Grief and Elsa

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I'm having a lot of grief issues with this whole seizure thing. I grieve for my lost days, I grieve for the fact that I could have easily died, and I grieve for the inability to give Emily the best Christmas ever.

Yes, I know a lot of these, especially the last is silly and stupid. But I grieve all the same. I think part of this is that I'm Elsa.

Not with the cool freezing powers but 'conceal don't feel' is something that is very familiar to me. My parents Elsa-ised me without realizing it. My sister was a problem child, always getting into trouble. So I was encouraged to be the good child. It wasn't too much of  a stretch for me, but I tended to take it too far sometimes. I would push my feeling down and push my feelings down until I would get to a breaking point and just explode. Just like Elsa, but again, less cool.

This caused me a lot of problems with relationships. My first serious relationship was full of fighting in part because I sucked at fighting. Luckily I learned how to fight better which has helped with things with me and Todd. That's why we've been married for 8 years.

But I'm experiencing the 'conceal don't feel' again with all the grief I'm feeling. I know logically that I shouldn't be as upset as I am, but I am. I keep crying and feeling sad. I know that I need to let the grief run it's course but my Elsa-ness doesn't want to let me.

So dear friends, I may be a little up and down for a little while. Todd and I have a plan to work on changing my lifestyle but it's going to take a while. Even he realizes that he's an odd duck the way he make a 360 change to his lifestyle after he got his MS diagnosis.

I just need some gentle handling in the next week or so. I promise not to wallow too long.  Christmas is going to be rough this year and even though I'll want to 'conceal don't feel' through the holidays I'll try to feel in a normal sort of way.

Thoughts On Living Together Before Marriage

Our Engagement Picture

One of my twitter friends asked how many of her friends / followers lived together before marriage last night. I was one of them who said yes. I think living together before marriage is a great idea, but I didn’t always think that way.

When I was younger, I saw the world in black and white. I am a Christian, so back then I thought living together before marriage was morally wrong. I got to college, and I found that things were not as black and white as I thought they were.

I didn’t date a lot and I didn’t start dating until college. I only dated my first boyfriend for about six months. He was really clingy and I realized I didn’t really like him that much, so I broke up with him.

My next serious boyfriend was a guy I was madly in love with. He was the first guy I lived with, and we were so very wrong for each other. Living together just made our problems worse and we fought all the time. Finally we broke up. I was very upset but I felt a bit like a weight had been lifted off of me. It did take me a good year to finally get over him.

When I met Todd, we started out long distance since we were living on different sides of the state. We’d communicate via email and talk on the phone about once a week because we were on separate work shifts. Our second date was on Valentine’s Day and we went to a wrestling house show with some friends. After the show, we went out to dinner. Todd and I had gotten to the restaurant first and we were just talking. During this conversation, he asked me to move in with him.

I was a bit freaked out because my last living with a boyfriend experience was such a miserable ordeal. But Todd, logically, pointed out that it would be hard to know if we were compatible doing the long distance thing. His logic won out and we moved in together.

It was a completely different experience because it just felt so comfortable and normal living with him. Our relationship has had its ups and downs, but we are able to communicate fairly well to have a happy relationship that lead to marriage.

Now I’m a huge fan of living together with a significant other before marriage. It’s a great way to figure out if you are truly compatible or not.

Tokyo Heist – A YA Mystery

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Tokyo Heist by Diana Renn is a young adult novel that follows sixteen-year-old Violet, who finds herself in the middle of an art heist. Violet is swept to Japan and attempts to unravel the mystery of a missing and previously unknown Van Gogh painting. In the meantime, she must evade the Japanese mafia and her artist father out of danger.

Anime and manga are a big part of the story, as Violet is a big fan of  both. A budding artist, she writes and draws her own manga, Kimono Girl, throughout the book. When I was younger, I was a huge fan of anime which I think helped me enjoy this book even more.  While Tokyo Heist is mainly a mystery, it does highlight the strained relationship Violet has with her father.

The relationship grows and changes as the book goes on, which adds another level of complexity to this highly engaging novel.

Tokyo Heist is recommended for ages twelve and up. As an adult, I did enjoy watching the mystery unfold. I would recommend this book to any reader who loves mysteries, art, anime or manga. Tokyo Heist is available in hardcover, Kindle and Nook versions.

Note: I received a copy of this book for review purposes.