Back in Athens, getting ready to move Briton into his apartment tomorrow, then go to Atlanta to bring Hannah home for the holidays Tuesday.  Thoroughly unsettled, body and mind.

Time

I am in Middle Tennessee.  Have been since Sunday night, actually.  I had wi-fi installed in Mama and Daddy's house today, so that when we come here in the future, we don't have to live computerless.

It has been an agonizing week.  I brought Finn with me, and discovered on the trip up --- discovered twice, to be exact --- that he gets carsick.  And he's been very (understandably) whiney when I've had to leave to undertake all this paperwork, then very (understandably) clingy when I return.  I've tried to keep my outings to a minimum, but what you find when you try to wrap up a deceased parent's affairs is that one necessary form always leads to at least two others.  And appointments must be made.  And it is cold and raining and then snowing, and you are on such an edge that you are eating your anti-anxiety medication like candy.  And when you finish a day's traversing, you start downing melatonin and ibuprofen PM so you can just go to sleep and not have to feel the panic anymore.

I've had people offer to come by, to talk to me on the phone, but I simply haven't been able to face that.  I've been so frantic, so distressed that I knew having to talk with anyone would undoubtedly send me right over the edge.  So I've lain here with my feet elevated and my heart pounding, and poor little Finn skooching up as close to me as he can get, begging not to pass out.  Or crack up.

And I have to come back and do this time and time and who knows how many more times again before everything is really done.

I just can't look at any of that right now.  It's too, too, too much.

'Tis the Season

Made this this weekend, and still can't get over how cute it is.  The snowflakes and "pearls" are cut from miniature garland, and just tacked on.

Made lots of little things this weekend: several seed stitch buttoned bracelets that are my "Goosebumps" series, a couple of wide buttoned cuffs, pet things.  Just a few sales is all I ask.  If you had told me last year that Christmas this year would be even grimmer, I wouldn't/couldn't have believed you.  But it is.  A year without a job does that to a holiday.

Lately

I'm in a black mood.  Feel like I'm getting sick.  Feel like I'm flailing and thrashing about with no direction or anchor.  I'm mad.  I'm frustrated.  I can't sleep.  I want to be left utterly alone.

 

Dear God, please don't let this mean another medication has stopped working.

Saturday Night

Daughter came home from school Thursday, but she and Son are both in Atlanta tonight.  He and his girlfriend are at a concert --- they gave Daughter a ride here . So I'm facing an empty nest in the literal and the figurative sense.

With all the things that have gone on with me this year, Empty Nest syndrome never made it on my radar.  I don't know why --- maybe because Daughter came home every other weekend last year.  This year, the weekends she has been here, fights have broken out between all possible combinations of the three of us.  In fact, the last time she was here, it got so bad that she asked to be taken back to Atlanta immediately.  Broke my heart.  And maybe I've been over-checking, trying to make sure that she and her brother are alright, that things are okay between them and me --- I'm completely at a loss as to how to handle either one of them right now.

Haven't seen my psychiatrist since I had to cancel my post-surgery appointment.  And I am out of my main anti-depressant.  Went to therapy on Thursday, but all I could do was sit and cry.  Nothing got accomplished.  Crying is my default mode lately.  My children don't like me to cry, so they sort of tune out when I start.  And today, when I called my mother, and began to choke up, she told me not to cry.  I can't help it.  I'm just incredibly teary lately.  But no one will allow me the room and the freedom to just let go.

Until this afternoon.  Almost as soon as they were out the door, the floodgates opened.  And I'm about to let go again right now.  What is wrong with me? 

Other than living with the majority of major life stressors on just about any list you can find.

So Let's See

A week ago, I have my gall bladder taken out very suddenly. I'm bruised from stem to stern, with all the internal pain that goes along with that.

So I've been sleeping a bit awkwardly, first in the hospital with the IV, then at home to avoid the discomfort.

A few weeks ago, I took that horrid fall that resulted in what I'm convinced was a concussion.

For how many months, I've been stressed by my life. And I've found out I carry my tension on my left side.  Lots of stress, lots of pressure for my left side to be carrying.

The last two nights, I had such a pain in my left neck that I was on the verge of tears.  I could tell one of my vertebrae was out of line, that I needed my chiropractor, but I figured I could white-knuckle it.  Maybe it would get better.

Last night, I was in an agony I don't believe I've ever experienced before.  Pain and fear and pain.  I hung on until about 9 PM so I could take some Percocet (I'm running out), but had to gave in and called my chiropractor.  At home.  After not seeing him for a couple of years.

He saw me this morning and declared me "A wreck.  A physical mess."

But he popped my neck back into place.  And worked on my back, which caused me the first pain I've every felt during an adjustment. A good pain, I suppose, but still a hurt. Told me to take double doses of Aleve today and tomorrow, go back and see him Monday.  He proclaimed my neck problem "solved."

That eased my mind some.  And I've had to say it to myself several times since I've been home.  I am uncomfortable and nearly out of pain medication and by myself.  (Briton has been with his girlfriend this whole time.  Hannah's working the haunted house in Atlanta every weekend.)  Not embarrassed to say I've been scared to the point of having to melt Ativans under my tongue and get my feet up higher than my head so I won't faint.

Don't go back to the surgeon for another couple of weeks, but will definitely be calling the office and begging for an extension on pain meds come Monday.  Some calmer tonight, thanks to the chiropractor.  But sapped of the crazy knitting urge.  Which is bad on two levels: not getting things made for the etsy shop, and not giving me something to think about other than what's happening inside my body.