.   I forgot that it takes passion to make one count to oneself.

 

It doesn’t matter what we are doing currently in life, as long as we do it with purpose.  I was not doing anything with purpose today. And that stank.  I did look at Facebook about 270 times today.  I did play online scrabble on my phone.  I did wait for someone to call and need me (which didn’t happen), and I did go to the gym only to do such a bland routine that I watched the seconds on the machines go by, one at a time.  I did forget to love being me.

 

How silly, to forget to love ones self.  How silly, to need to be needed to the exclusion of finding the adventure in the day.

 

Well.

 

It is 9:06 PM, and I just got out of my hot tub, watered the flowers on my patio, and schlumped onto my bed.  However, I did these last 3 things with purpose, and they felt great. Tomorrow, no matter what, I will use purpose in whatever I do. It will push back the whiny, needy, insignificant feelings that eat at our lives when we cannot always tell people in one sentence what we do with ourselves, “Nowadays”. And my purpose, whether I pick up my trumpet, or pick up my kids, will be what defines me. Not the physical action itself.

 

 

 

I think that trumpet is going to win out, tomorrow, though.  And I’ll play it loudly, and with passion. The neighbors can ask themselves what THEY are doing with themselves, lately, that they are listening to a 38-year-old woman try to play “Blue Bells Of Scotland” well.  And doing a fair job of it.  I don’t mind in the least.

 

 

In The Desolate Places Of Life, Sometimes You Just Run Into A Promising Specimen…

Death Valley….  4 Corners….  3 miles past the Kansas/Colorado border….  The drive around the Great Salt Lake, after exit 91, going west….  I-80, from Rawlins to Rock Springs, in Wyoming….  I would lump these places (and all others that have no food/water/or greenery) into the DESOLATE folder of my travel-a-mony, shove it back into my file cabinet of boring memories, and go out to play.

Except for this.

While I tend to travel through these places a few times a year, in each spot,  and for no good reason that i can tell,  ( and when i am at my most mind-numbing, bored-out-of-my-guts part of the trip, wanting to turn around and never speak of it again),  something amusing/shocking happens.    I either see, or experience something that makes it JUST worth while enough to keep going.    Nooo,  aliens don’t abduct me. (Although i sometimes beg for it.  Honestly, when my option for music is the gospel/mariachi/medical channel,  or the all-sound-effects-all-the-time channel, who can blame me, right?)

What does happen is some ……SOMETHING……..

Death Valley (Photo credit: Ray Ordinario)

Something happens to pull me out of my self pity, lets me focus on the here and now for a bit, and solves the problem enough for me to move through to my destination.    It could be that concrete Tree of Life sculpture (you know, with the big ol balls hanging off it?), or what i swear is a 2-headed hawk circling over a dead deer, off to the side.  It could even be that cattle truck wreck caused by the high winds, bad roads, and curve at milepost 176.

Good or bad,  they are heavensent to me, not because i enjoy seeing sad/bad/shocking/entertaining/good things, but because they let me move forward.  With hope.  With meaning.

Interestingly enough, I feel that being put on hold, pressing 2 to speak in my native language, or having to repeat my issue to several people in a row makes me feel just as desolate.  When i call a number to get assistance with an issue,  I’m assume that they can assist me,  that they are qualified to do so,  that they have their morning coffee, and no one has peed in their Wheaties.  I guffaw at my self a bit when i am dumbfounded as i’m being put on hold with the 3rd operator, somewhere around the world, who is very politely and enthusiastically letting me know, “This is not a problem. No, no. This, this can be taken care of simply if i just hold while i am transferred to another department.”  (it’s the same guy each time!  I know it!  I recognize the speech impediment!)

Customer service center - note that there is only one operator serving both queues (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

i don’t have a problem at all. which means, obviously, that it MUST be all in my head.

“Really?” I think.  “Am i this crazy/stupid/out of touch?”  Is this what the assistance number is for then?  For us silly people to be enlightened as we come to the reality that we don’t really have a problem. WE ARE the problem?

I’m assuming, as some others do, that we will just have to fight through this muddled game to get to the end result.   “ok, i don’t care who’s the idiot.  i just need my ……(fill in the blank with what my need is here)……. to be better!”  So i press whichever buttons on my phone connect me to whichever man/woman/child/monkey is appointed to be smarter than me in this arena, and grit my teeth while i go through the song and dance that is the customer service phone call nightmare.

No wonder i am feeling desolate.  WHO CAN SAVE ME FROM THIS???

And then,  SOMETHING happens.  SOMEONE takes pity on me.  For instance,  Jerry in Kansas.  He is my savior this week.  I needed something,  i didn’t know how to get that something to work,  and he did.  Instead of sending me around the world and back just to see if i really, REALLY wanted his help,  he talked with me.  Mano Y Mano.  (Yeah,  i just pulled out the mano y mano bit.  Because i felt like a person with him.)  I felt like he wanted to solve my problem.   I KNOW!!!!!  Odd, that.

It was like seeing that wreck on the side of the road all over again!  You know it is out there.  You know that you could happen upon it at any time,  and yet when you are lucky enough to see it, to experience it,  you don’t know what to do with it until you are past it and have to appreciate it in hindsight.

“What waaas that?”,  you wonder, driving by at 80 miles an hour.   “Was that a deer?  An orangutan?”  “And what was the truck it was hooked to? A semi? An RV?”   All these things go by as you make sure you are not the rubber-necker that is holding up traffic, but in your mind, you think up a plausible story to go with the flash of what you saw.   How the truck had to have run up the side of the hill to get that animal smacked just right….. How old the deer was.. Did it have a family?…..    ……   …… (What?  you don’t do that?)

You might not have gone the desolate places i have then.

The same thing happens with the phenomonen of having a live operator actually know what he is talking about. And be polite,  AND do what it takes to solve the problem.   “WHO is this genius?”  “Why is he talking with me?”  “Shouldn’t he be in a…a…a board meeting or something?”  “What kind of donuts does he like, and where could i send a shipment to say thank you?”   “Does he have kids or a love life?  (No how could he, if he is this dedicated to knowing an answer on this line).”  …. …  ….  And it keeps me going through all the hoops and beeps that it takes for me to get back to Jerry, just in case i drop the line.

Not only that,  but this rare behavior keeps me wondering about all the next times i have to go back into the land of service operators.   “How bout now?  could i be lucky twice in my life?  could i get another Jerry?”  No!  Of course not.   Those events only come around every once in a lifetime.

I get pandered back and forth from Noah, who has forgotten to be interested in me as a customer (sometimes actually talking with his buddy next cubicle away about last nights game), and Patricia, who is clearly picking her teeth while on line with me.   I can tell from the sucking sound she makes when i’m talking.  the “thhhw thhhwu thhhwup” sound of air going through her teeth.  The wet smacking sound of the finger in the back of her mouth….. ew.  She’s no Jerry.

  But ,  i reason,  Jerry served a purpose.  Jerry kept me going when i wanted to turn back.  Jerry will keep me going when i have to travel back into customer service land as the elusive EVENT OF HAPPY GOODNESS.   Thank you Jerry.  You were my Tree Of Life in the desolate places of phone land.   Please let me know where to send the Krispy Kremes.

 

I Am Alive. How Hurtful. How Dare I?

Writing is harder, when it matters.

Today, I looked at a video and sobbed. I sobbed with choking little sounds and hiccups that made me cough in the middle. I shook my head in the “Oh no. No this cannot be happening” sort of way, and held my hand to my chest. It let me know that I was alive. I felt a bit ashamed for feeling glad that it wasn’t me. My high school schoolmate has Stage 4 Cancer. She is there, and I am here. We haven’t spoken for years, and when we did, it was fleetingly, in passing. I was really not interested in her life at that time. We were different scholastically and socially, and … again, I didn’t know enough of her background or anything else to say more. Except for this: She Was Always There.

We lived in a small town, so the kindergarten-mates were my high school mates. So she was always there, passing, or being noticed in the cafeteria, or at ball games. Always there. I would see her at the little Jr. Mart and nod with a vague smile that said, “I acknowledge you. You are on good terms with my social circle. You may pass in my space with no hard feelings.” I took her for granted.

The Johnson Hall-Deseret Mercantile Building, a historic building in Grantsville, Utah, United States. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

And, I left the town. I grew up and had a family, and so did she, and I didn’t know of her life at all from that point. Nor did I think about her.  Until now. I looked at this video because it was on Facebook, and my entire hometown is on Facebook, so there she was. I clicked because I was jolted that there was anything wrong at all. And like me looking at a wreck on the highway, I stopped just long enough to see who and what and where and why.  And then I looked a bit longer.

This life-wreck belonged to my school mate. And was heart-wrenching. Not detected until it had gotten to Stage 4, this woman was happy and had kids and a husband and a life. And it could go away. Not abruptly. Nope. That would be more kind, I believe. No, this wreck was a slow wreck that let her life be put slowly in order, with many people saying hello when they were actually saying goodbye. And it was not kind because she got to hear and see and note them all. Not kind for her to know that she could not establish ties again with these people who said ,” I just heard! I am so sorry. Is there anything I can do?” Of course they cannot, now, but they could have provided a more rich life for her by being there in the first place, when nothing was wrong.

That was me. I was that person that said empty words that didn’t mean anything of what I wanted them to mean.  When I said those words, what I meant was, ” I am so sorry that I didn’t care. That our lives didn’t cross sooner, and in better times. I am so sorry that your heartache makes me selfishly hold my children longer, and hug my husband harder, knowing how precious they are to me. I am sorry that I probably won’t see you in person at all because I can’t get away, even now, to hug you myself.” I am so sorry that I still care enough to sob, because it means I do actually care, and her name is attached to the memories I have that had her there for me for my childhood years.

How dare I be fine when she is not? This is not logical, but it is emotional, and I am mad and sad and glad and hurt all at once. What I really wish doesn’t matter. What does matter is that I remember her now. And her family. And I know she gives me an opportunity to think of her and her family, and my family as well. Honor to you, Ash. You matter to me.

-S.