812 Reasons I haven't been posting.

So, as I'm sure you noticed, it's been 6 months since my last post.  I apologize for the delay, but it was unavoidable.

Cliffs' Notes:

1. The day after the last post my cousin died. He was only 22, just bought a house and graduated college, and was really blossoming into an exceptional guy.  That hit the family HARD.
2. Medicare Season.  It's like the crazy Christmas retail shopping season of health insurance.  It's also my specialty.
3. I got crazy sick and we were all pretty convinced I was going to die. 

The third warrants a bit more explanation - for 3 years I've been having terrible, extreme, intense back pain - the kind that makes you go from being afraid you're going to die to being afraid you WON'T.  My doctor told me it was muscle spasms and gave me muscle relaxers for them.  I spent about 6 months on the couch in 2009 and gained a bunch of weight and eventually they cleared up on their own.  Well, what we didn't know was that the muscle spasms were just a symptom, not a diagnosis.

Late last year I began an ambitious diet and exercise program.  By January I was down almost 50lbs and in the best shape I'd been in in years.  Then, the muscle spasms came back, this time with a vengeance.  It started the 2nd week of January and I saw my doctor right away - I wasn't going to go through the months of agony and weight gain I did before.  So, she once again gave me muscle relaxers and this time put me in physical therapy.

I was diligent about my meds and my therapy - got a medical hold on my gym membership so as not to exacerbate my condition but followed my course of treatment with all alacrity and fervor.  But, things continued to worsen and eventually I ended up in the ER. Now, those of you that know me know that the only times I've ever been in the ER were once for a worker's comp claim after a fall at work, and twice because of being hit by a car.  I don't seek medical treatment unless I'm convinced I'm dying.  The pain was akin to what I imagine it would feel like to being actively impaled with a pitchfork.

So, the ER did a set of X-rays and they were normal.  They loaded me up with meds by injection and sent me home with scripts for more muscle relaxers and additional pain medication - they also felt it was a muscle spasm. So, armed with new meds I was back to square 1.  But things kept getting worse.

Not only was the pain unbearable, but I started getting new symptoms - mostly itchiness but with other unpleasantries I won't subject you to. They did more X-rays, all negative.  I thought it was a reaction to my pain meds so I went off anything to help with the pain.  No improvement.  They put me on steroids. No improvement.  Then I started turning yellow.

They did an abdominal CT scan - negative.  We ruled out acetaminophen toxicity as I was never on a high enough dose to cause a reaction, and my gallbladder didn't hurt and with the X rays and CT scan all being clear that left us with the 2 remaining causes of "painless" jaundice - primary biliary cirrhosis and pancreatic cancer.   I couldn't sleep or even relax from the itching.  I was sitting up all night, I couldn't focus at work, my entire life consisted of the itch that couldn't be scratched.  I got a phone call from my doctor's office asking me to come in ASAP - my labs came back with my biliruben levels >25x the normal range.  The next day I was hospitalized directly from the doctor's office.

At that point they couldn't give me anything for the pain and itching, just fluids to try to flush the excess bilirubin out of my bloodstream.  I was on an all liquid diet because there were all sorts of tests being ordered, I couldn't even go home first to pick up a change of underwear because the doctors were desperate to try to get this diagnosed before the kidney and liver damage was permanent.  That was the longest night of my life.

The next day started with an MRI.  There, they finally saw it - my gallbladder was full of gallstones.  Ninja gallstones that had been hiding from every other test and scan and were causing muscle spasms instead of just hurting like they were supposed to.  They ordered an endoscopy to try to clear them out - there was one the size of a small marble blocking my bile duct.  The endoscopy was not only unsuccessful, but I woke up while still scoped, and ended up being forcibly held down by the hands and head face down in my own vomit while they finished.  That's when the surgery was ordered.

It was 8:30 on a Friday night when they finally took me in, they tried to remove my gallbladder laproscopically but the damage and inflammation were too severe so they had to remove it the old fashioned slice you open sort of way.  I woke up with my entire stomach covered in gauze with all these tubes hanging out from under the bandage filled with blood and black bile.  I couldn't move, I couldn't breathe, I kept getting hiccups - I felt like I'd been eviscerated.

They kept me in the hospital through the weekend but my recovery was far from over.  There were multiple setbacks in the healing, mostly pertaining to the external drains I was still wearing.  My poor liver was so backed up trying to filter everything out I felt hungover constantly.  It was about 3 weeks before I was able to get back to the office, and another 3 after that before I was healed.  I celebrated by jumping out of a plane: http://youtu.be/iv3OL5b5yOU . 

So, I'm still recovering - it'll be months before my body is back to normal, I'm still numb and without muscle control on a good section of my gut and my hopes of a bikini body are all shot to hell, but I've taken off another 15lbs and am still well on the road to a happy, healthy lifestyle.

So, that's why I haven't been blogging.  Between family traumas, bodily traumas, and downright being busy; there hasn't been much time for putting my thoughts in order.  But, work is going great, I just started my first company, my love life is going exceedingly well, and I just turned 30 being well on the road toward health, wealth, and happiness.

812 Notes for my future boyfriend.

In lieu of recent events, I've been doing a lot of reflecting on the history of my love life.  I've always considered myself to be a pretty good girlfriend - I've had an excellent and successful history of growing and maintaining long term relationships, and I've generally always been the one to terminate things.  So, I always thought that meant I was happy.

I wasn't.

It's hard, I've always had hindsight bias - I've looked at the past and with one exception, I've considered everyone I've dated to have been a good person, and that the difficulties were merely due to differences in values or goals in life, not in irreconcilable differences in personality.  Now that I've grown a spine and decided to respect myself, I'm seeing how much I never did that before, and the toll it's taken on my spirit, my personality, and my life.

So, this blog is going to be egotistical and selfish and all sorts of things that will make me look like a bitch. And I'm not sorry about that.  I'm going over my weaknesses and mistakes so that I can learn not to repeat them.

1. I'm a mediator.  I grew up in a family of strong opinions and learned at an early age that it is better to be agreeable than to be heard. I'm not knocking my family here, don't get me wrong - but it was more important to me to just let everyone else make their decisions and roll with it.  Upside - I can be very easy going and can make due with whatever.  Downside - I can't make my own decisions about little things like what to wear or where to eat and I'm generally afraid to open my mouth about what I want and what would make me happy because I'm afraid it'll upset or anger whomever I'm with.  So, sometimes I need prodding.

2. I am afraid that everybody wants to hurt me. I've spent so long taking the blame for things - even things that aren't my fault - that sometimes I feel like I'm the repository of everyone's ills. I'm afraid to hold the people around me accountable for their actions, particularly how their actions affect me.  Because I don't want to hurt them or make them feel guilty or dislike me.  This festers until I'm so worn down that I'm dead inside.

3. I fight. Somewhere between keeping my mouth shut so people will like me and slowly dying inside, I fight.  So much so that I'm geared up for it and everything someone says or does makes me react suddenly and angrily and all that hurt I've been holding inside comes gushing out.  I'm terrified to trust anyone but because I don't I still have the insatiable urge to BE close to someone.  So it's like that itch, that terrible, horrible itch, that I can never actually scratch.

4. I secretly crave snuggles.  I didn't have a particularly affectionate family.  Not that we were frosty with each other or anything, but we were never particularly touchy.  Physical affection makes me nervous. Doesn't mean I don't love it though, just means I don't know how to ask for it or make it happen.

5. I give.  I give my money, I give my time, I give my effort, I give my heart.  I do everything in my power to make the people close to me happy. And I let them take, and take, and take, until there is nothing left to give and they're still unhappy and I'm miserable.

That, I think, is what this is really about.  I'm tired of giving.  I'm tired of losing myself piece by painful piece. It always starts off small - pretending to like things I don't, pretending things are okay when they aren't.  I cover it all up with the mask of compromise - I'm compromising because I'm in a relationship and that's what you have to do.  But compromise works both ways - I give and give and give but whenever I ask for something in return I get excuses and avoidance and shot down.

Not anymore.

I know I'm probably going to go through a bossy, demanding bitch phase while I'm adjusting and I'm sorry for whomever chooses to deal with me during this.  But I deserve someone in my life that is at least willing to pretend to be interested in my singing, my homemade jewelry, my awesome kitty cat, and my winemaking.  I want someone that I can have a real conversation with - that isn't just about them, isn't just about me, isn't just about work, and doesn't consist of 1 word answers.

812.  I don't want to be that person anymore.  I don't want to be this transient entity that morphs to match the needs and desires of everyone around me.  I want to listen and I want to be heard.  I want to be half of a whole, not Atlas and not the World.  And I need someone that wants that too - who can will stand up to me when I need it and who will give me the free reign to be myself and not just a mirror of who I think they want me to be.

And, whomever you are, I hope that's a journey you and I can travel together.

812 Reasons I'm not dead yet.

So, I know it's been a while, but I'm not dead yet.


I did, however, implement the new "stop trying to change everything just learn from prior mistakes" method I'd discussed before.  And, other than a few people I'd already established that pattern with that I did have a hard time breaking, it's been extremely successful.


Now, the downside of that has been that people that were accustomed to "doormat Jenn" have had difficulty adjusting to "don't tread on me Jenn".  I've been accused of being a cold, heartless bitch; passive-aggressive and difficult; and selfish.  But, I've also been told that I'm tough but fair and that I push the people around me to be better.  And those closest to me have stated that I have a new brightness, energy, and that I'm just generally happier than I've ever been before.  And they're right.


Since I began casting off all that didn't serve me, cutting ties with ex friends, boyfriends, and acquaintances; I've managed to focus on me for the first time in a very, very long time.  Now, I've been losing weight, making more sales than ever, finding new, awesome friends and reconnecting with old ones; and getting more sleep than I think I ever have that wasn't depression induced.  So, clearly I must be doing something right.


However, I still am having trouble fully letting go of the past.  I've managed to destroy the feelings I had for people that were preventing me from moving forward with my life, but I've yet been unable to retrain my reactions to new situations.  I've been told:

1. It's like I carry around the past with me like a bag of ammunition ready to unleash.

2. That I'm still reacting like an abuse victim and I assume everyone is going to hurt me.

3. That I need to forgive people for the past and accept that people really can change and treat things as new.

So, that's what I'm still working on.  And it's a much bigger issue than I ever expected it would be - to actually trust someone not to let me down, intentionally hurt me, disrespect me, or take me for granted is intensely difficult and I've been a frosty bitch toward everyone in self defense.  So, I'm probably doing a fantastic job of pushing people away right now but the few people that are still in the circle of trust have been goodly enough to tolerate me. 

But, the best part about this entire thing has been that I'm no longer dead inside.  I was so numb for so long - just sick to my stomach of being hurt that I didn't even give a shit anymore about anyone or anything.  And I ended up letting a lot of people in my life I shouldn't have and let them all stomp on what was left of my heart and self esteem.  Through time, effort, and self improvement I've gotten enough duct tape and crazy glue to smoosh everything back together and you know what?  I think it's actually beating again. 

I'll still be very wary of people for a while yet.  I know that.  But I think I'm finally ready to move on to Goal #2:


Goal 2: Be willing to trust people again. Stop being a closed-off ice queen to everybody - I'm smart, successful, and not too painful to look at.  People will like me for me.  If that's not enough for them - too bad for them.

Overall though, I do have to say - cutting ties with the people that had been holding me back has been by far the second best decision of my entire life, with getting Smidgen declawed being the first.  I can look at the people around me right now and feel good - I'm surrounded by people that respect and appreciate me for who and what I am, I'm not lying awake at night trying to figure out how to make them happy, they care about me and in turn are helping me to learn to care for myself. And it's working - I'm happier, healthier, and more successful than I've ever been.  If I'd know how toxic a select few people were to me I'd have shut the door years ago and NOT opened it back up.

They say living well is the best revenge, but I don't even care about revenge.  I don't even care about them, period. That part of my life is over and done with and the new part has been fantastic :-).  So, here's to the future and all the fame, fortune, and good times it holds.

The Daily Smidge

The daily Smidge

The daily Smidge

812 Reasons change is only for hippies and underwear.

So I've been on a huge change kick lately. I'm single for the first time in since 2003, I've gotten more aggressive with my job and am working on diversifying my income. I've been working out again. Overall, I am vying to get my house in order. Both figuratively and literally.

Life has been testing me lately. Things have been exponentially harder than I had hoped they would be, but pretty much on par with what I expected it to be. The hardest part? Actually recognizing what is a change and what is just the same thing with a different face on it. I've had to start looking for warning signs and realizing when I'm heading down the same path again.

So, that leads me to the next point - do I need to find a different path, or do I just need to find a better way to walk it? If I keep coming back to the same road over and over again, maybe that's just the best route to my destination. So, can I strap on a new pair or shoes, avoid the potholes and pitfalls, and actually make it to the finish line this time? I don't know.

All I do know is that I continue to end up on this path, no matter from whence I start. But, like playing Super Mario Bros., enough playthroughs and I'll learn where to jump and when to dodge and eventually I ought to be able to save the princess.

So maybe change is overrated. Maybe instead of changing everything in my life I can just focus on doing what I'm doing better. This gives me a new goal - to start learning from my old mistakes instead of just continually making new ones.

Goal #1 - Self-Worth.

I tend to lower my standards to meet the situations and people around me. I always do that and I see myself doing it. I don't blame the people around me, I blame myself for having such a poor self image that I continually turn myself into a doormat. But then I still get upset when I'm walked on. This last month I've been working toward holding those close to me accountable for their actions. If I can lower my expectations to meet them, they can raise their efforts. If they can't then too bad - that is the time to cut losses. What I'm not doing is waiting till im miserable and then just starting the process over on someone new. I don't go into a negotiation without knowing how low I'm willing to go - why should people be any different? I get emotionally involved, I don't want to push people away so I tolerate and adjust my expectations to match what I can get. So that is my goal - to hold people accountable and to develop standards, and if they cannot be met and a mutually beneficial situation cannot be reached I will cut my losses. And stick to it. I'm worth it. Anyone that can't see that doesn't need to be in my life in the first place.

So, that's step one. Not a full remodel but a good coat if paint and a few new fixtures my metaphorical house.