He's changed ..........* edited a couple of hours later

I feel like Shawn and I are growing apart. There I've said it. I hate it, it breaks my heart but he's changed. I keep thinking it's an adjustment to him not "needing" me anymore but it's more than that. I'm not number one in Shawn's life anymore and neither is Sara. Shawn is number one.
When push comes to shove his happiness is what matters to him. I think he loves me but not the way he used to.
Now Shawn is pursuing his own life. He doesn't agree with me. He thinks it's not true and that Sara and I are just being overly sensitive. I am basing my feelings on what he does not what he says.

Watching Shawn be able to breathe again has been the most wonderful gift in the world. Shawn being able to be a regular guy in so many ways makes me happier than you could ever know. I love that he can DO everything now, shoot the shit, play ball, ride his bike, go on outings with his buddies, talk shop or whatever the hell they talk about but ugh.

I tell people that we have done more this summer than we have done in years and it is totally true, we are making up for stolen time. Unfortunately Shawn is also trying to cram years worth of missed out guy stuff into months. I have been totally supportive in him going out with the guys but he's gone overboard. At every opportunity he takes off on his bike to go for rides, he spent the day in Laconia during bike week, he goes to more fucking car shows with the guys than I ever knew existed, he hangs out at his buddies shop everyday. He tells me he's working on his truck and I know he does do work on it. He's been able to do alot of repair work to his truck there that would have cost us a fortune if he had to send it out. I also know that alot of the time he spends down there is just getting away from us.

Everything sort of came to a head over the weekend. Friday afternoon he called to tell me he was at the shop working on his truck which was fine. I don't call him or nag him. He came home 5 hrs later hammered. Apparently someone who runs a "casino night" outfit brought over a poker table, chips, cards etc along with two beer balls (whatever the hell that is). I was a upset that he had been gone, I was upset that he never called to say "Look, the guys are playing some cards, it's Friday night do you mind if I hang out?" That's all I needed. I would have felt like he took me into consideration, I would have without a doubt said yes. But he didn't as far as I knew he was "working on the truck". Sat morning he took off to a car show with his friend, D. Sara and I went out for breakfast, then we picked up D's daughter and I dropped them both off at a birthday party. Mind you if I had not offered to take his dgtr to the party he would not have been able to go to the car show. So even though I was pissed about Friday night I still wanted him to go. I didn't want to hold him back. He went. We had a clambake to go to at 6. The guys were running late. D agreed to pick up the girls and the drop them off here to hang out. Which he did. Probably more to get Shawn out of any hot water than to do me a favor. We went to the clambake, didn't really hang out together, went our seperate ways mingling. Which I didn't mind. I don't need him to hold my hand, I felt good, I knew a lot of the people there so it was not a problem. At some point he mentioned that there was yet another car show he wanted to go to with D but it was Sunday morning. He said they would be going early and that it would not be a problem. (Mind you this was a show that I had looked up on the net months ago but at that time he blew it off) Then we came home to a block party. Again we sort of did our own thing but it was fine, everyone had a good time even though the cops were there five times for noise issues. There was a live band.
I chatted with everyone, had God only knows how many Margaritas and Shawn put me to bed at the end of the night. It was a good night.

Sunday was my Nana's 88th birthday we were supposed to drive up to NH to celebrate and be there by 2. Shawn woke up and said he was going to the show with D, now this was at maybe 9ish. I said I didn't think he would have enough time, he said he did and promised to be home by 12 so we could leave for NH by 1. Well at 12 he called Sara Lou to tell her he was on his way home. I waited until 1:30 and left for NH.

He said they got there late and he wanted to walk through and see everything and then they ran into a couple of guys and got to chatting. He says he left the show at 12:30 but ran into traffic on the way home.

Not that he had lost track of time. He just didn't give a fuck. He was enjoying himself and that was that. Fuck you Tina


*edit* Maybe I'm wrong. I hope I am wrong. Regardless of whether I am right or wrong I love him. I love him with all of my heart and soul. I don't want this to get out of hand. I want to find the balance and I'm hoping that Shawn does too. I'm hurt, I'm confused and most of all right now I'm tired. I know when I am tired I don't think as clearly as I should so I'm going off to bed.

On a happy note I called my pharm and asked her to call me in some Ativan. I'm smoking butts secretly and it's gross and stinky, and bad for me, not to mention expensive. Thankfully this morning I will pick up my script. Well I'm thinking my husband will be waiting in the Walgreens parking lot for the doors to open. Ugh


P.S. I am aware that I am sending Shawn mixed messages and I'm hoping we can work this out. God I love that man.

P.P.S. I REALLY think that this sort of shift in the realtionship should be addressed or at least mentioned in the pre-transplant support groups. WTF I have been blindsided by it.

Getting it together....trying to

Mental health check. Still having a really hard time staying focused at all. Agitation sometimes getting the best of me. I tried a new med, blah. Definitely exacerbated symptoms. Back to the drawing board. I had a very productive and destructive manic phase. Unfortunately even my swings are so sudden and frequent I can't take full advantage of the tiny window of good energy. Grrr.

Life goes on. During my upswing I spent more than I should have and blew our budget for the month. Shawn is none too happy. I even bounced a check!!!! We have so much going on too. Really we've been so active socially I'm feeling a little burnt out. We went out last Fri to a cook out, Saturday our niece slept over, Sunday we had Shawn's brother and his wife over for some nice beach time and Sunday evening we had company again. This weekend Sara has a birthday party from 2-5, then we have a clambake that is running from 5-10, we also have a block party that same night that is running 6-11. Sunday is my Nana's 88th birthday so we'll be going up to NH. Wednesday we are leaving for Buffalo to meet up with our friends who are from Florida but will be in NY for a family wedding. The third week of August I think we are going to Virginia to visit my Dad and do some camping. Crazy busy.

I'm trying to get my seaglass out and about. I keep creating things and my home is being overrun. I'm learning new techniques and really enjoy just working with my hands. The glass is so tactile I love it. I'm very pleased with the feedback I have been getting.

Shawn is doing great, feels good is getting plenty of fresh air and exercise. Sara and I really take advantage of living on a beach. Almost everyday we meander over at some point and take a dip. The two of us in our noodle chairs just floating and chatting. It's the best.

Not Motivated *edited a couple hours later @ 3.49*

Ack this weather is the pits. I should be making jewelery and instead I am doing everything but. I threw on laundry, cleaned up the kitchen, washed the floors, changed clothes 4 times, shoes twice, curled hair (even though I knew it would frizz up the second I walked outside), brought in the trash barrels, took a short walk, caught up on some blogs, FB and e-mails and here I am blogging. Ugh.

I have the most horrific inferiority complex. I am petrified of rejection. I can love love love a piece I've created and then I'll look at it and think what if someone doesn't like it? What if one person in the whole wide world thinks it sucks?

I know that this is an irrational way of thinking but it is an obsession of mine.

The sick feeling that I get when I sense someones dislike for something I have put my heart into is nauseating. It's ridiculous I know but it doesn't stop it from being real.

I can have a hundred positive reactions but it's that one negative that will cause it all to come crashing down. Makes me nuts, I wish I was not this way but I am.

I instantly feel horrible about everything, I feel disgusted with my body, I feel unattractive, I feel inferior in every sense of the word.

I think I am good at this new craft of mine. I think that the jewelery that I create is beautiful, simple, organic, and magical.

I wonder about each piece of seaglass or seapottery that I find, where has it been, how many hands have held this piece, how many conversations has it been privy to, how did it end up in the sea and how long has it been there?

Some pieces I find I'll keep them in my pocket and rub them throughout the day. They have such a wonderful smoothness to them and yet they are textured in this beautiful rugged manner.

Well Shawn's home and he's wondering why I won't let him read my post. He's not pushing it now but I bet he'll take a peek later on. He thinks my mental health is his business....he's got some nerve.


Edit @3:49 p.m.: I added three photos of a piece that i made yesterday. I love it, it's thick and perfectly rounded and smooth. I actually carried this piece of seaglass around in my pocket for months. Slipping my hand in and being able to rub and flip that piece around was very soothing. I think it helps to keep me in the present tense, the "Now". I bet there is a name for it. Anyway I am going to hate parting with this one, but God help me if I put anymore in my "my collection" box Shawn's going to kill me. I know me and I'll hold on to it for as long as I can consequences be damned !

What a lovely morning it is.

The last couple of weeks I have been struggling with a wide range of emotions, but mostly depression and agitation. It's always a huge fight in my own head when my depression rears it's head because I can't for the life of me understand why. On one side of my mind I see no reason for it, I see it as a ridiculous weakness, I see it as laziness, weakness, a figment of my own imagination. I see it as something that should be completely within my control and something I should be able to snap out of, stop being a baby etc. I do not accept it as a "chemical imbalance" or "mental illness". I see it as something I should be able to talk myself out of.

On the other side of my mind, I accept it. It's part of who I am. Whatever the cause, the fluctuation in hormones or neurotransmitters is real. Sometimes my mind does not run smoothly. Sometimes it is a washing machine that has gone off balance.

Over the years I have learned ways to help push the reset button so to speak and they work pretty well.

Anyhoo my triumph today is that although I am not sleeping in a normal pattern I was determined last night when I went to bed that I was going to have a good day today.

I went to bed at 10pm and was up at 11:39pm Ugh !!!
I was back asleep sometime after 3:49a.m. and then my dog woke me up at 5:16 a.m....oh that's a gross story..but I digress back to sleep sometime after 5:40 ish
I was awakened by Shawn at 6:30 a.m. (who was determined to be the first patient at the GI office to have his Ph probe pulled)
I fell back asleep around 7ish and then woke up myself at 8:19a.m.

I know this is all riveting but I mostly write to understand myself so sorry guys.
When I woke up I was still clinging to the "I am going to have a good day today".

I am. Maybe it's the sun is shining, maybe it's my hormone shift, maybe it's me forcing negative thoughts out of my head, forcing myself not to ruminate, whatever it is I am happy. I am having a good day and I am so thankful for it.

Shawn decided this morning that since the Red Sox game was rained out last night and rescheduled for today at noon, that he would take Sara Lou into Boston with him and see if he could score some tickets. So guess what? Yes, they are now wandering around Fenway together.
Shawn the same man who was so crapped out not five months ago is enjoying the day with Sara Lou.

I just took my delicious famous lemon poppy super duper pooper loaves out of the oven, the house smells very lemony, I'm working on a seaglass project and I have an appt with my shrink this afternoon. A very good day indeed!

Focus Focus Focus

Well I'm stumped today. Frustrated by my lack of focus. What am I doing? What is my purpose in life. How does one go about finding their purpose? how do commit to something? Rather why can't I commit to something?

I know the usual 'find what you love'

I love so many things, I love the ocean and the beach, I love people and helping them, I love to learn about alternatives...alternative thinking, medicine, nutrition, exercise. I love gardens and flowers, fruits and vegetables. I love creating and growing things, I love to nurture. I love to give people hope and to bring them joy. I love to write.

I love so many things and I know a little about a lot but not a lot about a little. I'm sort of 'Jack of all Trades' except in my mind. I am a quick study and am often frustrated that I don't know more about things that others seem to know about.

Today I can see I am trapped in my head. Shawn will tell me that it's alright, it's one day, but I don't like it.

How does someone sit down and complete a task? I have so many ideas in my head regarding my seaglass that I am overwhelmed by them. I come to a bump in the road and get discouraged I give up too easily. Instead of just finding the solution to the problem and remedying the situation I just wallow in it. What the hell is that about? I usually know what I need to do I just don't take the steps to do it.

Blah blah blah What a bitch session this has turned out to be.
I am squandering time and I hate that. I'm not engaged in life today. I'm just here.

Ugh..........not long ago these ruminations would have led me to thinking of going to sleep. Going to sleep in hopes that when I wake up everything would be crystal clear, an epiphany will be born and I will be alive again.

Now I know that sleep is not going to help. I know I have to work these things out, putting the pieces together like an intricate puzzle. Pull my fragmented mind together for the sake of living, engaging.
It's hard though.

Whatever the reasons my mind is not always looking out for my best interests and I have to be cognizant of that fact. My mind keeps me in the past and in the future but never in the present and that is how time slips away from me.

So right now I am going to try to reconnect with the present and stay in it. It's a lot harder than it sounds. My mind is very quick to wander away.

I am going to dump out a big jar of glass and sort through it, focusing on the feel of it, the textures, colors, shapes, imperfections and weight of each piece. Lucky for me my glass is sorted by color and usually even by age/thickness.

I am going to focus on making one thing. something small. earrings.
Yes earrings. I recently learned how to make my own "findings"...that's the metal part of the jewelery. So earrings it will be. Color. hmmmm? O.K. this could be a stumper. Blue. Blue because it is so gorgeous and it reminds me of the sky and the sea all at once. Blue because it is cool and calm, just like me. HA!

O.K. Blue earrings. Ready set go!

Better

I had such a great weekend. Friday sucked balls all day, I couldn't get out of my funk but by around 9pm I was feeling back to myself.
Saturday I babysat my niece Emily from 9-3, we spent the day at the beach, she added about 5 lbs of friggin rocks to her rock collection.

At 4pm my other niece Gianna who is 5, arrived her parents were going out for the night so it was a sleepover. She was soooo funny. Apparently the last time she had been to the ocean she was like two. So she had no recollection. I asked her if she wanted to go across to the beach she was excited and we headed over.
When we got to the wall and she could see the beach and ocean she stopped dead in her tracks and her eyes totally bugged out of her head, she spreads her arms out and says in this wonderful little girl voice, "What IS this place?" I said "It's the ocean." she says "It's beautiful"

Then she was off down the stairs stopping to touch the sand as soon as she got to the bottom, she was totally amazed. She's been to a beach but it's on Lake Winnapesauke in NH so of course the sand is different, well really everything is different.
She was at first concerned that she was going to get dirty but I let her know that when she comes over to our place it's all about getting dirty. She was so excited I let her take off her shoes and she made "cakes" decorated with rocks and shells. I was having the most terrific time, I love that exhuberance that kids have, that we lose as we get older.
I had to pry her off of the beach and she made me promise we could come back the next day.

Sunday morning she wanted to go over first thing, I tried to explain the tide to her but she didn't get it, it's a pretty difficult concept to explain to a five year old. I had to bring her over to show her that the beach was under water. She was shocked.
Once the tide was on the way out we headed over it couldn't have been more perfect. The sun was shining it was warm, I had given her a sweatshirt to wear so she could get dirty.

She was looking so lovely that a photographer from The Boston Globe asked if he could take her picture, Shawn agreed and wouldn't you know she made the front page of the Metro section. I went out and bought a copy, it's not on-line for some reason. It's page B1Maybe I can take a picture of the picture...hmmm?

So a great day and then that evening we had dinner with a friend of ours from California who's out here for a conference, she's a pathologist.

So what started out as a really shitty weekend turned out quite nice.

Out of sorts

Just out of sorts. I can't put my finger on it but it drives me nuts.

I feel tired and unfocused.
I have to remember to talk myself out of these moods. It works pretty well although I will catch myself sliding back into the gray and have to fight it off.

I feel lost.

I recently signed up for facebook after much nagging from a friend of mine. It's alot of fun catching up with people who I haven't run across in years. Shawn has a facebook too so it's fun for us both, sometimes he hijacks mine and writes ridiculous things and vice versa.

Anyway the thing is that Shawn had ALOT of female friends as a child and they are coming out of the woodwork. Then there is the girlfriends of those girls and they all seem to think Shawn is a celebrity or something.
I really had no problem with it except some of them are a little too agressive in my opinion. They send messages through his inbox, asking more personal information and I think it's crossing the line.

A few weeks ago when Shawn went in for his first touch up, while I was waiting for him to come out of surgery his cell rings, it's this girl he grew up with..she said she hadn't heard from him and was worried, she knew he was having the bronch the day before. She had even called his fucking grandmother to find out what was up.
He had given her his number, which I knew and was irritated about to begin with. Believe me this girl is no threat to me on a physical level, she is not anything Shawn would think was attractive but it's the fucking ego stroking that I'm pissed about.
Oh poor Shawn, Oh you've been through so much...Oh blah blah blah...Which that is fine he can't control what they say but don't continue the conversation don't feed it.
He will have three or four of these conversations going on at once it's ridiculous.

Am I just and insecure twit, threatened by the fact that he is healthy and doesn't "need" me anymore?

I try and gauge my reaction by saying what's good for the goose is good for the gander, would it be alright for me to entertain old "male" friends of mine? Of course guys don't blather on incessantly like women do but anyway.

So now I have this crappy ugly feeling in me. I'm not young enough, thin enough, pretty enough, and on and on.

Overwhelmed

I'm not sure if it's the weather or the chg of seasons coming on or the fact that Shawn has to back in for surgery tomorrow but whatever it is I am totally out of sorts.

I'm frustrated with myself for not getting my seaglass shit together.
I have some really beautiful pieces that I've made that I haven't posted because I can't get a picture that I'm happy with.
I don't want to post pieces because I need supplies, cording, clasps etc so I can actually deliver the piece. I'm not ordering supplies because I am overwhelmed by the choices, afraid I will order the wrong stuff. Ughhh. I am overwhelmed by the amount of glass I have collected but I can't help myself it's beautiful...

Oh Yeah I want to post a picture of something I found on the beach while carousing with Shawn.
There are a couple of things that make this a totally amazing find and frankly I'm glad Shawn was there with me because it's unbelievable that something so tiny jumped up at me.
What makes it special?

1) the color...red is the holy grail of seaglass
2)the shape...it is a faceted square piece
3) history....may have been in a ring
4) the size...it is tiny and the fact that it somehow made it's way out of the ocean and up onto the beach to me is incredible
5) what is it? glass, a ruby, a garnet? who knows?

I love it! Check it out:

Ugggggh I hate trying to put pictures up !!!!!! They never show up where I want them to!

He's got Meds !

So after an hour and a half on the telephone, driving into Boston, chasing down the social worker, harassing his poor pregnant NP, and hanging out for four hours at the in-house pharmacy he has his meds! Thank God. Yes it was a pain in the ass and yes Shawn nearly blew his top, but he picked up around $1500 worth of meds for $35. How can we not be totally grateful? Phew...I'm glad that is over.

He has some weird thing going on in his lung, when he breathes in and out it sounds like a flap is opening and closing. His O2 sats are fine, no SOB, no pain, no increase in sputum, but a nagging non-productive cough and that weird sound. The doctor thought it might be a "shaggy" airway, I guess where the new and old meet there is a bit if overlap, and that tissue usually sloughs off and is coughed up I guess. So the bronch and biopsy that was scheduled for Feb 27th got bumped to this Thursday.


In other news Shawn's benefit is taking off, tickets are selling well and we're aiming for a sell out.
It's super exciting, a lot of people are working really hard and pulling this all together.
I can't wait!


I have to say I've been thinking alot about Jenn. Jenn is a friend of ours that we met through our online Cystic Fibrosis community. She passed away suddenly and it's just so unfair. She was trying to get ready for transplant, she needed a double lung and liver transplant, but she didn't make it. I'm sure she didn't see it coming, she had just finished making this beautiful pink afghan for a baby shower, she had plans.
Her funeral is this Friday. What a fucking shame.

Be grateful for everyday that you have the privalege of walking around on the face of this earth, sitting in traffic, worrying about bills, and all the bothersome stuff. You can see the sun shining and you can love.