For my Amelie

Earlier today Amelie had the craziest like 30 minute long emotional meltdown that really tested my sanity. Over a Hello Kitty towel. By the end of it I was stress eating my second sleeve of the day of girl scout cookies and googling articles on child hood emotional disorders. Eventually I just hugged her and she magically stopped.

I really cant tell that she fits the profile for any emotional disorders, but watching her today it really hit me what a little firestorm that girl is. She is so intense sometimes. And determined. And she has such a hard time adjusting to all the injustices of the world, and sometimes just flat out refuses to accept them. She is just like me. And that scares the crap out of me.

There is this quote that basically outlines 3 types of people: those who learn by reading, those who learn by observing and then there are those who must pee on the electric fence. I myself have peed on many an electric fence. Its just who I am. And it is a horrible way to learn, but an arguably effective one.

You see, I really dont want to watch my daughter do all that. I want so bad to tell her everything I have learned so she can just skip it all. Things like:

1. Do not worry so much about if people like you or base your self esteem off the approval of others. Find approval within yourself. That is what actually matters.

2. Do not accept it when people treat you like shit. People treat you how you let them. Do not be afraid to walk away from shitty relationships, toxic friendships or jobs where there is no mutual respect between you and your superiors. You are worth more. Find that worth within yourself and set boundaries and when they are crossed get your shit and go. You will be better off for it.

3. Always buy shoes at the end of season clearance for the next year. You will save so much money.

4.If you are going to get a tattoo, take some time and make sure it actually means something. Do not walk into a tattoo parlor because you are bored and you just turned 18 and pick something out of the book because it looks kind of cool.

5.Thin mint girl scout cookies have like way less calories than the rest of them so you can eat twice as many.

6. Do not fear change. Sometimes there is so much pain that change is the only way out. Change is how you learn and grow and become who you are meant to be.

7. Realize that you are so important and that those sad thoughts in your head are not to be lingered on. You have a purpose and a role and even though we are so small we all have our part to play in life. We all matter.

8. Let the little shit go. Just let it go. Its not important.

9. Babies dont sleep much so make sure you dont care to do that for awhile when you have them.

10. Always be humble. Always. If you are not humble then life will put you in your place.

11. Be very kind to the people beneath you. You will need them to save your ass one day.

12. Most importantly, no matter what anyone says to you: You is kind. You is smart. You is important. 

And this is what I wish for my daughter to learn. So maybe she can be one of those who learn by reading?

On damage, dysfunction and courage

So I recently read one of the new Malcolm Gladwell books, it was called "David and Goliath: Underdogs, misfits and the art of battling giants."He addresses the concept of courage, and how although people tend to view courage as this inborn trait that some people just magically have, that its not really the case.
Here is what he had to say:

“Courage is not something that you already have that makes you brave when the tough times start. Courage is what you earn when you’ve been through the tough times and you discover they aren’t so tough after all.”

I dont know why this resonated so much with me, but it did. Let me just say that I dont feel very courageous right now. I have tolerated alot of dysfunction at times because change scares me. I have let myself be mistreated by others and engaged in people pleasing behaviors even though I knew it wasnt right. I havent always stood up for the stupid and crazy, and I feel like I should. Somebody needs to. Hell at times I am the stupid and crazy.

So if courage comes from going through tough times, shouldn't I be more courageous by now?I mean I know that I am only 30 years old, but I have at least 60 years worth of damage and dysfunction. I am broken beyond my years. No offense to my mom, who is probably one of the only people who will read this and whom I love dearly, but my childhood kind of sounds like a lifetime made for TV movie or something. Theres poverty, divorce, abuse, neglect, caregivers with mental illnesses, suicide, alcoholism, ect ect. By the time I was 12 I was broken and cynical and depressed and had no hope for the future. By the time I was 16 I had done what anyone with a childhood like mine was supposed to do and experimented with drugs/took bad risks like I had nothing to lose/ and just devalued myself all around because thats what everyone around me seemed to expect anyways. There was a turning point for me around that time and I worked very hard to transform my life because it started to occur to me that no one else was going to step up and do it for me. I dont think courage had much to do with it in retrospect, it was more the fact that it pissed me off so bad that everyone around me gave up on me so damn easy and none of them would have cared or been surprised if I had ended up making meth in a trailer park somewhere. I took that anger, and I worked very hard to try and succeed because I had so many jerk offs to prove wrong.

So now here I am, clawed my way to the middle class, married someone with a much more affluent upbringing than mine, had 2 beautiful babies, got some degrees, graduated in the top of my class a few times, got some awards and certifications, ect ect.And really I know that being a nurse practitioner is not everyone's idea of success, but  it was highly improbable that someone like me could ever do it.

But at the end of the day, I feel like I still have so much to learn and I am not adequate and I wish I had more courage. Theres a part of me that wonders if after all this I still am not courageous, will I ever be? I look at my kids and I want so much better for them. I dont want them to go through the things I went through. So I really want to learn how to be courageous. Its a work in progress.

I dont want to work. I just want to bang on the drums all day.

Sometimes work just feels really heavy. I have been an oncology NP for almost 3 years now, and I like to think I actually have a knowledge base and also some judgement that has developed slowly, painfully, and did I mention painfully, over time. I thought surely by now if I managed to make it to this point in my career that work would be so much easier. But no. I am finding out that it really doesnt matter if you know what the hell you are doing and why you are doing it and also that 50 oncologists agree its the right thing to do, you can still wind up knee deep in shit. You can still piss off other providers. Worst case scenarios play out and people die. Sometimes really nice people die. Like people who complimented your shoes and told you its not weird at all to own so many pairs.

Of course part of the problem is I ended up working in a specialty that deals in giving dying people poison.  When people are sick as crap and you give them poison bad things happen sometimes. And you have to make decisions. And even the littlest ones can have these big consequences and call your judgement into question. Some days I just feel like I am walking around in this giant minefield. And I go to get my toenails done and I start looking at the girl painting them and I feel really jealous of her. I bet she has never had to tell someone with small kids that lost her health insurance that the melanoma she got resected and thought was gone is not only back, but its all over her lungs and liver and its probably not survivable. I bet she didnt have to do a bone marrow biopsy on someone with bad pain control issues who was having a panic attack today and get kicked in the process. And I bet she has never had to argue with a pissed off neurosurgeon who is trying hard to find someone besides himself to blame for a bad and preventable post op bleed.

But the weird thing is, I actually love my job. It is heavy, but I think that I would tire of something light very quickly. I love the complexity, the intensity and the basic human connectedness. I love how the little things you do for people can mean so much when they are at such a bad point in their lives, and I love that what I do can actually make a positive difference to somebody. And I guess I would get pretty bored giving people pedicures. I dont know what will happen down the road, but I hope I have the chance to stick with oncology and continue to learn and grow. In the meantime I will just continue to come to work everyday and keep praying that I dont hurt people with the things I dont know and that maybe I can help people with the things I do.

Are you there God, it's me, Susannah. Yes, again.

So me and Stephen talked about it and after we hopefully get our house sold and settle into a new place we want to actually start attending church. Like voluntarily. It feels like a big step since I love being lazy and wearing yoga pants and reading trashy books on Sunday, and going to church would require getting up and like dressed and stuff, but I think I am ready.
My "personal relationship with God" has been complicated. Growing up for me was chaotic and unstable, and things were very hard for me at times. That combined with my tendency to question any sort of authority got us off on the wrong foot. I didn't speak to God for years and years. I also spent a lot of time being really angry with God about various injustices. If me and God were a couple back then, we would have spent a lot of time having really trashy fights where I threw beer in Gods face and then threw Gods clothes all over the lawn all the time. Kind of like an episode of Cops.
I didn't start talking to God until after I had my babies. I started talking to God slowly and it's just built and built over the last 4 years or so. And now I won't shut up. And maybe God is sick of hearing from me all the time now, I don't know. I guess I just decided that I don't want my kids to live in a world without an almighty force of balance, where being kind and brave is rewarded and worthwhile. I don't want my kids to grow up in a world without a God. It's too sad to think about. I never felt God in my heart growing up or as a younger adult, but it's the craziest thing that now I feel it all the time. It sounds cheesy and its hard to explain in a blog.
But anyways, I guess I need to find a church. I am not really sure how to go about that, but I guess I can just google it or something. I think I should also find like a really big hat with a bunch of flowers and feathers on it. I am pretty sure you have to wear one of those when you go to church.

If this whole NP thing doesnt work out, I would be a great extreme couponer

So these last few weeks have been hard and sad. I unexpectedly resigned from my job. The federal government decided they needed our savings account more than we did. And then Abby's dog died on Dance Moms and that dog was like her child and it was really hard watching Abby go through all that. But there have been some silver linings. I have had several people buy me drinks and nachos out of pity. Also for once I LOST weight from stress, instead of gaining it. My economic future may have been uncertain these last few weeks, but man I look good filling out job applications in my skinny jeans.

Its funny I have been saying I really just want some time to myself and to lose weight, well I have done both. I always thought if I just had time I would plant a garden, go do yoga and meditate, ect. And I would love to say thats what I have been doing, but actually mostly I have been eating Chick-Fila chicken biscuits and watching bad reality tv and kind of moping.But I have worn yoga pants at least so that should count for something. And yes I feel guilty eating the Chick-Fila because its kind of like eating gay hate but I am sorry those damn biscuits are delicious. So all you fabulous gay people out there will have to forgive me, I think if you guys will just boycott Burger King next time theres some real long term potential for me to stick to that with you. It occurred to me yesterday after I spent the morning watching a marathon of Extreme Couponing, followed by a marathon of Sister Wives, and then the afternoon with Mandy Lay watching reruns of Beverly Hills 90210, that I need to get back to work. Turns out when I have alot of free time I eat junk food and do not contribute to society at all. It also occurred to me that I probably have some great potential as a possible Extreme Couponer. Other people may feel confusion and wonder why those people need those crazy stockpiles of deodorant and toothpaste, but I feel jealousy mixed with longing. I need a basement so I can start my crazy stockpile and annoy the crap out of checkout people with my 600 coupons for one transaction.

I am in the middle of getting on at Mitchell Cancer Center and I am pretty excited. It wont be fully official until next week, but they said I should be able to start within the next 2 weeks.In all seriousness I am very grateful that I will be staying in Oncology. I actually kind of love it. Plus we all know I would be really bad at doing pap smears at the Health Dept. During the interview they spoke about how they value, respect and appreciate their NP's alot, so I am optimistic. If you want to know a secret I am willing to work very hard, long hours and put up with alot of crap if you just tell me you are glad I am doing it. But I know I have to value and respect myself before other people can so I am working on that. I sang that Whitney Houston song "The Greatest Love of all" at the top of my lungs in the car the other day, so I am off to a great start.

Another year, another diet thats going to change my life, or maybe just change the next few weeks

So I am getting ready to go to the store and buy food that I can eat on this whole foods cleanse, and I guess I have to stop talking about it and actually do it at some point. I thought I had finally eaten all the junk food in the house and not to mention drank all the wine which was alot of work.But I totally stuck with it. I may be on the brink of diabetes and alcoholism, but I will be damned if I am going to throw away M&Ms or reese's cups. That would be totally crazy. So yeah, I thought, finally there is nothing remotely exciting in the pantry so I can start fresh and clean next week.
And then Stephen decides to take himself "grocery shopping" and pick up a few things the other night. I opened up the cabinets and now there are like hostess donuts, nacho cheese doritos (family size), toaster strudels, ect, ect. Its like he basically spent 150$ filling up our cabinets with the most processed food that exists. Does he hate me, or did he just eat a pot brownie before he went shopping? I am really not sure. Although I suspect his thinking was more along the lines of how there is no way I am actually going to go without sugar, grains, dairy or wine for 30 days, so why pretend? And he may be right, but man I wish he would humor me every once in awhile.
So despite the fact that our house has more high fructose corn syrup and preservatives than the little Debbie cake factory in it right now, I will forge on and  plan to eat nothing but whole foods for 30 days starting tomorrow. Although I am interested to see how it may benefit my health, mainly it is getting on my nerves that no one seems to think I can do it and frankly thats the main reason I want to do it at this point. Also I have forgotten what it looks like when your gut doesnt hang out over the top of your jeans. Wish me luck!!

Thankful

Thanksgiving is such a weird holiday. Its like lets celebrate Europeans annihilating Native American culture by buying unreasonable amounts of food and then eating until we almost barf. Also lets post everyday for the whole month generic things we are thankful for on facebook while we are at it. Lets get together with our dysfunctional families and watch football. Or maybe your family is really functional- I dont know. And I am not saying I dont like Thanksgiving, I mean I like eating absurd amounts of food until I hate myself and posting stuff all over facebook as much as the next guy. Maybe more. In fact I am pretty sure there will be a picture of my kids posted on facebook doing something really adorable in Thanksgiving outfits that day, do not despair. My husband got called off work, so I decided to make a list of generic things I am thankful for:

1. I am really thankful that my husband got called off work and took over the bathing of the screaming angry toddlers because I was starting to question my ability to maintain my sanity.
2. Yoga pants.
3. Those little Krackle chocolate bars.
4. 30 rock reruns on Netflix.
5. That somehow I function in society and maintain gainful employment. And that I get to wear whatever shoes I want to work everyday.
6. That I am not pregnant.
7. That my babies are so freaking adorable.
8. Ben N Jerry's chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.
9. My husband thinks I am cute.
10. My dog thinks I am pretty much the coolest person who ever lived.
11. That I have 5 whole followers that read my blog and care what I have to say (thanks Grandma)
12. That my pant size is currently in the single digits.
13. Shirts that hide muffin tops.
14. Red red wine
15. That I know all the words to Beck's Loser.
16. That my kids sleep at night sometimes.
17. That no one in my house has thrown up for at least a month
18. Central heat and air
19. that owls are trendy now
20. that I actually have family and friends who can stand to be around me

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone:)