We need a little Christmas, right this very minute

This year I feel like a hybrid of The Grinch before his heart grew and Scrooge before he became kind and good. This year I'm drowning in depression. This year I'm not finished with my classes and still slaving over work as Christmas approaches. This year I'm not very Chrstimassy at all.

I don't know what it is this year. Why I'm so anti-Christmas. I'm happy to give people the gifts they got them but I love giving gifts, gifts is my love language. I suppose I should be happy that we're celebrating the birth of our Messiah, but I can't even muster that. It'll be a White Christmas, but big friggin whoop.

I just lack the Christmas spirit this year.

I'm in too deep, there's no way out, this time I have really led myself astray

I am crippled with depression lately. At least I'm doing my homework which I suppose is something, but I'm not doing it well. I'm not doing it as I should. I'm not hanging out with people. I'm escaping into a world of books and video games, music and movies. I'm isolating into my own world, locking out the people who love and care for me. Throwing up walls, living inside the castle I've built myself and not letting down the drawbridge to let someone in.

I saw my therapist today (yesterday, now). I locked down and completely shut him out. Stupid and foolish, I know, but right now I'm fragile. I'm too afraid to let anyone in, even the people I know that could help. Even the ones I know that could make a difference. Because I simply want to lock out the world. I simply want to exist in my shell. I simply want to exist as I am - a fragment of what life truly is.

Easy answer is fixing my antidepressant situation, but that's a nightmare right now. It's hard finding a doctor who's taking new patients. Who I can click with and trust as that is so key with a shrink. It's what's important, but right now I just need my medications fixed so I can be me again, not quasi-me. I'm not sleeping a lot - largely due to being sick but when I do sleep, I lapse into nightmares. I relive the trauma that living once was enough.

I feel like I'm losing hope, and that I'm drowning in a sea of failure. I feel like I've lost a battle in a war I'm fighting, and I'm going to continue to spiral downwards. I'm so sick of this. I'm so tired of being like this. It's not the way I want to be, dang it. It's not the way my life was meant to be lived, but yet it's the way I live.

We were meant to live for so much more,
have we lost ourselves?

I'm trapped. I'm doing my best to keep up the facade, to only let people see bits and pieces of how bad things really are. Of only showing bits and pieces of how frozen my heart is at the moment, and the thaw is nowhere near. That I don't know how to start the process of melting and in some ways, I just don't even know if I want to. It sounds twisted, but depression is what I'm used to. It's what I know. It's whats familiar  And I don't like change.

And so instead, I live in misery. Which really isn't a good idea, either.

far as the curse is found...

I can't help but think of the parents who can't tuck their children in tonight. I can't help but think of the siblings laying awake sobbing, because their little/big brother/sister won't come home ever again. I can't help but think of the unopened presents. I can't help but think of the parents who will not wake up to laughter on Christmas morning, who will wake up with a gaping hole in their hearts.

I can't help but think of idiots like Mike Huckabee, who gave us this brilliant statement:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/14/mike-huckabee-school-shooting_n_2303792.html

Yep, if God were in our schools, this tragedy wouldn't have happened. Clearly. This was my comment on a friend's facebook timeline. Excuse the insane amount of swearing, because it clearly hit a nerve with me.

Dear Mike Huckabee, you are a douche. And clearly clueless because NEWSFLASH: PRAYER IS NOT FUCKING ILLEGAL IN SCHOOLS. Teacher led prayer? Sure, that's not cool but if students want to pray they can fucking pray. If students want to be a Christian at school, they can be a goddamn Christian. GOD HAS NOT BEEN REMOVED FROM THE SCHOOLS YOU DOUCHEWAFFLE. 

Ahem. Clearly he hit a nerve as that amount of swearing is unusual, even for me. Have a heart for the parents who won't be tucking in their babies tonight, have a heart for the parents who won't wake up to the sound of their children's laughter and pleas to "Wake up, mommy"! on Christmas morning. Have a heart for the siblings who went to bed tonight minus their brother or sister, their best friends. People like you make me ashamed to be a Christian, because you obviously don't serve the same God I serve. 

The God I love isn't all "Teehee, you took me out of schools, now I'm going to allow this guy to shatter innocence, to take lives that are not his to take." The God I love is weeping with the world, not being all judgmental and being all "WELL IF YOU HAD ME IN SCHOOLS, THESE KIDS WOULD STILL BE ALIVE!" He is just as shattered as we are, and comforting those children until the day they are united with their parents, siblings, grandparents, and friends. Your version of God is demented.

Go sit on a tack and rotate, Mike.

Xoxo, Nora.

You know what? God is just as heartbroken as we are, yet on a grander scale. God is holding those babies tonight, comforting them, wiping all the tears from their frightened eyes. Cradling them in His gentle hand. That is the God I serve.

I can't help but think of the children in my life I love, and the mere thought of them seeing dead bodies. Lord, I would be a mental case if I saw one at age 25. Nevermind shave 20 years off my life. I don't understand why someone would do this - but do I want to?

Those children, the ones who survived, will never fully recover. And my heart breaks for them tonight. For the families, for the family (that's surviving, from what I've gathered in the news many of them are dead as well) of the shooter. He's a jerk, but he's still a human being who had people who loved him and they have suffered a great loss too. I can't imagine someone I love snapping like that. How can you still love them knowing their shattered so many lives? How can you still love them knowing their actions rocked a nation? I suppose you still do - but that must compound your grief so much.

Heartbroken.

 

And the world will be a better place

Think of your fellow man, lend him a helping hand
Put a little love in your heart

There are so many stories in the news of all the bad in the world. We lie in extreme days and dark times. But even as we are coated in snow, even as our hearts are frozen, there are still good and kind people in the world. There are still people who reach out to others in need and want to make a difference in people's lives.
I was walking to Starbucks and there wasn't much of a sidewalk and what was wasn't shoveled.  It's below freezing and the walk was slow and tedious. As I'm passing the vet clinic, struggling through the snow (it's tough when not on crutches!) a young man asked me if I was waiting for the bus. I responded no, just going up the street to Starbucks. He then introduced himself (a young lawyer) and offered me a ride to Starbucks. It was out of his way, but he was still willing to help me get to where I needed to go. I gratefully accepted.

To him, it was a small gesture to help out someone. To me, it was so much more. It was me accepting help, and not being a stubborn pain-in-the-arse. It was me getting where I needed to go safely (and yes, I usually don't accept rides from strangers but he checked out fine and again, it was cold and I needed to get to where I was going). It was me trusting someone. The point is?

There are still good people in this world. There are still people who want to help other people. There are still people who have a heart, who "put a little love in it." It was awesome to get a ride and not struggle to get there. It was great to have someone help me out. And it's prove that even in these dark days, good people still exist.

and friends are friends... when?

I've come to a realization at Concordia. I've been there a year now, and I am friendless. I have people who are my Facebook friend and I have people who say hi to me and people who are in most of my classes. But I don't truly have any friends. I wonder if I even know how to make friends anymore. And I wonder what I've done so wrong to be friendless after over a year at a school.

I've always been told I'm bright, I'm smart, I'm funny, I'm compassionate, I have all these things going for me.  But yet I'm sarcastic and cynical, I'm bitter and callous. Is this why I don't yet have a friend? Is it because I'm a church work student who holds very controversial views? Just because I didn't vote for Romney and I'm in favour of gay rights, doesn't mean that I'm not a true Christian. Just because I'm more liberal than most doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with me.

On the whole, I'm happier at Concordia. I have better professors, better support services, better classes, no mandatory chapel. But I still long for friends- true friends. But my crippling shyness, my social awkwardness, my depression is holding me back from making them. I can't expect people to come to me but I don't know how to reach out and make friends - the kind that put up with my very ADD brain, the kind that love video games, the kind that actually WANT to get to know me. Maybe I come across as standoffish due to my social issues, who knows.

But I feel lonely. I feel like I live in my own world. And I feel like a failure as a CSP student, a failure as a person. I feel that the vast majority of my friends are online and not in the twin cities, and it's terribly lonely. I don't have community, I don't have people who are my friends at my school. AND IT SUCKS. And the worst part is, I don't know how to fix it.

I wonder if maybe I'm missing the making friend gene. And if this is a foreshadowing of my life. If I'll always be this terribly lonely. If I'll always feel this lost. if I'll always be this way...

Bye Bye Appendix!

So I figured I'd write about having my appendix out.

I had a general malese feeling all last week. I was generally weak and tired, but not too bad from Sunday on. Low grade fever, chills, just had what I figured was a general run-on-the-mill infection. By Wednesday I felt fairly crappy, and didn't even fold most of my laundry by the time I did and just chucked it in the laundry basket. I muddled through thanksgiving and felt worse and worse as the day went on. I woke up on Friday feeling terrible. I spent most of Friday arguing with my friend about if I should call the doctor or not, and she finally convinced me to at least email the nurse advice line. I emailed, and they told me to call. I called, and they told me to go to urgent care. We couldn't go straight to UC as we still had to finish up some things in Hastings, so we did what we needed to do, then headed to the Highland Park clinic.

The clinic sent me straight to the ER, telling me not to eat or drink anything, that it was likely my appendix. I didn't believe them as I'd been told this before and figured it has to be kidney stones or the flu or something. It couldn't REALLY be my appendix this time, could it? I wasn't running a high fever or anything, but after I got triaged and into a room at St Joseph, they ran a CT scan.

Not long after, Anna and I hear the words "something something really appendix." We don't know if they are saying it's really my appendix, or if it's not really my appendix. I've been seen in hospitals before with suspected appendix issues, but clearly it's never been. Welp, this time it was. And that's when the downward spiral started. Pain meds, antibiotics  I quickly got sicker as the night went on because I got my diagnosis as 1:30 am, into a room a 2:30, and surgery was at 6 am. However, appendicitis is very fast acting so I was a sick young lady by the time the surgeon saw me (who commented on how sick I looked). I remember being strapped down on the OR and being given an oxygen mask, but not much after that! The next thing I remember is absolutely flipping out in recovery because I didn't have any friends there (Anna had gone home to sleep until after my surgery) and they hadn't allowed me to bring my bear or blanket with me. I had no comfort objects in my general vicinity  They did give me some pain meds, and I calmed down I guess. I was completely maxed out on pain meds (I remember being told I'd stop breathing if they gave me more, and I was really suffering post op!). and eventually, I'd stabilized to the point where I was returned to my room. When I of course got on my smartphone and made pain and drug induced smart-phone posts all oer the internet. I even emailed professors, concerned about making up course work. Ever the good student, I am.

My friend Susan contacted the church pastor, and he and my roommate actually arrived at the same time. We talked for awhile, and then he left and Anna and I just hung out for awhile. After Anna left, CJ came for a bit. We'e made up as friends and that is a good thing I think. :) We played Pokemon and talked and stuff. I didn't sleep much because I was up all night in a combo of in pain and coughing. It sucked. Steph kept me company when I was up in the middle of the night coughing my lungs out and watching Inuyasha, even though I was a crabby Pikachu. She is a good, good friend.

Sunday was similar with visitors (Susan and Aaron, Anna and her Mom, then later just Anna), doctors, smartphone posts, and watching anime on my laptop. And me freaking out to my professors about ALL THE WORK I HAVE TO DO, and them trying to tell me to just worry about recovering and once I'm healthy we will cross those bridges. Spent a lot of time talking to friends (Steph!) on Messenger too to keep me company. :)

Anna and her parents rearranged the room. Set up Anna's old bed for me. YAY! My stuff got rearranged so I'm in the process of trying to find all my stuff... that's kind of interesting... I'm still running fevers and I'm dizzy.

I did learn a valuable lesson. I'm lucky I was in the ER/hospital as I quickly got sicker. I know that appendix issues can be stress induced and I know I have been stressed lately. I know it's also not very smart to put off going to the doctor when you are sick and I saw how quickly after I got diagnosed the downward spiral happened - even the surgeon commented on how sick I looked. I still don't look all that great. I can't keep putting off going to the doctor because while things worked out this time... I could have wound up with a ruptured appendix and gotten very very sick. I'm still sick (feverish - but it's only 100.8 and the call the doctor point is 101) and dizzy, but this time if it doesn't go away, I will call the doctor even if they think I'm being weird and paranoid for bugging them.

My health is a far too valuable thing to lose. I need to keep myself healthy. I'm horrible stubborn and wanted to do my homework while in the hospital - neither Anna or Steph will let me (nor will they let me do it while recovering at home, how rude!). Perhaps getting so sick is my body's way of telling me that sometimes, it's okay to cut myself some slack and I don't need to set such impossibly high standards for myself. That it's okay to LET myself be sick. I mean, who emails disability services and their professors mere hours before their surgery to arrange make up work? And then follows up just a few hours after, freaking out about how they are going to do everything? Disability services kind of ripped my head off and told me that getting my appendix out was a perfectly acceptable reason to take a break and I really need to take care of myself before I worry about all this. :)

I think I've learned a lot from getting one small body part taken out.