"I'm thinking you got some sort hold on me, its making me crazy, making me crazy"

because i know you still read this...

i want say that underneath it all/ you are my friend / and the way that i fell for you / i'll never fall that way again ---- ndigo girls

on "coming out"

I really, truly hate the term..."coming out".

I am also pleasantly shocked at my family's responses...to what they are calling even though I am NOT calling it "coming out"

I actually never hid it from them. So really, I am not "coming out" of some hidden place.

it'll all be okay

Life is moving along a bit better for me at the end of this week....especially compared to the beginning....

It's been a long time since I've been that low and out of hope. I'm usually one to stay optimistic about things.

Anywho...I wonder who even still reads this blog of mine. People I know? Strangers? Blog people with blogs I read and comment on? Sometimes I just get curious...

I get extremely curious about a lot of things.

I can't believe it's May already...it seems like yesterday I was packing up to head to Minneapolis. My life is nothing like I thought it was going to be but I suppose that life and actually I'm glad, for the most part, its turned the way it has. There is only really one thing I would change aobut it but its beyond my control really...no matter how much I wish it to be...

on the subject of my health

As I was driving home tonight, surrounded by complete silence except for the rushing of the cars outside me and humming of the engine, I kept thinking and thinking and thinking...the thoughts were racing through my head...

Who would have thought that a little over a month ago, on a day that started wonderfully, filled with laughter of little girls playing in the woods would turn into over a month of non stop complications and illnesses.

And tonight, to top off all the crap that the past month has brought me, I was diagnosed with a "severely" doubled ear infection. Hell yeah its severe, I feel like crap.

I haven't blogged much in the month of April mainly because I've been in a fog of medicine. When I am with it I am desperately attempting to get work done so I have money coming in to pay the bills and when I am out of it - I am way way way out. There hasn't been one thing that has gone the way it has supposed to in the whole ordeal, not one. And honestly, I think I have maxed out on patience and strength.

I don't need people telling me to take More time for myself when I know its true but it really doesn't work that way. And I don't need people telling me I went back to work too early when I was doing what the jerk face doctor said I needed to do even though it made me much worse. I don't need reminding of how sick I am because I feel it - inside and out.

I suppose most of all I am frustrated. I have to take incompletes and am faced with the challenge of whether to go for the C grade as quickly as possible to get it done or put it all off after camp and shoot for the A's I know I would get.I am frustrated that I have to even think about it. I am frustrated that while I am dwelling over the hopeful success of the forthcoming summer that some people don't quite understand why I can't work on it during the summer. I can't. Bottom line. When you do what I do you give yourself up for the camp-its worth it in the long run-its for those campers. I am frustrated that I have to take what was going to be my road trip and white water canoe vacation and spend my days finishing these courses so they don't seep into the fall semester. I hate that I procrastinate so much that I hadn't started this shit back in January and should be almost done instead of not close to done at all.

And work..don't get me started with that. I am so angry that my work is suffering, that I am unable to be the super worker I am and accomplish 80 things at once - to be out with the girls and having more direct contact. I am frustrated that I am losing my patience and am less understanding to all the parent calls even though I know they mean well. Its not my fault you waited until the last second to sign your kid up for camp and we have no openings - NOT MY FAULT our numbers are higher than they have been in years. (well actually it is my fault our numbers are up--way way up) When I should be doing little dances around the office with excitement of the mass amount of girls coming through my program, I am stuck fielding calls from angry members who want their kids in my camp, on a certain date - even when I say I literally have no beds for them...they have to come another session. Nothing is good enough. And don't get angry with me because our pick up time impedes with your work schedule. I get it totally. I just can't keep your kid past the time frame-its against the law!

I am angry that I need to settle on where I am going to live next year and figure out my budget and hope that the financial aid comes through and make more calls to the billing department about paying this bill in payments so I don't totally wash all my money away and not be able to eat. I hate that I have no energy to do what needs to be done like clean, laundry, organize myself, clean my car, pack for camp...when the hell am I going to do that?

I am sure this comes off as a rant. And its rare that I find myself in such a situation where talking on the phone to someone (even through I am losing my voice) wont cut it because its a painful reminder of my current state of living and music needs to be shut off because of all the chaos in my head, it comes off as rambles and noises. Its rare form for me to not be able to express myself in such a situation. Sure I don't share a lot of inner feelings but this is something I would totally spill to even the closest person to me but I can't. I can't tell the story again and again...each time I see the doctor (which is on average 2-3 times a week), and its a new doctor, I have to retell it except its old. The story is so old to me and its the same shit....On March 29th, outside a suburban Walgreen's I almost stopped breathing...and it continues from there. And then I hear responses..."oh I had my gallbladder out-I recovered in less than a week" or "I had my gallbladder out but it was scheduled". See the difference is I never knew I even had a problem with mine. I was a fairly healthy person. Until March 29th. Then my body went into shock. Almost as much shock as every doctor who asks if it was bursting because I put off the surgery and my response is I have never had any issues with it. Maybe I did inherit my mother's rough and tough abdominal pain freeness. She wouldn't feel much pain when she was in labor until right before. Or maybe it went misdiagnosed. Or maybe I ignored it. Its most likely the latter. I am a busy womyn and I know I should pay attention to my health but hey...I run a camp...a camp that is starting in 29 days...in 29 days I will be closing the first day of supervisor training and heading back to my office and getting to work on the budget or fall programs or organizing the rest of training...29 DAYS! That's nothing. But its still everything.

I suppose whats most frustrating is that while everyone I love and they love me have surrounded themselves around me to care for me. When my family has been more supportive than ever before. When for the first time I really, truly needed them to survive they were there. And my supervisor-I would have crumbled at work without her support. And my friends...well they are great as usual...and my room mate, I am thankful she is so damn patient because I am not even able to stand at the kitchen sink for more than two minutes without feeling totally wiped and exhausted-I haven't done a damn thing in this apartment such as clean...except the property people refused to fix our toilet for close to 36 hours and did they have it coming...messing with a womyn who is overwhelmed and on crazy pain meds....not so pretty and they DID come right away to fix the damn toilet (which broke again today might I add). Anyway I suppose what is most frustrating is that I am not truly sure if most of the people in my life truly get what camp is. Being told all the time that I need not worry about camp and worry about my health.

I believe wholeheartedly that we have reason for being here, reason that nature made us. My reason was camp. And for people who have yet to find their truest reason and/or passion in their work do not understand what it means to give it up...even small parts. My whole life is shaped around the summer months. I have made great sacrifices for camp without regrets. I give up other places and things and jobs for camp because every summer is an opportunity like no other summer...each one is so different. And this summer...this is my summer to bring it back to my people. I know that sounds horribly sappy but these are my people. this is the first camp I went to, the pictures of my in diapers running around the woods as a young toddler...this is the camp my nieces will go too...this is the place that started my creation into what I have become. These adults were my mentors and my guides. I am example of what this organization can turn out. And camp, I believe can be a useful tool in creating social change. The community that is built with people from all over the world, who gather to empower girls and young womyn to stretch outside the social norms and not settle for the ways things are but rather create change and build community.

All that takes a hell of a lot of time and energy. I am a bit scared I wont have it in the next 29 days. And while my newest and most certainly closet friend these days says I have it more together than most in my field and that I can pull it together at the last minute...I believe her in a sense but it saddens me because it could be so much more if I just had the time. And I know my life isn't the worse and I do feel fortunate what I have but I guess today I feel the lowest of lows...before it was school that was suffering and well it would work out in the end and it will, and then it almost, ALMOST meant moving towards the burbs to save money so I can avoid going into crazy debt with the medical bills, and having to actually depend on others to care for me and think things through for me...all those things worked out in the end and I am better for them but camp...I just don't know how to deal with it if my camp season suffers...all those other things effect me mainly but camp...that's 1,500 girls. And those 1,500 girls would get a program even if I wasn't there but it most likely wouldn't be the type or direction of program I would have it go...and maybe its the fear that the last camp will lose that direction and seep its way back towards the traditional styles, that all that work will disappear in a matter 29 days from now...

After Pippi died, I realized what others have done for me over the years, people I didn't really know that changed me, changed me. But last summer, I got one important piece of trail mail as I was heading home that talked about how much I changed them, helped them grow into who she is, and what it meant for her to work for me. (What she doesn't realize is what it meant to me that she came to work for me). ....I think it was then that I started to become extremely frustrated easily with people who don't have passion, especially people who could care less about working at camp but do. Because whether you are good or bad at directing a camp, inevitably people are going to be affected by you, and I realize this and its why I speak up for social change and equality and actually doing what we say we do at camp which is be a vital part of youth development, to stop saying it and doing it, to actually be willing to do the work that goes with it. Maybe it goes back to women's studies thinking...those courses bring to surface all these problems and once educated you are responsible to speak out about them.

But its all just so frustrating. Simple as that. I sit in class and if not engage, I think of camp and take notes about camp or even if I am engaged I relate it to camp in my head. I lay in bed and think of what needs to be done. This doesn't seem like work because its enjoyable work, the outcomes are far greater than most jobs. Changed kids. So anyways back to the point, I have been sitting and laying and driving and attempting to reorganized from the last month (for the most part) and I can't shake it. It's almost like I am in a paralyzed, like I can think it all through and process it but I can't physically do it. And camp is about doing. Action. Verb.

This has turned into most likely one of my longest posts ever! Everything feels so out of my control. And not because of anyone else but because of my body. My body is telling me something and perhaps I should listen I know...but what do you do when your mind is telling you another and work is sitting there and bills are stacking up and research papers are overdue and your social life had become nonexistent and you miss you community because you don't have the energy or even feel good enough to go out with them and nothing is turning out the way it was supposed to....nothing....and can you believe I haven't shed a tear through this whole thing...not one...why am i so incapable of crying and getting it out?


29 days to shake this...
29 days to make it all work out...
29 days to figure it all out...
29 days to wonder why this all had to to happen to me...and why now? Why 29 days before camp....mmm mother nature? why?

and now i have a cold on top of the recovery process...

i'm so done with this injured/sick/tired/hurting/pain gig...i'm just done.. please take it away...

what does it really all mean? why?