The moment I was afraid to dream was possible, came last night. He forgave me. There will be more on this, but for now, that's all I wanted to say.

Wednesday was my official one year anniversary of being at my job. I work in a law office, and while it's a good job, it's not what I want to do with the rest of my life. I want to get back into non-profit development, but that's an economy based job, and the economy in California still sucks. I told myself that I would stay here for a year before looking for something new. It may be even longer before I start looking, depending on a lot of factors in my life, but that is for another post. Today I thought I'd offer you a glimpse into my mostly mundane but sometimes unusual workdays.

Earlier this week, CrazyFamily had an appointment with my office to come and discuss some family affairs. Apparently they do this a couple times a year. The first couple of times they were in, it was just the kids (not really kids as the youngest of them is in her 50's). DaughterCrazy and I have had a lot of contact, as we had to work closely to get something resolved for the family, and she now thinks I am her best friend. (I am told she has some level of mental instability, as well as a drinking problem, but whatever...) So anyway this time, MomCrazy was at the meeting as well. She is 80 if she's a day, and seemed a little bit out of it. Actually, she seemed like an older, slightly battier version of DaughterCrazy. (I think it might be a female thing because SonCrazy I and SonCrazy II seem pretty on top of things.)

There were too many people to fit in the office conference room, so we rented the larger conference room here on our floor. We got everyone headed out to the new space, with MomCrazy standing at my desk, confused and asking where to go. "Just follow Boss", I told her. "Follow Boss and he'll take you there." But MomCrazy decided she had to go to the bathroom, so I opened the door for her, then made sure everyone was settled into the conference room. Boss looked at me and asked me to make sure she found the conference room when she came out. So I stood in the hall for about 10 minutes, waiting for her to come out. Finally I grabbed my keys and went into the bathroom to check on her.

MomCrazy was standing at the sink, looking utterly perplexed. She saw me come in and she said to me, "How do you turn the water on?" I explained to her that they are automatic sinks, and she should just put her hands under the faucet and the water would come on. She looked at me doubtfully and placed her hands under the faucet, then nearly jumped out of her skin when the water came on. I got her out of there and was in process of delivering her to the conference room when SonCrazy II came looking for her. Finally everyone was settled and I could get back to work.

The meeting ran long by about an hour and a half. Family members came and went intermittently to get the restroom keys, Kleenex. more water, etc. Finally the meeting ended, and unbeknownst to me MomCrazy made one more trip to the bathroom. A few minutes later, my suite door opened and MomCrazy came in asking if her family was in the suite. I told her they would probably still be in the conference room, and got up to take her back over there. As I got to my suite door, MomCrazy said "Thank you Dearie" to someone in the hall. Turns out she had gone into the suite down the hall from ours, and someone brought her back to our office. I dropped her back off at the conference room, and finally (finally!!) CrazyFamily was gone (and this time I managed to avoid a very perfumy hug from DaughterCrazy.and I won't have to deal with them for another six months.

Happy Birthday to the Great and Wonderful Tara!! (not to be confused with the Great and Powerful Oz)

*grumble-grumble-grumble-stupid-ass-people-at-the-dmv-giving-everybody-stupid-fucking-attitude-whats-the-point-of-making-a-stupid-appointment-anyway-grumble-grumble-pissed-off-stupid-grumble*

In other news, my car registration actually got renewed *before* it expired and I had to pay late fees. This is a good thing.

My lower lip is a ragged, bloody mess. When I'm stressed out or worried or upset, I bite at it. I used to bite my cuticles too, but have stopped that in recent years. What I'm about to write about is something that not even my best friend of nineteen and a half years knows.

I used to be a cutter. Not in quite the same way as I've seen become more evident in the last few years- rarely did I cut myself with glass or razor blades. In fact I only have one scar from a razor blade, and it's not the one on my wrist. That one used to draw curious looks and questioning glances, but that scar, the only one I possess that truly looks like something self inflicted, really is from an accident. The scar on my wrist that has almost completely faded is from falling out of a tree when I was a teenager.

I've never tried to kill myself. I've only thought about it twice in my life, and the first time startled me so much that it was what made me seek help for depression. The second time was last Sunday. I thought to myself that I was so tired of living, so tired of always being hurt, so tired of people treating me as if I didn't have feelings. Even then I didn't really think "I need to kill myself", as I had two and a half years ago. I just thought "I'm so tired of living, I hate my life".

I've always thought of suicide as giving up, as letting whatever was getting me down win. And I've always thought that nothing is worth ending my own life over. Nothing is worth making other people hurt because I was gone. I've seen the mess suicide leaves behind- I knew two people that did it. My personal feeling is that nothing is ever that bad. I believe that God doesn't push us past what we can handle, and I think being pushed to the breaking point and then getting past it and moving on shows us how strong we really are. So don't worry gentle readers, I'm not going to kill myself. I'm not really even thinking about it anymore.

But my lower lip reminds me of a coping mechanism I thought I was over- the cutting. As I said before, I never really cut myself, but I believe that what I did do was similar enough that I can classify it that way. I used to inflict physical pain on myself to keep from feeling emotional pain. I'm dangerous with a pair of tweezers, and I'm not allowed to have cuticle trimmers anymore. In a fit of depressive obsession when I was about 20, I "trimmed" all of my cuticles to the point that they were raw and bleeding. I used to pick at the edges of my fingernails with tweezers, which, if anyone has picked a bad hangnail they know, you can rip the hell out of your fingertips. I was too much of a coward to use a knife, or a razor blade or a piece of glass, but I used to "take bites" out of my feet, my hands, and a few times even my breasts with a pair of fingernail or toenail clippers. I used to stick pins in my fingers but I think a lot of kids did that- that never drew blood or anything. I used to give myself "rug burn" with an old toothbrush. And I used to "draw" on myself with match-heads. I had a series of scars in the shape of a tree once.

Most of the marks have faded, but I still don't wear shorts or capris very often. The emotional marks have faded along with the physical ones, but every once in a while I remember what it was like to try to make the physical hurt more than the emotional, but it never worked. And I'd like to thin I've grown out of that kind of thinking. This thing with my friends still hurts, but now it's more of a dull ache than the shrieking, piercing agony that it was for the first week or so. I'm sure it'll leave a scar on my heart, but I know that it, like the others, will fade in time.

Okay, so enough being vague. Two weeks ago, a couple of very close friendships came to an end. I'm still not sure what I did to cause it, but Sarah and Ida, two people that I thought I was really close to, decided they needed a break from me. Apparently that decision was made a while ago, as it has come to my attention that problems had been mentioned to other people but not to me. Everything came to a head on the eve of Ida's wedding, and I ended up not being welcome there. I can't even begin to describe the pain of missing that, or the pain of knowing that I wasn't wanted there.

On Friday (October 1), I wasn't quite sure what was going on. People got upset, and I feel that the way it was handled left a lot to be desired. The cruelty in the tone with which the message was delivered that I was not welcome at the wedding just made it all the harsher. I cried for hours that night, both in Keegan's arms, and alone in my bedroom. Saturday the 2nd dawned clear and sunny, a beautiful day for a wedding. My housemate got married that day too, and I went to her wedding that morning, but my heart just wasn't in it. Keegan picked me up and we headed for the beach, hoping to see a friend and the welcome distraction she would provide, but that ended up not happening. I didn't cry as much as I expected to that day, but I lost it a little on the way home from the beach. I feel kinda bad for that, because Keegan was with me and he was trying to be the friend I so desperately needed. I spent the night at his house because I couldn't bear the thought of being alone in my room again.

I honestly don't remember what I did on Sunday the 3rd. I just know that Sarah didn't call like she said she was going to, to explain what the hell had gone so horribly wrong... Oh, I remember now, I went to the theater with some friends and saw a very weird musical about a doomed romance.

On Monday the 4th I had to go back to work, and try like hell to keep the tears trapped inside my eyelids, an endeavor which failed in the first five minutes, being as I lost it when my boss asked how the wedding was. That night I called Sarah, to try and make some semblance of sense out of the whole thing. Sarah was cold, and in my opinion, cruel, in relating that they were done being my friends, that she would mail me my stuff and that I was no longer welcome. She made a couple of comments, but there was still no "we think that you're doing such-and-such and we want no part of it, please go away now" definitive reason.

The days after are still a bit of a blur. There were people that needed to be talked to in an attempt to limit the fallout from the situation, and I think that that was effectively accomplished. People who know me well kept calling to be sure I was okay, and people who didn't know anything had happened would ask how the wedding was and I'd lose it all over again. I've been tormented by my dreams every night since October 1, with the exception of last night.

Last night I saw Sarah for the first time since that fateful Friday. I spent the entire day dreading it, not knowing what to expect. To my utter surprise, she was cordial and even gave me a hug. So we're taking a break from each other, though I can say that things will never be as they were. I don't know that I'll ever get over missing that day, or the fact that the people I thought were my friends could treat me in such a way. And while I will be an adult, while I will go on with my head held high, while I will still do my best to enjoy my life, I can't promise that there won't be moments like these, when it still really hurts, when I'll sit in my room, trying to pour my heart out through my fingers, with tears streaming down my cheeks.

It's down to this
I've got to make this life make sense
Can anyone do what I've done
I missed life
I missed the colours of the world
Can anyone go where I am

'Cause now again I've found myself
So far down, away from the sun
That shines into the darkest place
I'm so far down, away from the sun again
Away from the sun again

I'm over this
I'm tired of living in the dark
Can anyone see me down here
The feeling's gone
There's nothing left to lift me up
Back into the world I've known

'Cause now again I've found myself
So far down, away from the sun
That shines into the darkest place
I'm so far down, away from the sun
That shines to light the way for me
To find my way back into the arms
That care about the ones like me
I'm so far down, away from the sun again

It's down to this
I've got to make this life make sense
And now I can't do what I've done

And now again I've found myself
So far down, away from the sun
That shines to light the way for me

'Cause now again I've found myself
So far down, away from the sun
That shines into the darkest place
I'm so far down, away from the sun
That shines to light the way for me
To find my way back into the arms
That care about the ones like me
I'm so far down, away from the sun again

Away From The Sun - 3 Doors Down

When I was growing up, I was taught that to show weakness was failure. If you were hurting, you didn't talk about it. I'm surprised I'm as much of a cryer as I am, because I wasn't really allowed to cry growing up. I think that's part of why I bottle things up, why I hesitate and agonize over writing things on my blog. I care way too much about what people think to let myself be that vulnerable without major internal struggling. I wanted my blog to be witty and fun. I don't want it to turn into a place where I'm always whining. I know I've said a couple of times that I want to be more real here... well... I'm working on it, and give me some time, and you should be seeing some posts with actual substance.

In the last 14 days, I've barely slept, I've cried myself sick at least four times, I couldn't think about eating without feeling like I was going to throw up, I was down to one meal a day and I've lost at least 5 pounds. The issues mentioned above account for part of why I haven't written about what's been going on, but the other part is that I've been sick to death of talking about it, I've wanted to pretend it wasn't there and not think about it, and that I've been going through crazy mood swings over it- sadness, depression, anger, betrayal... you name it I've probably felt it recently.

But things are getting better slowly, I slept a long dreamless night last night and lunch actually sounds good today.

I just got the weirdest phone call... it was "unknown caller" on my caller ID, but I figured it was late enough that it had to be either a wrong number or someone I know. The conversation went like this:

Me: Hello?
Woman: Hi, is this the Judy [deleted] that works at the Taco Bell in East Palo Alto?
Me: Um, no, it's not.
Woman: Are you sure?
Me: Who is this?
Woman: You're sure you're not her?
Me: Yeah, I'm pretty sure I work in a law office. There's a Judy [deleted] that works at Taco Bell in East Palo Alto?
Woman: Yeah
Me: Huh. Weird
Woman: You're sure you're not her?
Me: Why are you looking for her?
Woman: Why do you want to know?
Me: Um, maybe because you're calling me at quarter to 11 at night.
Woman: She's having an affair with my husband.
Me: (trying not to laugh) Oh. Yeah, definitely not me.
Woman: I'd almost rather it was you and you worked in a law office than at Taco Bell
Me: Yeah, trust me, I'm completely single.
Woman: Listen to me, I'm talking to a complete stranger, can you tell I'm stressed?

So I was like, Okay, good luck with that...buh-bye... and she's saying "pray for me", and I could finally hang up. Part of me thinks it was a prank by someone I know, but who knows. The strange things do tend to happen to me. Hmm... I wonder if that explains the number of hangups from unknown callers on my answering machine lately...

Brad told me after the last post that my life was made for blogging, because crazy stuff happens to me. While I'm not going to stop blogging, the crazy stuff can stop happening now.