Category: Uncategorized

I have nothing to write about, seriously nothing at all to write about. It’s not that I have nothing going on in my head. I have 10,000 thoughts in my head, all competing for my attention. I just have nothing I can articulate. Weird.

I’ve never actually worn armor, but I’ve certainly seen armor. It is protective, but also can be heavy and stifling. That’s how my heart has been for years. Surrounded by armor, which left me feeling heavy and stifled.

Each time I experienced a major emotional hurt, I added more armor to my already stifled heart. I thought that if I armored my heart well enough, I would no longer feel emotional pain and be able to push forward. I was afraid if I allowed myself to cry, I would fall apart completely and leave me vulnerable, which is a feeling I do not enjoy. Little did I know that I was already damaging myself through this carefully and misguided attempts at covering up emotional pain.

Sure, I cried, but not on a level where I could really open my heart. I eventually got to the point where I didn’t know how to rid myself of the armor.

Then I met Jesus and he stripped the armor from my heart. It leaves me vulnerable, which is frightening for me. However, He is carrying me and my damaged, but unburdened, heart. As my heart has been opened, the old wounds are coming roaring back to the surface. Man, this hurts. It really, really hurts, but through this hurt comes healing, the healing of Jesus Christ. He is the only one who can strip away the armor surrounding our hearts and heal our old wounds. It leaves us vulnerable, but He can carry us. He’s got this.

I, like many people in my state, was raised in the church. My parents dressed us nicely and we attended church faithfully every week. My mom and dad are examples of who God wants us to be. Following their example, but somewhat confused by the whole becoming a Christian thing, I told them that I believed and was eventually baptized. I went on through my life, ladedadedaing, not thinking much about it.

Later. I became involved in my church’s youth group, though I never felt that I was good enough to be around those folks. To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t there to learn more about God. I was there to find a boyfriend. I did do that, in a round about way, as he was a cousin to one of the youth group members. But this boyfriend nearly destroyed my life, emotionally and physically. It was the first time I contemplated suicide. That is when I started running.

In college, I continued to be involved in FSA, again hoping to meet a special someone. To read it now, I think I was very foolish. I played along, but never felt connected to God on a deep, spiritual level. I was still too busy running.

I did meet a special someone in college, my first love. We had a fun life for five years, then some things happened that tore us apart. There was my mental break, when the depression that had plagued me for years took hold and sent me down a spiral. This was the second time I contemplated suicide. This was followed by my pushing to marry him when he wasn’t ready and the surprise and fear of a baby who was not to be. I could not tolerate all of this emotional heartache, so I kept running.

Finding an independent streak, I bought a house I was not prepared to pay for, engaged in risky behavior in the hopes of still finding true love, and worked like a madwoman. I became depressed and contemplated suicide a third time. I was still running.

In my early thirties, I thought I’d finally found who I was looking for. He was a man of God, which was the type of man I’d always been told was best to have. We quickly married and settled into a life together. By the time the bloom was off the rose, so to speak, I was pregnant with our oldest child. Here finally was the culmination of my long-desired dream, my own family. Nevermind the cracks underneath the surface and the emotional abuse, hidden in the context of Biblical passages. This path continued onward. I supported him through school, I nursed him through cancer. I was trying to be a good Christian wife through the emotional abuse. After 8 years, I decided that I could no longer tolerate his behavior that wasn’t going to change, nor should my kids be raised in a home with turmoil. So I grabbed the kids and kept running.

During this time, I received the diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Finally a name for how emotionally unhinged I was. I started meds and waited for it all to become magically better. But I was still running.

My youngest son was diagnosed with autism when he was two years old, in the midst of his father’s health scares. I threw myself into fighting tooth and nail for him, daring anyone to challenge me in this arena, lest I tear them apart with my mama bear claws. Inside, I grabbed my kids and was still running.

I was an angry mess of a human being, and I was still running. I moved from church to church, trying to keep up the appearance of a “good” Christian, yet I was still running.

I started attending Newspring Church a two years ago, not because of me and my needs, but because they had the only special needs class of any church in my area. Little did I know what impact this church would have on my life. I stopped running, and God started tugging. See, all of my running had actually been running from God. In my mind, I thought God might be real, but I never stopped running long enough to allow my heart to feel the same way. I don’t think I really understood what it meant to follow Christ, what it meant to be a Christian. From the first Sunday that I attended, God started tugging at me. I started hearing this voice, saying “Come to me.” I kept resisting, thinking I needed to get my life in order before I made that step. I cried every single service because the tugging kept getting stronger and stronger.

Then this past sermon, Pastor P said some words that clinched it for me. The cross is for sinners, procrastinators, and church people alike. Well I was all three of those. So I stopped running from God and instead ran towards Him.

I know my story isn’t over. I’m not wrapped up in a cute little bow to look pretty and perfect. The storms will continue to come, but I now have the strength to make it through the storms. The strength is not in my own DNA, it comes from God.

I’ve stopped running.

I’ve stepped up my exercise plan lately to include activities with my kids. Since it’s so hot that Satan is begging God for rain, I decided to move my activities indoors. Finding a time to exercise with young kids in the house is tough. I would love to take a long walk at 5:00 am, except that it’s dark at 5:00 am and I run the risk of my children waking up and thinking Mommy has gone missing. I don’t need CPS showing up at my house, so I have been improvising.

One of the ways I have improvised is to change our traditional Friday night dance parties to daily dance parties. Our cute, short little dance parties have turned into 30 minutes or more of my sweating buckets as I try to match the energy level of my children and teach them 80s and 90s dance moves in the process. (insert kid eye-roll here)

When you turn 40, you start to realize that body parts hurt that you weren’t aware of having. Also, old injuries start causing pain again, just to remind you that they are still there. That is the case with me. I am achy everywhere today. My hips hurt like they did when I was 9 months pregnant. My right knee injury from 2009 is reminding me that I injured my right knee in 2009. My left foot, that I oh-so-gracefully broke while falling down the garage steps last year, is calling me names that cannot be mentioned in polite company. In short, my body hates me, in the “What the heck do you think you are doing, woman?” way. Did I mention that after all of this sweating, energy-depleting, painful workout, that I have only burned 416 calories? FOUR HUNDRED SIXTEEN CALORIES! Oh, I hate you, fitness tracker!

I never worried about my weight or health in my 20s or 30s. I didn’t have to, but now I do. Excuse me while I grumble and hobble my way to my bed. Four hundred sixteen calories. Smh.

As I lie here in my bed, listening to the thunderstorm outside and unable to sleep, I find myself reflecting upon motherhood. It’s tough to be a mom sometimes. Even tougher still when you have to go it alone. Although ending my marriage was a choice I made after much prayer, finding myself as the only responsible parent has been a hard journey.

It has been made more difficult still by the challenges faced by my children and me. My kids have to live with a mom who has bipolar disorder. I try my best to stay regulated and under control, but have my moments of weakness. I often feel as though I’ve failed my children.

My boys have their own issues. My oldest son is very bright and thoughtful. However, he is plagued by anxiety, which in turn causes emotional outbursts. He has an innate need to please people and is awkward at times in his attempts to make friends. He wears his heart on his sleeve, and therefore his feelings are easily hurt. He gets those traits from me.

My youngest has autism. He has faced many challenges in his five years of life. He has difficulty verbalizing his feelings and tends to show frustration as a result. I may know he’s angry or upset, but it can take hours, sometimes days, before he can verbalize why he is feeling that way.

Doing this by myself has been hard. Oh how I would love to have a partner on this journey, but their father is sadly incapable of seeing beyond himself, so I am the lone responsible parent. It is something I take very seriously and the love I have for my children is greater than any love I have experienced. I wish for them that they knew the joy of a loving father as I have, but it is not meant to be.

I have days where I feel like supermom and am able to conquer the world, my children by my side. Other days, like today, I question my abilities to manage the world at all. There are days that I want to sit on the floor and cry. My disordered thinking magnifies my fears and causes me to question my abilities.

I wonder, do other single parents feel this way? Are they plagued by doubt and fear? Do they question their abilities? This is not a road I would advise anyone to take lightly. I worked hard to save my marriage, but hope turned to sadness and anger. Then resentment set in and there was nothing I could do to change my feelings. It is painful to watch your hopes and dreams of a fulfilled marriage fade away and it sucks to share your children with that person.

I haven’t given up hope, though, on finding a partner who would love my boys and show them what it means to truly be a father. I’m not sure how to find this person, but he must be out there somewhere. In the meantime, I must continue to follow this path I have chosen. Am I, are we as a family, going to make it? I sure hope so. My children, and I deserve much more than what was handed to us.

I love musicals. Anyone who knows me knows this fact. I am a chorus nerd from high school, during which time my love of musicals was expanded. I am of the opinion that life would be better if people just randomly broke into song and dance, for absolutely no reason or because it fits the situation.

I love to sing. Anytime, anywhere. Yes, I am that mom who sings in grocery stores. Just ask my kids about my grocery store version of “Come Sail Away”. I really do not care if people hear me or what they think about my breaking into song. I sing in the car, in any public place, and at home, sometimes with flair, sometimes not.

I discovered on Thursday night just how mentally painful it can be to hear a great song and not be able to sing it with flair. I was in the salon chair, having my eyebrows waxed. The songs that had been playing previously were of the take-it-or-leave-it variety. Then “Bohemian Rhapsody” came on. Oh, how I love that song and love Queen. I could go into great detail on why I love both, but that would take up at least one devoted post, if not two. So here I was, in the chair, wanting to keep some of my eyebrows, so I did not sing. Believe you me, it was very difficult not to break into a Wayne’s World-esque production. It got me thinking, what if life was a musical? What would I sing and why?

Out of pure laziness, I would borrow songs from the musicals I love best. Who doesn’t want to stand in an open field or second floor of Haywood Mall, Dillards section, singing “The hills are alive! With the sound of music!” Besides the likelihood of being accosted by the mall pseudo cops, it would be fun. “Beauty School Dropout” would be fun, but sung in a salon, would probably make the stylist upset. I once heard a guy singing “Figaro” from the top of the El Castillo pyramid at the Mayan Ruins of Chichen Itza. Right on, man! Keep that up! Is there a woman, or man, that doesn’t sing “I Feel Pretty” while looking in the mirror? “Off To See The Wizard”, complete with dance moves? Anyone? Anyone? Anything from Mary Poppins can be relatable to life. “Let’s Go Fly A Kite” often, and I mean OFTEN gets stuck in my head.

Some songs are appropriate for other times, too. “What I Did For Love” is guaranteed to make me cry. Anything from Les Miserables fits that bill. There is at least one song from every Disney musical that makes the tears flow.

So what would my musical be like? For that, I do not yet have an answer. I can think of many songs, mostly from my playlist and not actually from musicals, that would fit. It would be a work in progress and not be finished, I hope, for many years. Maybe my life is a musical in production.

I don’t often write about my faith. It would be good if I did, but I have no Biblical wisdom in which to impart. Honestly, I can’t quote a single verse, except maybe “Jesus wept.” I don’t even know where that verse is located, except that it is in the New Testament. I would really benefit from an encyclopedia of the Bible. They make those for people like me, right?

As I was finishing up my 2 miles this morning (go me!) I had a conversation with God, or rather He imparted some wisdom onto me. The words that kept coming through were “Your body to My service. Your mind to My service.” Hmm. I need to think on that one.

Your body to My service. What does that mean? I know what it doesn’t mean. For me, as with many others with bipolar disorder, not respecting my body has become a large part of my dysfunction. I am lazy. There. I said it. I don’t push myself. I blame it on all sorts of things. My previously broken left foot takes a lot of the blame. So does my right knee that locks up on me after a six years’ old injury. I am exhausted after working a 40 hour week, then starting my real job as mommy to two rambunctious boys. Between that and the meds, that while critical to my mental and emotional survival, slow my metabolism and increase my appetite, I have lost the outer beauty of my youth. My self-esteem has taken a nosedive as a result.

If I am to give my body to the service of God, how do I go about this endeavor? Exercise. Blah. I’ve never liked exercise. You will not see my face in the gym, smiling and glistening. I don’t glisten. I sweat like a dirty hog in 100° heat with no mud to soak in. If you see me running, look for the clown with a bloody knife running after me. Walking seems to work for now. Being left alone with my mind is not always a good thing. But when God is there with me, it seems as though I can work through my disordered way of thinking. I can let go of my past mental traumas, guilt and regrets of my own behavior. Guilt is a big issue for me. An aspect of my particular brand of bipolar (those of us with the disorder all have our own brand of it) is that I feel inherently guilty. I take on guilt that doesn’t belong to me. I feel an insane need to apologize for everything I’ve ever done wrong in my 41 years of life. I take ownership of actions that aren’t even my actions! Somehow, my walks are helping me work through that aspect of my psyche. Maybe I can let go of it.

Eating right is another way of preparing my body for His service. This has been tough as well, because I genuinely love food. All kinds of food. I have a longstanding, one-sided love affair with food. I’d rather eat tortilla chips with salsa than rice cakes, which I suspect are made at the Styrofoam factory because rice does NOT taste like that. Mix my love of food with low metabolism and an increased appetite and BOOM, you get fat Catherine. Ugh. I hate fat Catherine.

Getting my mind ready for His service might be the toughest of all. I have a tendency to hold onto my disordered way of thinking. It’s all I’ve known for the majority of my life. I don’t think I suddenly developed bipolar disorder. Looking back, it was there, hanging out with anxiety in my brain. My emotions, good and bad, conspire together in my mind to make me miserable. No, that’s not passing blame on my part. After all, we are talking about my brain here. There are a slew of emotions hiding in plain sight, and many in the recesses of my brain. Happiness, joy, love, sadness, anger, hate, and rage are at the forefront. If I am in a good state, these are in check. If I’m not, they all fight over the wheel at one time, spinning out and driving me over the edge.

I have a tendency to give this stuff to God, only to yank it back because I think I can handle it better. That’s such a bad idea. I can throw meds at it, which I should do, but not getting to the crux of the problem doesn’t give the meds much to work with. The crux of the problem is me. My bitterness over the cards I’ve been handed and the time I gave to a marriage that truly wasn’t worth saving. My walls, built so high to keep others out that they block out the sun, and the Son. My need for control, even though I’m really not in control, but need to think that I am in order to quell some of my anxiety. My need to push down unpleasant emotions because if I allow myself to feel, I might start crying and never stop. Ugh! I’ve got to let this stuff go! I’ve been trying to figure out how to go about doing just that. It turns out that I don’t have to try at all. If I give it to God, he’ll ease my bitterness, break down my walls, take the wheel. That I think I can do. Now I just have to let Him take my heart and me be willing to let my tears flow so He can dig into the recesses of my mind to use me for His service. The tears are starting to flow. You’ve got this, God.

As I am sitting here on this beautiful beach with my beautiful children, I can’t help but reflect back on the first year of my 40s. I always thought turning fourty was becoming “over the hill”. Funny thing is, I don’t feel old. Well, I lie. I do feel old when I wake up in the morning with an aching back, aching feet and joints popping that I wasn’t aware I have. Other than that, I don’t feel that old. So, I started reflecting back on my life, where I was at 20, at 30, and now.

At 20, I was in the middle of nursing school at Clemson and working part time as a nursing assistant. I thought I knew exactly how my life was going to turn out. I was going to be married right out of nursing school (nevermind the fact that I did not have a boyfriend, nor did I have the time for one). I planned to be done with having my 4 kids by the time I was 30. Um, yeah. That didn’t happen.

At 30, I was a still-single RN working in the war zone that is the ER. It was just me and my dog, and I liked it that way, or so I told myself. I dropped the dreams of 20 and decided I would have three kids instead of four. I was still misguided and waiting for Prince Charming.

My thirties were a whirlwind of good and bad. Pretty much everyone who knows me or has read this blog knows about the bad. The good happened on 6/10/2007 and 1/23/2010. My two boys changed everything about me. I am somebody’s mom. Being the mom of these two is way cool. They are neat guys. I’ve learned not to freak out (visibly anyway) when they do backflips off the couch or jump to the floor from the highest step possible. I try not to roll my eyes when my oldest is in the middle of a 20 minute long dissertation about the finer points of Mario Kart 8 on the Wii U versus Mario Kart 7 on Nintendo 3DS, while I am trying to get him to go to sleep, mind you. I indulge his need to watch the weather radar when it storms, watch tornado videos, and learn everything possible about moons, stars, and planets. He has a million questions, always, and is 100 times smarter than I was at the same age. He wants to be a scientist when he grows up, and I’m good with that. I’ve learned much about autism, courtesy of my youngest. I’ve learned he is more than his diagnosis, he is himself, 100% tenacious little boy who is incredibly knowledgeable about every John Deere model of farm equipment ever made and the difference between Matchbox Cars and Hot Wheels. He also knows every line of The Lego Movie verbatim and recites them as we watch the movie for the 1000th time.
    
At 40, I have discovered that I didn’t get my Prince Charming, but I did get two little princes. Life has done a 180 in the past year, but I think the three of us are happier for the change. When Mommy is happy, everyone is happy. Something about 40 makes a person let go of the old and start over anew. Throw out the old baggage, so to speak. One hopes that the lessons learned along the way will stick and bad choices will not be repeated.

As I start to traverse my “over the hill” years, I have hopes. I still have dreams. I still wonder about Prince Charming, like where the hell he is and why hasn’t he shown up yet, but that’s another blog post. Most of all, I am at peace with who I am and feel content. As much as I can be when listening to my 7 year old and almost 5 year old call each other crazy buttheads and fartknockers, while I am typing this. *sigh* And it begins…

Tonight I had the rare opportunity to walk and have great conversation with my sister-in-law on the beach. It was a great walk, other than the dangerous, and not very bright, dudes riding light deficient bicycles. It was nice to have good conversation and some exercise to boot. Interestingly enough, it got me thinking about my growing commitment to wellness. I don’t mean wellness in the fitness sense. I mean all around wellness, of soul, mind, and body. I say soul, mind, and body because that is how I feel it should be prioritized.

By soul, I mean deep within the core of who I am as a person. I’m no holy roller, mind you, nor am I above anyone else in the spiritual arena. I do, however, have a strong faith in God. If I didn’t, I would have not survived the last several years mentally intact. I have discovered that over time, I’ve become more accepting and respectful of others, with a few (well deserved) exceptions. I’ve let go of a lot of hate and have tried to mend fences with many people, surprisingly finding renewed friendships. This has led to the next facet of my wellness.

Mental wellness is oh so important. I am one of many who have bipolar disorder. Nope, I’m not crazy, per se, but I have difficulty in controlling my emotions without medical, and God-driven intervention. Some bridges in my life have gone down in flames because of out of control emotions leading to poor choices. My rational mind and emotional mind are in a battle with no winner. The best description is that whatever emotion other people feel, I feel it much more intensely. It’s a blessing in that I think it gives me a greater capacity to love others. It’s also a curse in that ALL my emotions are intense, so if I am angry, I am raging, blowing my top angry. This is one of the reasons that it is important that I stay in a good frame of mind with my moods under control. The second reason is that I have two little boys who need a present and calm mommy. I am no good to them when unhinged. This is why I must take meds as prescribed and stay well mentally.

Finally, there is physical wellness. To be honest, I don’t like working out in a gym, have never liked working out, and probably never will. I also don’t run. If you ever see me running, you better run, too, because I’m being chased by a runaway bear or clown with a bloody knife. I will, however, walk and ride my bicycle, and climb the stairs at work. My lungs hate my guts for doing it, but I know it is a good thing. I actually like the feeling of my calf and thigh muscles being stretched. Maybe it’s because I feel old and stiff when I wake up and know I need to get moving to get rid of the stiffness. I’ve gained quite a bit over the past 5 and a half years and it needs to go. Fifty pounds have left my body, through very hard work, but I have at least fifty to go. My desire to lose weight isn’t primarily for vanity, but it does play a part. It’s because I have two precious boys who need their mommy. It’s also because there is a tiny orange pill and tiny white pill I must take daily, but am tired of looking at each day. I have a 24 year history of kidney stones and am content to continue my one year history of being free of the little demons. I just feel better when I am not indulging in gluttony, feeding my desire for junk food, and drinking insane amounts of caffeine. I also realize that God gave me this body and it is inconsiderate of me to destroy it.

All of these factors, soul, mind, and body, influence each other and work together to make a better Catherine. I hope I can continue my journey to be a better Catherine.

This post was originally made on 04/24/2013. We still talk about it and laugh. Everybody except Eli, that is. Poor guy. He still won’t let me open the chimney flue, just in case.

A terrifying thing happened in our house a week ago. A bat somehow found its way into our house. We think maybe it got in when we were grilling on the porch at dusk. We had the French door open while we were cooking. No one saw it come in. It didn’t come through our chimney because the flue was closed. We can’t think of any other way it would have come in. But that’s not the funny part.

Here is the story…

Adam, Caleb, and I were upstairs. Eli was on his way up. He was plugging in his Nintendo DS to charge the battery. Eli, God bless him, is scared of bugs. Like deathly so. I was standing in the doorway of our bathroom, starting to get ready for bed. Adam was lying on the other side of the bed and Caleb was beside the bed closest to me. All of the sudden, I hear Eli shriek like a girl and come running upstairs. He screamed “Mommy something’s flying around downstairs!” I figured it was a fly or bee that got inside while we were cooking outside. The bat must have followed Eli upstairs because, just as I was consoling him that it was probably a bug, the bat rounded the corner into our bedroom and headed straight for me! I shrieked like a girl and slammed the bathroom door. Stupid me slammed the door before Caleb could get in, so I cracked it open to let him in and he slammed it back shut. (the fact that I shut my youngest out of the bathroom is something Adam will never let me live down) At this point, Adam has jumped out of the bed and started looking for the bat. The last place he saw it fly was into the boys’ room.

He tells me to call Animal Control. Just so everyone is aware, Greenville County Animal Control only operates on a Mon-Fri 8am-5pm schedule. No after hours officers. Because you know, animal control issues only happen between normal business hours! So Adam breaks his own rule about emergencies (from his paramedic background) and calls 911, who in turn pages the on-call game warden for the area. This man calls me back within a few minutes. I’m thinking “What a relief! This guy will know what to do!”. After I explain the situation, the first words out of his mouth were “Ma’am, I don’t want to scare you, but bats have such sharp teeth, they could bite you during the night and you wouldn’t even know it.” (word of advice- if you don’t mean to scare me, then don’t! Don’t go ahead and say what you were planning on saying!). The next sentence out of his mouth is “Oh and we don’t handle bats.” Hmmm…this is a Dept of Natural Resources employee I am talking to and last time I checked, they handled wildlife emergencies. Aren’t bats wildlife? They certainly aren’t domesticated pets for the general population. So he gives me a list of certified bat abatement specialists. Mind you, it is well past 10pm by now and Adam has not located the bat in the time I am making 500 phone calls. One company called us back and wanted $400 to get rid of the bat. $400! So that plan was nixed.

Meanwhile, my husband is still diligently searching the house for the creature. He thinks it is gone, while I am pretty sure it is hiding out somewhere. All I can think is RABIES. I would prefer not to get rabies myself or have anyone in my household get rabies. So I decided to call my dad. My dad knows something about everything. He says he has gotten rid of a bat before and he will be right over. So he shows up after awhile (he did research on the Internet for DIY bat removal). The man has a rake, broom, shoebox, and some mesh wire. The search continues. My job has become the flashlight holder. I went room to room, painstakingly searching every crevice for the damn thing. Then as I am checking our sons’ room for the 100th time, I shine the flashlight on the area at the top of  the window by Caleb’s bed. He has a blue blackout curtain under the window blinds. Funny, but I see something brown in there. So I call in the DIY bat abatement specialists, my dad and Adam. Daddy puts the handle of the broom on one side of the bat and the handle of the rake on the other. I think he got too excited, because he squished the bat. Meanwhile, Adam is using his extra long grilling tongs to grab the bat. Somewhere in the midst of this, the bat died. I guess I should be saddened that it died, but I am not. The bastard could have given us rabies! So the now-dead bat got put into the shoe box and we duct taped the box shut (yet another use for duct tape!) and disposed of it. What a surprise for whomever opens the Ferragamo shoe box at the landfill, expecting high dollar shoes, and finds a dead bat instead!

The moral of this story, er morals of the story are these: 1. don’t leave your porch door open at dusk, 2. don’t call Animal Control after hours (unless you DON’T live in Greenville County- other counties might realize that animal control is not a 8a-5p job.) 3. DNR will not help you if you have a bat- they will just scare you, 4. bat abatement companies will take your money or the promise of your first born child to get rid of an after-hours bat, and 5. DIY bat removal is possible and the internet, while not useful for some things, has a wealth of info on DIY bat removal.

After all of this, I really think my kids and I need therapy.