Well, it seems to be three steps forward, two steps back around here.

Jason's dad died night-before-last. He wasn't the healthiest person ever as far as his lifestyle, but he hadn't been sick that I know of, hadn't had heart problems or anything of that nature. It was pretty unexpected. He was around 60, I believe.



John was the first member of Jason's family that I met after we started seeing each other, and he immediately welcomed me into the family when everyone else was hesitant, as Jason was going through a nasty divorce at the time. He treated me with kindness and respect. We joked and laughed and drank beer together, and picked on each other and hugged each other. John would hug me until I thought my bones would break into pieces.



Only a few weeks ago I dropped Reed off at John's (where Jason is living now) and John hugged me and told me he loved and missed me.



The grief I'm feeling now is only intensified by the fact that I'm not really a part of their family any more, can't go to them and hug them and cry with them and remember John. I mean, I guess I could, but I haven't been invited and no one has been calling me. I feel awfully lonely, out here by myself, no one to commiserate with. I called Jason's mom and left a shaky, weepy message asking her to please let me know if there is anything at all that I can do. I haven't heard back from her. It's probably unfair of me to be having these thoughts and feelings, but it feels wrong some how not to be involved in this process with them. John was my father-in-law for 6 years, and the ink isn't dry on the divorce papers, and he was Reed's grandaddy John.

Oh, God, and Reed. I don't know if it's because of Jason's leaving and the divorce and all, but he's been asking a lot of questions about death lately. "Are you going to die? Is Ma going to die? When? I don't want Ma to die, because I love her." All I've known to tell him is that everybody dies, but it's when they're very, very old, and it's going to be a very long time before Ma or I die, that we'll be old, old, old. And now someone has to be like, "Except grandaddy John! He died. But no one else will for a long, long time." I feel like a liar, a failure, lost, wrong.

Also Jason has asked specifically that he gets to tell Reed. But now I'm left to wait and wonder, when? When will he tell him? Because there are no plans anytime in the next several days for Jason to see Reed. And while I don't know for sure, I bet all the other grandchildren have been told already. No one has called to talk to Reed, or visited him.

I think I'm just selfishly feeling like the outcast, and I'm fearing that Reed is going to be cast out with me. I'm absolutely dizzy right now with too many thoughts, too much confusion. I just wish I could do something, could help them right now. But I suppose that's just my place any more.

I've been feeling a lot better, been handling life and sadness and happiness and problems and failures and opportunities a lot better lately. I am better, and I decided that I'd like to talk about that some.

About two or three months ago I saw a new therapist, and it was nice and she was helpful and understanding and we seemed to mesh well, or something else equally mushy sounding. She recommended that I keep seeing her and that I have a psychiatric evaluation and consider a prescription drug "to get over the hump." So about a month-and-a-half ago I saw a psychiatrist. He recommended that I try some kind of prescription because "it seems like you're having some really dark, severe problems right now." So I took his advice.

He prescribed Prozac, and I've been taking it for just over six weeks. Right there in that article it says, Fluoxetine is approved for the treatment of major depression (including pediatric depression), obsessive-compulsive disorder (in both adult and pediatric populations), bulimia nervosa, anorexia nervosa, panic disorder and premenstrual dysphoric disorder. I can tell you that four of those six apply to me. I have frequently thought that I might have premenstrual dysphoric disorder; the main symptoms include feelings of deep sadness or despair, possible suicide ideation, feelings of tension or anxiety, panic attacks, diarrhea, mood swings, crying, lasting irritability or anger, increased interpersonal conflicts, apathy or disinterest in daily activities and relationships, difficulty concentrating, fatigue, food cravings or binge eating, insomnia or hypersomnia, feeling "out of control", increase or decrease in sex drive, increased need for emotional closeness, and physical symptoms such as bloating, heart palpitations, breast tenderness, headaches, and joint or muscle pain. If one has five or more of those symptoms it could indicate pmdd.

Um, hello? Hi there. My name is Buffy and I have all of those symptoms. ALL OF 'EM.

When I left the doctor that day I called Jason to sort of talk it out. I explained all the reasons that I thought I ought to give the medicine a shot- my emotions were out of control, I felt terrible most of the time, toughing it out wasn't working, things were getting worse and worse, and I know several people who I love and trust who say things like "prozac saved my life". After I said my piece I asked Jason, "So what do you think about all this? Honestly." He immediately said, very forcefully, "I think you should just take the medicine."

Jason? He's the dude who has watched me implode over the last three years, further and further, until I was just a tiny speck of myself. My condition was so bad that it was like my default setting was sad, just sad all the time, and when my body would tire of sitting around and being sad the CRAZY BITCH screen saver would pop up for a while.

And, you know, I'm still wrestling with some stuff. But the thing is now I am me, now I am ME wrestling with this stuff, instead of a tiny, wafty particle of my leftovers trying to wrestle with mountains of things that a wafty particle can't understand, can't even see all of. I FEEL LIKE MYSELF and that's something that I haven't been able to say for a very long time. I am BETTER, a better wife, a better mom, a better daughter, a better friend, a better employee, a better human. I still sometimes feel hurt, suspicious, mad, tired, useless, reclusive, heartbroken, weepy. But those feelings now reside in the minority of my time, while the majority of my time I am just me. When I was a tiny, wafty particle EVERYTHING was bigger than me. Now I am big enough to have some perspective, to get a grip on things. Sometimes things are still bigger than me, but now I have the ability to turn around and walk away from it instead of being blown towards it, closer and closer until it's all I can see.

Do I feel disappointed that I achieved this with a drug? A little. Do I worry that I'll have to take a drug forever to be me? A little. Do I worry that one day the drug won't affect me the same way, won't work any more? A little. But mostly I just don't care. Mostly I am trying to enjoy this time that I feel better. Mostly I am thankful that I still have a marriage to preserve, that I have a kid who loves me and who I can take care of, that I have friends who are still around to be glad that I'm feeling better. Mostly I am just grateful that I climbed out of the hole in time to see all this stuff, and I'm letting myself revel in it a little bit.

Because perhaps this feeling won't last forever. But that just seems like all the more reason to enjoy it right now.

On happiness and the opposite.

Some things from Lipshtick that I found interesting:

A study conducted at the University of Maryland found that happy people spend their free time reading, socializing, and having sex. Unhappy people watch tv.

People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they're not on your road doesn't mean they've gotten lost. -H. Jackson Browne

Most of us believe in trying to make other people happy only if they can be happy in ways which we approve. -Robert S. Lynd

This is my "depressed stance". When you're depressed, it makes a lot of difference how you stand. The worst thing you can do is straighten up and hold your head high because then you'll start to feel better. If you're going to get any joy out of being depressed, you've got to stand like this. -Charlie Brown

Don't hate the player- hate the game.

I'm not really sure how to respond to this comment; it's really all over the place.

First, I'm sure that A and B are connected. Most feelings, opinions, and ideas people have are interconnected.

Second, I wasn't raised to think that "evil controls the world" and I was CERTAINLY not raised to think that I am powerless. I was raised to understand that just because someone is the president, or a senator or governor, or a politician in general doesn't mean that they are a good person, or a smart person, or that they have people's best interests at heart. For a lot of people that is a no-brainer, but let's be honest: there are people who don't realize that.

Third, my feelings of depression, anger, helplessness and doom grew out of a nasty case of post-partum depression. They may be deep-seated, but they don't stem from the way I was raised. I wouldn't say that I have ever been perfect, but I can say with total certainty that until after I had a baby I had never felt totally hopeless, never felt like my life might never change, never felt that I might feel this awful forever and that it might effect my family, my relationships, my ability to cope.

Fourth, I think I heap a generous helping of blame on myself as well as other things that I can control. Besides those two crabby dudes that hang out in the balcony on the Muppets, no one lives inside my head and therefore most people aren't aware of all the many things I blame on myself, and all the effort, the sheer infinity of mantras and prayers and notes that I make to remind myself to fix mistakes and stay on track and make things better for my family, my friends, and myself. And I guess all I can say is that it's working okay. I'm not great, but I'm not dead, and that's a good thing.

Thanks for your questions.

How's anonymous internet-hating working for you?

"Don't think the sun's comin' out today; it's staying in. It's gonna find a better way."

I think we really have to be out of our house in the next couple of weeks. This whole time I've been telling myself it's not that big of a deal, at least we're all healthy (if we don't count my being an absolute crazy person), at least we're surviving, etc.

I'm suddenly realizing how sad it is. We've lived here for three years now. It's the first house Reed ever lived in, the house we brought him home to. It's the house that Kane and Jude moved into with us. It's the first house that Jason and I moved into together. It's the first yard we've ever shared, the first yard that we watched Reed play in, the first porch we've ever had to spend time with our friends on.

In this house I've watched Reed grow from a teeny baby to a little boy. It is at once terrifying and beautiful and gut-wrenching and awe-inspiring, watching this person grow and learn and change, remembering that I grew him inside me and he was once a tadpole and now he runs and plays and laughs. In this house he learned to make jokes and share with his brothers (sometimes) and pick himself up after he falls.

In this house I have watched Kane grow into an adolescent, turn from a kid who watches cartoons into a near-teenager who... watches cartoons- just different cartoons. He's growing into a young man who likes to help me around the house and likes to watch his youngest brother and likes to help him learn and grow.

In this house I have watched Jude's continued evolution into a middle child, a kid who is too young to be a grown-up and too big to be a baby. He continues to amaze me with his ability to be a complete badass, to be like hanging out with one of my friends (Brock, I'm looking at you- argumentative, difficult, challenging, entirely too smart, physically dangerous).

In this house I've watched my marriage grow into something that I know with every particle of my being that I cannot live without. I've been reminded over and over again how much I need Jason, want him, respect him. I've felt myself continue to grow into a person who will never be at the center of her own universe again, to enjoy that separation from myself, to enjoy the people who have taken the place in the center. I've hoped and strived to fill the roles that I've made for myself here with these four other people. I've hoped and strived to be able to continue playing some part in the lives of the people who don't live here with me, the people who I count on to be there when I'm scared or lost, my extended family, my very best friends who I love so much.

And now we have to move and I'm just a little heart-broken about it. We'll make new memories one day in a new place and at least we have each other and thank goodness my mom is here for us and all that, but it's still hitting me kind of hard. I'm sure I'll get over it. It just takes a few hours to get myself back out of the center again.

I wave my arms, and swing my baton.

This last week, these last seven days, have been the hardest of my life. I do not exaggerate; I have never persevered so much rage, doubt, humiliation, self-hatred, sadness, impotence, and fear emanating from my own body in the entire 29 years of my existence as in this past week.

Now that this week is behind me I am ready to move on. Jason and I have all kinds of exciting ideas about vacations and jobs and loving each other. We are enjoying each other in ways that we have neglected for a long time (get your minds out of the gutter, kids), and I think if we can just focus on how important we are to each other, all the other bad stuff in our lives will seem less important by comparison.

My jewelry is officially for sale at Soca in downtown Homewood, and I'm working with Happi and hope to have my things for sale there as well. We're barreling towards August, when my jewelry will be featured in Lipstick Magazine, along with a nice article that I wrote about the fourth annual Birmingham Chicks Rockfest. Good things are happening, people.

Finally, an addendum to my prayer that I posted here a few weeks ago:

Please God, help me to be tactful, graceful, to remember who I am. Help me to hear Gordy Ramey saying it when I get lost. Help me to refrain from choking any bitches to within an inch of their lives. Help me to remember why it would be a bad idea to go to them with pictures of my children and ask them how much they enjoy toying with their happiness. Help me to be a lady, a sane lady, something with which I have absolutely no experience. Help me to take an awful situation and find and make the best use of all the good things that can come from it. Please God, help me to let it go like so much water off a duck's back. Help me to be sure, to stop questioning, to move forward hard and fast. Help me to start writing again at a time when all I can think to write about are things that I refuse to write about.

And God, please help my husband to remember that I am a crazy person, have always been a crazy person, was a crazy person when he met me. Help him to remember that I've never stopped loving him, even when I am at my most intolerable. What I'm saying is YOU'VE BOUGHT THE COW. NOW YOU HAVE TO LIE DOWN WITH IT IN YOUR MADE BED. What? Yes, that's what I mean.

There's frost on the punkin.

I found this definition, thought you would enjoy:

Catharsis may refer to:
* Catharsis, a term used to describe ritual, punitive and other forms of purification for religious and other uses and is also applied to emotional release
* (medicine) the effect of a cathartic, which is a strong laxative

Sometimes we all need to take a poop, I guess.

I got this in a message from a good friend, and decided I'd like to share it here. Because we DO all need to take a poop sometimes.

I've discovered that I'm much more resilient and sure of myself than I previously thought. I've also figured out that my family is my touchstone, and having them grounds me in a way that I just hadn't realized before. This is a place where I come to make sense, and sometimes comedy, out of my daily life. To be able to get it all out, to get it away from me so I can judge it from further away, is cathartic.

I think it can best be summed up by Cher from Clueless, as I'm sure most things can be:

"It's like a painting, see? From far away, it's OK, but up close, it's a big old mess."