The peaks of humiliation

I hate buying bras.

Yep, hate it. Despise. Loathe.

First off, to borrow a Julia Roberts-ism, it takes a village to raise this cleavage. Therefore any bra I wear must lift and separate, thus attempting to defy the laws of gravity.

And of all the laws in the universe to fight, gravity ain't the first one I'd naturally pick.

But it was time...it really was. Time to venture out into the harsh flourescent lighting of my local clothing store and peruse the shockingly unattractive over the shoulder boulder holders available in my size.

Which meant I could try on three.

Lovely.

And of course, I face yet another challenge in this entire process - I detest underwire. It hurts. It's just cruel and unusual punishment to me, and as such I avoid it like the flipping plague.

I do own more than a few underwire bras, but they see the light of day so very infrequently, ones I purchased eight years ago still have their tags on.

Yikes.

I have my token black underwire bra that I use on those rare occasions when I need a more uplifting look. Specific shirts or blouses simply don't look right if the girls aren't in their allotted spaces.

You know what I mean....I know you do.

The rest of the time I alternate between a few white stretchy numbers that, due to frequent washing and pretty much every day wear, cause my nipples to spend more time pointing towards my naval than the bright blue sky.

And that just ain't right. Enough is enough.

Fortunately for me they were having a buy one, get one 40% off sale, so I kinda scored there. Especially since I managed to find TWO newbies. Now I can finally say goodbye to my old faithfuls. They could tell some stories, I tell you what.

Of course Hubs joined me in the changeroom to give me his unbiased opinion. Such a sweet guy...never misses a chance to tell me how beautiful he thinks I am. Or to cop a cheap feel.

So yeah, that was the highlight of my day, really. Got a lot done at work today which was great, picked up a few small necessities after work, then headed home. I've got to pack tonight as we're going to see my sister and my friend in Waterloo tomorrow - waahoo! We'll be there until Sunday morning, at which point we'll hurry back to meet up with Hubs' family for Mother's Day.

Mother's Day - now there's a topic that's worthy of its very own post. I think I'll leave that one for Monday to let you know how/if I managed to pull through.

For now I really must get moving. Must pack and all that. Not that I'm overly tired however, considering I fell asleep at 7:30 last night.

Yep, you read that right. Fell asleep on the couch after dinner. Hubs woke me at 9, we went upstairs and watched American Idol in bed, then we both fell right off to sleep again. Well, it took me a little longer than him. He fucking snores like no one I've ever heard before.

But I digress...

If nothing else, I'm looking forward to putting on one of my virgin bras tomorrow and greeting the world as the new, perkier me. Happy that it'll be a long while before I have to endure this entire bra buying purchase again. Much to Hubs' chagrin.

And that's your daily dash. How's your diva doin'?

Perspective is everything

Everyone needs a good coping strategy.

When the shit hits the fan, some people bury their heads in the sand and just avoid avoid avoid.

Others lash out at whoever is closest - burn bright, but burn out fast.

And some internalize everything, every little piece, until they build and build and build and the slightest thing knocks down the entire precarious pile.

Me? I can be a combination of all three, despite my best intentions. I try not to avoid - I'd much rather deal with things and be able to move on. I sometimes burn bright, then feel badly for anyone unfortunate enough to find themselves in my scorching radius. And at times I do let things build, but more often than not I'm able to scatter the pieces so they never actually tumble down.

In my almost 35 years on this planet, I've evolved in how I deal with things. I went through a very angry, sense-of-entitlement phase. I like to think that I've moved through that and am in a much better place.

But I'm the first to admit, some days are better than others.

With all of the insanity that has rolled into my life in the past little while, I've decided that neither avoidance, flashes of temper nor tumbling bricks fit the bill anymore. Instead, I've simply turned to perspective.

Allow me to explain.

No matter how bad your life gets, someone else has it worse.

That's what I mean by perspective.

Seems kinda strange that I can feel better by simply thinking about other people who are going through even worse crap than I am, but I choose, yes actively choose, to see the positives in even the nastiest times of my life.

'Cause let's face it - it could always, always, always be worse.

Some days are harder than others. Some days I get sucked into my own void and it takes every kernel of strength and positive energy I may have buried deep inside to pull myself out of the funk du jour.

But strange as it sounds, I take 'comfort' in the knowledge that someone else has it worse.

Every time I get distraught/angry/frustrated/depressed/insert appropriate emotion here about our fertility challenges, for example, I remind myself of the fact that I have a wonderful husband, a fantastic job, and a great home. Then I remember how I used to be when I was single...how alone I felt, how desperately sad, how badly I craved someone to share my life with.

And so when the going gets tough, I tell myself that there are people out there, lots and lots of them, that read my blog or are in my life and think, 'oh yeah? You can't get pregnant? Well at least you have someone to share your life with. I still haven't found that person.'

And strangely enough, it helps. Focusing on the good in my life really does make me feel better, as challenging as it may be in the moment.

What I try to stay away from is the flip side of this coin - if someone else has it worse than me, I may very well be someone else's worse. Ya know? All those pregnant women who are dealing with morning sickness or cankles...maybe they look at me and think, 'geez...I've got nothing to complain about...at least I CAN get pregnant and WILL have a baby.'

Yin meets yang. Balance in the universe. And all things unfold as they should.

It's been a rough few days. Hubs and I have had some very serious talks about where we're going on this whole fertility journey and it's been hard. We're eeking ever closer to this whole IVF thing and it's really starting to hit us both...it's real. It's going to happen. And I want to puke.

But every time I need strength, I remember this too shall pass. This is not the end of the world. I remember where I work - a cancer hospital - and am grateful for all of the good things in my/our lives. And somehow, I get through.

This is not at all the post I was going to write tonight, but I think I needed to be reminded of my own perspective philosophy given the past few days. And strangely enough, that reminder came via a post on an internet forum that I happened to click on.

It was a post about another blog, one I'd never heard of. There was a bit of a disclaimer...lychee, forgive me for quoting you, but you said it perfectly:

Don't read this blog if you want to read only about happy, sunny things. Its a blog about life and death, endless happiness and bottomless sorrow. Its going to make you cry, but it will also touch your heart.

I paused. Did I really want to read about bottomless sorrow when I was pretty deep down myself? Endless happiness? Hells yeah! Sorrow I've had enough of.

But I clicked anyway. Maybe it was because I needed my daily dose of perspective. And boy, did I get it in spades.

So the next time you're feeling sorry for yourself and you're in need of emotional rescue (do you have that song in your head now?) remember - perspective is everything.

Things could always be worse.

And for someone else, they are.

And that's your daily dash. How's your diva doing?

If you're up for it, here's the blog: http://www.mattlogelin.com/if-you-havent-been-here-before/

Sleepy, so very very sleepy

Sorry for missing out on yesterday. I've just been so insanely sleepy that I can barely keep my eyes open.

Scratch that - a good portion of the time, I'm not even keeping my eyes open.

I fall asleep on the train. Nothing new, but sleeping from the time I get on the train to the time we pull into Union is kinda unheard of. And even crazier is the fact that I sleep all the way HOME too...now THAT'S unheard of.

I generally enjoy my ride home. I read my book, do one last cursory glance at the BlackBerry, and that's about it.

But now? This week? All I can do is sleep.

Sleep.

My favourite five letter word these days.

I want to go to bed so badly right now I can't even begin to describe it. Right in the middle of Grey's Anatomy and everything! And it's actually a pretty decent episode. But I want bed.

Man, I can't freakin wait for it to be Saturday morning so I can sleep in. Just lounge in my bed, no alarms, no DeeDee running around looking for breakfast, no plans until well later in the day. And it's supposed to rain, so maybe if I'm really lucky I'll just spend most of the day lying in bed with Hubs watching movies and just resting. Resting.

Sounds pretty damned good to me.

So that's why yesterday's post never happened and why today's is both boring and brief. My apologies. Here's hoping I'll have much more interesting stuff to blather on about after my Saturday lie-in.

And that's your daily dash. How's your diva doin'?