It's been a long time since I've been this sick. This is significant, because I've been making myself sick from anxiety for a while now, and the real sick still whoops the anxiety sicks ass so hard that I sorta feel like my mental issues are tiny compared to, oh, I dunno, say.... a virus and a bunch of nasty-ass bacteria. I'm going to teach my class tonight. I had planned to go to class this morning, but when I got up my face was swollen again and I still felt like someone had bashed me in the face with a frying pan. My equillibrium is off because when I blow a metric ton of snot out of my head my ears pop painfully and it throws everything out of wack. You know in Drop Dead Fred where someone hits him and he bounces all over the place? It feels just like that. It's as repulsive as when me and Chris got that really naaaasty stomach bug and were losing from both ends at once. You wouldn't think anything could be as bad as that, but this is.

I am so effing tired of being sick, and of being stuck at home. It's weird how you can fade back and forth, in and out of yourself. I feel like I'm at a crossroads, a serious, completely ambivalent meeting of two totally disparate sides of myself. There's the part of me that is like, ok, lets move to NY like Chris wants and have kids and settle down and just be grownups. I mean, really, there's nothing preventing me from putting school aside, getting a normal job like any normal person with a bachelors degree. People do it all the time, it's not like a failure or anything to not keep going farther. Then there's the other side of me, the one that wants to do the peace corps and get a PhD in Anthro, teach, poke dead people with sticks, move to Europe at some point, live out in the wider world and try to do something just generally more spectacular with myself.

And even just saying that feels really arrogant. There's nothing wrong with just having a family and a normal job. The world is made up of people who make that decision, and they're not settling for anything less than, maybe they're even getting way more out of life than the people who go out and explore the whole world. Maybe you don't even really have to choose, maybe you can do all of it, you just have to push yourself harder and not compromise, maybe you just do the harder thing (whatever that is) and you fit the rest in somehow.

And part of me is petrified to move to NY. Every year I've talked to Chris about going to visit his family, every single year, and we look at our finances, and every year it's not possible. When his dad said that him and Chris' younger sister wouldn't be coming to the wedding, I was devestated because I wanted so badly to meet them, but then he said they'd come to see us after, so I felt okay with that. Then the trip just didn't happen, time just went by and plans weren't made and I've met a grand total of seven people, three of whom are his friends, two of whom are significant others, only two of which are his family. Family is so important to me, I call my mom every day, we have an insanely close relationships, and when I knew he was coming to meet me I made him drive with me in a car for twelve hours both way just so he could meet my mom and sister. I knew I couldn't date anyone who didn't get along with those two people, becuase I love them too much to have a relationship with anyone that could potentially cause a riff between us. I want so badly to feel like I'm a part of his family too, and I just don't. I feel like we're on some stupid island isolated from everyone. It's stupid, we're already married, and I still live with the constant fear that his family won't like me or accept me. I can't imagine agreeing to move out there, especially with the idea of children looming, when he'll be the only one I really know at all.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I feel more secure with the idea of moving to a developing Eastern European nation for two years that I do with just moving to NY without knowing what everyone with think of me.

I think I've evacuated about 12 pounds of snot from my head today.

In other news, my flu has helped me come down with a really painful sinus infection, which sort of feels like someones punched me in the face over and over again. Ah, the flu.... the gift that just keeps on giving.

* the democrats taking back control of the house and the senate... OMG, best thing ever. it makes it almost possible for me to stomach that California was stupid enough to re-elect the governator. *sigh*

* a realy cool tshirt from Patrick that says 'If you're not part of the solution you're part of the precipitate'. heh. chem nerd humor.

* a really cool jack skellington purse from Fuzzy and a button that says "Chuck Norris makes onions cry."

* the flu. ugh. going back to bed now.

Something miraculous has happened, just in time for my birthday.

When I first decided to put up personal ads to find my mom a date, I was hoping for something big to happen. After things went south with the last of her dating adventures, she sort of gave up for a long time. She was tired of boyfriends that were sort of like roaches, they always seemed to come swarming back into her life, imposing themselves on her time and patience. Her normal routine became wrapped up entirely in my sistr, which put a lot of stress on her and on their relationship. Her usual evenings began to consist of hiding upstairs in her room, reading and just avoiding my grandmother. I understood it probably better than she ever knew, because I remember feeling like that house was eating my soul slowly, smothering my will to live instead of just exist. There's something about my grandmother that infuses any space she occupies with abject misery.

I can't adequately express how vastly my life improved when I escaped that house. It was like a cloud of hot, foul air finally cleared and I could breathe and have peace for the first time in over a decade. It was like I had finally escaped from a suffocating cesspool and found that I still knew how to be fully alive. I went to school, I travelled, I explored myself, I met Chris, I learned how to be happy again. The hardest thing, the only hard thing about leaving home, is knowing that my sister and my mom are still trapped in that noxious, unhealthy hell hole. My grandmother is like a malignant tumor, leaching off the goodness and life of everyone around her, putting out only hate and other degrading, debilitating things. It's been plaguing my mom for almost ten years now, ever since she put her personal life on hold and stopped looking for a happiness that would be just for her.

And it killed me inside. I remembered how alive my mom was before, when she had someone to take her out and make her feel fun and free. She had gone from having an active and thriving social life before my sisters dad came along to moldering in her room with not much to look forward to. She's the person who taught me how to be happy and successful, how to give and receive unconditional love, and she was aging, literally, before my eyes, way beyond her years. My sister had never even experienced the vibrant, happy, social person I knew still existed somewhere inside her.

Her date on Sunday has helped bring back the happy in her voice. I talked to her on the phone today and she sounded like the mom that I remember from my early adolesence. She's not in love, she hasn't met her soul mate, she's not picking out curtains, she just had one good, pleasant date, and the effect on her is just amazing. And it's just what I wanted for her. Sure, it will be great if it turns into something wonderful for both of them, but even if they just end up as friends or as casual dates, it just thrills me to no end that she's going out, having fun, escaping the house for a while and having someone to make her feel good. This is doing more for my spirits than any drug could, I feel like I've fully got my best friend back.

I met my mentee and her family tonight and I am SOOOO EFFING EXCITED. She is an awesome kid, really smart and friendly and just effervescent with life and brightness and everything. And she seemed to like me just as much, and we're both uber excited about being friends. She loves animals and is dying to go horse back riding, so I'm going to do my best to work it out with Diane so we can make it happen for her. We have to do a community service project together too, so I'm going to contact the zoo up here and see if we can do something with them there, but if not I'll at least take her to the zoo at some point. I know there's other animal related projects we could do if that doesn't work. I can't wait until Saturday, thats our first meeting and since it will probably rain he plan is to bring her over to our place and let her play with the cats and just to hang out and get to know each other better. Weeeee! The coordinator told me she'd been waiting for the right person to match with my mentee, and I just feel so honored that she picked me, because she's a really special girl :)

I get to meet my mentee today! It's taken a long time (well over a month) going through the process and training to become a mentor, but finally the real fun is about to start, and I am soooo excited. I've been looking forward to this for weeks now, and I'm almost giddy about it. From what I've been told she's a very bright, opinionated little girl. I hope she likes me!

My students this semester are awesome. I love teaching the supplemental for non-science majors, always have, and I can't honestly say I've ever had a bad group, but I'm really enjoying the people this semester. They have a good sense of humor for my silliness, and I have a really good time there teaching them. It never feels like work or an obligation because I've always had fun with them. I'm really going to miss them at the end of the semester.

The meds are really working for me. I've been having a lot less physical pain now that I'm on them, and mentally I just feel like the normal me, the one who can handle stress and not freak out and make herself sick. The doctor I've been seeing for the anxiety is awesome too. It helps me not feel like a deffective when she treats it just like any other physical medical problem. It also helps when I think of it as a seratonin imbalance... maybe thats why I've been in more pain for the last few years? It's hard to say whether the pain caused the depression or vice versa, either one could really be possible, I'm just glad that both are improving. Another benefit, I've had even less of an appetite than usual, which makes sense because seratonin is one of the brain signals that tells you you're full. The doctor also told me that exercise is doubly important right now because studies have actually shown that the neurons in your brain that deteriorate when you have depression can be regrown or repaired with more exercise, so I guess I'll be hitting the gym soon.

Thanksgiving is soon, and I'm having people over for dinner. So excited! I'm going to make my world famouse turkey, mashed potatos, homemade rolls, and prolly some other stuff too. Then after Christmas the mamma and Amie and Arnold, and god I love the holidays! Can't wait!