The Big Three Oh

I’ll be doing a blog post all about the wedding (that happened) and the move (also happened) soon enough. 

I thought I’d start with this.

See, I turned thirty on November 17^th. 

My dad likes to say, “You can’t trust anyone over thirty, or people who work for the government.” 

I’m both.   

He’s kidding, but I started to think about how different thirty is now than it was in the 60s.  

Mostly, I just don’t feel like an adult yet.  I don’t think that has much to do with my age though.

I like that I can still enjoy what I’ve always enjoyed. 

Gaze upon my Bat-Belts!  This isn't even half of them.  

I wear these to work.  No one cares!  Or notices. 

I like that I can play.

I’m proud that I HAVE come as far as I have, regardless of trauma from all directions for so long.

That being said, I still have a long way to go.  I’m aware of that.  

I know there are things I still don’t like about myself, and those awful things are going to be the hardest to overcome. 

I’m happy with my body now, and my confidence is so much better than ever before.

I’ve learned to stand up for myself, though I still struggle with that from time to time…

I’m eating better and better every day, while still being careful about my allergies. 

I can BE careful without it ruling my life, even when I'm scared.  

…and that’s just really cool.

Still though, there are so many times where my imagination takes over and goes from “being creative” to a true sign of the mental illness I’ve faced for so many years.  

The dark, mirrors…  I’m actually terrified of a lot of things to an incredibly embarrassing degree.  

I’m thirty now, and I still take the whole Bloody Mary thing too seriously.  It’s another level of sad.

Now it’s a matter of not wanting to see the endless darkness that may or may not reflect something that I just can’t perceive when the lights are out…

I already told you about the time as a kid where I left a bathroom like the little chicken I am during the era of Spice Girls and pogs.  

(As a side note, we were doing a dance thing in a PE class once, and I was elected to be Scary Spice as I was the darkest one with curly hair.  That’s how bleached white our fucking middle school was.  Fuck.  Sure.  “Close enough.”  …  These days, I would take it all as a compliment, though I’m not sure how she would have felt being played by a Slavic Jew.  Really, I wanted to be Posh anyway.)

Seriously though.   

Under the bed was scary enough that I just put my bed straight onto the floor to avoid having an under-the-bed at all.   

The closet…  Ugh.  Especially when the door was just slightly open?  

All the way open or all the way closed.  That’s what it had to be.

My sister solved this problem for me by simply tearing the doors off of my closet in a fit of unbridled and seemingly entirely random rage.

Doors slightly open at all, ever…  For whatever reason, my brain immediately goes to, “Yeah, but what’s looking in?”  

Why is there ANYTHING looking in?  What??

Walking to the bathroom at night encompasses all of these things in some way or another, especially that first mirror-in-the-dark bit. 

This was all before the food thing became… a thing.

The worms and ants almost-phobia may have to do with the hidden nature of them, just as the dark poses for everything else.  

And yet again…

Ants though…  They’re like the Borg. 

And worms like maggots, eat the dead.

Realizing I’m very much alive, am I just afraid I’ll find out the hard way?  I’m more afraid of my own reflection in the dark than seeing someone other than myself…  Maybe it’s all existential.  

Fear and phobias are interesting things when they start to rule your life.

I was always super anxious about everything, but I very rarely expressed this openly.  I felt like a had to keep myself with a steely expression for my family, so that no one would know that I was scared or in any pain.  

That may have been a fear too.  I didn’t want to be a burden, and I didn’t want them to feel bad.  

So… I just pretended I was fine for as long as I could.

This led to weirdly humiliating moments, because it translated as being shy when I wouldn’t just speak up and say, “This is really shitty.”  

Good example? 

That time I had a mat in my hair. 

Why my parents didn’t just take a fucking scissors to my hair is beyond me.  It was in the back and under all my other hair.  No one would have noticed.

The whole thing was kind of my own fault anyway because I didn’t want anyone to touch my head.  

I was little then…  Elementary school I guess?   

And my head was an unruly mess of curls and tangles.   

Dad would (jokingly?) chant, “Rip tear!  Rip tear!” as he tried to brush my hair.   

I have since learned to either start from the bottom 

or just cut it all off.

So there we were at the hair stylist. 

The lady gathered everyone around to see. 

So, there I was, SURROUNDED by random people staring at my head.

“IT’S A PERFECT DRED!” she kept saying.  

I did not do this on purpose.  I mean, good to know, but having all those people stare and touch me, and have to sit there in silence pretending I wasn’t scared and embarrassed…  

Ugh. 

You know what?  I’m exhausted enough, let’s stick to the hair for a minute. 

Lemme tell you ‘bout my hair. 

I found my first single grey hair in middle school.   

Since this was the era of being called “Witch Girl” and being made fun of anyway, I decided to be how I wanted to be.  

Fuck ‘em.

I’d rather be poked at for things I choose than the things I have no control over.  

Cue my Rogue-style blonde chunk right in the front of my head.  

This was then blue for a while, various shades of “strawberry”, and green for a very short while.   

It’s hard to keep green without it becoming a variety of snots.

Eventually, I dyed the underside of my hair red, so when it was up in a half-ponytail you could see it… 

I very rarely did that though.

Finally, there was the black and red stripes. 

“Make it look like it’s bleeding.” 

When that proved too hard to maintain, straight red or maroon happened.

There were some mishaps, such as the orange frizz…  

  

And some disappointments.  

 “We have… semi demi purple?  It’ll wash out in a day or two.”  

I have since stopped dying my hair due to a combination of fear, lack of funds, lack of time, and straight up laziness. 

I have a few more grey hairs now though. 

You know.

Cause I’m thirty.

Pulling Through

This Post Brought to You By: Collaboration!

My Knight and I went to a tiny con this past weekend.  BadCon at UAlbany.  It was not a "bad con" but there was hardly anyone there.  I'm hoping to help out with spreading the word next year.  Still, we sold some things and met some people and saw some friends.  Mostly, we sat around doodling together.  This was like a dream date for me, as it turns out.

My Knight, Rob, draws people as potatoes.  They show up in his webcomic on occasion here:   http://www.unmedicatedcomic.com/
and he'll draw people at cons as potatoes.  I was highly entertained by this, so I decided to draw him as a potato.  ...But it didn't wind up as cute as his do.

Also, everything scanned for this had gotten a little wet because A. it was raining afterwards and B. we had a spill.  The spill was entertaining in it's own right because while our drawings got a little wet, everything else on the table was saved by the tablecloth itself. 

Since part of that looked like a face, my Knight drew the spill:

...I need a better editing program for my scanner so you kids can see these better. 

To give you an idea of the kinds of stuff sold at these events, we sell art prints, sometimes T-shirts, key chains and assorted body parts:

"Give someone the finger!"  Get it??

At one point, we took two words, put them together and then saw what we each came up with.  First was fish-apple:

His:

Mine (Which I think wound up more frog-like than fish-like.  ...Or maybe just sick):

Then came centipede and barrel.
His:

Mine:

and another try:

I also attempted to show the difference between antennae and penises.  ...I don't remember why.  But here they are:

Now, to conclude, I'm going to express how head over heels I am for this guy.

I don't do outside.

I just don't.

I think of the outside world and I think of the "tweezers" my mom has handed me when I wanted to pluck my eyebrows, knowing those things are for plucking off bugs and out splinters and other horrible outside things.

Seriously.  The fuck are these things?


I'm allergic to outside.  Literally.  Grass makes me itchy and red.

YET I went out by his family's house so he could show me where he spent his childhood days, by rusty pieces of metal and now overgrown thorns... And even with a busted hip from before then and even while stressed out of my mind and ridden with silent panic attacks, I still managed to have a good time.

Why?

Because he was with me.

...Also some of the plants did neat things like this:

Twisty and there's that curl thing at the bottom. 

Because I really never go outside, knowing that I do have some pretty amazingly bad allergies, when I do go outside, I feel a little like a kid in a bubble.  I'm stupefied by the beauty of it all, and TERRIFIED by any little prick of anything at all. 
I used to run into the woods as a kid and climb trees.  I'd walk over rocks and not complain when I got wet in a creek. 
Then 12 years old happened and the learned-the-hard-way-knowledge of what an allergen can do kind of ruined my life and ended what bit of a childhood I had. 

I'd like to go back to being that kid.  I'm not as brave as I used to be, but maybe with the help of my Knight, I'll get there. 

...that being said, I really DO have allergies, so it can't be all the time anyway. 
Still, worth a shot once in a while, yeah?

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Lately…
Maybe not just lately.
Maybe it has been forever.



I've been feeling like The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 

Only, mine is not the story of Jekyll finding freedom in Hyde
so much as Hyde desperately putting on Jekyll's old suit
and finding that it no longer fits.
My Hyde wanders around uncomfortably in Jekyll's clothes,
trying to save face to save himself.

Jekyll is often nowhere to be found, but none of his companions notice.
They all believe Hyde.
When Jekyll finally does take his own skin again, he is tired.
Briefly excited, he finds excuses to keep going.

Jekyll can make a living, and it is an honorable one.
He knows deep down that he is helping others
and that his own desires and needs must never come first.
His happiness has meant so little for so long that he is afraid to find any for himself,
lest it be a distraction
or just something good to lose.
Falling from grace would be quite the distraction.

Hyde just runs rampant, chaotic but happy.
Hyde does not care for the needs of those around him.
They are little more than stepping stones.
But Hyde is new.
Hyde is young and reckless.
He has all the passion in the world,
but lacks the drive to succeed at anything meaningful.

Jekyll is just the opposite. 

Hyde needs Jekyll in order to remain so content and free and blameless.
Jekyll needs Hyde in order to release his demons
and prevent them from choking him in his sleep.
Jekyll gives Hyde some sense of structure and purpose…




But Hyde has dreams of his own.

Dreams that may conflict with Jekyll's entire way of life. 


So...





Who do I root for now?

Thankful for Alcoves

The temple I grew up with is very different now, 

yet eerie and comforting in how little it has changed.  
Entire wings have been added, but some areas remain the same.  

Since I grew up there, even though I had hardly ever attended services, 

I still get a bit defensive when people who have been hired since my leaving 

make jokes about me invading “their temple”...  

It's my temple.  After all, I know all the best hiding spots.  

I even found a new one.  It's an alcove. 

I thought it had an IOU plaque which basically stated that it will be... 

something, but apparently it's just a giant hole for the plaque itself.

It states the new name of the Hebrew school. 

People had spent a lot of money to have random things named after their family 

(and to help the temple)...
I thought it would be a display case, maybe?  Nope.

Well, it displayed a rare, rowdy Rowyn.

I even ignored my own thoughts!

I adjusted early on when someone passed me. 

He was questioning why I was hiding, 

but I assume my “possibly about to take a dump” pose didn't help. 

Thankfully, I've learned that smiling pleasantly tends to make people just smile back

and go away. 

Even as a kid, I was generally avoiding services to go make out with girls in the classrooms,

but I would sometimes sit just outside of the sanctuary, 

or on the stage in the room just across from it all, 

in order to listen to my father sing. 

The room itself, 

the expectations I felt, 

and the “community” environment that I never felt fully a part of 

kept me from wanting to participate. 

I thought “cult” whenever the congregation said things together, 

and I thought “fake” when a person I didn't know would hug me because of who I was. 

I had a lot of trust issues even then, 

and I knew that I was supposed to keep anything I was going through or living with a secret. 

These people weren't going to be my friends, 

even if some may have genuinely cared about me if I had given them half a chance. 

I didn't want a Bat Mitzvah. 

It didn't feel right to have one. 

Going up in front of everyone was horrifying to begin with, 

but add the idea of them all listening to me speak and chant 

when I couldn't even stand to hear myself, KNOWING how strange I sounded... 

How mumbled, quiet and awkward... 

And on top of all this, 

morally, I could not bring myself to lead a service for believers 

when I didn't really have faith myself. 

This is not to say that I didn't believe in things. 

I did. 

I had a lot of beliefs. 

They were just really negative 

and involved the idea of believing in the Devil more than a caring God, 

which is ssoooooo not a Jew thing. 

To this day, whenever I write a story about the Devil, 

he is mostly a victim of circumstance. 

Cocky, but was once a loved angel. 

The fact that I interpreted this character in such a way may say something. 

One day, if I remember, I may write a whole entry for this. 

In any case, “faith” implies something more positive and hopeful. 

It's that feeling of “I KNOW this going to be okay” and I didn't have that. 

I knew that I prayed and I followed the rules and did everything I was supposed to,

but nothing got better. 

In my little child brain, there was no future, 

and so if nothing got better RIGHT NOW, it was never going to. 

(The allergy incident in Israel probably didn't help, 

though the fact that I survived it should mean something.)

My love for temple then meandered to only a love for the camaraderie of my friends

and one for the building itself and all its hiding places. 

Somewhere in there, I did grow a kind of faith. 

It's small and strangely shaped, 

but it has helped me when I needed assistance, 

which means it has done the job just fine.   

Time Travel As Therapy

I'm not talking in the hitch a ride on the Tardis or a hop in a Delorean and zoom off way, but in a reviewing, analyzing, and actually participating in my own life way.

I do a lot of analyzing with no purpose.  I run circles around and around to no end.  Hell, most of this blog is just that.

I never come to any new conclusion, nor do I find a new possibility for letting it all go.

Clearly, that shit ain't working.

So instead, I'm rewriting my history.

I noticed I was doing this by accident, subconsciously. 

I was proud of myself for reconnecting with people I had pushed away, but there was more to it than what I'd thought.  Beyond a sense of "Oh good, they are still here," there was a comfort that I hadn't expected.

A man I knew mostly in high school, a man I knew mostly at the art school, and a man I dated after my life was over the first time should not instantly make me more comfortable that some of my new very close friends, but they were.

I understand that my new friends are still the people to go to, but I needed to understand why talking to these old friends had the effect on me that it did.  I think I get it now.

 EDIT: On why I draw my problems as little blobs with staring eyes and sometimes tiny mouths...  It's because that is exactly what they are.  My problems just sit there and stare.  They just sit and make me feel uncomfortable with looks that say they want me to do something for them, but they never open their stupid little mouths to tell me what they want.  They just gawk and criticize silently.  They wobble slightly and are at times even silly enough to be funny... but they bother me just the same.  And in large amounts?  When they gather up and become a crowd?  There is hardly room to breathe. 

I looked around recently and noticed that I'm most comfortable sitting where the computer is in the dining room of my parent's house, rather than eating in the kitchen.  It dawned on me…
The kitchen has been completely redone in recent years.  It is no longer the kitchen from the last time I lived here…
Which was six or seven years ago, after art school.

It was a time before my Psychology courses, which I have yet to pick up again.

It was a time when I felt my life was ending and that I was helpless… 

Which I've picked up again.

I'm searching for nostalgia and comfort to be sure, but also a sense of going back in time to fix what can still be fixed.  Not everything has been an issue, and already I've fixed some of the bigger problems.

For example, my fingers and my wrists have haunted me since art school.  I've been afraid to really do the work I'm capable of because I'm afraid of the pain and the failure I may have to endure yet again.

But now, I have these fancy new braces on my ring fingers that look like Elvish jewelry and actually help minimize the discomfort.  I also know how to pace myself more than I did back then, and I've been to a doctor who could confirm what I thought about my bones.  They probably aren't going to get any worse.  They just are what they are.
More than that, it could have been MUCH worse, but it isn't.

And now, that burden is lifted.  Now I can relax enough to apply for art jobs and feel like I'm going somewhere.  I still plan on finishing the MA in Psychology, but for now, I need more things like this.

I need to weed out the ones I can take care of, and then I can accept and let go of the things I can't change.  This seems entirely logical in theory.  

...In theory.

Obviously, some things are just plain done and over.  
Some things can not ever find a proper ending, and so I'll never really have my closure.

So for the first time, it is actually convenient that I've lumped all my problems together. 

It makes things overlap and count as other things from before.

I can't get my year at art school back.  I can't make my medical leave matter or feel like I achieved anything from it. 

But I left on medical leave from my most recent graduate school, and it was going about the same way.  No one cared.  The fact that I had a doctor give a note and everything didn't matter at all. 

But it's supposed to.

And it will.

My parents and I wanted to just forget the whole thing, but that won't help.  I'll just go the rest of my life adding this to the list of shit where I had no control and my life was meaningless, terrified that it will happen a third time because I'm too disabled to live a normal life, but not disabled enough to get any real help.  Only pity.

No.

I'm going to fight.

I'm going to write letters and make phone calls, and this time, my parents will help me do that.

I'm going to make someone listen to me, even if it doesn't change anything.  The point will be that this time I actually TRIED instead of just crying and walking away. 

This will be my closure for both schools, knowing I did wind up getting that art degree. 
Maybe now, that art degree can mean something to me. 

If my brain is going to decide that they are the same school and the same situation, I may as well make use of that.  I'll trick myself into finally letting them both go at once.  
Let them drift off on the wind.

They won't matter anymore because I will say they don't matter, not because anyone else says so.

For other things, I need to go backwards before I can go forwards.

For the eating issue, I need to remember what I ate and how I enjoyed it and who I ate these things with, and I need to just do it as though I am that person still.  I need to make it habit and a want again.  I need to become who I was in my mind, until I can act and feel like that person again.

THEN I can grow and move forward and be even stronger and better than I ever was.

This time, I'll fix my past and grow up to be a person who wants to drive.

I'll change my perception and how I reacted to things.

"I got into a terrible car accident!  I could have died," will become "I survived even this terrible car accident!  I'm invincible." 

Instead of thinking of how many times I was accidentally "poisoned" by people who didn't care or realize how scary an allergy is, I'll acknowledge that I ate walnuts accidentally, took some Benadryl and YES it was scary, but NO I didn't die or even need to go to the hospital.  I was fine.
Same thing happened years before with hazelnuts. 
And, yes, I did get in trouble and swelled up with hives and vomit and shitting myself for three days because of a small bite of a macadamia nut cookie when a "friend" said there were no nuts in it...  I even asked twice.

Okay, I always ask twice.  Now I know to ask three times.

And I could have used my fucking epi-pen.  I didn't.  I could have, but I didn't.  I don't know if I'm afraid of it, or what...  But either way, the fact that I still freaking SURVIVED WITHOUT using it and I didn't go to the hospital EVEN THEN should say something.  I should feel like I'm a fucking superhero.

Moving on, my throat got hurt, but obviously it then got better.  If it happens again, I know to go to a doctor who isn't an idiot. If I get told it's acid reflux, I'll know that person is wrong, and I'll move on. 

Looking at the posts I wrote at the time, I didn't have any idea what the Hell was going on anyway, and I'm sure that was a big component of it all.  It's weird, but you can actually watch my transition from all the Fishbone bullshits all the way to Of Strength, Luck, and Crashing Down.  It's an interesting change. 

My faith in the world got rocked so far that I couldn't even fathom living in it anymore. 
Yes.  
I get that.  
So, maybe I'll be more cynical than before.  
Maybe I won't be such a pushover.

This doesn't mean I have to be mean or a quiet ball of anger like I was as a kid, but I should take everything with a grain of salt and regrow my instincts.


I used to have very good instincts, as I recall.


Guh.

I'm freaking awesome, damn it.  Time that I remembered and understood that. 

I never believed it, but if I can convince myself that somewhere in my mind, deep down, I knew it, then I can assume that it was always there.  I can "remember" it.

My memories are so muddled anyway, and I have such trouble remembering the good things, I may as well start making shit up.

I won't lie or completely fabricate nonsense, but I can pretend that I felt differently about certain situations.  
I can pretend that I let things go and simply learned from them in order to better myself.  
Maybe I can teach others and I can avoid the same mistakes again.

Fear solves nothing.

Fear will kill me and I would much rather live.

I have a lot left to do if I'm going to make this stupid world any smarter.

I can notice different parts of the scenes playing before me as I go back in time, and I can choose to pick out different parts to keep with me.  
I'll find the most helpful parts this time. 

Simply...

It is time for a rewrite. 

I have friends who can help me edit.  I'm not in this alone.

I'll look at this post and this Winter is Coming to remind me of that. 

And already, I have rekindled some friendships I had missed.  
It may have been for odd reasons, but they were people I valued and people I felt I wasn't good enough to keep. 

I am good enough.

I am fucking awesome,
and I WILL survive this.

This is my life.

This is MY story.

I will decide how the next chapter goes.