Through the Laughter and the Tears... find Hope

Why am I not adjusted? This thought has been bugging the heck out of me recently! Undergrad, I was fairly well adjusted after 4 months. I've been here 6 months now, and still feel more alone than ever... and just struggle to get everything done that's needed. The smiling face-- it's gone at least 5 days of the week. What do I need for release? LAUGHTER. I laughed today in class and felt the most amazing rush, it actually surprised me. Have I really not been laughing? Sure, there's the mandatory chuckle, or the little laugh you have when a professor makes a sarcastic remark... but that true can't hold it back laugh that you feel through out your body-- apparently they have been missing. So 1 problem identified-- what's the solution? Hmmm... spend more time with people. Well crap, this leads me to problem #2... LONELINESS.

Now, a large part of the problem is that I am resistant to adjusting and modifying who I am simply to not feel lonely. The other part of the problem is that between my classes, GSR, eating, sleeping, and traveling between school and home, and studying... there's not much time left!! I need to take more time for myself, but I always seem to cut that part down. But truly, these are just excuses. In reality, life itself is not terrible. I have a wonderful fiance who I miss pretty much every second of every day, and I have wonderful friends. My friends just aren't exactly available to call on days like today where I need someone to just force me to calm down and take a break. Therefore my stress does not get relieve my friends so it releases in the form of: you guessed it-- TEARS. (By the way, frustration tears only get more embarrassing as you get older). I resist changing because I know and I like who I am... and how I can act around my friends (it's hard to explain). Why would I want to change if I like who I am, and I know others who like who I am and understand me. It's really a lot of the little things. Having someone to talk to when you get home, walking and talking with people about random things, waiting for someone after class, or meeting up with them because you don't have class together but share a break (Fred and I did this a lot last year). Many of these interactions took time to develop, but the point is that they are now in my "etiquette" for developing friendship. It's the offering to wait up/ meet up... and the fact that someone actually wants to spend time with you. It can't be forced. So as these things don't happen naturally as fast as I want them to I have to remind myself that I have known my other friends for at least 5 years, and I should not judge my relationship with people here who I have known 6 months. But until then, I am in the most stressful area of my life, and my support system is not close.

On a related note, stress is getting the best of me recently. I really have not been myself, very edgy. I decided that I need to cut back on my status updates on facebook... comments on little things seem to set me off, which is not characteristic for me and I know would not normally happen. Facebook needs to be all happy... If I put sad messages up I will not get happy responses. And thinking about it I know why... it's week #8. So my body is gearing up for finals, but it is only midterms!! I think I need a break around week 9/10. Fortunately, I will get one. Unfortunately it will include a take home midterm, trying to get ahead in class readings, and may be the last one until next December. Not to mention my body truly needs the break right NOW. I can't wait until I am no longer taking 6 classes and get to start rotations! Sure there is stress involved, but it's NEW stress.

OkOk, I am sure you can tell I have been stressed. (You actually shouldn't even still be reading!) But if you are-- I decided I need to start focusing on good things that happen in Pittsburgh. This happened today when I got headache #3 of the week. Now, my mind wants to follow things up with egging problems that are not related to the good, but I need to forget them and think of the good.

GOOD THINGS: I was reminded today at how wonderful my professors are. I truly feel like they support me 100% and can go talk to them when I need to. They help me keep an even head and acknowledge that this stuff IS HARD, but I CAN do it! I need to remember things they have told me-- like one telling me about still being nervous, but has learned ways to deliver presentations without nerves! Yet when this professor started she was 'worse' than me (I doubt this, but it's a good thought to have so I'll take it). And two of them reminding me that if this is what I want to do (which it is!) then I just have to do my best and work hard and I will be fine. They have given me their ears to cry to, and provided me with a sense of HOPE and comfort that I sometimes cannot feel enough of from those far away. It is nice to know that their doors are always open, and that I am welcome to go to them for anything. So in a way, during these moments, they feel like the best of friends I have found in Pittsburgh. Much of that may be because they have gone through this, and came out as fantastic researchers/professors so they now can provide me with advise... but a large piece is that they are just good people, and I appreciate their recognition of this stressful portion and hope for future success. I know that I will make a GREAT counselor. And counseling classes have made me feel really good about how I dealt with clients in undergrad. So if I can get out of my head this sense of judgment I feel from my classmates (which I know is mostly if not entirely made up in my head) and refocus to treat class as I would a patient, they I would be golden.

Refreshing the Battery

Ok, I should not be blogging tonight. I should be doing one of the thousand things I need to do. But I really need to stop, take a second for myself to just relax. Truly relax (yeah right!). Then I can restart fresh, full mind in full control and finish this week strong.

What brings on this strong desire on a TUESDAY night? Well, folks... today felt like a Thursday. This week I haven't exactly had my game-face on. Yesterday I went ALL DAY without realizing that I had a shirt that says "Inspired" on inside out making it say something closer to "deripsnI" (which is less than inspiring). Yes, people were interviewing at Pitt for the first day... so I am quite certain it may have made an impression. Someone had to have noticed and NOT told me... Today I decided to challenge that moment... and spilled the ENTIRE contents of my water bottle. Half went right into my bad (thank goodness it was NOT the pocket with folders). The rest all over the chair and floor at work. Needless to say, I was already flustered before the incident. My day at work completely deflated all of my energy. And my frustration left me STARVING and unprepared to settle down to work. Ok, so fasting for my doctor's appointment may have influenced my hunger...

Which reminds me... this morning I had a doctors appointment. My new PCP is extremely nice, and very good. She was very on top of things, and I enjoyed her sharing her thought process with me. Inevitably, my arm hurts after my appointment today... I decided to go ahead and get the Gardasil vaccine. Wow- what an unusual phenomenon that was. My mind has had trouble deciding to get this vaccine. I convinced myself that working in health care makes this a good idea, but even as I got the shot my mind was reeling with the decision I had made. I almost told the nurse "never mind". Why did this happen? I am/was not afraid of the shot itself. Sure there's the pinch... but that's fine. It was the odd circumstance that I was in. I had a CHOICE of whether or not to have a vaccine for a virus that I know of only 1 person that has had. (granted their could easily be more people-- but this person wasn't sick or dying of HPV so it's not like a devastating virus in my subconscious). Measles, mumps, hepatitis... you don't really get a choice of having those vaccines- your parents decide for you. Then when you go in for a booster shot, it seems like something that is truly required. (technically it is for various places...) ANYHOW- the choice kept being brought up and I knew it was in my best interest so I said yes today. As she was preparing the shot I thought to myself how there was no coming back.. how there are no long term studies on this vaccine... etc etc. And then the pinch of the shot did not bother me, it was the fluid injection. Every tiny pump of the needle made me think about how there was no turning back. If there are serious side-effects that occur in 30 years, I will not be able to do anything! Surreal experience. Now-- I KNOW that I will most likely be perfectly fine, and I am the type of person that already will stop worrying about something that I can do nothing about. I do not regret in the least this decision... but I was fairly fascinated by my thought process and needed to comment.

I'm not sure if this would be related or not... but after the shot I had blood drawn, and for the first time in a long time I did not feel woozy afterwards. Not the least bit! I was perfectly fine to go. All I had in my system for the previous 15 hours was water! Crazy!! Granted- this time I told myself NOT to relax when she stuck me. I think that I sometimes relax myself so much my blood pressure drops, causing me to faint! CRAZY!!

Alright. I'm feeling slightly re-charged. Time for an early to bed so I can be early to rise tomorrow! (and I will get work done then instead!)

5 years, and only getting better with time!

August 2008

Disclaimer-- I didn't realize how many pictures I actually have, so many of them are going to be random!

5 years. Dave and I have now been together for half a decade! Dating for such a long time makes me wonder how we could ever start with a 1 year anniversary after being married. So much has happened over the past 5 years. We have both changed tremendously, and it started me thinking about how lucky I am to be with such an amazing man!

April 2004, in Washington DC

We don't really know when we started dating. We had the same group of friends and at some point he and I would stay up until 3:00 am, just getting to know each other. I was fascinated by the stories he told about growing up in the country. I learned that hunting was not the massacre that I had once imagined. I learned how to put faith in someone else, and that gave me more trust in myself! So sometime in March (right before we left for Spring break), I asked him the question all our friends had been asking us... "are we dating?" And after that we answered that indeed, we were dating. We decided that it was probably around Valentine's Day that we started dating. We picked Friday, February 13th, 2004 as our 'anniversary'. I think it was mostly so that we could go out and celebrate both! That year Jon and Rachel got engaged on or around Valentine's Day, so I met his parents in February and we went out to dinner with Rachel's family. Ironically, we did not claim to be dating at that time!

February 2005

Above is a picture of us on our 1-year anniversary. (Well, sometime around Valentine's Day, 2005). We went to an amazing little restaurant in Columbus. It was VERY pricey, (but would have been more with wine!), and the portions were not huge. But every bite was amazing! It was nice to go out on a special date, so we seem to go out for a nice (although not quite as nice) dinner each year.

The years start to really run together, so I'm going to continue with a few stories about why I am so happy to be with Dave!

April 2006

There are so many things I love about Dave. He does little things to make me happy, like buying me a Snicker's bar when I am having a bad day... or cleaning off my car in the morning before I left for class. And he stays with me even if I drive him crazy, mostly by calling me on the craziness so we can actually work it out. He's willing to give up his favorite thing in the world (hunting) if something happens to me, like being sick.

Spring 2005

This year I have realized how independent I truly am, regardless of Dave being around. Yet I instantly relax when he's around. My tension just disappears. There is this indescribable comfort and happiness that I feel. He teases me constantly, but knows when to stop. --I remember the first time he met Giselle. I was so excited that they could give each other a hard time --but instead they both gained up against me! June 2008

Anyhow, this year I have realized that no matter how busy I am, how crazy life can be... it is simply better to be with him. (I already knew this, but it was confirmed at a very different level). Being apart from him is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.

August 2006

Then there's our families. We are both youngest children, which is probably why we pick on each other so much and let things go so often. I have deeply enjoyed getting to see Dave with my nephews and niece. This summer on our vacation at one point we were sitting on the couch with a kid on each lap, and one between. It had to be one of the sweetest moments.

August 2008

And Colin just loves to cuddle with Dave.

2008
2006

I could go on forever. The last memory I want to leave with is our celebration from this past weekend. Not quite the glamour of celbrating 1 year, but certainly one of my favorite anniversaries yet. Nothing went as I had imagined. Dinner was very good, but not spectacular. We got dessert from the grocery store (chocolate cake with mint moose icing or something like that-- it was like heaven!). And then the 2 movies we wanted to see were both sold out! So we ended up going to Best Buy and buying a movie instead. I thought to myself, this is perfect. We don't need anything fancy to be happy, just eachother. And while getting all dressed up and going to a nice dinner or out to a movie is a lot of fun, it's always nice to be reminded that we have a good time regardless!

I am so excited that this is the person that I am going to marry. What an amazing 5 years it has been. I can't wait to see what happens in the next 5!

MORE PICTURES FROM THE LAST 5 YEARS

May 2004, at Chris Lucas' pond

October 2005, ready for game day!

July 2006, at Jon and Rachel's wedding

Jan 1, 2007

July, 2008

Annoyed

Ok, I need to vent about this so that I can forget about it and continue on my day... This morning I had a dentist appointment to have him examine my bite plate. (you know, the one that makes my jaw actually hurt worse during the night, to the point that it wakes me up!). My appointment was for 9:30 (which was just late enough to ruin the chance of me getting to go to work before class today, meaning I will have to work late every night this week). I get to go back at 9:45, and the appointment lasts a good 5 minutes. The bite plate I have now is softer than my first one, but apparantly still a hard bite plate. He apparantly usually works with soft ones, because he thinks they are better. He proceeds to tell me there is nothing he can do to make it 'more comfortable'. When I try to explain to him that it makes my jaw swing out of socket whenever I lay on my left side, and since it only touches 1 tooth in my mouth causing severe pain in that tooth when I lay on my left-- He claims that they are not suppose to touch every tooth. And that if it bothers me too much I should just get a new soft one. He said he cannot try to shave down the hard one because that would put a hole in it.

Well... Guess what!! My first one WAS a hard one... and when IT didn't fit the first time, they used a special tool and SHAVED IT DOWN!! SO don't tell me you CAN'T do something that I know CAN be done... because that just shows me that you didn't even LOOK INTO what you could do to help me. And you know what? NO, I WILL NOT just go ahead and get yet ANOTHER new bite plate that will be more comfortable. I CANNOT do that every time I get a filling, or a crown. I CANNOT get a new bite plate everytime I switch dentists because they are more used to ordering a different type. But thank you, Mr. Dentist... I certainly enjoyed having you glance and grimmace at the bite plate that makes my jaw worse. And I appreciate you not advising me to take advil to help decrease the swelling in my jaw for the next couple days. I am so glad that I will have to work late every night this week so that you could give me no options that might actually cost me less than $350.

Well.. now it's time to take some Ibuprofen so that my jaw will stop aching. This weekend it looks like I will be going to the store to buy a cheap piece and try to shape it into something that will help. Guess what, the good thing about having 2 already made... (and dentists that explained how they worked)... is that I may be able to do a descent job. "all that matters is that space is being put between my teeth forcing my jaw to have space" That is one thing the dentist said today. And cheap plastic should acheive that too!

Whew... I'm glad I got that off of my chest.

Bipolar Week

I would like to start out saying that I am not bipolar. This week my mood/thoughts kept changing so quickly that I seemed to flip from one extreme to the next.

I made 2 doctors appointments this week. The dentist was able to get me in the day after I made my appointment! (AMAZING!!). The dental hygienist was very nice and good. Apparently I am doing a very good job brushing and flossing (I knew this, but she still told me many times). She also tried to smooth out my fillings that keep catching on floss since they were redone at my last appointment. My gums were covering part of one of the fillings so she couldn't fix it all the way, but I was pleased that she told me why, and that my gums were likely swollen at these places because of trouble flossing. That's a double edged sword in my opinion... Swollen gums could mean gum regression if I am not mistaken, but because of the troubles more plaque will build up if I don't floss. So I wouldn't want to floss less because then I would hurt the tooth, but flossing hurts the gums. I can't win! For now, my teeth looked good and the big fillings seem to be doing their job... hooray!
The dentist was nice too. He kept seeing throughout the whole office during my appointment. It was kind of amusing. Anyhow... he was nice until we got to the discussion about my jaw issues, and bite-plate not fitting.. etc. I have an aversion to people telling me things in certain tones, or using certain words. There are ways of explaining problems to people that don't make them feel like crap. I was explaining that I would like them to try and make my bite-plate work otherwise I'm going to buy some cheap thing and make a similar piece myself. I'm not going to shoot out another $350 when in the next year or two I will have to have more fillings or a new crown and this will make my bite-plate not fit. He came in and had me move my jaw around. He could see it swing, pop, click, and lock. He told me I'm "destroying my jaw by not wearing a mouth guard" and that I "have to wear one every night or I will completely destroy it". Duh. Now, can you get insurance to pay for it? Of course not. So that made me angry because I felt like he wasn't giving any consideration to my reasoning for not just saying OK and getting a new one. He did agree on Monday to meet with me again to try and make my mouth piece now work better. Hopefully it will, because otherwise he's going to make me feel really bad about myself for not having him order me a new one.

In other news... I finally got more information about the study that I am going to most likely be working on. Still not quite enough, but I'm moving in the right direction. I got the information Thursday night and met with one of my project advisers to talk about protocol writing. He wants me to have the protocol done in a week. (ummm... I've never written a proposal before...) This terrifies me. Joy.

I found myself extremely happy Thursday morning for no apparent reason. Just in a good mood. Yesterday afternoon I was too (likely because it was so nice outside!). Then last night I would have done anything to be back in Columbus surrounded by all my friends. I just want to sit around and relax with a small group of friends. I want to be able to call them up and have them come over in the evening, like last year. I want to have it not be such an event, but just socializing. And I want it to be reliable. Friends that I know will want to be doing the same thing. Where I can be in pj's and it doesn't matter at all. Last weekend it was really nice when Dave was here and Shelley and her Dave came over and we played games and chat for a while. I want THAT, more often. And I want people to want me to come to their place for the same thing. To just want to hang out with me. Sure going out is great, and I really like it. And planning outings is a lot of fun. But not all the time for me, just sometimes. Some days I'll splurge and pay for a full-price movie, but not often. Most of the time I'm content seeing what's on TV... and getting to chat with the people I'm watching a movie with. So it makes me very lonely sometimes. I have no problem inviting myself sometimes, figuring people could always do the same if I forgot to mention it to them. But not all the time... I want to be invited and thought of at some point. There's not much I can do about it though. So it's time to let it go and just keep chugging along. Enjoy the weather by myself and just wait for the next 15 months and 1 week to go by. THANK GOODNESS I know that there are only 15 months until this "problem" will no longer bother me!

Other bipolar news? Nope. I did treat myself to the bagel factory today though. I can't wait to eat my donuts later! I also met with a wedding photographer today. But that's it for now... here's to hoping good weather makes my alone time study-productive!!