And there are a lot of corridors to walk up and down. It is an exhausting task but the only one I seem capable of at the moment.

I don’t even know where they are leading to. My mind is meandering in so many different directions. I am going from moments of thinking, “I can cope. I can manage”, to moments of bursting into tears for no apparent reason.

I am going from moments of needing to unleash the fury of bubbling emotion and doubt within me to moments of thinking, “Don’t be silly. You cannot tell people. Then they would see your flaws and know where your soft spots are. This is way too personal.” And you know what, I know there is nothing wrong with emotion. I tell people all the time to not feel bad for how they are feeling. They are only human after all. But, even so I am human, I am really a lot like Spock or Data (as I wrote about before). I feel emotion but paralyzing emotion, deep strong emotion that you cannot rationalize away, is not something that happens very often.

And that really does make me sound like a heartless person, but I am not. I care deeply, just in a different way. (Funny thing is, I actually feel selfish writing this blog at this moment in time because it should not be about me. It should be about the person who has triggered this current frenzy of emotional tsunamis. The focus should be on him. And I suppose it is in some way but honest to God, if I do no release, I am liable to explode and take it out on some poor unsuspecting fool who just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.) I think my emotion chip is broken. I think it has fused to my neural net. Part of me thinks this is good. Part of me just wants to stop feeling the way I am feeling right now even if that means never feeling anything again.

You would think someone has died by the way I am talking. They haven’t. They are just ill and in hospital going through a battery of tests and observations. You know what I hate? I hate when people tell me not to worry. I hate when people tell me everything will be okay. And I know they are just trying to be supportive and reach out. But as it is rare that I actually do worry, I feel that my feelings are being belittled. A little bit of acknowledgement would be pretty cool. And I am getting that too. There are people who actually see me for me who haven’t really said anything beyond the situation sucks. We feel bad for you. You and (insert name here) are in our thoughts. Keep us updated. That is what I need to hear right now. A little bit of understanding. When you tell me not to worry, I think you do not understand. Because if you were in the place I am right now, it would be all you can do to not vomit and curl up into a ball on the floor.

You would think it was uber serious the way I am talking. The situation is not critical per se, but it is bad enough where someone has been admitted to the hospital.  As someone who lives with a chronic illness and has had to go to the emergency room more times than a 1000 people have to in a 1000 lifetimes, they don’t admit you if it is nothing. Something is going on. And sure there are varying degrees of bad but bad enough for a hospital stay is bad regardless. That is where my brain is at. Especially as I have a lot of personal experience in this area.

You would think I’ve never had someone ill in my life before. I have. I have a lot of experience in this. But it has never worried me. Here is where I am about to sound even more cold. Death and illness do not bother me. People get sick. People die. It is reality. It is a reality I have had to come to terms with because of life with Lupus. If I let it bother me, especially if I have no control over it (no one does), then it wins. I have a huge control over my emotions. They are dictated by my thoughts and it really is illogical to worry over things that you cannot control. This caused issues in my last relationship when he went through a health crisis. Yes, I was bothered by it to a degree. I am not completely cold. But my attitude was and continues to be, there is no point getting upset until we have answers. And when we get answers, then we form a game plan. We will take it as it comes.

Here is where the hitch comes in. The feeling I have right now is a feeling I did not think possible to have for anyone outside of my children. This is yet another series of emotions that I would have argued to death are not possible to have for anyone outside of something that came out of you. If I look and think about anybody close to me dying, I get sad to a degree but the thought doesn’t bring me to tears and I don’t feel as if I am going to die myself. I think, “Yes that would suck. I would miss them terribly. There would a void. I would cry maybe a bit (depending on the person) but my life would carry on. I will get over it.” When I think that about my children, I can’t even breathe. My stomach and heart get knotted. Tears form in my eyes. If something were to happen to my children, part of me would never recover. Part of me would die. It would be worse than losing a limb. They are a part of me. They are my reasons.

I thought it unhealthy to have feelings like that for someone else other than your children. I thought it illogical and irrational. I thought it completely impossible to love someone that much who was not your child. I don’t even love other family members that much. That level of bonding does not happen with me and other people. I do bond with people, but not to that same inseparable degree.

I would debate this to death. This idea has caused hurt feelings in past relationships because even so I loved them and continue to love them, there was nothing that set them apart from anyone else I loved. I just decided that they were worthy enough for a different type of committal and it really was more a less a contract between two people. I had no distinction between the love you feel for a friend and the love you feel in a relationship. Love just is. And it is such a terrible thing to say that you can stop loving someone. Regardless of finding this new type of love though, I will still maintain love doesn’t end. Lust does. But for me personally, I can never imagine that I would stop loving someone. But that is just me. And we all know, emotions aren’t really my thing.

But here I am unable to breathe. Here I am thinking I am going to vomit at any moment. Here I am crying over anything. The smallest mention or reminder of him and I fall apart. The only other time I have felt this way is when my children’s lives have been in danger in some way. I am losing control. I even unintentional yelled at Kid2 last night over nothing. I don’t do that! I felt like shit and spent 30 minutes apologizing to him and trying to explain to him that I am afraid even though rationally, I shouldn’t be. There are many stories involving my children that can illustrate just how powerless and helpless and afraid and lost and unsure and… well, I can tell many that liken this situation to those. Most of them I feel are way too personal.

There is one that I have talked about briefly though involving Kid2. When I was pregnant with him, there were some serious complications. He had swelling in his brain. They had thought they would have to put a shunt in his brain while he was still in utero. Thankfully, the swelling started to go away on its own and we were told we could breathe a sigh of relief and he should make it through okay. But I still couldn’t breathe. I still couldn’t stop worrying. And then the day before he was due, I went into false labour for close to 24 hours. When my doctor came in the next day, I demanded that they get him out of me. Until I could hold him, until I could count his fingers and toes, until I could see for myself that he was okay, I was going to be worried sick. There is another story where he was late getting home from school and I had to file a missing child’s report. I was beyond sick. There are even scarier stories but in a nut shell… That is where I am right now.

This is so totally uber personal. I feel like an idiot right now because this is completely uncharacteristic of me. But I also have a mental process that I go through when I am trying to cope with something and sort things out within me. I have talked about it before. But if you are unfamiliar with it, let me explain.

I think. I think things to death. I look at the situation from every angle possible and then determine how I feel about it and how I am going to approach it. Then I tell someone about it. This makes it real. It is like naming the demon before you can tackle it. Until it is spoken, it is just an abstract concept. It needs to be shared with someone in order for it become real. Unfortunately, the one person I want to talk to about (actually NEED to talk to about it) it is in the hospital so I cannot. And I cannot think of any other single person that I really want to talk to about it. I can think of a few people that I can talk to about it. I can think of a few people that would like me to talk to them about it. But right now I feel as if none of them will do. There isn’t anyone else that I can talk to about this where I will feel some relief after doing so. So instead, I am spewing it out to whomever reads this.

It is a lot easier than telling the same story over and over again and just feeling shittier each time because a) it makes the situation even that much more real each time I do, and b) they just aren’t that person. And if I do happen to fly off on somebody (because there have been a few instances in the last two days where it has been all I can do to not just yell and scream for what would appear no good reason, leaving myself to feel like an ass) somebody can take them aside and explain, knowing that I just do not have the mental capacity for real reason at the moment. It wouldn’t make my actions more acceptable but maybe it would make them more understandable (if that makes any sense).

So until he is home, until there are real answers, until there is a game plan that will work towards a solution (whether the outcome is good or bad, I just need a game plan), until the unknown becomes known, you will find me pacing the corridors of my mind.

People I love being ill has to be on the top of my list.

I don’t always have the best way of showing that I am worried. I keep a very brave front. I have to. I am so used to being ill all the time, it has now become a survival mechanism. No point showing concern and worrying yourself until you have reason to, right? Worry and stress can just exacerbate the situation. I am great dealing with it until the moment of answers. And regardless if it is good or bad, I melt down.

I don’t even know why I am writing this because this falls into the uber personal category for me as it involved another party. But as I have no one to talk to at this moment (now that I think about it, I probably do. I just don’t have the mental capacity to do so as I am a complete emotional train wreck and just need a good hug and a good cry. The good hug is what I am lacking at the moment), if I don’t purge some of my current emotional roller coaster, I feel as if I am going to die. Do you ever get that feeling? That tight knot in the pit of your stomach, twisting and turning with such force it is like a sinewy ball of worry. And then it explodes and ruptures, and then starts to pulsate with such a force you want to vomit?

That is where I am at. After spending 13 hours trying to be brave,  13 hours of radio silence and not knowing what is going on, 13 hours of “stuff”, I finally got news and now it is all uncorked. I can’t help but to think “It is my role to be in the hospital, not his.” At least, that I can deal with. At least I know what to expect with that. I really shouldn’t be making jokes right now but if I don’t find something to laugh at, I am going to completely melt down until he is released from the hospital (hopefully at some point tomorrow).

And even so I can breathe a bit of a sigh of relief and let out some tears right now, I will not be able to fully exhale until he is back home safe and sound. Be prepared for stressed out Jules to be either really quiet or say inappropriate things in an effort to cope  with things I don’t do well with.

It is because of days like today that I have two rules in relationships. 1) Never go to bed angry with the person. 2) Always tell them and remind them you love them no matter what is going on. Because you just never know what tomorrow may bring.

Even if you don’t want to know, I’m going to tell you. Because I am beyond irate at the moment. And I am once again thinking “why do I even bother?”

You know what? I may have strong opinions. I may have a tendency to have a big mouth. I may be overly upfront and honest. I may not know how to sugar coat things. I may say a lot of things to get a reaction out of people in return when they try to do the same thing to me. I may do a lot of things people do not understand. But guess what? I welcome people to ask me about those things. I welcome people to say TO MY FACE, “Hey, Jules. You did this thing that I don’t really understand why especially when I would have done it this way. Do you mind explaining?” And I would say, “Sure! I’d be happy to!” And heaven knows, I don’t expect people to agree with me. You can have your opinions and I can have mine but at least let’s try and understand where both parties are coming from. And if we agree to disagree, at least a conversation took place.

But no. People decide to be worse than an anonymous troll on a silly forum and talk behind my back. They make assumptions despite it being very clear that I am fully aware of what is going on. This despite me stating that I will put up with a lot. I can give it out just as good as I can get it. I can say just as ridiculous things in return. And when I’ve had to much, I have no problem telling the person to bugger off.

I don’t talk out of school. This is something I take great pride in. If I do happen to talk about someone and they are not present, I either 1) Tell them about it later or 2) Assume that they are going to find out and am prepared to talk about it to their face. I don’t go out sending emails to people not involved asking what is up. Call me crazy, but I really don’t believe it is too much to expect people treat me with the same courtesy. Especially when many have asked me either in public or private why I chose a specific course of action and I discuss it. Even more especially when I invite it and have stated this fact over and over again. At least the anonymous douche bag troll had some decency to say retarded shit somewhat to my face. Oh, you didn’t think I would find out? Funny thing is, things always seem to have a habit of getting back to me.

I don’t care what people think about me who don’t know me. But when people I care deeply about are put in the middle, I get pissed. And if you care enough to make assumption about my actions, let me state once more, come to me! Ask the bloody source. Grow a pair and have a real conversation otherwise my opinion of you is worse than that of the asshat asking inappropriate things on a silly forum. Hiding is hiding. It doesn’t matter to me if you are asking inappropriate questions or talking about me behind my back instead of to my face.

And if you don’t care enough to respect this one little simple request then why do you care enough to talk behind my back in a cowardly fashion?

Before typing this out, I had thought for a moment that I would say “Screw it! This is so not worth the aggravation.” But I would rather let the troll win than you win. At least there are at least a handful of people that actually do care that treat me with the same respect I give others. I am not going to let people who make assumptions and are cowards ruin it for them.