Fear

Fear: (n) 1. a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid.
(from dictionary.com)

There are more definitions, of course, but this one fits pretty well. I am afraid. In general, I don't show fear, for pretty much the same reasons that I don't cry in front of people. In fact, there have been 2 occasions in the past 10-plus years when I have shown fear in front of my family. Both of them are still talked about.

One of them involved a very large spider that jumped out of a drain in an infrequently used sink while I had my glasses off. Now, I'm blind as a bat without my glasses. 12 point font is too blurry to be read at 10 to 13 inches from my eyes (depending on which eye I'm using -- my right eye is worse). Without my glasses on, I could clearly see this spider posturing, see the aggressive positioning of its forelegs and the movement of its chelicerae (mandibles in non-spiders. Yes, I looked it up.). Freaked me the hell out, because I'm really, really not a fan of spiders near me. They're fine away from me, killing bugs and all that. Just not if I can see them.

I yelped. My sister and the dog we were dog-sitting both came to see what was going on, and my sister wouldn't get within 6 feet of the sink because she could see the size of the spider and wasn't getting near it. Neither was the dog, but she's a known chicken. I put my glasses back on and dealt with it, although my sister urged me to just shut the door and stuff a towel under it until the dog's owners got home in a few days. (My sister and Phil Jupitus have a bit in common there -- the relevant bit about his living room runs from about 4:30 to 5:00, although the whole thing is funny. There are 3 parts to it, and I highly recommend them all if you have some time, although you'll need about 25 minutes.)

The other time involved school and applying to the HIT program. I think the problem that time was that, if I wasn't accepted, I had no idea what on earth I was going to do. This one doesn't get laughed about when it's brought up. I don't say much of anything, and my mom and sister look at me out of the corner of their eyes and then at each other with a "What the hell's wrong with her" sort of expression. Good times.

Right now, I'm afraid of this winter. I don't usually feel this bad until the middle of January at the earliest, and I've been fighting it since early November. I can't quite imagine what February's going to be like. And I think that I probably don't want to know.

Part of the problem, I'm sure, is that school is not going well, and I don't really expect to be allowed to remain in the HIT program after this semester. This means, of course, that once again I have no idea what on earth I'm going to do. I don't think I could manage a full-time job right now. There's no guarantee that I could find one, even if I could handle it. And yet, my mom's 65. She wants to retire next spring. I know that the fact that I'm not working makes her worry about retiring. In school, with decent job prospects when I complete the program, I think she probably would have risked it, since I'd be working within a year or so of her retirement. But if I'm not working, if I can't? I just don't know.

I'm sure I sound like a broken record here, but I really think this all goes back to the pneumonia in 2007. Before that, I could work. I could walk at least half a mile at one go, although it wasn't much fun. I believed that things would work out, that I'd get accepted to the programs I was planning to apply to, that I'd find work after I graduated, that said work would allow me to get my own place. Now, I don't think I can work, I can't walk, and I really don't believe such pipedreams. Maybe the antibiotics shouldn't have worked. Maybe I was supposed to die then. It sure as hell would have been easier, since I was so sick that I didn't understand how sick I was, so oxygen-deprived that I couldn't comprehend the danger I was in.

I almost wish I'd get H1N1 or something. Some real disease that sometimes kills people. Then I could die without it being my fault.

Question 19

19) If I could travel anywhere, where would I go?
a) New Zealand
b) Canada
c) Washington
d) Wisconsin
e) Iowa

My HIT professor is praying for me. I don't know if I can quite express how odd that seems. You all know that I can't walk well, so it should come as no surprise that our field trips, with their associated walking, standing about, and note-taking-while-on-the-move were significant challenges for me. I've also been dealing with a Depression-Induced Lack of Motivation[TM] lately, which has extended to class attendance and even completion of some assignments. I managed to drag myself to my HIT class last Wednesday because we were scheduled to have an exam. Even though I was going to be guessing on every question, because this last unit has been entirely based on handouts and lectures, not anything in our textbook. As it turned out, the guest speaker went a bit long, so the test was postponned until tomorrow. (It's a 2 hour and 20 minute class, but the exams take a maximum of 1 hour, so there's always something else scheduled for exam days as well.)

At any rate, after class on Wednesday, my professor gave me all of the handouts and asked what was going on. I mumbled something about my lung damage and stuff. Said that I know it doesn't look like it, but I really am trying. She said that she knew, she could see that. (I don't really understand that part either.) She kept waiting expectantly, and I ended up muttering something about my depression, said that was exacerbating my other problems. She kind of focused in on the depression aspect of things, taking it more seriously than some of my (past) psychologists have done. She was very concerned that I don't have anyone to really talk to about it (since my family is ... religious ... about it, and I'm really, really not), and she asked if it would be okay if she prayed for me. (Is there a polite way to say, "Sure, if you want, I guess, but you're kind of weirding me out here?" I've never found one.)

I think part of the startle-factor about it was that it's a secular school. If I was still going to one of the Lutheran schools I've attended in the past, I'd have been expecting that kind of reaction. And I know that just because it's not a religious school doesn't mean that none of the professors are religious. I do get that. I just really wasn't expecting that reaction. And I wasn't expecting her to be concerned. Very odd. It's been on my mind enough since then that I'm getting a little worried about tomorrow, and if it will be weird to see her again. (I am going to class though. There's an exam. One that I can even study for, now.)

Also? The director of the HIT program walked by us as the professor and I were walking out together. She's also been worried about me, and said she was glad to see me there. Maybe I've just worked for uncaring corporations for so long that human concern is baffling? I dunno.

I have done some knitting this week. In fact, I've finished 3.5 socks, and I'm almost done with the yarn from Warm Woolies that I'm using for the socks. Then I'll just have the sweater yarn left to knit up. Pictures next week, okay?

Answer to Question 19: Iowa. Canada and New Zealand are too far away. Well, most places are too far away for me these days. I've been to Washington (to see ArwensRose and Pansy and their homes/towns/city), but not to Iowa (to see Deenie and hers), so Iowa's my choice. Besides, it's just barely possible that I could actually go there someday. Wisconsin... I love Wisconsin, especially the Northwoods. I first went up to our family's cabin when I was 6 months old, and even though our current cabin is on my grandparents' land and not my dad's (because the lake by their property is both bigger and more accessible from our land), regardless of the fact that the cabin that's now there wasn't built until I was 5 or 6, the land and that lake are the home of my heart.

That said, I don't think I'll ever go back up there. The cabin just isn't accessible enough for me now. It would be hard to manage the steps down from the "parking lot," as we call the end of our road under the trees. I can't sleep on a bed without a lot of pain, and the chairs there are old and don't recline, so my dependent edema would get too bad if I tried to sleep in them. The shower stall is so tiny that I probably couldn't use it, since I wouldn't be able to sit down halfway through. And the hill is far too steep for me to be able to walk down to the lake, even if we still had a boat there that was licensed to go out on it.

Another problem is the political views of the people in the area. I used to dream about living up there, winterizing the cabin (or more likely building a small house in its place). Getting a job somewhere near enough to make winter commuting practical. But the area is very, very conservative, and realistically I couldn't live with that. When my mom and sister were up there this fall, they attended a community meeting about the area's elk population. Given what they've said about that, it's a good thing I wasn't there because my head might have exploded from the pressure of keeping my mouth shut. Then again, I wouldn't have gone to the meeting in the first place. But I have trouble looking past people's political views sometimes. I can't quite decide if I'm getting more intolerant, or if it's just that I'm noticing the political views of people I used to be completely neutral about. I can get past political stuff with friends, but if an otherwise benign stranger has political views that I vehemently disagree with, there's just not enough positive force there to keep my feelings about them at neutral. (If that even makes sense to anyone else.)

And then I remember my dad's last trip up there. It was about a month before he died, maybe 5 or 6 weeks. He knew he'd never see it again, and it was so hard for him to leave. Maybe I just don't want to do that myself. As things stand now, I have lots and lots of memories from up there, but I don't remember exactly what happened the last time I left. Realistically, I know that the last time I was up there was the time that my sister and I took three days and rented a U-Haul to bring my grandma's dining room set back down here so my sister could use it. I imagine that, when we locked up the cabin that time and I climbed into my car, I was just so relieved to be able to sit down and stop manhandling furniture up the slope and into the truck. But that's all reasoned out, not vivid memory. And I don't want my final memory of there to be fighting tears as I drive up the road, knowing my heart will never go home again.

These questions are coming from my 'How well do you know Beccaie Jamieson?' quiz on Facebook. Thus far, the high scores are 35% among my friends, 40% among my sister's friends, 41% for my mother, with my sister scoring 74%. I'm bringing the questions to my blog in the hopes that some more people will get to know me better.

Blogs

Yes, this post is a week eight days late. Let me distract you with pretty pictures.





Both pictures are from here. This is another of the several new blogs I've found lately. I haven't finished all of the archives yet, and sadly The Other Andrew is no longer writing, but I've still got over a year's worth of entries to keep me happy. And a list of blogs to check out after that.

In case you're interested, I've now read all of the archives of Ted's, Mel's, Kenny's, Chris's, and Paul's blogs. I finished James's, which I mentioned starting last time. Oh, and I've read a blog by another Chris as well, about coming out at age 48. I've enjoyed reading all of the blogs (or I wouldn't have done it), but this Chris writes about parts of my life. There are a jillion differences between us, really obvious ones (I'm not a gay man, for instance.) and more subtle ones (I'd never have had the courage to come out in his situation, no matter how soul-destroying it would be to continue to deny such a large part of myself.) that a lot of people don't necessarily know about me. But some of his posts articulate things in my life that I'd never say, don't even like to think about. Like his post about the holidays. If you read it, don't forget that my birthday is right after the New Year. Four kicks for me.

It's been a hard couple of weeks. Maybe I'll post more about it later, and maybe I won't. It probably wouldn't be much fun for you to read anyway. Some school stuff, some crap with my sister, and some of it's just the ever-decreasing amount of daylight around here. I hate -- HATE -- knowing that things are going to get worse before they get better. H.A.T.E. But at least knowing that means that I won't have to wonder what's happening, what's wrong with me. I guess that's an improvement. Have to believe that it is.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some blog archives to escape into.
(Yes, KD, you were very, very right about that. Even though I hadn't put two and two together yet.)