On Christmas Day, mom handed me a letter from the mother of my best girlhood friend who'd moved to California after graduating from HS & vanished into mystery after that. I was so excited and happy for about 30 seconds, until the content of what I was reading finally seeped its way into my head, it took re-reading a few times because the words strung together on the page were not making sense to me, and then all of that happy excitement turned into ash. It took a few days for me to be able to write this, posted on FB a week or so afterward:

"I'd lost contact with my friend C. a few years out of high school--her family moved and we fell out of touch. Despite that, she was one of a few people who were my really close friends throughout the social crucible of Jr High and High School, and her family were like my second family, extending me a huge amount of kindness and a safe space through some difficult times, even though I was about as clueless and needy as a person can be & it was surely hugely annoying to have me over all the time. She was beautiful, funny, generous and brilliant, and it's been my hope through the years that one day our paths would cross again, she'd show up at a reunion or on stupid Facebook or one or the other of us would track down an email address, though my occasional attempts at Google stalking never turned up much information on where she was or what she might be doing. It seemed that that if she wanted to turn up she would, and one day we would be able to reconnect and hopefully pick up our friendship where it left off those years ago. Unfortunately it seems those threads were never meant to be rewoven. My kindhearted, loyal friend passed away this last October after a long illness--her mother tracked down my mother's address, and let us know in the saddest Christmas card I ever hope to read. It is hard news to accept, it does not seem quite real that this friend who was so much like a sister, who I'd imagined meeting again about a million times over the years could have possibly been so sick or have just slipped away. So somewhere in my broken heart we will always be hanging out in her room and listening to this song on LP or driving out to the lake in the summertime with the windows down and radio way up, drinking lime soda and laughing over nothing."

It took close to a month for me to finally collect myself and write back to Christy's mom, and a while for her to get an email back to me, she's been sick & all of this incredibly overwhelming. I can say here what I can't on FB, that although my parents are gifted, generous & loving people we did not have an easy time with each other while I was growing up, despite that love and generosity during those years there was a lot of anger & yelling, not much guidance or helpful structure, and Christy's family was a badly needed port in the storm. They took me in on some occasions for a couple of weeks at a time and always offered love and stability. There were more details in yesterday's email--Christy had done a lot of work with homeless & drug addicted populations, it was this contact that exposed her to TB and probably opened the door to the horrible medical condition that ended up killing her very slowly, causing excruciating pain and making her go blind before all of her organs shut down at the end. Not sure what to do with this, the knowledge that my lost & beloved friend has not only passed away, but died badly, not wanting her old friends to know about her sickness, and that it was brought about *because* she was a good person who wanted to help those who needed it the most. My brain shorts out and my heart can't handle this knowledge. It is paralyzing.

Thanks, LJ world, for giving me a space to speak this out.

Gearing up for my last-ditch effort to get into nursing school by raising my C grade in Algebra--I'm hopeful, not only am I highly motivated to really do my best but I already KNOW that passing this class is possible. If the worst happens and I still do not get in this year....well, the next step is probably reevaluating my options in some other programs. Maybe. Or maybe yet again chip away by retaking even more B classes to get A grades. From what the Nursing adviser said over the phone, however, this math grade has been my biggest stumbling block & raising it would significantly improve my chances. Lots of friends have piped up to volunteer tutoring services & this time around I'm taking it in an actual classroom with a real instructor and a textbook--last time it was grainy quicktime videos that could not easily be paused or backtracked to replay anything without restarting the whole thing from the beginning & no textbook whatsoever. Circumstances will be much more in my favor now.

Whenever anybody says anything about it "just" being community college it is hard to keep my eyes from rolling right out of my head, this has been the hardest academic uphill battle of my entire life.

In other life news, Leo had his 2nd birthday last Thursday! It's hard to get my head around how quickly he is developing...I think some of the untreated medical stuff had really slowed him down, we seemed to get a much longer period of babyhood than most other parents of little people we know, but things are pretty much under control now & over the past 6 months he has just zoomed ahead, we now have a completely typical 2 year old who wants to do everything himself, loves to dance & jump & run around everywhere, and who picks up new words every day. Some of the most recent ones (courtesy of an awesome space shuttle & docking platform toy from Auntie Sarah) include: spaceman, helmet, blastoff, rocket ship. He knows his colors, can identify a couple specific plants, birds & bugs, helps me water the plants around the house & garden and likes to help sweep with the child-size push broom we bought him for his birthday. He still gets his calories from these banana puree/heavy cream/whole milk/flax oil/instant breakfast "milkshakes" and does not eat much in the way of solid foods, but in the past few days he's had some blueberries, 1/2 a grape, 2 cherry tomatoes, spaghetti noodles and a pinto bean, all of which would normally trigger him freaking out or throwing up. This oral aversion stuff is no joke & I don't want to get my hopes up too high, but can't help hoping that maybe we could be turning a corner here. At any rate, the banana shakes are doing their job, he's back on the growth chart at 6% and has gained two pounds since the last time the doctor saw him.

The main part of the garden is winding down--altogether we probably grew at *least* 20 lbs of sweet onions this year (just pulled out 16 lbs, but have eaten and given away a whole lot already), bagfuls of red & fingerling potatoes, lots of spinach, summer squash, some winter squashes, snap beans, salad greens, beets, sweet corn, cauliflower & broccoli. Still going strong as fall & winter crops we have bok choy, daikon radish (well..more bolting than going strong, going to replant here soon, that heatwave we had a couple weeks ago freaked them out), mizuna, chard, rapini, napa cabbage, bunching onions, little Japanese turnips, carrots & a Provencal salad mix. Lots of Asian veggies, many of them are quick growing and well suited for fall and spring. Hoping to use a lot of this stuff in the lovely donabe pots I got for my birthday this year--when our friends made nabe for us early this Spring, Leo was fascinated and actually nibbled some of the veggies & udon noodles, so we are hoping that his interest will be piqued not only by the preparation but also by these being "his" vegetables.

Hello LJ! Having a decent enough summer here so far. Figured out how to make tamogoyaki in a round frying pan, doing a lot of gardening, read a couple of books for the first time in a LONG time, forcing myself out on little adventures here and there with the kiddo to keep from fretting myself into another deep dark hole. We've had the pickup truck this past week instead of my Honda, and that has kept us closer to home. It's huge & terrifying to park and uses a lot of gas, so pickup weeks tend to be lower in adventure and higher in anxiety, but at least we can hang out on the back porch when my nerve fails, as it tends to pretty easily.

Waiting to hear back about Leo's SSI application--Ty might make too much for us to qualify, but it seems like every single week we get some new medical bill or other for him, $150 here, $50 there...not to mention all of the copays for his therapists, GI doc, etc. etc. He's doing OK in that he's healthy and his typical super happy little self, getting much stronger and more coordinated and chattering my ear off. Where we aren't so OK is still where eating & barfing is concerned--we went out for sushi the other day, and he was rocking his miso soup with tofu and eating a lot of his dad's ramen noodles, but then threw up all over himself. There's a new feeding therapist coming into the picture, we are hoping that she can help us get back to where we were a few months ago from where we are now, where typically the only things we can get him to eat & keep down are crispy puff things and graham crackers.

So anyway. Keeping myself busy today with a baking project, making dinner which I'll probably eat alone as Ty is going to be working late again, going to a baby swimming lesson, and maybe taking a trip out to the Portland Nursery for some broccoli starts, if I can overcome my truck fear.

Ups & downs lately, but no more of the crushing unremitting feeling of hopelessness that was the hallmark of this last winter. More like a crushing, intermittent feeling of hopelessness. ;) Starting to rebuild some semblance of a life--not having a job, classes, band to play in or any other outside Thing to Do has been disastrous to my sense of confidence & purpose, but even if it is only tending our little community garden plot the warmer weather promises a change in emotional season as well.

With the return of Spring comes Spring cleaning, and along with the need to clean our messy place there is some mental & emotional housekeeping I badly need to do. It may be shallow of me, but it is simply a fact that my little boat of happiness is easily upset by other people's negativity, so--gonna hide some people on FB, going to try to better recognize & let go any negative, intrusive thoughts about other people, and in general just attempt to refocus on my own goals & let everybody else's crap go. If someone else can only think of reasons why the world is stacked against them it isn't something that I can change for them, it is only an outlook that I can choose to reject for myself. Anyway. Retaking some classes this summer and fall to buff up my GPA, which is pretty high but not high enough to pass muster. This might ordinarily be frustrating and embarrassing, but seriously at this point having something to dedicate all this excess attention to is nothing but a good thing.

Leo is so funny & awesome, just the sweetest & happiest little boy ever. We are still picking away at the many layers of issues around eating & keeping things down--I feel like the internal portion is being pretty well taken care of with his current meds, and we've made great progress with his willingness to tolerate being around food and put it in or at least around his mouth, but something seems to go awry when he tries to actually swallow nearly anything that isn't a thick liquid like his banana smoothies or a crunchy grain like cheerios. He's busy and bright and active, finally walking and gaining weight, and it feels like things are on the upswing.

It's nice to feel a renewed sense of control over my own happiness.

Not going to really plan on going out anymore, where "going out" means venturing into bars. It makes me into an clingy, anxious weirdo and drinking anything more than a glass of wine with dinner makes me depressed for at least a couple of days afterward. In my previous life it was fun, but now it's plainly not worth it. I kind of want to move to someplace like Alaska where my various social deficiencies have not already caused me a lot of embarrassment, as ridiculous as that thought is.

This has been a really quiet year but a really momentous one for me, there is a lot to reflect upon. I hope all of you had a good holiday season & wish you the best moving forward into 2011, let's hope that this upcoming year is a happier & more peaceful one for many of you.

ETA: Also, passed my CNA exam. We hope that this means my nursing school applications are more acceptable this time around, but if not, it means a year of working and another try next year.

On a happier note, the CNA class is finally over, life can once again return to normal! I have a lot of running around to do tomorrow and it will cost us close to another $200 for all of the fees to get all of the paperwork turned in, then there is a three week wait until I can take the state test, but the toughest part is over with. Some days it seemed like it would never end, so having it all wrapped up is an enormous relief.

When something really annoys me but I try not to be annoyed, it ends up creating this obsessive annoyance-spiral where whatever the issue is becomes this mental itchy spot that is impossible to leave alone. It's better to just accept being irritated without fighting against it. Right now I'm annoyed at a friend's baby shower being held in a bar where no babies are allowed. Considering that a large portion of the guest list are parents of young children, requiring all of them to either find & pay for a sitter or just not go seems sorta lame. It's not like a bachelorette party, baby showers seem more like definitionally family-friendly events, and it's not like my pregnant friend will be drinking, ergo I am vexed. Thank you all for listening.