sight isn't always necessary

Ruining the first post of the year

eabeckman — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 14:47:59 +0000

I probably should write about something prolific and deep, but instead this will be just a quick post, commenting on one of the first things to annoy me in the new year. I’m only mildly annoyed, maybe even more entertained than annoyed because the specific topic of interest made me want to write a little. You see, I’m not on Facebook. I was, had a couple hundred friends, and then deleted my account because of how out of control it can get. I can’t see how being “friends” with someone on the internet, sharing intimate details about my day-to-day life with these strangers, but then being depressed about no one calling me on my birthday could possibly be a good thing. Plus, Zuckerberg and his cronies have too many secret ways of getting our personal information and using it against us to make themselves money. Though fictional, after watching “The Social Network”, I was angry at “the man” and got rid of my account a few days later.

So. Point… where did it go….

Ah. Craig still has an account. Many of his friends were my friends, my family is all still on the network, so every once in a while I log on to his account to see if anything interesting is going on. And dude, this is the kind of crap I see – four or five people had written prayers to God for a healthy, prosperous, and whatever new year. They wrote these prayers to God as their status messages. AS IF, in his infinite greatness, God can pay attention to every living thing on Earth… and check everyone’s Facebook status for some more details.

I didn’t miss out much when I deleted that account. Guess if we have some huge revolution here in the states, I may be at a disadvantage because I’m not all socially connected. Otherwise, I’ll live without.

Resolution

eabeckman — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 20:05:30 +0000

I hate New Years resolutions, mostly because they’re always a distant memory by about 2 weeks after the ball drops. What’s the point in dedicating yourself to a life-altering commitment when you’re just going to feel guilty about not following through, then end up eating a quarter of a cake to get over your guilt? Not for me, suckers.

But I do want to make a change this year, and it’s related to this here blog-thingy. I’m depressed. I’m constantly searching for something better and it’s a futile search, plus my half-assed attempt usually fails me and I’m left with a feeling of emptiness, loneliness. Makes no sense, does it? I’m married to a wonderful husband, have two amazing children, a ridiculously loving smelly dog (ridiculous because we call him names all the time, because he smells bad), have a few good friends, really great parents that are still alive and healthy… what sense is there in being lonely? It’s just me, it’s just the way I am, and feeling bad about it all the time is one of the things that I continue to do really well, for my entire life. I’ve perfected self-doubt.

So here’s my resolution – blogging therapy. For myself. I want to write a post a week this year, to put in print what is in my heart, and hopefully open up some space in there for things like:

Happiness

Confidence

Motivation

Laughter

Nag me when it’s getting close to two weeks apart on a post, because you know I’ll feel like a failure if I don’t follow through on my resolution. Then I’ll eat cake, then I’ll be mad that I devoured so many carbs, then I’ll be mad that Craig watched me eating cake while he nibbled away at celery and peanut butter in his uber-perfection with a low carb diet, then I’ll be mad at him for being so perfect, then I’ll go run on the treadmill for too long so I hurt my hip or knee or ankle…

The list goes on. Better to just nag me.

Why am I invisible?

eabeckman — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 00:57:51 +0000

So, I’m working a 16 hour shift tonight, and its not too busy, which has given me a lot of time to stew on things. Mostly to mope about myself, even though I have little to mope about. But I’m sitting here, working with one of my so-called friends, who happens to be having an hour long conversation with someone from another floor. I’ve passed by countless times and never even had a smile from either of them pass my way, so I’m left to wonder if there’s any chance that I have become invisible. It has happened in the past, I think, so its definitely possible. Whenever this happens, too, I don’t respond the right way. Someone else may just jump into conversations when they’re not invited, but I’m way too introverted to try that. So I just stew on feeling angry for being ignored. Maybe it’ll carry me through to the morning.

Winded

eabeckman — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 02:30:00 +0000

I haven’t been able to pause and wonder about my life for a long time – this week has given me that. The scary thing is that I’m not so sure that where I am is where I want to be. That includes children and husband – I’m just not sure I’m satisfied with it all. I know it’s selfish and terrible. I also know it’s wholly allowed across our culture, not even a wince or a scowl from so much of the population when selfish people do selfish things – how many movie stars and football players missed a child’s first step because of something “really important”? A special game? A million dollar movie? Whatever. My point is that I’m here now, a nurse, working for people that have no interest in seeing me succeed or fail – I could wash away into the background and they’d never notice. I’m 31, and I can run 5 miles in less than 45 minutes. I have a degree in math, political science, and nursing. I served my country. I set a world record once. I am not to be passed off, brushed aside, inquired about at a later time. My point is that I’m tired of where I am, and I know that certain people in my life will be so upset that I’m never satisfied, but why would I change who I am now, when it’s never really hurt me or anyone I love thus far?

How to get out of this mess?

How to wander somewhere more… appreciative?

I wish there were a Wizard of Oz. I’d contact him right now.

Muse

eabeckman — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 03:27:10 +0000

I’m listening to Muse right now, because ever since I heard “Uprising” the other day on the radio, I’ve been feeling inspired. Especially working for a government agency, the idea of an uprising, or drastic change, is ever more appealing to me. It’s all just a wild idea in my head though, and nothing I would or could ever act on. Just got a good song in my head, which ignites a good feeling in my heart, and I’m inspired to write.

I’ve worked my butt off lately, literally and figuratively. I’ve been working 3-4 days in a row, week after week, since February when I started my new job. I called in sick one day, and truthfully considering the fact that I have two young children, one call-in for seven months has got to be a record. Anyway, this week I had three days off, what they like to call “Vacation”, I guess, but I have coworkers that get seven days off in a row repeatedly, and never need to take a single day of vacation. Regardless of the disparity in scheduling, this week has rocked. I’ve done nothing relaxing, just things that have sat and waited patiently for my time for months and months. I’m ripping plants up. I painted Connor’s room and reorganized things. I’m in the midst of throwing half of the toys we have in the house away. Actually I’m pretending that I’m going to have a garage sale, but I don’t have the patience for it. I’m just going to drive up to the hospital and donate a ton of stuff. None of it is crap, but all of it hasn’t been touched by a child’s hands in a long long time. I’ve been running every day, 3-4 miles at a time, and at a pretty quick pace too. I feel good! I’m not exactly enjoying my time at the VA right now, and except for the patience and love of the amazing vets that I take care of, this mini “vacation” of super-productivity is the only thing getting me by. Connor makes me nuts, Elly gets a kick out of copying him (and thus, Elly makes me nuts), Craig is so obsessed with himself and his diet that it’s hard to say if we have anything going on lately, and I wish I were still in school. Thank goodness for painting walls.

Maybe I should quit this and get into painting. It was fun, at least.

Things to do

eabeckman — Thu, 19 May 2011 02:46:17 +0000

Craig’s parents were asking us on Skype this morning about suggestions for what to do today. Craig’s uncle and aunt are in town from Oklahoma, and his grandfather is getting pretty old too, so they wanted to spend some quality time together while they were in town. Craig suggested that they go to the Detroit Institute of Arts, because it’s a great art gallery and there always is a lot to see there.

Craig’s mom literally said this, word for word: “Eew, no, that place has too much black stuff.”

Ugh. These are my in-laws. My tolerance for that kind of ignorance is SO low.

Mother’s Day Present

eabeckman — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 21:29:44 +0000

Today Craig said he got me a Mother’s Day present, and he wanted to know if I wanted it now or later. It’s several weeks away, so I said I’d wait, unless I get something on Mother’s Day too… and he called me “Connor” and left the room. So now I’m curious, and apparently Craig knew what that would lead to. Elly is the easiest target in this quest to determine what he bought me, because she inevitably went with him to buy the gift. She happened to be sitting on the toilet, and Craig went outside to get the garbage cans, so my moment had arrived – I went into the bathroom to ask Elly what they bought for mommy today. Do you know what she said?

“Boogers and farts.”

Craig trained her. So unfair.

S & M

eabeckman — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 04:45:16 +0000

Let’s see how many hits I can get with that title.

Ok, so recently, I spent a ton of time reading the Twilight series instead of reading the crap I have to read for school. And the stuff for school is not crap, it’s just that I have a hard time focusing on anything as of late, and it was something that kept my attention better than nursing policy, pathophysiology, or nursing behavioral theory, so I stuck with it. I’d read it when “supposedly” studying for the NCLEX, I’d read it when putting my children to bed, I’d read it when I arrived at school early and had a few minutes to kill. It’s not that the series was so amazing, because it wasn’t. It’s that it gave me temporary reprieve from my life, and without harming any of my loved ones, that’s something I crave frequently. I can now see why Mom (with a capital M) reads a lot.

Now I’m done with the series, but the emotion and warmth ignited within the series still heats some secret side of me, so I searched for some kind of vampire crappy love story to fill the void. In my search, I decided to find Anne Rice novels, because I know that mom used to read her constantly, and I also was really enamored by the Interview With A Vampire movie, so I figured it was a good search item.

What I came up with, however, was more than I bargained for.

I’ll just say this – if you ever are looking for something interesting, different, and way beyond your imagination (sexual, that is), you can read “The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty”, by Anne Rice. Her original novels were under a pen name, but she has since claimed authorship. I finished the book this afternoon, and I’m pretty sure it was the first and last of the series for me. It’s not that a bunch of naked spankings, impossible ways to hang humans up by hooks (without hurting them), and crazy sexual acts are not my “thing”, it’s just that in my personal experience, some of that was impossible. And it was delivered in a way to make it seem like it was possible in the books, which was enticing to say the least, but I like the Twilight modesty right now. Maybe I’ll gradually build up to reading the next book of the series.

Read it if you dare. You’ll know if it was worth it by… page 3. If you get to the line “And then her blue eyes opened”, and you dare to read further, you’re brave. And crazy.

Both of which, apparently, I am.

Clarity

eabeckman — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 15:36:06 +0000

Sometimes it’s helpful, just to stay sane, to write things down. I have a personal journal that I recently purchased to help me in getting these thoughts on paper whenever I need to expunge my brain. Right now my fingernails are too long and holding a pen is irritating, so I’m writing shit down here.

A bipolar girl told me about journaling. She said it saved her life. Maybe it’ll save mine.

Pretty soon I’m going to have my eyes checked for possibly getting LASIK surgery, and then my “blindlizzie” title will be obsolete.

I have so much work to do. I’m going to write again, maybe not here, but at least I took a 10 minute break for mental health.

Thoughts about death

eabeckman — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 14:35:21 +0000

I’m currently in my “complex care” portion of nursing school, and thus my clinical experience is in critical care areas where patients are extremely sick. Most of my patients have been on ventilators, or had central lines, or have been comatose due to brain ischemia or infarct. Only some of those patients are on pain medications; though pain is a known phenomenon of being ill, if a patient cannot describe their pain, especially with the lower quality nurses I’ve observed, pain is not treated. Even more heartbreaking is the fact that when families are not present, patients in these states of dying are often ignored completely except for scheduled “maintenance”, i.e. giving medications, turning them every two hours, cleaning wounds and changing dressings. The most compassionate person I have met is the medical assistant that bathes the patients; she is rough with everyone, but it is a necessary roughness (it takes a lot of strength to move a person alone). She takes the bottles and cans from nursing staff on the unit, turns them in for money, and buys specialty soaps and lotions for the patients on the floor. Most of the time when you visit the hospital, the smell is of sterility and excrement, but in the area I am working in, there frequently is an undertone of pleasant coconut, cucumber melon, or clean smelling soap.

I find it so depressing, so disheartening, that this field of nursing is supposedly so compassionate, but because we’re so overwhelmed with all of the medical necessity, we tend to let the love of people go by the wayside. Because I have no responsibility yet, because I am not yet licensed, I often go stand by a patient’s bedside and just hold their hand. They usually don’t hold my hand back. I’ve cried, and I try to hide it because I feel so weak that I can’t handle death well.

Am I not ready for this?