English: Screenshot of Alice from the trailer for the film Alice in Wonderland (1951). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This past weekend, I traveled to San Francisco to attend a vow renewal ceremony of two very dear friends.

They had an Alice in Wonderland theme, and the event took place in a beautiful house with a view on the Bay that was breathtaking.

Of course there were the mandatory jokes about how great it was that each of them was marrying their spouse, but to be honest, as someone who had just celebrated her second anniversary with her husband, it was great to see 2 people who love each other so much at 10 years that they’d marry each other all over again.

To tell you the truth though, my favorite part of the event was seeing them interact with their 3 year old daughter, Lily, whom they had given up for adoption to John and Mikio — a wonderful gay couple who came in with her all the way from New York to attend.

And in a subtly-annoying-but-ultimately-serendipitous sort of way, John, Mikio, and Lily got tied up in traffic — so the ceremony that was set to start at 4 didn’t start until after they got there — much closer to 7 — which also happened to be the same time that Grandpa Ray made it to the party. And because of that, it was so much more romantic! Guests from ages 3 to 95 were there, and it was right at sunset, or twilight, if you prefer…

Lily was blowing bubbles through the whole ceremony and dancing and cheering.  And so was my heart.

A child really is the embodiment of 2 becoming 1. You couldn’t help but see the beauty, joy, and femininity of Deb in her, and the strength, intellect, and attention-commanding presence of Jason all present in her at the same time. She made me think about what a child would be like if it were a mixture of Adam and me… and it made me want one all the more.

I’ve been really hung up on getting pregnant with Adam’s child and coming off of my meds in order to do so.  Last week, though, I had to temporarily go back up to 60mg of Cymbalta because I was having suicidal thoughts again.  I know for a fact that it’s a chemical thing, and not me, though.  Life is so great right now, with Adam. We have family here in Chicago who love us, friends who like to hang out with us, plenty in the city to do and to explore. And there are always friends and family members that we love and want to visit all over the country, and even some in different countries.   No, I want to live. I want to bring more life into the world — so any suicidal thoughts — I’m blaming those on medicine, or lack there of.

I was doing okay at 40mg for a couple of weeks, so we’re going to try to bring me back down again to that level over the next 2 weeks. Then we can do the 6 week taper to nothing.

Trying to come off of SSRIs is so much more difficult than I thought it would be. It requires far more patience with myself and with the process than I anticipated, and a stronger commitment to meditation than I previously had.  It can only be a “some days” thing if I’m around friends and family.  If I’m mostly alone, I had better be letting the thoughts go their merry way by order of meditation every day.

But, on the bright side, I’ve noticed a significant decrease in seizure activity.  I don’t know if I can attribute this to the decrease in Cymbalta or to the increase in exercise, or some combination of the above.  Either way: I only had 1 seizure while I was with my friends this weekend, and that made for a great mini-vacation.

All that, and I even made new friends at the party.  In my new, pretty, shiny party dress.

*contented sigh*  Life is good, readers.  Right now, life is good.