On June 4th of this year, 2010, something profound happened.  I felt old. I felt old, and out of the loop. Why, you may ask yourself, why would this woman of only 35 29 feel old and out of the loop? I’ll tell you why. It’s because my sister, who is 10 years my junior, who is my BABY sister, got MARRIED. Married!! Can you believe it? I still have a hard time wrapping my head around it. I remember when she was born. I remember how I made her a pillow when she was born, she carried it around in the same hand she sucked her thumb on until she was about 8 (nah, just kidding, I think she was about 3). And you know what? She still has that godforsaken, drool infested, stained and torn and patched up pillow…. because her sister (that’d be me, in case you got lost) made it for her.

I remember when she started having seizures. I don’t remember how long it was before the doctors figured out it was seizures she was having, but it seemed like years that she was poked, and prodded, and had tests run, and couldn’t go on school field trips, or be left unsupervised,  until she finally had one in front of a nurse and they recognized it immediately as a seizure. I remember, she was 11 years old when she chose to wean herself off of the medication, and has never had a seizure since.

I remember she had beautifully thick hair (she still does, our whole family has some seriously thick hair) and she (translation: my mother) cut it all off, in about 1st grade. Some kids made fun of her at school one day, and she came home crying, they said her hair looked like a rat’s nest. I was so angry, so completely infuriated that my first instinct was to haul my cookies up to the school and snatch up a few 6 year olds and scare the everloving shit out of them for making my sister cry! Instead though, I got up early for school, every morning (which was a HUGE feat for me) to make sure her hair was brushed and fixed. I don’t think they made fun anymore. At least if they did, she never told me.

She also never got a spanking. Ever. My other sister and I – that’s a whole different story. But when it came to our baby sister, we just wouldn’t stand for it. No matter what it was, or how often we complained that she never got in trouble, she never got a spanking, she never got anything taken away… when it came right down to it, we had her back. If we had to, we’d take the blame for whatever it was. She was always safe. I guess I should mention here, that she also didn’t speak for the first few years of her life…. she didn’t have to. Her sisters always knew what she wanted, and we’d just get it for her. Our grandma used to get so upset with us and tell us “Make her ask for it. She’s never going to learn to speak!” But we were in the state of mind, where we thought “But why? She already grunted, and I know what it means, so I’ll just get/do it”. For years, round and round over everyone wanting her to speak, and us just wanting to give her what she wanted….. There have been times when I have felt that she gets a lot of things handed to her, things I’ve had to work for, but… I’ve never been jealous of that. Because she does work, hard… for her family, and for God.

My baby sister has traveled the world doing missionary work. She’s been to so many places, I can’t even remember them all but the list includes Haiti, Mongolia, oh… and lots more, that I really can’t remember. She has such a good & big heart, and always sees the best in people. Don’t get me wrong – she drives me up the wall sometimes, and we have our spats, but we get over them quite quickly and carry on. It’s a sister thing.

I’m so proud of her. Really,I am. You’d think just having gone through a divorce, I’d not be too keen on marriage, but I’ll tell you a little secret: I’m a hopeless romantic. And my sister, she found one of the good ones. I couldn’t imagine her with anyone else, they are so perfect together. He simply adores her. He’s nice, he’s funny, he fits in so incredibly well with our family. And, he loves my son. I think, they might be best friends… on some level. They hunt all the time in the backyard of my moms house with their BB guns. It’s sweet to see… he’s probably the most prominent male role in my son’s life right now, and for that, I’m forever grateful.

So, yeah… I now have a brother-in-law. And I couldn’t be happier about it! They have a lot they want to do and get in order before they start having children, but I’m ready for some babies!!!! Twins run on both sides of the family, so…. you know what I’ll be wishing for!

In other news, N is in summer camp right now, and he’s enjoying the hell out of it! It ends July 8, then he will be spending a few weeks with his dad…. which I will not enjoy, at all. It makes me want to come out of my skin. I’m not used to not being around my boy, and everytime he is gone I feel like I have no direction or purpose in life. I know, wah wah wah…. it’s just a fact, Jack.

Aside from that, because I’m not going to get all sappy on this Terrifically Terrible Tuesday… I got a new tattoo last night!! My 6th one. I’m movin on up like George & Weezy – haha. For the record, if you can’t see the obvious, I happen to adore tattoos. Yes, I will get more. Yes, I know they last forever. Yes, I’m okay with that.  Anyone who isn’t, I’d suggest they don’t get any tattoos… This is not a very good picture, it was awkward to try to take it because it’s right on the side of and under the outside of my left ankle… and I took the pic about 30 minutes after it was done. But, I love it. It has significant meaning to me, which I won’t go into either, because it involves dead babies, and who wants to talk about THAT on a Tuesday? Not me.

Oh, and P.S. – my feet are not dirty folks, that’s the ink. I promise! I know I’m from the dirty south, but I do have clean feet…. from time to time… but especially when getting one of them tattooed. Trust me. Ok? It’s Ink!

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I haven’t written, but have so much to say… so many different things going on in my life right now that are weighing heavily on my mind, and my heart, that I’m not even sure I could sort it out in order to talk about it.  However, the thing weighing the heaviest on my heart right now is really the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

It’s so heartbreaking, so devastating. It’s consuming…. if you live near the Gulf, you know what I mean. The smell of the oil burning in the air, the impact already seen in so many culturel aspects… you can’t escape it. It’s real, and it’s huge. So much bigger than I think any of us even realize… People have lost their lives. Our way of life, our culture, everything about the Gulf Coast stands to be lost. If not lost, at least damaged tremendously, possibly for generations to come… and that scares me. It scares me because I don’t think I can even wrap my head around the magnitude of this disaster, but I know by the way it leaves me feeling punched in the gut, that it’s really, really awful.

210,000 gallons of oil each day, just spewing into our waters… 11 men dead from the Deepwater Horizon explosion… I’ve been so curious to know how it happened, why everyone blames BP, how it COULD happen… then I saw 60 Minutes coverage last night and realized, not only was it tragic and devastating, but it was completely preventable. Shame on those that didn’t take caution.  It really is such a terrible shame.

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I’m not sure if it’s something I’ve mentioned here before or not, but I have a heart condition called SVT (Supra-ventricular tachycardia). I don’t really know how to explain it, because even though I was diagnosed over 2 years ago with this condition, I am still learning about it. As my doctor explained to me, it’s similar to an electrical shortage between my brain and my heart that causes my heart to race, sometimes wildly. I’m on medication to lower blood pressure and reduce episodes of SVT.  However, lately I feel  like I have been having nearly back to back episodes, and am wondering if my dosage should be increased. I know that it can be increased several times over what it is now (I’m on the lowest dosage) but I can’t help but wonder if that’s a good thing? I realize the medication helps me, my heart, my body… but I have some serious issues going on with turning 35 this month and, call me crazy, but I have visions of myself being old a senior citizen and taking 27 pills a day just to stay alive. I don’t want to be that person! Isn’t that just absurd?

I suppose I just need to call my doctor, and ask. It could be a s simple as taking 2 pills a night instead of 1… and aside from the above mentioned visual, it’s not so bad. What scares me more than taking pills to survive, is not surviving. I have been terrified since Iwas diagnosed with this, due to the fact that my grandma died at 55 from heart problems (I don’t know specifically what, and I should, but I’m starting to think no one in my family has the correct information regarding her heart condition). I have spent my whole life scared of dying too young, and always feeling like I would… when I had N it became an even more real fear… then my doctor said “Yep, there’s something wrong with your heart…” and I thought surely, this is the part where I fall over and die of a heart attack (no pun intended)… but I didn’t. I survived the news… I just worry that I won’t survive this life, with this heart.

Clearly, I obsess too much over something that so many people live with day in and day out who have no one in their family history that has ever died of a heart condition, but I have. And everytime my heart goes into an arrhythmia and I feel lightheaded and N is around I can’t help but think, Please God, not yet… and especially, not in front of him.

Oh anyway!! Way to get emotional, when all I intended was to write about my heart condition and ask if anyone that might read this ghost town of a blog happens to have a heart condition similar, or not? Or anymore information regarding SVT?

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My son came home with an Easter egg shaped booklet that they made in school, and wrote stories in. The teacher gave them the plot, and they were to write their own story… I cracked up laughing when I was reading what N embellished the plot with… I love his imagination. Here are two of his stories, in all of their misspelling glory… (he gets straight A’s in Spelling, so I’m not sure what this is about, but it’s still pretty good for a 2nd grader)

“I woke up the day befor easter and I had turned into a Easter bunny. I hopped around and it was cool. But then things got strang. My mom came in my room. So I hid in my closet. She stepped out of my room. I stepped out of my closet. Then I jumped out my window. Then I layed eggs at the park.”

“One morning I saw peter cottontal walking down the street. A car headed for him. Then a grizly bear headed for him. They atacked him. But the light turned red.”