Live Forever or Die Trying

Tuesdays are the day I have therapy, and in light of my recent trauma of a 65, I talked about it to my therapist. Since I equate that huge red number as “65 = kaston is a failure”, she gave me an assignment. An art project, to be more specific. I am to scan the grade and print out 9 copies. I can “decorate” it as much as I want, but I have to glue them together in a quilt fashion and hang it on my wall.

If are like “huh?”, let me explain. This is one way not only to accept that I got a failing grade, but to separate it from me. If I see, every day, that awful grade on the wall I might begin to accept it and the pain of it might lessen as time passes. And as I get used to seeing the number and not having the pain associated with it, and as I continue day by day with out dying…well I am sure you get the point now.

As a kid I always tried to be perfect for my parents. Not so I would get praised or be bragged about, but so I would not be a burden on them; I wanted to stay out of the way and not interfere in their lives. Any time that I did do something that got their attention, it was an accident and most of the time it was because I “messed up” (forgetting chores, had to get woken up for school, got sick, ect.). The same went for my grades. I was not cheered for an A, it was expected of me. But when I got a B, I was chided for it and I felt like the worst daughter on the planet; I had done something that required them to “deal” with me.

I want to let this go, but it is so hard. Still to this day, anything less than an A makes me feel like crap; I have failed, someone had to take time out of their life to show me in red ink where I screwed up. If it was perfect then only 10 min of their time would be spent on me, but every mistake means more time spent on me. I am, again, a burden.
My first step, talking about it, is here. Even if only 2 people read it, it is here for the world to know: I received a failing grade on one paper in one class 3 weeks before my graduation. I hurt, but I am still alive. I have intense emotion, but I have forgotten how to cry. It has been years since I have had a “proper” cry and probably coincides with my mother’s untimely death.

Part of my issue with letting go of this grade is the inability to let it out, to sob into my pillow alone until the tears are dry and my shoulders are lighter. But in a society where “boys don’t cry”, “only sissies cry”, and crying being seen as a weakness how can I get it back?

I ask my therapist today why I never see any of the strong adults in my life cry. My dad kicked me out of his house when he felt I had emotionally got the best of him, Harriet has gone through a lot since I have known her and I haven’t even heard a quiver in her voice, Molly is a single mom (enough said there!), and my brother has frequently gone hungry. Why have I never seen any of these people I admire cry?

Her answer was, “you won’t because they do it in the bathroom when no one is around.” I asked a follow-up, “If crying is okay, then why do they hide? Why are they ashamed?”

That is my issue. It is okay to cry, but only if no one else knows you are in pain. Why would we have a physiological way to communicate pain if it was not meant as nonverbal language to another person. If it is not okay to cry and show others that another human being is in pain, why should I bother?

The only tears I have are the ones you see here that trickle from my brain, run down my fingers and splash on these keys.

Three weeks before I graduate, I get my first failing grade in college.  The pain is unbearable.

Today, well I guess technically yesterday since it is after midnight,  I mailed all 35 of my invitations!  I would have liked to get them sent off a week or more ago, but school hindered that!

As for school, I have caught up and got a little ahead. This is in part due to the fact I skip my class on Thursday.  yes, yes, I know I NEVER skip class, but she teaches from the book, word for word, and I have several people in my group that will let me know of anything I missed that needs to get added to the notes I post for the class (yeah they all love me for it too!).

I find that I am very productive in the morning when I should be in class because I race to see if I can do more in my 2 hours at home than they do in class, and I do! With gas prices so high, and it being 104 daily, I just can’t see the benefit for driving for an hour, sitting in class for 2 more, and then spending money on parking.  I am sure some of it has to do with it getting so close to the end.

I GRADUATE IN THREE WEEKS!!!!!!!

*panic attack*  I still can’t believe I will be done and actually get to make money!  We can almost get by now (get a little more into debt each month by about $100) and with me working, we might be able to double our household income.  I can’t wait to pay Harriet and Phil back for the loan and I can’t wait to get out of debt, and above all, I can’t wait to build our own home! I say “I” but Dean feels the same way I am sure

I hate money, but maybe when we are out of our ~60k debt (includes 30k in school loans) I might like it more.

As I am sure my readers have noticed, I have not posted much recently. Well that is due to this crazy semester. This semester is actually 2 hours less than the last one, but the work load is oh so much more! One incident occurred and the loss of that ONE afternoon has had me playing catchup for over a week now.
After the first day of class I got home and got organized for school and was about to begin my homework when Dean said he was done for the day. Lately I have been picking him up from work just because it is too damn hot to be out roller blading and I am worried he will have a heat stroke. So anyway I go to the car to leave and it doesn’t start. I run into the house to see if I can catch him online and let him know, but too late. Call his office, but by now he is waiting out front. Call his boss who is up there which goes and gets him, and tell him about the car an d apologize that he has to skate home

Once he gets here we take a look at the car and in less than 5 min he discovers the problem. The battery effing melted! The positive terminal totally decided to mate with the connection and make some sort of automotive bond! Dean was exhausted after work and the skate home to deal with it so I did. Dean took out the battery and went to bed while I got our friend Grant to take me to O’Rilley (sp?).

click for larger image. The center of the red is only supposed to be a screw, what you see is melted battery!

Grant being the sweetie he was spent 2 freaking hours pulling, knocking, and finally drimmeling the pieces apart; he and his wife Prabha had to leave the next morning for Chicago and had packing to do, but they put it off and gladly helped me with the problem.

For their efforts, we insisted they let us take then to the airport the next morning at 5am. They agreed, and after it was all fixed, Dean woke up from his nap and we went out for drinks at Logan’s Roadhouse.

I have yet to finish catch-up. No matter how much I work, I feel like I cannot get enough done! Have a test tomorrow, have a 20 page paper due Wednesday, need to finish packaging invitations and get them mailed off, need to contact the potential job offers, need to clean the house, need to take poor Athena to the Vet to get more asthma meds, need to go grocery shopping, did I mention clean the house? Heck right now I need to clean myself. It is about 1am and although I know I have worked my ass off today, I feel like I did nothing at all because none of it actually got finished. Even when something does get finished, I don’t have time to to exhale because I have to work on something else! And I start the whole cycle over tomorrow at 8:30 am, if I can even get my brain to shut up about all I need to do so I can even get to sleep!
I need a maid! And a shower, badly…

Well apparently the person who wrote the article for the UNT paper did a news release to other news sources and the Fort Worth Star Telegram will also be doing a story on me.  So sometime soon I will be contacted by them for an interview.

I kinda hope that I keep up this level of publicity, it would not only help my career, but get my name and ideas out to the public.  Although I have to say my self esteem is telling me I am not worth the trouble while my narcissism is telling me “its abut damn time you got some recognition!”  Wow what a split personality I have!