. How much difference does it really make in the entirety of your life, which kindergarten you attend? I suppose not much. Unless you go to a really bad one.
. How does a parent identify, from the outside, a really bad kindergarten?
. Is our president working for Putin?
. What are we going to have for dinner tomorrow night?
. Today I've heard three separate tales of how white people, as a culture, actively worked to destroy people who were different from them. Three separate cultures, too. WTF, white people?
. Why haven't white people realized yet that we're the problem?
. What happens to someone who is deported from the US, after living here for most of their lives?
. Why can't I stop arguing with my 4 year old?
. I give my kids most of the things they ask for; they usually respond by complaining about it. How do I break that in them without beating them?
. How many members of Congress are working for Putin?
. I'm pretty certain the NRA is working for Putin. Okay, not really. Well, maybe. But it's fucked up how much of our nation they control.
. What is a religious person's objection to making sure peoples' basic needs are met? i.e. Universal healthcare, welfare, food stamps, WIC and SNAP, etc.
. Why can't I find the motivation to move my ass on a regular basis? I want to exercise more, to lift more, why don't I do it?
. Is my husband reading this over my shoulder, or did he really want to stand next to me and pet my head in the dark dining room for 45 seconds?
. Is the weather really turning to shit tonight? Man, I hope the roads aren't bad in the morning. Will need to get up a little early. Maybe I'll get to bed a little earlier...but it's almost 11, so that's unlikely.
. What am I going to wear to work tomorrow?
. I still didn't play GO Fish with G tonight. We've been talking about playing Go Fish since Saturday. I suck at momming sometimes.
. Is Cora ever going to be potty trained? I'm so over buying pullups.
. My 20 year high school reunion is a week from Saturday. What in the fuck am I going to wear to that?
. I really should spend more time paying attention to my sweet husband.
. I should've gone to bed 2 hours ago. I'm tired.
. How can I convince my boss I deserve a raise?
. I should walk Finn more. Damn it, it's so cold, though!
. He really does need a good brushing.
. I need there to be more hours in the day.
. I still need to get my damned oil changed. Shit.
. Ugh. I need to get a copy of TurboTax and get started on our taxes. Do i know where all our forms and receipts are? Ugh.
. Are we going to take an actual vacation this year?
. Speaking of vacation - my balance was only 40 hours when I checked online today. I need that fixed.
. Why am I writing out a list of this stupid shit at 11 p.m., as I sip my hot tea and try to get myself ready for bed? I already did my bedtime yoga, even. Probably should've let this shit out before then.
. Geneva and Cora's bedroom is a disaster; so is the entire upstairs, again. And my laundry is piling up. Nature loves chaos - i wish it didn't make me feel so fucking anxious.
. And the kitchen sink is full of dishes. I just can't, not tonight. I have no energy, no drive. It's no wonder my back aches, you should see the way I'm slouched in this chair. (I straightened up, though, because that was dumb.)
. I still need to make sure mom can keep the girls Friday night.
. What are Maria and I going to do Saturday?
. I forgot to tell Jimi Mom wants us to come over for dinner Thursday night.
. When can Patricia and I get together in the next week?
. That's a lot of socializing and it's starting to freak me out.
. I've got to get over this social anxiety bullshit. It's making me a terrible friend. But dammit. Some days it just feels impossible to even read a text message, much less respond to one. Natalie from 10 years ago would be aghast.
. Stacy never emailed me today - I need to make sure I check in with her tomorrow. We need to get the girls together soon, too. More socializing, but they don't really count.
. I hope I'm not screwing my kids up too badly. I just want to be a good mom.
. Jimi and I won't always be the parents of tiny children - it'll get easier to find time together, and it won't always be this hard to just get through the day to day. Right?
Not even gonna read through this again. Just gonna post it. My Crazy: A Sample. :) Sweet dreams, friends.
Feel free to leave a list of your crazy brain commentary below. Show me I'm not the only one.
Showing posts with label crazy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crazy. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 6, 2018
Monday, November 13, 2017
a day in the life...
The girls lost TV privileges last night for not listening. For three days, because that's the number that came out of my mouth with exactly zero forethought or consideration when I was doling out their punishment. They're actually being punished because they poked a hole in Daddy's air mattress, by jumping around on it when they'd been told over and over not to do that, to lie down and watch their movie or we'd put it up. It was patched easily, but still, when you don't listen and you break things that belong to other people, there needs to be repercussions. Television and candy are the only currencies my children recognize and in my efforts not to give them food issues I'm trying really hard not to give them candy and treats as a reward for good behavior and, as such, I don't withhold those things when they've been naughty, either. But TV, that magical rabbit hole, I can take it away and they feel it to their core. They're like little junkies, and those first few hours without are always rough, but even more so if you don't have something else planned, which, of course, I did not last night as I capriciously bellowed out their sentence. But whatever. It's not like I planned the second kid, either - living life by the seat of my pants over here.
Cora is in a phase. She'll be 3 in two short days, so I'm going to rely on the old fall back and straight up blame her wild behavior lately on her tender age. She is wild, though. WILD. If you're reading this, maybe you've noticed the Instagram feed over there on the right - did you catch the picture of her covered in enamel model paint? She'd been upstairs for a few minutes. Geneva was up there too, but it's a large space for two little girls, and it's not unusual for them to play separately. I don't know what I was doing downstairs - laundry, dinner, cleaning, drinking - but I realized I hadn't heard from her in a few full minutes. I started up the stairs as I called her name, and I smelled it immediately - you know the smell, that fumey paint smell. Oh shit was my only thought, and then she came around the corner and I said it out loud, "Oh shit." Her right arm was a swirl of sticky purple and red and white and black enamel paint, the sort that comes in tiny glass jars to be applied to miniature figurines with tiny little brushes; her left hand was the same, up past her wrist, and her chin and cheeks were similarly styled. Cora had found these 10 year old glass bottles on a shelf in a closet, unscrewed the lids, and had, I can only imagine, poured the paint into her hands and rubbed it onto her face and arms as if it were lotion.
In a blur, I checked her over with my hands and eyes the way a mom will, making sure she didn't have it in her eyes, her nose, her mouth - somehow, she didn't. I was yelling for Jimi at the same time, thinking in the back of my head, "He'll know what to do, he'll know an easy way to fix this, he knows something about everything." When he put his head into the stairwell and saw us there, saw colorful Cora, I saw the oh shit in his eyes, and his words only backed that up - he had no idea was to do, and he sounded a little higher pitched than normal. I don't want to say he was panicking, but he was close - he was scared, and that scared me too, but also, strangely, it made me calm down nearly immediately. I used my calm serious voice, the one that is very matter-of-fact, and as he stripped her down in the bathroom, I walked into the kitchen, grabbed the Dawn dish soap and my phone and delivered the Dawn to the bathroom as I googled "how to remove testors model paint from skin". The answer, if you're not interested in googling, is vegetable oil and glycerin soap. We had vegetable oil, and the CVS up the road had glycerin soap I figured, so I left Jimi and the paint-covered child in the bathtub with a gallon-bottle of Crisco Vegetable Oil and headed to the CVS. They had glycerin - not soap, but in a little squeeze bottle. I figured it would work well enough, and it did, with the Dawn, and with poor Jimi rubbing and sudsing for nearly an hour. He even got it out of her hair.
That's sort of the way it is with her right now. The Friday before the paint incident, thirty minutes after I'd left to head over to visit a friend, she apparently decided to try to change her own poopy pull-up and covered the bathroom in shit. I missed that completely, thank goodness. Poor Jimi.
But yeah, 2 days before 3. She's sunshine and rainbows and silver linings - she wakes up happy every single morning; she's quick to tell me she loves me and that I'm her favorite and that I'm beautiful; when she gets in trouble she says "I'm so sorry, Mommy. I'm so so sorry." But she's also into everything, like a little tornado. She bounces from one thing to the next without a break in between. I'm regularly surprised to find myself cleaning one mess while she makes another mess, again, for the 4th time, and we've only been home for an hour. I should stop being surprised, probably, but how realistic is that? I'm still ever the optimist, thinking all day at work about how much I miss my precious little angels and how they are going to be so sweet and loving and well behaved once I pick them up from daycare and we head home to a fabulous evening of family dinner, a game or two, maybe a walk around the block, then bath, story, bed...and then I actually pick them up and one of them is in a shitty mood and the other just wants to play but it's at the absolute most inopportune time because we're in a parking lot and there are cars and also other parents but I don't give much of a fuck about what they think but I do still care a little because i'm not going to yell "get the fuck over here right now!" the way I'd really like to do. And then the pouty one pouts her way into her carseat as I wrestle the playful-turned-screaming-banshee one into hers and by the time I'm buckling myself into my seat I'm angry and my heart is racing and what the fuck I looked forward to THIS all day?!
But I am still an optimist, because some nights are nights like tonight, when Geneva had a good report from her teacher and was giddy with the praise, and Cora ran into my arms and hugged me and said "I missed you so much!" We laughed our way to the car, the three of us, and got buckled without any breakdowns. Cora is newly forward-facing, so she can talk and interact in a brand new way. We talked and sang the new Taylor Swift song on the drive home, then we danced to Katy Perry and Psy in the dining room until it was dinnertime, when we changed the playlist to The Avett Brothers. Dinner was delicious, and so was the piece of Halloween candy they each got to choose from their stashes after dinner.
They wanted to paint, so we made it happen. Cora had a shower, then we played Baby Store. We can't watch the store being built, aka them getting naked down to their underwear/pull-up (presumably because new babies are naked under their blankets?) and into their blankets, so if we don't hear them the first time they call us to come shopping, or if we don't come to the store quickly enough, Geneva - who up to this point has given instructions to us in her lilting sweet voice "Pretend you wanted two little girls who were perfect for you but you had to go to the baby store to buy them and me and cora were the babies you buyed" - will break character and scream out in her angry voice "Mom!! You have to come buy us!" When we go into the store (usually the living room), they'll be laying on the floor or on the couch in pretend baby beds, wrapped in bedsheets or quilts that have probably been found in the basket of clean blankets and sheets I've just carried up from the laundry room, where said blankets and sheets were just as likely to have been washed because they'd been drug across the floor by these two versus having actually been used as bedding on a bed. They'll be goo-ing and ga-ing and making little baby-like noises, and my job as the mom is to walk up to each one of them, fawn over how precious they are, and then ask them if they want to come home with me and be my new baby girl. They always say yes, and I never have to actually pay anyone - I just pick them up and carry them to whatever part of the house Geneva has designated our pretend home, and then we either play kitchen or start all over. Sometimes Cora is already my baby and she and I go to the store together to buy her a sister. Tonight the game was Jimi didn't want any babies, but said I could have some if I wanted them. I went to the store, picked out each baby individually, then carried her to her daddy, who cooed and gooed over each girl in turn.
They were both thrilled with their game of make-believe, and didn't argue a bit when I announced bedtime/story time. We read a PeppaPig story about George and his dinosaur balloon. I held Cora a moment and snuggled her, but she wanted down - and promptly climbed over the rail and into her crib, where she covered herself up and said, "Goodnight, Mommy, I love you." Jimi came in to pat her as he sang to us all. Geneva was mad when I said I was going to sit with her rather than lie down in her bed - I've slept in there a lot the last few nights at her request and my back is a wreck because of it. She pouted, but I held her until she was over it and she let me tuck her back in without argument. She told me she loved me, I fluffed her blanket three times, and the night, that part of my night, the awake electric bright white part of my evening, was over.
And here I sit with the dregs of hot tea turned cold, surprised at how long it took to tell you those things and at how good it felt. At how good it feels. These are the days I want to remember. These are the stories I want to tell.
Also: Last night, Cora fell asleep early, so we sat at the table and ate dinner as a family of three. We were probably 2 hours in to our television moratorium. Geneva loved the mashed potatoes and asked for seconds. She loved her family. She was so happy to be eating dinner as a family. She liked the green beans a little. (These are all things she told us, verbatim.) She and I played Go Fish after dinner until bedtime - we tied once and I won once. She didn't even pout - she kept proclaiming how much fun she was having. There's seriously something to this no TV thing. I think our Netflix is suddenly broken...
Cora is in a phase. She'll be 3 in two short days, so I'm going to rely on the old fall back and straight up blame her wild behavior lately on her tender age. She is wild, though. WILD. If you're reading this, maybe you've noticed the Instagram feed over there on the right - did you catch the picture of her covered in enamel model paint? She'd been upstairs for a few minutes. Geneva was up there too, but it's a large space for two little girls, and it's not unusual for them to play separately. I don't know what I was doing downstairs - laundry, dinner, cleaning, drinking - but I realized I hadn't heard from her in a few full minutes. I started up the stairs as I called her name, and I smelled it immediately - you know the smell, that fumey paint smell. Oh shit was my only thought, and then she came around the corner and I said it out loud, "Oh shit." Her right arm was a swirl of sticky purple and red and white and black enamel paint, the sort that comes in tiny glass jars to be applied to miniature figurines with tiny little brushes; her left hand was the same, up past her wrist, and her chin and cheeks were similarly styled. Cora had found these 10 year old glass bottles on a shelf in a closet, unscrewed the lids, and had, I can only imagine, poured the paint into her hands and rubbed it onto her face and arms as if it were lotion.
In a blur, I checked her over with my hands and eyes the way a mom will, making sure she didn't have it in her eyes, her nose, her mouth - somehow, she didn't. I was yelling for Jimi at the same time, thinking in the back of my head, "He'll know what to do, he'll know an easy way to fix this, he knows something about everything." When he put his head into the stairwell and saw us there, saw colorful Cora, I saw the oh shit in his eyes, and his words only backed that up - he had no idea was to do, and he sounded a little higher pitched than normal. I don't want to say he was panicking, but he was close - he was scared, and that scared me too, but also, strangely, it made me calm down nearly immediately. I used my calm serious voice, the one that is very matter-of-fact, and as he stripped her down in the bathroom, I walked into the kitchen, grabbed the Dawn dish soap and my phone and delivered the Dawn to the bathroom as I googled "how to remove testors model paint from skin". The answer, if you're not interested in googling, is vegetable oil and glycerin soap. We had vegetable oil, and the CVS up the road had glycerin soap I figured, so I left Jimi and the paint-covered child in the bathtub with a gallon-bottle of Crisco Vegetable Oil and headed to the CVS. They had glycerin - not soap, but in a little squeeze bottle. I figured it would work well enough, and it did, with the Dawn, and with poor Jimi rubbing and sudsing for nearly an hour. He even got it out of her hair.
That's sort of the way it is with her right now. The Friday before the paint incident, thirty minutes after I'd left to head over to visit a friend, she apparently decided to try to change her own poopy pull-up and covered the bathroom in shit. I missed that completely, thank goodness. Poor Jimi.
But yeah, 2 days before 3. She's sunshine and rainbows and silver linings - she wakes up happy every single morning; she's quick to tell me she loves me and that I'm her favorite and that I'm beautiful; when she gets in trouble she says "I'm so sorry, Mommy. I'm so so sorry." But she's also into everything, like a little tornado. She bounces from one thing to the next without a break in between. I'm regularly surprised to find myself cleaning one mess while she makes another mess, again, for the 4th time, and we've only been home for an hour. I should stop being surprised, probably, but how realistic is that? I'm still ever the optimist, thinking all day at work about how much I miss my precious little angels and how they are going to be so sweet and loving and well behaved once I pick them up from daycare and we head home to a fabulous evening of family dinner, a game or two, maybe a walk around the block, then bath, story, bed...and then I actually pick them up and one of them is in a shitty mood and the other just wants to play but it's at the absolute most inopportune time because we're in a parking lot and there are cars and also other parents but I don't give much of a fuck about what they think but I do still care a little because i'm not going to yell "get the fuck over here right now!" the way I'd really like to do. And then the pouty one pouts her way into her carseat as I wrestle the playful-turned-screaming-banshee one into hers and by the time I'm buckling myself into my seat I'm angry and my heart is racing and what the fuck I looked forward to THIS all day?!
But I am still an optimist, because some nights are nights like tonight, when Geneva had a good report from her teacher and was giddy with the praise, and Cora ran into my arms and hugged me and said "I missed you so much!" We laughed our way to the car, the three of us, and got buckled without any breakdowns. Cora is newly forward-facing, so she can talk and interact in a brand new way. We talked and sang the new Taylor Swift song on the drive home, then we danced to Katy Perry and Psy in the dining room until it was dinnertime, when we changed the playlist to The Avett Brothers. Dinner was delicious, and so was the piece of Halloween candy they each got to choose from their stashes after dinner.
They wanted to paint, so we made it happen. Cora had a shower, then we played Baby Store. We can't watch the store being built, aka them getting naked down to their underwear/pull-up (presumably because new babies are naked under their blankets?) and into their blankets, so if we don't hear them the first time they call us to come shopping, or if we don't come to the store quickly enough, Geneva - who up to this point has given instructions to us in her lilting sweet voice "Pretend you wanted two little girls who were perfect for you but you had to go to the baby store to buy them and me and cora were the babies you buyed" - will break character and scream out in her angry voice "Mom!! You have to come buy us!" When we go into the store (usually the living room), they'll be laying on the floor or on the couch in pretend baby beds, wrapped in bedsheets or quilts that have probably been found in the basket of clean blankets and sheets I've just carried up from the laundry room, where said blankets and sheets were just as likely to have been washed because they'd been drug across the floor by these two versus having actually been used as bedding on a bed. They'll be goo-ing and ga-ing and making little baby-like noises, and my job as the mom is to walk up to each one of them, fawn over how precious they are, and then ask them if they want to come home with me and be my new baby girl. They always say yes, and I never have to actually pay anyone - I just pick them up and carry them to whatever part of the house Geneva has designated our pretend home, and then we either play kitchen or start all over. Sometimes Cora is already my baby and she and I go to the store together to buy her a sister. Tonight the game was Jimi didn't want any babies, but said I could have some if I wanted them. I went to the store, picked out each baby individually, then carried her to her daddy, who cooed and gooed over each girl in turn.
They were both thrilled with their game of make-believe, and didn't argue a bit when I announced bedtime/story time. We read a PeppaPig story about George and his dinosaur balloon. I held Cora a moment and snuggled her, but she wanted down - and promptly climbed over the rail and into her crib, where she covered herself up and said, "Goodnight, Mommy, I love you." Jimi came in to pat her as he sang to us all. Geneva was mad when I said I was going to sit with her rather than lie down in her bed - I've slept in there a lot the last few nights at her request and my back is a wreck because of it. She pouted, but I held her until she was over it and she let me tuck her back in without argument. She told me she loved me, I fluffed her blanket three times, and the night, that part of my night, the awake electric bright white part of my evening, was over.
And here I sit with the dregs of hot tea turned cold, surprised at how long it took to tell you those things and at how good it felt. At how good it feels. These are the days I want to remember. These are the stories I want to tell.
Also: Last night, Cora fell asleep early, so we sat at the table and ate dinner as a family of three. We were probably 2 hours in to our television moratorium. Geneva loved the mashed potatoes and asked for seconds. She loved her family. She was so happy to be eating dinner as a family. She liked the green beans a little. (These are all things she told us, verbatim.) She and I played Go Fish after dinner until bedtime - we tied once and I won once. She didn't even pout - she kept proclaiming how much fun she was having. There's seriously something to this no TV thing. I think our Netflix is suddenly broken...
Saturday, September 10, 2016
The things you learn at 4 a.m.
It's almost 4 a.m. The house is quiet again. I should probably go find a place to sleep, but the idea of making that effort pisses me off because I should be able to just go lay in my own bed and go to sleep, but toddlers. So instead I've made a pot of coffee and I've decided I'm up and I'll just be up for the day and do some things I never make the time to do when the rest of the world is awake with me. It's 3:56 a.m.
I don't write enough anymore. Hardly ever. I keep saying I'll do something about that, but I don't. But I'm writing now. Look at me. Typing words and everything! I guess next you'll be expecting me to actually SAY something with these words and writings, huh? Baby steps.
I had lunch with my former boss yesterday. It'd been six months since we'd seen each other. He looked mostly the same - a bit thinner, maybe almost too thin in the face. I blame stress; he's got that shit in spades these days. I miss him, but I do not miss the stress. Sometimes I wonder if I exaggerated all of the crazy I lived when I worked there, because six months out, it just sounds unbelievable some of the stuff I was used to. But I didn't make it up, I didn't exaggerate - it was real and I wasn't crazy or incompetent. It was what it was. It was my Crucible. I'm super fucking strong now because of it. Right?
Actually, I'm so insecure because of the crap I dealt with at the end that I constantly question myself now. Nothing I do is good enough, in my mind. I'm never doing enough. I worry constantly my new boss and my teammates are going to decide I'm a complete charlatan, a total fuckup, and laugh and shame me out the front door.
Well, I don't feel that way constantly anymore. Not all the time. Here's the thing - they love me! They think I'm awesome. They tell me that, and I believe them. I know they're right - I'm pretty good at what I do. Intellectually, I know I'm good at my job, and that I'm doing a good job. Emotionally, I'm still trying to drop the baggage leftover from being abused at the last place. I'm trying to forget the fear and the insecurity. I'm trying to relearn workplace etiquette and expectations. I'm trying to grasp the new definition of workload and responsibilities. It's been 6 months. Honestly, I didn't think there would be this transition period - I assumed I'd end one thing and begin another and that would be it, like flicking a light switch. I didn't anticipate or realize that there would be emotional adjustments to go along with the change. Maybe because I had been there for SO long, and had been SO comfortable before it all went bad. Maybe because the end felt like a bad breakup where I thought we probably still loved each other but we had to break up because we weren't healthy for each other.
Despite this particular brand of crazy in my mind, I have not one single regret about leaving, or landing where I landed. My new reality is so vastly different from my old one I - well, like I said, sometimes I wonder if I exaggerated or made it all up. I am really enjoying the work I'm doing. I'm forging relationships with my customers, learning a new business. I have coworkers that I get to chat with all day long. They're smart and funny and kind and helpful - the sort that I want to hang out with after work, get to know; they just seem like genuinely good people. My boss is brilliant and sarcastic and has an easy confidence about him that makes me feel equally confident and self-conscious at the same time. I feel on the spot when he asks me questions and feel like I give the wrong answer pretty regularly, but that's my fault and my issue, not something he's doing. I'm struggling a bit with being the new girl, still. I was Dan's go-to, right-hand, she-knows-all-the-answers person for so long...I miss being that person. I want to be that person in this new life, this new world, but that role is already taken and she has a 10-years-in-the-industry head start. New job, new environment, new role. Starting at the beginning again is a challenge after being on top for so long.
I'm starting to understand that maybe there are some emotional challenges and consequences resulting from this change that I didn't give enough consideration or allowance. Maybe this has been harder on my psyche than I'd considered...maybe I'm not crazy as shit, maybe I really am just stressed by this huge change in my life. Good change is still change, right? Change is always a little hard, right? Maybe just because I'm happy and thrilled and so glad to be where I am, maybe it's okay that I have struggled a bit at the same time. Maybe I should've anticipated and been a little easier on myself. I guess it's never too late.
Okay. What have we learned?
I'm totally insecure and feel like I'm not good enough/not doing enough. This is not rational. This is leftover baggage. My boss found my resume on the internet and called me up and offered me a job because I'm awesome. He thinks I'm awesome. Evidence points to other coworkers also thinking I'm awesome. I'm probably awesome and should stop thinking I'm going to get fired any moment or that everyone hates me. Just go to work every day and be awesome.
Being the new girl is hard because I want to be the one who knows the answers to all of the questions and who can fix all of our customers' problems. And I want to be the one who sells the most steel. I like to be first. I want to be the best. Six months in the industry is a tough place for this mindset. But baby steps. One thing at a time, and right now my job is to learn all of the things and call all of the people. Everyone has to start somewhere, and this is my beginning. No one becomes the favorite overnight.
Hmm.
Looky there. I sure do miss writing. Maybe I should do this more often.
It's 4:50 a.m. Let's go start the day.
I don't write enough anymore. Hardly ever. I keep saying I'll do something about that, but I don't. But I'm writing now. Look at me. Typing words and everything! I guess next you'll be expecting me to actually SAY something with these words and writings, huh? Baby steps.
I had lunch with my former boss yesterday. It'd been six months since we'd seen each other. He looked mostly the same - a bit thinner, maybe almost too thin in the face. I blame stress; he's got that shit in spades these days. I miss him, but I do not miss the stress. Sometimes I wonder if I exaggerated all of the crazy I lived when I worked there, because six months out, it just sounds unbelievable some of the stuff I was used to. But I didn't make it up, I didn't exaggerate - it was real and I wasn't crazy or incompetent. It was what it was. It was my Crucible. I'm super fucking strong now because of it. Right?
Actually, I'm so insecure because of the crap I dealt with at the end that I constantly question myself now. Nothing I do is good enough, in my mind. I'm never doing enough. I worry constantly my new boss and my teammates are going to decide I'm a complete charlatan, a total fuckup, and laugh and shame me out the front door.
Well, I don't feel that way constantly anymore. Not all the time. Here's the thing - they love me! They think I'm awesome. They tell me that, and I believe them. I know they're right - I'm pretty good at what I do. Intellectually, I know I'm good at my job, and that I'm doing a good job. Emotionally, I'm still trying to drop the baggage leftover from being abused at the last place. I'm trying to forget the fear and the insecurity. I'm trying to relearn workplace etiquette and expectations. I'm trying to grasp the new definition of workload and responsibilities. It's been 6 months. Honestly, I didn't think there would be this transition period - I assumed I'd end one thing and begin another and that would be it, like flicking a light switch. I didn't anticipate or realize that there would be emotional adjustments to go along with the change. Maybe because I had been there for SO long, and had been SO comfortable before it all went bad. Maybe because the end felt like a bad breakup where I thought we probably still loved each other but we had to break up because we weren't healthy for each other.
Despite this particular brand of crazy in my mind, I have not one single regret about leaving, or landing where I landed. My new reality is so vastly different from my old one I - well, like I said, sometimes I wonder if I exaggerated or made it all up. I am really enjoying the work I'm doing. I'm forging relationships with my customers, learning a new business. I have coworkers that I get to chat with all day long. They're smart and funny and kind and helpful - the sort that I want to hang out with after work, get to know; they just seem like genuinely good people. My boss is brilliant and sarcastic and has an easy confidence about him that makes me feel equally confident and self-conscious at the same time. I feel on the spot when he asks me questions and feel like I give the wrong answer pretty regularly, but that's my fault and my issue, not something he's doing. I'm struggling a bit with being the new girl, still. I was Dan's go-to, right-hand, she-knows-all-the-answers person for so long...I miss being that person. I want to be that person in this new life, this new world, but that role is already taken and she has a 10-years-in-the-industry head start. New job, new environment, new role. Starting at the beginning again is a challenge after being on top for so long.
I'm starting to understand that maybe there are some emotional challenges and consequences resulting from this change that I didn't give enough consideration or allowance. Maybe this has been harder on my psyche than I'd considered...maybe I'm not crazy as shit, maybe I really am just stressed by this huge change in my life. Good change is still change, right? Change is always a little hard, right? Maybe just because I'm happy and thrilled and so glad to be where I am, maybe it's okay that I have struggled a bit at the same time. Maybe I should've anticipated and been a little easier on myself. I guess it's never too late.
Okay. What have we learned?
I'm totally insecure and feel like I'm not good enough/not doing enough. This is not rational. This is leftover baggage. My boss found my resume on the internet and called me up and offered me a job because I'm awesome. He thinks I'm awesome. Evidence points to other coworkers also thinking I'm awesome. I'm probably awesome and should stop thinking I'm going to get fired any moment or that everyone hates me. Just go to work every day and be awesome.
Being the new girl is hard because I want to be the one who knows the answers to all of the questions and who can fix all of our customers' problems. And I want to be the one who sells the most steel. I like to be first. I want to be the best. Six months in the industry is a tough place for this mindset. But baby steps. One thing at a time, and right now my job is to learn all of the things and call all of the people. Everyone has to start somewhere, and this is my beginning. No one becomes the favorite overnight.
Hmm.
Looky there. I sure do miss writing. Maybe I should do this more often.
It's 4:50 a.m. Let's go start the day.
Thursday, July 23, 2015
Balance
I'm trying to identify and confront head-on sources of stress in my life. In the last week I've been able to, with some pretty deep introspection, narrow down a few of the daily nuances that make me absolutely batshit crazy:
1. Shoes. Not being able to find my shoes, not being able to find Geneva's shoes, only being able to find one of the shoes...and don't even let me get started on finding fucking socks that match each other. It's a Christmas Miracle in July if you can make that shit happen.
2. Food. Geneva's Lunch, my lunch, our breakfasts, snacks, morning coffee. Dinner - what are we having for dinner? All are very important. All are occasionally missed because I don't have my shit together.
3. Clothes. Knowing what I'm going to wear and being able to locate all of the pieces of said outfit. Wash, Rinse, Repeat for Geneva and Cora.
Sounds simple enough, right? Shut up.
I can recognize how silly and simple that list sounds, but I also know, from living in my daily reality, that those are legitimate, snakes-popping-out-of-my-head crazy-inducing triggers/challenges that can make or break my day before it's really even gotten started.
I also know how to solve my problems, at least in terms of identifying the solutions - shoes go back in the same place after they come off, food is prepped the night before, laundry is done on weekends and work-week outfits laid out Sunday night. I've tried. Oh, how I've tried. It's not easy being lazy, folks. When it was just me and Jimi, oh, the lazy times we had. G came along and required the discipline of every-other-day laundry and regular mealtimes, but she was settling into a pretty good lazy routine too. Then we added Cora into the mix, and, through no fault of hers, just the pure fact of four people living under one roof, logistics got complicated and started requiring some real planning and execution and follow-through. Things we're really bad at in the Fowler household.
I was doing great for a minute, though. When I first went back to work after my maternity leave this last time, I had meal plans planned and prepped Saturday afternoon for the coming week. Laundry was washed and folded and put away and laid out Sunday night. Lunches were packed the night before; there was time for breakfast in the mornings before we left the house, rather than grabbing a granola bar on the way out the door. We knew where our shoes were.
Those things happened. They did. I distinctly remember. And then we all got sick, and we passed some variety and level of funk around between us for the next few months and it just wasn't easy to keep on top of all of that neatness and organization - it makes everything run so smoothly, but man, it really requires work and staying on top of it. Or, well, not being completely lazy asses and doing nothing.
It made me feel better when I learned that there's an actual scientific theory out there that says chaos is the natural order of things - that no matter how nice and neat you organize things, the natural inclination is for those things to become disorganized and messy. It made me feel like maybe I'm not such a complete failure in life. Chaos is normal, and expected. That was long before kids. It's especially when you have little kids, though, right? That's what people keep telling me.
I called a family friend last week, a psychiatrist by trade, and told her that I was pretty sure I was going crazy, and asked her if she could refer me to someone I could talk to. I don't want any meds or anything, I told her, I just want someone to tell me how to stop being so fucking crazy. I'd cried the whole way to work that morning. I was sort of a basket case. She asked me to explain what was going on - what was my particular flavor of crazy, if you will. I'm anxious all the time, I feel like I'm constantly going to fuck something up, or like I've already fucked something up and it's going to bite me in the ass. I can't get my arms around anything, I feel completely overwhelmed and behind at work and at home and I fantasize about burning shit down or quitting my job because then I could start somewhere new and not be behind anymore. She laughed at me.
"Natalie! You're not crazy! You're just a woman!"
dramatic pause
"That's what it is to be a woman in today's fucked up society. With two small kids and a full time job, of course you're a little crazy." We can't give enough of ourselves to any one thing to ever feel like we're doing enough or good enough, and then we've given so much of ourselves and our time to those two very important vocations that there's no time or energy left to give to ourselves. It's a nasty vicious cycle and it can make your brain and your body sick. She told me how for years she'd held out hope that women could come together, recognizing these truths we all experience every day, and help each other, or at the very least, band together to encourage some positive societal change wherein it was made easier for women to balance these roles. What she found instead was a bunch of backbiting and judgment.
Her advice to me was not to seek counsel of a local psychologist - she told me anyone I found locally to talk to would likely be a man, which no ability to understand the perfect storm of emotions i'm experiencing right now, and he'd want to throw a pill at the problem that wouldn't fix my problem. She told me to hire someone to clean my house, or quit my job, or work part time, or come home and light up a joint to relax after the kids are in bed.
So those aren't exactly the most feasible options for me, but she got me thinking - what are the sources of my stress? What makes my day hard?
I organized my pantry. I cut up one of those over-the-closet-door shoe holder thingies I never use and put half on the back of the pantry door and filled the pockets with easy-to-grab snacks for us and the kids - fruit, babyfood pouches, granola bars, pretzels, oatmeal packs, fruit snacks. Now I don't have to dig for nutritious things in the mornings when we're rushing to get out the door - we have things easily available. I made a meal plan for the week so we'd come home each night knowing what we're having for dinner and how we're getting it made. I dug out an old CD rack that is a perfect fit for Geneva's shoes - retraining ourselves to use it is another matter entirely. Jimi's been staying on top of the kitchen mess and the laundry so we've had things to wear and clean dishes to cook and eat with. We're off to a good start, I'd say.
Life is hard and messy and sometimes you just need a good cry and someone to tell you you're not alone, that you're not the only person who's ever gone through this or felt this way. That you're not crazy. Not in a "medicate me" sort of way - life is just hard. And messy. And chaotic. Exactly as it's supposed to be.
1. Shoes. Not being able to find my shoes, not being able to find Geneva's shoes, only being able to find one of the shoes...and don't even let me get started on finding fucking socks that match each other. It's a Christmas Miracle in July if you can make that shit happen.
2. Food. Geneva's Lunch, my lunch, our breakfasts, snacks, morning coffee. Dinner - what are we having for dinner? All are very important. All are occasionally missed because I don't have my shit together.
3. Clothes. Knowing what I'm going to wear and being able to locate all of the pieces of said outfit. Wash, Rinse, Repeat for Geneva and Cora.
Sounds simple enough, right? Shut up.
I can recognize how silly and simple that list sounds, but I also know, from living in my daily reality, that those are legitimate, snakes-popping-out-of-my-head crazy-inducing triggers/challenges that can make or break my day before it's really even gotten started.
I also know how to solve my problems, at least in terms of identifying the solutions - shoes go back in the same place after they come off, food is prepped the night before, laundry is done on weekends and work-week outfits laid out Sunday night. I've tried. Oh, how I've tried. It's not easy being lazy, folks. When it was just me and Jimi, oh, the lazy times we had. G came along and required the discipline of every-other-day laundry and regular mealtimes, but she was settling into a pretty good lazy routine too. Then we added Cora into the mix, and, through no fault of hers, just the pure fact of four people living under one roof, logistics got complicated and started requiring some real planning and execution and follow-through. Things we're really bad at in the Fowler household.
I was doing great for a minute, though. When I first went back to work after my maternity leave this last time, I had meal plans planned and prepped Saturday afternoon for the coming week. Laundry was washed and folded and put away and laid out Sunday night. Lunches were packed the night before; there was time for breakfast in the mornings before we left the house, rather than grabbing a granola bar on the way out the door. We knew where our shoes were.
Those things happened. They did. I distinctly remember. And then we all got sick, and we passed some variety and level of funk around between us for the next few months and it just wasn't easy to keep on top of all of that neatness and organization - it makes everything run so smoothly, but man, it really requires work and staying on top of it. Or, well, not being completely lazy asses and doing nothing.
It made me feel better when I learned that there's an actual scientific theory out there that says chaos is the natural order of things - that no matter how nice and neat you organize things, the natural inclination is for those things to become disorganized and messy. It made me feel like maybe I'm not such a complete failure in life. Chaos is normal, and expected. That was long before kids. It's especially when you have little kids, though, right? That's what people keep telling me.
I called a family friend last week, a psychiatrist by trade, and told her that I was pretty sure I was going crazy, and asked her if she could refer me to someone I could talk to. I don't want any meds or anything, I told her, I just want someone to tell me how to stop being so fucking crazy. I'd cried the whole way to work that morning. I was sort of a basket case. She asked me to explain what was going on - what was my particular flavor of crazy, if you will. I'm anxious all the time, I feel like I'm constantly going to fuck something up, or like I've already fucked something up and it's going to bite me in the ass. I can't get my arms around anything, I feel completely overwhelmed and behind at work and at home and I fantasize about burning shit down or quitting my job because then I could start somewhere new and not be behind anymore. She laughed at me.
"Natalie! You're not crazy! You're just a woman!"
dramatic pause
"That's what it is to be a woman in today's fucked up society. With two small kids and a full time job, of course you're a little crazy." We can't give enough of ourselves to any one thing to ever feel like we're doing enough or good enough, and then we've given so much of ourselves and our time to those two very important vocations that there's no time or energy left to give to ourselves. It's a nasty vicious cycle and it can make your brain and your body sick. She told me how for years she'd held out hope that women could come together, recognizing these truths we all experience every day, and help each other, or at the very least, band together to encourage some positive societal change wherein it was made easier for women to balance these roles. What she found instead was a bunch of backbiting and judgment.
Her advice to me was not to seek counsel of a local psychologist - she told me anyone I found locally to talk to would likely be a man, which no ability to understand the perfect storm of emotions i'm experiencing right now, and he'd want to throw a pill at the problem that wouldn't fix my problem. She told me to hire someone to clean my house, or quit my job, or work part time, or come home and light up a joint to relax after the kids are in bed.
So those aren't exactly the most feasible options for me, but she got me thinking - what are the sources of my stress? What makes my day hard?
I organized my pantry. I cut up one of those over-the-closet-door shoe holder thingies I never use and put half on the back of the pantry door and filled the pockets with easy-to-grab snacks for us and the kids - fruit, babyfood pouches, granola bars, pretzels, oatmeal packs, fruit snacks. Now I don't have to dig for nutritious things in the mornings when we're rushing to get out the door - we have things easily available. I made a meal plan for the week so we'd come home each night knowing what we're having for dinner and how we're getting it made. I dug out an old CD rack that is a perfect fit for Geneva's shoes - retraining ourselves to use it is another matter entirely. Jimi's been staying on top of the kitchen mess and the laundry so we've had things to wear and clean dishes to cook and eat with. We're off to a good start, I'd say.
Life is hard and messy and sometimes you just need a good cry and someone to tell you you're not alone, that you're not the only person who's ever gone through this or felt this way. That you're not crazy. Not in a "medicate me" sort of way - life is just hard. And messy. And chaotic. Exactly as it's supposed to be.
Monday, July 2, 2012
Just another record of my crazy.
**Disclaimer: This shit is TOP SECRET, yo. Well, as Top Secret as
it can be when it's posted on the internet. I can't not blog about this
life-changer, but if you know me in real life, please don't share the
news - I can't bear to have to make those phone calls or announcements
again if things don't end well.
I started this post yesterday morning, then got side-tracked by shiny things and didn't finish it. But what I was trying to say, it's sort of a big part of where my head is right now, so even if it's a day late, here ya go:
I should be doing laundry, but we've got all day for that, right? It's Sunday, there's plenty of time for chores later.
We're in the middle of a record-setting heat-wave here in Kentucky. We've passed hot and reached "Just don't go outside" temperatures. I took Finn for a walk in the park this morning at 8, early enough to beat the heat, I thought, but I still found myself sweaty and tired by the time we reached our half-way mark. Of course, I'm extra sweaty these days anyhow, and I'm always tired it seems, so maybe that had more to do with me than the weather. Either way, I think now I'm in for the day. I'm not a fan of hot.
I don't want to talk to anyone or see anyone or do anything. I want to sit in my house and be safe until I know that everything's going to be okay, and then maybe I'll come out to play. I sat in the living room Tuesday night and talked baby talk all night long...and the next morning, our friend went for a checkup and they couldn't find her baby's heartbeat. I'm so fucking sad for her, for them. And not that it has anything to do with me, cause I know it doesn't, but I can't help but go right back to that place where she is now, and it reminds me of how fragile and unguaranteed this whole deal is. I've made it further than last time, but she was even further than me, and look. See? Anything can happen. You just never know. And every time I say the words out loud, or talk about the future, I'm that much more emotionally invested, and I'm just so scared to be too emotionally invested right now.
I want to say that this feels different, that it feels right. I imagine, though, that every expectant mother feels that way. I don't think anyone says, "Oh, this one probably isn't going to work out. It just feels like it's probably going to end." I think every miscarriage is a surprise of the worst sort, so I can't even follow my instinctual feeling of "every little thing, gonna be alright".
I started this post yesterday morning, then got side-tracked by shiny things and didn't finish it. But what I was trying to say, it's sort of a big part of where my head is right now, so even if it's a day late, here ya go:
I should be doing laundry, but we've got all day for that, right? It's Sunday, there's plenty of time for chores later.
We're in the middle of a record-setting heat-wave here in Kentucky. We've passed hot and reached "Just don't go outside" temperatures. I took Finn for a walk in the park this morning at 8, early enough to beat the heat, I thought, but I still found myself sweaty and tired by the time we reached our half-way mark. Of course, I'm extra sweaty these days anyhow, and I'm always tired it seems, so maybe that had more to do with me than the weather. Either way, I think now I'm in for the day. I'm not a fan of hot.
I don't want to talk to anyone or see anyone or do anything. I want to sit in my house and be safe until I know that everything's going to be okay, and then maybe I'll come out to play. I sat in the living room Tuesday night and talked baby talk all night long...and the next morning, our friend went for a checkup and they couldn't find her baby's heartbeat. I'm so fucking sad for her, for them. And not that it has anything to do with me, cause I know it doesn't, but I can't help but go right back to that place where she is now, and it reminds me of how fragile and unguaranteed this whole deal is. I've made it further than last time, but she was even further than me, and look. See? Anything can happen. You just never know. And every time I say the words out loud, or talk about the future, I'm that much more emotionally invested, and I'm just so scared to be too emotionally invested right now.
I want to say that this feels different, that it feels right. I imagine, though, that every expectant mother feels that way. I don't think anyone says, "Oh, this one probably isn't going to work out. It just feels like it's probably going to end." I think every miscarriage is a surprise of the worst sort, so I can't even follow my instinctual feeling of "every little thing, gonna be alright".
Friday, March 30, 2012
Don't read this. The sirens just went off.
Dinner was at Momma's tonight. Every time I'm with her, I want to be closer to her. When I'm in her presence, I'd agree to almost anything, so long as it put me closer to her.
I found myself watching her tonight, looking for signs. Signs of where I've come from, and where I'm going. I see my lines in her lips and eyes - hers are where mine are going. I want to know everything she's ever seen, touched, tasted, heard, thought. All of it. I could spend the rest of my life by her side and not know it all. Especially the parts she doesn't want to share. Which is most of it, I fear.
She knows Zanzibar. Z-bar, she called it. She used to do shots there, with so and so from the hairdresser board, back in the seventies. Do I even know this woman? She said we should go there on my birthday, and do shots. My mother. "I can't do shots, Momma, I get too drunk." "Me too, Nat. You do those five dollar things they sell in the test tubes that aren't very strong, then you can do a bunch." WTF? Are we really having this conversation?
The stories my dad tells with passion, she doesn't remember. Daddy says he has the letters to prove it, Momma says, "we need to burn those" and my heart skips a beat - Daddy's promised to protect and save them for me, but what if she really does get to them first? My beginnings are in those words, and there's a door there to the people my parents were before they were parents, and I desperately want to know those people. She wouldn't really burn them, would she?
My great-grandmother is 99 years old. She's recently been admitted into a nursing home with dementia. For 20 years, I've had this idea that one day I go visit her with a tape recorder and ask her to tell me all of her earliest memories - what it was like as a teenager during the depression, how it was to birth 9 children at home, did she really have to boil the laundry? What did she do when she had her period? What was it like to be celibate for 40+ years? What was the truth behind that story about the time she cut her hair and her Daddy cried?
It's too late for my questions now. I've missed my window. My Granny's gone too, and with her the first-hand account of how she met and fell in love with my Papaw, who, seeing her for the first time, pointed at her through a diner window and said to his buddy, "That's the woman I'm going to marry." I'll never be able to get clarification on that raw egg she said saved my Aunt Pam's life when Pam was just a baby and barely able to hold down any formula. What was it like when she went to the hospital, when they shocked her with electricity for having what is now recognized as postpartum depression? Raising teenagers in the late 60s, early 70s? Finding out at 40 that you've got a degenerative disease? Losing the love of your life after 43 years when your plans for the day included lunch and fishing? Learning, by accident, that you have cancer, and deciding not to say anything to anyone because all you want is to be reunited with him? Granny said her peace, I suppose; I wish I would've listened more closely. The words I remember first, these days, when I remember her voice, are "There's no use crying over spilled milk." I remember my outrage, "You're SO MUCH MORE than spilled milk, Granny."
These women in my life. These strong, deep women, who've taught me so many lessons, but it feels like I was only barely listening, and then, just on the surface. Now I find myself wanting desperately to know more, so much more - but so much is lost, gone forever.
My Momma's still here. She has so many things to tell me, about all of her wonderful adventures, and she doesn't even realize. She's a hard shell, but she'll talk to me one of these days. I need to go around more often - not just to get her stories, but because I love her probably more than any other one person in the entire world and it makes her happy to see my face. And I love it when she talks to me. I love her voice. I love holding her hands. I love putting my arms around her and feeling her bony little shoulders. I love the way she feels when she hugs me, even if she is a little stand-offish sometimes. I love how nice she is to me, and how she's always supportive. She told me tonight that I sing better than her and I think I've never received a higher compliment; her praise is worth a hundred times the value of the most precious metal.
Twenty minutes, that's how long it takes to drive from my house to hers. I let weeks and months go by without a visit - sometimes I saw her more when I lived in Michigan. I am ashamed. Every time I see her I say to myself, self, from now on you will see your Momma at least once a week, and then I do nothing; I don't go see her, I barely call her, I am pathetic and horrible.
I keep thinking there's going to be a day that comes where a switch is thrown and all of a sudden I have to see my Momma three or four times a week and I will be a good and diligent daughter...and then I think, yeah, that'll probably happen when I have a baby...and then I think, but what if I don't ever have a baby? Will there be no switch? Oh, and holy crap, I'm a terrible person for not giving them grandkids yet, what if I never do, I'm a horrible daughter...
And I have to admit, I'm always sorta worried that there really is a Heaven like Granny and Papaw described it, and they're totally watching me when I'm masturbating, and I wonder how they'd feel about that, because I know that they'd fucking hate that I've had all that pre- and post-marital sex, but we never really talked about the masturbation thing and I hope that they look away if they're given the option to watch.
And now that I've typed that paragraph out loud, I may never be able to masturbate again.
Which is sort of a shame, because now what am I going to do with that 8 minutes of my lunch break?
And now I can't believe a post that started out about a visit to my parents' house for dinner has turned into a discussion about my sick or dead grandparents and then masturbation...
Um. 'night.
I found myself watching her tonight, looking for signs. Signs of where I've come from, and where I'm going. I see my lines in her lips and eyes - hers are where mine are going. I want to know everything she's ever seen, touched, tasted, heard, thought. All of it. I could spend the rest of my life by her side and not know it all. Especially the parts she doesn't want to share. Which is most of it, I fear.
She knows Zanzibar. Z-bar, she called it. She used to do shots there, with so and so from the hairdresser board, back in the seventies. Do I even know this woman? She said we should go there on my birthday, and do shots. My mother. "I can't do shots, Momma, I get too drunk." "Me too, Nat. You do those five dollar things they sell in the test tubes that aren't very strong, then you can do a bunch." WTF? Are we really having this conversation?
The stories my dad tells with passion, she doesn't remember. Daddy says he has the letters to prove it, Momma says, "we need to burn those" and my heart skips a beat - Daddy's promised to protect and save them for me, but what if she really does get to them first? My beginnings are in those words, and there's a door there to the people my parents were before they were parents, and I desperately want to know those people. She wouldn't really burn them, would she?
My great-grandmother is 99 years old. She's recently been admitted into a nursing home with dementia. For 20 years, I've had this idea that one day I go visit her with a tape recorder and ask her to tell me all of her earliest memories - what it was like as a teenager during the depression, how it was to birth 9 children at home, did she really have to boil the laundry? What did she do when she had her period? What was it like to be celibate for 40+ years? What was the truth behind that story about the time she cut her hair and her Daddy cried?
It's too late for my questions now. I've missed my window. My Granny's gone too, and with her the first-hand account of how she met and fell in love with my Papaw, who, seeing her for the first time, pointed at her through a diner window and said to his buddy, "That's the woman I'm going to marry." I'll never be able to get clarification on that raw egg she said saved my Aunt Pam's life when Pam was just a baby and barely able to hold down any formula. What was it like when she went to the hospital, when they shocked her with electricity for having what is now recognized as postpartum depression? Raising teenagers in the late 60s, early 70s? Finding out at 40 that you've got a degenerative disease? Losing the love of your life after 43 years when your plans for the day included lunch and fishing? Learning, by accident, that you have cancer, and deciding not to say anything to anyone because all you want is to be reunited with him? Granny said her peace, I suppose; I wish I would've listened more closely. The words I remember first, these days, when I remember her voice, are "There's no use crying over spilled milk." I remember my outrage, "You're SO MUCH MORE than spilled milk, Granny."
These women in my life. These strong, deep women, who've taught me so many lessons, but it feels like I was only barely listening, and then, just on the surface. Now I find myself wanting desperately to know more, so much more - but so much is lost, gone forever.
My Momma's still here. She has so many things to tell me, about all of her wonderful adventures, and she doesn't even realize. She's a hard shell, but she'll talk to me one of these days. I need to go around more often - not just to get her stories, but because I love her probably more than any other one person in the entire world and it makes her happy to see my face. And I love it when she talks to me. I love her voice. I love holding her hands. I love putting my arms around her and feeling her bony little shoulders. I love the way she feels when she hugs me, even if she is a little stand-offish sometimes. I love how nice she is to me, and how she's always supportive. She told me tonight that I sing better than her and I think I've never received a higher compliment; her praise is worth a hundred times the value of the most precious metal.
Twenty minutes, that's how long it takes to drive from my house to hers. I let weeks and months go by without a visit - sometimes I saw her more when I lived in Michigan. I am ashamed. Every time I see her I say to myself, self, from now on you will see your Momma at least once a week, and then I do nothing; I don't go see her, I barely call her, I am pathetic and horrible.
I keep thinking there's going to be a day that comes where a switch is thrown and all of a sudden I have to see my Momma three or four times a week and I will be a good and diligent daughter...and then I think, yeah, that'll probably happen when I have a baby...and then I think, but what if I don't ever have a baby? Will there be no switch? Oh, and holy crap, I'm a terrible person for not giving them grandkids yet, what if I never do, I'm a horrible daughter...
And I have to admit, I'm always sorta worried that there really is a Heaven like Granny and Papaw described it, and they're totally watching me when I'm masturbating, and I wonder how they'd feel about that, because I know that they'd fucking hate that I've had all that pre- and post-marital sex, but we never really talked about the masturbation thing and I hope that they look away if they're given the option to watch.
And now that I've typed that paragraph out loud, I may never be able to masturbate again.
Which is sort of a shame, because now what am I going to do with that 8 minutes of my lunch break?
And now I can't believe a post that started out about a visit to my parents' house for dinner has turned into a discussion about my sick or dead grandparents and then masturbation...
Um. 'night.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
What's in a number?
This will be my 700th blog post. Not really. Well, kinda. Blogger says it's number 700, but that includes drafts, so it probably more like number 678. Details.
It's going to be 87 degrees today, according to the robot that lives in my phone. It's March 20th. I live in Kentucky, not Argentina. My legs are shamefully not shaven, my summer clothes are clean but full of wrinkles from where they've been folded and piled in a corner for 5 months. And our dryer is broken - I think it's the heater coil again. Oh, how will I ever get the wrinkles out of my clothes without a dryer?
I cleaned the long wall in the shower this morning. I've never cleaned a part of the bathroom before work. That feels like weekend sort of work, so doing it before work, before 7 a.m., that was a little different. Maybe tomorrow I'll do the two short walls. Gettin' crazy up in here, yo.
We've rearranged the living room again; added a table, subtracted a table, moved in a chair from upstairs. Steve says our living room is different every time he comes over. I tell him, obviously, that means he should come over more often. I do like rearranging furniture, though. I get all stuffy and uncomfortable when things are in one place too long. I've always been like this - I should ask my Momma how many times she remembers coming into my room in the middle of the night, in just her sleepshirt and panties, blinking in the bright light, her short blonde hair sticking straight up on her head, "What in the hell are you doing, Natalie? It's 2 A. M.," in a hushed angry whisper, trying to show her displeasure, but not loudly enough to wake up Dad or Brother. "Did I wake you, Momma? I'm sorry, I'm trying to be quiet." My desk with its huge book hutch would be in the middle of the room, cutting off my full view of her and throwing odd shadows across the walls; my bed at an angle, the contents of my dresser drawers piled up on it. You have to make a mess to clean a mess, I always say. Momma would always tell me that no, I hadn't woken her, she was getting up to pee and saw the light under my door. "Don't stay up too late," and then, eyeing my bed, "Where are you going to sleep?" "Oh, I'll get it all cleaned up before I go to bed. It's cool, I'm almost done." Sometimes you just need a change, you know? And if you can't afford to throw out what you've got and start all over, you've got to find new ways to jazz up what you have. Rearranging is much easier that reupholstering. Anyhow, yeah, I like the living room's new look.
People ask me what's new, and I tell them, "Oh, nothing, same stuff, different day." It feels like that a lot of the time. Mostly, though, even if there is something, I find I don't want to talk about it, so I say my line and let them tell me about their lives and the cool things going on within. I feel awkward trying to make conversation. Stacy was over last week, and as we sat here together, she who is my first and oldest friend, she told me all sorts of wonderful stories about her new life as a Mommy and I thought, "She's so good at making conversation." She's that way on the phone too. I feel sometimes like I don't know how to say words anymore, not even to someone who knows and loves me so well and doesn't care if the words I say are dumb.
That pretty much explains my silence around here. I'm trying to find my voice again. I don't know where or why I lost it. Maybe it's another temporary casualty of the crazyblahsads. I imagine that's it, and as such, I expect a full return any day now.
It's going to be 87 degrees today, according to the robot that lives in my phone. It's March 20th. I live in Kentucky, not Argentina. My legs are shamefully not shaven, my summer clothes are clean but full of wrinkles from where they've been folded and piled in a corner for 5 months. And our dryer is broken - I think it's the heater coil again. Oh, how will I ever get the wrinkles out of my clothes without a dryer?
I cleaned the long wall in the shower this morning. I've never cleaned a part of the bathroom before work. That feels like weekend sort of work, so doing it before work, before 7 a.m., that was a little different. Maybe tomorrow I'll do the two short walls. Gettin' crazy up in here, yo.
We've rearranged the living room again; added a table, subtracted a table, moved in a chair from upstairs. Steve says our living room is different every time he comes over. I tell him, obviously, that means he should come over more often. I do like rearranging furniture, though. I get all stuffy and uncomfortable when things are in one place too long. I've always been like this - I should ask my Momma how many times she remembers coming into my room in the middle of the night, in just her sleepshirt and panties, blinking in the bright light, her short blonde hair sticking straight up on her head, "What in the hell are you doing, Natalie? It's 2 A. M.," in a hushed angry whisper, trying to show her displeasure, but not loudly enough to wake up Dad or Brother. "Did I wake you, Momma? I'm sorry, I'm trying to be quiet." My desk with its huge book hutch would be in the middle of the room, cutting off my full view of her and throwing odd shadows across the walls; my bed at an angle, the contents of my dresser drawers piled up on it. You have to make a mess to clean a mess, I always say. Momma would always tell me that no, I hadn't woken her, she was getting up to pee and saw the light under my door. "Don't stay up too late," and then, eyeing my bed, "Where are you going to sleep?" "Oh, I'll get it all cleaned up before I go to bed. It's cool, I'm almost done." Sometimes you just need a change, you know? And if you can't afford to throw out what you've got and start all over, you've got to find new ways to jazz up what you have. Rearranging is much easier that reupholstering. Anyhow, yeah, I like the living room's new look.
People ask me what's new, and I tell them, "Oh, nothing, same stuff, different day." It feels like that a lot of the time. Mostly, though, even if there is something, I find I don't want to talk about it, so I say my line and let them tell me about their lives and the cool things going on within. I feel awkward trying to make conversation. Stacy was over last week, and as we sat here together, she who is my first and oldest friend, she told me all sorts of wonderful stories about her new life as a Mommy and I thought, "She's so good at making conversation." She's that way on the phone too. I feel sometimes like I don't know how to say words anymore, not even to someone who knows and loves me so well and doesn't care if the words I say are dumb.
That pretty much explains my silence around here. I'm trying to find my voice again. I don't know where or why I lost it. Maybe it's another temporary casualty of the crazyblahsads. I imagine that's it, and as such, I expect a full return any day now.
Friday, March 16, 2012
How's the weather?
The weather this week has been amazing - reaching into the 80s, with a gentle breeze. Perfect porch-sittin' weather. You better believe I've taken full advantage, sitting in my plastic Adirondack, drinking Busch Light from a can with a St. George Island coozy my Momma brought back from Florida last year, smoking Marlboro 72s, looking up occasionally from my Christian Romance novel to make sure Finn hasn't slipped his lead again. Lovely Spring afternoons.
The flowering trees are full of flowers, and as I do every Spring, I desperately wish we owned a house with a mature Magnolia. Oh, I love them so! I told Jimi that if he ever wanted to get me an awesome birthday gift, a Magnolia or a weeping cherry would be a lovely surprise. He responded that obviously he can't do it this year, because it wouldn't be much of a surprise. Whatever. We do have a Japanese Maple, and an ornamental cherry, and they're both gorgeous, but still...I covet that which I do not have. At least lots of neighbors have them; I can still enjoy the beauty.
I feel like I have a lot of thoughts and not enough words. So many things in my head - work, politics, family, friends. I feel intimidated at the idea of trying to sort it all out, to make sense of this jumble that bangs around. I have so much to say, I just don't remember how to sit down and let it all pour out.
The flowering trees are full of flowers, and as I do every Spring, I desperately wish we owned a house with a mature Magnolia. Oh, I love them so! I told Jimi that if he ever wanted to get me an awesome birthday gift, a Magnolia or a weeping cherry would be a lovely surprise. He responded that obviously he can't do it this year, because it wouldn't be much of a surprise. Whatever. We do have a Japanese Maple, and an ornamental cherry, and they're both gorgeous, but still...I covet that which I do not have. At least lots of neighbors have them; I can still enjoy the beauty.
I feel like I have a lot of thoughts and not enough words. So many things in my head - work, politics, family, friends. I feel intimidated at the idea of trying to sort it all out, to make sense of this jumble that bangs around. I have so much to say, I just don't remember how to sit down and let it all pour out.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
I wish I had a cherry pie.
Jimi came home a few months back with a set of books about John Carter - some fantasy series written in the early 1910s. Then there came the trailers and previews on TV; obviously, Jimi can predict Hollywood.
tosh.O is hilarious and offensive and horrible and awesome all at the same time. I feel like this describes Drunk Natalie a lot of the time, too, but not at all on the same plane. Unless someone wants to pay me for that shit.
Jimi's bowwowing with his amped up ukulele. Decipher that shit. Bowwowowowbowwooowwwowwwowowowowbow...
I feel an immediate desire to delete everything I post on Facebook, for fear that I've made myself sound like an idiot. I'm getting real close to feeling that way about my words here, but I'm working through it by writing the dumbest random shit that comes into my head. THIS IS ME. This is all I've got. Some days are better than others.
I feel like that a lot after social gatherings, too. The morning after a party inevitably begins with me waking and groggily piecing together the night before, focusing on my self-defined faux pas and social missteps and missed verbal cues and awkward statements and embarrassing interruptions of the general flow. I wake up after a party and wonder why anyone likes me at all, and then I'm ashamed until I remember something I did worse at a previous gathering that they've apparently forgiven me for and then I move on and avoid going out until I absolutely have to because it's been so long and when I see my friends again they tell me how much they miss me and how much they love it when I come out and I feel so awesome and good and I wonder why I don't go out more...
I just finished reading a very feminist book, and it's shifting my perceptions of the men around me. It's also made me furious with the Mormon church for their despicable anti-Equal Rights Amendment movement during the late 70s. (Picture Prop 8, but nationwide, and geared toward denying equal rights to women rather than homosexuals.) I look around and see the same battle for equality still being waged today, 30+ years later, and I'm shocked and ashamed and shaken to my very core. It's like all the things they taught me in school were complete bullshit.
Jimi's now using the ukulele to mimick Purina jingles. I was just starting to get riled up, and here he comes with that.
I'm getting close to 700 blog entries. Whoa. A lot of bloggers I read celebrate blog birthdays and such - I don't remember when I started this blog exactly - 2007, maybe? 2006? My original blog was one I started on LouisvilleMojo - I poured my heart out there for years. And then my ex-husband hacked that shit and deleted it all. I'm not even making that up. Anyhow, nearly 700 entries. I went back and found a cache of drafts from late December that reek of sad. Better to come across them on this side.
I used to blog a lot, about everything, all the time. And then I became conscious that other people are reading this sometimes, people I know in real life or may one day hope to meet. And it scared me for a minute, the fear that they would judge me based on what they read here - the highs, the lows, the bliss, the tragedy, the language, the judgements, the fears, the bitching, the politics, the opinions. Sometimes I post things and feel an immediate need to delete them for fear that I've made myself sound like an idiot, but I'm starting to remember that's perfectly fine. THIS IS ME. This is all I've got. Some days are better than others.
tosh.O is hilarious and offensive and horrible and awesome all at the same time. I feel like this describes Drunk Natalie a lot of the time, too, but not at all on the same plane. Unless someone wants to pay me for that shit.
Jimi's bowwowing with his amped up ukulele. Decipher that shit. Bowwowowowbowwooowwwowwwowowowowbow...
I feel an immediate desire to delete everything I post on Facebook, for fear that I've made myself sound like an idiot. I'm getting real close to feeling that way about my words here, but I'm working through it by writing the dumbest random shit that comes into my head. THIS IS ME. This is all I've got. Some days are better than others.
I feel like that a lot after social gatherings, too. The morning after a party inevitably begins with me waking and groggily piecing together the night before, focusing on my self-defined faux pas and social missteps and missed verbal cues and awkward statements and embarrassing interruptions of the general flow. I wake up after a party and wonder why anyone likes me at all, and then I'm ashamed until I remember something I did worse at a previous gathering that they've apparently forgiven me for and then I move on and avoid going out until I absolutely have to because it's been so long and when I see my friends again they tell me how much they miss me and how much they love it when I come out and I feel so awesome and good and I wonder why I don't go out more...
I just finished reading a very feminist book, and it's shifting my perceptions of the men around me. It's also made me furious with the Mormon church for their despicable anti-Equal Rights Amendment movement during the late 70s. (Picture Prop 8, but nationwide, and geared toward denying equal rights to women rather than homosexuals.) I look around and see the same battle for equality still being waged today, 30+ years later, and I'm shocked and ashamed and shaken to my very core. It's like all the things they taught me in school were complete bullshit.
Jimi's now using the ukulele to mimick Purina jingles. I was just starting to get riled up, and here he comes with that.
I'm getting close to 700 blog entries. Whoa. A lot of bloggers I read celebrate blog birthdays and such - I don't remember when I started this blog exactly - 2007, maybe? 2006? My original blog was one I started on LouisvilleMojo - I poured my heart out there for years. And then my ex-husband hacked that shit and deleted it all. I'm not even making that up. Anyhow, nearly 700 entries. I went back and found a cache of drafts from late December that reek of sad. Better to come across them on this side.
I used to blog a lot, about everything, all the time. And then I became conscious that other people are reading this sometimes, people I know in real life or may one day hope to meet. And it scared me for a minute, the fear that they would judge me based on what they read here - the highs, the lows, the bliss, the tragedy, the language, the judgements, the fears, the bitching, the politics, the opinions. Sometimes I post things and feel an immediate need to delete them for fear that I've made myself sound like an idiot, but I'm starting to remember that's perfectly fine. THIS IS ME. This is all I've got. Some days are better than others.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Bouncing up and fucking down.
It's like a weight has been lifted.
Sometimes you just need a good cometoJesus to release your soul, all the pent up sad and crazy and worry. I thought I was saying the right words before, but maybe I wasn't. "If we didn't have this talk tonight, if I didn't say these things to you, if you didn't propose within the next year, I would leave." I said it. That evil thing that was building in the back of my mind, that poison that was tainting my utopia. I said the words - the ones that needed to be said, "This is what I have to have to be happy. This is what I need. We have needs and wants in relationships, and this is what I need."
We came together, we drifted, we wandered far apart, but in the end, we met in the middle, with love and understanding, and we're back in the place we've always been. We're good. We're safe. All is right with the world.
I cried myself to sleep last night, sick in my heart with fear and sad. Tonight, I'm light like a feather, knowing we're good, having confirmation of that fact I knew in my heart but needed to know with my ears.
Tomorrow I'll spend several hours in the car with my boss. I'm feeling mighty brave and strong tonight, Friends. I have my power outfit planned and ready, down to the comfy no-line panties and the bright pink argyle socks. (Those are just for my particular comfort, for the record. I'm not planning to show our customers my panties or my socks. But you never know. My boss hired me because I showed him my socks during my interview...)
I need a raise. I've been stewing about it for months, and the time has come where I've just got to ask or I'm going to build up so much resentment that I'll grow to hate my job and I don't want to hate my job because as crazy as it is, I fucking love it there. I do. I get pissed off all the time and frustrated as hell, but I love it, and I don't want to go anywhere else. But I need to be compensated for the work I'm doing, and that's never going to happen if I don't make my needs known. See, in relationships, all relationships, we have needs, and we have wants. The fact is, for me to continue my happy relationship with my employer, I need to make more money. They want to make as much money as possible, I need to make enough money to play well when I'm not there making money for them.
Does any of this even make sense? I don't really care if it does. I'm pretty sure I'll understand it when I read it again tomorrow. A weight has been lifted. I'm feeling pretty fucking invincible. I'm going to make an ass out of myself tomorrow and I'll come back here tomorrow night crying about how I thought I had this but I really didn't.
No I won't.
I won't write again for days because I'll be all embarrassed and then I'll write about something totally dumb because I'll want to pretend I never wrote this entry.
And if I'm not engaged this time next year, I'll come back and delete this shit, too.
I read something the other day that said that in ten years we won't need resumes, we'll just use our online profiles when applying for jobs.
Fuck me, I hope I don't have to ever change jobs again.
Sometimes you just need a good cometoJesus to release your soul, all the pent up sad and crazy and worry. I thought I was saying the right words before, but maybe I wasn't. "If we didn't have this talk tonight, if I didn't say these things to you, if you didn't propose within the next year, I would leave." I said it. That evil thing that was building in the back of my mind, that poison that was tainting my utopia. I said the words - the ones that needed to be said, "This is what I have to have to be happy. This is what I need. We have needs and wants in relationships, and this is what I need."
We came together, we drifted, we wandered far apart, but in the end, we met in the middle, with love and understanding, and we're back in the place we've always been. We're good. We're safe. All is right with the world.
I cried myself to sleep last night, sick in my heart with fear and sad. Tonight, I'm light like a feather, knowing we're good, having confirmation of that fact I knew in my heart but needed to know with my ears.
Tomorrow I'll spend several hours in the car with my boss. I'm feeling mighty brave and strong tonight, Friends. I have my power outfit planned and ready, down to the comfy no-line panties and the bright pink argyle socks. (Those are just for my particular comfort, for the record. I'm not planning to show our customers my panties or my socks. But you never know. My boss hired me because I showed him my socks during my interview...)
I need a raise. I've been stewing about it for months, and the time has come where I've just got to ask or I'm going to build up so much resentment that I'll grow to hate my job and I don't want to hate my job because as crazy as it is, I fucking love it there. I do. I get pissed off all the time and frustrated as hell, but I love it, and I don't want to go anywhere else. But I need to be compensated for the work I'm doing, and that's never going to happen if I don't make my needs known. See, in relationships, all relationships, we have needs, and we have wants. The fact is, for me to continue my happy relationship with my employer, I need to make more money. They want to make as much money as possible, I need to make enough money to play well when I'm not there making money for them.
Does any of this even make sense? I don't really care if it does. I'm pretty sure I'll understand it when I read it again tomorrow. A weight has been lifted. I'm feeling pretty fucking invincible. I'm going to make an ass out of myself tomorrow and I'll come back here tomorrow night crying about how I thought I had this but I really didn't.
No I won't.
I won't write again for days because I'll be all embarrassed and then I'll write about something totally dumb because I'll want to pretend I never wrote this entry.
And if I'm not engaged this time next year, I'll come back and delete this shit, too.
I read something the other day that said that in ten years we won't need resumes, we'll just use our online profiles when applying for jobs.
Fuck me, I hope I don't have to ever change jobs again.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Positive
I've heard recently that watching TV and/or staring at the computer screen right up until you go to bed can negatively impact your ability to sleep well. Last night, half an hour before bed, I turned off the TV, walked away from the laptop, and spent 15 minutes stretching and breathing deeply. I told myself I was going to sleep straight through the night, that if I woke up I would roll right back over and drift right back off to sleep. I told myself over and over again that I was going to get good sleep, that I'd awake feeling refreshed and be ready to start my day. I told myself that I'd have a good day today.
I slept nearly straight through. I know I woke a time or two, but I don't remember fighting for sleep to come back to me, the way I usually do between 2 and 5 a.m.
I keep telling myself that today is going to be a good day. I'm trying to not focus on my frustrations, but rather on the fact that they are temporary and passing and will not matter in a few hours.
Remember when that book "The Secret" was all the rage? SPOILER ALERT: The secret is that your thoughts become things. The power of positive thinking; it's not bullshit, it's fact.
When I have Teh Sad, positive thinking is the hardest thing in the world. How am I supposed to remember to be grateful for everything I've got when I'm so sad about everything I don't have? How am I supposed to go to work with a smile when all I'm thinking about is how unfair everything is?
I can be sad, and think those sad thoughts, or I can tell those sad thoughts to STFU and think about this happy shit over here for a while. The sad stuff is still around, but I'm going to put it in this cabinet over here until it's smaller and not so overwhelming.
The sun's out. I'm going to spend more time in it.
I slept nearly straight through. I know I woke a time or two, but I don't remember fighting for sleep to come back to me, the way I usually do between 2 and 5 a.m.
I keep telling myself that today is going to be a good day. I'm trying to not focus on my frustrations, but rather on the fact that they are temporary and passing and will not matter in a few hours.
Remember when that book "The Secret" was all the rage? SPOILER ALERT: The secret is that your thoughts become things. The power of positive thinking; it's not bullshit, it's fact.
When I have Teh Sad, positive thinking is the hardest thing in the world. How am I supposed to remember to be grateful for everything I've got when I'm so sad about everything I don't have? How am I supposed to go to work with a smile when all I'm thinking about is how unfair everything is?
I can be sad, and think those sad thoughts, or I can tell those sad thoughts to STFU and think about this happy shit over here for a while. The sad stuff is still around, but I'm going to put it in this cabinet over here until it's smaller and not so overwhelming.
The sun's out. I'm going to spend more time in it.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Dreaming reality
Blue skies and sunshine are dancing on a cold breeze outside my window - I want to go out and soak it all in, except that it's cold out there and I'm pretty warm and cozy right here, with my peppermint mocha coffee and my space heater and my yoga pants.
I dreamed last night that I had dead bamboo in vases all over my house. I didn't realize it was dead, though - someone came over, a stranger, and I saw my home through their eyes and then I spent the rest of their visit trying to use my body to shield their view of the dried up brown stalks. So I got up and cleaned the kitchen mess from where Jimi spent the day yesterday roasting tomatoes and peppers and making chili, and then I moved some furniture in the living room and vacuumed. And I really do have a stalk of dead bamboo in a vase, so I guess I'm going to throw that out today, too.
I dreamed also of my ex-husband, and it was a very realistic, very lifelike scene - it felt like I was in the room with him again, having that final conversation. His hair seemed shaggier, but the height of him, the gravity of him, it was right. I don't dream about Bob; there's very little from our marriage that I mourned when it was lost, and it's not uncommon for me now to go days or weeks without thinking of that period in my life. Last night, though, we were in that awkward place where we've called it quits but we're still together because it takes time to undo what you promised you'd make last forever. We were separating the details of our life together, tying up the final loose ends - and I wanted break-up sex. He turned me down, a few times, and my feelings were hurt in a way I remember so familiarly; he turned down sex a lot during our marriage. I asked, in my dream, if there was someone else - he said, "There wasn't before, but there is now." Oh. And then he was gone, and I was confused because I was sad and I missed him.
As I was waking, I focused on that confusion - what I remember mostly feeling when he told me he wanted out was relief. This wasn't going to be my life forever! I'd spent years walking on eggshells, not knowing what the right move would be to please him, to make him happy, to make him look at me in favor, to make him not say no and push me away when I moved in for a kiss or more. I was sad when my marriage ended, and I was scared of what that fact meant about me. But I was mostly relieved.
Six years later, and I'm realizing in my bad times, my dark cloudy days, I make Jimi walk on those same eggshells. I punish him for the madness inside my mind. I let him cajole and plead with me to cheer up and not let the small things ruin the whole day, but I turn my back to him and fall into my tears and think bad thoughts about him because because his efforts only make me feel worse because they don't make me feel better.
He never does that to me. I would hate it and be miserable if he did that to me. Why in the world am I being so fucking mean?
I may not be able to fully control the crazy in my head, but I can control the way I express it. I can control the way I treat others, even if I have to fake the funk to get through until I can be crazy by myself for a while.
I dreamed last night that I had dead bamboo in vases all over my house. I didn't realize it was dead, though - someone came over, a stranger, and I saw my home through their eyes and then I spent the rest of their visit trying to use my body to shield their view of the dried up brown stalks. So I got up and cleaned the kitchen mess from where Jimi spent the day yesterday roasting tomatoes and peppers and making chili, and then I moved some furniture in the living room and vacuumed. And I really do have a stalk of dead bamboo in a vase, so I guess I'm going to throw that out today, too.
I dreamed also of my ex-husband, and it was a very realistic, very lifelike scene - it felt like I was in the room with him again, having that final conversation. His hair seemed shaggier, but the height of him, the gravity of him, it was right. I don't dream about Bob; there's very little from our marriage that I mourned when it was lost, and it's not uncommon for me now to go days or weeks without thinking of that period in my life. Last night, though, we were in that awkward place where we've called it quits but we're still together because it takes time to undo what you promised you'd make last forever. We were separating the details of our life together, tying up the final loose ends - and I wanted break-up sex. He turned me down, a few times, and my feelings were hurt in a way I remember so familiarly; he turned down sex a lot during our marriage. I asked, in my dream, if there was someone else - he said, "There wasn't before, but there is now." Oh. And then he was gone, and I was confused because I was sad and I missed him.
As I was waking, I focused on that confusion - what I remember mostly feeling when he told me he wanted out was relief. This wasn't going to be my life forever! I'd spent years walking on eggshells, not knowing what the right move would be to please him, to make him happy, to make him look at me in favor, to make him not say no and push me away when I moved in for a kiss or more. I was sad when my marriage ended, and I was scared of what that fact meant about me. But I was mostly relieved.
Six years later, and I'm realizing in my bad times, my dark cloudy days, I make Jimi walk on those same eggshells. I punish him for the madness inside my mind. I let him cajole and plead with me to cheer up and not let the small things ruin the whole day, but I turn my back to him and fall into my tears and think bad thoughts about him because because his efforts only make me feel worse because they don't make me feel better.
He never does that to me. I would hate it and be miserable if he did that to me. Why in the world am I being so fucking mean?
I may not be able to fully control the crazy in my head, but I can control the way I express it. I can control the way I treat others, even if I have to fake the funk to get through until I can be crazy by myself for a while.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Sad
I don't notice how poorly I sleep until I have a night where I'm not up every hour, tossing and turning and glancing at the clock to see if I've been asleep for any real amount of time since the last time I glanced at the clock. When 7 a.m. rolls around and I haven't seen midnight, one, two, two thirty, three fifteen, three thirty, three fifty, four thirty, five o'clock...it's refreshing, and I wonder how much better I'd be if I could sleep every night.
When something unexpected and unpleasant happens to me, it feels usually as if a switch has been thrown. All my happy, all my smiles, all the sunshine - it's turned off and can't be turned back on without a reset. (Reset = brand new day.) Last night, it was a fountain Big Red, spilled into the floorboard of the drivers seat of my car. Switch flicked off. It was an accident, a mistake, completely unintentional, but it didn't matter - I was wearing Big Red and my floorboard was sopping wet and red and my night was ruined. My good mood was ruined. Even though we were headed to hang with friends, I couldn't climb out of my funk; we left after only an hour, and I'm sure I was miserable company.
I hate those moods. I hate that I force Jimi to walk on eggshells while he tries to feel out my mood and my boiling point. I hate that he tries so hard to pull me out of the quagmire of sad, but his efforts only make me sink further in. I hate that I don't have words to explain my feelings and thoughts because the only explanation is "I'm really sad and I don't know why because it's just soda."
I'm trying. I'm trying really hard.
When something unexpected and unpleasant happens to me, it feels usually as if a switch has been thrown. All my happy, all my smiles, all the sunshine - it's turned off and can't be turned back on without a reset. (Reset = brand new day.) Last night, it was a fountain Big Red, spilled into the floorboard of the drivers seat of my car. Switch flicked off. It was an accident, a mistake, completely unintentional, but it didn't matter - I was wearing Big Red and my floorboard was sopping wet and red and my night was ruined. My good mood was ruined. Even though we were headed to hang with friends, I couldn't climb out of my funk; we left after only an hour, and I'm sure I was miserable company.
I hate those moods. I hate that I force Jimi to walk on eggshells while he tries to feel out my mood and my boiling point. I hate that he tries so hard to pull me out of the quagmire of sad, but his efforts only make me sink further in. I hate that I don't have words to explain my feelings and thoughts because the only explanation is "I'm really sad and I don't know why because it's just soda."
I'm trying. I'm trying really hard.
Friday, February 17, 2012
Better
Sometimes I think about deleting my blog and my facebook page and every other internet thing i have floating around out there that's telling the world my business and the crazy in my head. Sometimes I imagine going off somewhere for days, maybe weeks or months, however long it would take, where no one knows me or has any idea of who i am or what i'm about and starting all over.
Other times I think about how awesome it would be to take off on a vacation and come back to find that my home has been cleaned and organized from top to bottom, and all of my work shit is caught up and current, and I could just walk in and start fresh, without anything holding me back from my maximum potential, because I can just dive right in and keep everything at the status quo. Because sometimes, the shit that needs to be done before I can start relaxing? It seems like too much to even bother with.
I'm frustrated and feeling unappreciated at work. I live in a dichotomy of happy/sad at home because the man I love loves me with everything he has but still won't marry me. I feel a constant guilt for having so fucking much, but still wanting more. I'm drinking and smoking more, and that's not an acceptable salve for my emotional wounds.
I'm okay, I'm confused. I'm happy, I'm depressed. Life is awesome, life is hard. It's all true.
Other times I think about how awesome it would be to take off on a vacation and come back to find that my home has been cleaned and organized from top to bottom, and all of my work shit is caught up and current, and I could just walk in and start fresh, without anything holding me back from my maximum potential, because I can just dive right in and keep everything at the status quo. Because sometimes, the shit that needs to be done before I can start relaxing? It seems like too much to even bother with.
I'm frustrated and feeling unappreciated at work. I live in a dichotomy of happy/sad at home because the man I love loves me with everything he has but still won't marry me. I feel a constant guilt for having so fucking much, but still wanting more. I'm drinking and smoking more, and that's not an acceptable salve for my emotional wounds.
I'm okay, I'm confused. I'm happy, I'm depressed. Life is awesome, life is hard. It's all true.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Dark
It's pretty dark inside my head this morning. I woke at 2 a.m. and had to fight out the dark thoughts so I could get some peace and go back to sleep. Once the demons passed, I dreamed of Granny - and other things I can't remember.
Sometimes it feels like the things I want most in the world are the things I'm not allowed to have. I don't understand. I don't know how to fix it. Why can't I just be happy with what I have and not wish for, dream of, desperately want more?
I don't want to make hard choices.
Sometimes it feels like the things I want most in the world are the things I'm not allowed to have. I don't understand. I don't know how to fix it. Why can't I just be happy with what I have and not wish for, dream of, desperately want more?
I don't want to make hard choices.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
pretend this is my first post of 2012
GAH!
i just don't have any words, i guess. got nothing to say. not a thing.
i get locked up. i have all these thoughts inside my head, but when it comes to putting them here, in words, i get stuck. i can't say anything, and everything i try to say comes out all wrong and dumb and so i delete it or just flip back to facebook and pretend i didn't have anything i wanted to blog about anyhow.
which i don't, or i'd do it. i think.
i'm four days late and not pregnant. there's no way i can possibly convey how thoroughly this is fucking with my head. i thought i might have been, for a second. thought maybe our timing was right. maybe i'd be huge this summer. i had a dream, you see - there was a little fat baby boy in my living room under my love tree and in front of my fireplace at christmastime, and i was confused, because, of course, there's no baby. but then i turned (still dreaming), and i was facing myself in the mirror, and i had a realization: i'm pregnant, it's a boy, and his name is braden. it seemed crazy when i woke up (i'd never name my boy braden, unless i had turned out to be knocked up, in which case it would've seemed dangerous to name him something else), but it also gave me a niggling hope in the back of my mind. false hope, turns out, which is typical, but this four days late thing is mean and i hate it and i just want to get the fucking thing over with already.
and today my boss fired the dude who replaced the last guy who left - remember a few months ago when i was all "yay! opportunity!"? well, it's turned into a lot of extra work that's resulted in me feeling, again, like i suck at my job because i don't have enough time in a day to get it all done. i had these awesome plans to take us on an awesome vacation when i get my bonus this year, but i didn't accomplish any of my goals for the year, well maybe one, so the bonus i was counting on is right out the window and so's that awesome vacation. and what's the point anyhow, because when i'm on vacation, i still have to check emails and take phone calls and go into the office to do billing, so what's the fucking point? may as well just go to work. and now he's fired the guy who was taking up at least a little of the slack over there and joked "ready to do some more work?" ha ha. hi-fucking-larious. i'm terrified i'm going to end up laughing my way to the poor house when i quit or the nut hatch because i stay - actually, i've got insurance that covers mental breakdowns - and if it was work-induced, that'd be a worker's comp thing, right? hmm...
i shouldn't joke about mental illness, but i was feeling pretty good until i started writing all this shit that's been bothering me, and now i'm crying again. i think i've got the winter blues bad. i don't even have a real reason to be sad - boo hoo, poor me, i have this job with lots of responsibility and a steady income that i can spend however i wish because i don't have any kids that have to be diapered and put into daycare.
i am crazy, aren't i? fuck.
may as well throw it all out there - part of my dive into the sads was in part due to the fact that there was no proposal this past holiday season. i had that hope in the back of my head too, like the baby thing, whispering at me from the dark hidden corners of my mind where i force shit like that to go and live. i asked for a will for christmas, one that protects my interest in our home if he dies. i told him it was the only thing i wanted. when i learned it wasn't going to be under the tree, i allowed my dumbass to think, for a moment, that maybe he had something better planned? nope. he just didn't get around to getting a will made. fuck. he's not the type to disappoint me, but i was disappointed, and hurt, and very deeply sad.
this is getting borderline too personal, and for me to recognize that probably means i should stop writing about it.
so yeah. that's where my head has lived for the past week or so. while i was sick. at home. on "vacation", with no computer.
mostly. that's mostly where my head has lived. there's been good, too. like, i've taken finn for a walk every day this year, except monday because it was bitterly windy and cold and i just couldn't bring myself to do it. i haven't smoked since monday, either, which is awesome and GO ME! and i got on the scale the this morning and i'm down to 169 - that's the lowest number i've seen on a scale in, oh, i don't know, like 8 years? GO ME! i'm encouraged and feel like losing another 25 lbs maybe isn't impossible...i lost that much in 2011, i could do it again in 2012, right? and i know he loves me; he shows me every single day, in a hundred little and huge ways. and we spent new year's eve with angie at the chinese restaurant featuring a mix of mad men and jersey shore clientele and then shot off six bottle rockets in the front yard at midnight, and we spent new year's day with my momma at the flea market. and my house is pretty clean. and we did get the computer back. and i've got like 6 bottles of wine from trader joe's, and i can drink it all if i want because i ain't preggo. (but i won't, because i really do see a correlation between teh booze and teh fat. i lose more weight when i don't drink an extra 600 calories each night. duh.)
life is good. it is. it gets hard sometimes, and then i get sad, and then i come here to bitch and cry and whine and moan, and then i remember how good it is, even when it's hard.
happy new year, people who are awesome.
i just don't have any words, i guess. got nothing to say. not a thing.
i get locked up. i have all these thoughts inside my head, but when it comes to putting them here, in words, i get stuck. i can't say anything, and everything i try to say comes out all wrong and dumb and so i delete it or just flip back to facebook and pretend i didn't have anything i wanted to blog about anyhow.
which i don't, or i'd do it. i think.
i'm four days late and not pregnant. there's no way i can possibly convey how thoroughly this is fucking with my head. i thought i might have been, for a second. thought maybe our timing was right. maybe i'd be huge this summer. i had a dream, you see - there was a little fat baby boy in my living room under my love tree and in front of my fireplace at christmastime, and i was confused, because, of course, there's no baby. but then i turned (still dreaming), and i was facing myself in the mirror, and i had a realization: i'm pregnant, it's a boy, and his name is braden. it seemed crazy when i woke up (i'd never name my boy braden, unless i had turned out to be knocked up, in which case it would've seemed dangerous to name him something else), but it also gave me a niggling hope in the back of my mind. false hope, turns out, which is typical, but this four days late thing is mean and i hate it and i just want to get the fucking thing over with already.
and today my boss fired the dude who replaced the last guy who left - remember a few months ago when i was all "yay! opportunity!"? well, it's turned into a lot of extra work that's resulted in me feeling, again, like i suck at my job because i don't have enough time in a day to get it all done. i had these awesome plans to take us on an awesome vacation when i get my bonus this year, but i didn't accomplish any of my goals for the year, well maybe one, so the bonus i was counting on is right out the window and so's that awesome vacation. and what's the point anyhow, because when i'm on vacation, i still have to check emails and take phone calls and go into the office to do billing, so what's the fucking point? may as well just go to work. and now he's fired the guy who was taking up at least a little of the slack over there and joked "ready to do some more work?" ha ha. hi-fucking-larious. i'm terrified i'm going to end up laughing my way to the poor house when i quit or the nut hatch because i stay - actually, i've got insurance that covers mental breakdowns - and if it was work-induced, that'd be a worker's comp thing, right? hmm...
i shouldn't joke about mental illness, but i was feeling pretty good until i started writing all this shit that's been bothering me, and now i'm crying again. i think i've got the winter blues bad. i don't even have a real reason to be sad - boo hoo, poor me, i have this job with lots of responsibility and a steady income that i can spend however i wish because i don't have any kids that have to be diapered and put into daycare.
i am crazy, aren't i? fuck.
may as well throw it all out there - part of my dive into the sads was in part due to the fact that there was no proposal this past holiday season. i had that hope in the back of my head too, like the baby thing, whispering at me from the dark hidden corners of my mind where i force shit like that to go and live. i asked for a will for christmas, one that protects my interest in our home if he dies. i told him it was the only thing i wanted. when i learned it wasn't going to be under the tree, i allowed my dumbass to think, for a moment, that maybe he had something better planned? nope. he just didn't get around to getting a will made. fuck. he's not the type to disappoint me, but i was disappointed, and hurt, and very deeply sad.
this is getting borderline too personal, and for me to recognize that probably means i should stop writing about it.
so yeah. that's where my head has lived for the past week or so. while i was sick. at home. on "vacation", with no computer.
mostly. that's mostly where my head has lived. there's been good, too. like, i've taken finn for a walk every day this year, except monday because it was bitterly windy and cold and i just couldn't bring myself to do it. i haven't smoked since monday, either, which is awesome and GO ME! and i got on the scale the this morning and i'm down to 169 - that's the lowest number i've seen on a scale in, oh, i don't know, like 8 years? GO ME! i'm encouraged and feel like losing another 25 lbs maybe isn't impossible...i lost that much in 2011, i could do it again in 2012, right? and i know he loves me; he shows me every single day, in a hundred little and huge ways. and we spent new year's eve with angie at the chinese restaurant featuring a mix of mad men and jersey shore clientele and then shot off six bottle rockets in the front yard at midnight, and we spent new year's day with my momma at the flea market. and my house is pretty clean. and we did get the computer back. and i've got like 6 bottles of wine from trader joe's, and i can drink it all if i want because i ain't preggo. (but i won't, because i really do see a correlation between teh booze and teh fat. i lose more weight when i don't drink an extra 600 calories each night. duh.)
life is good. it is. it gets hard sometimes, and then i get sad, and then i come here to bitch and cry and whine and moan, and then i remember how good it is, even when it's hard.
happy new year, people who are awesome.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
I'm gonna complain, but I'll try to keep it brief.
I spent 30 minutes driving around looking for a customer's office - an office I've been to before, but apparently I cannot retrace my steps. I finally said "fuck it, I'll find it later" and moved on to the next customer, and now I'm home, and after Googling, i think I've found the correct address and will be able to make my visit on my way back to work. (I called and asked my Admin. Assistant to find the alternate address and/or directions for me, and she failed and gave up. I'm a little grumpy about that, and will probably end up saying something bitchy once I get back to work. I mean, seriously, i'd never call MY boss and be all, "Um, well, no one's answering the phone and the address you have is the only one I've found..." Yeah. Right. Besides, I FOUND another address on the Google. My Google at home is no better than her Google at work.)
Ugh. Anyhow.
I booked our spa appointments this morning; Stacy and I will spend her 30th birthday being rubbed and scrubbed and cleansed and moisturized. I can hardly wait. It's her birthday, but I feel like taking the day off and going for a massage and facial is just as much a gift to myself - I need it! And really, what better way to kick off the holidays?
You ever feel like you need to take a time out, pause the world, take a moment to regroup and start fresh? I just need time to stand still for a day or two, so I can work non-stop to get my house spotless, my laundry folded, my pantry stocked, my dishes put away. And at work, my files would be updated and organized, projects would be finished, memos sent out, meetings scheduled and planned...I just need everything to stop for a few days, just two or three, so I can get it all to the point where I can manage it day to day.
I feel very overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by how much I need to do, and so I freeze and do nothing. (Well, not at work. That's not an option at work. But I never make any headway - I get done what has to get done to keep things running, but the projects and the updating, that all gets pushed to the side, and having all of that sitting over there, staring at me...it's freaking me right the fuck out.)
Sometimes it's just all so much.
I don't remember the last time I felt like I had it all together, though. I say that, but maybe it's not true. We had the house looking awesome not too long ago. And before my workload exploded in September, I was starting to see light at the end of the tunnel and room to wiggle and move on those projects.
It'll come again. Deep breath. One thing at a time. Piece by piece, it'll come together. It'll all work out. It's all gonna be just fine.
I need a nap.
Ugh. Anyhow.
I booked our spa appointments this morning; Stacy and I will spend her 30th birthday being rubbed and scrubbed and cleansed and moisturized. I can hardly wait. It's her birthday, but I feel like taking the day off and going for a massage and facial is just as much a gift to myself - I need it! And really, what better way to kick off the holidays?
You ever feel like you need to take a time out, pause the world, take a moment to regroup and start fresh? I just need time to stand still for a day or two, so I can work non-stop to get my house spotless, my laundry folded, my pantry stocked, my dishes put away. And at work, my files would be updated and organized, projects would be finished, memos sent out, meetings scheduled and planned...I just need everything to stop for a few days, just two or three, so I can get it all to the point where I can manage it day to day.
I feel very overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by how much I need to do, and so I freeze and do nothing. (Well, not at work. That's not an option at work. But I never make any headway - I get done what has to get done to keep things running, but the projects and the updating, that all gets pushed to the side, and having all of that sitting over there, staring at me...it's freaking me right the fuck out.)
Sometimes it's just all so much.
I don't remember the last time I felt like I had it all together, though. I say that, but maybe it's not true. We had the house looking awesome not too long ago. And before my workload exploded in September, I was starting to see light at the end of the tunnel and room to wiggle and move on those projects.
It'll come again. Deep breath. One thing at a time. Piece by piece, it'll come together. It'll all work out. It's all gonna be just fine.
I need a nap.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Here, have some words.
I think I need to have another party so I'll be forced to get my house presentable. Why is it so hard to get motivated to clean? Ugh.
Stacy went to the hospital twice this weekend with contractions. Doctors say she's showing no signs of labor, so by all appearances, these seem to be those notorious Braxton Hicks. Thank goodness.
I've got a face pain problem. I burned the roof of my mouth the other night on one of those bullshit french bread pizza things, and it's been tender ever since. This morning, though, it hurt when I brushed my teeth in a way it didn't when I went to bed last night. And I've had this bruised feeling in my face all day that I thought was sinus pain until I came home for lunch and realized it hurt to chew on the left side. Fuck. Of course, with all the awesome health insurance I've got, I have no dental coverage. And I've got like $100 in the bank because Jimi was kind enough to give me a break on my part of the mortgage payment this month because I overextended myself last week and I was going to be completely broke till this coming Friday. (In other words, I don't have the cash on hand to visit a dentist.) And I don't have a credit card, so that's not a quick-pay option.
How long do you wait to figure out if weird shit like this is "see a dentist" serious or if it'll go away on its own? My gut tells me I've got an infection of some sort in my gumline because of that burn Friday night. I don't think this is a rotten tooth thing, and nothing feels loose. Then again, gumline infections can cause some serious fucking damage - I've got an uncle that had a hip replacement at 50 because of an infection that traveled from his gums (during a teeth cleaning) and went to his hip, dissolving the entire structure within 6 months; he required ridiculous rounds of antibiotics, and at least 2 exploratory surgeries before they had to completely replace his hip. Because he got his teeth cleaned!!! So, I don't want to be all nonchalant and shit.
If I have to see a dentist, I will. I'll borrow the money from Jimi or my boss or my Momma or someone till I get paid Friday, and I'll see someone tomorrow if I have to. I'd just rather not.
I've really not been interested in blogging lately. Well, I have, I just haven't had a thing to say. No Words. My constant complaint. I never have the words.
I'm a little worried about my hermit-ness. I joke about it all the time, but between you and me? I'm a little concerned. Even the idea of going to my Momma's makes me get jittery, forget a trip to Wal-Mart or Burlington or Kroger, even. Contemplating stopping by the grocery on the way home from work makes my heart feel heavy and my stomach flutter. It's all in my head, though - it's all the IDEA of doing things that is so hard - once I'm out in the world, doing things, it's not so bad. That's what Jimi says all the time, "That wasn't so bad, was it?" And it never was as bad as I'd feared it would be, I almost always end up having a good time, but still...I dread having to leave the sanctuary of my home. I resent having things planned to do on weekends when I feel I should be able to sit in my chair and do nothing at all if that's what I want to do...and OH, that is SO what I want to do! I don't look forward to anything. Not if it takes me away ... and I don't even know what I fear being taken away from. My house? My dog and cat? Not Jimi, certainly - he's almost always with me if it's not work or an errand before he's home from work. There's nothing that I do here that is special or unique; there's nothing I'm missing out on by leaving here - I'm missing out on life by staying, though. I realize that. And it scares the fuck out of me.
I wasn't always like this. And I won't always be. I'm working on it. One step, one drive, one visit, one party, one shopping trip, one day at a time.
Doing things when I'm here is hard too, though. I said that once already, didn't I? About the cleaning? Yeah. Cleaning, and re-potting that hibiscus, and that Wandering Jew, and folding all that laundry and finishing the ones that need to be washed...
Ugh. I'd rather read my book, read the internet, play the Sims Pets, watch Judge Judy - I think I'm a perpetual 17 year old, hoping Momma's gonna clean up after me. (And Jimi does, a lot. Bless his heart.)
I felt better when I was watching my calories closely and exercising every day. Imagine that. I wonder if my sudden stop has anything to do with the funk I've fallen into? Wow. I may have just worked that shit out myself, yo.
So, how's your Monday night?
I missed "The Walking Dead" last night. I went to bed at 8:30. I figure they'll show it again before the next episode. I'll see it eventually.
About your Monday night...
Stacy went to the hospital twice this weekend with contractions. Doctors say she's showing no signs of labor, so by all appearances, these seem to be those notorious Braxton Hicks. Thank goodness.
I've got a face pain problem. I burned the roof of my mouth the other night on one of those bullshit french bread pizza things, and it's been tender ever since. This morning, though, it hurt when I brushed my teeth in a way it didn't when I went to bed last night. And I've had this bruised feeling in my face all day that I thought was sinus pain until I came home for lunch and realized it hurt to chew on the left side. Fuck. Of course, with all the awesome health insurance I've got, I have no dental coverage. And I've got like $100 in the bank because Jimi was kind enough to give me a break on my part of the mortgage payment this month because I overextended myself last week and I was going to be completely broke till this coming Friday. (In other words, I don't have the cash on hand to visit a dentist.) And I don't have a credit card, so that's not a quick-pay option.
How long do you wait to figure out if weird shit like this is "see a dentist" serious or if it'll go away on its own? My gut tells me I've got an infection of some sort in my gumline because of that burn Friday night. I don't think this is a rotten tooth thing, and nothing feels loose. Then again, gumline infections can cause some serious fucking damage - I've got an uncle that had a hip replacement at 50 because of an infection that traveled from his gums (during a teeth cleaning) and went to his hip, dissolving the entire structure within 6 months; he required ridiculous rounds of antibiotics, and at least 2 exploratory surgeries before they had to completely replace his hip. Because he got his teeth cleaned!!! So, I don't want to be all nonchalant and shit.
If I have to see a dentist, I will. I'll borrow the money from Jimi or my boss or my Momma or someone till I get paid Friday, and I'll see someone tomorrow if I have to. I'd just rather not.
I've really not been interested in blogging lately. Well, I have, I just haven't had a thing to say. No Words. My constant complaint. I never have the words.
I'm a little worried about my hermit-ness. I joke about it all the time, but between you and me? I'm a little concerned. Even the idea of going to my Momma's makes me get jittery, forget a trip to Wal-Mart or Burlington or Kroger, even. Contemplating stopping by the grocery on the way home from work makes my heart feel heavy and my stomach flutter. It's all in my head, though - it's all the IDEA of doing things that is so hard - once I'm out in the world, doing things, it's not so bad. That's what Jimi says all the time, "That wasn't so bad, was it?" And it never was as bad as I'd feared it would be, I almost always end up having a good time, but still...I dread having to leave the sanctuary of my home. I resent having things planned to do on weekends when I feel I should be able to sit in my chair and do nothing at all if that's what I want to do...and OH, that is SO what I want to do! I don't look forward to anything. Not if it takes me away ... and I don't even know what I fear being taken away from. My house? My dog and cat? Not Jimi, certainly - he's almost always with me if it's not work or an errand before he's home from work. There's nothing that I do here that is special or unique; there's nothing I'm missing out on by leaving here - I'm missing out on life by staying, though. I realize that. And it scares the fuck out of me.
I wasn't always like this. And I won't always be. I'm working on it. One step, one drive, one visit, one party, one shopping trip, one day at a time.
Doing things when I'm here is hard too, though. I said that once already, didn't I? About the cleaning? Yeah. Cleaning, and re-potting that hibiscus, and that Wandering Jew, and folding all that laundry and finishing the ones that need to be washed...
Ugh. I'd rather read my book, read the internet, play the Sims Pets, watch Judge Judy - I think I'm a perpetual 17 year old, hoping Momma's gonna clean up after me. (And Jimi does, a lot. Bless his heart.)
I felt better when I was watching my calories closely and exercising every day. Imagine that. I wonder if my sudden stop has anything to do with the funk I've fallen into? Wow. I may have just worked that shit out myself, yo.
So, how's your Monday night?
I missed "The Walking Dead" last night. I went to bed at 8:30. I figure they'll show it again before the next episode. I'll see it eventually.
About your Monday night...
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
I say dumb things. A lot.
A neighbor we hadn't met came over to introduce herself on Halloween night. I was able to shake her hand, say it was nice to meet her, offer her a seat and a drink, all normal, the way normal people do. I can handle that much interaction with strangers without putting my foot in my mouth. Once she sat, though, and our getting-to-know-each-other officially began, that's when my social skills became a trainwreck.
Within moments of her ass hitting the chair, she asked if we had many trick-or-treaters last year. My response was something like, "We didn't pass out candy last year - we were going to, since it was our first Halloween in the house and all, but I don't like to leave the house much, and I guess picking up candy was just too hard." What. The. Fuck?! Who says shit like that 45 seconds into a conversation with a stranger who lives across the street? She sort of nodded like she understood the crazy coming out of my mouth and mercifully moved onto another topic, which I obviously didn't fuck up too horribly, because I don't remember what it was.
I was thrilled to learn she's a Librarian! A real, live Librarian right across the street from my reading porch. How awesome is that? We chatted for probably half an hour, Jimi joining us mid-way to introduce himself and say hello. I don't think I was too bad after that initial flub, but Jimi insists I shouldn't have referenced "smoking a bowl" when we were talking about things to do when you're floating downriver on a canoe.
A few weeks ago, the weekend of Melinda and Gary's wedding, I went to a housewarming party at the home of some friends. I was brilliant that night! I got like 5 high-fives for funny shit I said, and I replayed those snippets of conversation over and over in my head for the next 3 days, congratulating myself for being brilliant and hilarious. I wanted to tell Jimi about the time we were all talking about the well-known fact that Gingers don't have souls, and someone said, "Well, then what about Ben? Ben's not a Ginger, but he doesn't have a soul" and I was all, "Yeah, but he's Jewish" and the crowd went wild. (Ben high-fived me for that one, for the record, so I totally wasn't being a nazi cunt or anything.) The whole night went that way - someone setting up a punchline that came into my head with perfect timing - that happens to me so rarely!
But that party was full of people who know and love me. They've known me for at least 5 years, and they invite me to things because they enjoy my company, despite my quirks (like how I rarely show up to things I'm invited to). I was comfortable there, completely at ease.
(I'll be honest, though, if Steve hadn't been there, my night probably wouldn't have gone quite as swimmingly. He's like my Jimi surrogate when Jimi's not around - he provides that security and safety that I rely on when I'm not in my home. I feel like he wouldn't let anything bad happen to me - he'd save me from a rapist, or he'd punk out some asshole that was mean to me...not that either of those situations have ever presented themselves, but I feel confident he would defend me and my honor. He's like a big brother I never had but always wanted.)
The Tuesday after the housewarming party, Jimi and I went to Lisa's for dinner. The tentative plan was to order in, catch up (we'd not seen her in over a year!), and then meet up with her fiance' for drinks and fun later.
Before I go further with that, I should give you some background on Lisa and Jimi: The first night I went to Jimi's apartment in Old Louisville, hanging on the wall in the center of his living room were two large pieces of framed art; cut-outs of a beautiful platinum blonde, staged in all different poses, wearing all sorts of costumes - it was Lisa, and the piece is called Paper Dolls. It hangs in our living room today. Then, though, I thought it was proof positive that he had a relationship with this gorgeous woman, and I immediately saw how inadequately I measured up to her in beauty and creativity and all-around awesome. Of course, they weren't a couple - she is what he refers to as his "Sissy". Likewise, he is her "Sissy". They are 3 days apart in age and joke that they are twins. Lisa is deeply involved in all things ART, and Jimi loves all things ART, and on this level they meld and mesh in a way I will never be able to with him.
Obviously, I'm a bit intimidated by her. I didn't realize that's what it was or call it that until after Jimi pointed it out to me on Wednesday, when I sent him an email apologizing for being a drunken slore and drinking half a big bottle of wine and half a beer and eating 2 huge slices of pizza and nearly puking in Lisa's bathroom and then falling asleep at Lisa's kitchen table. His words were, "I told her you're intimidated by her, and that you get a little over-excited and over-indulge, but once you're comfortable with her, you'll norm out." I wanted to argue, but I couldn't. He's so perceptive, that man of mine. I'm terrified that I won't measure up, so I make a fool out of myself to prove it.
I feel like that in most social situations where I'm not well-known and already loved. I feel awkward and not good enough and strange and uninteresting and uncool, and I throw out the very worst of me to try to disprove these thoughts that probably only live in my head until I say or do something to show it to everyone else.
Thank goodness there's something underlying my crazy that doesn't make all people turn and run in the opposite direction; thank goodness there's something there that says "Wait, maybe she's funny sometimes, and maybe she's the sort that would buy a round, and maybe she's pretty smart when we're not talking about a subject that's way over her head, and maybe she's the type who'd be willing to give me a ride to the airport, and maybe she's one of those people who won't notice that I haven't called for two years when I need a shoulder to cry on." I have good qualities, I swear! Maybe they're just not so obvious when you first meet me; maybe that veneer of awkward and strange is just something you just have to look through, like one of those 3-D pictures that you have to stare at for a few seconds before you can see the image.
Is it completely obnoxious to compare my personality to a 3-D picture from the 1990's? "I am so deep and hard to understand." Yeah. Like a fishbowl.
Within moments of her ass hitting the chair, she asked if we had many trick-or-treaters last year. My response was something like, "We didn't pass out candy last year - we were going to, since it was our first Halloween in the house and all, but I don't like to leave the house much, and I guess picking up candy was just too hard." What. The. Fuck?! Who says shit like that 45 seconds into a conversation with a stranger who lives across the street? She sort of nodded like she understood the crazy coming out of my mouth and mercifully moved onto another topic, which I obviously didn't fuck up too horribly, because I don't remember what it was.
I was thrilled to learn she's a Librarian! A real, live Librarian right across the street from my reading porch. How awesome is that? We chatted for probably half an hour, Jimi joining us mid-way to introduce himself and say hello. I don't think I was too bad after that initial flub, but Jimi insists I shouldn't have referenced "smoking a bowl" when we were talking about things to do when you're floating downriver on a canoe.
A few weeks ago, the weekend of Melinda and Gary's wedding, I went to a housewarming party at the home of some friends. I was brilliant that night! I got like 5 high-fives for funny shit I said, and I replayed those snippets of conversation over and over in my head for the next 3 days, congratulating myself for being brilliant and hilarious. I wanted to tell Jimi about the time we were all talking about the well-known fact that Gingers don't have souls, and someone said, "Well, then what about Ben? Ben's not a Ginger, but he doesn't have a soul" and I was all, "Yeah, but he's Jewish" and the crowd went wild. (Ben high-fived me for that one, for the record, so I totally wasn't being a nazi cunt or anything.) The whole night went that way - someone setting up a punchline that came into my head with perfect timing - that happens to me so rarely!
But that party was full of people who know and love me. They've known me for at least 5 years, and they invite me to things because they enjoy my company, despite my quirks (like how I rarely show up to things I'm invited to). I was comfortable there, completely at ease.
(I'll be honest, though, if Steve hadn't been there, my night probably wouldn't have gone quite as swimmingly. He's like my Jimi surrogate when Jimi's not around - he provides that security and safety that I rely on when I'm not in my home. I feel like he wouldn't let anything bad happen to me - he'd save me from a rapist, or he'd punk out some asshole that was mean to me...not that either of those situations have ever presented themselves, but I feel confident he would defend me and my honor. He's like a big brother I never had but always wanted.)
The Tuesday after the housewarming party, Jimi and I went to Lisa's for dinner. The tentative plan was to order in, catch up (we'd not seen her in over a year!), and then meet up with her fiance' for drinks and fun later.
Before I go further with that, I should give you some background on Lisa and Jimi: The first night I went to Jimi's apartment in Old Louisville, hanging on the wall in the center of his living room were two large pieces of framed art; cut-outs of a beautiful platinum blonde, staged in all different poses, wearing all sorts of costumes - it was Lisa, and the piece is called Paper Dolls. It hangs in our living room today. Then, though, I thought it was proof positive that he had a relationship with this gorgeous woman, and I immediately saw how inadequately I measured up to her in beauty and creativity and all-around awesome. Of course, they weren't a couple - she is what he refers to as his "Sissy". Likewise, he is her "Sissy". They are 3 days apart in age and joke that they are twins. Lisa is deeply involved in all things ART, and Jimi loves all things ART, and on this level they meld and mesh in a way I will never be able to with him.
Obviously, I'm a bit intimidated by her. I didn't realize that's what it was or call it that until after Jimi pointed it out to me on Wednesday, when I sent him an email apologizing for being a drunken slore and drinking half a big bottle of wine and half a beer and eating 2 huge slices of pizza and nearly puking in Lisa's bathroom and then falling asleep at Lisa's kitchen table. His words were, "I told her you're intimidated by her, and that you get a little over-excited and over-indulge, but once you're comfortable with her, you'll norm out." I wanted to argue, but I couldn't. He's so perceptive, that man of mine. I'm terrified that I won't measure up, so I make a fool out of myself to prove it.
I feel like that in most social situations where I'm not well-known and already loved. I feel awkward and not good enough and strange and uninteresting and uncool, and I throw out the very worst of me to try to disprove these thoughts that probably only live in my head until I say or do something to show it to everyone else.
Thank goodness there's something underlying my crazy that doesn't make all people turn and run in the opposite direction; thank goodness there's something there that says "Wait, maybe she's funny sometimes, and maybe she's the sort that would buy a round, and maybe she's pretty smart when we're not talking about a subject that's way over her head, and maybe she's the type who'd be willing to give me a ride to the airport, and maybe she's one of those people who won't notice that I haven't called for two years when I need a shoulder to cry on." I have good qualities, I swear! Maybe they're just not so obvious when you first meet me; maybe that veneer of awkward and strange is just something you just have to look through, like one of those 3-D pictures that you have to stare at for a few seconds before you can see the image.
Is it completely obnoxious to compare my personality to a 3-D picture from the 1990's? "I am so deep and hard to understand." Yeah. Like a fishbowl.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
If you ever doubted that part where I said that I'm crazy, you probably won't after you read this.
I'm riding a pretty high wave right now; pretty sure that explains my lack of words here. I usually don't have much to say when life is awesome, which I've always found strange, because shouldn't I want to record the good, just as I always record the bad?
Last Wednesday marked the day, five years ago, that Jimi met my eyes across the bar table and said, "I'm still prettier than you"...and I had no idea what the strange hairy man was talking about. (He was referencing a conversation we'd had the previous week, one which I still only vaguely recall.) We finished the evening making out in his truck for nearly 4 hours, before he drove me home and dropped me off with a kiss and a promise to call the next day. He called, and the rest, as they say, is history. I knew it was the beginning of something wonderful, but I don't think I was capable of imagining how good it was really going to get. How lucky are we?
There's a lot of love in my home. It's like this living breathing thing is here with us - filling the space between us, making us aware of each other and our individual needs maybe just a little more than usual. We're working together, communicating deep thoughts, touching, kissing, loving...it's like things are new, but better, because everything is familiar and comfortable.
"When you have everything / You have everything to lose"
Last Wednesday marked the day, five years ago, that Jimi met my eyes across the bar table and said, "I'm still prettier than you"...and I had no idea what the strange hairy man was talking about. (He was referencing a conversation we'd had the previous week, one which I still only vaguely recall.) We finished the evening making out in his truck for nearly 4 hours, before he drove me home and dropped me off with a kiss and a promise to call the next day. He called, and the rest, as they say, is history. I knew it was the beginning of something wonderful, but I don't think I was capable of imagining how good it was really going to get. How lucky are we?
There's a lot of love in my home. It's like this living breathing thing is here with us - filling the space between us, making us aware of each other and our individual needs maybe just a little more than usual. We're working together, communicating deep thoughts, touching, kissing, loving...it's like things are new, but better, because everything is familiar and comfortable.
"When you have everything / You have everything to lose"
That line goes through my head a lot. I used to tell Jimi that he was so good, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop - for him to have a drug problem or owe someone a million dollars or have a secret hoard of ex-wifes and baby-mamas; he would get mad and be all "what the fuck, Natalie?" I don't feel that way anymore, I know better - but I still feel like i'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'm terrified it's all going to be swept away from me.
It's ridiculous. I try really hard not to think about it at all. But it's there, niggling in the back of my mind, saying, "What have you done to deserve all of this good fortune - surely something horrible is on its way. You can't possibly have it this good when so many who are so much better have it so much worse."
Maybe that's part of why I don't blog much when I'm extra happy - I don't want to tempt fate. Maybe I fear it's tacky to talk about how my job is busy but great, and Jimi just got another bonus, and we've had the best sex lately, and my kitchen is clean, and I've made dinner three times in three night and that makes me feel like a super fucking betty crocker housewife queen. Maybe I'm afraid that if I tell the world about all of that, I'll wake up in the morning and...
what I'm afraid to write is that I'm afraid Jimi will die. I typed "...I'll wake up in the morning and Jimi won't love me anymore", but I deleted that, because that's one fear that never enters my mind - unless his mind is taken from him, I'm secure in the knowledge that his heart belongs to me. My fear is that it'll stop beating.
So there you have it. When I'm crazy stupid happy head-over-heels feelin' like life is the best thing ever, in the back of my mind I'm terrified that if I enjoy it too much, if I write about it too much, that it'll all be taken away from me in the form of my beloved dying some crazy untimely death.
To be fair, I'm always terrified that my parents are going to die, too, and my brother, but my world would be irreparably shattered if something happened to Jimi.
This is not normal, is it? It's fucked up and weird, I'm certain. Now I want to backpedal and say that I don't think about this shit all the time, and it's true, I don't. It's a dark corner in the back of my mind...one that's probably best left un-talked-about, but I've already written all these words, I'm not deleting them now. Whatevs.
All I can do is enjoy what I've got. I'm trying real hard to convince myself that unabashed shameless joy is completely fine, and not some form of Russian roulette with fate.
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