CAR CAR C-A-R

I grew up in a neighborhood with a bunch of other kids. When we were playing in the road and a car came my friend Morgan, my age, would shout-sing "Car, Car! C-A-R!" She tried it once with truck and it didn't have the same sing-songiness. I can't type the word "car" without thinking of that little song. Somehow, it became a part of me.


This past week I took (and passed!) my driving test, bought a car, and figured out insurance. Jeffrey helped me inspect the cars (I dont know what to look for, so far as potential problems go) but other than that, I did it all on my own. I'm really proud of myself. Yes of course, because I got my license, because I saved up and bought my first car and paid in full. Yes, because I figured out all the insurance stuff on my own.

But also because of the little things that most people wouldn't think to ask me about, or wouldn't think are big deals. I'm proud of myself because for the first time ever, I feel like I'm totally in control of my anxiety disorder. Things that are triggers for my horrible attacks? Talking to strangers, being in the spotlight, talking on the phone. All three things which I have done in the past week. Not only was I able to handle all of these things without having an attack, but I was able to handle all of them RIGHT ON TOP OF EACH OTHER.

I'm feeling quite proud of myself. Like I've finally done something right. Also, this means school is possible. I always feared, in the back of my mind, that I wouldn't be able to get to my classes because I wouldn't get a car/my license, and Jeffrey wouldn't be able to drive me. Those fears are now at ease, and I have one week before classes start. I think things will settle down a bit then.

C is for..... everything!

C is for Crazy, which I am. C is also for the Classes I take, and C is for Chelsea, my best friend. C is for coffee and chocolate, and cream. It's for custody. For children. For College. For Creativity.

I don't know what to write about today. There are so MANY things I could write about. Of all those C words, Custody is the one that jumps out at me the most, but my feelings on it right now are so.... vague. So up in the air, that I don't know what to do.

Two and a half weeks ago, I was looking up what the requirements were for foster homes, and what the rules were about fostering a child from another state. I was contemplating my schedule, seeing what I could change and how it would work. I was re-writing budgets, and mentally re-arranging furniture to make room for my sister in my home.

Something vague happened and she ended up out of her foster home. She was sent to a temporary foster home for the night. That's normal-ish. She woke up the next day and was brought to the DCF office, to wait while they looked for a permanent foster home for her. Again, normal.

No one wanted her.

No foster family would take in a girl with several hospitalizations in the past year. So that night, she went to another temporary house, and the next day, back to the office. And again the day after. And the day after.

Our mother couldn't take her. Her father wouldn't take her. My aunt can't handle her. My father doesn't meet the requirements. Our grandparents can't. Who else does she have left? Just me. So here I was. 20 years old and trying to get temporary custody of a 13 year old.

I was trying to figure out how to squeeze her in between my classes, or how to fix my work schedule so I had time to help her. Or at least time to give her a good morning and good night hug. It just wasn't working. I couldn't figure it out. Every time I found a solution to a problem, another one cropped up.

Do I make enough money to feed her? Pay her electric bill? Do I have the space for her? Does a futon couch count as a bed for her? Is the living room a suitable sleeping arrangement? Can our closet hold her clothes? How will I get her to school? Or will DCF insist on her having her home schooled like she is now? Will she be okay home alone all day? Does she need a private tutor?

and the kicker: I'm 20 years old. Will I be able to make her look at me as a guardian, or just a sister? Do I know enough to do a decent job at steering her in the right direction, for now?

Before I managed to find a suitable answer to my questions, they found a foster home. I was relieved, in a way that I now feel guilty for. I don't think I'm ready to be a parent. I already don't know how I did it when I was at home. Certainly, 20 years old isn't old enough to parent a teenager. Her foster family don't speak much English, and its lonely with no one to talk to in the house. But she's somewhere at least. I can't imagine how much emotional pain she must have been in, and is still in, knowing that, at 13, no one wanted her. I know how much it hurt me when my mom kicked me out at 16. But I still had one other parent to take care of me. She had no one. And I was older. She's in that awful stage that is the beginning of being a teenager. God, I hated being 13.

My mother gets out of her thing (more on that lateR) in a few weeks, and will get my sister out of foster care. The other is still with the family who will adopt her. That's the plan right now.

Happy Birthday To Me

Well, I feel obligated to do a birthday posts, but honestly,  I've got nothing to say. My birthday was, for the most part, not blog-worthy.

Jeffrey worked all morning, so I was home alone (Grandma was out). I puttered about on the computer for a few hours, told myself I didn't have to do the laundry, and generally just let myself slack. I had to work from 4-11. I left for work before Jeffrey got home. Work was uneventful (except for one guy who just totally grossed me out, AND was an asshole, to boot.) but after work, I came home to a cake Jeffrey had made, and some presents in the form of Oreos and Cheez-its..... in other words, my two favorite snacks ever (and the cake is lovely, delicious)

I think I pretty much broke my record for Facebook birthday wishes, at a grand total of 56 (but that's not counting all the non-facebook wishes I got) so that was pretty fantastic. It's the little things like that, which make me really happy. On my 16th birthday, not one single person wished me a happy one until after I reminded them that it was my birthday. Even my parents and sisters forgot. Both of my sisters remembered this year. It was fantastic.

In other not-so-news, nothing has changed with college. I STILL have no recommendation letter. No one will write me one, or even respond to my emails. I'm going to get in touch with teh Dean of Students today, because this isn't okay. At the very least, they ought to email me saying "I will not write you a letter." Ignoring me completely is just plain rude. And I'm going to be heartbroken if the reason I don't get into Hollins is because I can't get a recommendation. I was a much better student in college than I ever was in high school, but several of my high school teachers were willing to write me recommendations. I just don't understand, and I'm angry that no one will explain it to me. Are you too busy? Did I not make enough of an impression for you to remember me? Did you secretly hate me for some reason or another?

But since this is my "Happy Birthday" post, I'll end this by saying: I'm 20! Woah! New decade..... ten years ago, I was panicking because I thought my entrance into "double-digits" was going to be scary. 7 years ago, I thought the same thing as I entered "teenagerdom".  And on my 16th birthday, I fell apart because I was afraid that the fact everyone forgot foreshadowed my future. Now I'm entering (or already in, I guess, since my birthday was yesterday) my 20s. This too, is a landmark birthday, but this one isn't nearly as scary. This one I think marks the start of my entrance to adulthood, and I think I can handle that, whatever it entails.

Leap of Faith?

It's a long story, but if you don't want to read it, there's a tl;dr version on the bottom. Just scroll.

I started cheerleading when I was 8, for a local rec-football team. I loved it, but it was only a few months a year. Outside of cheer season, I'd constantly be talking about it, practicing old cheers, and trying to talk the neighbor kids into practicing stunting with me (which looking back on, I'm glad they refused, since they had no idea what they were doing and we were all kids with no supervision)

When I was 11, an All-Star team (competitive team, for those who don't know anthing about cheerleading) opened up nearby, and I joined it. It was 3 practices a week, year round. It became my everything (second only to my love of writing) We were good. Not great, but good. We had two teams, a junior and a senior team. I was on the Junior team. Our seniors won first place at their first competition. The first competition any of our teams had. They continued doing just as well at all the regional competitions, but always came in last at Nationals. That was okay, we figured. That's still better than a lot of other teams in the country. Our junior team wasn't as great, but we did well enough. We made it to Nationals, finally, in our third year, and everything fell apart. One girl called us just before our flight and said she changed her mind about coming. Another girl, our best tumbler, broke her wrist in the pool at the hotel. A third girl (and her mother) got food poisoning and couldn't compete because she couldn't stop puking. We had to re-arrange our routine, we all messed up at least once, and we came in last. That's fine. Our performance was really terrible.

None of us knew, at the time, that it would be our last competition. A month or so later, our coach sat us all down at the end of practice. She had lost the lease on our gym. She was having a hard time finding us a new practice space, because we needed it three times a week. She asked what we wanted to do. We wanted to stay together, even if that meant only one practice a week. We'd just practice more at home.

We tried. Our coach couldn't handle it.  Our team dissolved. There were no other All-Star teams in the area. I was starting high school, but my school didn't have a team. I had no other options. Cheerleading was over for me.

It's 6 years later, and I still miss the sport more than anything. I'm in college now, but there's no way I can cheer. For one, my school doesn't have cheerleaders, and more importantly, I'm out of practice, and out of shape. I doubt I can even do a decent cartwheel right now.

But since I'm in college, I just moved. And the town I'm in has an All-Star gym. I'm tempted to send them an email, saying..... I don't even know what. I can't cheer, I'm not certified to coach, I've never choreographed anything half-way decent, and I can't even answer phones for them, because talking on the phone sends me into a crazy anxiety attack in which I'm likely to throw up or pass out. And their team is internationally ranked. Mine was only barely nationally anything, and I was one of the least-skillful girls on the team. But I want, maybe need, to get back into my sport. I'd happily vacuum their spring floors (THEY HAVE 2! TWO COMPETITION SIZED SPRING FLOORS! HOW FREAKING AWESOME IS THAT!? ) for free. But how do I say that without seeming like a desperate wanna-be, or a total creeper?

But on the other hand, it would break my heart if they turned me away. I hurt enough for Cheerleading. I don't want to hurt more.

Irrelevant, but  we've set the date for our wedding. May 31, 2012.

Time to Vent a Little

I'm getting really REALLY tired of strangers telling me I'm too young to get married. You’re strangers. If you were a friend, I would think you were genuinely concerned. But you aren’t a friend. I don’t even know your name. You have no reason to care about whether my marriage is a success or a failure, and so your comments about how my marriage is doomed? They almost feel like something that you’re saying just to upset me.

And it’s working. It's not making me second guess myself. It's not making me scared. It's just making me angry. You don't know who I am, you don't know who he is, and your reasons for why its a bad idea, half the time, aren't even true.

Friends, if you think I'm making a mistake, I will listen to you. I will know that you're trying to help, and I won't get angry. I will appreciate your honesty, even if our opinions are not the same.

Strangers I will NOT listen to you. Not unless you take the time to actually talk to me, whcih would make you not strangers anymore.

What prompted this? I found a message on facebook from someone who I don't know. It's a friend-of-a-facebook-friend, but I hardly even know our one mutual connection. When I first read the message, I was so offended that I deleted it instantly, but it said something along the lines of "Congratulations on ruining your life. It's impossible to make a marriage last when you're young, and no one who gets married in college ever graduates. Have fun being in debt and homeless in ten years."

It was longer than that, but I can't remember what else it said. It was rude, and I'm quite angry. Unfortunately, I encounter this attitude pretty often. It's always "You're too young and you're ruining your life." Occasionally it's "Oh you're getting married? I didn't know you were pregnant." That's just annoying. I'm not pregnant, and even if I was, I would not get married just because of that.

Oh, and I'm not ruining my life. Just throwing that out there.

Why I hate having an anxiety disorder.

About two years ago I was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Of course, because I was a minor at the time, and because excess anxiety makes me sometimes come off as a basket-case, no one told me anything about it. Just "You've got this disorder, but we don't think your case is severe enough to need treatment." Everything I know about it, besides the name, has been from Google.

Cool thanks. Now I've got fancy words that may or may not be the reason I can't make a phone call without feeling like I'm having a heart attack. Now I have words to explain that when you ask me a question and I'm not expecting it, my mind goes blank even if I know the answer. Even if it's something obvious like my name. If you put me on the spot enough, I do not know ANYTHING! Now I have a diagnosis that says "This is why you wont turn in any school assignments that you haven't thoroughly edited." I now have a piece of paperwork that means that my absurdly irrational fears are noted.

Let me tell you, a diagnosis doesn't help. In fact, it might even make things worse. Today I started panicking. I'm trying to transfer colleges. I need to ask for recommendations. I need to call my current college, and my high school and get my transcripts. Remember me mentioning irrational fears? I have a whole list of them. One of the hardest ones to live with is the fear of making phone calls to strangers or near-strangers. So I had to make three phone calls (recommendation, transcript, transcript). My heart was racing.

Then I have to write this essay to transfer. That's fine, except that I had already done one and a half drafts. In the first one, I sound depressed. Not just depressed, but almost suicidal. I'm not. I'm quite content actually. That essay got scrapped. I started a second one. Great, now I sounded like I'm bragging. Overcompensate much? I was panicing more. Cue the nausea.

I thought maybe I would calm myself down my eating an ice cream cone. I checked my bank account. $1005. I thought I had about $100 more than that. I had been keeping track of my account in my head, and forgot to subtract the money that my ipod had cost. Crap. Panic.

I suddenly remembered that I still had homework to do for two classes, and I fell apart. If I didn't do that homework I wouldn't get an A. If I didn't get an A no colleges would want me. If no colleges want me, then I'll never get my degree and I'll never become a teacher and I'll be a failure at life. It didn't matter to me that the work wasn't (isn't) due until Monday and Tuesday. That was it. I get restless when I'm in that state. I had to move. Had to walk. So I did. I slammed my laptop shut, shoved it in my backpack and RAN out of the mall. Bad idea. It hurt.

Ouch, I thought, because of my hurt hip. Then my diagnosis came floating back to me. "Anxiety Disorder" floated through my brain. Great, I thought, I'm a crazy. I can't even control my own actions. I don't even have the presence of mind to not run after I hurt myself. How can I ever expect to be a normal human being if I keep collapsing due to stupid things? Everyone has to do these sorts of things, and if I can't keep it together I must be crazy. I must be useless. And besides, what kind of person doesn't take responsibility for their actions? Its my fault I'm falling apart. Not this disorders. Only very weak people blame things beyond their control. I must be weak if I think that its the disorders fault. I must be worthless.

You see where that's going. I walked around the outside of the mall doing this. (As a side note, I realized today that this mall is HUGE. It took me 15 minutes to make the loop, and I wasn't exactly walking slow. I was as close to running as I could get without hurting my hip.)

By the time I got back to the doors I had ran from earlier I was better. I was still very angry with myself, but I wasn't panicky. I was just plain old angry. I will take angry any day over fear. Anger is easier to get rid of. I am a lot better at forgiving than I am at trying to NOT PANIC OVER STUPID THINGS! The moment I say those words to myself, or anything like them, that's about when I lose it. Funnily enough, when a serious situation comes up, I'm pretty good about not panicking. I can handle fear, or at least I can mask it. My heart rate might go up when I'm scared. I might get nauseous. Hell, I might even puke if I'm that terrified. But when it's a rational fear, I know there should an equally rational solution. It's when I'm 100% aware that my fear is unfounded that I lose it. When your fear doesn't make sense, how can you fix it. And the "not-knowing-what-to-do" factor is what gets me. It's the straw that breaks my back.

I still absolutely hate my diagnosis. Maybe it's better to know what specifically is wrong with me, but maybe not. Maybe I'd rather pretend that all people turn to jello at the thought of making a phone call. Maybe I want to get rid of my diagnosis and say "I'm in control!"

But unfortunately, I can't get rid of it, any more than you can get rid of cancer by denying it. I've been having these awful anxiety attacks since I was a little girl. I have tried denying them, and that did me no good. So now they have a name. Great. Thanks for that entirely USELESS bit of information.

I think that when I get back to Mass (read: when I get back to a place where I have health insurance) I'm going to start going to some sort of therapist. I've gone back and forth with this for a while. My last therapist told me that my mother was right to kick me out for not having a job. She told me that I was greedy, and stubborn and had a very inaccurate view of my family. (This bothered me particularly much since she at the time she said it, she hadn't spoken to anyone but my father, and she'd only spoken to him for about 15 minutes, outside of scheduling appointments.)

But I do know that different types of therapy work for different people, so I'm going to go with that and try again.

I'm just a kid

Me, when I was little

Sometimes it hits me hard, like a truck: I’m still just a kid.

I’m dwelling on this custody thing? Did I mention it in one of the other blogs that I tend to dwell on things? If not, now you know. I am a dweller, and I’m dwelling (I really love the word dwell!)

Back to the point: I’m just a kid. Sometimes I forget it. I’ve spent my whole life trying to be grown up. Trying to take care of people. Trying to be independent. I don’t like asking for help. A part of me, not the rational part, thinks it weak, and immature. The rational part of me knows that everyone needs help sometimes.

My sister’s future potentially rests in my hands. That’s way more than any 19 year old wants to hear. I have a person depending on me? What? But.... but... but... I’m not old enough for that kind of responsibility. Yeah right. Life doesn’t work that way. And in a way, it’s not any more than I ever have had to do. I’ve always been the one taking care of my sisters. I’ve always been the one taking care of my mom. So why is it so hard to make a decision, this time?

That’s exactly why. Because it’s a decision. I never had to think about it before. Sisters are hungry? Make dinner. Mom needs to be brought back in (she used to sleep walk)? Go get her and hide the car keys so she doesn’t try to sleep-drive. Sister is sick? Send her back to bed, and bring her juice, or tea, or read to her. Mom is drunk? Direct her anger at me instead of the girls.

It was all automatic, because nothing that was good for one was ever bad for the other. This is different. We can’t all win. I think this is the hardest of the situations. Sure, it sucked when they got taken away. It sucked when I couldn’t call them. But there wasn’t anything I could do about it. At the time I probably said that I hated feeling useless. Now, I wish there wasn’t anything I could do.

Inaction, that horrible waiting, unsure but unable to do anything about it. That hurts.

But action, and potentially making the wrong decision? That hurts more. I can’t handle guilt. I’ve had issues handling guilt my whole life. It’s one of the emotions that totally can tear me apart. When I’m angry, I can remain composed. When someone hurts or betrays me, I can suffer in silence, with a smile on my face. But guilt? Nope. I’ll end up sitting in a puddle of my own tears and tissues. Sometimes, it even makes me nauseated. A guilty Boat isn’t a pretty Boat.

But I think this time, inaction would cause just as much guilt as the wrong action would. So maybe I will speak at the hearing, but if I do, I’m not going to lie. I’ve written myself a speech. I’m sure when the time comes, I won’t actually make the speech. I’ll say something shorter, and less emotional, less messy, but here it is, anyways.

My mom has had a lot of ups and downs. When she’s up, when she’s sober, she’s super mom. Right now, she’s up. In a big way, I want Lauren to experience that. Some of my best memories are of me and my mom, when she was sober. But I’m scared. Because every up is followed by a down. And I can’t imagine putting Lauren through that any more. I was there. I saw what happened to all of us. We were a mess. I don’t want to take that risk with her. I was a pretty screwed up kid, emotionally. I was never happy. I’m scared for her. And I think it’s best for her to stay where she is. But then again, what if my mom stays sober? There’s no way to see into the future, and what that was the last ‘down’ she’ll ever go through? What if she doesn’t drink again, but Lauren wasn’t there to see how great of a mother she was when she was sober? I don’t know what’s best. I side with Lauren, whatever she wants to do. She’s a smart kid. I think she knows what’s best for her.

So that’s what I’ll say, or at least, the idea behind it. I will go along with whatever an 11 year old tells me.

But I’m terrified. I’m just a kid. Kid’s shouldn’t control other people’s lives.

Also, the speakers on my laptop are not working properly. It’s REALLY irritating.