A story of Munchie

05 Feb 2014 Leave a comment

by jes in Life Tags: , , ,

When I was 19 years old, I was dating a guy named David who lived in North Park. There was a pet store in the shopping center by his house, and I went in one day to see the kittens. There were kittens in two cages; little kittens that were between six and eight weeks old, and another cage of kittens that were over 4 months old. I was playing with a cute little brown tabby in the “older kitten” cage when the clerk asked me, “Do you want to take him?” I said that I was just playing and that I wasn’t really looking for a cat. She said that the three kittens that were in the older kitten cage were going to be sent back to the breeder and euthanized or used as breeders if they didn’t get sold, so if I wanted the kitten that I was playing with, I could just take him, because she’d rather write him off as a loss than have him put down or have to live in a breeding facility. She came open and opened the cage and handed him to me and said, “If you want him, just go, and give him a good life.” So I took him.

I brought him home to mom’s house and explained what happened and asked if we could keep him (as every child has done to their parent(s) at one time or another). I told her what the pet store lady had said to me about him being euthanized or forced to breed. She agreed that we’d keep him. Since I wasn’t planning on getting a cat, I didn’t have any cat stuff for him, he just came home with a paper collar that said “Kitten #49” on it. So, his name ended up being Mr Joe Montana Cat, less formally as either Montana or Munchie. I don’t remember how it morphed to Munchie, but I think it probably had to do with his eating habits. He liked to eat, and ended up as a healthy 19 pounder at the height of his life.

I ended up moving out and moving on, and Munchie stayed with mom. He had a calm and sweet disposition and loved to cuddle with his buddy Mumbles (whom I had also brought home as a stray, a year or so later). He and Mumbles were so close as to be considered brothers; they were inseparable until Mumbles came down with kidney disease and eventually had to be put down in 2010. Munchie mourned the loss of his brother and never quite got over it. In the past couple years,  he’s been fighting his own health battles, and today we’re taking him to be put down. He’s tired of fighting and it’s time to let go.

I like to think that I provided him with the good life that the pet store woman asked of me. He had a home, a brother, a sister, a caretaker who loved him dearly, plenty of food and water, and lots of love. He was a good cat.

I’d like to be a Luddite

30 Jan 2014 Leave a comment

by jes in Life, Tiggy, Travel, Uncategorized Tags: , , , ,

…she says, while typing away on her blog, on a laptop, connected to wi-fi, with her Android cellphone and her Kindle Fire sitting next to her.

Seriously though, I think my world was a happier place before I became so “connected” with it. I don’t own a television. For some reason, modern Americans think that’s strange and often give me recommendations on the best kind to buy when I say I don’t own one. I don’t want one. When my last television died, back in 2007, I got rid of it and never replaced it. I’ve never missed it.  I own a Kindle for reasons of convenience; it’s easier to carry a thousand books on it than to have them in paper and binding. That’s not to say that I don’t like books, I have boxes of books that I have carefully transported through at least a dozen homes, all the way across country and back, and they are stored more securely than some people store their diamonds.

Remember back when we were kids? We rode our bicycles around the neighborhood – without helmets – and we played with our friends outside, making up games with balls and sticks, until the lights came on and we went home to dinner. I remember being 10 and walking to school by myself, and no one thought it was strange. Now, as the mother of an eleven year old boy, I am torn between wanting to give him the freedom to walk home by himself and worrying about strangers abducting him. This is why I hate technology. It’s so easy now to hop on the internet and read about child abductions all over the country (or the world) and think that it’s inevitable that it’s going to happen to your own child, so you must protect them. And yes, we must protect our children, but we must also allow them to be children. We want to lock them securely behind doors to keep strangers away, and then complain that we have an obesity problem because kids these days would rather sit inside and play computer games than run around with their friends outside.

My son is not fat by any means. I’m not saying that as an overprotective mother, he’s inherited my metabolism and seems to be able to eat an entire horse without gaining a pound. I was the same way when I was young. The last time I saw him was in July, for his birthday, and one of the things he wanted to do was go hiking, which I was more than happy to do, because I enjoy being outdoors and moving around. We went to a nearby hiking spot and settled on a fairly flat 4 mile loop. Since this is Arizona, in July, I made sure that he was wearing a hat, had coated himself thoroughly in sunscreen, and had a full bottle of water to drink. Less than a mile in, he was done. He was too tired to continue, so we turned around and went back to the car. I was able to get him interested in an art museum after that, but it was a bit of a disappointment that a mile of hiking was too much exercise for him when I remember riding my bicycle for miles at his age.

Of course, this enforced resting of my knee is driving me insane with the desire to exercise, to move around, to do something other than stretches and strengthening moves and wearing this constricting brace that pinches after too long. I want to pull a Henry David Thoreau and walk out into the woods and live a life of purpose. I want to have a little shack for just me and my cat, heating it with wood that I cut with my own axe, and with water pumped from my own well, and living from sunrise to sundown, with candles for light instead of harsh electricity. Maybe there are still places like that in the world. If so, does anyone know where they are, so they can point me in the right direction?

Of course, I’d miss my car, but I wouldn’t miss my car payments, or dealing with car insurance and maintenance (although, to be honest, I actually love working on cars). I wouldn’t miss the sirens from the local fire station or the helicopters flying overhead. I wouldn’t miss watching people wandering around with their concentration so fully on their cell phones that they don’t see the world around them. I realized this about 10 years ago when I noticed that when I’m taking photos, I try to make sure there are no people in them. I take pictures of things; flowers, trees, sunsets and sunrises, mountain ranges, falling down buildings, and so on, but I try to frame my shots to keep the people out. I guess, subliminally, I was separating out the things I think are beautiful by removing the people. Considering that I have worked in customer service for most of my adult life, I don’t really like people very much.

There are individual people that I like, but as a group, I don’t like humans. I don’t like what we’ve become, as we crowd ourselves into cities and try to seem more important than we are. I think that’s part of why I hate San Diego so much. It’s too big, and it’s too crowded, and everyone is so centered on whatever they’re doing, they don’t notice how they inconvenience everyone around them. I’m guilty of it myself, sometimes. I try not to, but sometimes the technology creeps in when I don’t want it to. There has been more than one dinner where my date spent more time fiddling with his phone than talking or interacting with me. I can understand if you have an important job and it’s a necessity, but just texting with friends or checking on your facebook page while on a date is selfish and rude.

My 39th birthday is coming up in a week and a half, and I’m taking some time off from work to unwind (and also to allow some contemplation of whatever my knee surgeon says), and I’m thinking that it will be a good time to unplug for a while and detach myself from the digital world. Maybe I’ll take my cat on a vacation somewhere with a few good books to read. By candlelight.

Another night of insomnia

24 Jan 2014 Leave a comment

by jes in Life, My health Tags: , , ,

I don’t remember how long it’s been since the first sleepless night. It seems to go in cycles; I’ll sleep wonderfully for a time, & then things flip over and I’ll spend the night tossing and turning instead.

I don’t think I do anything different from day to day, but maybe I’d I start journaling my activities again, I’ll see a pattern that can be corrected.

I know that cardinal rule #1 is that you never, ever take naps during the day when you have insomnia. The problem is, by the time you get home from errands or work, or whatever, that nap is all you can think about.

Maybe that’s another thing I need to make a list of. There are plenty of things I need to do, that I’ve been putting off. If I start tackling those projects instead of allowing myself to nap, maybe I’ll get better sleep at night. I do try to go to bed & wake up at the same time each day.

Does anyone else have any suggestions for things I might try? Prescription sleep aids don’t help me at all; I still wake repeatedly throughout the night. I don’t drink milk, so warm milk is out.

What is home? Where is home?

23 Jan 2014 3 Comments

by jes in Life, Travel Tags: , ,

There are a lot of quotes regarding what home is:

“Home is where the heart is” – Pliny the Elder

“Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in” – Robert Frost

“When you finally go back to your old home, you find that it wasn’t the old home you missed, but the childhood” – Sam Ewing

“Home is any four walls that enclose the right person” – Helen Rowland

People frequently ask me where I’m from, because I work in customer service and it’s a nice friendly question. Depending on the phrasing of the question, I will either respond with, “I was born and raised here in San Diego” or I might add on “…but I consider the Carolinas my home.” I am a firm believer in that just because you were born somewhere, that doesn’t make it “home.” I have never felt comfortable in California. I don’t fit in here (unless you count the crazy colored hair) either in ideology or in personality. I didn’t realize this until I moved away and then came back. I knew I was unhappy, but I didn’t realize how much I dislike this city until I returned. I don’t think it necessarily has anything specifically to do with San Diego, per se, but cities in general.

Some people love the hustle and bustle of high-speed city life, and others, like me, prefer the slower pace and open spaces that you can only find in small towns. I miss the friendliness that comes naturally to small town people. When there are only 2000 people in your town, you run into the same people over and over again, so it seems natural to be nice and polite to those people. True, in small towns, it’s hard to keep your private life completely private, but I’d rather that than to be invisible in a city of millions.

The older I get, the less social I become. I have no interest in going out and meeting new people just for the sake of going out and meeting new people. I’d rather stay home with my cat and a good book. Maybe I’m destined to be the stereotypical crazy cat lady. I’m okay with that. To me, home is a quiet place filled with books and at least a cat or two. I’m trying to save up to move out of this city that drives me crazier every day and back to a place where I feel like I fit in better. I feel like I was born in the wrong decade, in the wrong place. I don’t fit in my own life. As soon as my knee is “fixed” then I will seriously start planning on my move away from here, to get back home again.

May is “Mental Health Awareness Month”

21 Jan 2014 1 Comment

by jes in Depression, Life, My health Tags: , , , , , , , ,

I’ve never understood the reason for dedicating certain months to certain “causes” or “illnesses.” Shouldn’t we be a more vigilant and caring society where we are aware and understanding of others every day? I’ve gotten a lot of private messages from people lately who have lauded my openness regarding my mental issues. For many years, I was taught by action and word that depression is something that you have the choice to either have or not have. THIS IS NOT TRUE. True depression (not just sadness – everyone gets that occasionally) is an actual disease that is caused by an imbalance in your brain. Yes, trying to be cheerful may be of some help, but deep down inside, I know the depression is still there, and it’s fighting me to get back to the surface and cause more grief.

I am completely open and honest on this blog. I’m not out to change the world, but I do sincerely try to educate people on depression, and other anxiety disorders, because if no one talks about them, then no one thinks there’s a problem, and then no one works to find a cure or a solution. Burying your head in the sand is not going to help anything, except perhaps to give you a temporary reprieve.

Here are some facts about me, that may or may not come as a surprise to anyone with depression, as there are certainly “triggers” that can cause a mild problem to blow up into a huge, life-threatening situation.

In 1991, 19 days after my 16th birthday, I was raped. He was renting a room at my friend’s house, and I was spending the night over at her house when he attacked me sometime in the early hours of the morning. He told me that if I told anyone, he’d kill me. I believed him. At the time, I was living with my grandmother, and when I went home to her, I told her what happened. She took me to my pediatrician (whom I’ve always disliked, because he was very misogynistic and obsequious). He told me that it wasn’t rape because I knew the boy who did it, and I must have given him some indication that “I wanted it.” I believed him. He told me that I should never spread such lies around, because it could ruin the boy’s reputation. I believed him. I was just 16 years old. I didn’t know any better. There was no such thing as date rape back then.

Soon after that incident, I attempted suicide for the first time. I downed an entire bottle of Tylenol (because that’s what we had in the house) and chased it with a bottle of tequila. Bad combination, because it made me throw up and it obviously didn’t kill me. To this day, I cannot stand the smell of tequila.

That began my downward spiral into depression. You know you suck at life when you can’t even kill yourself properly. I started engaging in dangerous behaviors like driving fast (at that time, I think the fastest I ever went was 120, but cars just didn’t have the horsepower then that they do now) and shoplifting. Since I never got caught, I figured that my behavior wasn’t that bad.

In 1995, I got engaged (much too young) to a man who was several years older than me. We moved in together, preparatory to actually getting married. One day, I came home sick from work and found him in bed with a girl whom I thought was my best friend. Obviously, she wasn’t. I turned around and left and went to my mom’s house to sleep for a while. When I came home, he was gone, and so were his belongings, and I haven’t seen him since. I did eventually forgive her, and we did become friends again for an all-too-brief period of time before she passed away.

That was my first realization that I suck at relationships. I expect truth and honesty, and open communication if something is going wrong, and that just doesn’t happen – at least with the men I’ve dated. I’ve had a horrible history of dating “the wrong men.” I’ve dated men old enough to be my father, and 10 years younger than me, and everything in between. They all have the same thing in common: they are unable to commit. Somehow, subliminally, I always choose men that I know will not commit to me, because subliminally, I’m looking for someone like my father, who did not want to commit to me. I was the antithesis of a daddy’s girl. He would probably describe me more as daddy’s pain in the ass, entirely too much trouble to deal with, girl. When my parents separated, I was about 7* (yes, I know I’m jumping around) and for the first time in my life, my father chose me over my sister as the child he would list as his dependent on his taxes. I later figured out that it was because I was the younger child, and so he’d get the child tax break an extra two years than if he had chosen my sister. My father was always deserting me, either to spend time with my sister, or to go out on dates, or whatever he chose to do. When he wasn’t going out, he wanted to watch his TV shows and didn’t want to communicate with me at all. I don’t remember a single meaningful conversation with him that didn’t relate to cars in the first 13 years of my life. When he decided to marry his current wife, we all sat down together to have a “family meeting” and discuss the issues that we had, because our “family” was very warped by this time. One of the things I remember telling him was that I don’t ever remember him telling me that he loved me. He told my sister, and he told his wife to be, but he never said it to me. He said that I should just know, and it shouldn’t have to be said. Somehow, this is the type of man I kept finding and dating. Men who could not or would not love me, and would not commit to being even semi-permanent in my life.

Around this time, I attempted suicide for the second time. I tied a rope to the bar in my closet and tried to hang myself. I managed to suffocate myself to unconsciousness, but the rope broke, and I ended up falling back to the floor. Yeah, I have either really good luck or really bad luck.

After the fiance incident, I dated several other men who fit my profile. A couple of them were already married, some just had girlfriends, others weren’t looking for any kind of commitment, and then there were the abusers. Some were verbal abuse, and some knocked me around. One held a knife to me neck and told me he’d kill me just for the fun of it if I didn’t do exactly what he said. I tried going the Tylenol route again, but this time, I chased it with straight water instead of tequila. I ended up throwing up again instead of dying, and I’m sure I’ve done irreparable damage to my liver by now, even without heavy drinking.

By this time, the pediatrician that I hated had his practice taken over by a new, younger doctor who had more modern sensibilities and was open to listening to me. In 1998, I was diagnosed with Dysthymia, a chronic, low grade depression. I was prescribed an anti-depressant, and it worked for a while, and then a different one, and then a different one; each one working for a few months or a few years before I’d be back to suicidal again. By this time, I’d learned that trying to kill myself is obviously futile, so instead of actually attempting it, I’d just fantasize about it. I’d think of all the different ways I could do it, and what I’d need in order to accomplish it. I think if I had access  to a handgun at that point, I would have actually succeeded, finally.

After having my son, I suffered from Postpartum Depression, although I was unaware of it. My husband was not very good at helping me with anything. He didn’t clean, he didn’t cook, he very rarely took care of his son (and when he did, he called it babysitting, which pisses me off. You don’t BABYSIT your own child, you PARENT them.) And yet, he was constantly critical of everything I did. The house was never clean enough, I didn’t have dinner ready for him, etc. It didn’t matter that I was only getting 4-5 hours of sleep every 24 hour period. During my entire pregnancy and through the end of breastfeeding my son, I wasn’t allowed to take any of my anti-depressants, which didn’t help at all.

Skipping forward over several years and more of the same, I separated from my husband and he and our son moved to a different state, which made all of us happier. Around this time, I started getting really bad headaches. My doctor diagnosed them as migraines and put me on migraine medication. Just like with the anti-depressants, they’d work for a little while, and then the next time, they’d do absolutely nothing. It took 5 years to diagnose the reason for the severe headaches is a bone spur in my spine that’s slowly pinching off the nerves. Eventually, without my even trying, it’s going to likely kill me.

2012/2013 were terrible years for me. I once again got involved in a relationship that didn’t work out. Things seemed great in the beginning, even to the point where we moved in together. Unfortunately, it was the moving in that caused the undoing of our relationship. On the day we were scheduled to move, we ended up spending the entire day moving his belongings, and then had to return the rental truck. I ended up having to move my own belongings to the new place a few boxes at a time, whenever I had the ability, because he wouldn’t help. Then, I went up to Fresno for a friend’s wedding, and was coming home on New Year’s Eve. He knew I was coming home that day, and we had planned to go out and do “something” although that was never defined. I sped down from Fresno only to get a message from him when I was 20 minutes from home stating that he decided he was going to go hang out with his friends and he’d see me the next day. He pulled a similar stunt on my birthday  6 weeks later by refusing to ask for time off from work to spend any time with me. I didn’t even get a card or a “Happy birthday” from him. The closest I got was, “well, you knew that I close on Saturdays, so if you wanted me to be able to go, you should have planned on  Sunday instead (with him in full knowledge that I was starting a new job on Monday and didn’t want to go out partying the night before I started). After that, it all just fell apart. He decided he didn’t even want to sleep in the same room with me, so he took to sleeping on the couch in the living room. When it came time to move out, again, he moved all of his belongings and left me to take care of all my belongings by myself. I am pretty capable, so I did manage to move all of my stuff, a couple boxes at a time, to either storage  or to my mom’s house.

November came around, and for some reason, all of a sudden, the depression came back like a major slap in the face. I went back to see my doctor, and he said that I’ve now progressed to Major Depressive Disorder.

* I’ve actually blocked out most of what happened in my life for several years, and haven’t been able to get those memories back, because they are too painful for me to face, still. What’s the difference? With the Dysthymia, I was always just a little “bummed.” All of a sudden, I hit this wall where it took all of my energy just to get through a day without crying, and as soon as I got home from work I’d crawl into my bed and cry myself to sleep and stay there. Some nights I never got up at all, until I had to go to work. On my days off, I’d stay in bed all day, sleeping or reading, and trying to ignore the outside world. My doctor gave me a new prescription to see if it would help me, and it has. I still have days when I start crying for no reason, or don’t have the energy to get out of bed. I’d binge eat. Some days I wouldn’t eat anything at all, and other days I’d gorge myself until I felt I couldn’t move.

This is probably more information than you’ve ever wanted or needed to know about me, but this is who I am. I have depression. I have panic disorder. I have mental illness. Not just in the month of May. This is a battle I fight every single day. I know I’m not alone. I’m tired of the misconceptions surrounding depression. “Just be happy” is not an option. I am a generally happy person on the outside. You just can’t see the cracked container on the inside that I’m desperately trying to hold together. I have attempted suicide 4 times, and thought about it at least 400 other times. I’m no longer at the point where I want to kill myself, there are certainly plenty of times when I want to die. This is what depression looks like from my perspective.

Waiting is the hardest part

09 Jan 2014 Leave a comment

by jes in Knee surgery, Life, Tiggy Tags: , , ,

I had my MRI done on Monday, and was told that the doctor should have the results in by Wednesday or Thursday. Now, even if they haven’t had a chance to really look at them yet, I was hoping to at least hear that they were received. I called the surgeon’s office today around 4:30 (they close at 5, so I wanted to give them the most possible time) to ask if the results had been received yet. I was transferred to voicemail, so hopefully I’ll get a call back tomorrow to let me know what I’m doing next.

In other news, (mom and) I got pulled over as we were headed to the PetCo to do my volunteer time there. I know I have expired tags, because I’m still waiting on the new ones, although the car is obviously newly registered, since that was done when the car was purchased. So, I pull over and get out my license and proof of insurance. I don’t have a registration yet, because it hasn’t arrived yet. All I have is that silly thing they put in your window when  you buy the car. So, he asked me to please pull that out for him as well. Mom grabbed it and I handed it to him. He asked me what date I purchased the car and I said 11/11. He asked me what the dealership told me as far as getting new registration and I said 6-8 weeks. Hopefully it will be soon, since it’s been almost 2 months. He handed me back my registration form and took my license back to his car to run it, comes back a couple minutes later and hands me my license and tells me to have a good day. Personally, I don’t really object to being pulled over if I’m doing something wrong, but pulling me over for expired tags when you can see the temporary registration in the window is just pure time-wasting on the part of the cop.

So, we finally get to PetCo and set up the pens for the cats. Two of our other volunteers popped in for a while to submit an application for one of our kittens, plus Julie and me (we’re the regular Wednesday crew) and my mom and a trainee were all there. So, six volunteers, four of whom are experienced. I was transporting two of our newest kittens, who are extremely timid, into the exercise pen when one of them made a flying leap out of the box, over me, and out the open door of the pen. Kitten on the loose! She made a mad dash towards the front door, and thankfully changed directions to go to a different corner in the store. We spent a frantic 10 minutes or so searching every nook and cranny of the store to find her, which we eventually did. It was a really heart-stopping moment, because we’ve NEVER lost a cat before. Thankfully, that was the most excitement of the night, but it was definitely not my usual Wednesday, end of the week relaxation.

We’ve been crazy busy at work lately and so I’ve been doing as much overtime as I can and still have time for me. I figure no more than 4-6 hours a week won’t hurt me, and it won’t be every week, but the extra money will be nice for my birthday. So there you have it, an entire post with almost no complaining or whining. I think.

Three good things:

  1. I pulled the crinkly paper out of the box from an item I had ordered, and Tiggy has been having a blast playing with it and rolling around on it (much more so than the plush cat bed that I bought for him)
  2. I cleaned my room and put it back in order, which always makes me feel more balanced
  3. I had a desperate craving for Cheetos last night, so when I stopped for my morning coffee, I also grabbed a bag of Cheetos and ate some for lunch. They tasted fantastic.

Welcome to 2014

01 Jan 2014 Leave a comment

by jes in Life, My health Tags: , , ,

18 1/2 hours in, and honestly, it doesn’t feel any different from any previous year. I still don’t understand the big deal of celebrating a new year. Is there a point to it? If so, can someone please explain it to me? Shouldn’t we try to better ourselves all year round, not just the first couple weeks of January, before tapering off and sinking into our same old routines again?

Tomorrow, I will be calling the scheduler to find out when my MRI will be for my knee. I’m anxious to move forward, because I’m tired of dealing with the pain. I’m hoping they can fit me in rather soon, so that we can get this moving.

I did my volunteer work with the kitties today, and that made me think of my earlier “contemplate three good things every day” assignment that my psychologist had given me. Today, I came up with four.

  1. I spent 2 1/2 hours with homeless kitties, making them feel loved and less lonely. Especially Chloe, who seems to be a purebred Norwegian forest cat. I sat in with her for 40 minutes, and when I left to go buy food for Tiggy, she stood up and pressed her face to the bars until I came back again and sat with her some more.
  2. I made a padded bed for Tiggy to lay on. He’s taken to laying on one of the newly cleaned off shelves in my room, and I thought he’d like to have a little padding on top of the hard laminate shelving. So, I put some batting in a pillowcase and made him a squishy bed. He approves of my offering.
  3. I offered to let someone cut in line at the grocery store, because he only had one item and I had about 20. He graciously declined, but at least I offered.
  4. I bought myself a beautiful red-flowered plant for my desk at work to brighten things up a bit. I don’t know what it’s called, but it has clumps of little red flowers all over it, and it’s just the right size to sit on the shelf next to my desk.

It may not seem like anything special, but each one of those items made me feel good about myself, and that’s the most important thing. I forget to put myself first a lot. I always try to help others and I’m terrible at saying no to someone when they say they need help, so I’m trying to remember that I need to put my health and well-being first, and to only say yes if it’s not going to have a detrimental impact on myself.

I’m really looking forward to the day when I can start exercising again and try to get back into shape. I feel like a lazy bum when I park in the handicap spot close to the door and hobble inside, even though my doctor agrees that it’s a necessary evil right now. I’m doing what yoga poses I can that don’t impact my knee or my spine too badly, but I miss long walks. Hopefully by my birthday, that will be back on my list of three good things.

The choice is no longer mine

21 Dec 2013 1 Comment

by jes in Faith, Life, My health Tags: , , , ,

In my last post, I stated that I was concerned about what Monday would bring, in regards to the pain in my knee. As it turned out, I didn’t have to wait that long after all. My physical therapist was manipulating my patella on Wednesday, and I have over a 1/2″ of lateral movement in the kneecap. That means that it’s not tracking at all. It’s worse now than it was when I first injured it three and a half months ago. I’m in more pain, and all the strengthening exercises in the world aren’t going to help me now, because it would seem that I’ve torn or broken something inside. I’ll get a real answer on Monday, but it’s been a very emotionally draining week for me.

Of course, all the stress over the knee is aggravating my headache, so that has gotten worse over the past week as well. Some days, most days, I just don’t even want to get out of bed. Even with upping my antidepressants, I find myself crying regularly when I’m alone. I try to hide my emotions around other people, and maybe it works. Maybe it doesn’t. Shikata ga nai. I have no option at this point. My fate will be decided without my input. Whatever you’re doing, whether you know me or not, think of me on Monday afternoon and if you are so inclined, pray that it is not so damaged that I need to have the entire knee replaced before I even turn 40.

Thank you.

Waiting is the hardest part

17 Dec 2013 Leave a comment

by jes in Life, My health Tags: , ,

Monday I go back to the orthopedic doctor and he tells me what the next step will be to fixing my knee. When I last saw him, he told me that he expected me to be back at 100% with no pain by the 23rd. That hasn’t happened. On Tuesday, the 10th, as I was walking down the stairs at home, my knee made another really loud pop and it felt like the patella once again slid sideways. I’m back to where I started three and a half months ago, except much more seriously depressed over it. He mentioned that the next step would be an MRI and then we could discuss what the next step will be. I am seriously terrified of surgery. I’m too young for a knee replacement. I’m tired of being in pain. I’m tired of trying to be strong outwardly while I crumble silently inside.

I want someone to hug me and tell me that everything will be alright. I want someone to tell me it’s alright to be broken. I want someone who understands that my brokenness is what makes me unique and special, and not something to avoid or dismiss. I just want to be me, without all the pain and hurting all the time. The problem is, I don’t know who I’d be if I wasn’t in pain. Would I be a happier person? Would I actually have more than a few friends who stick by me through thick and thin and don’t vanish when I need them the most? Sometimes I think that people are friends with me because I make their lives seem wonderful in comparison.

I’ll be back on Monday evening to let y’all know how my appointment went, unless something earth shattering happens before then.

A request from a long-time customer service rep

13 Dec 2013 Leave a comment

by jes in Life Tags: , ,

I have worked in the customer service industry for over 20 years now. That includes both call center as well as face-to-face retail experience. The following rant is mostly due to the time of year, but it really applies year round for the most part.

I know that this time of year can be stressful for anyone. Maybe you’re concerned about finding the perfect gift, or maybe you’re worried about being able to afford any gifts at all. Maybe you’re not concerned about gifts at all, but you have some other something that’s weighing on your mind. We all have something. I would just like to ask you to please remember some basic manners that will hopefully make the season a little smoother for everyone.

  1. Remember that the person helping you is trying to help you. Berating, belittling, insulting, or abusing your customer service rep is more likely to earn you worse service, not better. That old saying about “”If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all” is absolutely true. “Please,” “thank you,” or “is it possible to…?” will get you better service every time.
  2. We work on holidays such as Easter Sunday, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Christmas, etc. so that you can shop or otherwise get help with some problem. Yes, we are getting paid, but being able to spend time with our own families has no price tag.
  3. If your request is not possible, ask nicely if there are any other options available. Getting angry and yelling is never going to help your case. See item 1.
  4. Some of us have different beliefs and don’t celebrate Christmas. It’s not sacrilegious, it’s just different from your beliefs. If you say “Merry Christmas” to me, I will probably reply with “Happy Holidays” because I am Buddhist and don’t celebrate Christmas. Please don’t lecture me about the fact that I don’t say “Merry Christmas” and lecture me about how I’m taking the Christ out of Christmas, or any other such lecture. I’m just choosing my belief system over yours. I’m not pushing mine on you, please respect that.
  5. If you see someone struggling, help them. If it’s someone loaded down with bags, take the extra moment to hold the door for them. It has nothing to do with chivalry; it’s just good manners.

Most of all, just be gracious. It’s easy to get caught up in the disappointment of not getting the newest, latest, greatest whatever. Some people here in the US (as well as millions in other countries) will not have anything to eat tonight, or no bed to sleep in. Be happy with what you’ve been given in life. It can always be worse.

 

Postscript – Thank you to all the servicemen and -women who are serving overseas who are separated from their families right now. Words cannot adequately express how much I appreciate your sacrifice.

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