You're a little bit of a chicken

"You're a little bit of a chicken."

Those are the words that pierced my heart and just about struck me dead a few days ago. They were spoken to me by my husband, the one who knows me best. OUCH.

On top of that, I knew he was right. Even as I type this my eyes get hot with tears as I muster up the humility and courage to say it out loud. This is truly something of a disturbance to me.

You see, I NEVER used to be a chicken. I was the kid who climbed to the very top branch of the tree at a shockingly young age, totally unphased by the small people yelling at the bottom telling me to come down. I used to be the kid who rode the front seat of the rollercoaster with my hands up the whole time and didn't even blink. The last time I rode a rollercoaster I was 24 and I cried when I got off. :( I was ACTUALLY frightened. What the heck happened to me??

The other thing that hurt when he said it is... I know what "happened" to me. I know it sounds stupid or insignificant, but once he said it I knew: the shooting. I can't explain it. I can't make it make sense to myself. But that event in my life jacked me up good, and I cannot seem to shake it. I live with a fear I didn't have before. I live with a hefty lack of trust in people, strangers really. I know I wasn't the one who was shot, so to have this kind of fear is irrational, I'm sure. (which is why I previously said I can't make sense of it). All I know is that it changed the way I view things. I no longer feel invincible. I don't like the feeling of free-falling. I don't like heights. I don't like being in public places that I couldn't easily get out of. I used to want to go skydiving. Ha. You bet your ass that's out the window (pun intended??). That just sounds utterly terrifying to me now and I'm almost 100% sure I would turn into a babbling idiot before leaving the runway. I don't like running outside with my ipod on full-blast. I don't even like flying anymore, period. Sadly, the list goes on. . .

My sadness in this situation does not come from the fact that now I'm not much of a rollercoaster girl or that I can't enjoy an invigorating run outside without my mase poised and ready. My sadness comes from knowing that something's been taken away. . . my freedom. The fear has me by the balls, and it pisses me off.

WELL I WANT IT BACK.

First step: frickin' get out there! I suggested to Freddie that we do something "adventurous" during our vacation. Although skydiving came up, I avoided it like a little pansy and we settled on bungee jumping. Baby steps, I thought. . . baby steps. :/

So I guess we'll see how it goes. I don't want to live afraid. I want to let go. I kinda want to lose some inhibitions. Wait. Let me rephrase that. I REALLY WANT TO LOSE SOME INHIBITIONS. Any suggestions? Let's make 'em legal, people. Remember baby steps.

That's me for now.

peace and love,

melody

p.s.

I love you, whoever is reading this. I love you because He does. Don't let that knowledge escape you for even a moment.

<3

it's been too long, blog, too long. sorry for the absence.

it's 4:58 am right now, I've been up for 1 hour. insomnia is really frustrating!!! i'm really praying i can get a job that's on a daytime schedule so that I can sleep for longer than 4-5 hours without pharmacological assistance (i.e. benadryl/melatonin cocktail).

that sort of introduces this post. to make a long story short, I've been on a night schedule for 5-6 months now ever since I switched units at work back in February. It was really rough at first but then I sort of got used to it and I was learning a lot, I was challenged but not overwhelmed, and I decided to stick to night shift even though I had the opportunity to go to days. That's basically when everything went downhill...

Work has been especially difficult due to some serious budget cuts. We're overworked x1000. If we can't perform the list of duties expected before it's time to clock out, we get written up. By the way, this list is extensive and we have minimal help. It's pretty much a miserable place to be.

This has all been really hard to deal with. Lately I've questioned whether nursing was right for me, I've questioned whether it's right for Freddie. It has kind of shaken everything we've been working so hard for over the last 6-7 years! Plus, the sleep deprivation is really, really catching up to me. I've been really down on myself because I feel like a bum when I sleep all day. The sleep I get is never enough, it's interrupted and unnatural, and most days I wake up groggy and I never feel rested. The first few months were okay, but I'm suffering the consequences now...

My house is a mess and it's super frustrating. I can never seem to stay ahead of the laundry, the furry stuff growing in all our toilets, the carpet that desperately needs contact with a Jason Bourne-style vacuum cleaner. I'm disorganized and I have no real routine or schedule. And don't even get me started on what it's done to my, er, libido. (sorry if you're reading this, dad).

For a while there I was running 4 or 5 times a week because I'v decided to run the half marathon in December. It was definitely helping but soon this caught up with me, too. I learned that running on days that I work resulted in a sore throat and body aches by the end of my work week, which meant I had to take a few days off of working out all together to avoid illness. It was just too much exertion without enough rest. I spend a lot of effort trying to read my body cues and allowing myself, giving myself permission to sleep if I need to sleep. Freddie gets mad at me because he says I'm too hard on myself when I'm frustrated for "sleeping the day away". It sucks, though. When you feel like the life is sucked out of you for 3 days you want to steal it back by having fun, by having a life when you're off, not by sleeping until noon. :(

Anyway, this is something I'm working on finding a solution to. I know God knows of my unhappiness. I know He knows our financial needs. I know He will take care of me.