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Super Secret Agent Spy

I am a writer. And a doodler. And an eater of Twizzlers. And the mother of MuShu, the wonder puppy. I love long walks on the beach, fast cars, fine din. . .whoops. Wrong website. . ....

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P-p-please Pass Me a Tissue. . .

So, in this one scene, in . . .like. . .a million movies throughout the history of cinema. . .this guy or gal discovers this hatbox/small safe/ammo box under the bed/in the closet/under a floorboard of some deceitful relative who schemed to keep the star crossed lovers/bastard child and parent/or poorly matched suitor and the object of his or her affection apart.

Contained in these boxes are bundles of love letters.  The camera comes in close as you see letter after letter flutter to the floor, with hearts and doodles. The voice-over of the character who wrote them melds nicely with the strings playing the dramatic scene out in the background. . .and the character reading the letters is overcome with a welling up of love inside the chest, tears start to fall as you see them blur the ink on the carefully crafted declarations of love. . .the character is relieved and so full of love. The person s/he loved really love her/him, too, after all. . .and had for years. The world seems brighter, all that is unjust seems to right itself and the character is free to move forward.

(That is, until s/he realizes that someone has been hiding all this love from her/him. Then s/he gets UBER PISSED and starts yelling and turning over furniture. Which, of course, leaves the audience to wonder why the schemers who worked so hard to keep these folks apart didn’t just BURN the goddamn letters in the first place. . .but that’s a blog for another day.)

Anyhooooooo, I had several messages in my Inbox today, telling me that I needed to stop by Skirt and see what was going on. . .people who aren’t in my Skirt family. . .people who I had no idea actually READ my blogs.

And of course, I responded “Well, DUH. I’ve needed to “stop by there” for about a friggin MONTH now. But when you’ve worked several 51 hour weeks, are on a SERIOUS diet and are having some family-related stress, it’s not easy to just “stop by” and read the blogs of people you care about. They deserve more than a drive-by reading and I’m not going back until I can sit, quietly, with a cup of chamomile . . .shit, who are we kidding? And sit, quietly, with a JUG O WINE and tenderly, carefully and with my full attention and questionable sobriety, read every, single, beautifully crafted word of my Skirt family’s musings.

However, the insistence was so great, and the reasoning left so open-ended, that I had to come and take a look. Frankly, I started worrying. (First! Think the worst!) For all the people who demanded that I come read blogs today, not one of them told me why.

And now I see.

So, here I sit, with an I.V. hooked up to a bottle of Barefoot Shiraz (tasty, inexpensive) and I’ve no idea where to begin.

The outpouring of love and affection that I read this evening has me so choked up, that I do not have the words. . .I do NOT know what to say. I am so overwhelmed at this moment, that all I can do is sit here and sniffle and let the tears fall. (Which, by the way, is totally NOT my usual ninja behavior. . .Ninjas don’t cry.)

Besides the occasional writer’s block (which I’ve been suffering from tremendously, lately), this is one of the rare moments in my life when I really am grasping for words. . .searching my brain for the one response that will make you all understand how much reading your blogs today meant to me.

You know, people like me and with my. . .ummm. . .”head condition”. . .and hell, people WITHOUT my head condition. . .we sometimes feel like imposters; like these great pretenders walking around wondering when everyone will finally realize that we are these huge FRAUDS. “I can’t write. I can’t write. I can’t write. I’m uneducated. I have zero degrees. I have nothing to offer. When will they finally see?” And wrapped up in that sentiment is also this feeling of. . .invisibility. “If I’m here, it doesn’t matter. If I’m not here, it doesn’t matter.”

And what people like me fail to realize is that it is hideously unfair to assume that we know what someone else is thinking; that we somehow know whether we matter or not. It’s probably self-esteem issues as well: “I don’t like me. . .why would anyone miss me if I disappeared?”

And we all know what kind of dangers that kind of thinking can lead to. Thankfully, I’ve been safe from that for a while.

I WILL tell you, though, that I’ve been worn so thin lately, that I sometimes feel like I’ve been living in a month of nights. Twice in the past four weeks, I have been working at my office from 7:00 a.m. through lunch (ordered in) and up until and past midnight. Then IN again at 5:45 the following morning in order to make sure that what we did at midnight, in our groggy, bumbling, stressed-out haze actually made sense in the light of a new day . . .or at least the COMING light of a new day. It’s still dark at 5:45.

Additionally, I’ve been hideously depressed and really, though I love you, don’t want to get into that right now. Some other time, maybe. . .when I can wrap my brain around it and can articulate it in some entertaining fashion.

Add to that, the work load has HONEST TO GOD sapped my brain of any and all creative energy. I’m writing this right now. . .so much bubbling up inside of me. . .wanting to say so many things. . .but the synapses aren’t completely firing and I don’t know if what I’m typing at the moment will actually make SENSE to anyone. . .Huh? What? Oh. . where was I? RIGHT, I was saying that work has sucked all of the golden eggs outta this goose. . .heck, they’ve COOKED the goose. I’m fried. Dead. Brain. Not. Functioning. It’s a BITCH working so hard for the success of other people who are actually living their dreams. I support a team of people who, for a portion of their lives, DREAMED of being attorneys. I never. . .not once. . .”dreamed” of being a paralegal. (I DID dream of being a mermaid, though. Alas, that never came to fruition.)

And then, there is the diet.

Yes.

The farking diet.

See, the hubster and I attended two weddings this month. He, in his Robert Redford flair, looked so handsome. And I thought that I, frankly, looked pretty good. THEN, THE PICTURES ARRIVED.

And I looked like a puffy hedgehog in a dress.

You know, I doubt ANYONE at that wedding noticed that I was wearing lime-green suede Manolo Blahnikstrappy sandals that matched the leaves in my floral dress PERFECTLY. They most likely noticed that my FAT ARMS LOOKED LIKE TWO SAUSAGES READY TO FRIGGING POP. Or that my ankles ceased looking like ankles. . .and had even surpassed “cankles.” It was full on THANKLE, baby. And in case you’re fortunate enough to NOT know what a “thankle” is. . .let me tell you: IT”S A THIGH-ANKLE. It’s where your THIGHS just go all the way down into your shoes.

I was carrying SO much water weight, too, that day, that my face was all puffy. I kept waiting for Bill Murray and gang to pop out of the bushes and aim their little Ghostbuster’s guns at me: DAUGHTER OF STAY-PUFT RETURNS!!!

And my damn husband? Beautiful in every pic. Bastard. BASTARD!

So, I have teamed up with an old training friend of mine (with my husband’s barely-there approval) and have been doing my training sessions from 1994. LOL. I found my old training notebook while crying and searching my closet for clothes that fit. . .

I have been lifting weights (HEAVY WEIGHTS) 4 days a week, doing cardio every day and twice on the days when I’m not lifting. And my work schedule hasn’t gotten in the way. If I had to run at 1:00 a.m., I ran at 1:00 a.m. Generally, though, I’m in there at 5:30 in the morning, sweating away. . . and again at 6:00 three nights a week. I am obsessed. I’ve already dropped 2% body fat and an inch or more in some places. I eat every three hours, whether I’m hungry or not. I’m a furnace, burning up my food as fuel.

At some point, I realized that I was never going to be Sarah Jessica Parker skinny every again. We’ve discussed this before. In order for me to be that skinny, I have to starve myself and feel like utter CRAP. “Nothing tastes as good as thin feels” is the bullshittiest line of bullshit I’ve ever heard. And don’t you DARE say that to me when I’m three days in after my last allowed carb-load and I’m staring into the eyes of an uneaten Twizzler that’s just BEGGING for a teeth gnashing. . .

Anyway, I’m taking my thyroid supplement and am VERY careful with my neck. So, the weight is coming off. Slowly, but it’s coming off. And I’m not hungry or miserable (except for said Twizzler incident. . .Oh, Twizzlers, my Twizzlers. Why must thou tempt me with your sugary goodness and chewy design? I mourn the, Twizzler. . .cherry-flavored fruit of the factory. . .)

God – so MUCH has gone on in the last month. Ghosts rise up from the past, sending me back to being someone who is unsure of herself. Petty jealousies, anger. . .causing a lot of conflict in my life right now. Being gossiped about in a painful way where it seems as if a good tongue lashing won’t do. My tomboy side wants to be dragging people into the street and shoving my knuckles in their face. (Oh, delicate Southern Flower that I am. . .pfffft.) My reasonable, “enlightened” side just rolls her eyes and says “Let them be children. . .even if they are 40 years old.”

You know, my otherwise loving husband and more than a few friends have often given me guff for the blogging process and the relationships formed via the Internet. It’s as if I’m not supposed to see any of you as “real” people. But oh, I do! I do and now I know that you see me that way as well. That is a relief.

Because today, I found my “box of letters” from you all – and it made me feel bashful and undeserving of so much care; it made me feel silly for not being around because I “didn’t have time” to give reading your blogs the proper attention; it made me cry because to really feel a connection to you just broke my heart open. . .in a GOOD way. . .

So, Cheryl, Kim, Merci, Pam, Christine, Elizabeth, Tara, Renee, Maribeth and Sweet Sarah Our Queen. . .I have to say that I love you. I adore each and every one of you and have missed you terribly. I wish that I’d not neglected this and instead been here all along to read about your days, your trials, your crazy stunts. I wish that I’d at least come by and left notes that said things like “Still breathing. Read your blog today. It was glorious! Keep chasing those sheep. You’ll shear them one day!”  or “Help. . .[stop]. . .being held captive by a gang of  wild holders of juris doctorate. [stop] Send Brad Pitt and a bag of Twizzlers. [stop] No. Wait. [stop] Send that kid from that Twilight movie and a bag of Twizzlers. [stop] No. That’s probably illegal. Please just send Twizzlers. [stop]”

IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE IN THIS LONG, RAMBLING LETTER, READ THIS:

THANK YOU. I LOVE YOU. I WILL BE HERE, EVEN IF ONLY TO TELL YOU WHY I’M NOT HERE.

Thank you for making me feel loved and wanted. That has been in short supply these days (too much to get into) and this outpouring is just so overwhelming. I don’t know that I can make it up to you; pay you back for what you’ve given me today. I really don’t. Again, I am at a loss for words at your kindness. I am. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

xoxoxo

Amy