Epiphany Dreams.

My favorite dreams are the ones that reveal something, that help us grow and learn. I dream a lot. it is actually a bad thing health wise as I don't slide into that deeper healing sleep easily but for my imagination it is a boon. I get many book ideas from my dreams. I get to be the tough badass supermom in my dreams that my body won't allow in reality. And every so often something pops through my dreams that defines the epiphany.

I usually have many dreams a night. If its a great story idea I try to note it down. This mornings final dream was lovely and one worth sharing.

It was Christmas and so beautiful out. I was in the mountains at some type of resort type place. It seemed like hundreds of people where there. So many families. There were trees and snow and a lake that was weirdly not frozen. In my dream we were doing different family things as a larger group and as just my little family. Games, and snow fights, boat rides and sledding. It was beautiful. But I began to notice a problem. Many of the families, and I recognized a lot of friends, of tv families, of celebrities, were not happy. The kids were fighting, the parents were oblivious. As some tried to decorate for the holiday others were miserable. Then one night we were gathered together for some type of pageant or display and I had decided enough was enough. I stood in front of all those people, many who were bickering and I told them to knock it off. I told them that they had forgotten their purpose. That the purpose of life was to parent a child. That it didn't matter how that dynamic looked. It didn't matter how a family was constructed but every adult had a responsibility to be the best they could be with a thought for the next generation in mind. That our job was to teach them a legacy of strength, compassion, honesty, generosity, and survival. We need to teach them skills that matter by showing them what matters.

Then I woke to my 4 year old Monkey yelling from down stairs for some cereal and I had to chuckle. It was funny to go from such peace to such yelling BUT I realized the thoughts were true. Every adult is a parent. It may be in the role of a teacher or a counselor. An aunt or uncle or just a family friend but we all interact with children and the children in our lives look to us to teach them. Yes the main teaching needs to be from their actual parent however we all need to be striving for more for them. They truly are our future. I know the kind of future I want to see and for them to have. Do you?

Not hard to stay sober.... is it?

I was checking out at the grocery store the other day when the man behind me said something I couldn't help but overhear. It took everything I had to restrain myself actually. I was with my girls and he was with his wife and child so just felt the kiddos didn't need to hear the boiling thoughts in my head.

He was looking at the tabloid headlines and saw one I had noticed that said "Lindsey Lohan fighting to stay sober" His comment was, "I just don't get it. It can't be that hard to stay sober. Just stop drinking the alcohol or doing the drugs. Done. Sober."

Seriously? I wish it were that easy. I've been the child of an addict, the addict, and am the wife of a recovering alcoholic. I have seen every side of that issue. I know how it feels to wake up and crave, to eat a certain meal and crave, to stress and crave, to hurt and crave. I walked my path due to my pain. I hurt and no one believed me so I turned to using to cope. I lied to people. I manipulated. I did a lot I am not proud of and all before I was 17.

I wish it were easy. I wish you just made the choice and then poof....done. But people don't become addicts because it is glamorous and fun. They do it because they need the escape for some reason. They don't want to face something. The using is what is easy. It's the fight to stay sober that takes desire, a day to day effort and choice. It takes a lot of support from loved ones and community. 

Being Thankful..... Mostly.

It is November, the season of thanks. SO I have tried every day to post what I am thankful for in my life. And boy do I have so much. I truly am so very blessed. I have a husband who has always without fail been my knight. He fights for me. He keeps me safe. He knew there was more going on with my health than we thought and pushed for answers even when I had allowed past issues to make me wonder if i wasn't just crazy and lazy and broken. I see so many with this disease who are alone because the people around them abandon them and refuse to believe them. I know a few who still have loved ones close but are abused because they are faking it, or lazy, or liars, or manipulators.

I have my kids and that is incredible. Their births were miracles. They grow more beautiful every day in personality, character, and grace. They are supportive of my bad days and great fun on the good.

I have extended family who always backs me up, parents not by blood who choose to love me and be supportive of me. I have some great docs trying to get me healthy, I have a home that is a bit big for me but perfect for hosting visitors. (We have over 30 at Thanksgiving) I have food to cook. I have a vehicle that I adore that lets me go visiting if I want to. I have my imagination that has led to my writing that hopefully leads to some published books. I have a great page with awesome fans that I hope to get back to some fundraising work on.

Life is good. Honestly almost perfect. Except.... The other day my brother made a post on his fb page for the whole world to see. He posted how excited he was to come visit for a whole week at Thanksgiving. First real visit in over 2 years. I think last time he was here Lexi was turning 2. She is now almost 5. So actually almost 3 years. He then said he just wished he could be with our father and I at the same time and asked my thoughts. On his open facebook.

Talk about put on the spot. I tried to be very polite and somewhat vague as I have multiple coworkers on my page. Yet he pressed and pressed. To the point of telling me he hoped it wasn't his or dad's death that brought me around and that I wasn't being fair to him or my kids or my dad.

Now I know my Dad is upset by the fact I asked for space. Complete space. And I realized I want that space because I do not trust him. When I call is it nice accepting dad or ranting dad who belittles and demeans and expects me to ignore that? I don't trust him to handle my children the way I ask.

And my brother knows this. And I wish, just one time, he said "I don't necessarily agree with your choice but I am behind whatever you need to do 100%. I want you to feel good and feel happy in your life. I understand that stress makes you ill and know that sometimes for that moment you have to make choices that might seem harsh. I love you."

Instead I feel pressured and pushed and stressed and like I am the bad guy when it shouldn't be about good or bad and just about me needing time. I have never had a blood relative (other than my kids) say to me "I back you 100%, I accept you. I am proud of you and I think you are beautiful and perfect just the way you are." I may be an adult but there is still a part of me that craves that. I get it from my in laws, from my adoptive family. I get it from friends who have become family. Yet the 2 people in the world I need it from seem unable to give that unconditional love and acceptance.

People never cease to amaze me.

Every day I read news, both sides of the spectrum and everything in between. I find it nice to view all sides. So I see plenty of the negative going on. Stabbing, shooting, war, cover ups, candle blah blah blah. So when something of the sort hits closer to home I honestly have hit a point where I just shake my head.

As a Damsel I did a lot of events. Small vendor fairs, school fundraisers, gun shows. I loved them because I got to meet people and push at my social anxiety. One of the local vendor groups I joined is ran by a lovely woman so when she teamed up with another woman to be an event organizer I jumped on it. I signed up for at least 1 event every month May-December. Some months had 3 events. May was canceled. June I was asked to give one up to another to make up for a double booking. I did my second June event and then the 3rd was canceled. I paid over $300 total for everything. Once the heat hit my FMS went nuts. I seriously was almost bed bound if not house bound. I never went out, especially after 11 AM and without help. I knew I had to pull out. When I went to do so I discovered problems had been occurring. No one was getting refunded. The partner I talked to said I wasn't allowed a refund so I said that any Damsel could have the events for free as I had paid for them. I was fine taking the loss. Not their fault my health tanked.

Then I found out that not only had other Damsels been charged, they had been charged more. I also found others had quit them as no refunds were given for events they canceled and none of the promised promotions were being one. Many had tried to ask for the same thing I had only to have it ignored. At that point my friend had moved on to pursue a home bakery business and focus back on her family so the increasing fraud was being done in her name but without her knowledge.

So we started to organize. Sent demand of refund certified letters. Now we are up to 77 people and the scam is spreading from Nevada to California. No one has gotten a refund. We have hundreds if not thousands of dollars owed now. And I just have to shake my head and roll my eyes and feel grateful I am back to just being me, focusing on my writing and family.

Life is good even if people suck.

Writing inspiration

I've long been of a mind that fiction writers are the quiet crazy people of society. We take the constant bombardment of images and voices in our head and find a way to make it work for us rather than landing us in a psyche hold. We kill people, we explore the worlds beauty, depravity, and possibilities and make it entertainment.  (Hopefully)

I find inspiration in everything.  I once went to a writing seminar and an attendee asked the panel how it was possible that the romance genre still thrived. I fell in love with the answer. One writer said that if you give a sentence to a group of romance writers and tell them to write a book you will get completely different books every time even if the pattern is for a couple to fall in love. She gave an example of finding a naked woman on the side of the road. I went home and proceeded to outline and even begin a pretty fab concept on that sentence.

Writers often only need a word or an image to create an entire new world. We can hear a joke and see a book idea flow from it. Yesterday a friend posted a meme about finding your horror movie death. One of her friends commented that their answer was eaten by squirrel. I proceeded to name Zillasquirrel and even saw this squirrel enter my book to harass my heroine.

We see beauty in odd places. We see stories to be told, loves won, battles waged in every outing. I have really been enjoying letting my brain wander back to the stories.

Back to being insane on the down low.

I know I'm in my own way but I feel stuck.

I've been looking for inspiration in many places these days. Trying to get back to writing. Sometimes just combing through the #writingprompt tag on twitter works to move me. Today the one that jumped was "Write about what is getting in your way."

Honestly I am in my own way. In my writing career, in my life in gerneral. I just have no idea what to do about it. Blaming my dad and the regular self esteem slaps or my fibro is easy and even truth in a way but honestly it comes down to fear. Fear of failing at writing, at being a wife and mom. Fear of the unknown. Fear of pushing my body into another setback. Fear of letting those I love down even more. Fear of my dreams being permanently taken.

It sucks to realize I am held by fear.

Good men: Are they really hard to find?

I recently joined twitter after one of the writers blogs I love said it was a very helpful avenue for creating connections and can be a huge help to a writing career. Since then I have been following things I love and people that inspire me. That leads to more awesome discoveries of writers, designers, fibro advocates, rights advocates, bloggers, ect. One website I stumbled into is called The Good Men Project. It is basically about what defines a good man in today's world.  How have male roles changed? Sex, love, communication?

People just getting to know me usually have a couple questions I find telling of our times and very interesging. Men and women both ask if my marriage truly is as good as I say or it seems. Women ask how I caught him or do I know others like him. This used to frustrate me. We married young. I was 18 to his 21. So the disbelief at first felt like a lack of confidence and faith in us. As more years passed though and I saw other couples married when we were fail and more and more divorce I realized it was a genuine shock at how happy we seemed.

I've come to realize a lot of the problem is that divorce has become too easy and many men and especially women forgot that a true relationship takes effort. It takes patience, forgiveness,  compassion, and yes a lot of love and great sex. The day of our wedding was hectic like it is for everyone but we snuck a quiet moment and made some vows to each other aside from the usual. We promised honesty with each other. We promised to not even allow the "D" word into our family dictionary.  We vowed to fight for each other. We promised to never go to bed angry, to kiss each other hello and goodbye every day, to say "I love you" often. Those first few years were hard. We had nights we fought all night. Days where that kiss was almost angry and the words felt heavy. Moments where I am sure we both wondered "Can I really keep doing this?". We faced down addictions and the loss of multiple pregnancies.  We moved states. I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia.  Honestly it took a good 5 years to really figure marriage and each other out.

Once we did though it has been pretty incredible. We don't really fight. We are a united team. Nothing is more important than the other and our kids. A huge part of our sucess is absolutely based on the kind of man my husband is. He puts us first always.  He places providing for us as a priority.  He also love just being with us. Watching tv, painting our daughter's nails, doing crafty things. He is a guys guy. He hunts, loves to camp and fish and shoot. However he knows that to make our family successful requires more than a paycheck. He talks to me and listens. We truly are best friends. He makes sure I and our daughters know how treasured we are. He shares his feelings with me. We also make sex a priority.  Some weeks are hard when he is tired from work and I'm hurting but we make an effort to keep that physical connection. 

To often women see sex as a tool and men see it as release. Relationships get ignored for career. We've learned though that because we have an incredible relationship it nourishes the rest. Real good men aren't hard to find they just are hard to keep. They instinctively know that the relationship is key and when a woman doesn't enrich it but instead wants pampering and care with no reciprocity men give up and stop being the men they want to be. If you don't love and feed your garden it withers. 

Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day

Those who've put up with us for years know my passion for this day. I am open about all of me, my fibromyalgia,  my childhood,  my rights activism. I am also very open about the babies I've lost. I think there is no greater despair for a woman. It's the loss of a child but with the added knife twist of many not wanting to talk of it, to support the parents.

As soon as you get a positive test you envision the child's future.  Even if you aren't ready for motherhood or never wanted it for those moments and days following a positive test your brain swirls with the what if.

For the mother who miscarries that potential is suddenly gone, sometimes in a very traumatic way. The vision disappears.  And you are left alone. If you are lucky you dreamed with your spouse and he at least feels that emptiness with you.  Often it's just you. Alone in your body. Alone with your shattered dreams and expectations. 

My first pregnancy I was 17. I was terrified. I was doing my junior and senior years together. I was working 30+ hours each week. I fully expected the guy to walk away. To my shock he was stronger than I. He was there for me every moment, he proposed. So when we lost the pregnancy at 12 weeks he was as devastated if not more so. He gave me space but we did marry anyway about a year later. Then our Bug was born 10 months after that.

When she was 4 we were ready again. It took years. Then I got that test and I had never been so excited. A week later we lost it. I felt this loss so much more. We had been trying so long, I had about lost hope. Then I got a taste. My doc refused to test for anything until I had 3 consecutive losses.  So we got a new doc. She discovered hormone issues and when I got pregnant again immediately put me on added hormones to help. I carried our Monkey to term.

I was diagnosed with my fms when Monkey was about 9 months. It answered a lot. Infertility is common in fibromyalgia.  Hormone issues, womb issues.

So now we are going to try again with IVF. The extra help and monitoring we hope will help us. Not a day goes by where I forget about my lost angels though. I feel that loss all the time. I think it is a loss that never goes away.

Forgiving

Something my life allows is a lot of time in my own head. Being a wife and mom is the best thing but add my illness and I'm not running this kid here and that one there, doing PTA, driving carpool, baking and crafting. Most days I hurt and so I sit and cuddle my kids and husband. However they are kids and need to play and do and be and he needs to sleep. So I get lost in my own brain. I read or write. I watch movies or play games. I think. A lot.

My musing has led to much reflecting on the path I've taken.  I've learned a lot about forgiveness.  I learned to forgive the mother who birthed me and spent those early years abusing me. I honestly believe she didn't know any better. She had no idea how to be a mother, how to comfort, to protect, to cherish. I learned to forgive my Dad and to let go. I think he truly did the best he could. In his world "lose weight, stop being stupid, stop crying, grow up, you can do better, ect..." was the way you taught a child to become a contributing member of society.  It honestly wasn't his fault I am a sensitive, empathetic person. That I ached for praise. I realized recently that I do fogive him. I just don't trust him, not with me or my children. That's a hard reality.  I also had to accept you can forgive without trust.

I have so many people I love. Family I treasure.  And I've come to see that the wounds and forgiveness of my past are what help me be a great mom, a loving wife. I still have moments where I struggle, where all I hear are the voices of my childhood. Then I look at my hands and see my wedding ring and my mother's ring and am reminded that I have grown into so much more and that my ability to forgive and be positive rather than wallow in negative thoughts is what will help shape my girls into strong women.

They are so like me. So sensitive,  so empathetic,  so easy to bruise. I see my eldest struggle in ways I did and know part of that was because we were so young when she was born. We learned hard with her. But she has one thing I didn't.  Parents who love her and each other and who tell her so every day, who teach her her beauty and worth. Who teach her forgiveness.  It is one of the best gifts after all.

vasovagal syncope

   Trust me it's a good thing.
    Spike was finally diagnosed yesterday. He is allowed to play football, run mile club, participate in PE and rough house with his brothers and friends. That made him a happy boy.
   The doctor wrote him a note saying he needed to carry his Gatorade and a bag of chips with him at all times. This made him a VERY happy boy! He even wrote him a doctor ordered hall pass so he can go to the bathroom any time he needs. I think we like this doctor.
Spike will still faint at times, but it's not dangerous. He needs to up his fluid intake (64+ oz, mostly Gatorade) and eat as much salty junk food as he wants. If he isn't getting enough salt, he can also take a capsule filled with salt. Those are the only changes he will have to make.
   Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers.