Writing has always been my cheap therapy. So, I need to write. I appear to be in a CCR mood. I have the weirdest music tastes, I can go from Britney to CCR to Metallica. Anyways, I'm listening to CCR, just the right thing for my mood today. A little rocking, a little foot tapping, but not serious bouncy bouncy music.

So, my mood. I'm not doing so hot. I've been functioning at way too high a stress level for me the past week… maybe more. I'm high functioning no matter how bad things get, but the cost ends up being really high.

Avoiding again. Mood. Tired. That's not an emotion. Overwhelmed. Shit, I don't know. Well that's an answer within itself, if I can't find emotions, I'm shutting down. I only shut down when I can't handle life. Fuck me. *sighs* Looking back, I see them, my signposts, the things that tell me I'm not feeling anymore. Well that's not true, I feel two things. Fear and anger.

I really really don't like being in this space. Gonna have to work myself out of my emotional rafters. This is survival mode, and I don't need to be in survival mode. I haven't had to ground myself from this level of anxiety in so long, I don't even know where to start. I can remember how to ground in the middle of a panic attack, and how to ground when things are starting to get tight wound, but this level, I'm blank.

Ok, triggers. Let's find the triggers. Money. Talking about my history. Failure. Fear. The anger is misleading. Boundaries. Fear.

Fear. What am I scared of? Giving up. Losing SkyWorks. Being what I was again. There's the hot spot. Dig. I'm so scared that I can't do this. That everyone was right, that I can't beat the demons on my back and have a good life. That no matter how hard I try, I'll never be anything more than that child beaten and left to die in the woods. Refuse.

There's the pain. Pain is good, it's not fear or anger, it's valid. I've been numbing out to not feel the fear… and the hurt. I'm hurting. And that's ok. 'cause right now I can cry, and that'll ground me. Cry for the baby I was, for the young girl that didn't know where she belonged, for the woman with dreams and never knowing how to find them. Cry for the absolute terror I have found in discovering a good life, and cry for the absolute wrongness of that terror.

Put a candle in the window, 'cause I feel I've got to move.
Though I'm going, going, I'll be coming home soon,
'Long as I can see the light.

Pack my bag and let's get movin', 'cause I'm bound to drift a while.
When I'm gone, gone, you don't have to worry long,
'Long as I can see the light.

Guess I've got that old trav'lin' bone, 'cause this feelin' won't leave me alone.
But I won't, won't be losin' my way, no, no
'Long as I can see the light.

- Long as I can see the Light, Creedence Clearwater Revival .

So last night I had a bit of a thing happen, that's still bothering me today. Yesterday was a busy day for SW, with 3 orders coming in and a major supply order from me going out. I have a flow to how I work. An order comes in, I send out the confirmation email, then I put it into quickbooks, and then I print out the invoices to use as packing slips. The invoices get set on my desk until I'm ready to start packing the order.

A friend came over with some birthday cake, and we were talking about the business a bit. I read off what was ordered from the invoices and set them down. She then reached for them asking "So what did you make today?". I took the invoices out of her hands and said "Don't touch my invoices please. They're confidential."

A little later she said "You know I wouldn't do anything with the information, right?". I said that that wasn't the point, the point is these people entrust me with their addresses, their money, and that I have a privacy policy that I take very seriously. Most of my customers have online lives, as well as their offline ones. I have information that links the two. I respect that trust, more than I can say.

The only people that ever see that information are me, the customer, the post office lady (addresses only) and my Mom. My mother is teaching me accounting, and is also my accountant.

I asked Mike later why anyone would think it's ok to touch someone's business papers. I can't imagine ever even considering it. He thinks that maybe SW is not seen as a "real business" so why would I care. That it's just something I do to fill my time. A hobby that I make money from. Nothing I would be so serious about.

So this has been eating at me. See, SW is my job. The day I got my business licence and opened a business account at my bank, it was no longer a hobby. I am deadly serious about my business, my products, and my customers. I made a decision that this is what I want to do with my life, and I don't fuck around with my life anymore.

So when someone does something that could potentially ruin my business? I'm really annoyed. Sound extreme? I asked in chat, where most of my customers are, if they would deal with a business that allowed someone not part of the business to see their information. Right across the board, not a chance in hell.

So not cool. I shouldn't have to even consider locks and passwords in my home, to protect my business. I had most of today to think about it, and I still don't know what I should do. More firm boundaries, I think.

So how to end a rant, when no longer ranty? Hmmm.

The End. Save, upload, done.

my 2 year retrospective

So, my birthday is in 2 days. I'm going to be 27. For the girl that figured that she'd never see her 25th birthday, I'm doing really damn well. I started thinking about this on my walk home from dropping Sara off at school today. So here I am, writing.

I've had a life that would fit really well in a horror story. It's one of those life stories that you hear and don't want to believe is true simply because life just *can't* be that fucked. It can. Surviving is a huge accomplishment, thriving, wow, what a concept.

The way I survived growing up in hell was making death a best friend. I decided if I hit the point where I just couldn't fight anymore, if I couldn't keep even the smallest part of myself sane, I would commit suicide. I never wanted to be an attempted suicide, so part of my promise to myself was I would only attempt if sure, and I would make damn sure that even if I messed it up, nobody would find me in time. I lived with this promise for years. I would wake up in the morning and think "If today is the day, ok. But until I'm sure, we fight.", and at night I'd go to sleep thinking the same thing.

One of the things that always bothered me was I could never see my life past 24. I could daydream all I wanted, but everything stopped before my 25th birthday. I eventually decided that it meant I'd lose the fight by then. So in a lot of ways, turning 25 was a major turning point in my life. I was still alive, but my life was still hell.

In May 2000, I was accepted on Disability Support. I had a diagnosis that finally fit me exactly, and explained why I was the way I was. I was at the end of a 1 ½ year relationship, with a nightmarish break-up. I was hurting in a way that made my soul bleed. I also had good friends that held me up when I couldn't anymore. My life was chaos, killing me, yet I didn't know how to live without it. I turned 25.

That magical number. 25. I had MADE IT! I lived through hell, and came out the other side, damaged as fuck, bleeding and broken, but I was alive. And where there is life, there is hope. So I looked at the Chaos. The chaos *I* had made for myself, because I only knew chaos and it was comfortable.

I saw what I had become, and I was sickened. I was soul-bleeding for a man with no honour, no compassion. A man that accused me of stealing his life from him. I was *grovelling*. I was abusing my self and my soul. I had given up priority to the people that really mattered for this man.

So, I wrote, and I cried, and I told myself that the Chaos was going to stop and I was going to truly live my life. I took $500 of my Disability back pay, dressed up in my new dress, met him at a bar, cleared my debts and walked out of his life with my head held high. A month later I walked out of Toronto and into the home of two of my lifelong best friends.

It's all been getting better since then. Really slowly, but steadily. I learned how to make *me* the most important person in my life. Not my friends, not my fiancé, not my family, not even my daughter. Me. I've been told that is selfish. Not so. The way I lived before was selfish. Serving my self and my soul up on a platter to anyone that wanted a piece, was selfish. Living in Chaos and dragging everyone else in after me, was selfish. Taking care of myself first means I can honestly share me with no reservations and in powerful, beautiful ways. That's not selfish.

I'm sitting here, with so much to say. My fiancé is sitting behind me, clicking away on his computer. This is the best relationship of my life. He's not like the rest of the guys I would choose. They were all Knights in Shining Armour, coming to save me from my horrible life. Which feels really great until the point where they'd realize that I didn't need rescuing, and I'd realize that for me to be saved, I'd always have to be the Damsel in Distress. So not me.

Mike has no interest in saving me from anything. He supports me, and does a bunch of "Rah! Rah!"ing but it's never been a Knight thing. He lets me be me, with no expectations of me being anything else, ever. It's pretty damn cool.

Speaking of cool, I was walking back from Sara's school and I realized… I'm not scared anymore. The PTSD is still there, of course, but it doesn't cripple my life now. Going outside of my home is no longer an exercise in fighting terror. I have good days, I have bad days. But most of the time I have ok days, and god, that's heaven.

Here I sit, 2 days away from my 27th birthday. My life is full, and I'm thriving. I have a fledgling handmade cosmetics business, that I adore. I have a beautiful daughter that thinks I'm an "awesome mom". I have a kick-ass fiancé that puts up with my shit and is my bestest friend ever. My life is relatively Chaos free. The biggest thing is? I could lose all of it, and I *know* I would not only survive, I would thrive. That's what the past 2 years has given me.

I found a single 8" long pure white hair on my keyboard yesterday. It has to be mine. Mike's hair is super short, and all our guests have either shorter or longer hair than me. I'm 26! (Almost 27, 3 days to go!) I don't want to go grey yet. But hey, maybe it's time for me to live my beliefs. See, I think people with grey hair are awesome. I think it shows age, and experience and DAMN that's sexy.

Gah, it's almost 7am and I've been up for an hour already. This is just wrong. I've had my coffee, and now I'm trying to figure out what to do with myself for the day. There are so many things that should be done, but with no flow to them, so I don't know where to start. I'm really good at laying out my time in the most efficient manner possible, as long as I can find the flow to it.

I need to finish the 'BIG Cleanup' (read that in the movie announcer voice) and I also need to tidy the parts that have been cleaned already. THEN there's all the stuff I need to do for the business that break down into non-flowy sections. There's so much that needs to be done, so little time to do it in, and I just stop because I get overwhelmed by it all. So nothing gets done.

I'm so busy, but I'm not as well. That's confusing. I got really angry a month ago at an acquaintance that ran into me on the bus. He gave me a hard time about my not updating my livejournal. I said I was busy with the business, and he came back with "so write about your successful business then!". I was so close to ripping his head off. Granted, I was on that bus because I had to buy pantyhose so I would look "proper" for my uncle's funeral visitation that night. So I was a little on edge anyways.

But I think the anger comes from that I already have so much I should be doing and not doing that I don't need someone else adding more shoulds to my plate. Not that I'm going to allow *anyone* to guilt me into doing anything, ever again. I think I'm asking too much of myself again. I look around at the mess, at the cereal boxes on the floor near Mike's desk, my business stuff scattered everywhere, the chaos from people that don't manage to pick up after themselves and I feel this pressure to be the one to clean it and maintain it.

That's not cool. I know Mike will roll up his sleeves and help, all I have to do is ask. I don't want to have to ask. But both of us are in the habit of being slobs. We're messy and lazy about our messes. So it piles up, until I freak out and clean. Lather, Rinse, Repeat. Intellectually I know how much easier it is to maintain a reasonable level of tidiness and clean every week without having to clear clutter first. So why the fuck can't I do it?

No, I *know* I can. But there's no way in hell I'm going to maintain for someone else. Been there, done that, and I don't get paid enough to be someone's maid, and I already have a kid, I don't want two. So we need to break the habit.

I *have* to keep this apartment bloody spotless for the business. Health Canada would probably shit bricks if they knew I was running a cosmetics business in a place with a cat (soon to be two cats), I don't need to add to it by being a slob. I wonder what would motivate Mike to break the slob habit? Most likely, because he rocks, all that's needed is for me to honestly say "I cannot live like this. We have to make changes, how can we work together to keep our home clean all the time?". Make a plan, stick to it until being clean is the habit, not the exception.

So, changes in my life always have to start with me. Where do I start? How the hell do I balance this cleanup with my business and my daughter? There's always a starting point, just have to find it. I have seven hours left until I have to leave to pick up Sara from school. Ok, two places to start. Either continue the big clean up, or go backwards and tidy what's already been done. Tidy. If I leave the mess that's starting again in the "clean rooms", it'll grow and just start the cycle all over again.

An hour later

Well we shook on it. We're going to use Mike's vacation time to get the Big Cleanup done, and then work on picking up after ourselves *all the time*. I think we have enough time today to drag all the dirty laundry down to a laundromat and get it done.

8:06pm

Laundry, clean and put away. Bought the 3 shelf bookcase I've been thinking of getting for the living room today as well. Sara's room is clean, with *her* laundry all away too. It feels kind of pathetic that only laundry got done today, but dirty clothes take up so much space and create such clutter.

It's a start. And GodDamnIt, I am going to have a clean home *all* the time.

I should continue this writing kick I seem to be on. I was stuck for a topic, but then I was reminded! We're getting a new kitten. Her rescue name is "Venus" and she's a small, all black, almost one year old. We're going to foster her for a couple weeks before we adopt her outright just so we can see if Unita will tolerate her.

I don't really like the name "Venus", so unlike with Unita I think this kitten needs a name change. My current favourite is "Stella". What better name for a small, black ball of fur who is a birthday present for a Sky crazed woman?

In other trains of thought, I was chatting earlier about the weird name traditions in my mother's side of the family. Lots and lots of Elisabeths and Katharinas. I couldn't remember spelling, so I pulled out the family history that one of my uncles did and published. It's an actual hardcover book.

A hardcover book that is missing part of my family history that is dying away as the men who keep the secrets die. I don't know if this is part of my family we even want to know exists. There has to be a reason that it's never talked about, ever.

What do I know? It's about the war. WWII to be exact. Three of my uncles and my Opa served in that war. We're a German family. We're missing years out of family history that is never mentioned because these men served in the German army.

When I was a lot younger, war fascinated me. I could not understand why people would take up arms to kill and be killed. So I studied it, to learn, to find understanding. I never found it. I remember asking my Opa about the War a few times. I knew he had served, and I thought he would talk to ME about it. He refused to look at me or say anything. I asked my mom later why, and she told me to never EVER mention it again.

So I didn't. But I'm wondering now, what memories of a time that I only know through books and movies did we bury with my grandfather and my eldest uncle? What did they do in that wartime Germany? I want to know so bad, but on the other hand I don't.

See, here's the big family secret. One if not both of these dead men served with the Schutzstaffel. The SS. Which section, I don't know. Did they enforce those fucking camps? I don't know. Did they push paper around in Berlin? I don't know. Were they Nazis in the truest sense of the word? I think yes.

That's very very hard for me. I knew my Opa as a man that loved his garden, and grew beautiful roses for his wife. He would let me play in the dirt and eat his vegetables, and just be his granddaughter. Is this the same man? I don't know, and I don't think I'll ever know. I think the stories will die, unspoken. Maybe they should.

Today has been a long day. I'm tired, cranky, moody, and anxious - basically good old fashioned Linda overwhelmed. I hate myself when I'm like this. I pity the poor people that have to deal with me right now.

It's interesting to watch myself get overwhelmed sometimes. I spent a lot of time with a part of my head disassociated from the rest of me, just watching. I needed to do that so I could figure out what was wrong with me and how to make it better. Anyways, me overwhelmed, right. I wasn't paying a lot of attention today to myself, wasn't doing my emotional, physical, mental check-ins. So this one slipped by me. Now I feel like I got hit by a truck.

My mom says that even as a baby there was a point where too much stimulation would freak me out. Too much noise, or play, or light, or movement, or people, or… Yeah. We went Garage Sale-ing today. Too much noise, too many people, too much everything. I started getting really tired around 2pm and just craving going home. When I'm paying attention to my "signposts", that's a huge one. If I am wise, I listen to that part of me and just go home.

I, of course, wasn't wise. So now I can't stand to be touched by anyone or anything and I respond with a full on fight or flight reaction. Nice. Damnit, I should've listened to myself. I know better. Now I've gone past my own natural sensitivities into being extremely PTSD symptomatic. Shit.

I can live with the PTSD, I can actually thrive in spite of this demon on my back, if ONLY I listen to myself. I can stave off the anxieties, I can control the fear, and I can live a whole life as long as I take care of myself when I need to. I don't have the luxury of neglect of self.

So, in saying that, I have to finish my responsibilities to my daughter for the night (Brush her hair, read her bedtime story, tuck her into bed) and take responsibility for my self. Tonight… hmmm… I think warm blankets, a book and read until I fall asleep is in order. End today, see if sleep will take the edge off the demon and start tomorrow fresh.

You know, most of the time I don't really realize I'm a mother. One of those strange creatures that have given birth and have some of their genetic material out there in the world as a living, breathing person. Cool, eh? Then there's times like this morning that I realize that yes, I'm a mom, and my daughter is growing up so so quickly.

Sara stays with me every Thursday night, and I walk her to school every Friday morning. Most of the time it's a chance for us to have a good talk about anything and everything. It's our routine. Today was the usual stuff until we got to the first crossing guard.

On the other side of the street was a classmate of Sara's, walking alone. Sara hollered across "Hey! Want to walk with us?" and the little girl said yes. We walked together for a few meters until my mouth operated before my brain could think and said "You know what? You two can finish the walk together without me, couldn't you? You'd be fine?". Of course they were, and off they skipped, chattering away leaving me standing there thinking "What did I just do? OMG. NO!"

I wasn't worried that some unseen danger was going to run away with my child, or anything practical like that. No, I had suddenly realized that I had just very quickly acknowledged that my baby girl was old enough to walk (part of the way) to school without me. Without pre-planning, without conscious thought.

Who would've thought that it would be harder to be ok with Sara walking a block to school without me than it was to leave her at school on the first day of Kindergarten. Wow.

So I hid behind a hedge, and watched my daughter walk with her classmate to school. She never looked back, never worried, and looked like she thought it was great. This is a good thing, this is what I want my daughter to have. Yay!

My baby is growing up, and man, does that make me sad.