ammogirl

You guys!  Guess what today is!  It’s my two-year Blogiversary!  I am truly amazed at myself for doing this for this long.  So yay me. And thank you for reading, of course.  I’d send you all presents but…I think getting your addresses would be some sort of privacy act thing or something so just…imagine something you really want, and pretend you get it, wrapped with a big bow and signed Love, ammogirl.

Okay.  The quest for normal has now officially begun.  I’m not sure how I feel about it yet, but apparently normal has about a three or four week brewing time, so.  One question I had for the doctor was about the fact that I was confused by all this, because I’m happy, you know?  So how do I suddenly have to take an anti-depressant?  She explained that while depression and anxiety share some of the same symptoms, they are different.  So me feeling fine has no impact on me feeling completely over-the-top anxious.  And then she gave me a great analogy that I think really helps explain the whole thing.  You know how you feel when you get up to speak in front of a group of people?  That heart-pounding, sweaty, twisty stomach feeling?  I feel like that all the time.  And it’s getting…oh my god…so much worse lately, and yeah, I think the stress of John being deployed is a factor in that but really, I think it was already getting bad enough that him being home wouldn’t have made a difference.

It had gotten to the point that if I had to go to the BX, but when I drove by there were too many cars in the parking lot, I’d have a panic attack and have to drive right by.  The BX!  On base!  That’s ridiculous, in case you weren’t aware.  Basically I had carved out my comfort zones, which were work and home, and if I never went anywhere else, I was perfectly happy.  Which, I mean, that’s not okay.

When it got to where I had started forgetting EVERYTHING and lost all ability to concentrate, that’s when it got bad.  I have to have control.  I have to be in control of what I am doing.  And I wasn’t.  Not at all.  I would be driving to work and just want to…stop.  Just stop my car right in the road and sit.  And then I would get to work and be so overwhelmed with everything…I don’t want anyone to know, right?  I don’t want people to treat me different.  It’s embarrassing to me–I’m ANXIOUS?  That’s stupid!  How can you explain that, you know?  I’m so anxious that it is affecting my entire life.  It just sounds silly–you know, stop worrying, then!  So I would fake being okay all day, smiling and laughing on the outside while in my head entire universes were going to war with each other, and I was responsible for everything, and everything was my fault.

That’s when I decided to do something about it, and I did, and guess what!  The doctor told me that the normal time frame for people with anxiety to come in for help is after ten years of dealing with it.  That was relieving to me, for some odd reason.

Anyway, that’s all I want–I don’t want to not be me, and I honestly don’t want to be normal, I just want to be able to go to the BX without hyperventilating.  The doctor says the cocktail of stuff she gave me will help me do that, and at this point all I can do is put my trust in her.  I’m also going to be doing some therapy which oh my god sounds so awful but it’s supposed to help me cope with anxiety without drugs which is ultimately what I want to be doing.

Wow!  That’s not a very chipper anniversary post!  Unless you read it and thought, ‘goddamn, I’m glad I’m not as weird as her’, and felt happier because you are not.

Tschuss!!

So.  Did you know that kids nowadays think that emailing is lame?  Yeah.  Instead they IM, and it’s pretty handy because I can interrupt their conversations instantly and just bug them until they are forced to answer.  Which is so much better than standing at their door and nagging, because I don’t have to expend any energy at all.  However, between that and the monitoring I do occasionally, I’ve had to quickly learn their version of cyberspeak (or whatever it’s called today, ‘cyberspeak’ sounds sort of outdated but that might just be me), and I find it amusing the girls and all their friends have this habit of dropping vowels, as in ’srsly’, yet repeating the last letter endlessly: srslyyyyyyyy.  I don’t know, kind of defeats the purpose if you ask me, but the thing is, it has insinuated itself into all the writing I do.  I am constantly having to go back and edit stuff, like work emails, and one day I just know I’ll send something out that goes like this:

ALCONNNNNNNNN

chk yr unsat rdosssss.  Srslyyyyyyyy.

thnk youuuu,

tsgt wllmssssssssssssssssssss

Just FYI - my own use of repeating letters is not the same thing–I place mine in the middle of the word, not the end.  Completely different.

Anyway.  I found myself panicking earlier because I couldn’t get to my website.  I would refresh and refresh and refresh and I kept getting an error message and I had no idea what to do because omg what if my site is down and John’s not here to fix OMG WHAT DO I DO????  I sent my seester an email demanding her to see if SHE could get to my site and then I obsessively refreshed THAT thinking, WHAT THE HELL, TONI, why aren’t you answering me back?  HURRY UP.  And then I was overwhelmed with this HUGE DESIRE to post, even though I didn’t actually have anything to say but SITE IS DOWN MUST POST NOW kept flashing through my brain and I did not know what to do.  I was like, googling myself and trying to access the site from my cache, which is so stupid, I can’t even laugh at it.  And I had tennis tonight, and I was literally watching the clock, not wanting to waste a single second trying to get the site up, like, sweat pouring off my forehead and this loud tick-tick-tick sounding from the clock and me, wide-eyed, frantically hitting the “try again” button, all “i have to post, i HAVE TO POST DAMNIT NOW NOW WORK NOW!”

Fortunately I had to leave just then because who KNOWS what I would have done.  Probably detonated.

Hey, so.  I have this anxiety thing going on, the doctor says, along with a panic thing and…some other things, and since the anxiety and the panic are affecting my physically, as in, panic attacks and not sleeping EVER, she (the doctor) is now on a mission to make me ‘normal’.  And, I don’t know if I want that.  Is that strange?  I don’t want to change…I don’t necessarily want the panic attacks and the other stuff, but still…I sort of like me.

Srslyyyyyyy.

Tschuss!!

Alright, it seems like a good evening to revisit Herr Barefoot’s 55 Topics. Today we’ll discover #35–I Couldn’t Live Without This Song.

So. First, let’s provide some background, shall we? If I had to compare my life to any film genre, I would definitely say ‘musical’ because–wait, before you guys laugh, hear me out–because every significant memory/turning point/ordinary event in my life is associated with a particular song. And I know most of you have to know what I mean by that. It’s pretty fabulous in this day and age to be able to pick exactly what songs I listen to, and while I do have a goodish selection of new discoveries, the majority of my music is old stuff, songs that mean something to me. Rarely do I like a song just because it’s snappy.

And lack of musical talent aside, I was getting my groove on at a pretty young age. Yup, I can remember hanging out in the playroom with the 8-track, playing Leader of The Pack over, and over, and over…I don’t remember how you rewound those things, but I do remember singing my heart out and how…grief-stricken I would become at the song’s end. I knew all the words to every Kiss song via my brothers’ music tastes, and my sisters introduced me to Elton John and Styx and Supertramp. I loved it all! I even loved my mom’s music (other than the opera, which…mom. MOM. Realllly?) and ‘Mrs Robinson’ and ‘Honey’ (Bobby Goldsboro–um…you know what, let’s tangent for a moment on this one)

Okay, tangeting. You guys. I don’t know how many of you have heard the song ‘Honey’ by Bobby Goldsboro, but I’m betting not many. However. I LOVED that song when I was small, LOVED. I would get so upset at this dramatic, heartfelt song, and the obvious love Bobby felt for his Honey. Every time the angels came, I would cry. And for years, that song held a soft spot in my heart. And then, one day when I was in Korea, my mom sent me a cd, and it was a Bobby Fucking Goldsboro Greatest Hits compilation. I took it to work and explained why I had it and decided to have everyone listen to the song, and when we did…holy crap. FUNNIEST SONG EVER. Because when you are not five, and you listen to the words, you discover that Bobby didn’t really love Honey, he hated her and mocked her stupidity! He kept her around for his devious fun! He treated her like a child! Don’t believe me? Go read the lyrics and see for yourself that in that relationship, Bobby was definitely THE MAN and Honey? Well, poor Honey was obviously…s-l-o-w. God. We laughed and laughed about that at work for days. And I’m pretty sure I actually told that story before but…this version is better!

Anyway! Enough of Bobby and his chauvinistic ways! Back to me! I love music! Almost all of it! I don’t care if it’s mainstream or indie or classic. I just want it to make me feel how I want to feel at the moment. And while I can’t pick out just one favorite song, I can tell you that there is one song on my iTunes that has been played exponentially more than the other songs, and that song is ‘Everlong‘ by the Foo Fighters. There’s so many things…Dave Grohl has an amazing voice anyway, but on that song, it’s magic. And, I don’t know. Just…the music? Everything about it? The melody ignites so many emotions in me–good and bad. I listen to it when I’m sad, when I’m happy, when I’m excited, when I’m angry, and it can fix everything.

I can remember, exactly, the first time I ever heard it. I was in Kuwait, and it was nine years ago, and I was sitting on a recumbent bike, sweating my ass off in the hotter-than-hell makeshift gym we had over there. It was between 4 and 5 in the morning, and I was one of less than five people in the room, and when the video came on I thought, wow. What is this song? Who is this band? They are FABULOUS! I MUST HAVE THIS NOW!

So, I listen to it at least once a day, sometimes over and over on the way to or from work, and when it comes on the radio at work (quite a bit, actually, yay AFN radio…sometimes) my co-workers always go, “Oh I looovee this song so muchhh” and turn it up and I always pretend they aren’t making fun of me and enjoy the happy interlude.

For real, though. Make sure you read the ‘Honey’ lyrics. How that shit got recorded I won’t ever know.  Also, if you don’t read them, how will you ever be able to answer the question posted in the title?

Tschuss!!