Bad Hippie, No Patchouli!

I have always been a believer in symbols, and an even greater believer in talismans. Whether for protection, luck, or some other esoteric reason, I like to have my talismans around. And in truth, I prefer to wear them.

When I was eight years old, my grandmother gave me a locket that used to belong to her sister. It was pretty enough as jewelry goes, I guess -- shaped like a heart, with a etched flower design. The minute I put that locket on, I vowed never to take it off. And I didn't take it off -- I wore that necklace through junior high, through high school, and even to my senior prom. After a while, the locket was more of a habit than a piece of jewelry...I fiddled with it whenever I was bored or nervous, particularly in math class and often around boys. I'm not sure if I thought it rendered me invisible or beautiful, but it was definitely magical to me. I didn't take it off, not until long after The Beavis was born and I lost it.

Once the locket was gone, I went on a quest to find a new talisman. My first communion cross didn't feel right. Bracelets didn't work, either. Rings irritated me. That's when I hit on the idea of a tattoo. A permanent talisman! I wouldn't have to worry about losing it, and it wouldn't get in my way or yanked on by a curious toddler.

Alright, I admit it. The tattoo was also an act of defiance. I knew it would "freak" most everyone I knew out. I'm not exactly a tattoo-looking kind of person, I guess. More of a librarian/school teacher type. So the tattoo would serve a dual purpose -- it would protect me, and it would drive my dad nuts.

I went ahead and got my tattoo...a half moon, with clouds and stars, that hovers over my left breast. Defiant, yes, but also symbolic. My birthday is in July, which makes me a Cancer. Cancers are ruled by the moon, which is ruled by water and the tides. The tattoo became a symbol of my innermost self and a talisman to protect and define me.

The added bonus was that my grandmother thought it was hysterical. And kind of pretty. Score!

For a while, the moon was enough. But then I went through a divorce, and I was left feeling vulnerable and alone. Not very strong. In need of a little help, I guess. Since I had spent four years studying ancient religions in college and was still in the middle of my heathen phase, I went straight for the source...Barbara Walker's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. Lo and behold, there it was -- my new talisman, and my second tattoo. A Bridget's Knot, which is also known as a "knot of protection." Bridget is a mother goddess -- a co-opted symbol of ancient Celtic religion and Christianity -- and a protectress to her children. The symbolism (and timing) was perfect.

The Bridget's knot is inked in above my right ankle, boldy purple and green and yellow and blue, hanging out for all the world to see. I suppose some folks might think it's a little bit trashy (especially when I bust out the silver anklet in the summertime), but I love my tattoo. I know what it means. And what it has meant to me to have a physical reminder of magic in my life, even at the darkest times.

Unfortunately, tattoos are addictive. As is my need for a new talisman to represent the changes in my life. I'm turning 34 in a month, but I think I can wait until I'm 35 to add something new to my collection. I'm jonesing for a small pair of angel wings on my right shoulder, with the Japanese symbols for "grace" in the center. Not "grace" as in "Grace," but "grace" as in the ability to live well under pressure, without giving up or losing your shit. I think that pretty much would sum up the first part of my 30s, and serve as a reminder to me to keep on keepin' on, with grace, humor, and compassion toward others.

I'm not much interested in adding a ton of body art like some folks like to do; instead, I like to pick my pieces and add them as I can, so that they have value to me. Sort of like saving up for a good piece of jewelry from Tiffany's rather than buying a cheap knock-off from QVC. Plus, that moon is going to look pretty damn ridiculous in another 40 years, when my boobs are hanging down around my knees. I don't need to add anything else that will morph (too much) with time and turn into a caricature of its former self.

In approximately seven hours, The Beavis and his friends will run through the doors of their middle school for the last time -- heading off not only on their summer adventures, but to high school.

Yeah, high school. I am the parent of a high school student. That does not seem possible. It seems like it was only yesterday that I was signing him up for kindergarten and sending him off to school with a ginormous backpack full of crayons and kleenex and glue sticks. Now, if he bops out the door with his lunch, it's a good day. Never mind the backpack and supplies...a math assignment sheet folds up nicely to fit in your back pocket.

When we went to parent orientation at the high school, I got some strange looks from the folks who weren't use to seeing me around. And the teacher running the show, well -- she took one look at me and asked: "May I help you?" I don't think she quite believed the explanation that I was to there about my son's forthcoming educational experiences. I may be closing in on 34, but have been told I can still pass for someone much younger. Someone who DOES NOT put up with a teenager on a regular basis, I guess. Showing up in your soccer gear doesn't win bonus points with authority figures, either. (Hey, in my defense -- I was coming from soccer practice. For the kids. You know...where I am an "authority" figure?)

Anyhow, this strange new world of high school seems...impossible. How can The Beavis be old enough for THAT? It's hard to imagine that we've lived through everything prior to this milestone...the horrible first year of school (with the mean, mean boy-hating kindergarten teacher), the difficult transition to first grade, moving buildings in the third and sixth grade, navigating locker combinations and classroom switches, and dealing with all of that funky adolescent crap just as the school district makes a bunch of changes and starts bringing in more stringent academic standards.And let's not forget the year I subbed in his middle school -- good, bad, or ugly? The jury's still out on that one, or so I've heard.

Oh, there's been good stuff, too. The Beavis' second grade teacher, Mrs. Lee, was amazing. She understood him perfectly, and had no beef with wiggly little boys who wanted to stand next to their desk to do their work -- as long as they truly did their work. And his fourth grade teacher, now our neighbor, was fabulous...she had just graduated from college with her teaching degree, after raising four babies and working hard to earn her chops. She brought so much energy and youth to the classroom that year. (Hell, she's still bringing it. She's amazing!) And seventh grade, well -- The Beavis met his new math teacher, a former noncom in Iraq, and became an instant disciple. Sure, he got busted immediately on the first day of school, but it set the tone for a respectful relationship -- one that I hope continues even as he moves through the high school years. And, of course, there's his orchestra teacher. But I can't get maudlin about her...she runs the orchestra program in the high school, too. The Beavis won't be escaping her steely, vice-like grip just yet.

I guess part of wondering where the time has gone for The Beavis involves wondering where the time has gone for ME. Once upon a time, I brought home a tiny bundle of Beavis from the hospital, never imagining that he'd turn into a 5'6" teenager that weighed (at last count) 145 pounds and enjoyed benchpressing sixth graders for fun. If you peruse my flickr photos, you'll see that a huge sea change has taken place from seventh to eighth grade. Gone is the last trace of any kind of baby fat or softness, and in its place is some weird man-child with a deep voice who is by turns grouchy and sort of sulky, and then pleasant and fun to know. In short, a teenager.

So, today I guess we're celebrating The Beavis moving on to a new adventure in life, as well as me moving on to a new adventure in life. No more parent-teacher conferences and cute book reports; instead, we have Booster Club and sports recruiters and graduation tests and SATs and colleges to consider. Weird. Very, very weird.

Off I go...to volunteer for the last time at the middle school, and to send the Beavis of to high school in style. With lots of picture-taking and embarrassment, naturally.

What? You thought I was going to the academic awards ceremony to be weepy? Hell, no! I'm going to be a complete and total pain-in-the-ass to my sensitive, and mostly embarrased-by-his-mother teenager!

Like the new redesign?

Three out of four fabulous felines agree that it's deliciously ironic to write about depression and other such heavy topics against such a bubbly back drop!

After two years of "managing" my depression to varying degrees of success WITHOUT drugs, I decided to walk my butt over to the local GP's office and ask for a starter pack of happy pills. Don't get me wrong...life is not bad. But a job I don't like (and that is within a stressful, past-paced industry) plus the deployment of The Beavis' dad (and the new, very unimproved custody situtation) has gotten the best of me. I still hate the idea of anti-depressants and am very afraid of their addictive quality, but it would appear that life has gotten the better of me.

It took me a day or two to work up the nerve to open the cute little starter pack of Lexapro, innocuously packaged in pristine white with happy script lettering. Being an old hand at the antidepressant game, I fully expected a few day's worth of goofy side effects -- no sleeping, a racing heart, dry mouth, a bit of irritability. Ha! I got that, and a whole lot more. My doctor was convinced that Lexapro, the "new" wave of drugs, has worked out all the "kinks" from more old-school drugs like Effexor. But in my opinion, it's just added some interesting new side effects to the mix.

DAY ONE: I'm feeling a bit nauseated. Hmmm. Very nauseated. In fact, I sort of want to claw my throat out. It's itchy. And tight. Holy shit! Am I having an allergic reaction to this drug? No? This is normal? Great. I think I'll go lay down now...for a year.

DAY TWO: I'm sleepy. Really sleepy. In fact, I'm not really sure how I got to work. The drive in was a blur. I'm sleepy...zzzzzz....huh? What just happened? I'm face down on the computer. Holy crap! Okay, back to work. More coffee. Three cups later, and I dose off while waiting for a new Web site to load. Isn't that narcolepsy?

DAY THREE: So tired. Don't want to drive. Don't want to work. Dry mouth...ew. Must...drink...water. Still tired. Coffee. Drive home. Sleepy. I want to sleep. Go to soccer practice instead. Trip over myself and fall down in front of everybody. Too tired to care. Go home. Food? No way. Hey, Beavis. Go ahead and eat a bowl of cereal for dinner. Ask HWSRN for lunch money. I'm too nauseated to even slap together a crappy turkey sandwhich. Must...lay...down.

DAY FOUR: Screw the shower. Too nauseated to stand up. Yesterday's hoodie and jeans sound like a good outfit for work. Hair? Um, a soccer headband will do. Awesome. Now, how to I get to work again?

DAY FIVE: Hmmm. I'm not nauseated, but my stomach is starting to feel...strange. Not good. Must up the daily fiber and miralax dosages. I have the sneaking suspicion that the inactive ingredients in this new-fangled superdrug contain...corn.

DAY SIX: Oh, god. My stomach. Where's the mirilax? What? I finished the whole bottle in two days, but nothing has happened? I think I'm going to die. I guess I'd better drag out the "fat" jeans, bucause it's only going to get worse from here.

DAY SEVEN: Hmmm. I feel like shit. Let's stop at the pharmacy and talk to Bill, who knows everything about every drug the drug companies market to us poor saps. He'll know how to figure out all the inactive ingredients in Lexapro. What? Lexapro incorporates cornstarch into its binding ingredients? Fabulous. Thanks, Bill!

DAY EIGHT: Goodbye, Lexapro. We hardly knew ye. The second starter pack is relegated to the back of the drug drawer, and I head out to the store to purchase more citracel and miralax. Fin.

In short, Lexapro didn't work out for me. By day four, I knew it contained some variant of corn, because my stomach was starting to act up and I found myself in somewhat of a physical...bind (to say the least). I have this problem with a lot of prescription drugs...the binding ingredients cause my stomach to flare up, which will throw my whole system off for weeks. There's no "cure" for my particular intolerance...avoidance of the so-called allergen is all that works. If I eat corn, corn syrup, or corn starch, the unpleasant digestive results hang around for a week or two, causing an irritating amount of bloating and discomfort, as well as constant, low-grade pain. Which is no fun for me, or the poor folks around me. Needless to say, I get a bit grouchy and whiny when this happens.

What next? My GP is sending me to a specialist -- a psychiatrist who specializes in pharmaceuticals, with the hope that he can come up with some combination of drugs that do not irritate me, or convince the pharmicist to make me a version of the drug without the offending ingredient. Ah, the insurance company is going to LOVE this.

My GP, who is a good doctor, seems to think that my depression and resulting stomach programs are related directly to stress. And, where other folks process stress differently -- through drinking or tantrums or some other behavior -- I process stress through my gut. Somewhere along the line, all my other defense mechanisms became worn down, and the so-called "mind-gut" connection became extremely streamlined. The doc likened it to a superhighway, and said that where other folks' stress might take the back country roads and eventually end up at the stomach, my body heads straight to the expressway and doesn't stop for pee breaks along the way.

Okay, I made up that part about pee breaks. But I thought it would enliven the analogy a bit.

So, according to the GP, I have atypical IBS, pure and simple, brought on by extreme stress and the inability to process it. If I don't fix the stress, I don't fix the IBS. And I don't think he meant getting rid of the stress -- that's not possible. I think he meant managing the stress, most probably with some sort of pharmaceutical that (hopefully) won't interact with my rather touchy stomach.

Seriously, folks. Why can't accupunture just be covered by insurance companies? Because I'm pretty sure that needles, even if they are long and pointy and sticking out of weird places on my body, aren't coated in corn. And needles, no matter how pointy, are preferable to mega doses of citracel and miralax at this point, believe me.

The Beavis and his cohort left on a tour bus at 5:15 this morning for a school trip to Washington, D.C. The trip had been in the works for months, and I think the teachers had it pretty well organized. We had all the important stuff packed up...toothbrush, ipod, granola bars, Powerade, Tag body spray, the epi-pen...and our goodbyes went, well -- pretty much like any "goodbye" with a 14-year-old will go. The "later, dude" kind of goodbye, if you know what I mean. Not the emotional hugging kind of goodbye.

So I got back home and snoozed for a bit, then started a nice, leisurely day of "working at home." (Which is code for "taking the day off.") Everything was going fine until oh, approximately 11 a.m., when my cell phone rang and The Beavis screamed across the miles: "Hey, mom! We're halfway through Pennsylvania and our bus is on fire! Well -- the girls' bus is on fire, anyhow!"

The kids in the background sounded way too happy and un-terrorized for there to be something seriously wrong with the bus, and it turns out that it was simply an exhaust issue. I think they were mostly wound up from being awake so early and eating a lot of junk food. So, while the principal was busy working out an alternative mode of transportation for them, the kids were happily texting and calling friends and relatives to let them know that the "bus was on fire." Talk about blowing it out of proportion! The school had to use one of those automated phone call trees to inform us that yes, our kids were fine...a bit on the crazy side, but fine.

Any time you get a group of teenagers together, the shit is bound to hit the fan. And believe me, it did. And I was feeling sorry that I couldn't chaperone the trip!

Okay, I admit it -- I'm still sorry that I can't chaperone the trip. HWSRN thinks I'm nuts, but I think it sounds fun. Crazy, but fun. They'll have a good time, and hopefully they'll get back home without the bus catching "on fire" again.

Note to my future grandchildren: Please make sure to call your father at least once during his parenting years to alert him to the fact that the bus/car/train/plane/hovercraft is on fire. I'm pretty sure he deserves to feel that split-second of terror after causing me to instantaneously sprout at least five more new gray hairs today.