Confusing the Problem With The Issue

Everybody's got their problems

Ain't no new news here
I'm the same old trouble 
You've been having for years
Don't confuse the problem
With the issue,girl
It's perfectly clear
Just a human desire 
To have you come near.
                   "Crumblin' Down" John Mellencamp 

                        

In an effort to motivate myself to write, this is what I wrote on my XOXO Darya Fan Page:

"Note to self: Learn to write a simple post on my blog..." 

Well, hell. Problem solved.

And in a friend's infinite kindness, she commented back to me in a very encouraging manner. And because I just cannot leave well enough alone and accept love and kindness and wisdom when it is offered, I felt compelled to fire back in my usual fashion, which included a greater than healthy dose of self-deprecating humor, a big fat excuse wrapped in a dismissive attitude and then deep-fried in a smart-assed tone.

Take that, friend.

Now, I feel even more trapped and stuck then I did before I made my little Facebook dispatch, which in all honesty was meant to deploy and un-stick and re-motivate me and just basically get me writing again. In all honesty, and this may not sound like much, but to me it sounds like when a bird flies into your window and scares the hell out of you and makes you feel like the thing that holds you close and safe and secure may be knocked down by something as light and as small and as wayward as a bird, and through all of that I have found that I really enjoy writing for my little bloggity blog! And then I heard the big Hallelujah, like, the one you hear at Easter.

The problem here is I have what I believe to be a full-blown case of  acute on chronic literary constipation. Or maybe the common term is writer's block, like most things in life, I am self-taught so maybe I just do not know so much about what gets caught in a writer's craw and what gets it going again. I especially like how I referred to myself as a writer--that made me laugh out loud. Good one, D, good one.

However, all this huffing and puffing about getting writing again has enabled me to realize that I do this big weird controll-y "thing", and I do it when I see Dr. Headshrinker, and I do it when I write a blog post, and I do it in my marriage. And I know this to be true because I put it on the spreadsheet and I took it to Dr. Headshrinker for discussion and he said, "Yep. You sure do" and that was just between getting in the door and getting sat down on the couch.

Like most bad life habits, it can often be traced to early family life. We had a saying in my home that went something like this: "Darya, if you have not taken the aspirin, you are not allowed to complain about the headache."

Clearly, I took this missive and ran with it into adulthood as, "Suffer in silence with your stupid personality altering and blindingly terrifying problem until you, and YOU ALONE have come up with a solution. FOR. FOREVER. AND EVER." 

Not until I have come up with some sort of solution or rationalization or justification for "the problem" do I engage Dr. Headshrinker or the Caveman or whomever. And by "engage", I mean discuss the shit out of "the problem" until everyone including the people who love me unconditionally and/or are paid to hear about "the problem" are sick to death of me and "the problem".

In some ways, I think this is good. For one thing, it makes me appear like I am always in deep and thoughtful repose, which makes me at least look smarter than I am; although, it may also make me look older and probably even more constipated for real-sy; however, on the upside, all that needless "thinking"' burns a lot of calories, which helps me to stay naturally slim without the benefit of that pesky methamphetamine addiction because my skin is bad enough and I am deathly afraid of meth-mouth, so ultimately I really ain't about that kinda life.

In most ways, it is just not very productive and this probably more than anything leads to me looking older and more confused than my actual years. Seriously, I do not possess the kind of discernment that allows me the luxury of  willy-nilly imaginary "problem solving". I mean, for chrissake, who do I think I am--I do not possess a PhD nor a PsyD nor an MD nor even a whatfuckingeverD. It is like I feel obligated to do all of our jobs--like I am not pulling my weight or I am not being insightful or astute or intelligent enough.

Unfortunately, if you follow this little diatribe to its most plausible and obvious conclusion, that leaves this post with no ending, which also leaves me very uncomfortable; however, I have indeed written something which makes me substantially less keyboard constipated.

So, there's that. And that is a good thing because I sure do love my little bloggity blog.

I think we all may just have to suffer through a few more of these hopelessly meandering-styled posts for me to find my way back on track.

My apologies in advance.

xoxo Darya 

Perfect From The Bottom to the Top

It was 1989 and my hair was short; my thoughts were long.

I had already flown three-quarters of the way across the continental US to get away from an abusive marriage; I had already sat through bankruptcy court and then divorce court. Three days after I left that husband in Clarksville I met my next husband in Huntington Beach.

Such is life; there is no moratorium on misery. You grab on to happiness when it is there.

And so it was that I had a great job with medical benefits; I was thin; I was athletic; I was a decent mom, not great, but definitely unobjectionable; my son was healthy and in Montessori daycare; I had a great guy. The car accident that nearly took our lives that same year had happened; the lawsuit was almost settled; the acute injuries were gone and the chronic injuries had not yet begun.

My life compared to just three years earlier was so good; so much better. Yet, my spirit; my physical body and my mind did not match. It sounds so vapid; so stale and innocuous.

I wanted bigger boobs.

Here's the deal: When I became pregnant with the Hero, the first clue I had even before I knew I was pregnant, and before I took a pregnancy test, a mini-chemistry set, really; one of those old-fashioned early home pregnancy tests with an actual beaker that you had to set in a holder and wait a whole lifetime's worth of 10 minutes before you looked for the solid ring upside down in the ridiculous little mirror provided and before the hyperemesis and the 12-pound weight loss and before the 19-pound pregnancy weight gain, was how quickly and absolutely beautifully large and full and gorgeous my breasts had become--my body was perfection.

I was shaped like a perfect hourglass.

Now, because a couple of the men in my life also read this blog and I don't want their heads' to explode, I will simply say that my breasts did not stay that way and there was quite a bit of  "volume loss" to say the very least and the absolute most. So, with the help of a very generous ride-or-die who lent me $3600, I was able to procure for myself a very safe and very straight-forward breast augmentation over the 1989 Fourth of July weekend. It was all very simple and civil.

And if you knew me before, you knew that then because I never hid a moment of it. I never tried to make it appear as if that was the way I had been all along; that was not is not my MO.

Fast-forward to my surfing accident of last October with the interventional radiologist ready to place the tube into my chest that would allow me to breathe and with me half in and half out of the CT tube and tapping the signature line of the Consent to Treat Form informing me that although I had to have the chest tube to breathe my implant could be ruptured in the process among a litany of other horrendous and inquisitional-like atrocities, but BT-dubs, no worries, the implant was already ruptured ::continuing to tap line:: I signed and then I was able to breathe and I immediately started to worry about that implant.

And I have continued to worry. Well, worry no more as worry has turned to action because it has become obvious--let's just say it REALLY has became obvious and holy shit summer is coming!

And because I have a really hard time operating in ambiguity, I feel compelled to tell my friends and the ones that I love and the girls I see every day at my gym and at work what needs to be done and how it will be done and why it will be done because in the back of my mind and the front of my heart I do not want another woman to feel less-than or ashamed about how she feels about her body or how she may want to change it.

That is if she is so inclined--if not, well, she is perfect from her bottom to her top.

I am telling you all this tonight because tomorrow morning at 6:00am I am going to my original 1989 plastic surgeon for, "bilateral open breast capsulotomoties, revision augmentiation with silicone gel implants and bilateral vertical mastopexies" to correct my 25-year-old Dow Corning silicone gel implant situation.

Basically, a boob job.

That's all. No ambiguity; no pretense; no pretext or charade. Just me needing to make my outsides match my insides. It really is that simple. I really am that simple.

And other than that one thing, I am perfect from my bottom to my top.


xoxo Darya


PS - The attached picture is from my cousins wedding in 1987. That beautiful blue brocade Victoria Secret strapless dress is taken-in approximately three inches on each side of the bust. After surgery in 1989, I had the alterations removed altogether, and I proudly rocked that number until it literally fell off of my body in rags. For the record that was the only item in my closet that needed to be "adjusted" postoperatively further confirming to me that my outsides did indeed fit my insides.

xoxo D

A Letter to My Son

Happy Birthday, Son!

I like you so much!

That may not sound like much, but 31-years ago that was very important to this young mom. And when this young mom's water broke at 12:05am on December 26th after being in the hospital for 3 weeks with pre-term labor and placenta previa, and her baby was not due to make his appearance until early February, things were a little, shall we say, tense.

But long before that, each night when I would lay my head down on my pillow or when stopped at stoplights or while hurling up and right back out of me whatever little bit of food I could get down, I would pray, "Please, Lord, just let me LIKE this child."

It may seem odd or cold or even I-don't-know-what, but I knew I would LOVE my child; I knew I would care for my baby and be there for "him" and be the best mom I could be for "him". (As a side note, I was totally convinced I was having a Sweetheart, so imagine my surprise when Dr. Lady Army Captain said, "It's a Hero." and he was whisked away to the NICU without a a name or even a peek, but thats a whole 'nother story...). I just really needed to be assured that I would LIKE my baby. It was all very simple, yet so complicated and important.

Because I ALWAYS knew I would love my baby; the life growing inside of me; even before I knew him as the Hero, I knew I loved him. Without question, I loved my Hero.

I just did not always know that I would LIKE him. And that was so important to me.

This Christmas night, standing on the porch 

with my arms around the Caveman and waving goodbye to the Hero and his Babydoll, after an amazing day spent with friends who we consider our family simply because family has precious little to do with blood to our little family; I realized how very much I like this man I call my son. And I just wanted to thank God out loud for answering that young mom-to-be's prayers.

Happy birthday, Son! I love you with all my heart, and more importantly, I like you, too!

xoxo Darya

The 24th Year is Not For Shiny

I have never really considered it an inconvenient coincidence, but more a happy happenstance that my wedding anniversary follows on the heels of the Thanksgiving holiday.

Clearly, it keeps me mindful and grateful.  And I have a lot to be thankful for--an awful lot.

I have had the chance to be exquisitely reminded lately of fresh shiny pretty beginnings. As the saying goes, "I was on my way to conquer the world and then I saw something shiny and pretty..."

Recently, two sets of our good couple-friends have become engaged. They are going to begin their lives together. Their possibilities are endless. Their beginnings are so full of fun and passion, and life in general just seems so shiny. I have no other word for it. Shiny.

But, it only takes someone at their beginning to remind you that you are at your middle or at the very least not at your beginning, and in all honesty, I don't think I can live through another one of my own beginnings. 

I took a walk in the shore water this morning after I took the Caveman's mother to get blood drawn, and then to her chair yoga class at the senior center but before I dropped-off signed house refinance papers and then sat down to do 12-good hour's worth of work in 5-short hour's worth of daylight, and I thought of the ways in which the coupling of two people can beget a family either by marriage or by adoption or by birth, and also how simply that delicate coupling can be undone by someone's leaving either by death or by divorce or by the slamming of a door.

And then some shine wears off.

This year counting courtship and engagement and marriage, the Caveman and I have been together for nearly 30 years. As of today, 24 years of that time has been spent in wedded bliss. Pure shiny bliss--no joke. But a 24th wedding anniversary is kinda like being 20-years-old: still not quite a teenager, but not able to buy and enjoy a decent alcoholic beverage, either.

You are putting in the time and getting some patina; you are waiting to celebrate the shiny 25th.

We are a little tired and beat-up this anniversary, and once or twice this year we have been a little beat down--not quite so shiny. But, oh, Christalmighty, Caveman, you sure do make me happy.

Happy, shiny 24th wedding anniversary!


xoxo Darya

Never Step to God

I am a good girl and you never hear me say things like, "Oh, that's it! What more can God to do me?" Or, "God just doesn't love me!" Or, "Why does God hate me so much?"

I never step to God.

Truth be told, I live an incredibly blessed life of love and freedom and hard work and good fun and loads of friends. More importantly, I do not believe in a vengeful God. I believe in a loving and gracious and benevolent God. I do not even like writing those letters next to one another to form those words to make that sentence. But lemmetellyou, it has been one hell of a couple of years, and just when I think I have rounded the month and kinda sorta started to get ahead of the curve something else has happened, either by my own hand or by fate's, and then WHAM!

Hopefully, the last straw came with my mid-October four-day hospital stay brought about by my little surfing accident, which left me with two fractured ribs that punctured my left lung and slowly deflated it until I had no lung with which to breathe--better known as an acute pneumothorax from trauma. I am not even going to go into what it did to my 25-year-old Dow Corning silicone breast implant. Anyhoo...

I have posted a few pics and made a couple oblique mentions on my Instagram and FB Fan Page but I really have not been burning up my feeds like you would expect me to do if some kook had come from the outside and ran my kookie ass over and kept surfing right on by. That is because it was an accident of the greatest proportion--an accident distilled from the purest most authentic and unadulterated force majeure--it was an accident done to me by my own Caveman.

Yes, I know. I know.

I saw it all in his eyes and across his face. I heard it all in his voice. I felt it in his touch as he unzipped my wetsuit and peeled it off my shoulder. And it all made me instantly not want to bawl or howl or make a scene or be fussed over or anything that would make his pain or guilt or concern any more acute.

It was a Sunday morning spent surfing. It was pure perfection. We were coming in, and I ended my wave at the bottom of his wave hidden in his whitewater purely by accident--mainly because it is nature and you cannot always guarantee that where you go down is where you will come back up. When I did come up, I saw him; he did not see me; I even saw him looking for me. I even willed him to see me, but that plan did not work so well; I quickly moved to plan B, which was to cover my head and dive as deep as I could. I saw his board go over me, and I thought for an instant that he had cleared me. Then, there was the solid THUNK of the fin of his board hitting my back and dragging across to my arm; I heard my own scream under the water and then I had no air, I mean really,
(((I HAD NO AIR))) and I could hear the crinkling and bubbling of the air in me and I could feel my ribs moving at my back.

When I came to the surface and the whitewater had cleared and he finally saw me, the Caveman was at the shorebreak yelling if that was me that he had hit and if I was okay and "to get on my board and come here right now!" I was saying yes and yes and yes. I am a little embarrassed to say that I secretly wished the Caveman could reach across the water and just pluck me out and save me, you know, like he does on any given day.

Meanwhile, in my head, I was going through my own private checklist against panic and pain: Darya, you cannot even touch bottom! You cannot breathe! Fuck, this hurts! Calm your ass down. Just put your arm over the other arm and swim; pull on your leash; swim; pull; swim; pull. Grab your board. Get up on your board. Oh, thank God, there's a wave. Just ride it in. Get out of the water. Quickly! Untie your leash. Get away from your board! Yes, yes, yes, I am okay. I just need to take a knee--like a football player or a wrestler or a whatever. No, I am okay. Just let me catch my breath. No, I can walk. 

We walked down the beach to our stuff. He took another peek at my back to be sure nothing in me was not poking out of me and we looked at the three-inch gash in my wetsuit.  While he loaded up, I rinsed off at the showers thank God I did because that was to be my only shower for the next four days. We walked very silently and very quickly, as quickly as I humanly could.

And in my head I just kept the loop going: Darya, just walk down the beach. Darya, carry the board overhead, it's easier to breathe that way. Bag the boards. Stow your crap. Just keep walking. Walk over the sand. Walk over the bridge. One foot in front of the other. One foot in front of the other. Stop and rinse off at the showers. Walk to the car. No. I can carry my own board. Yes, I am okay. No, just let me catch my breath. Really, I am okay. ::smiling, kinda:: 

But I just kept getting weaker. When I forfeited brunch and my usual Mexican coffee AND I asked to go to the ER, the Caveman knew, well, he just knew it was a big deal because no.1: I spend enough time in hospitals and no. 2: I do not like to part with my money, especially to our healthcare system.

To make matters all the worse, the Caveman had to endure watching me abide a four-hour ER wait-time before I even got to get in a bed or get seen by a physician or get my one intramuscular shot of totally ineffective pain medicine or get my chest x-ray. All that was nothing. The Caveman still had to do the hardest thing of all: He had to leave my side and make the hard phone calls to Daddy and Sister and oh, God to the Hero.

It would be another two hours before I was placed into the CT tube so that the chest tube could be placed into me. All in all, it had been nearly eight hours before I could breathe again.

Oh, well. I am strong. I am Dutch. I can take it.

It really does not matter. I took it.

Now that I am home, and I am back at work and the gym and needing to be 110%, but really feeling only about 70% things have really piled onto my shoulders, and I am beginning to keep count and keep score and the column that is against me is getting longer than the column that is for me. Just like the debit column is getting way shorter than the credit column or the other way around--I always forget which column is coming in and which column is going out. Maybe that's why I am always in so much trouble.  Hmmm...that's a poser, whad'ya think...

But, yes, yes, yes, I am okay. Just let me catch my breath. It has become my mantra it seems.

And maybe all I really need is to get in the water and get fully stoked just once. Just once.

Really, I am okay. Just let me catch my breath. Because honestly, what am I going to do? Step to God. Hmmm...no.

xoxo Darya

I, The Juror

I am stunned and somewhat ashamed to be sitting in the Superior Court of California County of Orange juror selection room listening to all the bitching and kvetching and bellyaching going on.

Honest to God...

For chrissake people, aren't we all the exact same folks that made the most of our day off when we all "celebrated" Veteran's Day? Did we all not just hang our flags and beat our chests and tell each other what awesome patriots we are? And did we all not just hug a veteran or feed a veteran or throw some change at a veteran at a freeway on-ramp or pump a veteran's hand and slap him (or her) on the back and tell him (or her), "Helluva job you did there, son (little girl); helluva a job. So, proud to call myself an American, and so proud to say thank you for your service and your sacrifice." That last part embarrasses me to no end today.

If that was you yesterday and you are sitting with me in the juror selection room today, I wanna punch you in the throat right now. How dare you be so selfish; how dare you be so cowardly. How dare you believe that your time is worth more than someone else's freedom. After all, if you are eligible to be seated as a juror, you are part of that small segment of society for which jail and prison still operates as a deterrent and you should be pretty grateful for this opportunity to make sure that this one system we got going on IS actually working!

And lemmetellyou, most of you are acting like assholes. Near as I can see, you are working one of two angles: 1) The language angle; 2) You are biased against/for the police, the plaintiff, the defendant; pink hearts; yellow moons; orange stars or green clover and whatfuckingeverelse you can dream up as you describe in a manner, that you cannot even convince yourself is true, that you just cannot see yourself being able to see past your somewhat proudly proclaimed biases to ascertain the facts from your own ass when the evidence is presented, AND then you bold-faced lied and told the judge that you could not even do that when instructed by the judge about the actual law!!!
Unfuckingbelievable. Honestly, I cannot tell if you are stupid or liars or you are just stupid fucking liars.

And please 'splain to me, Ms. Juror 110, how you took your citizenship test and oath and the written driving test all in English AND received and answered your jury summons managing to both drive and arrive at the jury assembly room only to find yourself seated next to me making English small talk about how nice my cat-eye eyeliner and your chola-esque eyebrows look this early in the morning and listening to the same jury instructions, yet, lo-and-behold when it comes time for voir dire, "you no do English goodly" riddlemefuckingthat.

I am also pretty upset at that small specific portion of my fellow cast of characters called to report to Section C68 on the eleventh floor to help figure out if Mr. Patron had too much to drink one particular night when he got in his car and started driving and then a whole bunch of shit must have gone down because it ultimately resulted in me waiting on your disrespectful ass to get off of the escalator or elevator or the phone late each and every single goddamn time we had to arrive for roll-call because the rules say we all have to shuffle-move as one great big 300-styled-ready-for-battle-tortoise-shell-shaped mass from the jury room to the courtroom to the bathroom and back, again.

Disrespectful; disingenuous; deceitful and duplicitous. And almost all of you smelled. Disgusting. I am so mad and upset and disappointed. You all ruined my day. You all conspired to take something that is a privilege and something we should all be so proud to do with a pure and engaging heart--to listen completely and openly; to follow directions. I was sad to be unable to serve. I would have made the sacrifice; I would have lost a butt-load of money NOT availing myself of my own work, but I would have sacrificed to be of service.

Oh, and I am a good juror.

I don't mean to brag and I don't mean to boast, but you really want me on your trial; your attorney wants me on your trail! I listen and I think and I am discerning and open-minded, but not so open-minded that things like my common sense fall out. And, to be honest, I am easy on the eyes and if you are going to have to look at someone for a month, well, I think that would be an added luxury--definitely not a requisite, but a nice little frill. I know I want to look at a couple of sharp attorneys in pretty clothes speaking properly while duking it out. Like I said, it does not make a real difference but its an added treat. If you are a shitty lawyer with a crappy case and client, no matter how impeccably appointed you may be, it will not make a difference.

I have had the privilege of being seated as a juror twice, both criminal trials; both grueling; both were about a month long. The first trial was a gang murder in which one gang member put the business end of a less-than-18-inch sawed-off 12-gauge shotgun with a pistol grip to some poor bastards head when he mistakenly wandered into West Trece territory and did not answer properly to the question, "Where you from?" Ka-Boom! The top of his head got blown off and all over his buddy riding, ironically enough, shotgun and the velvet headliner of his low-rider whip.

The second trial was a child molestation case where I was seated as juror No. 1 at approximately 8:30am on day No. 1, and I did not move for nearly three weeks as I endured the then 6-year-old victim take the witness stand against her "tio". See, Tio was found by the young girl's mother spooning her sleeping 5-year-old daughter with her panties inside-out and his pants undone, and somehow some of his semen mysteriously made its way to her prepubescent vulva. Yeah. Picture that in your mind's eye because it is emblazoned into mine. I cannot imagine how the assistant district attorneys sleep at night nor how the defendant sleeps at night, well, actually, we found him guilty so I am pretty sure I know how he sleeps at night, or at the very least, how he lays there very still with his eyes wide open and his back pressed against the wall just like that petrified little girl must have on a lot of nights.

That was intense and important stuff people.

Watching that little girl bravely facing her perpetrator and providing her own testimony was very powerful to see, and if you do not think that that is worth your time or your energy or even your timeliness, well, I feel very sorry for you and I hope that one day you need the services of an attorney and he (or she) has to pick a jury out of a roomful of people. Just. Like. You.  Because let's not forget, one of your rights as a citizen includes the right to a jury of YOUR peers.

And maybe that is all you deserve, you selfish sonofabitch.


xoxo Darya

I Am Anxiety's Bitch, Part II

In all fairness to my amazing friends and readers and supporters who have been so kind as to follow along with me on my journey to become a more happy and fully functioning grown-ass woman, I just could not make you'all read about ALL my anxiety ALL at once. 

So, I busted it out into two parts.

If you feel lost or have forgotten, either by chance or by choice, about what has already gone down, feel free to read through I Am Anxiety's Bitch, Part I and join me back here. I ain't going nowhere.

xoxo D

____________________________________________

And so it goes...

In an effort to help me understand what anxiety really was, Dr. Headshrinker brought out his well-worn volume of the DSM-IV-TR (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revised, nice, huh),  and together Dr. Headshrinker and I looked it up and sure as shootin' I had 9 of the 13 symptoms listed necessary to meet the criteria for a bona fide panic attack. And honestly, what a relief to know I was not just being all Darya-y. You know, all nervous-y and twitchy and migrainous and easily made to vomit.

Like all things that happen, they happen for a reason, though much of the time I really have no earthly idea what that reason is; however, I have learned not to question that--to just "be" as a new old friend has repeatedly said to me. And they happen in groupings of instances. In the span of two days, I had three very separate conversations with three very different men about this exact same topic. The fact that they are all men is not purely coincidental as I have always been able to speak more freely with men and most of my deeper friendships have been with men--namely, my husbands. As part of The Better Me Project, I am trying to have more female relationships. That is an entirely different blog topic for another day, believeyoume.

Anyhoo, one of these men explained to me that he loved having those feelings of uncertainty when it came time to do an especially difficult or mind numbing CrossFit WOD. He related that he so rarely feels that sense of uncertainty and rush of adrenaline. And I know what he does for a living and I would think his days would be filled with the thrill of adrenaline. He spoke frankly to me about utilizing that heightened sensation to make myself brighter and quicker and more alert. I have trouble acting normal when I am nervous so that did not seem very relevant to me.

My second conversation was a text thread with a friend; whereby, he told me that he had had a near-perfect day riding his motorcycle fast enough to scare the soccer moms on the way to his uber-sleek and fast fishing boat, and he opined that if he had just been able to make a jump out of an airplane, it would have been a grand slam of a day.

And then, later that same weekend, I sat on our backyard garden wall while the Caveman was working on the roof and I asked him if there was anything that scared him, like, so scared he might feel paralyzed or stupid? The Caveman said that the only thing that scares him is the thought of not coming home to me at night and that makes him work harder; to be more alert be alert; the world needs more lerts--an old, dumb joke few will get.

Let me break it down for you: What I perceive as fear and anxiety, they process as feeling alive or as an adrenaline rush. I think I may die and they are trying to feel this way on purpose because they do not feel this way enough of the time! Da fuq. CrossFit WODs; jumping out of planes; riding motorcycles super fast; prepping a witness; walking high up in the sky; welding on something hot and high or cold and deep in the ground deep enough that the sides could cave in and I would never see one of those men ever again. I do not need to be jump qualified or stand below a helicopter lifting something insanely heavy overhead for my adrenaline to make a sound in my ears. I only have to think about how I will pay my house or how I will tell the Caveman that his mother is too much for me to care for properly, and then the panic rises like bile from my stomach and burns the back of my throat.

As I sat on the planter in the backyard explaining all this to the Caveman, I asked him again the same question. He made me come up on the roof and sit down next to him and we looked out over the house we have made our home and I could feel the salt air in my hair, and he very patiently explained to me like he was speaking to a small retarded child, "I am only afraid of not coming home to you at night, Darya, and that just makes me pay more attention at work. That is it."

I told this last part to Dr. Headshrinker. He so simply said to me like he was speaking to a small retarded child, "The Caveman does not have an anxiety issue, Darya."  That sounds oh-so-very-simple, but in my pea-brain it sounded like something Copernicus or Einstein or Alex Trebek might say. It was so simple as to be beyond my comprehension, but to be fair, that happens to me a lot.

Hi, my name is Darya. I am anxiety's bitch.

This item has been added to the spreadsheet: Break-up With Anxiety. And Dr. Headshrinker and I have a plan--a very good, thoughtful plan on how to get me over some of the anxiety-inducing bumps in my day and my nights.

For right now, I have just been practicing my surfing because one Fourth of July a long time ago at San Onofre State Beach I was hit in the face by the surfboard rail in a major way and it broke my nose and separated it from my skull and split my lip and gave me a concussion and I had to get stitches and it was all very bloody and emergent and, well, anxiety inducing. I did the math over Father's Day weekend this year when we were camping and the Caveman was surfing at San O, and that is when I got back on that surfboard--I got back on when I realized that that was nearly 20 years ago. That was much too long to be so afraid--especially of something I love so much.

Break-up With Anxiety--I think we will be working on this one line item for a while but I think it is time. It is my time. And I believe I am totally worth my time.

 And I can see Dr. Headshrinker dreaming of a week in Waikiki off of this little gem alone.

xoxo Darya