The post mortem

It's 1:57 am. I'm so tired. It's been a rough week for sleeping. I need hope in a dark world right now. I'm lying awake in my room and I hear my son cry. That sound is usually followed by a sense of anxiety or frustration. I know all he wants is his way. But I'm already awake. And I'm lonely and scared and Terrance is out of town so I go to him. I ask him what's wrong and his raspy, half asleep voice explains that a giant spider was just in his bed. I remind myself to take down the Halloween decorations and to stop screaming when I see spiders in the house.  I gather him in my arms and hold him. I need something good in my life. "Wanna snuggle yah bed" he begs. I let him sleep with me. I look at him as he drifts to sleep. He flops over and nuzzles his head into the crook of my arm. I lean down and kiss his head and the smell of his childhood innocence is intoxicating and tears well up in my eyes. I need his innocence again. I need the hope back. And then the responsibility I feel to raise him to be a good person weighs on me so much I almost suffocate under it. And then he sighs a contented sigh and I squeeze him a bit and let my face fall into his hair and that smell is there and I finally drift off. He's my hope. I need to sleep so I can get up tomorrow and raise him to be the kind of person that wants to tear down walls, not build them. 

Thoughts on the 2016 Presidential Election

You just elected a man who is the face of a world where if your daughter gets raped, it was probably her fault because her skirt was too short. You have to look her in the eye and explain why an unprepared, underqualified man gets chosen for a job over her because his hate speech resonated with angry people who have had to sit through a powerful Black man telling them what to do for 8 years. That no matter what she does on her own, her husband's actions will always be more important to talk about than her own. 

There's a lot of rhetoric coming out of the right about how the left is being worse than anything Trump did. This is the problem. Because if you truly believe that, you're only hearing what you want to. You ignored the parts where he incited violence because you didn't like Hillary. You ignored the parts where he advocated for sexually assaulting women because he has more money than them. When he objectified his own daughter and only wouldn't date her because of those pesky, cross-cutting social norms society has embraced that make it wrong to find your offspring sexually attractive.

I absolutely understand that the email issue is about more than just the emails, that it was a symptom, for you, of maybe something worse. But I'm still grappling with how you let a "maybe" outweigh a blatant disregard for so much of this country and the people that make it great. 

There have been rallying cries on both sides to unify. I'm trying. That will probably be easier to do when I'm well rested. When I stop waking up in the middle of the night, unable to sleep because the country which I love so fiercely elected a man who causes terror in the hearts of so many people I love. When I get physically sick thinking about what this means for climate change. When I can't quiet the gnawing voice in the back of my subconscious that tells me that he was elected because she is a woman that doesn't subscribe to your expectations of how a lady should act.  

I can't get behind the #notmypresident movement because it goes against my belief in our country and what it could stand for. I won't riot in the streets. I certainly won't burn a flag. What I'll be is fearful that what's about to happen will irreparably impact a world that my son has to inherit. That so many people that I walk amongst on a daily basis didn't think racism and misogyny and xenophobia were big enough reasons to not vote for someone.

9/11 is a tough day for me.

 I had no more a connection to the attacks than the next person; I didn’t know anyone who died personally. I had been to the Twin Towers just once, and it had already become a memory that existed simply because people told me I had done it. None of that matters, of course. The point was to hurt us all. And it did hurt me.

Life can be now divided for so many of us into before and after. So much of the ramifications permeate our daily lives that it’s hard to remember the before.

It was my junior year in Wilmington. I was the last one to leave that day. I was standing in the kitchen of our house on Chestnut Street, watching Good Morning America while I ate a bowl of cereal before class. The sky in New York was so blue.  Charlie Gibson reported that there had been an accident, that a plane had crashed into the twin towers. It was all so innocent. There was not anxiety, no pretense. Just reporting a weird occurrence. The pilot must have had a heart attack. The plane malfunctioned.  They cut to the Towers about 30 seconds before the second plane hit.  I dropped my spoon and it bounced on the floor as the anchors came to the realization that we were under attack.

I spent the next week on the couch, obsessing over the coverage.  Calling everyone I know to tell them I love them.  Wondering how this could happen. How could people hate so much? We were all a little hardened that day.  In the after, life is less innocent.  

14 years since 9/11 and I can’t really talk about it without crying. As I type these words, my eyes have welled up with tears. It’s a different world, the after. 

I no longer have a baby. I have a toddler.

Let me let that sink in.

As of 2:57PM today, he has been on this earth for 8765.81 hours. Today is cause for celebration. Logan is ONE! How did that happen? Watching him grow is amazing. I’m so happy he’s healthy. He’s walking and talking and barking at the dogs. He laughs at hilarious things, like dancing. He cries at tragic things, like being left in his crib so I can shower in the morning. He’s becoming a little person, and for that I am grateful. But also, a little sad.

Let me be clear. Having an infant was work. The hard times were harder than I could have ever prepared myself for. It was a year spent wondering if I was doing it right. If he was OK. Why he wasn’t rolling over or standing or eating or sleeping exactly how the book said he would. It was a year of sleepless nights. Of early mornings. Of feeling like I was failing, But occasionally of feeling like I was doing OK. All in all, the good moments outshine the bad. The stress of a night filled with hours of screaming was simply eliminated with a smile. The fits of despair that came from trying to feed him with a spoon melted away during a snuggle filled nursing session.

Before I was a mother, I would have secretly judged the kind of mother I am. I breastfed, even though it caused me pain. I would be a stay at home mom if I could. I coslept because it was the difference between sleep and no sleep. I wasn’t ready to leave him for a night at 6 months. I refuse to go to the gym because I can't leave him in day care for another hour every day. I’ve let motherhood consume every facet of my life. And you know what, I’m not even sorry. I would not change any of it. He’s a baby for the blink of an eye.  

Even with all of the work that went into keeping my little person alive over the past year, I loved it. I loved even the hard moments. I know that I will love what’s yet to come. I know he’s entering a fun stage. But part of me already misses my baby.

Bittersweet is the label I would give today.

Happy Birthday to my Mr. Buggles, my Logi Bear, my Poopers, my Logan.  

Goal updates

In the interest of full disclosure and accountability, I'm going to try and update goals once a week-ish. Hopefully, that will make me blog more, and then my blog will take off and it will be more of like a "lifestyle website" with recipes and upcycling and crafts and clothes and stuff. Kind of like Blake Lively's Preserve or Lauren Conrad's site. You know, I could be more of a lifestyle brand.
Because I'm the same as them.
Just without the looks, money, or purpose.

Yet.

Back to the business at hand. Goals.

1. I weigh a lot

So, I didn't weigh myself before I set my weight loss goal. I weighed myself last week. I was a little saddened by the number that looking back at me. I'm not happy, but OK with it for now. If my career in health assessment has taught me anything, it's that you need baseline to set a goal because you need to know what you have to improve on. I have a lot of room for growth (or loss, as it were). 

I'm trying to work on this. I've been very consistent with my 3:00 work break workouts. The problem is they only last about 5 minutes. Nobody's losing weight on 5 minutes of activity a day. So I'm trying to add more in. Today, I took the opportunity to walk to work in the freezing cold and I used my lunch break to do a 20 minute workout. Little tip for you new moms out there - jumping jacks are tough when you have pelvic floor dysfunction. If you want to start this program at your office, I recommend a change of clothes. ALL of them. And I'll still do our workout at 3.

My office workout for today. The title of the picture is " WANT THIS BODY?"
Why yes, yes I do. 

I made myself promise that I would drink more water. And I have - I'm down to a can of diet coke a day (you might have heard of their stock crashing recently because they lost their biggest buyer). I'm probably getting 80-90 ounces of water a day in. 

I'm pretending the elevator is out of service. Even if I really want to take it. 

I can't quit the candy. I just can't. Maybe if I master the workouts and the water and the elevators, maybe then. But I need something. 

So, all in all, I'm satisfied with my efforts. My next weigh in should let me know if I should be, or if I'm sitting on a throne of lies. 

2. My wallet does not weigh a lot

I've done the worst with this resolution. 1 week in and I'm already a failure. I have excuses, most of them sound something like "I packed my lunch but didn't have time to eat breakfast so I ate my lunch for breakfast and now it's 9am and I'm starving so I have to go buy lunch and 45 snacks since I'm doing these 5 minute workouts so I have to refuel." This week has been better than last. Next week will be better than this week. 

On a positive money note, the tenants in our NC house let us know that the roof was leaking and we thought there was an issue with the furnace at our new place, one of which was free to fix and the other was less than $20, so I'd like to get credit for thousands of dollars saved on home repairs if I could. 

Terrance did find out that he's getting a bonus at work, which we'll hopefully use to pay down some stuff and do some improvements on the house that we need. That will be nice. 

Overall, I'd give myself a C on this one. 

3. Purposely purposeful 

This one is going pretty great. On a lark, I applied for a job at Harvard.  They called me for an interview. NBD. Harvard University. The one in Cambridge, MA. John Kennedy's HARVARD. So maybe someday, someone somewhere will utter the phrase, "oh, you know Kelly? The one from Harvard?" Or I'll be hanging out with my new friends on The Cape and we'll be all like "I know the 18 foot sailboat is the better choice, but I really like that yacht" or something. In reality, I did some digging and the salary would make it tough to accept if they offer me the bottom of the range, I'll need to negotiate quite a bit. I kind of have to decide if taking a hit on goal 2 is worth achieving goal 3. And that's if I get an offer. I fully understand that there is not a large enough font for the weight of that if. But for a little bit, things are better. In the words of Joseph Addison, "three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for." 

I have the something to love, and now I have the something to hope for in my goal of something to do. 

So there we have it. Not so bad for the first of the year, especially since winter finally arrived. (See below)

so. cold. 

My walk to work this morning. 

GOAL 3: What do I want to be when I grow up?

The third and final stop on the Kelly Bragg #2015newyearnewyou express is to figure out what I'm doing with my life. In the past year, the following phrases have come out of my mouth:

- I think I'm going to go back to school for an MPP
- I think I'm going to go back to school for a PhD
- I want to be a health policy analyst for a non profit or an NGO
- I want to be a Real Housewife
- I'm going to look into the DO program at OU
- The MCATs seem hard
- The CDC is hiring ebola workers, that sounds fun
- I thought about law school for when Logan goes to school, but maybe I'll try hair school instead
- I really bombed that LSAT practice test
- Hair school is $30,000 for 13 months
- Kris Jenner is brilliant.
- Maybe I should try art school.
- Or event planning.
- Or interior design.
- Or industrial design.
- But Terrance, public health does make me happy.

That last one came as part of a conversation that Terrance and I were having about me looking for other jobs and he very earnestly, without a hint of irony, said "have you ever considered doing something that makes you happy?" I assured him that I like public health. He quickly replied that I've never seemed like it. THat I seemed most happy planning parties and showers. These things have always been hobbies for me. Hobbies I enjoy and that I'm good at. But as a career? I really do like public health/health education. I believe in the public health system and what it does. I think it's unbelievably valuable to society. Which is, perhaps, why I get so disgruntled. I don't feel like what I do impacts anyone.

Because the purpose of this is to discuss the future, not the past, I won't elaborate on where I've been. Just believe me that I've been underutilized.

So what is the resolution here? To get a new job? Maybe. To switch careers if I need to to be happy? Possibly. I think it's more to figure out which one of those makes the most sense for me. How am I going to go about that? Here's the loophole for this one - the resolution is actually to figure out what I'm doing, not actually do it. So I have some time, but I have some ideas. To be successful with this resolution, I'm going to:
- continue applying for new jobs. I'm going to try for 1 a week. My rule for new jobs is that I have to apply for jobs that I never would have before. As long as I feel like i could do a good job, I'm applying, regardless of if I meet every requirement. I also need the job to pay a set amount, based on where it is.
-explore other career options. How do I become an event planner? Look into courses on interior design. Sign up for the LSATs. Something, once a month that gives me the opportunity to explore the world beyond my comfort zone

Hopefully, if I do these things, by 2016 I'll be either ridiculously happy, ridiculously wealthy, or both. I'm hoping for that third one.


So there you have it: lose weight, lose debt, and gain purpose. Those are my goals for 2015. They are all challenging in their own way. I don't realistically think that I'll achieve all 3... but wouldn't it be a trip if I did?

GOAL 2: Money

I've got Dom Perignon tastes on a Bartles & James budget. 

The overindulgence that I spoke of yesterday extends beyond just food, it also applies to purchasing things. 
Everything from shoes to baking supplies to, unfortunately, houses. I have made a life of buying things which I can't afford and I've often blamed my low wages on my nonexistent bank account balance, but the truth is that my personal lack of control is more to blame than the fact that I'm underpaid (I will always maintain that I should be earning more, but hopefully resolution 3 will take care of that. And really, you are supposed to live within your means. It's dress for the job you want, not spend that way, Kelly). Terrance and I had a discussion the other day we're both tired of the way we live. We want to be more in control of things. I read a story years ago about a couple that went one year without buying anything they didn't need. They bought food only at the grocery store - no trips out to eat. They checked out books and movies from the library - no cable, no Barnes and Noble, no movies. No vacations, weekend trips, day trips or trips to the mall. They didn't spend anything they didn't need to. This sounds like a boring life, but they were also able to pay off a substantial amount of debt by the end of the year by only doing that. And, as an added bonus, they were happier because they learned to live on only what they needed and not what they wanted. They appreciated everything around them so much more. They tried new foods, they just cooked themselves.These are values I wish to install in Logan. It's important to me that he understand how important it is to be smart with your money. So starting in January, we are going to try to go 12 months.

Three hundred and sixty five days of conscious minimalism. It will be hard. I am frugal. I buy clearance shoes. I just buy a lot of them. I will make lists and set budgets and clip coupons. I will do this. I'm not willing to put my debt out there. Between the two mortgages, car payments, student debt, and Visa, it's a lot. I don't plan on being debt free by 2016. But I'd like my debt to shrink. 

(I'd like to at least be rid of Visa. That bitch is annoying.) 

GOAL 1: WEIGHT

My never ending struggle with my weight has intensified. We're basically at a DEFCON 1 in my own personal battle of the bulge. Clothed, I find myself to be pleasantly plump. I'm learning to dress my postpartum body. Draping seems key. And cardigans. And scarves. Empire wastes are an absolute no no. As are hip hugging jeans that tend to hit me right under my still present belly.  It's the times that I catch myself in the mirror unclothed that I have trouble. I stare, not unlike a tailgater passing the gnarled wreckage of a highway collision, at my midsection. The dimpled and indented graffitti of stretchmarks and extra fat marring the once smooth landscape of my abdomen. Women on the internet call them "tiger stripes" that I should wear like a badge of honor. I crave that self confidence, to look at them and see anything but my failure to prevent what I promised myself wouldn't happen. I study the lumps and bumps of my upper thighs and, perhaps the silver lining, I marvel at the size of my (now enormous) breasts, conscious that they are, at every moment, inflating with milk. The fat on my back - the adipose filled skin that rolls over itself under no pressure whatsoever- is my biggest nemesis. No amount of sucking in makes it go away. The thing is, I've been overweight before. I've blogged about my previous struggles. I've fought pesky pounds that won't go away. But this time it's harder, for many reasons.


I take responsibility for my part of this. I know that I have to shoulder the blame for my current inability to fit into a single pair of the pants that are currently gathering cobwebs in my closet.  I would be lying if I said I had no idea why I couldn't lose the weight. The truth is that when you don't exercise and you eat whatever you want, and what you want to eat is chocolate and pizza and other foods that you're not supposed to, it's tough to drop the pounds. But this struggle of mine has been different, this time.

First, there are a lot of post partum issues that I have had that I don't want to talk about on this blog, but it's taken me almost a year to be able to walk around the block without pain. It's frustrating, especially when everyone tells you you can start exercising at 6 weeks. I registered for a jogging stroller.  I had visions of Logan and I going on runs, enjoying the summer together. I had plans to sign us up for races. My truth is that at 6 weeks post partum, I could not roll out of bed without feeling like my pelvis was breaking in two. Trying to walk ended in tears. Stepping over the side of the tub to take a shower often made me double over in pain. I waited for it to get better. It didn't. Finally, at 12 weeks, I went to the doctor. She informed me that my pelvis was out of line and my bladder was falling. She sent me to a chiropractor, who assured me that it was bone and nerve related. He assigned me a 7 week long course of treatment at the end of which I  could walk from my desk to the bathroom without grimacing. I could not run. I could not even walk for exercise. I tried different videos to try and work different parts of my body to try and tone up. I was unsuccessful. I was also $500 poorer from copays and extra fees for service. I considered that to be a poor return on my investment. So I went to the physical therapist. She informed me that there was nothing wrong with my pelvis or my bones, but that it was all muscular. 4 and a half hours of pushing had damaged me. My pelvic floor muscles were weak. I needed physical therapy. I had more success with her. At the end of a month of treatment, I could walk ONE MILE without pain. If I kept up the exercises she gave me, I would be fine. So I left, armed with an exercise band and a sheet of exercises to do to strengthen my pelvic floor.  I'm bad at homework. I'm also alone with the baby a lot. Self care has fallen by the wayside as the need for sleep and nourishment take precedence over the need to exercise my pelvic floor. As I sit here typing this, I can actually feel my bladder. You are not supposed to be able to feel that. It's unsettling. But it's life. I haven't tried running yet. I can walk about 2 miles now without crying. That's progress. And the pain doesn't linger with me for days like it used to. Also progress.

I'm an emotional eater. I used to consider myself a stress eater, but then I realized that just about any emotion I have is an excuse for me to eat. I eat when I'm stressed about work, I eat when I'm sad about my job. I eat when I've had a good day at work. I eat because I'm stressed about Logan. I eat to reward myself if I've had a good day with Logan. I eat because I'm stressed out about Terrance being out of town and I eat because I'm so happy and relieved that he's come home. I eat because I'm frustrated that I can't do what I want. I eat because I can't run. I eat because I'm hungry, because I'm tired, because I'm sad, because I'm happy, and because I'm bored. I eat because I think something looks good and, damn it, I DESERVE it. My life is hard. Chocolate is good. I love chocolate. Not dark chocolate, not some BS Fiber One chocolate brownies; I enjoy creamy milk chocolate. Preferably by the pound. Occasionally mixed with nougat. Or nuts. Maybe hazelnuts? I do consider my life to be more colorful now that I have Nutella in it. I could write an even longer paragraph about my love of pizza, but in the interest of brevity, I will just assume that you get the point.

So what happens when you have no real metabolism to speak of, you can't exercise, and you eat whatever the hell you want? You end up sitting in front of a computer writing about how you're depressed because you're 50 pounds heavier than the day you conceived your child. My goal is to have 15 of it gone by Logan's birthday - March 3. And the rest gone by sometime after that. I'll reevaluate numbers and tonnage goals if I reach that. The point is I'm going to try. We started exercising at work. Little things, every day at 3. Hopefully, with that spark and a Costco size bottle of Advil to dull the pain, I'll be on my way. I'm also trying to cut it down to no more than 100 10 Hershey kisses a day. And eat more veggies. And drink more water.

Hopefully, small daily goals + big weight goal = Happy 2015.

Wish me luck. I'm going to need it.

New Year Goals

A coworker asked me if I had ever considered writing a blog, given my awesome sense of humor and what some have called "the voice of this generation". I sheepishly told  her how I like to be called the voice of this generation and that I already had a blog. This one. She enjoyed it and I have to admit it's always nice for people for people to tell you that you're good at something.

Her comment prompted me to browse through my posts in the last five years. It felt a little like when I check my Timehop every day. Timehop is an app for phones. You sync it with your social media accounts and it tells you what you've done on that day in the past. The thing is, it's fun to look back sometimes using Timehop and see how much things have changed - a facebook post about a hangover compared to the fact that you're up at 5 with a baby these days, an instagram of you when you had different hair, etc. When I looked through my past blog posts, there were a lot of commonalities. The running theme since at least 2011 has been me stressed or unhappy or both. And I'd like to change that. I've done some reading on the subject, and according to people who know more than me about changing your life situation, writing out your goals to organize them and keeping a journal of things can help. I'd like to do that.

The thing is, I've never been much of a journal keeper. My aunt and uncle got me a diary for my birthday in the sixth grade. It was fuschia and turquoise with a picture of a vintage convertible on the hard, shiny cover. I was way more excited about the lock and key that came with it than the actual act of journaling my life. My thoughts throughout my life have never lived all that long in my head. I give them almost immediately to the nearest person. This both gets me in trouble an amuses me. A lot. So my goal, as the new year approaches, is to organize my life in such a way that I don't spend hours trying to figure out how I got here, but instead I will try and figure out how to get where I want to go. This incessant drowning feeling is getting old. So thats where the blog comes in. I will list my goals for the year and hope to give a somewhat regular update on my progress. More for me, but out there for you to judge and ridicule. A commitment. I hope to achieve at least one of them. Or at least take some solace in the fact that I am actively trying to change my life for the better.

So the next few posts will have to do with my 3 big goals for a happier 2015: Get my weight under control, get my finances under control, and figure out what the hell I'm gonna do with the rest of my life.

flashbacks

When I was posting before, I found this among the many drafts I had started while I was on leave and it made me LOL. Those first weeks are so hard... it doesn't matter what you do, no one prepares you for it. And now, with just 3 more months of surviving by the skin of my teeth parenting under my belt, I feel like this person is not me anymore:

Blogging is something that people with extra time do.

I have all these things to say and I don't have time to say them.
Lets start with the big stuff. I had Logan. Labor was hell. I have no desire to document my experience with labor because there's not a chance in hell that, in 50 years, if someone asks me what my Labor with Logan was like, I won't have a flashback and be able to relive it. I'll be the first to admit, I've led a relatively cushy life thus far, but that was my Vietnam. Almost 20 hours of labor and an excruciating, frustrating, draining 4.5 hours of pushing and then there he was. A vernix covered, blue tinted baby. I was too tired to react... I went into auto pilot. I knew that I was supposed to do skin to skin so I did. The lactaction consultant came in and showed me how to breast feed so I did. I was so tired. So physically and mentally exhausted.  I'm not sure I'll ever forgive myself for not taking the damn c section when it was offered to me. I don't even remember the exact moment that I felt whatever it is mothers are supposed to feel for their newborns, but by the third day in the hospital when Terrance tried to dress him in his adorable going home outfit and Logan started crying, I pushed Terrance aside. Causing the baby discomfort wasn't worth the adorable button down shirt and tie that he was meant to go home in. Causing him anything but comfort wasn't an option. So he went home in an oversized, boring blue sleeper.

Little Logan. Oh dear, little Logan. One day, when you grow up and forget about your mom and everything she's done for you, I'm going to tell you stories about your first 2 months on earth. Parenthood is hard. At this point, victory is making it through the day with my sanity intact. Not cracking all day is a good day. I love Logan more than I every thought I could love anything. I try and read to him and I can't make it through a book because I'm so overcome with emotion. But Holy Christ. He does not make it easy. He cries. A lot. About everything and nothing at all. He cries in the morning. In the afternoon and at night. He won't sleep longer than 2 hours. The other night we made it to 2 hours and 10 minutes and I had to go check on him because i was sure he had stopped breathing. He spits up a lot. He spits up huge amounts of food. If it's breast milk, it was damn hard work getting...

I must have gotten distracted. The baby must have woken up or gotten hungry or I must have drifted off.

I still have trouble with the thought of going through labor again. The board I follow online is filled with women who are getting pregnant again or desperately want to. I can't imagine anything more terrifying. I was more uncomfortable during my pregnancy than most people knew and I still have lingering pain. I sometimes wonder if the fact that I can't forget how hard it was for me is because I have a constant reminder. Overall, though, the joy of parenthood has been something that I can't put in words. In fact, the word joy seems woefully inadequate. Logan and I have shared some rough moments here and there, but he's quite easy to love. Plus, he slept 7 hours straight last night, making him more lovable still.

perspective

Perspective. [per-spek-tiv] a :  the interrelation in which a subject or its parts are mentally viewed  perspective>;also :  point of view

My last post was decidedly depressing. I had (and continue to have) been having a particularly rough time at work, and the stress of my life as a single mom came crashing down in one melodramatic blog entry. It was a catharsis, a way to get my feelings out into the world so that they stopped weighing me down so much. In reality, sometimes life is hard. Not just my life. But life, in general. My father used to tell me that only things are guaranteed in life: death and taxes. The rest of it is basically a crap shoot. You play the hand you are dealt and hope for the best. I probably wouldn’t win the World Series of Poker with my current hand, I could have it worse.  So while I think I’m entitled to my feelings, I fully admit that the extent of my despair may have been impacted by my tendency for hyperbole and, perhaps, some lingering postpartum hormones.  A very dear friend who I have known for a very long time has had a stretch of bad breaks that makes my life look easy. When she called and told me about her most recent issue, a couple of things happened. I cried a little, I googled a lot and I gained some perspective. Sometimes your life just isn’t in sync with where you think it should be and you just have to say bye, bye, bye to the sadness, and self pity and accept the life you have.   And while life hasn’t exactly Gone the way I thought it would, it’s time to stop letting that tear up my heart.  I need to find a way to be at peace with where I am. Only I can do that, I shouldn’t rely on other people for my happiness. It’s not going to be Terrance that fixes me, It’s gonna be me.

So I’m moving on. I can’t say for sure that the thoughts of regret an inadequacy won’t creep back into my head, but I’m going to try my best to push them aside and focus on the good things, strive to change what I don’t like, and be more content with where I am in the moment. This, for now, is either at work or at home, being held hostage by Logan. He has been having some eating issues at day care, so he is extremely hungry when he comes home, which means I get to feed him until he goes to bed. He’s also going through a sleep regression that some babies (and their bleary eyed mothers) go through around 4 months.  We’re partying like we’re 8 weeks old again. 

From what I can tell, it’s pretty normal. Everything I seem to think is a problem is “normal”, which is nice, but the internet is filled with women who make you feel like if your child isn't able to get themselves out of bed and make themselves breakfast by 6 months, you’re a complete failure and your child should be in therapy. Mine isn't even rolling over on a consistent basis. I try and not let the thoughts that there's something wrong with him creep into my head. He seems like a perfectly happy, healthy little boy. As long as he doesn't think there's something wrong, I'll go with it. 

Terrance has been home for 2 whole weeks straight now. It's weird. We've had visitors basically the whole time, but not having the burden of everything with Logan and the dogs and the house fall on my shoulders has been nice. I'm sleeping more. :) I would say that I am a more pleasant person to be around, but I don't know that I'm brave enough to ask anyone else if they agree...

I posted a picture recently on Instagram and facebook. It’s of me, standing in front of some sunflowers at a community garden I work with. It’s what the kids these days are calling a “selfie”.  At first I didn’t want to post it. I didn't like it. In all honesty, I just wanted to show how tall the sunflowers have gotten this year. When I looked at it, I saw my hair out of place, the discoloration of my teeth (except for that pesky one that stays white while the others stain from the gallons of coffee a new born forces you to consume), my crooked smile and nose that no one ever seems to notice but me. I saw a collection of my imperfections. But I posted it anyway, because 7 foot sunflowers are cool. And people liked it. About 30 people to be exact. I’m sure half of them like the sunflowers, and that’s cool. They’re likeable, happy flowers.  But after people liked and commented on it, I look at the picture again. It’s a perfectly lovely picture. I look happy and the flowers are nice. The colors are good. Sometimes, you have to gain a little perspective to see what the big picture really looks like. In a lot of ways, that picture is a metaphor for my life. I have spent a lot of time focusing in on and examining the imperfections of my life.

Every once in a while, it’s good to look at the picture as a whole.

Maybe it’s not so bad, after all. 

Life after a baby...

It’s taken me a long time to write this post. The last 4 months of my life have been a roller coaster of emotions, sometimes due to the changes in my actual chemical make-up, sometimes due to my circumstances, sometimes good, but other times bad. I had the baby. Labor was, well, laborious. At the end of many hours of labor including 4.5 hours of pushing, out came Logan Jame Bragg. 9 pounds, 11.6 ounces. He is, without a doubt the best part of my life. He also makes me think of things in such a different way. The importance of certain things is magnified. Having a baby has been a catalyst to so many conversations I've had with myself and with others about where I am, where I want to be and why it feels like I’ll never make it. And the reality is that, even though I’m amazed at the capacity we have to love our offspring and my heart explodes with love for this little boy every second of everyday, it’s still not enough.

My life is lacking.

I’m not OK.

I. AM. UNHAPPY.

This is something that we aren't supposed to admit when we've got an adorable brand new bouncing baby boy who we love at home. Being a mother is supposed to make the world make sense. Nothing else matters. And Logan truly does make me happy. I cherish the moments I have with him. My life before him seems like a universe away… I can remember life without him, but I can’t imagine what life would be like now if he wasn't here. Suddenly, my old, pre baby life seems glaringly incomplete. Like a paint by number painting missing an entire digit. I hold on to my moments with him so fiercely and yet they slip away. They seem like grains of sand, running too quickly through my fingers.  I just want to pause these moments and be able to hold on to them. (I guess that’s what Instagram is for.)  I love watching him explore his world – things that I long ago stopped observing, he views with wonder and amazement and an intense concentration that is wonderful to observe. The vibrant green of the grass in our back yard, the trees blowing in the wind, the ceiling fan (that last one is really just him. Ceiling fans are really not exciting to watch anymore… but he loves them!) I also worry about him, as most mothers do. When he's crying, as he does quite often, is he sick? I've convinced myself more than once that he has autism because he won’t make eye contact with me. 8 week olds aren't really good at the whole eye contact thing yet. I think about who he’ll be and what he’ll like. I wonder if he’ll marry or have kids of his own. I wonder if he’ll prefer sports or academics. I wonder what the world will be like for him as he grows. Even now, I’m smiling thinking about it…

And yet, I am not happy. Motherhood is wonderful. It truly, truly is. But it has also consumed my life and left little of me to give to everything else. I should first say that I understand that my issues are first world problems. I am grateful to have a job. But Maslow didn't stop at just food and shelter and work. True self-actualization requires self-esteem, confidence, and an entire top tier filled with things I don’t do. In fact, my current situation has so damaged my self-esteem and confidence about my abilities that I’m having trouble convincing myself that I’m worth pursuing another job, on the nights I have enough energy to job hunt. I read listings for positions that I love and immediately, my mind goes to “it’s not like I’d ever get that job anyway” and I click on, searching for something that I feel like I’d be good at. That I deserve.  

It used to be having a job that I didn't enjoy and didn't challenge me was just an annoyance. Something to pass the time while I finished school. Now, I find myself with a decade of experience and a masters degree with nothing more than student loans to show for it.  Now, it’s a rotting albatross around my neck. Something that prevents me from spending time with my child. Something that makes me take my child to another woman. A woman that will probably see him roll over, sit up, crawl and walk before I do. A woman who gets to enjoy smiles and coos all day while I fight with the bad sleeper all night. I think back to a time when I had dreams of doing more and my life now looks like a scattered mess of unfulfilled potential. I could have been great. The pieces were all there. I just didn't put them together.

And I understand that my life is out of balance.  Part of it is that Terrance got a new job with a great new company. He’s doing very well and I’m incredibly proud of him. It also means his work schedule is that he’s gone just about 3 weeks out of every month. So, for Logan, Leo, Baxter and Charlie, I am it. I take care of the baby. I take care of the house. I take care of the dogs. It’s what I do when I’m not at work. It’s who I am now.  Part of it is that I’m breastfeeding, so I am tied to him. I can’t go see a movie or get my hair done or anything that will separate me from him for more than 3 hours, even if I had help. Sometimes, breastfeeding feels like an anchor so heavy that I’ll never reach the surface again. And then, truth be told, sometimes I love it. Which is good because I've found that the whole “breastfeed and the baby weight will just fall off” is the biggest load of crap that anyone has ever shoveled. They love to tell you that you burn 500-600 calories a day breastfeeding. The tiny print on that is that you have to replace it or your supply goes down. Nerds. Part of it is that I'm still in pain. Things didn't exactly snap back together like they were supposed to. I still can't walk around the block comfortably. I still wake up in pain. Pre baby, I was a runner. I wasn't a fast runner, but I ran. Now I have to grimace through my sedentary work to go home and lift a little person and all of his accoutrements. Being in constant pain is draining. It does a number on your outlook. I'm getting help, but progress is slow and frustrating.

As I drove to work today, on the verge of tears as I am most days I drive to work, I suddenly got mad. Why? Because it’s not fair. I got mad because I had to leave my son to come to this job. Because I don't have a lot of help. I want to be able to go to the store by myself. And then I feel guilty because I want to be away from him. And I really don't. But just for a little. To feel like a person unto myself again - just Kelly. Not being solely defined as Logan's mom or Terrance's wife. And because I want to be able to be the me I want to be.   I really could have done more. And I haven’t. I always thought that if you’re nice and you work hard, things will happen for you.  For the past two years, every move I've made has been for someone else. I encouraged Terrance to take a job in Ohio because it would do so much for his career. And it has. And I’m grateful. I took a job I knew I wouldn't like so that I could move to Ohio and be with my husband. For 6 months, I commuted two and a half hours round trip for him.  I stayed at that job for our family. I wanted a house for our family. Now, I’m faced with the reality that I’m stuck. And I don’t blame Terrance. I did encourage him. I’m happy that he’s doing so well. But where does that leave me? When do I get to make a move for myself again? Never? Am I still allowed to want more? Or do my roles as mother and wife simply have to trump my role as person, at least right now? I am aware that Logan, despite my strenuous objections will continue to grow and move on. This time is so brief, should I just settle in for the professionally unfulfilled, intellectually stunted ride now? In a year will it be better? 5 years?  

From my observations, women are faced with this dilemma more than men. Is it because we are the mothers, the sustenance providers, the traditional care  givers? Are we just biologically wired to do this? Has the universe set us up this way? My schooling goes well beyond my husband's and I am an actual card carrying member of NOW, yet when I became pregnant, my career took an immediate back seat to his. He has continued to advance and I'm, on my best day, treading water.

To recap, I had a baby. And now I get to figure out where the rest of me is supposed to go.

Terrance and I had a conversation the other day about our move up here and how I have trouble driving by Dayton because it makes me sad. I remember when we were moving here – the excitement. The anticipation. The hope that life would be better. And in ways, it is. But in some ways, nothing has changed.

But in one greater-than-I-ever-could-have-imagined-it-could-be way it has. And maybe that's enough for right now.

I'm a Halloweenie

So, I'm kind of a wuss when it comes to Halloween. I used to love horror movies. Now, when I try and watch them, they keep me up all night. I actually wake up in the middle of the night convinced that whoever or whatever I watched attacking people on the screen 5 hours ago is in my bedroom, ready to pounce the second I move. (The exception here is the movie Jaws, which is one of the top two movies ever made. Plus, it would be really weird if there were a 25 foot man eating shark hanging out in my bedroom in the middle of the night... ) Terrance and I are very different, in that I don't like to be scared just to be scared. I find gratuitous violence completely unnerving. And anything that deals with possession, demonic or otherwise? Forget it! But I do love the concept of the costume. I've already got a list in my brain of all of the things I can do to Logan before he's big enough to stand up for himself. I'm sure Terrance will veto them all so that we can dress him up like a little zombie every year, but we'll decide that when the time comes and he realizes that I'm not going to back down. :) I like the idea of dressing up as something you aren't and getting to pretend for an entire day. We went to a Halloween party over the weekend and I went as Medusa - black maxi dress, some exaggerated eye makeup and snakes in my hair (I didn't get any good pics though). I couldn't really pull that off for work, so I went this route. I bought the shirt at Goodwill and had everything else. 1 brown shirt + white puffy paint laces = a football costume suitable for a pregnant lady! Plus, since it involved a really comfy skirt and some comfy shoes, it was by far the most comfortable thing I have ever worn to work. Win-win!

The Sartorialist

So, I have an issue with maternity clothes made for people my size. I'm a bigger person - I discussed my issues with that in my last post. But gaining weight quickly is tough enough without feeling like I'm dressed like a slob. I don't want to just drape fabric over myself and hide behind over-sized t shirts.  In an effort to make myself feel a little better everyday, I dress consistently nicer than I ever have. My goal is to look presentable and cute, no matter what. And, if I could toot my own horn, I feel like I've done pretty well! On a budget!  So I started taking some pics of my outfits - forgive the bathroom shots, it has the best lighting. 

                                                    

Ramblings

Being pregnant has done many things for me. I'm sure everyone who stumbles backward onto being ready for kids like I did goes through a bit of the same thing. It sounds awful, but if you aren't one of those women who were convinced from the time they could think about such things that motherhood was for you, it can be different than you are taught that it should be. I am happy to be pregnant. I am thankful that I have a healthy baby growing inside me. I am thankful I have a partner to go through it with that supports me and lets me be crazy when I need to be. I also feel like I'm missing a chip of some sort. I didn't get an emotional reaction when I took the test, when I heard the heartbeat, when we saw the ultrasound, when I found out "it" was a "him," when I felt him move for the first time. My reactions have been almost clinical and overwhelmingly along the lines of "is that normal?" Is that a normal heartrate? Is that a normal weight? Is his head a normal size? Is his cervical spine measuring correctly? Is there an abnormal amount of fluid there? I have no doubt that I will love my child. I just hope when he comes out, I want to know more about him than whether or not he is normal. 

Like most little girls raised in middle class America, I wanted kids when I was little. I played house. I thought having kids was normal. Somewhere along the way, though, that changed. Were kids for me? Am I a suitable parent? And, the one we're never supposed to utter because it makes us feel like selfish trolls - am I willing to give up my life and whatever dreams I haven't achieved yet to have a child and help them find dreams to achieve? And don't get me wrong, I understand that having children fulfills you in a way that a career never could. I also understand that my career isn't going to be stalled forever because of having children. The nice thing about the freshly minted MPH is that they won't take it away if I don't use it for a few years. But the vision of Terrance and I moving to New York or Boston or DC for a few years? That vision will probably remain a blurry in watercolor in my head. That idea I had of me getting an awesome job with an NGO or federal agency? Probably not going to happen. Because it's hard to move with kids. And it's silly to move from such an obvious family town so that I can have that experience. And it's downright irresponsible for Terrance to give up his good job and move to a place where his company isn't because of my dream. 

Still, despite what my previous ramblings might lead you to believe,  I'm having this baby and I am happy about it. And I am excited. I'm excited to see what he's going to be like. And who he'll look more like. And teach him things. And watch Terrance be a dad. Being pregnant has made me think about the world beyond my bubble and my dreams in a way that I never would have. And it's made me adjust my goals, but not give up on them. No, we might never move to New York or Boston or DC. Or maybe we will. Or maybe I'll end up doing something fabulous with my life here. Despite those who think you should be done procreating by the time you're 30 (lest all of your viable eggs dry up), I'm ONLY 32. If nothing else, I have like 35 more years until retirement. I can do a lot with 35 years. And now I get a child to be a role model for. To inspire. To be better for. 

Pregnancy has also made me confront some issues. Again, like most little girls growing up in middle class America, I have, from time to time, called myself fat. Except for me, it wasn't really from time to time. It was every day. Starting in about the fourth grade. And I'm the first to admit that there was a time when I was fat. The rest of the time, I've been just overweight - I've always needed to lose a few pounds. I've never been happy with my weight. I ran a half marathon last year, and when I looked at the pictures of me on the course, my first thought was how big I looked. It's always my first thought when I see a picture of myself. The rapid weight gain of pregnancy has been hard on my psyche. The stomach is the obvious problem area, but my thighs have grown at such a rate that I joke that Logan will get stuck in them on the way out. Unknowing people comment on my size - I've gotten more than one "are you sure there's just one in there?" and "you're HOW far along? Surely, you must be further - I mean, look at your belly!" For the record, these are things you should never say to a pregnant woman. 

So pregnancy has been an experience. Part of me feels like I'm going to look back and regret the amount of complaining I've done. I feel like I should be embracing it more. I guess after this, I'll have a baby to embrace and this will all just seem like a blink of the eye and a means to a wonderful end. 

In the immortal words of Meatloaf, “two out of three ain’t bad.”

Since my last post, a lot has happened. I graduated, we found out I was pregnant, and we bought a house! Well, sort of…

To start, after a marathon summer of late nights with my epidemiology text and feeling stupid after just about every weekly quiz, I managed to not only pass epidemiology, but I missed an H by 2 points (H means A in the somewhat pretentious word of UNC grad school grading. It stands for honors pass. It’s dumb system. If I ever become dean, I’m doing away with it). I never looked close enough to see if there was a curve, and frankly, I prefer to believe that there wasn't. I like to think that I’m just that smart.  So now I'm officially Kelly Bragg, MPH, CHES. The plan was to actually go to graduation and celebrate, but given my current state of gestating, that might now work out... 

Oh, yeah. So about that whole gestating thing, 3 weeks before I took my final, I went from being able to run 5-6 miles to not being able to go more than 2 without the very real fear that I would actually pee in my pants.  Combined with some other fun symptoms that I won’t get into, I deduced that there might be a chance I was “in the family way”. With Terrance out of town, I took a test. It was positive! Confirmed an annoying amount of weeks later by the doctor’s office who won’t see people until a certain point, no matter how neurotic they are and how crazy they must be driving their husband with “do you think this is normal?” questions. Fingers crossed the 3-6 cups of coffee and countless sodas I was drinking to stay awake enough to complete epi haven’t done major damage to the little one. We found out last week that it’s a boy. We’re naming him Logan James – Logan has been Terrance’s choice for a boy since the beginning and James is after my father. I’m trying really hard to make myself believe that Logan isn't Terrance’s choice because it’s Wolverine’s name. Those of you who know him know that it probably is, but, you know, keep those fingers crossed.

Since the baby is coming, Terrance and I started throwing around the idea of buying a house. Terrance's financial health hasn't always been stellar, but he's been working hard on getting it in shape. Since our entire mortgage from the Gastonia house is in my name and I have a load of student loan debt now, I sent him to the bank to see what he would qualify for. His hard work paid off and he qualified for a mortgage on his own. He got his preapproval letter, contacted a real estate agent, and we were off! We looked at about 6 houses and found one that we both sort of fell in love with. It is a 2 story, 4 bedroom, 2 bath brown stucco built in 1901 with a yard for the dogs. It’s on a great street. It also needs a bit of work, but both of us saw this as having the potential to be our dream home. After a small amount of negotiation, we seemed good to go. Barring any sort of major problem that popped up on the inspection, the house was ours. We went to the store to pick out flooring. We decided what kind of fence we were going to put in. I had the baby’s nursery all decorated in my head. Heck, I had the entire house all decorated in my head. Friday, Terrance went to the bank to get the paperwork started and something was off. Because of some sort of issue with our tax return, he suddenly might not be able to get the loan. I don’t really understand it all, but basically even though we want the house, and we need the house, there might not be any way we’re ever going to own the house on Lincoln Ave.

Because I stupidly plastered the fact that we were buying a house all over social media, I now will have to deal with questions – When are you moving? How’d the inspection go? When do you close? - when I don’t really want to talk about it at all. But that’s my fault. I admit I over share. Lesson learned.

Terrance feels like this is his fault. It’s not, of course. I want to blame the accountant for whatever is wrong with our taxes or the guy at PNC for giving us a preapproval letter that he could never follow through with. But not Terrance, who's just as upset as I am about it and tried everything he can do to fix this. I'm actually really proud of how far he's come. The cookie just crumbles the wrong way sometimes. I’m trying really hard to hide my disappointment. When I can’t hide it anymore and I start to cry, he tells me it’s not over. He hates to see me upset. He’ll do whatever he can to fix this and get us our dream house. The unspoken truth in the room is that there might not be a damn thing we can do about it. I've tried to tell him that I just need to mourn it – the visions I had in my head of us bringing Logan home to THAT house, sitting out in THAT yard with the baby and the dogs on a sunny day and watching the clouds go by, fixing THAT awful bathroom upstairs...

I know eventually, this won’t seem so bad. Eventually, I won’t be battling pregnancy hormones and this won’t feel like such a crushing defeat of our dream.  I know these are first world problems. I understand that we’re lucky to have a place to live and jobs and food on the table and a healthy (albeit hungry and huge) baby on the way. It’s a no brainer that, if I was forced to choose, out of the 3 major things that I have experienced in the last 6 months – graduation, baby, house – the one I would give up if I had to give up something would be the house.

But I didn't really want to give it up. 

Farewell

In the end, we demand that they stay with us. 

Our selfishness knows no bounds and as we look at him, those brown eyes so clearly filled with more pain than anything else, we're blinded by our own sadness.  Not wanting to let go, all we can see is the puppy that chewed up all of the wrong things or the look on his face when we took him to the ocean for the first time. Or the way, when you had a particularly rough day, he would put his head in your lap just so and remind you that everything would be OK (as long as you took a long walk, of course). The emptiness of coming home and not hearing the click of his nails jogging quickly across the floor to greet you eagerly seems unbearable.   We beg him for more time. One more week. Another day of awful, hot dog breath and sloppy dog kisses. Just one last walk. 

And then, with one loud yelp and legs that give way, the reality hits you and you know you have to say good bye. 




My parents got Sequoia when I was a junior at UNCW. Even though I lived away from home, we became fast, fierce friends. Once, when my house on Chestnut St in Wilmington got broken into, my parents loaned him to me and he stayed for a bit. Ever the protector. He was a funny dog who loved to chase cats and take car rides and go to the mountains. He liked his morning and evening massages and demanded a walk at 7pm every night. He loved his family.

My mother called this morning to give me the news. Saying good-bye sucks, no matter how necessary you know it is.  

Rest In Peace, Sequoia. You were a good dog. I hope they have car rides in heaven. 

No jokes today. Sad.

That was my facebook status today. Today the Boston Marathon got bombed. Today is Margaret's birthday. Today I am sad.

It started about a week ago. 1800flowers.com wanted to know if I wanted to send Margaret flowers for her birthday. My phone dinged and I read the email and thought about how Margaret would have loved some birthday daisies. And then I shoved it to the back of my mind, where she lives all the time now. Then this morning, facebook asked if I wanted to send her a Starbucks gift card for her birthday. And as a tear ran down my cheek, I smiled because Margaret would have hated that. She hated "the man." She would have loved a gift card to a small, locally owned coffee house that had an open mic night on Fridays. But she would have hated a Starbucks gift card  And then my day went on and I reminisced with myself on my lunch break about some good times. It's easier to feel her when the weather is nice. She loved to be out doors.

And then around 3pm, I checked my phone and buzzfeed told me there was an explosion at the Boston Marathon. No, two explosions. A bomb? And there were people hurt. Badly. And casualties. And I watched the story unfold with a detached awe that I feel like everyone in my generation feels.

We watched Columbine and Virginia Tech and Aurora and Gabby Giffords and Newtown.
We watched Oklahoma City.
We watched the Towers fall.

It happens so often and, while nothing of this nature has shocked me in a very long time, every time it happens, it punches me in the stomach. Every time it happens, I ask why. We post tributes online and Instgrams and we change our facebook profile pictures and we cry and we hope it never happens again.

Because what else is there but to do that and tell the people you love you love them and hope upon hope that its the last one?

I really hope this is the last one.

No jokes today. I'm sad.

#prayforboston

2013 Q1 Update

So, yes its been a long time since I wrote. I never claimed to be a regular blogger, so get off my back. Truth is, I've been too busy to pee lately, let alone write a blog. Which has created a whole other set of issues, but I won't get into those. This isn't a medical blog. It's just a blog blog.

School is in full effect. I forgot what it was like to stay up until 4 am. Now I remember. It sucks. As a refresher course in the life of KB, I am in graduate school, attempting to get my master of public health degree from the lauded  Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina. I'll root for the Heels against Duke, but other than that, I've never been a Carolina homer, but the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina (you have to say it like that. Respect) is the second best public health school in these United States of America (better than HARVARD, y'all), so I will enjoy that diploma. If it ever actually becomes mine. Right now, even though I'm so close, it seems so far away. This semester has consisted of my big master's paper (like a thesis with less research rules and I don't have to defend it), comps (a big test that if I don't pass, this is all for naught), and a class - Intro to Environmental Health. I make it a rule to not speak on the internet about things I'll one day wish to take back if they are ever read by certain people, so I'll just leave it as I think my ENVR class is a little, um, intense for an intro. If I don't get my MPH because I don't get the grade I need in that class for the aforementioned implied reasons, there will be a thesis length rant on this here blog about my true feelings.

My paper is a bear, but very interesting. I ended up doing it on something that I didn't really have a huge interest in and now I'm, like, knowledgable on fracking. For those that don't know, fracking method of generating oil and natural gas from shale rock formations. There are questions surrounding the process and it releases some chemicals into the ground water and stuff, so its a public health issue right now. I don't want to say more because you should be able to preorder my debut novel, "Fracking and You: how to get oil from rocks without killing people" from amazon within the year.

Comps are an interesting little experiment the school likes to put us through. Not every school has comps. I considered transferring when I found that out. But then I wouldn't be getting my degree from the GSOGPH at UNC. You have to write 3 papers in 9 hours and then they make you wait a month to see if you passed. (a month is 30 days, just in case you forgot. 3-0 days. 720 long hours) And they basically tell you that, short of gathering up your notes from courses you took 3 years ago, there's no way to prepare. When I get diagnosed with the ulcer I'm sure has formed in my stomach, I'm naming it Comps. I took those on March 2nd. Even though they tell you that they will inform you by mail as to whether or not you passed, my new favorite hobby is to sit at my computer, log on to the comps site, and see if they slipped and posted the results. I spend an immense amount of time doing this. Staring at the screen and hitting refresh. Hitting refresh.... hitting refresh.

In other, non school related news:

I feel like this whole year has been a haze of moving boxes, leases, security deposits, and moving vans. In October or November of 2011, Terrance moved to Dayton (Miamisburg), I followed in March of 2012, but we moved to Springfield because it was between our jobs, then six months later, we settled in Delaware, OH, which is about 20-30 minutes north of Columbus. Life is better when you don't spend 20% of your day in the car. We live in the upstairs of an old house that's been converted to apartments. Over the last year, we have paid about $3300 in deposits, and moved about 1,000 miles (just broken up into 3 different moves). The original goal was to stay in Delaware for the year and then move on to Cleveland, but we're really liking it here. We can walk to shops and restaurants for little things we need and to go out, but Columbus is close for bigger stuff.  I have finally fulfilled my lifelong goal of being able to walk to work. Delaware is cute. You should visit, Internet.

Terrance has a few siblings he didn't know about and my sister had a baby, so I'm an aunt like 7 times over now. That's pretty exciting. God bless the internet. Also, my family continues to be functionally dysfunctional at every turn. I'm certainly not going to write the whole thing here, especially since I've sold the rights to Lifetime Movie Network and its been greenlit for a untitled project starring Tori Spelling and Harry Hamlin that is shooting in Vancouver right now, but every time I turn around, it feels like I've landed in Genoa City.

Another Die Hard movie came out. God Bless John McClane.

I'm running the Cooper River Bridge Run this year. I was doing really well with training and was basically on track to win in outright and then school got in the way and I am fairly certain I'm going to die. If I live, I'm doing the Indy Mini on May 4. If I survive that, I have epidemiology this summer, where I plan on growing Comps' brother, Epi the Ulcer.

There was other stuff. But its hard to remember. I should get back to work anyway. Hitting the books now. Have a midterm that's worth 40% of my grade to bomb. Deuces.

my list

So, i haven't posted in a really long time. Part of it is that i just haven't had time to. here is a recap of my life since January:

We moved.

We live in Springfield.

Terrance works outside of Dayton, I work outside of Columbus. Its not ideal, but its preferable to unemployment. We're making it work.

Terrance cut the tip of his finger off at work.

I ran the Cooper River Bridge Run.

People are really into the Hunger Games.

that's kind of it for lately. the main reason that i got on today was that i've been making this mental list of stuff that I think are sort of rules of life (at least my life) and i wanted to share them:

1. if a motel advertises free cable on a sign outside, do not stay there

2. I think being chubby in high school and a funny adult are directly correlated. I think this because I am obviously both. Being a chubby adult gives you no benefit that I've been able to find, except maybe making your friends look thinner in photographs, which makes them like you more.

3. while online school is probably as hard as on campus school, it will never get the same respect, which makes it perfect for someone like me, who often sees herself as a martyr

4. instead of math and science, i think some people could really benefit from taking a few courses in being polite. If you think about it, no one is ever like "she's so sweet. she can calculate the log of X. I think I'll ask her to coffee" (i'm not saying that you shouldn't have any math and science. I'm just saying that once you hit like a calculus level, you're good. Theoretical physics is only useful for like 4% of the population. Being nice to others is useful for the other 96%. 96% is more than 4%. I know this because math is important to me, but so is being nice an polite and not huffing at people because they forgot to take their belt off in the security line at the airport).

5. no matter what neighborhood you are in, people from all socioeconomic backgrounds will stand outside at night for dairy queen.

6. i'm simultaneously jealous and judgmental of women who dress up to fly ("i mean, REALLY. look at those heels" and "i mean, really look at those HEELS")

7. sometimes i realize that i'll never actually realize some of my dreams and it makes me sad. like being a size 8 or living in new york or not worrying about money or seeing prague or paris or a costa rican rain forest. there's no "but then i think of how awesome my life really is and i feel better" end to that. i just get sad with the realization that i've made choices that have dictated that i can't do certain things and that sometimes, life just isn't fair. and then i have a diet coke and i get on with my day, which is what everyone else should do that doesn't live in a warzone. unless they're having a very rough day/week/month/year and then they can wallow. because everyone needs to do that sometimes. but if you do it, own it. take your clothes that button and/or zip off, load up a tray with snacks and a day's worth of diet coke and sit/lie in bed all day and watch a Ghost Whisperer marathon. cry for bit. the only thing worse than being consumed with self pity is not owning it. i, personally, own the shit out of mine. on a somewhat regular basis. if this blog is nothing else, its a testament to the fact that i have no issue feeling bad for myself and letting other people know about it.

8. i actually love the fact that its so hard to get sand out of everything after you've been to the beach. i think its comforting.

9. ikea makes me happy. so happy that i don't care if you think i'm materialistic because i'm too busy looking at all my new stuff from there that i can't even here what you're saying

10. your hair changes every seven years. this is not useful at all since there is nothing you can do about it