an atheist through and through

When I was younger, maybe about eight or nine, my grandparents took my sister and me to visit my great-aunt. She lived in the mountains, in the middle of nowhere, and it was the first time my parents had not accompanied us. My grandmother told us to go for a walk, follow the fence up onto the mountain and back. And I didn't. I led my sister up the path onto the mountain, and forgot all about following the fence. After about half an hour of talking and playing and wandering around, I realized we were lost.

I knew that I should have been able to get a general idea of where I was by the sun, as it had been on our backs as we walked up the path. I knew that if I walked back toward the sun, I would find our way back home eventually. But there were so many trees I couldn't orient myself. We had stumbled off the path, and could not find our way back.

My sister was the first to panic. I had been holding it together for her sake, but when Jess started to freak, it was nearly impossible. I told her that we would find our way back, that all we had to do was follow the slope of the mountain and we would find a road, and from there we'd have no trouble finding our way back. When we did that, and only ended up in bushes, not a paved road, I lost it.

Like the good little Christian children we'd been raised to be, we cried and prayed for help. None came. Finally, I told Jess that we would go back the way we'd come and try to retrace our steps. By this point, the sun was beginning to set, and I knew that Jess was imagining a long and fearful night on the mountain, because she kept asking about bears. I didn't have an answer for her, and so we stopped talking, lost in our own anxieties and imaginings. In the silence, we could hear a voice shouting, so far away as to be almost inaudible.

Our grandmother. We followed the sound of her voice back over the mountain until we ended up in the road almost a mile away. I think that was the moment my faith in the Almighty began to crumble. And I realize that I must not have been very strong in my faith for it to be so irreversibly damaged by something so minor.

The killing blow to my religious leanings came when I was sixteen years old. I prayed that God would make me a better person. That God would teach me something that would change me profoundly for the better. And then my very first boyfriend raped me. On Christmas Eve, of all nights.

For a while afterward, about two years, I told myself that it had happened for a reason, that it was all part of The Plan To Make Starky A Good Person. It was my crutch, my lifeline. It was my delusion. It was the only thing that kept me sane during that dark time. And I knew that I was starting to finally heal and move on when I realized that if there really was a God, He had one hell of a funny way of answering my heartfelt prayer.

Some people will say that I turned away from God because I was angry at Him for answering my prayer in such a way, that it has made me a better person and I am blind to that fact. I will admit that at first, I was angry. I felt betrayed, by the boy who said he loved me and the God who was supposed to protect me. I won't deny it. But when the anger faded? There was indifference.

I no longer care one way or the other if there is some higher power guiding my life. It won't change the way I live, or the things I hope for, or the way I treat others. It doesn't matter what pretty words I offer up to the heavens.

a bitter pill to swallow

This article left me in tears. I don't understand how people can be so cruel to the children they are supposed to love and protect and care for. I don't want to know what kind of sick fuck you've got to be to be so cruel to a child. And it's shit like this that makes me wish I believed in hell. There is no justice in the world, none at all.

Maybe it's just because I'm crazy hormonal, and suffering a huge disappointment, but seriously. I can't take the bullshit. Miss P is officially late, and shows no sign of wanting to show up. And Sid doesn't know it, but I took a pregnancy test yesterday. It was negative.

I will say no more about it.

This means that I am probably hypo again. Which I also don't want to say anymore about, but I need to get this out. If I tell Sid what I'm feeling right now, he won't understand. And I can't handle that right now.

I hate being sick. I hate that it makes me different. I don't mind it, usually. Normally, I'm just happy to be feeling okay again, and I'm eternally grateful that I have an illness that is manageable. But I hate that every month, I have to walk to the pharmacy to pick up my levothyroxine, and that everyone can see me walking home with my pill bag. I hate that I have to plan my meals around that pill, that I can't eat when I'm hungry if I'm in that three hour window, that I can't just up and go somewhere without dragging my medicine with me in case I can't get home in time to take it. And when I think these things, I feel so ungrateful. I should be glad that I am so lucky: I have insurance that pays for my bloodwork, I live in a country where I have access to the medicine that will make me feel well again.

So right now I'm feeling a little bit a lot like shit. Compounding that, Sid doesn't know I took a pregnancy test already, and he's trying to be helpful by telling me that starky, you never know, it might not be your thyroid, maybe you're pregnant. I don't have it in me to tell him I do know, I am not pregnant, it has to be my thyroid. As much as it hurt to tell myself that, I don't have the heart to do it to him.

the Mansons talk spawnage

A few days ago, I came up with a title for an entry, and it was, to my mind, perfect. And now that I actually have the time and the privacy to write, I can't remember what it was I'd thought up. And I don't know what's happened lately that I feel the need to record for posterity.

OH, let's start off with a gem: if my period is late this month, I'm either hypothyroid again, or pregnant. I don't know which at this point, all I do know is that I'm pretty icky feeling and waiting to see what happens. For the past week and a half, I have been nauseated and miserably tired. You see? It could go both ways. Either way, methinks I'm going to end up getting my thyroid checked, so in that respect, the situation is lose-lose. I'm going to end up with needles in me either way.

The second gem: if I am pregnant, it was entirely planned. Oh yes, you read rightly. Part of me is scared to fucking death at the decision. Another part of me is insisting that Sid and I are doing something very stupid, and that I should bail now while I still have time. The third part is just sitting back in disbelief at the fact that Sid has come around to the idea of spawnage. I imagine I will have more thoughts on this matter if/when I get a positive test.

Giving up my four-cups-o-caffeinated-goodness-a-day habit has been excruciating. Literally as well as emotionally. I loves me some coffee, almost as much as cheese or chocolate or ice cubes. Going without makes starky a sad panda! At first, that's why I thought I was tired and sick, but once the unholy headaches eased up, I still felt like shit, so I tossed that notion out the window. I still allow myself one cup a day, but to me, that's like taking just a bite of cheese, just one ice cube, just one little piece of chocolate... It's just a tease.