Brow

I have a gray hair in my right eyebrow, so I fully expect to wake tomorrow 200 years old and wearing a diaper. 

This gray hair has lived rent-free in my head for days. I want to pluck it out, but all I keep thinking of is how my grandma told me that if I shave the hair off my arms, it will grow back thicker and darker. If this is true, which it must be because my grandma said it, then if I pick my gray brow hair, I will wake up with fully gray brows and even a head full of gray hair. 

I am shocked at how vain I have become in middle age, and I have spoken to you about this before. I guess it is easy to sit on your youthful skin high horse when the reality of becoming a dehydrated raisin is so far away. My friends look so good! What if I meet up with them for homecoming or something, and people confuse me for their great-grandmother? Can you imagine a more heartbreaking situation, you know, outside of famine, abuse, and poverty?

I was on social media today and saw a picture of Charles Christmas. He has gray in his beard, and he looks so sexy. I have one gray hair in my eyebrow, and I look like Mother Earth. 

I need to allow my anxiety to settle about this before I mess around and do something nutty like shave my whole eyebrow off. At least if I have a bald brow, that may take attention away from the small frown line that I think I have coming in. 

Risky Go Night- Night (Another Risky Business Story)

I haven't been able to talk to Risky lately because she has been unrealistically tired. She has been donating a lot of plasma at a variety of different donation centers, which I am not sure is okay. To do so, she has to constantly make sure her iron levels are up, which is very stressful and takes a lot of work. Because of this, whenever I call, she is always asleep. The last time we spoke, I told her that this was just for the short term and to power through. She then told me she is treating this like a real job. 

First off, I just don't see plasma donation as a long-term solution to financial problems. But to hear her say that it is was disheartening because it means she is giving up on her goal of getting into another residency program. I mean, this is her dream and she is already an M.D. Is she going to hang that up to become a full-time plasma pusher??

We are both 41. I guess it is time to get real. We are either going to be on course to retire comfortably in nearly 30 years, so we should be preparing to collect cans, dumpster dive, and donate plasma for the rest of our existences. If the dream stages of our lives are not outright over, the buzzer going off is dangerously close. 

Honestly, if I had any sense I'd be thinking like Risky. I don't like anything having to do with blood, but I could see myself dancing on a street corner for change as long as the weather was good. At least then I could afford snacks. But I'm stubborn. My desire to be a writer is literally like a book I can't put down. If they eventually find me dead from old age in a tent city, please believe I will laying on top of my backpack full of short stories. 

If I can catch Risky while she is awake, I will try to give her a friendly push back in the direction of a residency again. We all have to do things we don't want to do when we are desperate for cash, but the idea that she would give up on her calling to donate plasma is bloody insanity! 

Slow

I think I may be losing my smart. I find that I am beginning to drift when I am watching a movie or talking to someone. I have to rewind what I just saw or ask a friend to repeat themselves. I don't have the attention span to get through conversations that I initiate! I don't know if I am preoccupied or tired. I don't know if this is just another symptom of being a woman in her 40s. I honestly can't tell you what is going on. I just feel bored and annoyed and over it with everything. It's like I can't be bothered with anything and I am bothered by everything. 

Big No Talk

It has been on my mind to do something I have wanted to do the last ten years. I think I am going to go on a phone fast. My definition of this is not calling anyone or texting anyone and only communicating with people who text or call me. I have been hesitant to do this because I am pretty sure I am going to be saddened by the results. The past decade has been about me coming to terms with loving people who either don't love me back or don't have time for me. My spirit has already told me who these people are, but I feel like I have to put my own intuition to the test. On the low end, I think that this is a sad exercise in self-abuse, but on the high end, I think it will give me the face-slapping clarity I need to move forward into the abyss of middle age. I think that a month is a good amount of time to conduct this experiment; however, I am dragging my feet on when to start. Confirming that no one cares is going to be a hard and bitter pill to swallow. 

Sleepless in Atlanta

I am exhausted, but I can't sleep. I close eyes, and all I see are job descriptions and my resume. There is this overwhelming feeling that there is work I need to get done, so I can't relax to sleep. I look up potential jobs to apply to the next day, but that's still not suitable to get my body to chill. And as if that isn't enough, the to-do list of everything else I need to get done plays in my head on a loop. It's times like this that I really want to talk to someone but, of course, everyone is asleep. They are asleep and I am awake. 

They say when you can't sleep, God is trying to tell you something. I'm no theologian, but I think God is trying to tell me to get off my a$!. And I get it, but I know God also knows that I'm nothing, nothing without sleep. Yesterday, I checked the time and it was 11am and I had my computer set up to work. Before I knew it, I was being woken up from a two hour nap I didn't intend to take. I feel like I'm all over the place, probably because I am. Once I finish blogging, I guess I will sweep my floor. Why not? It's not like I'm sleeping. 

For Whom The Bell Tolls

The theme for yesterday was death for 500, Alex. 

In the morning, I found out that my grandma's favorite and one of her few surviving cousins had died. Later in the day, I discovered that one of my beloved Xavier brothers had died. I also had a lengthy conversation with P about the afterlife. It was brutal. Brutal and heavy. 

As a Muslim, he feels like Christians don't think enough about the afterlife, while Muslims live with the afterlife at the forefront of their minds. I don't find this to be true, at least not at my church. There is plenty of talk about going to Heaven and the proper way to get there. This is especially troubling for me, seeing that I like to think about death and the journey after the way it was described to me as a child. We all have to die, but we die to go see Jesus, who lives in Heaven. Heaven is a beautiful place, and when you get there, you will get to see everyone who died before you. There was no talk of Hell, sin, or unbearable heat. There was only talk of a beautiful place to chill with your elders once your time is up. 

I prayed that both my grand-cousin and Xavier brother made it to Heaven. I am choosing to believe that they are now surrounded by the love of God and not oven-roasting to the soundtrack of eternal screams. The world, especially today, has a way of bombarding you with bad news and fears and disappointments and horrors. With that being said, is it so bad to want to believe that we all will one day be with God in an amazing paradise? How are we supposed to understand the stresses of the day while reconciling with the idea that we may also be going to Hell? How can we be present in the day if we are afraid of burning alive tomorrow?

I'm not sure, but according to P, we'd better figure it out because judgment starts at the moment of death. The very second our life ends, the trial starts. I cringe at the idea of having to explain to God why I have done some of the dumb stuff that I have done when there was a published book of His wishes available that I ignored. Yeah, I am going to stick with the Sunday school version of Heaven for myself and for the people I know who have passed on. I don't think I have the bandwidth to accept any of the other alternatives. 

Food For Thought

Hello, my name is Holly. I am an overeater who comes from a long lineage of overeaters who is now trying to teach my niece and nephew not to overeat. It annoys me that there are people who just get full, put their forks down, and go to bed. Even if I cut off my arms, I would find a way to get that last Pringle into my mouth. I have accepted that food issues are going to be my cross to bear, but I am hopeful that the tips I give my niece and nephew (that are obviously from offline, because what do I know about having consumption control?) will help them to avoid a fate such as mine. 

Everyone has issues, but why can't my issue be one that people can't see? Why can't I be a sex addict or a thief or a liar and still get to walk around skinny and cute with no one being the wiser? Why can't I be the adulterer that walks around judging overweight folks, telling them to "just stop eating" and to "get up and walk"? I would be just as good a hypocrite as the next guy. It's just not fair! 

I have gotten so upset with food that I have started to protest it. Even when I am hungry, I just find myself not wanting to eat. What is the point? I am just going to get hungry again, make bad choices, not feel full, then make the same overeater mistakes all over again. I need a break just as food, per usual, is breaking my spirits. 

The other day, I watched my 2-year-old niece eating a granola bar. Halfway through finishing it, she didn't want it anymore, threw it on the floor, and then walked away. I think the healthy people call that "portion control". Maybe there is hope for my bloodline yet!