The OCD A-Ha Moment

I finished off my first school week (and supposed work vacation) with mixed emotions and spent most of today sleeping off two Imitrex shots for my new routine "end of week" migraine.

Friday, during another social call to my English Professor (she really is extraordinary), I let slip about my little "hospital visit" and how school came out of that. I really need to learn to keep my mouth shut, but she is very easy to talk to. It did leave last October a bit too fresh on my brain by Friday night though. There is a reason why "everything happens for a reason" is one of my mantras.

In the middle of reading the second Fifty book while watching Eclipse on Friday night (I'm getting a bit too good at simultaneous movie-watching and book-reading), a startling realization hit me like the proverbial clacker against a gigantic brass plate.

For those who haven't read the Fifty books (I'll try not to get too spoiler-y, but this wasn't in the movies), Christian sees a shrink on a regular basis (I know, the irony, right?). Ana tells Christian she won't agree to his marriage proposal until she gets to talk to the shrink about Christian first. She has already given him the box with the keychain by this point, so it's moot, but she just needs some reassurances. Dr. Flynn tells Ana she's the reason why Christian no longer needs to dominate, because he's found his future and could stop dwelling on his past, even if Christian's still having trouble accepting that fact (there is this whole discussion about the proper therapy name for it, but it's unimportant). The good doc tells her to hang in there and keep doing what she was doing to keep Christian on the right path to "fixing" him (even though technically he isn't broken, which is what the shrink has been trying to tell him all along). It left her pretty confused, but then the whole helicopter thing happened and well, I didn't pay too close attention to the shrink stuff in the books to be honest (wonder why?).

Since Fifty is nothing but Twilight fan fiction, it didn't take me long to see the similarities with Edward only a LOT more vanilla (pardon the pun). Once Edward realized Bella wasn't dead in New Moon, he was willing to do whatever it took to keep her in his life, even if it meant he had to change how he viewed himself, the martyred demon. He also stopped seeing Bella as an innocent whose soul he was condemning to hell, but rather a partner first, the mother of his child second, and then, finally, his equal. By the end, his new-found purpose became to protect his family at all costs...his past long forgotten along with his demons.

It took me a while to catch on where I was heading myself, so I went back to Christian looking for more similarities with Edward. I tend to relate to Christian more given I'm also "fifty shades of fucked up" (although, ironically, not really that much differently, except for the BDSM part), so it made more sense that he would be the a-ha guy for me.

I have spent my ENTIRE life trying to deal with my past, dwelling on events that I had no control over. I've been trying in vain to forget, or fix, or change, or make right, or abuse, or cover up with medication, or blaa, blaa, blaa. I had a routine down, a pattern of blame were I directed anger at others (like Christian), or myself (like Edward), but three days locked in the psych ward and I'm registering for classes? No wonder I've been "what the f"ing! for months!

GGGGOOONNNNGGGG! Yep, when it finally dawned on me (again, pardon the pun), it was like someone had hit me on the side of the head with that clacker, and my head was the brass plate! My little hospital visit really was the reason why I decided to go back to school...not to torture myself or to have a "pet project" for the summer, or just to avoid my issues altogether, but to FINALLY stop dwelling on my past and focus on my future!

Given the choice though, and I feel it needs to be said, I would take Edward Cullen or Christian Grey over an education any day, but that, apparently, is not my destiny (Robert Pattinson or Jamie Dornan would also do, but again...fate hates me).

Even though I still struggle with the most basic of tasks like getting groceries, I'm able to deal with all manner of unseemly social situations on campus (although not all of them have been bad obviously) because I now understand that dwelling on the past won't make it go away and my beige/blue room of pain, via Hotel California, was my wake up call.

College is the way forward to a new life, hopefully one in a different city and state, in a better house, and maybe even, with a not-so fictional hero of my own (although I'm sure fate will have something to say about that part). I gotta go through a little pain of my own to get to the pleasure part. The dawn has broken my friends (pun intended)!

Wow, yeah, I know, I'm still in shock myself! Now I understand the pull toward these particular series, why Twilight wasn't enough (and why I just HAD to go Fifty...I needed to go "darker"). I was more worried about my stupid OCD and the subject matter to pay attention to what subconscious was screaming her angry little head off about. Now, if I could just find out where my inner goddess is hiding and and bring her out, I'd really be a new woman (god, now I'm speaking in "Ana-isms"!).

Can I stop the OCD cycle now? No, don't think so, not yet at least. I wish I could. But I don't think my OCD is done with me quite yet and, like Christian, I may have grasp the realization of my modifying situation, but I'm still afraid it could all be taken away at any moment.

Maybe, like Ana, I need a bit of "kinky fuckery" in my life to distract me for now, Then, like Bella, I can proudly claim, "I've decided on my life and I wanna start living it", only after I find a heaping dose of vampire-strengthened courage!

Oh well, time to do homework now. Just thought I'd share. Yeah, who am I kidding? I've got books to read and movies to watch! Homework can wait until tomorrow. At least I did find it hard not to write this post in the MLA format that my English Prof desires us to write in, so my head is must be shifting somewhat, right?

Introducing...

May I cordially introduce Keebs...college student extraordinaire!!

After a SEVERE panic attack on Sunday (the worse I have had since leaving the "hospital" and even worse than Saturday), I decided to watch Infinity War, which has been sitting on my kitchen counter for a week. A co-worker told me how "good" it was and how much "I'd love it" and how it was "the best Avenger's movie ever". Well, he lied. He KNEW how I'd react to that ending (and I won't give you spoilers, but I started bawling five minutes in and was scream bawling by the very end). I texted him the nastiest text and he told me to watch it again because it gets better the second time...well, it DIDN'T!

Needless to say, my nerves were completely in check all day (other than the five minutes before class when I was backed into a corner and completely surrounded by smelly 19 year-olds), because all I could see was Captain America saying "oh my God" at the end of that movie.

I told my co-worker, I didn't know whether to kick him (for making me suffer like that) or hug him (for making my anxiety go away). I'm still leaning toward kicking him. Yes, Cap survived (which was my biggest fear), but still...SERIOUSLY? They better do some serious fixing in the next movie to make all this right!!

I've personally decided I'm going to have to break down and tell work to back off. The Disability Office said the same. They won't take it well. I've told them no before and they laugh me off, but this time I HAVE to mean it. If not, I have to find a new job. If school goes well, I will need to take more hours and I will need the extra time to study and go to classes. This job won't allow that, at least not for me (although they do for other people). I see that now.

We'll see how things go, but if I do good and I see I can handle this, next semester things will really have to change.

Will the chicken win out?

I've been trying every OCD trick to stay distracted. My Twilight obsession has now progressed on to Fifty Shades of Grey...a series I swore I'd NEVER touch with a ten foot pole, strictly on it's fan fiction-status alone. And yet, I'm still watching the seconds, minutes, hours, days fly by faster and faster to Monday, my first day back in college in 15 years and they are getting worse and worse with each passing moment.

I've spent the entire day reading every single Twilight book and then every single Fifty book (my reading skills are getting speedier...at least one positive outcome from all this), I've watched the Fifty movies, and now, at 10:30 pm, I'm on New Moon. Yeah, I got up REALLY early this morning (more on that in a moment) and yet, even with my eyes darting from TV to book to clock, Saturday has lasted all of 5 minutes. I can imagine Sunday will take all of one, but I also figure there will be no stop between the two days...even if I take my meds that would typically knock out a horse.

I'm not sure if I can do this whole college thing now. After all the struggles of getting back in school in the first place...the financial costs, the fighting re-taking the ACT's, the re-getting boosters I've already had, the endless meetings with counselors I didn't want to go through, yada, yada, yada, I'm starting to waver.

Don't even get me started on the hell I'm still going through on a weekly basis at work, which reached its highest crescendo Friday when I got blindsided with the news that even people who have no stake in my current, or future, position with the company are "concerned" about how school will affect my work and think "measures" should be taken and have been discussing said "measures" with senior management. Seriously people, mind your own damned business already!

Needless to say, I went to bed very late on Friday (or some might say Saturday morning) and woke up very early this morning (or some might say an hour or so later) unable to continue sleeping, hence my current predicament.

But still, as I sit here typing, my anger still not in check from Friday, my head aching from sleep depravity, my fear keeping me from doing online things that NEED to be done before Monday for school, I'm starting to wonder what would happen if I decided to NOT go back to school after all? What if I decided NOT to show up Monday or Wednesday or Friday or log in to the website again, ever (except maybe to send the loan money back)?

Am I really THAT chicken? I have been saying all this time I didn't know why I was doing this, especially since my "hospital stay" affected me so negatively in every other aspect of life...why did I push SO hard for this school mess? It didn't make sense. Maybe it was just a "project" to distract me and now the "project" is done, I don't need to actually go through with it? Is that possible?

Could I give work the satisfaction of knowing, "hey, don't worry, I'm not going anywhere and you can keep taking advantage of me as an employee all you want!"? Do I really want to live in this trailer for the rest of my life, never leaving this small town that I hate so much because I'll never make enough money to get out? Can I really continue on working for peanuts in a highly-paid job field simply because I don't have a degree? Right now, I'd say yes to every single one of those points just to be able to stay home on Monday. How sad is that?

When the time comes, when the alarm goes off Monday morning (if I manage any sleep between now and then), will I be able to open the front door at all? And even if I do actually make it out the door, into the car, and the five minutes to campus, somehow make it out of the car again, walk to class, walk in class and make it through class...who's to say I won't make it worse in my head than it actually was and never go back?

Every day will be a struggle and I've known that this entire time (obviously, because it's why I started with disability services in the first place), but I haven't dealt with that fact until now and I'm obviously not ready to deal with it now either because Edward is leaving Bella now and I have to get back to the movie (and I'll think I'll see if I can read the Fifty books while I watch the Twilight movies...double OCD whammy).

Cape San Blas off of Port St. Joe

So, just to start, here's a look at my tree as the two, mine and the ones my parents planted, are now fighting for control:

Sorry for the close proximity...I tend to find that my 35mm fixed lens tends to work better in the car for movement pics, so I was kind of locked as to position. But they are both growing back well, although not as tall as I would like.

My town at 2am...Southerner's aren't much for staying out late:

I am NOT a fan of driving in Alabama, which is odd because most people around here would say they hate and are scared of Mississippi. I actually like driving in Mississippi and feel safer there. I took the straight Alabama way so I could get there quicker instead of my usual Mississippi to coast road. But with Alabama, at least on the interstate, this is usually all I ever see:

And, if the fog does actually clear, more of the same of this:

I did see this sign...so I did get a "Twilight" moment during the trip...my favorite Cullen/Hale/Whitlock!

Another interesting side fact...I tend to pronounce Birmingham like the Brits do (because that's where Duran Duran is from, so that's how I learned to say it). Drives my Sister insane! She corrects me every single time, but I still say it the Brit way instead of the Southern way.

Alabama does not make for an exciting road trip because there is just nothing to see. Then you have to worry about when the interstate ends and you end up in the scary little towns. I'm from Northeast Arkansas, and trust me, I've seen some pretty scary places, but Alabama just isn't my cup of tea apparently. Repressed memories as kid maybe? I think my issues tend to stem with the fact that there are just less interstates in Alabama and more highways which means more small towns. I prefer the interstates. Mississippi has plenty. But anyway, I finally arrived at 1pm:

And here is what the other side looked like toward the Florida coast:

Normally, I'd walk on the beach for maybe and hour and come home. But it was so beautiful there, I ended up walking over three hours (almost 5 3/4 miles round trip) and still barely made it halfway down the cape. That's a goal for another trip. But here are a few shots of what it looked like there (oh, and some where taken with my camera, some with phone, so forgive some of the quality differences):


I got a little "wave" happy and took a lot of shots of them:

The shells there were smaller than St. George, but I still picked up WAY more than I could carry:

And after walking miles in the water with my flip flops, I actually took them off because my feet were hurting. I NEVER walk barefoot in the water because I ALWAYS get stung by jellyfish (although I always have my flip flops on when I do, so I'm not sure why I think flip flops are going to save me, but there's also glass and needles and god knows what in the sand, so maybe that's why, but still). So here is the first EVER picture of me BAREFOOT in the ocean!

A little know fact about me is, as much as I love the ocean, I HATE walking in sand. Sand at the water level is fine to walk in, but getting through that dry stuff makes my skin crawl. My Sister thinks this is hilarious, I don't. Because I'm a "bigger" girl, I tend to sink and it's just hard to walk through it (plus, I just hate the feeling of it). The wet sand, however, is different (yes, I already know I'm weird). Once I get to the water, I rarely stray from the wet sand until it's time to leave and I walk super-fast through the dry stuff. But here is me flying through the dry stuff:

When I was a kid (and a budding artist), I used to draw bubbles all the time, so I also found myself taking a lot of pictures of bubbles:

There were also several tide pools...the first I think I've ever seen:

And, it's hard to tell, but there were fish in them! I was going to walk in one until I saw the fish and then I didn't.

I also thought the sand patterns at the edge of the pools was neat, but that might just be that repressed artist in me seeing beauty in something weird:

When I realized I was never going to make it to the end of the cape and I turned around, but stupid me forgot to actually take a picture of what cape was left...you can sort of tell from this pic, but not by much...those tiny little black specs are people:

I literally followed this bird all the way back to the parking lot:

The only jellyfish I saw and I didn't step anywhere near it:

I was never so happy to see a walkway back to a parking lot in my entire life! I was sore, sunburnt, and knew I was going to get home VERY late, but it was so totally worth it! What a beautiful place!

I also love lighthouses, but their's was pretty pitiful:

And then I made the biggest mistake of all...I started home via Hwy 98, a road I know like the back of my hand since it's a coast road because I didn't want to navigate Alabama in the dark. Yeah, coast road, end of summer, Saturday night. Stupid. I went as far as I could until I got to the first I10 exit. The thing about I10 is that it is ALWAYS got red sections because of deadly wrecks and it's backed up for miles. For some reason, the gods much have been smiling on me because it stayed green all the way to Biloxi. I managed to make it to Wentzels for my Eggplant La Rossa to go (my favorite dish) before the closed and headed home my usual Gulfport way through Hattiesburg, Jackson and back through Memphis.

All in all, I left at 2am-ish on Saturday morning, got to St. Joe at 1pm (but there was a time change, so that affected things), left there at 4pm, and pulled into my drive at 5:08am on Sunday morning. 1378 miles, so not bad! I will definitely be going back there again...when I figure out how I'm going to manage this whole school thing that is! I'd actually like to go up there and stay a couple of days so I can actually walk that entire cape. That's my goal! Oh, and here's the link to the entire album of pictures.

Oh yeah, and the shell haul this time:

Have NO CLUE what I'm going to do with them...they won't fit in my shell jar unless I remove the gulf sand that I made a special trip just to get. So, for now at least, on my kitchen counter they live (or stay dead...you say potato...).

I did it!

Well, I don't have a Books vs Movies post this week because I went to the coast this week...by MYSELF!! It's the first time I've done that since my "hospital" stay and I had the best time ever! I went to Port St. Joe and down to Cape San Blas.

It was also the last so-called port of call of the Gulf that I've not been to. From Bay St. Louis to Alligator Point, there is no where else on the Gulf coast plate that I can go via car that I haven't already been to at least once in my life. That's both sad and rather gratifying. I guess, since some of those places I went as a kid with adults might not count (like Alligator Point), I could revisit as an adult alone, but still, the entire gulf has been covered now. I will say, Cape San Blas is now my new favorite place though. It was beautiful and serene and I felt more peaceful there than I have in a very long time, so maybe I've finally found that perfect "get away".

Pictures will follow (whenever I get around to getting them edited and uploaded), but needless to say, I stayed there for three hours walking the beach, picking up shells, and just generally enjoying life, something I don't do enough.

Slowly, but surely, I'm getting back to being me again...which I guess is good, considering that this is my last real week before school starts next week!

Books vs Movies #3: Harry Potter

This one will be short and sweet, just because I think this one is a no-brainer, but maybe you guys can offer me a different opinion. I should also say that I'm only talking about the first seven books and the first eight movies...I haven't seen or read any since (I'm a bit afraid of stirring up another old obsession, which is why I haven't bought any of the new series).

There will NEVER been an ensemble cast like there was in these movies...honestly, it was the best of the best of British actors. Even the ones with tiny roles (like David Tennant or Robert Pattinson...nudge nudge) managed to explode on the screen, and hold their own even with the amazing genius that will forever be Alan Rickman. I think the movies would be too hard for me to watch now because of Alan's loss and I kind of hate that.

But...and, here it comes, even as fabulous as the movies are, they can't even come close to comparing to the books. There is just too information left out of the movies from the books and I feel like I'm probably more attached to the actors in the movies more than I am to the characters in the books. They are almost like two separate worlds to me.

I always felt like the first books reads like a "first novel" in that it's a bit too simple and I'm not a fan of Chamber of Secrets in either form (but it's needed to progress the story, so I deal with it), but the complexity she hits by The Deathly Hallows, her writing has matured so much that you no longer feel like you're reading youth fiction. It's like you grow with the novels like she (and her characters) did and I admire that. I can't say I've ever been so completely lost in a book series before or since in my entire life (and no, I can't compare it to Twilight because that's more of an obsessive thing than an actual "enjoyment" kind of thing...two different beasts, but yes, I'm still neck-deep in that mess too, damn it).

The Potters are truly amazing books and I tend to gasp audibly when people tell me they've seen the movies but never read the books because they are missing so much of the story. Then again, I also find that people who watch movies like this (serials) aren't often readers anyway and, a lot of the time, it's the same way the opposite...if they read the books, they often never see the movies. I'm not sure why that is, but I'm more of the "give it to me in any form you can" kind of person...books, movies, soundtracks, toys (or rather, collectibles I guess I should say), documentaries, podcasts, etc (just not fan fiction, ha!). Maybe that's because of the OCD though. Sometimes I'm unsure what is "normal" behavior and what is just me being "me".

What do you guys think? Books or movies or both or even neither?