Holiday Blues and Then Some

This is my last night of my holiday vacation. Tomorrow I'm on a plane back to Alabama. It was a bittersweet trip. I love visiting my mom and seeing my cousins, but it felt like a big part of me was missing without my man and the little one here with me. This was the first Christmas we weren't together since we started dating. This was also the first time since I was born that we didn't read The Night Before Christmas. It almost felt like Christmas never really happened... Grandma's house felt so... empty compared to years past. But enough moping!

Good things from this trip:
I finally got to see my cousins' house that they bought like 2 years ago
Watched my Alma mater trounce UofM in hockey at the Joe!! Go Huskies!
Gave my mom her most favorite present ever (with my bro)
Had plenty of time to relax
Got my fifth tattoo (best. Present. EVAR!) (picture below)
Went to the LEGO Architecture exhibit at the Henry Ford Museum
Saw The Hobbit in IMAX 3D
Tormented my brother's cat
Played video games with my man from three time zones away
Made (and ate) delicious, healthy noms from my new super awesome cookbook
Got a new Red Wings hoodie and Tech jersey and Seahawks polo :)
Walked in the snow!
Actually LOST weight and got my first 5 Pounds star at WW :D

Things to look forward to:
I get my braces off in less than two weeks!!!
My man is coming to visit for our 5 year anniversary in 19 days!!!
A bunch more hockey games in the next few weeks :)
A trip to Miami in March for an awesome seminar

Now it's time for bed.

Second, Mini Rant

I forgot to add that last week I *finally* got in to see my new doctor. She's really nice and friendly, so that's good. She gave me a new Rx for physical therapy and refilled all my prescriptions without making me go to a psychiatrist. Then yesterday I get a call from my insurance saying that all of my long-term prescriptions must be transfered to mail order or I will have to pay full price for them. This is me screaming and ripping out my hair. Why couldn't they have told me that when I changed insurance? Or at least BEFORE I got all my prescriptions refilled at the pharmacy?! Of course I'm still going to have to go to the doc/pharmacy once a month to get the one refilled anyway. *sigh* why can't my life be simple for once?! ARGH

[rant]

CAUTION: FOUL LANGUAGE AHEAD!

So, after paying UPS extra to deliver my TV on a specific day (i.e. the day I'm not at work 'cause apparently they don't deliver on Saturdays here) and them not actually delivering it, I arranged for my coworker's wife/neighbor to receive it for me today. I was excited to get home to a lovely TV box waiting for me.

Then I thought to myself "Kaylyn, you're supposed to swim today. But I want to play with my new TV! You can play with your new TV after you swim. *pout*" and off I went to the pool.

Now, I live maybe 2 miles down the main street from the rec center where I swim. It usually takes me maybe 10 minutes tops from the time I lock my apartment to the time I'm getting in the pool. Today traffic was heavier, which is to say there actually was some. When I passed the middle school (which is where the high school football stadium is, on the other side of town from the high school, don't ask) I saw cop cars which made me look and I noticed what looked like a parade forming up in the stadium parking lot.

At this point I thought to myself "What on Earth?! Are they seriously having a parade?? I sure hope it's over by the time I get done with my swim!" and I continued on to the rec center.

I was surprised to find the locker room empty, usually it's full of giggling middle school girls getting out of swim class, so I was pleased not to have to dodge them. I got in the pool and started my swim. My goal was to do three laps of freestyle, rest, three laps of breast stroke, rest, then three laps of backstroke. I actually felt quite good after my first three laps that I only stopped long enough to take my rings off (which I had forgotten to leave at home) before I continued on to the rest of my laps. I didn't even feel the need to take my second rest. I briefly thought about swimming a couple extra laps, but I wanted to get home to play with my TV. I should have swam longer.

When I got out of the pool I went over to the lifeguard to ask what chemicals they used in the pool. It didn't taste like salt, but it didn't smack you in the face with CHLORINE when you walked in the door either. Apparently it's been a long time since I've been in a public pool 'cause she said it was chlorine. Then this old creepy dude started talking to me. And talking. And talking. And talking. Meanwhile I'm standing in my bathing suit, fat hanging out everywhere, dripping wet, trying to get out of the conversation gracefully. Finally I cut him off and said "I really need to get going!" and he asked "Did you swim?" Um, yeah, that's why I'm all WET dude!

I rinsed off, pulled my sweats back on, wrapped my hair in a towel and headed out. I was thinking I could take one of the back roads that the rec center backs up to and try to avoid part of the parade route. I thought wrong.

As I headed towards the main road where the road I was on ended, I saw that the parade was not only not done with, it hadn't even started! There were cops at the intersection and they waved me to turn the WRONG way from how I needed to get home. I thought "ok, I'll just go to the next intersection and go up a block and then go back towards my apartment. Yeah, that didn't work either.

So now I'm driving down the main street, at night, with people wandering all over the fucking place, not paying a damn bit of attention to ANYTHING around them. Not only that, I'm the only fucking car on the road at this point so the ones not in the middle of the road are staring at me like I'm a crazy person. The kids are looking at me like they expect me to throw out candy. And joy upon joys, all the fucking side roads are blocked off! And the goddamn police keep happily waving me farther from my fucking apartment!

Now it's dark, I'm wet and getting cold, trying to dodge the goddamnfucking morons walking down the middle of the street in dark clothes not paying any attention, and I can't figure out how to get off the parade route. At this point I was a little bit irritated to say the least. So I started to swear at anything and everything. Loudly. Until people started looking at me, and I realized my windows were open. Awesome.

I finally got to down town, almost a mile in the wrong direction, and the parade route turned down another street 'cause the main street dead-ends at a one-way street going the other way (who the fuck thought that one up?!). Yet again there were more lovely helpful police officers shining their flashlights in my face in an attempt to direct me who knows where. So I turn down the next street and keep going past the several one-way streets, through this weird little zig-zag, until I get to an officer that isn't quite so vigorously waving me down yet another side street.

I pulled up slowly, rolled my window down and asked "How do I get back to [my side of town]?" He looked at me confused for a moment "Um, [your side of town]?" "Yeah, on the other side of the highway, you know?" "Oh, um, I think your best bet is to go down to [next street] take a right and follow that down to Piggly Wiggly where you can get back on [main street] past the start of the parade." "Ok, thanks!" The whole time we're having this exchange he was looking at me weird and I couldn't figure out why. As I pulled away I remembered that I was sitting in my swim suit with wet sweats over it and my hair in a freaking towel turban  Now I'm sure everybody's going to be talking about the crazy lady driving through the middle of the parade with a turban on her head. Awesome.

Normally it takes me maybe 20 minutes to go from the pool to my apartment. Today it took nearly 45 minutes. And then I couldn't find my HDMI cords, then my computer wouldn't see the TV, then the resolution on the TV wouldn't behave (still isn't)... ARGH!

In closing: WHO THE HELL HAS A FUCKING SCHOOL PARADE ON A FUCKING MONDAY NIGHT AND CLOSES THE WHOLE GODDAMN MAIN STREET?!!!!

[/rant]

Update

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've been struggling with depression and not feeling like doing anything. My days consisted of doing nothing at work, while feeling guilty for doing nothing and frustrated at not having anything to do, then coming home and staring at my computer dejectedly until it was time for bed. Things were starting to look up just before Thanksgiving. I was finally qualified to do the job I was hired for over two months before, and I would get to see my man for a whole week. I was also excited to see my family, some of which I hadn't seen in over seven years.

At first things were great, staying up late with my cousins reminiscing. Playing games and just hanging out. Not sleeping alone. We went on a hike, longer than I really wanted to do, but still pretty nice. And I was playing with my new camera all the while.

Then it started to go down hill, just a little at first so I tried to brush it off. People kept bringing up random things I said or did like 10 years ago and using it to tease me more. I was frustrated, isn't there a statute of limitations on that stuff?? I mostly ignored it, but it bugged me. Later, things went farther downhill when I was trying to arrange pictures for everybody and nobody wanted to listen to me.

I wanted to get up early the next day to make sure we could get going early and have enough time to stop for a nice breakfast before dropping my man and the little one off at the airport. But the kids kept me up past 1am, and then I tossed and turned the rest of the night. To top it off my alarm didn't go off at 5 like it was supposed to, I woke a little after 7 when I wanted to leave at 8. So I leaped out of bed rushing to get everything packed and ready. Anybody who knows me knows I am not a morning person, especially when I get less sleep than usual and I HATE being late on top of everything. Normally my man knows how to deal with me in these situations (mostly just leave me alone) but he was stressed too so he antagonized me. And then shit really hit the fan. It devolved into screaming and cursing, even, I'm embarrassed to say, punching and kicking.

To make a long ugly story short, the fight ended with me wandering into the woods with no shoes or coat, and my Uncle taking my man and the little one to the airport while I was trying my best to get very lost. Incidentally my sense of direction is too good and it's near impossible for me to actually get lost. After a couple hours I ended up back at the driveway to the cabin, my man already long gone. My family tread on eggshells around me the rest of the day, which was embarrassing too. I ended up staying one more night and leaving the next morning. I felt empty and ached all over, like a pumpkin that's been hollowed out for Halloween.

We're both recovering and looking for ways to make sure this doesn't happen again. I still feel rough and like there's a hole somewhere inside me that I don't know how to fill. I'm flying to visit my mom for Christmas. My office is closed the whole week of Christmas, otherwise I'd probably stay here. Unfortunately my man has to work that week so I won't get to see him. He's coming to visit for our five-year anniversary in January though. Only 47 days and 23 hours. I have a trip to visit somebody almost every month through May now. I'm focusing on taking it one day at a time, looking forward to the next trip. I've also started swimming again, so I have that to work on too. Next week I'm going to my first Weight Watcher's meeting. And I might try learning how to shoot. I wish it hadn't taken such a horrible experience to set us straight, but sometimes that's what is needed.

That ended up being way longer than I intended... Well I'd probably best get to the store as I haven't bought groceries in over two weeks and my apartment is a disaster.