third update in one day's a charm!
I totally forgot to mention the tambourine I got for xmas!
Oh YEAH! Best present ever. How could I have forgotten to mention you, oh amazing black star tambourine? CLINK CLINK CLIIINNNNK! I love noise-makers.
There are balloons all over my apartment, just on the floor, on top of the cupboards, under chairs, wherever. I think I will leave them until they deflate. It's fun to kick them around and it makes me feel like I live in a ball pool like those ones that little kids shit in.
But seriously... there is something romantic and fun about having balloons all over your living space. I don't have the heart to get rid of them! I love them too much.
Speaking of day-core... the boy and I put up some more wall art the other day. Namely the two Russ Meyer posters I've had sitting around. We got these poster frames for them awhile ago and just never got around to putting them in there because I was too sad that I'd have to trim the posters. BUT, I really wanted them on the walls, so I let Dave snip 'em. Not too much had to be trimmed... I'd rather have not had to cut them but they look so darn good up on the walls now that I can't complain. I also bought some faux purple orchids for the living room and they look just delovely. Having fresh flowers in the apartment is my favourite thing in the world, but I can't always be bothered to go and get them, plus it drives me nuts that they die so quickly, so I bought some fake ones, WANNA FIGHT ABOUT IT?
2009 is looking like it might be the year of travel. Slowly my travel bug bite is gaining momentum. Jamaica in April/May, Norway in August/September... and Dave mentioned the other day about wanting the two of us to go somewhere, like Mexico maybe. That would be just awesome. You can get pretty inexpensive all-inclusive deals for certain places, so I think we might look into something like that. Do any of you guys know any websites/travel package places that you trust/know are reliable? I have never done anything like arrange a trip before. I also thought Vegas would be fun. So many neon signs everywhere, I might die of happiness!
***
Something really great happened with my mom and I the other day.
She drove me back to London at the end of my xmas vacation instead of me taking the Greyhound with all of my bulky bags and gifts, and I tend to get very talkative with her when we are in the car together because I love the fact that it's just us and we are having that time alone together to just talk. Anyway, somehow I got onto the topic of how bad my depression had been in the past two months and I opened up to her about how I was always very affected by the fact that she never really wanted to hear about it when I was a teenager. Like... she would always just blow it off and change the subject, or act almost... mad? at me for being depressed? It really messed me up because I never felt like I could talk to anyone about it since my own mother wouldn't even let me open up to her about something that was affecting me so deeply. I mean, she took me to get a prescription for anti-depressants once when I was 18 but it still never opened up any kind of real dialogue about the whole thing. I guess even though I've been dealing with this stuff for years on my own, and I've since learned how to open up and talk about it, I still felt (and feel) very disheartened that my mom, whom I consider to be my best friend in the whole wide world, never really wanted to listen when it came to the big demon that has shaped who I am so much (which, honestly, is equally good and bad).
So I told her. And I told her that I was not trying to make her feel guilty, or like she was a bad mother, because she knows I think she is an amazing mother. I just really wanted her to know me better, and that is an enormous part of me... and I wanted her to understand me better. I think that is the main thing. I just want her to get me. So badly. I needed her to know that it hurt me when she would act irritated when I tried to talk to her about how horribly insane and sad I always felt growing up.
I put it all out there, for real.
She told me she was sorry.
She told me that she knew, she heard me... she just didn't want to think that something like that could be happening to me, because she didn't understand that it's not circumstantial, it's neurological. She didn't want to admit it, she wanted to ignore it and pretend everything was fine.
And I guess I don't blame her... how the hell do you deal with something you don't understand?
Or maybe she understood it all too much? I don't know.
I'm just glad she listened to me, finally, and I'm glad that she apologized, and I'm just...
glad.
Because she really is such an amazing person, and I feel like these are the years where I'd really like us to get to know each other much, much better. I'm so curious about her still, even though I've known her for 25 years. I look up to her so much for what a strong, courageous, independent woman she is and has always been... and while there are parts of her that drive me fricking nuts (she IS still my mother, after all), mostly I just want to learn how to be more like her in the ways that I admire so much.
Oh YEAH! Best present ever. How could I have forgotten to mention you, oh amazing black star tambourine? CLINK CLINK CLIIINNNNK! I love noise-makers.
There are balloons all over my apartment, just on the floor, on top of the cupboards, under chairs, wherever. I think I will leave them until they deflate. It's fun to kick them around and it makes me feel like I live in a ball pool like those ones that little kids shit in.
But seriously... there is something romantic and fun about having balloons all over your living space. I don't have the heart to get rid of them! I love them too much.
Speaking of day-core... the boy and I put up some more wall art the other day. Namely the two Russ Meyer posters I've had sitting around. We got these poster frames for them awhile ago and just never got around to putting them in there because I was too sad that I'd have to trim the posters. BUT, I really wanted them on the walls, so I let Dave snip 'em. Not too much had to be trimmed... I'd rather have not had to cut them but they look so darn good up on the walls now that I can't complain. I also bought some faux purple orchids for the living room and they look just delovely. Having fresh flowers in the apartment is my favourite thing in the world, but I can't always be bothered to go and get them, plus it drives me nuts that they die so quickly, so I bought some fake ones, WANNA FIGHT ABOUT IT?
2009 is looking like it might be the year of travel. Slowly my travel bug bite is gaining momentum. Jamaica in April/May, Norway in August/September... and Dave mentioned the other day about wanting the two of us to go somewhere, like Mexico maybe. That would be just awesome. You can get pretty inexpensive all-inclusive deals for certain places, so I think we might look into something like that. Do any of you guys know any websites/travel package places that you trust/know are reliable? I have never done anything like arrange a trip before. I also thought Vegas would be fun. So many neon signs everywhere, I might die of happiness!
***
Something really great happened with my mom and I the other day.
She drove me back to London at the end of my xmas vacation instead of me taking the Greyhound with all of my bulky bags and gifts, and I tend to get very talkative with her when we are in the car together because I love the fact that it's just us and we are having that time alone together to just talk. Anyway, somehow I got onto the topic of how bad my depression had been in the past two months and I opened up to her about how I was always very affected by the fact that she never really wanted to hear about it when I was a teenager. Like... she would always just blow it off and change the subject, or act almost... mad? at me for being depressed? It really messed me up because I never felt like I could talk to anyone about it since my own mother wouldn't even let me open up to her about something that was affecting me so deeply. I mean, she took me to get a prescription for anti-depressants once when I was 18 but it still never opened up any kind of real dialogue about the whole thing. I guess even though I've been dealing with this stuff for years on my own, and I've since learned how to open up and talk about it, I still felt (and feel) very disheartened that my mom, whom I consider to be my best friend in the whole wide world, never really wanted to listen when it came to the big demon that has shaped who I am so much (which, honestly, is equally good and bad).
So I told her. And I told her that I was not trying to make her feel guilty, or like she was a bad mother, because she knows I think she is an amazing mother. I just really wanted her to know me better, and that is an enormous part of me... and I wanted her to understand me better. I think that is the main thing. I just want her to get me. So badly. I needed her to know that it hurt me when she would act irritated when I tried to talk to her about how horribly insane and sad I always felt growing up.
I put it all out there, for real.
She told me she was sorry.
She told me that she knew, she heard me... she just didn't want to think that something like that could be happening to me, because she didn't understand that it's not circumstantial, it's neurological. She didn't want to admit it, she wanted to ignore it and pretend everything was fine.
And I guess I don't blame her... how the hell do you deal with something you don't understand?
Or maybe she understood it all too much? I don't know.
I'm just glad she listened to me, finally, and I'm glad that she apologized, and I'm just...
glad.
Because she really is such an amazing person, and I feel like these are the years where I'd really like us to get to know each other much, much better. I'm so curious about her still, even though I've known her for 25 years. I look up to her so much for what a strong, courageous, independent woman she is and has always been... and while there are parts of her that drive me fricking nuts (she IS still my mother, after all), mostly I just want to learn how to be more like her in the ways that I admire so much.