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Briannah

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Blog Entries posted by Briannah

  1. Briannah
    Seriously, I'm getting next to nothing done.  *headdesk*  I need a cleaning buddy or something.  I just have zero motivation this week, even showering was a massive endeaver.  And, of course, I had a clumsy moment and forgot the dimensions of the shower when I dropped the soap and cracked my head but good on the wall.  The lovely headache I had for half the day so DID not help.  I honestly think I'm having some kind of episode, anxiety maybe?  I just have this...constant feeling of vulnerability and fear.  Everything is starting me this week.  Has anyone here had experience with anxiety attacks?  I've never had one without clear and understandable provocation (like in the aftermath of the robbery).   Is this that?  How long can it last?  A week?  A month?  Meh.  I just feel WEIRD. 
    I need to at least figure out motivation.  I have a million things I want to do and just...haven't.  Today is just about over, can't fix today, will fight this tomorrow.  Good night all. 
  2. Briannah

    Nikki did it

    By Briannah,

    He took our conversation seriously and rallied round when the guild teasing turned to me.  I'm so sick I just wanna hide and he was all nope we're leaving Bree alone tonight she'll play with you guys next week.  It was a great practice start.  Love my Nikki.  Wanna collPse quietly in a corner.  Germs you win.  I surrender.  
  3. Briannah
    Just thinking about where i am today with Nikki.  THis is probably rambly and nonsensical as my add levels are high today and it's hard to focus.  It thought writing may help, but now I'm not entirely sure.
    So after a crazy whirlwind of two months, things have settled down greatly, progress is being made, and that feeling of living in a crisis (as far as Nikki is concerned, don't even get me started on the cat or the yard or house maitenance!) has mostly dropped away.  Both of us are occasionally getting some weird mood swings, but they're not horrible and we just get though them.  I saw an interview with Helen Boyd and they asked her what advice she would give someone..well...someone basically in my position, and it was "Fasten your seat belt!" Man was she ever right.  Most often now though it's just fun, and trying to balance "what items do you NEED vs. WANT cuz we is poor right now?" 

    There was shock.  There was anger and betrayal.  There was spirally crazyness on both sides.  There are serious mental health issues in the mix on both sides (OMG mixing the usually anchor person who is suffering depression with the flaky attention deficit disorder partner is so NOT going well on the day to day chores front, but we're starting to get it back under control).  It sounds like a recipe for disaster, and anyone in the future reading my blog who might be in a position like me, here's something you should know.  It's only a recipe for disaster if you add the final ingredient...and that is...wanting it to be. 
    If instead, you want to learn what is happening, and work with your partner to find places that work for both of you, it also opens up communication like never before, and in our case, learning to meet each others needs, not just Nikki's like a lot of the narratives you'll see online, and our marriage ended up in a better place.  Yes, my husband enjoys wearing women's clothing, and that's fun for me too.  I like it.  When he's under any major emotional stress it goes from enjoys to needs, and that is okay too.  I am learning to recognize I want to have some girl fun with you Bree from OMG CRAZY STRESS HELP ME.  We ALL have our crutches under stress.  One of mine is to disappear for a while at one of the places I spent a lot of time with my grandfather to calm down.  There are a few places I haven't told Nikki about so I have a bolt hole where no one knows where to look for me even now.  Probably a bad idea in a crazy world with creepy people though.  Our life and our marriage didn't end.  As far as crossdressing, I kinda don't get why so many people freak out about it.  It's just clothing.  90% of crossdressers stay that way according to my reading.  And you wont' find a lot of narratives for them, they aren't online talking about it.  They have their personal family and friend supports, and most of them aren't really struggling with it beyond wanting to talk about ways to further the illusion or discuss makeup and fashion.  Because most of them aren't unhappy.  So I'm leaving my narrative here for you as best I can.  I looked for the narratives, and there are some, but not so many.  There are a great many websites claiming there are no perks to your husband being into crossdressing, and that depends entirely on you spouses.  I have found fun, laughter, bonding, theatricity, openness, communication, and adventure in my new life.  I really enjoy these things, and am enjoying sharing it all with Nikki more than I can say.  Do I have fears?  Of course.  But I wouldn't ever ask him to stop the fun because I occasionally get scared he may change his mind about trying to be a woman in the future.  If that road comes I'll walk it as best I can.  There really isn't another choice at that point.
    And yes, that other 10% is kinda scary.  Future reader, maybe you'll be facing that 10% that it doesn't stay clothing and fun and shared activities that then go back to what you consider the normal marriage.  And my heart goes out to you, that is a lot harder water to navigate.  I can't help you much there unless my own circumstances changes with time and I have to confront the harder realities and choices down the road.  You're entire romantic and sexual roadmap are being drastically altered, and it's not as easy to find support as it is for the person with the gender dysphoria, but you can find it.  This is a great place if you are reading this! 
    I wish all of you who will become 'me' in the future the love, laughter, and compassion from your spouses that mine showed me while I was navigating my fears and learning what it meant for my life as he was and is doing the same. 
  4. Briannah

    Scary wind.

    By Briannah,

    It's shaking the house, and the fence was just at a really odd angle to the ground.  ti's a six foot wooden privacy fence, not a little flimsy decorative fence I mean.  I'm glad we had the roof finished last year from the windstorm that tore it up and made it look like someone ran a giant sander over it, because I think chunks would be gone tonight and smacking the neighbors house.  Don't like the neighbors, but I still don't want their home to get hit by my roof chunks.  
    One year I got hit in the head with a flying green plastic turtle shell, you know the little tykes turtle shaped sandboxes?  We were coming home from class and in the couryard of the apartments and the wind just lifted the shell top right off it and winged me.  At the time it sorta hurt, but in restrospect now it's sorta funny when I think about it.  Nikki called that sandbox Angry Gamera the rest of the time we lived there.  And the big tree in the back field had cracked, and it was a sort of nearly spherical shape after it broke off the trunk, and I remember another day watching it roll around on the ice like the worlds biggest tumbleweed.   And what had to be a really inexperienced plow driver was trying to plow UP the angle of the small lane back there instead of down from bigger road to the next bigger road, and got royally stuck because of all the ice and the angle, and the tumbleweed hit his plow truck.  It was a weird night.
    Its funny that moments you haven't thought about ever get called back without warning with the right stimuli.  Thank goodness neighbors on the other side landlord was finally forced to fix the chimney, or I'd be really worried right now.
  5. Briannah
    Feel free to ignore me, I'm just venting to try not to explode.  I'm super frustrated as we're so close to escaping my froot loopy idea to stay with my mom (man, I moved back into my awful childhood, what was I thinking that this would work out okay???) and it feels like everyone is trying to stop me. 
    First Nikki got mad at me: my fault, and sorta not my fault, I was trying to do research, I didn't realize any mortgage brokers were going to CALL HIM I thought I was just gathering intel or I would have told him what I was up to, he was blindsided and annoyed.   I wasn't trying to jumpstart anything, but I did.  Just like we bought the first house by accident, we sorta started on this path again by accident.  But once he got over the shock of what I was up to, and I was able to talk it out with him about having had the talks at work to make sure they are keeping me, getting made formally a full time actual employee, and making sure my income and position are secure, and running the numbers, I realized we COULD afford the second mortgage for cheaper than the apartment we were trying to find that would take fat pooch.  (most of them have a weight limit of 35 pounds, at her skinniest my poochie is 42 pounds).  And can I just say landlords, crazy laziness makes you look like froot loops, the 35 to 50 pound cat limits are nuts.  What do you think we have, cougars?  So Nikki got on board faster than I did and I was the one researching the option.  Then I got panicky and Nikki had to gently shove me back into the mindset that we're going to do this.  And, of course, I had to put my 20th anniversary budget into the downpayment instead.  So if we don't sell other house, no anniversary glory for me, I'll just try to move my expectations to the 25th.  That's a big milestone too.  
    Then there was the actual house hunting, the ups and downs of trying to match desire to budgets. That sucked.  And of course I fall for one higher than we wanted, but still affordable and cheaper monthly than the apartment we were looking at.  But she fits my criteria (two bathrooms, nice kitchen cuz since we started dash living has mattered more and more), room for my pool, and lots of room, its' big) and Nikki's criteria (mostly move in ready, nice yard, older architecture, central air), and in our target chosen dream town we wanted to go to on a lovely street.  
    Then we made the offer, on the same day that someone else did!  Some jerk bid on my house!  And I went into a tailspin of this isn't going to happen and trying to divorce myself from my emotional attachment to it, only to get it.  LOL  
    Then there was a long wait for inspections, vacations, appraisals, and some sort of unreasonably long wait for the title agency to do thier thing that had the seller,  us, the realtor, and our lender all cranky about the hold up. 
    NOW there is some wibbling with the underwriters about the electricity in the living room.  I've lived iwth the sockets not working in my current house forever, why in hell would this be a dealbreaker for me now?  *cranky*  So I sent the home inspection that says it does, but there is a problem with teh elctrical box, with the seller is fixing, so I probably now have to wait for the realter to get a statement from the electrician before I can close and move.  
    I just want to go.  Living here is sucking out my soul, and as  usual here is the only place I can admit that.  I probably need to go back into therapy once we're down to one mortgage because I am so not okay in my head, and I've go SO far backwards inside.  I can't even tell anyone with a connection closer than the other side of the internet that I'm not okay, which is old me and hasn't been a problem for ages for me.  Nikki has no idea how bad it is in my head, and I can't make myself say it.  And writing even here is scary because that stupid little voice that is out to get us in our heads is all "Emma knows your phone number, you can end up having to talk about this voice to voice".  Even though I rationally know Emma would ask first.  
    I hope moving will make it better.  Nikki will be massively happy.  Nikki wants less commute, girl time, and less asthma problems for me (no carpet in the new house, carpet all over here).  I just want time to rebuild myself into who I actually made myself without the influence of my family and moving back into those influences.  I need out, I think I'm slowly imploding.  

    How much longer can it take to get the green light to move really?   When did I lose everything inside I worked so hard to gain?  
    It's a weird time in my head, because I'm gaining a sense of self-worth through my job I've never had before, while reinforcing all the things that made sure I never had one at home at the same time.  I'm back and forth between really happy and really miserable.  
    In other words, life is happening I guess.
  6. Briannah
    Writing that was hard.  I tried to be overly articulate, and it was crap. I tried to write it like a report, and that was crap.  Finally I just freeform wrote it, fixed typos, and e-mailed it without reading it over and over and judging myself.  Writing it reminded me how scary a trip this all was, and also made me see how much progress I'd made.  I"m not angry anymore.  I'm still working on that full trust, but that takes time.  Admitting to my fears and problems with the things people have said to me wasn't scary anymore, it was just, this happened to me.  Do what you want with it. 
    I guess I really am doing as well as I thought, and writing a 'here is my story' helps me see it. 
    Off to bed now.
  8. Briannah

    Well, crap.

    By Briannah,

    So.  Since we both have tomorrow off, and I was feeling the joy of having time to get some things done, and its' a gorgeous day outside, we decided to clear off the porch of all the winter and home improvement debris that has collected on it.  It was going well when we were moving the cardboard boxes off the porch to take to the van when we found...kittens.  Yup.  Six tiny little kittens about twice the size of a gerbil.  Have I mentioned my neighborhood has a stray cat problem?  So we called around, and the humane society's foster program is full, and the rescue has a $30 fee per animal, and I frankly can't afford a $180 bill for six cats that are NOT MINE.   Both my cats are male, neither had kittens, and both have been neutered and i have the vet records to prove it.  They are feral strays, but young enough to be domesticated, if someone would take them. 
    So now I feel bad because the plan is basically let the mother take them and move them to a new location, and they will grow up and have more, and our neighborhood will continue to be overrun by feral cats living short, hard lives.  The average lifespan of a feral cat is 5 years, compared one in a good home at 15 to 20 years.  And they are young enough that they wnated to interact with us, and could be easily domesticated.  I feel like I failed them, but there really isn't anything I can do.  We literally cannot feed them every two hours like they  need with our job schedules, so taking them in and finding homes for them when they are weaned to normal food isn't possible either. 

    Sometimes there is no good answer.    And of course Nikki is sad that I won't let him have the one that looks like Yuriko.  But we have four pets right now, and we need to keep reducing the number, not growing it both for our financial changes and consideration of people who have to care for them when we travel.  I still feel bad saying no though.
  9. Briannah
    We came away from Nikki's doctors today with the awareness that diabetes might be rearing it's ugly head, that part is pretty unpleasant, but on a brighter note we also came away with a prescription for Zoloft to help with the biological part of the dysthymia.  FINALLY!  I hope this stuff works, I hope none of the potential bad side effects manifests, I just want Nikki to be better.  And, in a weird way, I am happy it took this long.  The doctor was thorough making sure she's giving him the right prescription for the right reasons.  That matters hugely, I just sound ungrateful because I was frustrated and it's hard to be on the outside watching someone else suffer and you can't help.  It really, really sucks. 
    So today I"m pinning all my hope on this stuff, and maybe that's foolish, but it will or it won't work, doesn't hurt to be hopeful right now. 
  10. Briannah
    So I'm writing this one slowly, trying to gather the whole thing into a coherent narrative for Erica Ravenwood.  Because when I was first struggling with my new reality, and it was scary and terrifying and I didn't know what was going to happen, I went looking for the stories of other people in my shoes.  But...they were stunningly hard to find.  And when I did find them they were usually stories told  years later after a long period of painful adjustment framed in such a way as to show that marriages can survive gender reassignment and that 'leaving was not an option' for these partners.  Which is good, important, but...where were the other stories?  The ones like me that didn't know what was going to happen, what they wanted to happen, stories talking about the process of finding out and dealing with the secrets, the confusion, balancing our needs vs. theirs...during the time with  all the flying emotions to help us feel normal and okay and have a direction where to go?  I'm really grateful to Erica for inviting me to put my voice there too, it is validating to know that the partners matter also and our feelings and life experiences may help both sides of the relationship coins for others. 
    So I tried to leave my voice on this site for others like me, and I will try to leave my voice on her site for people too.  Not because I'm special, I'm really not, I'm just a girl who loves her husband, son, animals, and all turtles of the world.  But because I'm not shy and I have no shame about any of this and think it should be talked about, and want to be there for the future Bree's to help them, and the future Nikki's.  Because calm Bree was way more helpful to him than flipping out falling apart Bree was.     Partner sections on transgender forums are SO quiet.  I guess I dream that partners, both men and women, will realize it's okay to talk to each other and find support and answers and just camaraderie like our transgendered mates do on these sites.  I think it would help partners a lot, but so many of us are almost trained to just suffer in silence when marriage isn't the perfect cultural model of it. 
     
    To be honest, throwing out that 'perfect' cultural model and letting our marriage evolve around our two individual personalities, including changing how it functions as we age and our needs changes, is what made it work.   We had a lot of talks before the wedding and after about defining what it would be for us, and dropping the cultural/media information about it, and we made a good go of it.  I met Nikki May 20, 1998.  Which was hilarious, as it was the same day of the year I met my first husband.  Apparently that is my 'marriage day'.  It's now 2016, and we're still going.  Problems come, problems go.  We get frustrated with each other, we support each other.  We drive each other batshit crazy, we make each other supremely happy.  The thing we don't do is be mean to each other, put each other down face to face or to others, or fail to prioritize us as a couple.  We learn what to do and what not to do from the examples of others, and we know when those examples don't apply to us. 
    Life is good, even with all it's uncertainties.  Now if only I had some breakfast.
  11. Briannah

    Mixed signals.

    By Briannah,

    I don't feel shiny today, just kinda stressed and confused but trying hard to work it all out. 
    So...after trying to sort out some mixed signals from Nikki, I decided it was time to be Bree and came up with a plan.  Nikki talks about going out A LOT more than he realizes.  But when I asked him about it, he's like one to two years down the road.  Okay.  But then he talks about it again with all the signals of I want to be doing this.  Nikki and Bree have a dynamic here, and that is Nikki is afraid to do things, and wants me to pick up on them and make it happen.  So....I asked him if that dynamic was in play here.  He nodded, and I said okay, Friday he doesn't work, he can spend the time I"M at work putting on the makeup we got him and getting dressed.  Then I'll come home and get him, and we're going to go to a small restaurant we both like in a nearby college town.  Highly unlikely he'll run into anyone he knows there like going out in here.  And he got really excited by the idea.  I expect tomorrow he'll change his mind, and then Wednesday change it back, and flip flop, so I have no idea if it will actually happen, but right now my plan is to take him out of this house into public and have a nice lunch, do all the talking so he can hide his voice, and have a nice afternoon.  But he's so hard to read, he talks about a lot of things like he wants to do them and genuinely doesn't really, he's just fantasizing outloud.  I realized how many of my barometers in this relationship are broken today.  So working on re-calibrating them.
    And this led into more discussion about whatever i want vs "I want to..." or "I don't want to".. or "I have no opinion on this Bree" if he genuinely doesn't.  The  more we're examining how to be a healthier couple, the more I look inward, and realize I HATE having the entire responsibility of the relationship lobbed at me all the time.  I can't meet someone's needs if they won't tell me what the needs are.  I do inherently have a somewhat aggressive, dominant personality that Nikki loves, I know that.  But I want to be a partner, not a....a caretaker.  Aggressive dominance in me does not manifest into my way or the highway, it more manifests in that I want to be moving emotionally forward at all times and make thing happens because we only live once and I've used up half my time.  Gotta use the rest to the max!  I think he doesn't understand that part of me.  I think he doesn't understand a lot of parts of me, because he couldn't have these conversations with me without straying close to having to lie to me actively on why he does/feels things or having me come uncomfortably close to the secret before I knew. 
    I'm confused and distressed because I realize I didn't really know him, nothing I ever interpreted from his actions and words had the full picture.   And now I'm starting to see that all the secrets closed me off from him even though I was holding the door open.  We have a lot of learning to do.  But at least we're moving, and moving in the right direction.  I still struggle with stupid things.  "It's not fair!" crosses my mind a lot, when I realize that I"m literally starting a marriage over after 17 freakin' years.  But I remind myself fair went out the window, and has no place in sorting all this out.  There is no fair here about how we got here, we are here.  There is only what is, and what we can do to improve it.  And I'm slowly letting go of the 'it's not fair'.  The anger about the lies is dwindling, and I'm relearning to trust he's honest with me now.  I had major trust issues when we met, believe me when I say a 17 year lie rocked my world to it's foundations and was a severe emotional trauma for me.  But Dr. Hollandt told me the one that saved my life during all the bad times I went through was that I'm extremely adaptive and quick to process.  That is working in mine and Nikki's favor now.  Sometimes I get tripped up by my emotions, they are still in there, just slowly packing away the negative ones after processing them so its' healthy and not bottling them, and actively reinforcing my healthy emotions so they are growing and working for me.  Life is a process.  I keep forgetting this is only week 7 since it all went down, and I start to feel angry and frustrated at myself why I still obsess over this thing or feel angry at that, and I sit down and look at the calendar and go "Oh yeah, it hasn't been that long, I'm actually doing GREAT and adapted really fast, this is okay".  I've hit the point where I don't feel guilty anymore for my feelings.  That is a huge step, was raised on guilt from both sides of my family. 
    Grandpa, you prepared me well by teaching me to adapt and deal with what is.  If there is an afterlife, I hope you see that I'm using all the lessons you gave me to the fullest and doing my best in a hard situation.  I was graceful, listening, and learning.  I focused on what I can do to help the person in my life who is hurting, and making new friends along the way.  And I really wish you were here to talk to these days, but I've wished that every day since, both the good and the bad days.  I think I'll want my grandfather back for the rest of my life, or Alzheimers.  Whichever comes first.  I really had a freakout on my wedding day because he wasn't there.  Which resulted in an absolutely horrifying and involuntary laughing fit I couldn't stop until the mayor calmed me down enough to get married.
    Sometimes I'm really frustrated trying to explain things to Nikki.  And I think useless things like "If you were a girl like me, you would understand!" Which is totally unfair, and I'm trying to pack that away.  I have as much gender norm expectation as everyone else.  And it's hard to understand Nikki telling me he feels like a girl right now, then not getting it or acting like it in ways I recognize as female.  Most of his behavior and emotional talk tracks so male to me I have to remind myself genderfluid, genderfluid, genderfluid.  And that is totally in me, not him.  I expect certain things from someone who tells me they are a girl.  Trying to learn to not do that and I'm trying to learn the language to frame my thoughts better and try to get it across.  I didn't realize how much common language I really  have with my friends, for all they tease me about taking away my girl card.  I don't care about girl interests so much, but I DO think and speak like one. 
    And I'm back to 'trying', although I still don't know what I'm 'trying' to do.  But I got makeup again too, nair for my legs, and am actively trying to present in a better way.  I never really understood what people meant when they said i"m not even 'trying' because I didn't do these things, but I am putting in an effort to share things with Nikki and do them together.  And maybe I was worsening the dysmorphia by not doing them, I don't know.  I'm going to see if making an actual effort to change the appearance works on the inside.  Sometimes it does. 
    And if Nikki doesn't hurry up and shower faster so that I can heat the soup and we can eat something I might start eating my desk.  So hungry. 
     
  12. Briannah
    IT hasn't been like this...since um...the first year I was married maybe?   I stopped fighting with my skin and just didn't really care.  Nikki didn't care.  But now it's a thing again, because I noticed that people see what they expect to see, and two girls going out for a calzone (OMG I LOVE CALZONES! and they are SO hard to find in my area for some reason) blend better if they are dressed and made up similarly.  Like i reinforce the image of him.  I know when I went out with actual girls people would stare at our group a lot because I was visually out of place.  And while my female friends can deal, I don't want to put that strain on Nikki til he's more comfortable out.  And there is a level of fun letting him do me up (and more practice for him is good).
    So today is girl day, as we agreed on.  A little sad to be locked in doors, it's GORGEOUS outside, but Nikki's needs come first, and spring is coming.  Right?  RIGHT????  OHIO???  The weather is perking me up, I only lost an hour and a half to silly news and wedding fails today.    Soon Nikki will be putting up THE POOL!  *squirms in turtle excitement*  I wish it was Friday, Friday I will be eating a tasty calzone.  All I have calories left for dinner tonight is soup.  But I'll still come in a bit under my daily allotment, and as ever I didn't include the exercise I did, and I did put in a short walk. 
    Which I probably would have enjoyed more if my dang throat would clear up.  Seriously, all the flu symptoms are gone except a persistant but really FAINTLY sore throat, and the roof of my mouth and throat are really white but not like strep, and my throat has this horrible dry itching that results in insane coughing.  I would go back to my doctor but all the ice cream I ate to numb my throat packed six pounds back on, and I don't want her to know that.  Trying to be good!  And lost that six pounds super fast to go in.  I know, it's dumb, but my dismorphia has been poked a lot and I need a small break. 
  13. Briannah
    Actually going outside is helping my mood swings considerably.  I'm off the charts unpredictable with them when I'm stressed out, so Nikki never knows what he's walking into with me conversationally these last two months.  Finding out in the middle of cabin fever probably did NOT help my emotional cycles.  I can't go out much in the winter, the cold air even with a scarf on sets my lungs off like nothing else, and I literally can't breath.  So my time outside in Ohio between November to March is pretty much limited to racing from the warmth to the car as fast as I can, and then racing from the car as fast as I can back to the warmth.  But now the air outside is warm enough that we have been leaving the house in increasingly longer jaunts, and I feel way more relaxed.
    Other than the troublesome cough with the embarassing consequences.  Nothing like trying to entice Nikki into some personal time upstairs and then losing lunch all over the floor the minute he turns to head for the stairs.  I don't want to deal with me right now either after that one!  LOL 
    I ordered a new smaller girdle to reflect the weight I lost.  Nikki was on me about it, it can only protect the vulnerable bits if I keep replacing it so that it's actually fitting.  So while I was there I ordered him a set of pg's like I have that are a top and shorts, for the summer, so he doesn't roast to death trying to wear the ones he has now for winter.  They're a cute teal set like my blue set with the moon and star pattern on it.  Also got a set for me in the same pattern with capri's, so hwen we're on vacation in teh summer I don't have to worry about freezing to death because they are SERIOUS about the air conditioning at that cabin. But that's fun too, I share a blanket with one of my best friends N and we sit there being silly together. 
  14. Briannah

    CRANKY.

    By Briannah,

    Doing taxes.  Gyah.  Just argh.  Frustration.  Confusion.  HEadache.  And I'm using the Turbotax site that does most of the work for me but this is still irritation.  Nikki's on his own tonight, I'm too cranky to be alive.
  15. Briannah
    So I need to start going through my house every coupla years and just looking at the stuff that is lying around/saved somewhere.  I have saved some really useless junk over the years.  Anyone remember the Isle of Lost Toys from the old Christmas specials?  Apparently we are running the Sanctuary of Lost Cords.  Which of course Nikki won't let me throw any of those out because we might need them some amorpheous day in the future.  Fine, he let me throw most of the rest of the junk out, and we can do a great device to cord matchup event when we settle to be sure what is junk beyond doubt I guess.  
    It really is amazing the accumulation of things in an average life.  We're not shoppers, we go outta her way to not do that.  We're not garage sale hounds, or antique hunters, or any sort of real collectors of anything.  I can only imagine how much more stuff people who enjoy those things either have to dispose of often or build up.  
    Well, back to work.  At least until the Cheeto declares everything in the country as his.   I'm surprised that man hasn't tried to pass an act yet that he owns everything and we have to pay rental on our things.  After the pay to have them in the first place, of course.  
  16. Briannah

    Winter's Day

    By Briannah,

    I am so cold.  My job is cheap with the heat, and I sit by a window.  And I"m in the middle of a mass of office equipment, so a space heater is not practical.  So I'm freezing cold, struggling with the four new steps they decided to add to an overly complicated invoicing process on a day when apparently the pricing dude decided not to deal with it so I have two weeks backed up.  Stressed out.  SO...Nikki had mentioned girl mode today and playing with the clothing and the forms, so I told him to take selfies for me and show them to me after work so I had something to think about besides the rest of my office trying to kill me by death from a thousand paper cuts. 
    I do like the pictures, but he looks so serious.  I think I bring more out in him than he does by himself, when I took photos the other night I got emotion all over the place from him in them and he was really into it.  So now I'm really considering what that means, and what i come up with is make Nikki feel safe and free in either mode.  He opens up when I'm around, always has in boy mode before I knew too compared to how he is when I'm not there.  Our freinds at the summer retreat used to tell me that when I went down to the lake with E to swim Nikki would quiet up and bury himself in a book or videos, it took a few years before that stopped happening and he got more comfortable in this group. 
    But even one on one apparently I bring out the best in him.  And that is the best thing ever for a life partner to be able to do for each other. 

    Now he's wrapped up in the new PJ"s we picked up from WomanWithin and I'm wrapped up in my new jacquard wrap, but the real reason I"m warm is Nikki loves me and needs me. 
  17. Briannah

    Shaky morning.

    By Briannah,

    Am having a really shaky morning.  It's hard when a friend has gone somewhere you can't follow.  I miss him so much already.  He was a beautiful person who readily opened the window for me to his part of the world and shared his culture and that soft Scottish brogue.  I felt better when Nikki was home, but alone it hits harder and there are no hugs.  Four more hours and I can get my hugs.  This really hurts.  And people saying internet friends shouldn't hurt this bad when they're gone piss me off.  Friendship is friendship.  It doesn't matter that we never sat in the same room, it matters that he told me Scottish tales and comforted me when I had a bad day and shared a snark with me about someone we found equally irritating and all the other little details of friendship. 
    I had a talk today with one of our joint best friends, who shares a trauma experience with Nikki, and invited us to her home this weekend to open that box together with him (and me, I'm invited to this but said I would stay home if either or both preferred, but apparently I give good hug).  He's still shy about telling people, so he asked me to talk it over with her, so I just got done telling her the story (From my chronological point of view, since I"m shaky on Nikki's timetable, but it's getting clearer as we go).  One of the reasons she's such a great friend is she instantly saw both our points of view, how they dovetail and how they click, and offered me some advice on how to deal with my often unstable emotions.  She was there the time someone I had let really close to me hurt me badly, and saw the emotionally spirally effect i go into that poor NIkki had to live with while I sorted it out. And he was a victim in that too, it was actually him ex-friend lashed out against without warning.  Nikki wanted her to know before so that he could speak freely about how all tangled up it is, and she's wonderfully non-judgmental in all things and supportive of us both just like the wonderful people here.  But it's his first face to face talk with someone other than me about this, that has to be big for him. 
    Todays Good Mindset: I had a wonderful friend.  It doesn't hurt like this if it wasn't amazing.
    Today's Stupid fear: That my stomach will flip out on me.  It feels shaky, and I hate feeling sick, and it freaks Nikki out that I'm in immediate need of surgery again these days.  But my stomach responds hard to my emotion and feels swirly.  Work with me stomach!  Let's not get sick at work, okay?  At least til we get home?  Please?
  18. Briannah
    EmmaSweet suggested I start a blog, and I think she has a point.  And never ask people for advice if you're not willing to try it!  So here I am, sorting out a lot of changes in my life. 
    So today, it's time to tackle a joint issue we both share.  Hoarding.  We're not going to show up on a tv show or anything, it's not the dramatically bad.  However, it runs in my family on both sides.  My mother is a hoarder, and getting worse as she ages.  And my father's mother was nearly tv show ready except that she managed to keep it mostly out of the living room and kitchen areas.  But every other room in the house was filled with stuff.  And I mean filled, there was a tiny aisle to walk through.  And you literally risked your life going into the attic, those piles were not stable.  So I noticed while I was going through my closet looking for things that were worth sharing (a lot of my clothes needed to be thrown out, holes/stains, but there were a lot of good pieces Nikki actually liked), my eyes fell on the shelving in the back.  FIlled with boxes.  That some of them I think I packed to move in with Nikki when I spent the first year in EXTREMELY TINY TOWN and we accidentally ended up living next to the KKK dudes, which was a problem since our son is biracial black/white.  Yeah, that was fun.  Nikki agreed to take us back to the larger town I had been living in for offspring's safety even though he was scared to leave the familiar small town he did it for us, and I think really enjoyed it.   
    I"m sorry, I ramble a lot.  The add makes my brain go from topic to topic.  So I've seen that hoarding is not a sudden behavior, but a long slow buildup just like the junk.  So it's time to deal with this boxes, determine if things in there that I haven't thought about wanting for fifteen or so years are really worth keeping, and if they are but not worth dispaying, then into rubbermaid totes and the basement.  There is a practical side to living with Nikki's newly open reality, he literally has two wardrobes.  It's a really good thing he's into sharing!  I think I have half a wardrobe that currently fits/functions.  But he has a LOT of clothing.  Including eleventy billion tshirts from his job, they LOVE to tshirt people, it's actually kinda creepy how many tshirts come home from work with him.  I threatened to make them into a flag once and hang it from the roof. 
    So after work, we are tackling the closet.  Together.  So it doesn't eat anyone.  Although I"ll probably be the one in the bowels of it on the basis that i"m shorter and it's a slanted closet.  For once my height works in my favor!  But he'll have to scrunch for heavy stuff.  After getting my abdominal hernia fixed when I incarcerated it last summer (man, I scared my poor Nikki, they were talking about me dying if i didn't get that fixed right away) I either pulled it partically back open or ripped a new one just above it.  It's more practical to lose weight and then get it fixed at this point, so heavy lifting is out. 
    It's why we have a rowing machine, it's the only thing that is both strength/cardio that will help me lose weight at all, every other machine is one or the other.  But most importantly, after Nikki put in a serious research binge, it's safe for me to use with  my hernia issue.  It won't encourage another incarceration event (where I basically caught six - eight inches of intestine, but luckily felt sick and Nikki got me help so fast I didn't actually injure my inner bits) or force it to tear open more.  I feel loved, he put so much effort into finding me something that will work and is safe.  I repeat that to myself as I row and fight my inherently lazy nature wondering why I'm torturing my body voluntarily. 
     
    Today's Good mindset: Nikki and I can do anything working together.  We're strong and we will weather whatever happens to us, internally and externally.
    Today's Stupid Fear: I'm intruding on Nikki's private world and don't belong, even though he says it feels supportive and connective to him that I am so involved.  And the squirrel staring at me through the window wants to eat me. 
  19. Briannah

    I'm 45 today.

    By Briannah,

    It's after midnight, that makes it my birthday!  LOL 
    And even better, NIKKI HAS AN INTERVIEW!  And while I fully comprehend the difference between an interview and a job offer, it's still good to see him get a nibble less than two days after he applied.  It's done wonders for his confidence, and I'm proud of my Nikki.    It was amazing news.
    And if it does work out, both GREAT and OH MY TURTLES IT"S GONNA GET CRAZY.  LOL
     
  20. Briannah
    I've been gone a long time, I'm sorry!    Got ​really sick, found multiple causes, and started addressing them.  One of them was our diet, and Nikki and I are living on the DASH diet as best we are able to right now.  It's hard when you are staying at someone else's house (our repairs and slave labor to the house should be done tomorrow, and it should be listed within the week.  That took FOREVER!).  It helps that Nikki really loves my cooking, and has been visibly on the same page with me when my mom started trying to sabotage our efforts to get healthier.  I know that sounds melodramatic, but it's been a struggle while we're staying here.  I can't sell that house and buy a new one fast enough.  My mom needs me to stay sick and not be able to improve my health and life so that she can keep telling everyone that all her weight and diet induced illnesses arent' her fault.  And when I started getting better, so started the pressure to each junk food and salty things again.  I resisted though, and Nikki has been great backing me up.  It's kind of empowering to realize that I don't have to turn into my mother, that I CAN be successful after all without bariatric surgery (which I was ready to sign on for, but my insurance doesn't cover, and neither did my savings account!) and hopefully will continue to succeed going forward.  (If you have hypertension issues, and want to address them without medication in a real not-creepy-anti-science food culty way, I can't recommend DASH For DUmmies enough.  It explains how the science works, the research that went into it, how to shop, set up your kitchen, and a variety of starter recipes).  I'm still taking my meds, but doctor thinks she's going to take them off once we're back in our own home and the stress of dealing with my mom is removed.  I'm a bit stressed out. 
    Nikki has been really great working on the prior issue I wrote here about about not backing me up and being on my page.  I can't say enough how awesome he's been about it!  I'm not sure I would have been able to deal with the last four months of illness and mom crazy if I still felt all alone like I did back then.  I think I'm flirting with depression, and maybe had slipped quietly all the way in for a while when I really sick, but the dash changes having improved how I feel dramatically on a day to day basis is helping me climb out of it. 
    ​So we have our eye on a house if ours sells and no one else snatches it up, but if they do, there'll be other houses.  ​I'm sorta stuck on a fireplace, so I did my due diligent Bree researches how to safely own and operate a fireplace.  I have learned a great deal about wood, chimneys, laying out the wood for a fire, storage, how to tell a good wood supplier and chimney cleaning profressional from a bad one, and I'm ready to spend a snowy winter's evening cuddling on the cough with Nikki making Smores!  I'm ready, so Nikki said okay, we'll prioritize a fireplace.  WOOHOO!
    Aside from my health, Dash has propelled me thirty pounds lighter and I fit in clothes I haven't worn in years!  Nikki too, but for once I lost more because Nikki cheats at work and lunches at fast food.   I got to see his office environment, and if my last job had been that nice and calm I would still be working!  But I like my housewife life.   And ​I spend a great deal of it working on increasing our variety of food and compliance with Dash.  Salt is the enemy!  I was the average American, and WAY overdosing on the stuff.  It just never percolated how dangerous it can be in those amounts for me before. 
    Life goes in waves like the tide.  But I came out of this down cycle with a long term plan to address my physical issues, and several new coping mechanisms for emotional ones, and I can finally see that at some point there will be an end to this weird "I have a roof, but I feel homeless" limbo.  We basically have a bed in a tiny room, and a corner in the sunroom where the laundry is, and that is our entire plot of "our space" here.  It will be lovely to move back into our own place!  Sell quick little house.  I will really miss you, but gotta go.
    And supposedly one glass of wine a day is good for your heart too.  So...bought a cheap bottle of red and I'm going to try to overcome my aversion to alcohol like I did my aversion to broccoli, pepper, and cauliflower in the last few weeks.  It promises to taste like a cherry cupcake.  I somehow disbelieve.
    I'm done rambling now.  Tell me about any adventures I missed while I was gone!
  21. Briannah
    It's been raining since New Year's eve.  And our life experience SO color our emotional reactions to things.  We always assume that humans think rationally, but rational thought really goes to problem solving, while life experience and subconscious go to the deeper choice and reaction issues. 
    I always liked rain.  However, since 2007, if it rains more than one day I'm deeply uncomfortable and want to start moving everything I own upstairs.   Our town flooded that year.  It took somewhere between six and eight weeks of rain, no just a few days, but my brain doesn't care.  Its the conditions that created a situation which threw my world upside down.  And this was a MINOR flood, nothing like what goes on fairly regularly with the Mississippi river.  My basement flooded out and there was some danger potential, as the breaker box, hot water heater, and furnace were all in that water.  We had to carefully get a pump into it to get the water out without touching any of the water in case it was electrified, and there was a very real potential of fire form a situation like that I understand, but we had a shelter to go to if needed.  So it wasn't a safe situation, but it wasn't imminent danger of drowning like some people have faced. 
    But all the loss of the things we had stored, all the cleanup, the worry about the structural safety of our house (especially since the basement stairs broke off and floated freely around down there), and the sheer amount of work after to clean it all up so we could get it professionally bleached (or whatever they put on it) to control the health issues of post flood sewage in the basement (I'm talking storm drains sewage, not the toilet ones).  There was no power for a week, that made cleanup hard.  And the whole town stank like you wouldn't believe.  So while it wasn't as bad as it is for others, it was pretty bad during the event.  And...it only happened once in the time I've lived here, and once when my grandparents moved here the second year I think, but now it colors my thoughts and feelings about the rain.  And it changed the look of my town.  Lost of neighborhoods are gone now, and just grassy fields left where they were.
    Rationally, I know it's not a threat to me unless we start hitting the four week mark that I need to start thinking about it.  But the reality is that on that second day of rain, both Nikki and I start checking the river's height on the town page.  We start eyeing what to move upstairs.  Because brains and psyche are NOT rational.
    It's a good reminder to myself to stop and remember not to expect rational thought from big issues from people.  It doesn't work that way.  We all think it should, but brains and emotions don't work on rational.  Rational is how to fix the leaking faucet, how to move the possessions out of the way of the flood.  The emotional brain provides the impetus to actually fix that faucet, and when to start moving those things.  And that part isn't rational, it's deeper in that rooted in a series of complex instinctive and learned behaviors related to survival.  Our brains haven't cuaght up with the modern world, and they still function on survival instinct every day.   That is where the fear of unknown and different comes from. 
    It's why change is slow, and not fast.  Because we have to train our brains that those feelings aren't actually helping us survive or function better as a group.  Patience is they key.  It's not about rational thought and statistics, it's about countering that deep emotional instinct and life experience part to effect real change.
  22. Briannah

    Having a good day.

    By Briannah,

    Just spent the last hour having my hair painted with my favorite green dye to repair the damage from the sun, spa, chlorine pool, hot tubs, therapy tub, and sea on vacation.  There was a girl with pink hair tipped in purple and me with my green, and by the end of the week she was completely blond again and I was almost there, with just the front part clinging to the green.  Looked like deliberately done modern streaking through, so I was somewhat happy with that.  It's really relaxing to sit around having someone painting on your hair, to be honest.  Nikki wanted to try the brush technique instead of bottle and massage since that kind didn't go so well, although it did dye my computer room a lovely matching shade to my hair.  LOL  As expected from someone with painting experience, this went beautifully for both painter and paintee.   And as it's drying it's coming out really well, I'm thrilled. 
    The day is lovely too, it's a clear lovely day after a morning storm and around 83 degrees.  YAY SPRING!  Please stay spring, I'll be REALLY nice to you.  Totally.  I'm done with your sibling winter.  Nikki's cold/flu thing continues, but he's in much better spirits with the better weather.  Still only have a surprisingly light case of it myself, this is weird.  Usually I fall pretty to germs and he doesn't.  Once a few years ago a bug ripped through town, but targeted people with generally strong immune systems like Nikki and my bff but left those with weaker ones like me alone.  It was weird, and this seems to be acting like that. 
    Now I plan to spend the evening enjoying the scent of the Argan oil in my hiar (the dye uses it, smells really good) and killing things in my favorite mmo.  Bring on the cyberenemies! 
  23. Briannah
    SO it's my job to keep an eye on the housing market and come up with reasonable solutions for later, while Nikki full on job hunts and we work together on the actual physicality of packing and repairs.  So...he'll give me a city  he's found a potential job in and I yay or nay based on  housing prices.  But now I have looked at so so many that they have blended into one insane, nightmare of a house riddled with water damage, hideous pink bathrooms, strange flora outside that looks like it want to eat me, and weird inexplicable THINGS I can't identify that my brain hurts.  I am dreaming of bizarre and ugly houses now.  And, of course, getting lost in them.  I do have to say though my unconscious mind comes up with some awesome floor plans, that I can never remember when I wake up.   Cosmetic damage I can handle, water damage makes me really leery of getting involved.  You never know how that will play out long term in a structure.  Although in the one house I am legit confused how the dining room, in the middle of the house with no logical exposure to any of the piping whatsoever, looked like an aquatic bomb of some sort went off in it.  And the rooms above and to the sides are fine.  Just that one room.  Did they run a fountain or something in there???  And what exactly is the deal with people feeling the need to put a weird little wrought iron fence next to the door inside the house?  It just looks goofy.  And don't get me started on what I mistook for a stripper pole but realized was actually some sort of duct pipe from the basement to roof through both stories, that was odd.  One house had columns just hanging from the ceiling, like creepy wooden stalactites, but not touching the floor. I assume a base has somehow gone missing, that's all I got.  One looked like a crime scene happened and never got cleaned up.  And Ohio has a truly terrifying love of the pink, yellow, pink AND yellow, and yellow and hideous green bathrooms. And none of them done well, my eyes.  But unless I'm going to win the lottery tomorrow, I'm going to have to keep my eyes on potential 'this can be fixed down the line'.  I do draw the line at a pink bathroom though.  Just no.  And really just no to the one that wasn't the usual pastel bathroom pink, but some bizarre neon pink-magenta horror that I think should require the realtor person to offer sunglasses to show the house, or at least a warning incase buyers didn't look at the photos.
    And now we're in full on debate of the pool.  I get Nikki's point it's a lot of work if the house sells quickly to have put it up and then take it back down.  However, I also kinda feel it selling quickly is a sorta pipe dream and I don't want to be slowly baking away all summer either without my pool retreat.  One of those utterly stupid decisions you don't really know what the right one is til afterwards.  We don't have central air, only have small window units that sorta work in the computer room and the bedroom, so the pool is the main source of cooling down.  A quick dip in the water makes the summer heat feel reasonable for several hours at a time.  And our town pools have become ragingingly expensive.
    So Nikki met new therapist, and reports that she's easy to talk to and he's happy with her, so that is good. There's also hints that one on one therapy is winding down, on a monthly schedule now that most of the big issues have been worked through.  So maybe it's time to consider marital counseling.  We've been unable to work out some differences on our own, and it's really getting frustrating this 'whatever you want' and then getting mad about what I decided to do ongoing behavior.  And I TRY To find out what Nikki wants, but there is a real in ability to ever tell me he wants anything or offer up some kind of opinion to work with.  Personally, I think either he really truly has no internal wants or needs or his antidepressants aren't high enough to overcome the mental fog yet.  I can't tell which.  Can you sorta...hollow out after a few years of depression and just not come back even with treatment and meds?  I don't even know if my expectations are reasonable or if I'm wanting crazy things, but I'm tired of driving the bus and everything falling to me to decide other than a few big gesture choices (which how they happen then ends up to me to drive the bus on, even his part of the job hunting I've had to start helping out and scouring the net and e-mailing a list) versus a partnership  I know I'm the research gerbil, but either help me out a little or get me some carrots at least.  And yes, you better believe we have this conversation clearly, and often.  I'm not the wife type who whines to everyone but her spouse and then wonders why things don't get better, I tackle it first with him and then brainstorm for ideas/reality checks/empathy/wisdom/whatever comes my way.  I tried refusing to decide and waiting until he did some of it, but literally nothing happened but some tv watching.  For two weeks.  Till I couldn't take it anymore.  I hate tv.  ​Sorry, venting before I explode at my spouse I guess, unless someone has some useful advice, I'll make you cookies. ​  Have tried talking to him with every tactic I could think of, refusing to do it, trying to engage him in every step, just doing it myself, trying to get him to talk about it with his therapist, I got nothing left other than joint counseling it feel like.  But only after he's really done with his single, cant' float two bills right now.  ​ And you know, insurance companies don't value counseling like people do.
    I'm going to try to get some sleep now and snuggle up with my cat.  My cat probably makes neon pink bathrooms less ugly, he's a pretty cat. 
  24. Briannah

    Slightly mind blown.

    By Briannah,

    So..had those amazing flourless chocolate cakes before.  They are awesome, I love them.  Something that awesome had to be complicated...but...you can make a version with three ingredients and it's awesome.  Basically it's like a really chocolately dense souffle, made from eggs, chocolate and butter.  That blows my mind.   I have a tendency to overcomplicate a lot of things, and simple things blow me away. 
    Now if you'll excuse me, I require some chocolate chips to make a cake apparently.
  25. Briannah

    Irma.

    By Briannah,

    So I just saw photos of St. Maarten after Irma passed through.  On top of the horror for those people, there is this creepy feeling.  I was there, in March, with Ashe.  We lounged on a beautiful beach, we had lunch at this awesome open air restaurant right on the beech and iguanas joined us for the lunch, there was a drive through the beautiful now underwater streets.  It just feels weird when it's somewhere you have been.  Like when I see flood photos from the one we had here.  It's not a feeling of extra bad, it's just oddly disorienting to me and I have no idea what my brain's issue with it is.  
    I looked at the livestreams on Key West, another place I've been and enjoy watching on cam when I'm far away, and it's just so eerie to see how deserted it was.  Also reassuring that the people have gone to safer ground on the mainland.  The storm has not yet hit key west, but the winds are already amazingly and unusually loud on the cams that have sound.  I can only imagine what it will be like when the actual storm hits.  
    There was a collection truck near the Kroger's by us collecting for Harvey, and I found myself wondering how long til it's for both.  And then I further wondered how bad it's going to be.  I remember how bad Katrina was, with the Fema director really nepotism-based friend of bush's and no clue how to actually handle a disaster, and Harvey is in two separate states, with Irma barreling up to take on a third state.  I'm not really confident our current dysfunctional government is going to handle this well.  And I'm not sure what is going to happen to the insurance companies.  They function based on the idea that these massive disasters are few and far between, and it hasn't really been all that long since Katrina.  I also worry what else the Caribbean is going to shoot up our way before the end of storm season.  
    And Houston/Harvey is also a glaring warning of another issue that I fear people will ignore.  A group of scientists warned them they were paving over too much grassland several years back, explaining that it was going to magnify flood issues in the city.  They were ignored, the grassland was paved over because "what do you science guys know" and now they are paying for it.  New Orleans kept trying to get federal aid to fix the aging levees prior to Katrina, and were ignored.  Safety and infrastructure have fallen by the wayside in favor of legislating morality and corporate profits in my opinion, and it's only going to get more dangerous as time goes on.   ​ I really worry for the future generations.  Heck, I worry what is going to happen in the next forty or so years while I'm still here.
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