Gus is sitting on my lap pawing at my legs and I’m watching the Beijing Opening Ceremonies, I haven’t cried yet but it is inevitable that I will. Medal races in the swimming start Sunday, that’ll get me if nothing has before then.

My love of sports and athletes is huge but I still have mixed feelings in regards to the Olympics and their politics but I try and make it a point not to talk about politics on my blog. I see what’s happening in Beijing, I see what is happening in Vancouver to the people, to the city. I know I’m not alone in feeling a certain amount of dread when the cameras are turned onto our city and highlight the government’s despicable testing taking place right now on how best to deal with the homeless. It did not comfort me at all to see the people of Beijing going through similar and heartbreaking experiences just to put on a spectacle for the world.

Sometimes it isn’t just the politics it’s the drugs. I may not be competing now but my therapists insists I am an athlete and should address myself accordingly it is just hard for me having such a nagging injury [another post..]. Sometimes I’m glad that I had a shitty attitude when we moved to Terrace because I never had to deal with the pressures of drugs. I had very limited running competition in Terrace, whereas in Smithers I was always second best and instead of using it as a challenge and running against older, faster more experienced runners and learning from it and growing I became an arrogant asshole and almost stopped running AND skiing all together. The Terrace ski hill is nothing when compared to the Smithers mountain and I got bored. I look back and wonder how my parents even put up with me through my seriously wasting my potential phase [I’m not really sure it was just a phase though]. Before I met Adam I dated some guys who considered themselves hard core, they were jerks to me but at the same time they loved being with a woman who could keep up to them but the difference is that I never took anything beyond protein powder and ibuprofen. I do not think ANY of the guys I dated took steroids but I could be wrong who knows. One dude had completed an iron man and one used to train with Canadian Olympic Gold Medalist Simon Whitfield’s coach. Both of these guys took creatine which is a controversial supplement and it bothered me, if guys taking creatine bothered me I bet you can guess how strongly I feel about professional athletes and performance enhancing drugs. The disappointment, anger and embarrassment I feel when athletes are caught is intense to say the very least. I put so much time and energy into the athletes I admire and love that I feel genuinely let down when I find out they’ve been using.

Even though I find myself yelling obscenities at the tv over most of the stupid commercials and idiotic statements made with voiceovers by Morgan Freeman I try real hard to separate myself from all the bullshit and enjoy the fact that it is the only time that I can see almost all of my favourite athletes in one place for two fucking weeks man! I live for moments like this:

American Triathlete Sarah Groff & Canadian Olympic hopeful Carolyn Murray

I probably won’t post much else on or about the Olympics but if you are interested in following my excitement you can find me on Twitter, a social media platform I have very mixed feelings on but don’t seem to be able to break away from using or feeling upset over when someone un-follows me much like how I feel when people delete me off their Facebook but that is also something for another post.

Finally after nearly six full months of keeping it a secret I hopped a plane and headed for the United Sates of America to meet Aughra in MI and drive to IN to surprise and meet Jenn who is already dear friends with Aughra, they have had the pleasure of meeting twice now, but Jenn was told Aughra was coming solo at the end of July, not the case at ‘all!! It was really cute to see Aughra’s faux arrival date written on Jenn’s calendar she really had no idea when and that we were both coming! Our surprise went off without a hitch. Thanks a ton to Jenn’s husband for not only keeping the secret but for offering to keep us both a surprise.

People aren’t kidding when they say doing selfless things feels like a million bucks. I’ve always been giving but selflessness as a whole doesn’t come easy to me.

I’m cropping and uploading photos which are going to take forever but the set is [started] HERE. I am feeling pretty over stimulated [although in a good way, over stimulated none the less I stepped about a million miles out of my comfort zone and element] so I still need some time to decompress before I write about our amazing mission/adventures.

But here is a photo of the lovely ladies I have been blogging with for three plus years.

From the left we have the gorgeous expectant mother, and the beautiful text message queen herself, Aughra.

One of the reasons that I see a shrink is because I have emotional problems.

Talk about stating the obvious.

My emotions come in so many different sizes, shapes and colors; they are wild and hard to control. But I have had the pleasure of learning that for me controlling my emotions is also about letting go and acceptance.

It isn’t necessarily as cut and dry as saying, “I’m a crier”, because in some situations where you would think I am sitting balling about something I’m not. It puzzles me I always notice it and think to myself, holy shit I feel really bad about that shouldn’t I be crying? So then I will make an effort to cry, but nothing. I am a seriously bad fake crier I can not do it. But what I can do is cry my eyes out at the most inappropriate times and embarrass the living shit out of myself and then I’m also the asshole who used to find out someone died and started laughing instead of crying, or again, I just can’t cry. It is fucked I tell you. I must have out grown the laughing thing, thank paganism for that but nothing has seemed to slow the flow of the water works.

This isn’t something you can mention in a session and expect and instant cure for; I have been the epitome of the above paragraph since I was wee kid. It has taken me five years of weekly sessions to even write about it. But this time my blubbering outbursts at the Triathlon World Championships and then in my therapist’s office had a different spin. It was from the perspective of being proud of the fact that I am so passionate about really fucking awesome things, like books and sports and friends in other countries, and people I’ve met through my blog and when I talk about books and movies and sports and people I’ve met through blogging who have helped me accomplish personal goals and helped me deal with my social anxiety I get misty eyed and I used to really try and hide it, behind things like my ugly prescription sunglasses, but just the other day when I was getting my hair cut I was telling my stylist about having my photo taken with Tri-Athlete, Lauren Groves and I got teary eyed and I had told her how emotional I had been that day in general and she looked at me and said “are you getting emotional now?” And I said “FUCK YEAH!” For the first time in my entire life I just came right out, didn’t try and hide it and owned my emotions. Because I know and am starting to accept that I feel the things and people I love so deeply that yes it makes me very emotional, I think I have stated that the Olympics on my turf could possibly drain me of tears and it may kill me.

This is something I could never figure out how to deal with, I despised it. It bewildered Adam to no end, I think we have grown together on this one though because I really have had no choice but to just let it all go, this is my husband and it hurt trying to hide the emotions, it would hurt when he would laugh at me because he didn’t understand. And the knots hurt my throat, playing the watery eyes off as allergies was fake and I’ve only had adult allergies for four years so it was also a flat out lie. And Adam actually knows me so excuses didn’t work.

This is me, see me get emotional over the finals of Wimbledon every year, see me cry when I talk about passages of my favorite books, the mere mention of Africa, movies that I think got it right with something that matters to me, see me be happy that other players are going to get to shine but still cry because no Tiger for what seems like ever, see me get teary over a Michael Phelps commercial, see me cry and scream watching Simon Whitfield come out of the water, watch me tear up sending emails and snail mail to people I care about telling them how awesome they are and not expecting a response. I could go on and on but I think you get the point. I cry, and it isn’t because I am weak and I’m finally learning to be comfortable with just how deeply I feel and how it affects me and how my body chooses to release that joy with tears but they are tears of passion for the things I love.

I guess it has turned into a bit of a vacation, but I love blogging I don’t think I will ever stop for good to be honest. I can’t wait till there are Granny bloggers.

I’m still reading blogs I’m just reading them off of Twitter links or through Facebook, I have not been able to face my iGoogle page because I will have to deal with my feed. It is too overwhelming for me. I think I will have Adam sign in and mark everything as READ and start over. That is what I normally do when it becomes overwhelming but I do it myself, this is the most backed up I’ve ever let it get.

You know what totally sucks about not signing into your feed though? I have no idea what is going on. Twitter although fast, does not contain very many of the people that I talk to on a regular basis in real life and Facebook which does hold a lot of people I talk to on a very regular basis is set up in such a way that if you don’t sign in at the exact right moment you don’t find out till the 23^rd that a RAD ASS girlfriend had her baby on the 21^st. Ok, so the baby was a wee bit early but had I have been signed into my iGoogle page I’d have known, damn skippy, right when she popped.

I find that I’m constantly sending friendly HEY HOW IS IT GOING? emails to people only to go to their blogs AFTER and find out everything sucks. Great friend Corinna, seriously.

I added a nifty little ‘Books Read in 2008′ thingy to my sidebar. I like it; it encourages me to make my minimum reading quota for the year which I am three behind on at present.

I took my blog roll down, NOTHING PERSONAL!!! You are all still on my feed and then some [just because you weren’t linked doesn’t mean you aren’t on my feed] and I promise I will catch up on it. I meant it when I said I was taking it back old school, I have not once checked my stats the couple times I have posted, not even once, I have not been on Technorati even once and don’t plan to head back, I’m finding I don’t miss checking either. It was a compulsive urge I had to make a conscious effort to stop doing.

My allergies are so bad this year that they are keeping me even more in doors than they normally do re: we golf, but we have no money this year anyway so the allergies are coming in handy for truthful excuses as to why I can’t be places. But really I know I’ve had a headache since 1994 I can DEAL, sometimes I just don’t want to.

DEAR ALLERGY MEDICATION SPRAY MAKERS: if you are going to charge me forty + dollars for a bottle that hardly lasts a month can you maybe make it with a sprayer thing that works and doesn’t clog ALL THE TIME and refuse to pick up the last four sprays that’d be awesome I would really appreciate my moneys worth in nose bleeds please and thank you.

While indoors if I’m not reading I am spending a lot of time listening to Bobby Darin, I AM A FULL ON BOBBY DARIN ADDICT now to the point I can even tell the difference between him and Frank Sinatra. At this EXACT moment, Country House, Blur is playing though. That Bobby Darin song If a Man Answers makes me dance a jig that has me busting out the mashed pa-ta-to and everything in between.

I am starting to feel a lot better about my body, I’m eating more, have more energy, feel some motivation to get out and I have been! And I’ve been spoiling myself I got my hair cut and my eyelashes tinted. I used to get them tinted in high school and in my super early twenties but yet never got them tinted when we got married, who knows.

I am currently writing some posts.

I’ve decided to still blog but to stay the hell away from anything other than straight up old school blogging.  I’m staying off of Facebook and Twitter until further notice, of course my traffic will suffer but I’m looking for a more “fuck stats, make art” [Dave O] approach.

Thank you for your comments, emails and insight.  You guys are truly amazing I could not ask for better readers and friends.

I think because I had already broken the longest clip of not blogging that just getting that wee bit out yesterday helped give me a little re spark and kick in the ass.

Ok so I can’t just disappear. Oops.

My Facebook and Twitter are down but I will be back. Soon.

I just need a break.

I’m supposed to be over all the shit that happened but I’m not. I’ve never lost this many friends at one time in my life before. I’m having a real hard time figuring out who my friends actually are right now and I feel lost and alone. I don’t like who I am and don’t feel I am anywhere near where I should be for 31 in *cough* three weeks and two days.

I don’t even know how to take my blog down; I had to call my host company.

I don’t feel I can get over what I’m supposed to be over already if I am all over the internet. It just hurts, I end up in tears too much: over the fucking internet. I understand that shit happens I get that but I am just sick of how much of my energy goes towards being hurt over not being forgiven, not being able to express from my side from my opinion, what happened because no one cares what I’ve gone through, and yeah that is really fucking hard. And so until I genuinely don’t care anymore I’m taking a break.

I’ll try leaving the comments open for now and I’ll converse with you in there if you want, but last time I checked my stats it didn’t look like many people even read here anymore. I have no idea how to check how many people subscribe to my feed. Really, I can put up a post add some photos and that is about it.

I don’t know exactly where I want to start because my mind is racing. It’s been racing around on the same topic(s) for months. Different scenarios have presented themselves that I’ve been involved in on both ends of the spectrum, disturbances I’ve caused and not caused, respect that I’ve lost and gained. And now everyone and their mother are posting on it in some way or another; Cyber bullying.

If you’d have asked me three years ago if I thought that blogs would posses a form of power outside of cyber space, or a real substantial message, I’d have said no.

In 2004 I started reading Raymi and Dooce, no other blogs. Although Dooce had lost her job and coined the term to be or get Dooced - this did resonate with me because I was fired over an email, I ultimately left the Travel industry shortly after in 2000 - but still, learning what I had from that, it being the only time I have ever been fired [even with my MANY mental disorders] I had little sympathy for her. I know it wasn’t widely known by employees back when she was fired just how much information companies had on you and what you spent your days really doing but I was also one of the early causalities of a firing due to in or out of office use of the internet and what you were doing with it on company time or even off it in her case.

Just under a year later when I had decided that I had to have a blog and I had to own it, that it had to be all mine and all about me I realized just how wrong I was about the rapidly forming culture I was entering.

Blogging gave me a voice I never had before, it gave me a place where I could be me. Where I could hash out all my shit and be a funny fucker in people’s comments. That’s how it all started for me.

I never thought about it, never gave a shit about where I did or didn’t fit into the blogging circles, the blogging world. I’ve always been a link whore but it doesn’t matter in the end, my links have never reflected my readership. There are Vancouver bloggers linked here that refuse to return my link yet have almost every other known blogger in the city linked and still comment and read here. Nothing if you really give it some thought makes a lot of sense in the blogging community whether in or out of Vancouver. The technology that allows for so many advancements within the Social Media Circles is happening so fast that some personal, old school bloggers like me are being left in the dust. Like anything in life, change never ceases to affect it.

The use of my voice through my depression and rage turned out to spread into the States and over a couple of continents and I did feel that I fit in those circles and still do and those are the readers that have essentially kept this site here. But that leaves the question am I really blogging for myself? I know that I started to; I know that I do again today. I know that when I tried to find a place to fit in here in Vancouver that I learned that all I had feared was true and then some, and yet I still got lost in it along the way. And about that…

You’d think that I would have learned my lesson the first time. You know, when I dragged my immediate family over the coals and my Mom had a breakdown and the people who were to become my in-laws probably wanted to hit the streets in protest of our marriage yet kept it to begging Adam not to marry me over lunch.

The only thing I look back on there and really wonder about is that some of the people who still wanted to get to know me off the blog were well aware of all of those rage filled posts, knew I was unstable, volatile, not happy, yet all chose to get to know me anyway this was long before my archive categories randomized and now you gotta search for the really nasty stuff, cept’ all the stuff about my in-laws is gone ‘cause I want a relationship with my SILS and am slowly working on building them. We may never paint each others toe nails but I love and respect them a lot.

When certain people think back I wonder what they think their real motives where, if any, for meeting me.

I look back over the last few months, from about a week maybe two before I was hospitalized and back to when the things I posted may have worked, but were not the right way to deal with my families’ issues and I do cringe. I cringe more over the stuff written during my breakdown because although I wasn’t in my right mind I still had to take responsibility for every word that came across the screens whether I meant it or not. And I haven’t read that shit back over, I can’t.

It saddens me deeply that I’ve been bullied to the point that I’ve tried to take my life more than once and that I’ve bullied to the point that energy projected out at me recently on two separate but very close occasions pierced my heart in a way so painful that I had to re-evaluate almost everything all over again. But in that re-evaluation I also can’t help but remember that I have never slandered anyone in the blogesphere by name, unlike someone who slandered myself and my husband on her blog by name numerous times spewing extremely personal lies and attacking truths about myself and my family that were too personal at the time to blog about, to the point that if this person didn’t already have enough to worry about we’d have charged her ass. And not ONE of the people who I called out in my post who where supposed to be our friends [at the time] stood up for us. In fact some shocked me in saying they had ‘saved her emails in case I needed them’ well AFTER the fact. Maybe I wouldn’t have flipped quite as bad if I’d have known certain things WAY earlier like that for one would have counted as SUPPORT. No one I hung with through blogging at that time let me talk about what we’d been through, no one asked. Behind my back on the other hand…. oh I won’t even get into it. I was SO blind.

No matter what I wrote, these aren’t bad people; they just disappointed me greatly, just as ultimately I’m pretty sure I more than disappointed them. But I think here is also the perfect place to mention that unless you live in Vancouver or are associated with a particular group outside of the city and participate in a very small and fastidious part of the blogging scene, no one even knew who I was talking about, yes it was still cruel and hurtful but in the end I’ve had more people ask me who it was about than anything.

Sure, word got around and that has been interesting to watch, people playing both sides, some people not talking to me anymore, some people starting to talk to me because of it, some people pretending they aren’t talking to me when they really are and thinking I don’t know they are pretending. And unless you are in a pretty close circle of mine I haven’t answered the question of who it was about with a particularly straight answer.

Depression is not an excuse, it is a fact. During the calling out of what I saw as a lot of fake bullshit going on in parts of the local the blogosphere - that I became a part of and ultimately wanted know part of - coinciding with lots of other shit and as bad luck would have it I had a breakdown and made a grand bullying exit from the immediate scene. Of course I have taken heat and I’ve been granted minimal forgiveness aside from my links not being removed from blogs that I thought would instantly remove me. Yes, I greatly appreciate that and it has NOT gone unnoticed.

But the fact remains; I targeted my rage at some of the wrong people and my inability to see straight, think straight, do anything straight has cost me greatly and anyone who thinks it hasn’t needs their head checked, I get mine checked once a week. Each time I have a full break I learn about myself. Someone wrote to me while I was still pretty much in the middle of the madness that they’d had an ex-girlfriend who suffered from depression and SHE’D had control over her actions and emotions. WELL GOOD FOR FUCKING HER! Everyone is different and she obviously didn’t suffer to the extent I do. The close mindedness of even those who have experience with depressed people still floors me. How you can offer up forgiveness to someone who does really stupid and idiotic things related to their depression and not another is beyond me. OH right the person I’m referring to here at this very minute is famous, oops. I have never been good with double standards just contradictions.

I think there is a fine line between telling the truth on your blog and cyber bullying, I’ve definitely crossed that line a time or two and hurt people, I have said I’m sorry and all I can really do is not do it again and the next time I have a breakdown I am seriously going to unplug the computer completely if I’m in attack mode. It has been talked about in session and with Adam, there are new plans in place to help aid in destruction control when my mind is fucking with me and telling me to kill myself because everyone hates me anyway …. You live like that day in and day out for any number of days and let’s see if you fuck up here and there.

I am greatly ashamed of all the bullying I have ever taken part in, on and offline. To me there plainly is no excuse for someone who suffered like I did from as young as I can remember in the hands of relentless bullies to project it back out onto other people but I am long done beating myself up over it, I have enough scars and will never stop learning from them.