shrinking once more

Two pounds gone! Woo-hoo! Only four more weeks like this before I can shed those extra pounds January brought on. I defy you, Copious Easter Candy Already In Stores.

I seem to be slowing shedding some anxiety as well as the weight, and that's a much needed relief. Thank God I didn't let my stress levels get to this:


don't mess with Mama!

We all need a little help from our friends. Sometimes, those friends work in rehab programs.

plight of the nursing school perfectionist

I took a test today, a very hard test on EKG rhythms, pediatric cardiovascular conditions (congenital heart defects and the like), and OB stuff like gestational diabetes - all for my acute illness nursing class. I studied my patootie off. Did I get every question right? No.

BUT THERE IS ALWAYS SOMEONE WHO DOES.

You can probably tell I'm a little stressed by this, mainly because it is the same person who always gets 100 (or very close to it) for pretty much every test. She also happens to be my friend, so I won't cast her in a bad light except to say that I am freakishly jealous because not only is she Steel-Trap Minded Princess of Memory, but she always has the right answer in clinical rotations and the professors usually love her. If she was reading this, she'd probably point out the, like, ONE test where she scored a 92 instead of 100. Whatever. (But I love her because she's also witty and dark-humored and humors me and my ADD-ness, on top of being smart.)

I think it's not so much my jealousy of her, but the fact that even my hardest efforts have yet to return comparable grades to my efforts. Or maybe I yearn for stellar grades and never manage to put in the time required, even though I think I do. I don't know. The first time around for me for college, I never really exerted much effort, except when it came to singing, so my grades hovered around low B's, except for all those music courses I took which brought me A's. This second degree program felt like a chance for redemption - I could finally impress the world with my dazzling intellect, study like a fiend, and be the valedictorian of my class (even though, as far as I know, such a title doesn't exist anyway for our program, but whatever).

Only my grades are not perfect straight A's. They are A's and B's, about half and half all total, and that's not shabby at all. It's quite respectable, even enviable in some circles. Only the circles I hang around and the people with whom I study are these people who manage to make straight A's every single semester, no matter how hard the class. Augggghhhh. And somehow, my 3.5 GPA suddenly looks like poopy-caca in comparison. It's the plight of the perfectionist. And suddenly, I'm freaking out because I may not get the one spot available to do my practicum in the neonatal ICU and then, presumably, a job there after graduation. Or, if I completely change my mind and forget that needles inserting into spinal areas send chills throughout my body, can I still be a possible candidate for nurse anesthesia programs? It's all really ridiculous, even as I type this, because you can pretty much get a position anywhere without necessarily having to do your practicum there, and anesthesia holds no interest for me, except that I might enjoy making $125K a year sticking elephant needles into people's spines.

My cousin Christine, wise woman that she is, also went through a rigorous 2nd degree nursing program at a way-harder school, Johns Hopkins. On a side note, perhaps the reason I may not be at an Ivy League school is my use of the phrase "way-harder". Hmmmmm. Anyway, she tells me how insane all the grade competition was among the students - not that there were only so many A's to go around, mind you, but there was the same panic over last-semester practicum, who would graduate with honors, who was a member of the nursing honor society, blah blah blah. And sure enough, none of it mattered when you graduated. In some respects, yes, grades helped if you were hoping for graduate degrees... but straight A's weren't the bottom requirement by any means. And everyone graduated, got out in the real world, and realized how very few times anyone actually considers your grades. They want to know if you passed your N-CLEX exam and have you ever snorted coke, stole a Cadillac, or worked as a foreign operative for some enemy country. And even those last three things were somewhat negotiable.

facing the music

For Valentime's Day, Jason took me out for the most delicious meal I think I have ever had. I ate steak, potatoes, had sparkling Italian water, and finished it all off with creme brulee. Ohhhhhhh. Every bite was delicious. Then, for about two hours after we left, I thought I was in serious danger of, er, returning it all. There was nothing wrong with the food, for sure, but when you attack it like it's your last meal on this earth, well, it does things to you. Eventually it digested and I started feeling better.

I had vowed earlier in the week to go back to Weight Watchers this weekend. Over the past couple of months, I've let myself go. When I found out I was pregnant, I celebrated with a huge milkshake at Steak N' Shake. When I found out the pregnancy might not have "taken", I got a Value Meal at McDonald's. And when I found out the pregnancy truly was not a go, I bought stock in Hershey's and adopted a what's-the-point attitude about my health. Eventually, the sun started shining a little brighter, and life is slowly bringing joy back. But my fast-food forays are still with me, I'm afraid. I went to Weight Watchers this morning, determined to face the music. The scale sang to me that I had gained TEN pounds. Ouch. Now, I realize some of those pounds (some, not most) are fluid retention pounds I am waiting to pass out of my body. But I still can't rationalize a ten-pound gain in just 7 weeks. That's about a pound and a half a week. Yuck. I gave up eating healthy, running, all those things I was doing to take care of myself. And here I am.

I went running last week and was able to do what I normally do, though it felt considerably harder than it used to. The food thing might be a little harder: I have to be prepared for the carb/sugar detox that usually occurs when I first start these things, and the inevitable 2-3 days of headaches and crankiness. Jason's gonna love this.

So, here I am, not quite back at square one, but definitely feeling the setback. Wakeup calls suck, but at least it's not twenty or more pounds gained back on top of this before I decided to do something, you know?

Here we go!

because it's perfectly legitimate for me to say valenTIMEs, but you cannot

I was watching a cooking show this afternoon, taking a break from my massive homework/study pile, and watched two guys (one tall and portly, one skinny and short and jumpy) make souffles. It was all about souffles for this episode: cheesy souffles, mini souffles, dessert souffles. It really was fairly unremarkable, especially considering I have no interest in cooking anything more difficult than boiled water these days, except that while they were mixing up some sort of mocha chip souffle, they got me.

"Now, for an extra shot of flavor, we're going to gently fold in some expresso liqueur."

Ohhhhhh. Now, I totally understand if the average person off of the street calls it "expresso", like it was some sort of speedy coffee. And maybe it's a better name for it than espresso, since after you drink it, life can feel like it's moving faster and you get all jittery and energized and jump around. But a chef on a cooking show, even a somewhat obscure cooking show, calling it EXpresso? Unforgivable. I felt all the hairs on my arms stand on end in indignation. You don't spell it with an x, so you don't pronounce it with an x.

And yes, all this comes from the girl who totally defended her right to say "valenTIMEs", who asks for bologna by the name "baloney", and who is frequently known to address her father as "dyad" (though that's less of a mispronunciation and more of a speech therapy defect on my part). But most of the time, my anal diction training personality rears its head and wants to staple things to peoples' heads when they say things like "irregardless" and "nucular" and "aks".

There are greater injustices in the world: genocide in Darfur, sex trafficking, the war in Iraq, even the 10 or so new varieties of penicillin I am probably growing in my kitchen sink as I type this. And though I may wholeheartedly try, I cannot ban every expresso-talkin' person from Starbucks stores or put a hold on, ahem, VALENTINE'S day until everyone says February and not "Febyooary". It would be hypocrisy on my part to proclaim that my mispronunciations are acceptable and yours are not. Especially since I would probably have a legion of French and Italian citizens on my butt for all the ways I've probably butchered their languages whenever I sang anything not English.

But if the world could be rid of the word "expresso"... sigh.

happy valentime's day

Yes, that's not a typo: valenTIMES. Don't ask me why, but I got in the habit, like a toddler, of calling it ValenTIMEs instead of Valentine's, and here I am. So Happy ValenTIMEs, y'all. I'm gonna go watch Dora now.

I was listening to my morning radio show - lots of dry wit, which is about all I can handle early in the day - and they were mentioning how much men spend on V-Day vs. women (much more, as you can imagine). I guess I bristled at the inequality, and I was even more determined to carry out the mission I dreamt of a few nights prior: Man Night.

Let me explain: Jason is one of the greatest husbands known to man, mostly because he deals with my polar moods and hormonal ambivalence - I want this; no, I want THAT - and still manages to knock my socks off on a regular basis by his quiet strength and loving me despite the above. And because of my crazy nature, he's had to sacrifice some things that I know he misses now and then. So, since I know he will be treating me to something nice and romantic on Friday night, I decided to treat him with Man Night, where I served him two foods I usually avoid due to their threat to my waistline (homemade lasagna and homemade chocolate-chip cookies) and movies I normally don't care to see (action movies - in this case, I bought him The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy). I made sure he had his favorite beer (Killian's) in a frosted glass, a bag full of dark chocolate (his favorite), let him sit like a king in his Man Chair where he didn't have to lift a finger. Let him burp and fart and hock phlegm like it was all music to my ears (and nose).

Before you all think I post this to get my ego-stroke by bragging to all 3 people who read this blog, let me tell you that the smile on his face got progressively bigger as he saw the candy, the movies, the lasagna, the beer in frosted mugs. But when I came out with homemade chocolate chip cookies as the final touch, the look on his face was one I will never forget. I was actually afraid he might cry, he was so bowled over. He stopped right in the middle of the movie, gave me the most tender look, kissed me, and laid his head on my chest. You couldn't have given me any greater reward.

On a slightly sappier note, I was driving home from class this afternoon and reflecting on the last month or so. I have some of it chronicled in previous posts, and yes, it sucked worse than a vacuum. It's been a pretty low time, really: everything from losing a life to gaining weight to being yelled at to feeling like I was worse than dirt on a fairly constant basis. But I also thought about how all of my friends and family have stepped up to the plate: while I have still had all those crappy things I detailed above, I have been supported, prayed for, thought of, considered with compassion, and generally loved on. I don't know that I'll ever have the emotional faculties to express to each person how much their support literally kept me functional from day to day - I remember remarking to Jason that while I have never had the urge to harm myself, the thought of committing myself to escape from life has, in fact, crossed my mind frequently over the last few weeks. (Incidentally, doing my clinical work at a psych ward has brought me back to reality, so to speak: what a hole that place is. Blech.)

So, if you are reading this, then my thank yous and Valentime's love go out to you for showing me the best kind of love and bringing me back to life.

ran yet again!

This week has been all about running, apparently. Thursday I ran away to the beach. Saturday, I ran away with friends to DeLand (but I did come back). Today, well, I just RAN. And it felt good. It felt so good, in fact, that it made me wonder what made me not run for 2+ weeks. I don't really know. Grief hits you in funny ways, I guess. It hit me with about 8 pounds as well and that weird, restless feeling in my arms and legs when I eat crap and don't take care of myself. Jason encouraged me to get back on the trail tonight - he even accompanied me, though those long legs of his meant he didn't exactly run side-by-side with me, of course. I went, thinking I would make it a few blocks and want to go back home. Amazingly, the energy was there. Where it came from, I don't really know. But it was there, and there I went. I'm sure my run was slower than it could have been, and I definitely felt two weeks' worth of inactivity catch up with me as I ran. I'm a little achy and sore as I write this. But I feel alive, and I just can't get that feeling any other way these days. I put in a little over 3 miles, and it felt good.

Each day, one more step.

ran away again

I had a lot of work to do this morning. Instead, I ditched it and went to DeLeon Springs with my friend Rachel and her Bible study group, a fantastic group of ladies collectively known as Virtue in the City. We all met at a McDonald's (not to eat) and drove through the couple of streets that were ravaged by these recent tornadoes. What a powerful statement to go and see my brother's apartment complex torn to shreds... except for his apartment, which sustained only cosmetic damage. Except for the red spray-painted "X" on the front door, it looks fairly livable: not the case for his next-door neighbors, who looked like they came out on the losing end of a fight with a wrecking ball. Here are some photos from the media:


Applewood Apartments in DeLand, where my brother lives


Applewood Apartments and a rescue worker looking for the injured


More damage


The shopping complex across the street


Remains of the trailer park next door

After seeing what damage the storm did, I am so grateful my brother was spared from any physical harm. One of the girls I was with today told us of a kid in her church youth group - her church community is only about 60 people strong - and in the tornadoes, he lost both his parents. His mom was found in the wreckage of their home, and the boy and his dad had been knocked clear across the road. He's 17, an only child, and he just buried his parents yesterday after having been in the hospital himself for surgery. We actually ran into him with family friends at the pancake place at DeLeon Springs; he was remarkably, well, OKAY, and actually had the biggest smile of anyone in the group. Here's a snippet of his story.

I have to admit that these last few weeks - the last month, really - has left me hurt, confused, even a little bitter, though hopefully not permanently so. When my mind cannot wrap around the things that hurt and how they fit into God's plan, I get so angry and resentful of Him. Jason has been understandably worried for me, and one night as he wrapped his arms around me and began to pray over me, "Dear God..." I interrupted him and said, "Just don't even bother." And though it was my childish, limited-view attempt to challenge God to come through that much more and prove me wrong, that even my unbelief cannot subdue His graciousness and limitless power, I felt immediately stricken, like I had taken a knife to the one life preserver that had been thrown my way, like I had struck at the heart of my closest friend. Indeed, I probably had, but so endless is His forgiveness, even when I am a brat. And boy, can I be a brat!

One thing I have learned over and over as a resident of this storm-stricken state is that the sun often shines brightest just after the worst has hit. And maybe we are sometimes so debilitated by our grief and sorrow that the brightest light of all is needed just to illuminate the path, to take us step by step on the journey. The sun shone brilliantly today as it has over the past few days, and so I walk, one step at a time, and maybe I can see a little more of the way tomorrow, take a few more steps.

ran away, then came back

It was good. Nice drive - I listened to my new musical find, Rosie Thomas, and enjoyed the salty sea air when I got there. I managed to snag a really good spot in the parking lot at the beach ramp, so good that I had a full, unobstructed view of the rolling ocean waves without having to leave the privacy of my car. Normally, it would seem slightly ludicrous to drive all the way to the beach and just stay in one's car - you could pull up a picture of the beach on your computer or TV screen for roughly the same effect, minus the seashell fragrance - but I had some personal journeys to make, and I didn't want to have a Kleenex moment in front of 30 half-naked George Hamiltons. I read a great article about a woman's miscarriage story and cried for her and myself. I had a Publix sub and popcorn. I watched a couple of pregnant ladies walk by and really took time to explore the feelings attached to all of that.

I'm not all better, but I'm better. Lately my view of the world has been sober and melancholy, so it was nice to go to the beach and forget all of that, even if for a few hours. There's a statement from that article I mentioned earlier - I've had it on the front of my brain ever since I read it: "No one warned me that the life I was carrying inside of me was hope, not a promise." When I found out I was going to miscarry, I felt like someone broke a promise to me, and I was stricken by the injustice of it all. But every rare now and then, including a few short minutes today, I get a little bit of that hope back. I think, for a moment, that the bigger promise He made was never broken, though my heart cannot understand this loss here on earth. And my hope is not only for the children I hope to have in the future, the uncomplicated pregnancies I hope to enjoy without worrying 24/7, but that I will be solid once again in that promise, and the huge cloud of doubt I live under right now will lift.

i might run away

It's one of those days without a cloud in the sky, and it is cool but not cold outside. If you stand in the sun, you get that glorious warm-hug effect of feeling the sun on your back but not wanting to sweat your face off. Strangely, I'm still inside. I have the windows open, and the breeze is dancing around the room, but I'm still inside. And since it is such a rare moment when I have both a day that doesn't require me to be anywhere until the evening AND it's just perfect weather, well, you don't let something like this go by without some action. Damn the pile of laundry that needs washing, the notes that need studying, the long-term school projects that need starting.

I think I'll stick around long enough to make a good mix CD and leave. I could use a vacation.

ugly cry

I mentioned last night to Jason that I didn't know when the floodgates were going to open - I've been so stressed and felt like I never had an opportunity to be authentically, outwardly grieving (or that I missed the opportunity). Well, that question got answered today.

I've been stressing out about starting my acute mental health (aka psych) clinicals, and today was the start day. I had an exam in another class, then proceeded to finish that class completely in a daze, unable to concentrate while my professor (a really good one, too) explained all sorts of EKG readings, which is already sort of complicated and not easy to grasp on first hearing. Ran through a quick lunch, then went to the hospital, where we had about two hours of talks from case managers, social workers, and nurses on the types of patients we'd see, the really severe cases suffering from severe depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, etc. I think I was already dazed and stressed out... and then we went to orient to the actual floor itself. Now, our clinical instructor is a tiny, soft-spoken woman, and as she's trying to introduce us to the floor and the area, people in our group kept talking. It's a sore spot of mine, so I became, quite apparently, the villain and shushed in a general direction. One of my classmates (and someone I considered a friend) turned on me and said pointedly,"you know Anne, I am SO over you shushing me every day. Go stand up front or something."

I've seen the Seinfeld episode on shushers. I've heard them in class, at clinicals, even at the movie theater. I don't like them either, and I didn't think I'd morphed into one. And maybe on another day, in another situation, I might have had a handy smart remark to give back to her, or else extended grace to both of us since we're all so stressed, or whatever. But instead, I immediately wanted to cry, I felt like such a piece of shit. And this horrible, not-so-little voice in my head starts mocking me: "You are so hostile and mean that you kill life inside of you and alienate your friends." I know that sounds extreme and mean to myself and a pity party and whatever, but I felt so low, so at the end of my rope, at that very moment, that I looked at the patients around me and felt I should be right in there with them.

I ended up in the nurses' lounge area, waiting for the ladies room to come free, and the tears wouldn't stop no matter how hard I tried, and of course my instructor had to walk in at that moment, and I ended up sitting for 15 minutes with the "ugly cry", the kind where you gasp for air and snot runs down your face, and though I didn't get into everything - the baby, the shushing, the anxiety - I just said how stressed I was and how behind I felt. She was very sympathetic and sweet and just let me cry and reassured me that I would be fine in this clinical, that all students are apprehensive at the start. So I collected myself together enough to stop hyperventilating and got out on the floor, and it was fine, but I was so drained and exhausted that I think I just didn't care about anything that might happen with a patient!

I thought I would feel better after my ugly cry. I don't feel on the verge of tears anymore, but I don't feel any better, just drained. I want my stress to go away. I want an apology from my friend. I want to apologize to my friend. Most of all, I want some answers - especially the reasoning behind this loss I've faced when I already had a difficult load on my plate to start with.