Lying

There is a saying floating around the Internets, I believe coined by the Bloggess (or at least I am giving her credit.  Kinda like the whole I didn't say you were at fault, I said I was going to blame you thing)...it is simply "Depression lies."

It tells you you are no good.

It tells you things will never get better.

It tells you no one will miss you if you are gone, and even if they do they will quickly get over it. 

It tells you there is no joy in life.

It tells you that you are choosing to feel this way and deserve it because of a fundamental flaw in your make up and if you really really wanted to you could just get over it.

It lies to you.  Over and over and over again, and sucks you down into the abyss without you even realizing it.  And then when you are trying to climb out, the fucker greases the walls and laughs at you while you frantically try to get to the top.

To breathe.

To survive.

To be able to feel something, anything, besides that deep dark hole in the pit of your stomach that keeps sucking you in and making you slide back down.

And one of the most remarkable things about those who suffer from depression, is that they continue to try to climb back up those walls.  They continue to breathe.  Continue to survive, when their very being is screaming for relief and the only surefire way to get it is through death.

A person with depression is the opposite of weak.  Imagine trying to get up out of bed with a 500 lb weight on your chest.  That has weight added to it every day, so that you can never get accustomed to it and stronger.  That tells you that it will never go away and what a horrible person you are.  And then you have to try to accomplish daily tasks, like bathing.  Caring for others.  Working.  Living.  Maybe even laughing when all you want to do is scream and curl up inside yourself.

It's hard, but sometimes you start to climb out of that abyss.  The fog lifts and motivation returns.  Your capacity to feel joy comes back.  You want to bathe versus doing it just so the people you live with can tolerate you.

But it's always there in the back of your mind, that you could slip up and slide back down.  And then you do, and that just gives the depression more ammo to use against you. 

You were feeling better.

If you were a better/stronger/smarter person, you wouldn't backslide so easily.

You're fucking up your family/friends/relationships/career.

All that progress you made...for nothing.

And yet still, you climb up the slippery walls, ignoring the mocking laughter coming from the abyss.  Because you are going to survive.  You know it's a fatal disease sometimes, but you try and try and try.

Because depression lies.

Animals

Have you ever looked at someone and thought "Well, aren't you just a big bucket full of fucked up, with a dollop of crazy on top with a sprinkling of insanity?"  Yeah, that's pretty much how I feel about my cat.

I swear, she's plotting my death, probably when I'm sleeping.  It's a good thing that we sleep with our door closed because I'm pretty sure that she would try to smother me or slit my wrists in my sleep.

Nothing to see here.  Move along, now.  Move along.

It's bad enough that she does things like run into the big window in our living room over and over again to catch the leaves in the fall, or tries to burn the house down by chewing through the cord of a lamp while it is on and getting electrocuted in the meantime (for weeks after, you would take a tissue out of the box and she would about jump out of her skin)...but she also pretty frequently tries to murder the dogs.  Most specifically, Deogie.  That poor guy is so confused, he doesn't know what he is or wants to be.  He's the most metrosexual dog I know, almost to the point where he's *just* this side of straight but really really wants to experiment. He tries humping the cat on a pretty regular basis, so I can understand her irritability with him.  (He also tries to hump the other dogs and blankets pretty regularly, too, hence the confusion reference.) She takes her irritation to the extreme, though.  Deogie can be just walking past her and she was be all like "Hiss hiss", which I am assuming is cat speak for "Imma cut you, bitch.  You best check yourself before you wreck yourself."  That cat is totally ghetto, but if I was ever in a bar fight I'd totally want her on my side.

Now Maximus, he's a bit of a different story.  He's caught in a constant battle with Spartacus for the alpha male position, but Spartacus wins just because he is built like a brick shithouse.  Spartacus is like the old time bosses in the factory, the blue collar guy, who got to the top by hard work and has dirty hands.  Maximus is the fresh college grad who's coming to the factory and gets a management job by virtue of having that college diploma.  Unfortunately, he's also the frat boy who drank and snorted coke all his way through college and ascribed to the philosophy of "C's get Degrees".  Plus he totally does not know how to change a flat tire.  He was most likely banging a freshman and got her to write all of his papers for him.  He lacks what one would refer to as common sense.  Like for instance, if you pushed him over he would totally just stay there on the floor lying there, looking up at you.  He also struggles to find his way out from under a blanket. Not that I have experimented with either of these before.  *Ahem.*

Spartacus is the strong, long-suffering, silent type.  That dog doesn't bark for much of anything, which really defeated the original purpose in getting him, which was for me to have some sort of protection when I was home alone with Alexis all those years.  We once had a fucking deer, in our back yard, not 10 feet from that dog, and he just totally looked at me when I came outside like "What?"  He totally hates cats, though, which I blame solely on Angel because she's fucking certifiable.  He will bark at a cat if it is within a quarter mile of our house.  He's also an emotional eater.  I'm pretty sure that he would totally drink beer and eat pizza and pretzels every night, and would be a perpetually single man who yearned for a family of his own but never found Mrs. Right.  Or in this case, his owners chopped off his balls and he is never able to act on his crush on the neighbor's dog Rosie.  He's my baby, though, and the first pet I ever owned as an adult.  Or as a kid, really, except for an assortment of fish and that one frog that I caught from a pond and kept in my room and would feed crickets.  Do you know you can buy crickets?  And do you know how loud those fuckers are?  Never again...

We also have some fish.  Dorothy, Charlie's left overs from her Elmo obsessed days. There is also a sucker fish thingy that no one ever named, poor thing.  I'm not exactly sure, but they could both be plotting some kind of escape, Finding Nemo-style.  Or perhaps the sucker fish will really be the one to murder me in my sleep because we never bothered to name him.  If I ever wind up mysteriously dead, seriously, look at the pets.

I totally need this for my house.

Then there is the rabbit, Toby.  Actually, Toby II as the first Toby died the night I had my hysterectomy, giving the whole the rabbit died thing a new meaning.  Elizabeth maintains that it is totally fucked up that Alexis named the rabbit Toby again, but Alexis does what Alexis wants cause honey badger don't give a shit.  I've not quite put my finger on this guy, but he's not actively tried to kill me or hump me yet, and nor do I have any expectations of protection from him, so I guess he is all right.   Fucker better not die before fair, though, or I'm making all of us, Charles included, take a pregnancy test.

Humor

Note:  Usually, around this time, I write about my son and his death and my struggles with this time of year.  It hasn't gotten any easier, even 7 years out.  This year, I am taking a bit of a different approach and will be writing a more lighthearted post.  I'm well known to use humor as a coping mechanism (see: me barely avoiding giggling like a school girl cause the chaplain at the hospital kept referring to Gabe as she and Charles kept trying to correct him to no avail...) so I figured that this year I would give that a shot.  If you are interested in reading about Gabe, there are posts here, here, here, here, here,  here, and here.


There comes a time, in everyone's work day, when you just know that you aren't going to be productive anymore.  It happens to the best of us.  It happened to me today.  Now, mind you, I was staring down the barrel of a 4 day weekend and was antsy to get the hell out of the office.  One of my coworkers came by, and we started to discuss various emergencies that we have worked on together.  We then tried to dissect the mind of people who deliberately try to commit their loved ones when they get mad at them.  We were unsuccessful.  Hell, there are days when I wish Charles would go to court and probate me to the psych ward.  I could use the break.  But only if I go to a swanky one.  Because you know, that is totally how the system works.

(FYI, it's totally not.)

This conversation then proceeded to devolve further into the wonders that we had seen while doing in-home therapy.  Mostly it revolved around the whole people wanting to do therapy in various stages of undress.  I mean, I am all for being comfortable in your own home, but for the love of God, therapy requires pants, people.

This then moved to the idea that pants were not optional in the office, except for strippers, but that they probably wanted to put their clothes ON at the end of their shift vs taking them off, and then to people sending penis pictures using company e-mail.  Again, the logic that goes into this was beyond us.  As my coworker said, "Sending someone a picture of your penis is like the opposite of romantic.  In fact, I think you may have skipped at least ten steps one would normally take before you get there.  Minimum."

Then, the conversation moved to serial killers keeping heads in their fridge because they accidentally decapitated them in the midst of their psychosis because they just kept killing people when they did not mean to.  We both agreed that it was a little frightening that we could follow the logic of keeping heads in the fridge because of accidental removal of said head from the body but not of sending penis pictures or feeling that pants were optional in the work place.  However, the conclusion that was reached was that both being pantless at work and decapitating people, accidental or otherwise, are probably no-no's in the scheme of life.  Additionally, being in a relationship where your go-to move when mad is to involuntarily commit your partner is probably not healthy.

I guess the take home from this conversation?  (Besides the fact that mental health workers are pretty disturbed in and of themselves?)  Apparently I understand the psychosis that leads to serial killing better than I understand misogynistic thought processes.  I always knew I would make a disturbing psychotic person vs a happy one.

Random VI

I have had for a while now a couple of ideas for posts that have been banging around in my head like two horny teenagers, but I've not been able to make any kind of cohesive post out of any of them.  Much to my disappointment, and I am sure the disappointment of the like four readers I have.  Sorry, bitchez, but I'm not a circus monkey that can perform on command.  I need some Viagra to get this party started, if you get my drift.  Or wine.  I'm not sure what Viagra will do to a female, and I'm kinda afraid to Google it.  Then I had a lovely epiphany...I can just write a post of random shit.  I have done this before.  In my defense...OK.  No fucking defense.  It's my blog and I can write whatever the hell I want to in it.


My children's pediatrician has recently started to confirm appointments by text message.  What is really hella cool, and super enabling of my continued social anxiety and avoidance of being an adult, is the fact that you can now also cancel appointments via text as well.  Pretty soon I am so not even going to ever have to talk to people again.  Well, except for that whole being a therapist thing.


One trend that I am trying to wrap my mind around is the whole concept of a food cart.  Look, bitchez...I've worked in a restaurant, several in fact.  Who the fuck thinks that it is a good idea to take an entire building and condense it into a horse trailer, where you can then move around like some kind of nomadic, gypsy restaurateur?  It seems pretty shady to me.  Ever see the movie Snatch?  Parkies are not to be trusted.  Neither are food carts, IMHO.


Along those lines, who the hell started this whole open letter thing?  Seriously, I just can't even with those things.  What an incredibly passive aggressive idea...let's just write to the entire fucking Interwebs when someone pisses you off.  And conversely, if you are thanking someone, let's totally NOT go up to that person in person but post an anonymous letter because God forbid that we should have social interactions with each other of a positive sort.  I mean, I am cool with texting my kids' docs, but open letters piss me off and serve as a justification for my wine consumption.


Magical things happen when I avoid laundry.  And by magical I mean my grandmother's peanut butter cookies, those delicious bombs of trans fats and diabetes.  I still have yet to decide if I like them cooked or raw better.  See, my family should THANK me for not engaging in the futility of laundry.  Really, I'm just trying to show my love through delicious peanut butter cookies.  Except to Charlie.  Peanut butter makes her gag.  But hey, all my actions can't be winners.


I've also been thinking a lot about the whole concept of hashtags.  Who the fuck thought of that name?  Who came up with the idea to put a # sign in front of shit?  And really, what purpose do they have on Facebook?  I've been trying to start my own hashtag, #textingwithalicia, but I only use it on Facebook.  Mostly because 90% of the time I forget I have a Twitter.  I'm a really bad Tweeter.  I have an Instagram too that I post, like, monthly on.  But really, has anyone ever considered that hashtags could be the way that pot heads keep track of content on the internet?  I mean, come one, HASHtags....I wonder if by using them I have been inadvertently enabling someone's weed habit.  Great, now I feel fucking guilty.  I thought I gave that all up when I stopped attending Catholic churches...

Conversations XIII

Reading from Reddit:

Me:  Huh.  I'm glad we are not giraffes.

Charles: ?

Me: According to this list of weird facts, "To know when to mate, a male giraffe will continuously headbutt the female in the bladder until she urinates. The male then tastes the pee and that helps it determine whether the female is ovulating"

Charles:  I would just head butt your head.

Me:  I know, right?  I'm glad for both of us here.  Me because I don't want to be head butted in the bladder, and you because you don't have to drink my pee.  That's just weird foreplay.

Long pause.

Charles: Uh, OK?

Me:  Well, I'm just sayin'...

Charles: (Shaking head.)  Well, you brought it up.  I'm perfectly ok with just having sex, OK?

Me:  Well, if there was ever anyone I would want to drink my pee, it would be you.

Charles: And I promise I won't head butt you anywhere but your head.

We would make lousy giraffes, apparently.

Shoes

I am fighting a never ending battle in this household.

Not about eating veggies, the importance of wiping front to back, or even about going to bed at night.  While all of these are very real struggles, there is one that trumps all battles and has escalated into full blown nuclear holocaust.

The fucking shoes.

Not only are my children (and to be perfectly honest, my husband (and to be even more honest, on rare occasions, me)) apparently genetically wired to accumulate as many pairs of shoes as possible, they lack the portion of DNA that handles putting them away.

Our house is small.  And very awkwardly put together.  Our house is the pre-pubescent tweenage boy of houses who just hit a growth spurt and possibly discovered a hair or two where there had not been one before.  Just like the man-boy, our house has dreams of one day growing up, learning to drive, and possibly getting to second base.  It is just all the awkward limbs and acne and voice cracking is getting in the way.

Or, since I am talking about my abode, rooms that lead to rooms, lack of closet space, rooms modernized after the fact with newfangled things like running water and electricity and asbestos-free insulation, a random addition that did not add much usable square footage, and one bathroom for five people, four of whom are female.

It's awkward.  I think you get it.

Anyways, since you abruptly enter our house and are immediately in the living room, I have had to carve out some kind of area where people could hang coats, take off shoes, and whatnot.  The problem is, during the winter, my husband has roughly 8 trillion coats and takes up every goddamned spot on the coat rack.  Plus there is a limited space for people to take off their shoes, and unfortunately when they do so they usually are having to schlep through whatever the people before them tracked into my house.  And if a lot of people are over, the shoes pile up.  It's really a fire hazard and thank God the fire marshal does not inspect the house because we'd get one hefty fine there, I tell you what.

What is worse, though, are the sheer number of shoes that we own as a family and trying to corral all of them.  I could have the kids put them up in their rooms...but there is a distinct lack of closet space and they would likely get lost in the abyss of their rooms, along with all matches to socks, library books, my sanity, and quite possibly other small children/mammals.

I have been struggling with how to organize all of the fucking shoes.  Not only shoes, but the 8 billion work boots my husband has to match his 8 billion coats.  Work boots are impossibly to store in a cute fashion.  Not that my house is cute, because it is all pre-pubescent boys and decorated in early poverty, but I do like to pretend occasionally that I'm all Pinterest savvy and gonna do my house up all Trading Spaces style.  I have tried numerous configurations.  Baskets, drawers, piles, shoe racks.  Nothing is ever a good solution.  This is the Good Housekeeping equivalent of the unsolvable equation in theoretical mathematics.  It is a mystery that will be studied and pondered on by future generations in much the same way that we marvel at Stonehenge and its seeming purposelessness. 

The current shoe situation is that each of the three girls has their own basket next to the love seat.  There is a shoe rack on the other side of the loveseat that has all of Charles's boots and the two other pairs of shoes he has that aren't work boots.  Then in our room, which is (awkwardly) off of the living room, I have all of my shoes in a two drawer dresser thingy and a basket.  It makes it tolerable, I guess.  Until it isn't and I have a nervous breakdown and am found in the corner of my house, wearing work boots and licking the heels of my stilettos while rocking back and forth and humming "Roxanne". 

I don't really have a clever way to end this post.  The shoe situation...kinda sucks.  It is awkward, just like my house and tweenage boys.  Oh, lookit there!  Hot damn, I found my ending!

Updated to add:  My husband feels that this post makes him look like a slob.  I asserted that it made him look like he has a work boot fetish.  We both concurred that neither was really all that flattering...so in his defense, I *may* have exaggerated by a few billion the number of work boots he has.  Like maybe 7.99999999 billion plus 4.  But in my defense, once upon a time, he may have had 8 pairs.

And don't criticize me if my math is wrong above.  I may or may not have had a drink or four tonight.

Growing

One of the running jokes in this household is the fact that Charlie's preschool pictures are pretty awful.  Like not that she looks terrible in them or anything, but that they are not cute little reflections of her preschool years that you see in magazines but rather reflections of the darker side of her personality.

It's really funny because she is generally a pretty cute child.  Except, of course, when she is shrieking like a banshee because I won't let her wear her plastic princess dress up shoes outside in a foot of snow.  During those times her head rotates 360*, Beelzebub does a voice dub for her, and she shoots you some angry eyes that the most hardened of prison inmates would find intimidating.  That blonde haired blue eyed innocent look she's going for is deceiving...don't let yourself forget that she was definitely born a red head (and I have the pictures to prove it!)  But other than that, she is a pretty angelic looking little baby.

There is something about getting in front of the camera at school that somehow brings out the clinically depressed or homicidal maniac in her.  I know this because I have pictures of pictures of her looking like this.  I generally don't buy school pictures because I'm trying desperately to check off ALL items on the lousy parent checklist (yes, I'm an overachiever) but I have been really tempted to get some of these just cause they are so fucking hilarious.  Hence, the pictures of pictures.  Mama's gotta budget, yo, and I can't keep buying wine and coffee if I have to fork out for school pictures.

The last set that we got takes the cake though.  This time, it wasn't because of being depressed or looking like a psychopathic killer.  This time, it was because it so completely captured her "I'm gonna do it my way and if you don't like it there's the door" personality.   As I am totally parent of the year (NOT!  See above...) I kinda forgot until the last minute that it was picture day.  Not that I was going to buy them, but I do try to get my kids looking halfway decent for the class picture.  I was not about to try to change her outfit up that morning as I generally don't function in the mornings.  Hence the picking out of the outfit the night before.  She picked out a great yellow t-shirt with big flowers on it, a pink tutu, and a lovely bright magenta headband.  Not too awful, right?

Then I saw the picture.

OMG.  She popped a hip out, one hand resting on it.  The headband she put around her hair, but then did not pull it through so she looked like some kind of Rambo/Hippie child (Char-Rambo, anyone?)  Her teacher told me she was adamant that her hair had to be like that.  It was amazing and awesome and totally captured her spirit.  Plus, she did not look like the poster child for an antidepressant, which was a bonus.  It was Charlie to the nth degree.

I will continue to marvel at the way that my children are growing and becoming their own persons.  Hell, Elizabeth is going to be 18.  Eight.  Teen.  As in, legally an adult.  As in, she gets to vote in the next presidential election.  As in, she could go get all kinds of tattoos and piercings if she wanted.  As in, legally responsible for her actions.  Just...holy fuck. And Alexis...she wants to get up and do a solo for competition.  Alexis.  The shy little girl who hated everyone as an infant and cried every class for the first month of ballet...doing a solo competitively.  It blows my mind.

It still amazes me that they let me take these kids home from the hospital.  I mean, those physicians and nurses obviously did not know me on a personal level if they thought that it would be a good idea to let me raise children...or even leave me with them for extended periods of time unsupervised.  The fact that my kids are as awesome as they are; that they are growing and healthy and on the path to being productive members of society...that is all them.  Their minds, their personalities, their souls...they are all beautiful.

I just hope that I am able to undo what society will try to tell them.  That they aren't beautiful enough, skinny enough, smart enough...any kind of enough.  I hope they learn as they grow that they DO have what it takes to be whatever they want, to do whatever they want.  I hope that they embrace their love of pink tutus and hippie hairstyles; that they grow to love themselves despite other people trying their damnedest to get them to despise themselves for a myriad of reasons.

I hope they keep growing.  And that they will look back on these kinds of pictures and laugh as much as I have.  Because they are beautiful and humorous and a damn good reflection of their growth and emergence as their own women.

Cars

Life likes to request weird sex acts (like enacting foot fetish fantasies with peanut butter and a pumice stone) just when I was expecting a romantic cuddle, especially when it comes to vehicles.

I should have known that this was going to be a recurring issue.  Charles and I were married for less than 24 hours when, on our way to our honeymoon, the transfer case on his 4 wheel drive broke.  On the frightening and confusing stretch of highway that is otherwise known as the PA turnpike.  In the middle of a construction zone.  At 4 PM.  On a Sunday.  Super fun times and not at all a stressful way to start life as a married couple...

Then, about a year and a half later, I get t-boned and total my car.  It was the first time I've had the wind knocked out of me AND had my back thrown out at the same time and again, super fun times were had by all involved.  A month later?  Charles hits a concrete pole and totally dents in the side of his truck.  A year later?  Driving to grad school in the Jeep Liberty I got (you know, to replace the totaled car...) in a snowstorm and I ditch the fucker.

Really, we aren't as bad of drivers as I am making us out to be.

Things get really exciting now that there are THREE licensed drivers in the house.  Elizabeth drives the worst car ever.  No seriously, it's a piece of shit.  1990 Geo Prizm.  The bumper is zip tied on.  Well, mostly.  There may also be some drywall screws holding it into place as well.  It is fabulous in its awfulness. 

The wheel bearing was going out in the car.  Like, the wheel had a distinct diagonal tilt.  Thank God for a handy hubby, who was fixing it.

But...foot fetish.

He had to take the bearing to work to press it in.  Then realized that he needed a seal or some shit.  So he drove around to three different auto parts stores.  Got the part.  Opened the box.  It was wrong.  The box LIED.  He took that back, and, like the two other stores before, was told that they could have it tomorrow.  Not gonna mothafucking work, buddy.  There is school and work tomorrow.  Shits gotta get fixed today!  Decides to go to another store...they have it.  Hallelujah!  The cuddle and romance are coming!

Just kidding!

On the way home, he slams on his brakes to avoid a collision with a bale of hay that comes flying off the back of a truck in front of him.  Something goes crunch, and it ain't the hay.  Not a good sound to hear.  Then...trying to turn into the driveway, he does not get very far.  Something is not right.  No time to figure it out as there is dance and dinner to contend with.

I get home to a flat tire on the Jeep (when he changed the brakes this weekend, he did not screw a bolt down enough and it came loose, putting a small hole in the rim), the Prizm jacked up with the wheel off, and a harried husband who is trying to calculate the odds of rain in case he needs to drive the motorcycle to work tomorrow cause all the other vehicles are broken.  Super duper fun times!

I hope I am still respected in the morning.  I will never look at peanut butter the same again.

Insanity

If doing the same thing and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity, then any person who has ever cleaned their house is likely to be certifiable.

I spent the better part of three hours today scrubbing my floors and baseboards.  Like, on my knees, and not in the way that makes my husband really happy.  Moving furniture, sweeping with a broom AND a vacuum, physically scrubbing the floors till they shined...the whole nine yards.

Then the family came in from outside.

Now, it's spring.  I hate spring to the point I felt it necessary to document why on the Internet.  And while the weather is unseasonably cold so the ground is still frozen, the snow has already melted, and we have not gotten any rain for the past few days (AKA, no mud), there is still all kinds of shit to track in on my nice clean floors besides mud.  Like pine needles.  Dried, crumpled leaves from last fall.  Or dog hair.

Dear God, the dog hair.  Who had the great idea to get both a border collie/husky mix and a Malamute mix?  Plus a cat and a Jack Russell Terrier?  Animals fucking shed, people.  And its not all nice and contained like when a snake sheds their skin.  Oh, no.  That shit gets everywhere.  Even when the fuckers aren't in the house, I still find dog hair.  I've considered opening my own dog toupee making business or donating to Locks of Love, Doggy Style.  Is that a thing?  If it isn't it should be.  I'd totally donate, and not just because I am sick of the hair all over my house.  Strictly because the name is made of awesome.

It is always this way though.  I get the house clean and everyone around me comes and systematically undoes what I just did.  Then I fume and grumble, and clean it again.  And the cycle goes on and on, like the housekeeping version of Groundhog Day.

I'm really bad about making my family clean up after themselves.  Mostly because I know (and unfortunately they know) that I will go crazy with the mess way before they will.  And of course, no one in the house ever actually makes the mess.  It's the gremlins who apparently come out when I've just fucking cleaned to spill that juice on the floor and leave it for Mom to clean.  Because we just like to really fuck with her head and see exactly how well her meds are working today.  Those gremlins are ASSHOLES sometimes.  Why can't they do something useful, like leave random margaritas lying around the house instead of random dishes that you may or may not need a haz-mat suit on first to be able to safely put them in the dishwasher?

So yeah.  It makes me feel a little bit better, though, to know that at least some aspects of my crazy aren't unique to me.  It's the feeling of community and of having a tribe, doncha know?  You aren't in this fight alone.  You aren't the only one who secretly wishes the family would stay outside just for an hour longer so you can enjoy the fruits of your labor for more than 5 minutes.  You aren't the only one who despises the gremlins who anonymously leave a sticky, crumb filled trail of destruction in their invisible wakes.

Makes me wonder, though, if a better definition of insanity is doing the same thing, knowing the result you are going to get is not a satisfactory one, yet doing it anyways.  Either/or.  I think I've made my case.

Cleaning is insanity.

Judging

I never knew the sting of a contemptuous stare until I had to stand in line at DJFS to resubmit my paperwork for the voucher for daycare so I could finish college.

I never knew the frustration of wanting to defend myself to those people because I was getting government help until I had to pretend to hold my head high as I walked past them and heard their not so subtle comments about the teenage mother.

I never knew that fake tattoos only stay on a child's cheek forever if you have pictures scheduled until I had to scrub one off of a pissed off child.

I never knew the struggle of infertility until I lost pregnancy after pregnancy.

I never knew that there would be women jealous that I could even *get* pregnant until I lost pregnancy after pregnancy.

I never knew the knife that twisted in your heart as a bereaved parent until I had to pick up the remains of a dead child from the crematory.

I never knew the soul crushing weight of depression until the day I did not want to get out of bed.

I never knew the hurt of losing a pet until I had to bury a dog.

I never knew that alcohol was not, in fact, the answer until I woke up the next day with a splitting headache and vague memories of what (and who) I *think* I had done the night before.

I never knew the stats about sexual abuse were so under reported that they are practically useless because they do not show the true story until I started to hear the victim's stories.

I never knew that people with schizophrenia DO want to work until I saw it be done.

I never knew that it was so hard to be poor until I was actually poor myself and had to figure out how to feed my child.

I never knew that yes, it is important to get regular oil changes until I blew up the motor.

I never knew that the parents who's child is screaming in the aisles at the grocery store may not be lazy, worthless, abusive parents of said child but may have a special needs child.  Or a difficult child.  Or a child who is simply having a really bad day.

I never knew that children had so much personality until I started to work with them.

I never knew that I would be judged on the quality of my womanhood if I had my uterus removed, until I had it removed.

I never knew that the food I was eating was slowly killing me until I lost, then gained back, weight.

I never knew the extent that men feel entitled to women's bodies and the extent to which they feel free to comment, stare, and then be pissed when they don't get what they feel entitled to, until I lost a bunch of weight.

I never knew the price often exacted from our servicemen and women until I had family members have to pay that price.

I never knew the agony of sleepless nights worrying about money until I had to rob Peter to pay Paul who was robbed last month to pay Samuel...

I never knew how much I judged others until I realized how much I in turn was judged by others, despite feeling that I had no reason to be judged.

And...I never fully understood the idea of not judging other's battles until your hands are clean until I was judged, found lacking, and then realized that their hands were just as dirty as mine.