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The thing you can't talk to people about is feeling lonely. I know that when people talk to me about feeling lonely, I never know what to say. But sometimes all someone needs is for someone to listen.

Tonight I saw Men, Women, and Children at the theatre... by myself. After the movie, as I was walking to my car, the wind was blowing relatively hard and the air was cool. It's definitely feeling fall. Fall happens to be my favorite season and also the season I feel a bout of seasonal depression. I don't know what it is about the cool air. It just makes you want a partner. I'll say it time and time again- I'm content with being alone most of the time. But sometimes... like walking out of a movie theatre on a cool night and getting in your call all alone, the feeling of loneliness is almost palpable.

To my Granny.

My Granny passed away a little over a month ago on the 7th of September.  It's taken this long to open up the editor to this blog and attempt to write a post about it.  Anyone that has ever met me or my family knows how close we are. The older I get, the more I realize how rare this is. We still have Sunday dinner at her house every Sunday. Do you know how many people still do that? I haven't met anyone. 

It's funny. The people I haven't talked to in years - some since high school - that have texted or emailed or called to let me know how much they loved her. All of friends or boyfriends had the opportunity to meet her. It was important to me that they knew her. 

The difference in her passing and the passing of Grandpa is that we knew he was suffering. We knew he was at the end. I think mentally, we had time to prepare. Don't get me wrong, it was still difficult. I was a Grandpa's girl.  With my Granny, she was fine. My mom was spending the night when she called out for my mom to say she couldn't breathe. We knew she had a bad heart but she'd been fine. Her version of fine. So my mom called the ambulance, she was admitted, they gave her lasix.  Within an hour, the fluid had drained and she was back to her old self. She was mad she was in the hospital and she was ready to go!  

My mom told me not to worry about coming down from Atlanta because she was fine; she was going to be discharged on Monday. Thankfully I've never been one to listen well. I surprised my grandma and mom in the hospital. I'm forever glad I did.  We laughed, we talked on that Saturday night. She told me she thought for sure that the boys would be knocking down my door in Atlanta. She was upset we wouldn't be having Sunday dinner the next day. We were watching TV and she asked me what hazing meant..... these little things I never want to forget. Luke was with Brent and was suppose to meet me the next day to see her. 

She was fine. My mom even went to work the next day.. I woke up to a text the next morning to a text from my uncle that said, "Mom just passed...."   I literally fell to my knees in the floor.  I couldn't even process what was happening. I immediately called my mom's work number but I could tell the receptionist didn't know what to do... She didn't know I already knew. My mom beeped in while I was waiting and I listened to her weep. 

My mom and I are incredibly close. She and her mom were also incredibly close. I don't even want to imagine how she felt/feels. It's safe to say she has taken it the hardest out of everyone.  I raced to the hospital after calling Brent. Luke decided he wanted to see her so he met me there.. in her hospital room. I'll never forget that they placed a picture of a sunset on her door to signify her passing. I took a picture. 

Luke has taken it well. He cried once.. at the funeral.  We made sure to include him in everything. He was a pal-bearer and even her obituary included her name he gave her, "Old Granny".  My mom is just "Granny".  She loved him. He was the last grandkid she babysat. 

There's so much I could say about that amazing woman.. but I'll just include the eulogy I wrote.. and I've also included the video that played at her visitation.

http://web.photodex.com/embed/k4wbmbm4

I have the distinct honor of being Granny’s first grandchild.

When I think of Granny, I think of her cheese grits in the morning, her bowl with Donald Duck on it that she kept her medicine in, all of the birthdays we celebrated on Sundays at her house, picking muscadines off of the vine in her backyard, her moving the cars so I could skate the length of the driveway. I remember her as Old Granny- the name Luke gave her.

I think of the special relationship she has with my mom and how grateful she was to her.

I think of her checks she had with a rainbow on it and the caption, “Ask me about my grandkids” and how proud that made me. I think back to when she and my grandpa took me on vacation with them if my parents weren’t able to.

I remember calling her every night when I was in school to ask her what the weather would be like the following day so I knew how to dress.

Growing up when there were problems at home, she was my person. I went to her house and she made everything better. I can remember being mad at my mom in my teen years and getting in my car and heading to Granny’s house. Granny was always there to open her heart and welcome you in.

I got my personality from my Grandpa but I got my strength from my Granny and mom.

What I will forever be grateful for is that she taught us all how to love.  If you think about the ideal mom, she is kind, compassionate, forgiving, non-judgmental, and a little tough when she needs to be. That completely and accurately describes her. She taught us that love should be unconditional, without judgment. She loved us even sometimes when we didn’t appear to deserve it.

Granny was made to be a wife, a mom, and a Granny. She excelled in all.

If she found you sad or wounded and she couldn’t heal it completely, she made sure to stick by you and love you through it.

Sure you might say, what grandma doesn’t love on their grandchildren.  When you know Patsy Stephens, you know that the same kind of love was extended to many over and over – she didn’t reserve that love for just family.  She welcomed all of my friends over the years as her family. When I posted on Facebook that she had passed, two of oldest friends from childhood messaged me to say their heart was hurting. She was just that special. She was Granny to everyone.  But anyway.  She loved the company. You could stay at her house the entire day but when you were leaving she’d say, “What’s your hurry?”  I wish I could hear her say that one more time.

.

wednesday is here and i am still digging through
my coat pockets for
the words i scrawled on a paper towel,
the letters that spelled Change and Beginning.
i suppose that
is where all of us are hovering.

but my fingers
can't reach in that far. i've been letting them
   glide
 over the tops of freshly lined paper
 with the blue ink still burning
but i cannot penetrate my own audience.

         sometimes i feel lost
      in the language of mass cultures
      and in the surrounding heart beat of
      people i've never met.
i only want to touch something
inside your chest or on the small of the back,
and carve there
 some kind of legitimacy.
i want you to pretend that
the small things matter when i enlarge them like this.

i still don't have the words to
describe being infinite, or the discipline
to pick out individual instruments
from a song. from the very first note
they crash together like bodies dancing
  to form a single period
   at the end of a life-long sentence.
the songs are all the same
with a beginning and an end,
except for the hushed secrets
            that live in the quiet parts.

            the silence between falling down
               and getting back up again.

weddings! braves! etc.

Things of late: 

We went to a Braves game and Weezer played an after show. WOO HOO! My high school self was doing cartwheels. They were so good. Luke and I danced together and met up with friends for the show portion. It was on a school night so he felt extra "cool". 

Samantha got married:

Luke  was the ring bearer and I did the music. I have the blisters on my feet to prove that I had a great time. So . much. dancing.

Tomorrow I start a new job and of course I'm overwhelmed, nervous, and excited. I'll miss my co-workers at Think but I know that I'm making the right choice. I am a little concerned about working in Buckhead (traffic!!) but there's always some give and take. More money, for the win.

After being put on a new medication recently, I've lost 16 pounds in a month.. woo!

I'll write something better later. I've been so busy with freelance projects. I can't complain.

illness.

Over the last two weeks I've collected a few autoimmune disease diagnoses.  Pair that with being alone in Atlanta for the summer as well as three bald spots and you've got yourself a view of me throwing a few too many pity parties.  I'm just thankful for friends that realized this without me having to tell them and pushing me to go out and blow off some steam.  Sure, I didn't really want to go out to eat or go swimming or be social at all.. but I did and I felt so much better after it.  Tomorrow starts a new lifestyle change (hello gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free life) so hopefully I'll be able to feel better and maybe "normal".

I found this letter on the internet and I think I was doing fist pumps inside as I read it. It's the most accurate thing about one of my issues that I've ever read.

I Am Hashimoto's 

Hi.  My name is Hashimoto's.  I'm an invisible autoimmune disease that attacks your thyroid gland causing you to become hypothyroid. I am now velcroed to you for life. 

Others around you can't see me or hear me, but YOUR body feels me.

I can attack you anywhere and any way I please.

I can cause severe pain or, if I'm in a good mood, I can just cause you to ache all over.

Remember when you and energy ran around together and had fun?

I took energy from you, and gave you exhaustion. Try to have fun now.

I can take good sleep from you and in its place, give you brain fog and lack of concentration.

I can make you want to sleep 24/7, and I can also cause insomnia.

I can make you tremble internally or make you feel cold or hot when everyone else feels normal.

I can also give you swollen hands and feet, swollen face and eyelids, swollen everything.

I can make you feel very anxious or very depressed, too. I can also cause other mental health problems.

I can make your hair fall out, become dry and brittle, cause acne, cause dry skin, the sky is the limit with me.

I can make you gain weight and no matter what you eat or how much you exercise, I can keep that weight on you. I can also make you lose weight. I don't discriminate.

Some of my other autoimmune disease friends often join me, giving you even more to deal with.

If you have something planned, or are looking forward to a great day, I can take that away from you. You didn't ask for me. I chose you for various reasons:

That virus or viruses you had that you never really recovered from, or that car accident, or maybe it was the years of abuse and trauma (I thrive on stress.) You may have a family history of me. Whatever the cause, I'm here to stay.

I hear you're going to see a doctor to try and get rid of me. That makes me laugh.  Just try. You will have to go to many, many doctors until you find one who can help you effectively.

You will be put on the wrong medication for you, pain pills, sleeping pills, energy pills, told you are suffering from anxiety or depression, given anti-anxiety pills and antidepressants.

There are so many other ways I can make you sick and miserable, the list is endless - that high cholesterol, gall bladder issue, blood pressure issue, blood sugar issue, heart issue among others? That's probably me.

Can't get pregnant, or have had a miscarriage?

That's probably me too.

Teeth and gum problems? TMJ? I told you the list was endless.

You may be given a TENs unit, get massaged, told if you just sleep and exercise properly I will go away.

You'll be told to think positively, you'll be poked, prodded, and MOST OF ALL, not taken seriously when you try to explain to the endless number of doctors you've seen, just how debilitating I am and how sick you really feel.  In all probability you will get a referral from these 'understanding'  (clueless) doctors, to see a psychiatrist.

Your family, friends and co-workers will all listen to you until they just get tired of hearing about how I make you feel, and just how debilitating I am.

Some of them will say things like "Oh, you are just having a bad day" or "Well, remember, you can't do the things you use to do 20 YEARS ago", not hearing that you said 20 DAYS ago.

They'll  also say things like,  "if you just get up and move, get outside and do things, you'll feel better." They won't understand that I take away the 'gas' that powers your body and mind to ENABLE you to do those things.

Some will start talking behind your back, they'll call you a hypochondriac, while you slowly feel that you are losing your dignity trying to make them understand, especially if you are in the middle of a conversation with a "normal" person, and can't remember what you were going to say next. You'll be told things like, "Oh, my grandmother had that, and she's fine on her medication" when you desperately want to explain that I don't impose myself upon everyone in the exact same way, and just because that grandmother is fine on the medication SHE'S taking, doesn't mean it will work for you.

The only place you will get the kind of support and understanding in dealing with me is with other people that have me. They are really the only ones who can truly understand.

I am Hashimoto's Disease.

bucket o' list.

1. try creme brulee
2. go for a hot air balloon ride
3. visit the following places: 
• london
• travel the west coast from seattle to southern california
• austin
• new york, again.. many times 
• tampa (move there?)
• costa rica
• boston and more of the northeast 
• austraila 
• france
• disney world
4. achieve my ideal weight
5. solely freelance
6. see the braves at another stadium - out of state, not cobb county
7. drive PCH (see places to travel)
8. go camping
9. see a live jimmy fallon show  
10. learn how to show feelings
11. sit on a jury
12. fall deeply in love -- helplessly and unconditionally
13. karaoke?
14. find the perfect drink for me
15. give up soda
16. ask someone on a date
17. say what i really feel in the exact moment i feel it
18. write my will
19. ride the london eye
20. forgive my dad
21. volunteer with cancer kids
22. make the first move
23. visit Auschwitz
24. and the Anne Frank museum
25. and the holocaust museum in DC
26. catch a ball at a Braves game

haha.

What is more maddening than falling for someone that is taken? Why is it that it takes so much for me to genuinely like someone and when I do - for the first time in two years, no less - it is for someone I can't have?  I think I like punishing myself. haha.