Missing Girl

She was happy. Bright. Confident. Going places. Things were not going to stand in her way. The future spread out ahead with limitless possibilities. School. Career. Boys. Men. Husband. Girlfriends. Aunt. Children. She planned on making a difference. Making the world a brighter place for the next generation.

She is lost. Trapped somewhere. Screaming to get out.

For years the ebb and flow of depression has been on the periphery. Never in complete control always pushed under. Let out at night alone under the cloak of darkness. Now the tide is high.

Insecurity. Guilt. Anxiety. Worthlessness. Worst of all engulfing loneliness has replaced the joy that lit her blue eyes. The days march on blurring together. Every sunset bringing afresh wave guilt as the endless to do list continues to grow with nothing checked off.

The bright girl looks out from her prison unable to recognize the shambles that has become a reality.

The dishes pile in the sink. Laundry in the basket. Paper s unfinished. Calls unanswered. Friendships left dangling; the energy it takes to hide the internal darkness is too much to bear.

The bright girl. The shining girl. She screams.

Sometimes you can hear her.

Post Christmas Wish

While I have been away, and I do intend to get back to regular blogging when I get back to regular life (whatever that is). I have been faithfully reading this blog for a long time and during some of my loneliest times her blog has made me laugh. Now she has a request and I thought I'd pass it along to my readers as well.


My name is brandy. And I have a blog.

And a plea.

I use my blog to showcase the crazy I meet everyday, share the stories of the kids I teach and document my love for tequila, dairy products and the abdominal muscles of Ryan Reynolds. Rarely do I talk about personal issues on my blog- as personal as the dude that I adore (who I actually met through my blog- single ladies, let that be a very good reason to blog, the possibility of meeting someone as wonderful as my man), but I need your help. And it involves my dude.

He's a guy who made math comics for my class, so they would love learning about addition. He's the kinda guy who sends my friends gift cards when they are having hard times, who remembers every story I ever told him, who was the first person I celebrated with when I got a teaching job. He's the guy who sent flowers to me at school- dozens of my favourite pink roses just because he loves me. He's a guy who has spent a year patiently explaining (and re-explaining) everything there is to know about football during the important games when silence is preferred. He's made me word puzzles and comics and stayed up late playing Scrabble with me (even though I beat him almost every time). He's listened to me cry about school and family and jobs. He is everything I never knew I needed and everything I always knew I wanted.

The holidays have hit us hard. He's recently been told he may have something called multiple myeloma- an incurable cancer, that gives a person an average of five years of continued life. Though this news has came as a shock, he continues to be exactly who has always been- spending his time worrying about me, rather than worrying about himself. He's the most selfless individual I know- (he stayed late on Christmas Eve to work, so his co-workers could leave early) and a post like this would never be something that he would promote or encourage but when I'm overwhelmed and feeling helpless, the blogging community has always given me tremendous support and comfort, two things I desperately need at this time.

As I write this, the future is uncertain and we aren't sure what's happening. He'll need to see an oncologist soon, to verify what's going on in his body. My hope is that everyone who reads this think positive thoughts and if you are a person who prays, could you add him to your list? (You can refer to him as 'brandy's hot awesome dude'). If you don't pray, please keep him in your heart.This cancer is only a possibility and I believe that the prayers and positive thoughts of people can make sure it never becomes a reality.

I want to give a big thank you to the blog owner who scraped their original blog plans and graciously put this up. My goal is to get as many people as possible to see and read this post. If you are reading this and want to help, copy and paste my plea into your blog or send a link through twitter, so more people can keep him in their thoughts. I would be so very grateful (even more grateful than I am to my friend who first showed me the picture of Ryan Reynolds on the cover of Entertainment Weekly. If you haven't seen it, google it. You. Are. Welcome).

I realize this all sounds dramatic, a Lifetime movie in the making- but this is life. Right now. And I'm throwing away any hint of ego and am humbly asking for you to pray or think kind thoughts. If you are able to pass this on, thank you and if you know anything regarding MM- please email me (my email is on my blog). This isn't a call for sympathy or a plea for pity. It's just one girl hoping you can think positive thoughts for the person she adores. If my current heartache provides you with anything, let it be with the reminder that life is short, love is unbending and no one knows what could happen next. Maybe it is silly, but I really do believe that positive thoughts can make a huge difference. Thank you for reading this and if you haven't already? Please tell someone you love them today.

I did.

Return

I've been gone a long time now.

The reasons for that include depression and anxiety which was solved which medication and the difficult decision to withdraw from school.

I had attempted to write several posts about how the depression felt to me, but as I read them over I found them to dark to keep, as I am really trying to put the last few months behind me and start 2010 with a fresh outlook.

I'm feeling better and more optimistic then I have in over a year. For the first time in a long time I am excited about my life. I'm nervous too, but it's more a nervous anticipation for the future holds as opposed to the anxiety of the past.

I plan to get back to blogging, about my attempt to really find my place.

After all,

There's no where to go but up.

Highway of Heroes

10am

Driving home, blurry-eyed.

Mind on my own problems.

Slowly the fact that traffic seems to slow at every over pass tickles into my over active mind.

Slowly the fact that every over pass holds an emergency vechicle.

Police.

Fire.

Ambulance.

Families in minivans are camped out on the side of the service road running parrallel to the highway.

At the site of the Canadian Flag my brain finally catches up with my eyes.

I'm traveling the Highway of Heroes.

Today two of our soldiers are being repatriated.

People are showing their support.

Solidarity.

Instantly tears welling in my eyes, quickly spilling down my cheeks.

Ten minutes ago I was worried about now what seems like small insignificant problems.

The tears didn't stop until I got home.

Midnight

It's hot.

Summer has finally arrived in my little corner of the world. Including 30C plus days with the humidity that goes along with it.

This past week I rediscovered a favourite small pleasure of mine.

My apartment stays tropically hot long after the sun has gone down. Leaving me to sleep with a fan, in minimal attire and only my sheet for cover.

Eventually the fan does its job and the finally cool outside air comes inside.

I'm chilled.

Half awake, I pull my duvet over my cool skin.

Instantly warmth envelops me as I snuggle deeper into the folds of my bed and drift back to sleep.

Left Behind

Selfish. Childish. Self Absorbed. Bad Friend.

That's how I feel.

Remember my friend PhD? How told me she and her bf were thinking about trying for kids in the fall? Well she pushed the date up. A. Lot.

Clearly she had misrepresented her desire to have children to me over the past few months when in reality she wanted one now. As in yesterday. I only discovered this while spending time with our our mutual friend who has one 8month old and another one on the way.

Turns out that my friends are all incredibly fertile and she is indeed preggers. Now. As in due this February. (I should note that my girlfriends have always been rather lax about birth control. And the fact that they never had an unplanned pregnancy is amazing).

As I said before, I am happy for her, but everything is baby. Literally everything. The woman is opening a Maternity Studio. I'm hearing about how tired she is. How big her boobs are getting, how sore they are. How her brother, whom she lives with (she owns a house with her younger sibs) is not adjusting. How he may have to move out or give up his dog (granted the dog is not great with kids, but her dog will also have to adapt) and he is not adjusting.

I'm struggling with my own problems. I'm trying to adjust to the fact that I may be falling for a guy who does not want kids. That babies may not be in the future for me (it is something I am steeling myself for and not soley because of Lumberjack, there are a whole host of reasons).

I suppose I should be happy that I have such fertile friends. I'll have many neices and nefews to spoil in the years to come. But in the meantime I'm feeling lost. Left behind. Selfish.

Bomb

"I worry so much about my niece getting hurt."

"I can barely take care of myself"

"I don't want to have kids."

hmmmmm.

After telling Lumberjack that yet another of my girlfriends is knocked up (more to come on that) those were his thoughts.

Problem? Deal-breaker? (did we even have a deal?)

What to do when your sort-of boyfriend, that you only see once a month, that you do not think about long term, drops that bomb?

Tally II

Tigerlily 0 : Science 2

*Essential piece of equipment has been broken for a week! Cannot redo my previously contaminated samples until its running again.

Feel the stress build.

Tally

"How goes the battle?"

"I think I'm losing."

"OHHHHH, you should keep a tally between you and science...you know to see whose winning"

On that note starting now:

Tigerlily 0: Science 1

Again and Again

I am facing a huge set back. So big that I really should not be writing about it, and should instead be facing it and moving forward. But since I can remember I have liked to write my problems out in order to analyze them from all sides and therefore hopefully come to the most appropriate solution (can you tell I have a science background?).

The problem is that for the last few weeks I have been working toward finishing my lab analysis of the soil samples I collected last fall for my Masters. The process I am currently working on is lengthly and time consuming if not actually hard (as all lab work seems to be) requiring about 13hours to process 30-40 samples (I have 200 total).

This morning I was ready to run about 60 of these through an instrument to finally get some kind of usable number (this will take another 6-8hours not included in the first 13, see what I mean about time consuming?). But during the machines 'warm up' something horrible was discovered. The reagent I had use to mix all my solutions was contaminated with the very elements I was trying to detect! Meaning all the time I had put into these samples has been wasted. They are garbage. Worthless, and already down the drain.

I had optimistically hoped to finish all these lengthy and time consuming processes by the end of next week. Instead I find myself starting over from scratch tomorrow.

Scratch.

Nevermind that I should have had these done in the winter. Nevermind that the list of things to do is getting so long it makes my head hurt to think about. Nevermind that it's the 1st of June and I am frezing in my office (seriously summer...don't tease me with glorious weather only to take it back so hatefully!).

There really is nothing to do other then do it. Again.

Like so many other aspects of my life I am once again starting over.

Again and again.

Seriously...I signed up for this?