i'm working on writing my book. (IMBYL = i might be your lawyer. that's the title.)  

this is not that.

this is the words-equivalent of screaming at the top of your lungs right before you shit-vomit yourself in the middle of traffic. and yes, my Healthcare Professionals are all aware of these feelings of mine (98% of them), but that doesn't make the feelings lessen.

no lie:  every night, nightmares and bad dreams show up so fast to be my snuggle terror buddies i no longer want to go to sleep. again. ever. except for the part where i hope a seizure shows up and takes me to Sleep so i never have to worry about any of that, ever again.
waking up for the umpteenth time at who even knows what time with a terror feeling so bad that i took a xanax = the next day (today?) means full day xanax hangover, and unsurprisingly yet again all of those dreams are starring j. sometimes we get together in some sense, sometimes he despises me in some sense, sometimes he gets together with someone else and they both — along with his family and all my friends — laugh at me in every sense, sometimes (oftentimes) i'm having terrible adventures through the maze of huge disastrous buildings or cruise ships trying to save myself and everyone and he's there and becomes kind of my partner in crime and at the ends of the dreams — these are the better ones — we touch, we connect, we hold hands, he gives me a forehead kiss, and it hits that feeling that i had throughout our relationship+marriage as we get out of dodge.  but those are rare, the good dreams. the bad dreams aren't and haven't been for years now, and the dream-fog doesn't fade off of me throughout the day... but yet again i'm going to the ice rink today to skate (which does seem to help clear the brain fuzz, a little) and play my first hockey skills clinic whatever. because i want to skate. because i want to play hockey. because of Reasons, but primarily because j — now fifty?? years old??? and me at forty-five??!??? — plays hockey as he has for seriously about forty years, which is difficult to process as far as a time period, and i continue to hope (which is its own poison) that it will reconnect the two of us. my startout puck shenanigans will be on a team in division 5, and he plays division 1.  the latter is not news to me; he's played div1 since a million moons ago. and yes, i've gone to the rink for a year this august-ish, and yes, i've sat to watch many games (primarily because i can, i like them, they're free, but MORE primarily) because i want to see him — and also watch him play. he might be an asshole, but he's a great hockey player. (he knows this.)  i have a feeling at this point he has seen me sitting in the bleachers, and/or his teammates have, and my ears think they've heard certain sentences, but i don't interact with anyone who's playing. i go, i watch, i go home. it's also helping me study how to play — and understand how physics&ice work, because 'on ice' is when physics doesn't.  skating backwards and rabbit-hop micro-turn and whatever i called them reversedroplighting passes are prime examples.

i'll figure it out as i go.

because im approaching this for largely my own middle finger to [all the health crap post-craniotomy 2024 and financial crap and Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder and OCD and cyclothemia and probably perimenopause-ish (now) with almost a year's worth of amenorrhea the way grad school WHICH I ENDED UP EXPELLED FROM AT THE VERY END AFTER WALKING THE GRADUATION CEREMONY in 2023 gave me two years (whilst in the program) of amenorrhea) and now feeling like i've lost my entire knowledge of TCM and too many suicidal ideations dancing far too close in ring-around-the-rosie circle and bad reactions to too many daily medications and regular crying every day, for a long time,] i've decided to approach this mountain the way i imagine a newly-made amputee might head into what i'll call a Revenge Ironman.  partially because ironman marathons are insane, and a small petty part of me says "how's THAT for Revenge Body, you JERK" but also to myself: gurrrrrrrl, look at them legs! dang!

i'm doing this because i fucking can, especially the more people tell me i fucking can't. 

i'm doing it because it's HARD and crazy ambitious to go from (this past jan 10th, my birthday) to skating for the first time in over ten years to now, in march, getting various lessons and doing my on on-ice and on-land hockey drills and buying my own stick and doing the skills clinic and then — soon, as my disability arrives? hopefully? but otherwise tapping into my savings? — signing up for a division 5 league and, a year from now, (financials aside), i WILL sign up for a division 1 league unless my skills aren't quite ready. but i'll say it'll be by this time next june. or august. whenever the season starts.

i'm doing it because I FUCKING CAN. it's hard practice, there's a finite goal at the end (instead of just doing ballet/bellydance which is a lovely yet expensive hobby but i don't get to perform on stage the way i used to with those things), it's not yoga teaching, but it is a fucking PASSION i didn't know i had in a sport that i didn't realize would feel this natural to me.  and if any holy being hears my prayers or chants, or my vibes get to the right place, or ANYTHING, then at the very very least j will finally respond to my request to speak to me again because i'm a good safe normal human with a real busted heart who is not existing wholly or properly without him in my life, i fear (and it appears), and say "yeah yeah. hockey tawk over coffee. fine. let's go."   and maybe then he'll at least say thank you for the present-box i sent him (and think that he did actually receive) for his birthday. his fiftieth, which, on the box i wrote (happy cake-ieth).  i do think he received it, and not getting a thank you, even a thumbs up emoji via text or email or carrier pigeon...  that hurt bad like papercuts on the webbing between your thumb and pointer finger; the kind you get from horrible manilla folders, then you dump alcohol on it, and it still doesnt heal for awhile because you have to use your thumb.
it'll never not hurt, but i'll just add that to the rest of my actual physical scar tissue.

anyway (and also), despite my choice to not play goalie (which i truly thought about), i'm gonna play hockey, and i'm gonna score one on j (who is sometimes center but sometimes defense).  
if he gave me lessons he might be prepared for that particular slapshot, but stubbornness is a yoke, i'll say.

and i'm gonna stick with my habit to keep wearing red lipstick to the rink EVERY time i go.


"when you feel like crap, wear red lipstick." — some elderly lady