Living in Limbo

 ♫There's a limbo moon above
You will fall in limbo love♪
 How low can you go?

 

We're here, in San Diego.  Living in a "hotel" <--notice use of ironic quote marks.  this place seems to be a white-trash transient motel, but HEY!  In San Diego, amiright?

Living in limbo, our apartment isn't ready yet.  Marking time with patience I DO NOT HAVE.  There is nothing to do but get outside, so I am walking miles and miles by the bay every day, which, you know - great!  But I need a home base soon or imma cut a bitch. 
 

The drive across the states was actually FUN.  I had (have) begun taking Wellbutrin, an anti depressant of the SSRI family.  Which is a re-uptake inhibitor, which well - here.  I'll make a story picture.

 

Imagine your brain goes to the dopamine/serotonin bank there in your body, to withdraw some feel good chemicals.  The bank teller (your spitter-outers of the chemicals, very technical term) she pushes the 'money' toward your brain, and then just when your brain is gonna glom onto those chemicals?  She yanks 'em back.  that is re-uptake right there.  If you make any of those good chemicals, your brain can't get to 'em. (wish I had made that up, but I read it on the webz and man, stuff like that makes sense to me.)

 

So SSRIs are re-uptake inhibitors.  So now my brain can pick up what I'm putting down.  WHICH, is pretty minimal, I don't manufacture those chemicals anymore (see this entry for why).  But MAN, I felt so much better on the trip than I have in a decade.  Like, someone had cleaned the Vaseline off of my windshield and I could finally SEE.  So, that was good.  More on the drugs later, remind me.  The unwilling exercise I am getting is what is really doing me good.  I'm actually manufacturing those chemicals now, and my brain can use them now.  I think I've lost a few pounds.  Was I complaining?  I'LL STOP NOW jeebus, it's all good.

 

The first 5 days are a blur of driving driving driving, truck stop coffee (YUM srsly), rest stops and listening to a CD-book about Krakatoa which is incredibly interesting.  Also Mark Knopfler on the Pandora radio station and also Reckless Kelly and it was just fun.

 

We stayed in Flagstaff, and decided to hang out there for an afternoon

It's a great little college town, full of energy.  we loved it.  The next morning we went to an observatory and walked in the forest, it was beautiful and we loved it.  We got lost, because we are not outdoorsy people and it was SAD that we got lost, good god we were going in a straight line

 Then we drove to Sedona, which is so beautiful you MUST SEE IT.  the town is a little over-the-top in the woo-woo department, but it is in the direction that my spirituality grows, so I liked it.  With a few grains of salt.  My pictures do not do the place justice 



Anywhoozle, we eventually made it to San Dog and there was much rejoicing.  Jeff started his new job and loves it, they love him, all is well.

Except for the whole living out of a suitcase thing, the whole I don't have more than 3 changes of clothing thing, the whole I want my house/stuff/wahhh imma big old baby thing.

I'm good, I'm happy.  I look tan thanks to Jergen's self tanning lotion.  I'm on a good medication and I'm exercising.  I've seen my kid more in the last week (and again today!) than in the last year. 

Balboa Park, SD

All is well.  Which is so fucking odd, right?

San Dog

We made it!  10 days.  10 different beds.  I have no idea what the world even looks like without bug guts all over it (from looking through my windshield)

Typing here from a suites hotel in San Diego, because our apartment isn't gonna be ready until April 8th.  At least this one has a mini kitchen so I don't have to eat fast food.

I'm not feeling particularly TALKY this AM.  I'm discombobulated and my doggies are freaked out a bit, we can't find the second set of our car keys ETCETERA.   But we're here.

Mike is currently ensconced on the sofa bed in my hotel room with his girlfriend - we went out to dinner last night and then watched 13th warrior (which was good, I mean Antonio Banderas, but also squishy and a bit bloody) and then I guess I'm taking them out to breakfast this morning because that's what mom's do.  He's happy we're home.  we are SO HAPPY to be home.

Q - so glad you're getting better.  Send a picture of your beautiful shaved head?  Sorry I missed you and sis at the Topless Tequila Tits and Testicles Bar I found, you would have loved it.  Post an update as soon as you can, we'd like to hear your side of brain surgery.

Sis, come back too!  We miss you too!

Goin' to California

with an achin' in my heart...

can of Skoal?  I would've recommended potato or cucumber, but whut do I know...

 

We are moving back to San Diego!  Uh...  we drive out in 9 days.  I have had approximately 2-weeks to get every damned thing done.



 

I'll be a might scarce around these parts, pardner.  I'll be busy fuh REAKING the frack out and running around with my hair on fire.

 

 I'll try and update from the road with glorius pics of highway rest stops.  If anyone talks to Q, please let him know I will send a postcard I SWEAR.

The Ripple Effect

Par-tay at Sanford and Son's house!  WE GOT RIPPLE!

 

 

 NO NO NO NO.  Not that kind of Ripple.  You people need a time out.

 

Start again:  The Ripple Effect

 



THANK YOU.  Jeebus, you're all so immature.

My version here of The Ripple Effect is the way my childhood abuse affected me, my reactions to it, and how my kid saw my reactions still ongoing into adulthood - and how that affected HIM.

There are so many aspects of this subject that I could explore.  I need to just get this little entry up, and then get back to it.

I've written before about how my sisters and I - we didn't have any role models to learn from as far as raising kids went.  So instead, we all just aimed for the opposite of what happend to US.  Which worked, in a way, because all of our kids are bright and happy and weren't raised in abuse.  Yes yes, applause to US for stopping the abuse at this generation, but did we really?  Because I'm seeing The Ripple Effect in Mike (my son) and while I feel that I did an OUTSTANDING job raising him given the tools I had (a ballpeen hammer and a melon baller, it wasn't easy using THOSE particular tools which is why I say I did a bang-up job) I feel like he is another abuse victim of my parents, a generation removed.

With strangers?  I was a goddamned WARRIOR, I never backed down from any confrontation or situation.  I was a 5'4" bundle of rightious indignation and woe betide the fool who puts me or my child in danger.

With my family (and narc boyfriends), he saw me react with fear, isolation, and running away.  He had no context for that behavior - he didn't know they were learned responses from MY childhood, so he (as children will) assumed that my responses were correct for that situation.  He learned to stress out at slamming doors (even though we NEVER slammed doors, it was always the wind or an accident), he learned how to react with fear and vulnerability.  He saw me do something, and figured that's how you do it.  (like making a buncha U-turns when you drive somewhere, it's just how you get there!)

About the time that testosterone hit his system, he decided that a fear-based response wasn't what he wanted to do, so he decided to become FAR more aggressive and began to react with "great vengeance and furious anger" when cornered.  He is un-learning that at this time (the USMC likes 18-year old guys for just that reason, lottsa anger and testosterone, and they focus it and create a big hammer).

So yes - I never abused that child (besides the whole 'no chocolate for breakfast' thing).  But his responses to stimuli were the same as my own, nonetheless.

You never know how you're gonna screw up your kids, but rest assured, they will tell you :)

We ULBs are teaching the youngers to un-learn these response behaviors at a far younger age than we learned it.  Little by little, maybe we can diminish the number of people who are target bait for these predator nards. 

ULBs:  Leaving caution tape, picks, shovels, flashlights and maps for victims of narcs.