The Past Four Years... Respectively

It's been four years since I finished my blog "Hating Minnesota."  I have tried to decide how to do this, how to catch you up, without dragging out a drama that could spit back up in my face after I disclose the nitty-gritty.  My ultimate weapon in these sorts of conundrums is to weave a story with abstract vagueness and try to be fair without the potential spit storm. 

So as it goes in this ridiculous tale of mine….

My health fell to an unwelcomed visitor.  I named the evil little parasite, “Bastard” because…let’s be honest:  ticks are bastardly little, vile creatures that can suck more from you than just blood.  Lyme’s is a no joke nervous system-attacking monster that can leave you in the wake of a brain you don’t recognize anymore.  It takes your limbs, your heart, your head and your mental health and leaves you with a pain that afflicts every part of your being that can feel pain. 

The drop down into Stage Three was a rush of crashing rocks down a cliff.  I hit the bottom faster than most victims, but also survived the fall better than most victims.  Doctors treating you like a hypochondriac to a point where you want to be violent, while at the same time trying to hold down your job and your lover at the same time, is taxing.  I couldn't sleep away my sickness in my bed for weeks in recovery like Avril and all the other famous people who have dealt with it, I had to keep going.  I am a firm believer in mind over matter.  I am a firm believer in comparing your problems with the darker corners of the world to get perspective on your own woes.  So I tried.  I tried to push through. 

Happiness is a funny thing to remember, to hold on to.  It is often more or less a delusion that keeps you afloat.  When you lose that delusion, you feel like nothing is real and you are worth your death. 

Because I do not get the liberty of speaking against those who played part in my downfall, I am going to be quite ruefully cryptic and hope that the ones who matter will catch on to my riddles.

I? Was a rock star.  A killer of negativity.  A defeater of pain with a huge dose of mind over matter until the mind got weakened.  I fought.  I refused.  However, I lost pound after pound after pound after pound…

I lost pounds of magic.  I lost pounds of weight.  I lost pounds of self-confidence and worth.  I lost pounds of my mind.  I lost pounds of energy, heart and marbles.  I lost the ability to move my body without feeling like a Giant was squeezing my ribs to crack.  I lost a will to live, and the pounds on that one shed awfully fast.  Depression sucked my soul like the Bastard sucked my blood.  Oh that Bastard…

Love became a joke, double quick.  I was a fool to think I could ignore love.  Ignore him.  “Take what you can get” and suffer the consequences later, was apparently my choice.  Just when I was feeling better, I lost that delusion to the ugly, revolting truth that love is a joke.  That I, am a joke.  Rejection turns us into jokes.

Swish, slash, slice.  Swish, slash, slice.  Slice. Slice. Slice. 

I hit a rocky bottom that is for sure.  My ecstasy of freedom in my new little apartment was apparently short lived.  I worked so hard to get this bit of freedom… I wasn’t going to lose it to the Bastard, or the joke of love.  I pushed, I perspired, I never complained. I never complain… I pushed.  I pushed.  I worked so hard on my beautiful mask!  I was going to show up these nightmares with my funny.  I was going to show up the audience with my will to keep happiness on the outside.  I was going to be a brilliant goddess that would out-show the Bastard and the joke of love and anyone else who dared to doubt my amazingness.

Masks fall off, apparently.

The winter from hell grabbed my soul and violated it in such an awful force, I dreamed about dying in my sleep.  But I worked hard.  I made sure I was doing what I was supposed to be doing.

Snow storms cursed my will to live.  I did what I knew was right, but it wasn’t good enough. 

Swish, slash, slice.  Swish, slash, slice.

“You are not amazing… You are a vile piece of shit…” Over and over and over.  The voice of a dark Rat rebuked me into a shame I cannot ever explain fully to an audience of strangers.  But that Rat threw dirt on my ugly face every day, and I was desperately trying to rebuke it.

Slice.  Slice.  Slice.

People are funny creatures.  Salem came into my workplace and destroyed what was left of me. I was forced out, and there was no army behind me except the mysterious ways of the Universe that creep justice in later down the road… I was redeemed by my loves calling my name in a very Dead Poet Society sort of way that filled me back up with joy.  I was their Captain.  I was redeemed by those who saw me for who I truly was. I was redeemed by the children, the ones who truly matter, by their affections and the evidence that I was a loving person all the way to the end of my seeming doom.

Emotionally traumatized, I pushed through to the next stage of my life.  I had to seek financial help elsewhere to get out of the toxic fog, but I got out.  I found new work.  And in a glorious rush of sweet justice, I was appreciated.  There was grace on me in a snowstorm and my tardiness.  There was gratitude, sweet gratitude and an understanding of my love for children.  Even the tough love. I had thought the toxic fog came from my Rat.  Much of it did, but it also came from funny creatures who wanted me out because of their own Rats… Life is weird, Reader.  Because people are weird.

Loving my new place of renewal, and finding the will to live again, I decided my financial situation needed a great improvement.  I changed jobs again, after much toil over the decision, and have fallen into the lap of nanny-ing again.  I am making more money in less hours than I ever have in my life.  The family I work for shows their appreciation time and time again by dropping bonuses into my wallet.  I am fulfilled by my self-worth again.  I am in love with the little ones, and they save me. 

And that is where I am at, Reader.  That is the last four years in an abstract, vague weapon-filled nutshell.  I am  now hunting down something healthy love wise, and I am trying to move forward into a future where the Rat has died, where toxic people do not suffocate me, and into a place where I am in hot pursuit of happiness again.  The non-delusional kind.  For not all happiness is a delusion after all.