My Weaknesses Displayed

Ask about my weaknesses and I'll tell you I spend more time plotting the next thing I plan to say and not listening to the ideas you've just plopped before me.  If I'm doing well, I'll stop talking at that point.  I tend to talk too much and it will cross my mind that it's a problem because you take too long to spit out what you are thinking and odds are you are not cute enough to entertain me and I will guess repeatedly what you should have said by now because my curiosity isn't satisfied by your slow self expression. Your point should have arrived and you are now stepping on my time and my interest has flown. In short, I can be really impatient. At the same time, I can get completely tongue tied.  When my words come out a jumbled heap and the words don't sound like words, that means I'm excited and nervous and feeling intimidated by the person I'm talking to.  This is the time when silly confessions and saying more than I should becomes a problem.  I will shine with the creepy observations that the average person doesn't see because that careful observation of everything around me and the imagination that fuels them are normally the perfect breeding medium for what I write, but I've turned off that censor and words tumble out and make messes of embarrassment that cover me in bright excitement and the heat rises and my cheeks feel it the most.  It's not as simple as shame or embarrassment. It is a jeweled crown of mortification.

I also have more passive than aggressive in my anger.  I may write what I think, but I won't live it out. I should verbalize my anger. I'm much more careful with the gilded frame in which I situate my words when I have fear my words will hurt another person.  I'm always a little too worried about hurting others. It's usually a strength, but not when it's only at my expense, and not when my caution is fear based. Being assertive is on my radar but I'm very much into hedonistic exploits right now, and assertive training isn't part of that. At the same time, I believe joy and happiness are choices, and I haven't found the balance between happiness and aggression.  Let me know if you think of a safe place to express my pissy moods.

Insecurities are a thing, and they're my thing.  I wrap them around me and push through them until they become my strengths for the most part.  At times I can't even see my insecurities until they've been twisted into weapons by someone else. That's the point of this post.  If I announce it, I can own it and deal with it.

I have been teased about using $5 words and shamed for trying to sound smart.  I like reading and being a bookish broad wasn't always a strength.  Again, it might just be the men I was dating. I find men that can get lost in a book and are able to converse about the ideas bounding from their shifting perspective is a new kind of sexy that I didn't know how to address before. It still intimidates me. I have spent too long trying to simplify my language so I don't look like I'm trying to make someone feel bad. I don't mind explaining myself, I just hate second guessing myself.

I do a lot of reading and much less talking, so I'm sometimes unsure about the words I want to use because I know what they look like and what they mean, but I don't always know what they sound like.  I don't want to relive reading "melancholy" out loud in junior high. That was bad.

I love too hard, and for much too long.  There are patterns we get from our family of origin, so thanks Mom. This inability to quit for the sake of love is what had me holding on to my marriage for so long.  Letting go and accepting that some questions are not meant to have answers is difficult for me.  Closure sounds so silly in the face of all that was done, but at the end of the day, it matters more that too much happened, and not why it had to.  Some things don't need a reason that I can understand.  Earthquakes are natural but not normal and we don't always know how to predict them with accuracy enough to evacuate cities.  Sometimes the shaking is the only point I need to process and grow from.

Some puzzles keep bothering me.  People and their motives are fairly easy to grasp for the most part.  Every once in awhile I'll see a puzzling expression or someone will very clearly bite their tongue on a rogue thought that very nearly escaped. A moment kept crossing my mind to the point where I had a dream about it and woke up to keep turning it over like a cat tiring out a field mouse.  A month later and it was still crossing my mind.  I've had random moments where I'll catch a similar expression on someone else, and that moment is renewed and fresh in my mind for further torment.  It's insidious. I have a hard time letting go of things I want to know that I have no possible way of finding out. It's the same for riddles and plot lines that are not neatly tied by the author.

Math is a weakness. It started with multiplication tables in the 3rd grade.  I couldn't memorize them and math tends to build on itself.  I was solving quadratic equations and slowly counting out the multiplication I should have memorized on tapping fingertips and whispered counting on murmuring lips. I did really well in geometry, but algebra was a challenge. In high school I got through my second year of algebra and believed my counselor when she said I wouldn't need anymore math.  She lied.  You need a certain level of math to graduate college, and that class likely has several prerequisites.  If you don't practice it, you will forget it.  I wanted to be a geologist until the math required scared me away.  I got through college level algebra, but then I was looking at Trigonometry, Calculus, Chemistry and Physics, which are all special names for different math tortures and I decided English sounded a lot easier.  It was the practical decision when I looked at mothering and running a home. It was the boring choice to get lost in literature when  I could spend a night in a tent and get up with the sun to play in the earth with other scientists. Banging out a paper while half asleep was easier than solving equations and mapping complex equations along the x, y, and z axis. It's a weakness I've made peace with but every so often I entertain the idea of going back to do better in those classes.

I'm messy.  I have always been messy.  I grew up with too much junk in the house and it was comfortable. As an adult, walking into the home of a hoarder is both familiar and it gives me extreme anxiety.  As mom, I tried to keep up but found myself snapping at sensory integration dysfunction meltdowns.  When kid1 and kid2 were little, I would piece their wooden puzzles together and neatly stack them.  I'd leave the room for laundry, and hear the crash of a box of wooden puzzles being turned upside down and scattered with the Hot Wheels and Thomas the Tank Engine.  My kids might not have survived being toddlers if I hadn't decided the messes weren't that important. I had to let it go, or risk becoming an abusive parent.  Now I will save major cleaning for when they are with their Dad and I even enjoy cleaning up, but to clean while they are actively making messes can make me angry and a bit terrifying. I used to get so angry when I was trying to clean up around the ex that was watching television or laying in bed. The wife I was had to do everything at home on my own and I knew that if I left a mess, it would wait for me to get to it whenever I got around to it. Ideally, they would clean up after themselves, but that first struggle of having to wait for people to talk translates here as well.  It's easier on me mentally if I just do it myself, and one day I would love to hire someone to do it for me. Sometimes they help and from what I understand, they do a lot more at their Dad's house, but when I'm not exhausted, I find peace in picking up after my natural disasters while they sleep.  I put on music and dance through it.  There's balance.  If you saw how organized my sewing kit is, you'd see how much I crave the control.

I don't cry often.  It's a weakness because humans are not meant to hold it all in. At times I'll have a slow leak of too much emotion.  The tears fall silently and I may sniffle a bit, then blame it on allergies.  Most people around me might not notice it unless they are super sensitive or over informed about my latest drama. There's always drama. I have a seething angry cry.  That usually comes out when I withhold a beating of angry words for someone else's sake.  I don't ugly cry though and those cries are the most healing.  I don't even cry chopping onions anymore.  I could use a good cry and I'm not even sure how to turn that stuff on.  I could have been one of those women that manipulates a relationship with waterworks, but I never figured out how.

The Pets I've Loved

As a kid, I remember finding a dead bird and wrapping it in large ivy leaves and giving it a full burial.  My neighbors had a thing for birds and I watched over several days as they carved a piece of softwood into a nest for their little eggs.  The neighborhood dog had puppies every spring.  I wanted to witness every aspect of puppies and dog life, and would laugh at seeing two dogs stuck together. They were cute until they became loud and stinky.  I eventually convinced my parents to let me have one.  There's nothing like the smell of puppy breath and seeing them wander aimlessly on bellies with pudgy and useless paws, leading with noses that know the smell of their exhausted mother, though their eyes and ears were sealed shut. I've rescued a litter from underneath a house because the spot chosen during the beginning rains wasn't ready for the water sluicing through the mud as the storm progressed.  One spring I was cramming for an exam and the dog sitting at my feet started whelping pups. That carpet was doomed and I ended up ripping it out myself. With the many births and pets I've had, death and loss are part of that.  I've cried over some of my animals, but not all of them.  Maybe that makes me cold, but I doubt you cry over every human life lost and broadcast on the news.  I tend to do that and don't watch the news anymore because of the uncontrollable empathy that I feel, but I will read and catch up on stories as I choose to. I've always thought of animals as part of my home, but home is shifting for me.  I have a home, but more and more my home is where I am happiest, and that place shifts depending on my mood.  It's no longer tied to a place and a person. It's all about me, and while I still have animals in my home, they are not my home.  I miss my children when they are gone, but shared custody has given me an early empty nest for part of the week.  For a while I wanted home to be my haven, but I'm finding peace in knowing my home travels wherever I roam and I can find joy in almost anything.

We're down to two animals! My lonesome koi doesn't count as I have nothing to do with his survival.  That little thing just won't die.  I never even named the little guy. I like having the two animals.  We're down to the first two we adopted when we moved here 9 years ago and before we found out about the many allergies my older two suffer from.

Nature is the German Shepherd mix we adopted as a puppy.  I can't justify her name, but I can justify the pride my then 5 year old felt in naming her.  He's 14 now.  He was nonverbal for so long, we were encouraging his words in any way they came out.  She has old lady joints and forgets about them sometimes.  She reminds me of myself although I would be willing to part with her.  She follows me and lounges near me.  She understands when I tell her to get off the couch or go to her yard, but she will also look at me as she tries to steal scraps at the table. She gets that from Kid2. Socks is the cat we had since she was a teenager of a kitten.  She was playful and loved socks on laundry day.  Now she's a murderer that will eviscerate birds, rodents and lizards, leaving entrails and feathers with an occasional tail.  She eats her kill, then she'll delicately lick her paws as if it's a regular bath and not destruction of evidence. She keeps rodents away, so she's a keeper. She likes people though.  The first few weeks after my ex left, she would bring me a freshly killed bird each morning.  I hate the way she loves me.

We had Max dog for several years.  He was a stray that followed my niece home.  She couldn't keep him and we took him to the pound.  We kept checking on him to see if he had a missing owner that missed him.  We eventually adopted him because I couldn't imagine that sweet boy being put down.  Now my niece is a grown up with her own place and she was able to take him back.  He was my teenager, always hungry and sneaking food off the table, and sneaking out for a midnight run.  He was very sweet and loving and often tried to steal kisses from me, but he knew I don't get licked by dog tongues. Every so often he would try to convince me he could be a lap dog. My niece picked him up last night before I hit the beach. I didn't ask the kids.  I just did it and when they got home today they were okay with it.  They like the idea of visiting him still or having him visit on holidays when my brother brings his dog, my sister sometimes brings hers, and my nephews bring theirs.

I've had so many animals.  It started with a German Shepherd named Spikey Brownie Power.  I wanted to name him after Spike from Tom and Jerry.  My sister wanted to name him Brownie but I was the baby and I won almost everything until my parents started foster care.  Spikey came from the neighborhood dog that got knocked up every time she was in heat and we called her Puppy.  I called her Puppy Power and that's where his last name came from.

Bear was my favorite.  He didn't do tricks because I didn't teach him any, but he was smart and he understood me.  He understood English and my very limited Spanish. My early 20's were rough and he was by my side with his head in my lap whenever I cried.  I got him through Parvo only to lose him to a rattlesnake bite a few months later. Living in the wilder areas near Dodger's Stadium wasn't always great.  Sure parking at home and walking to the stadium had perks.  The grassy lots on Elysian Park and Stadium Way that people park in now were always full of rattlers.   My friends were always giving Bear tastes of their beer. He was a chow mix mutt.

All of my animals were mutts and either came from a shelter or got adopted out of a back yard in the neighborhood. Mighty Max was a chihuahua that came with the name a friend gave him before she had to give him up. Gorda ended up being an only puppy because her mother (Puppy) was part stupid and had her litter on the couch we kept on the porch.  Some of them were smothered in the cushions and under her. Puppies that survive when their littermates all die get to sample each nipple as many times as they want to.  She loved falling asleep in my pumps.   Eventually only her muzzle would fit in my shoe. Chester was mainly black with a patch of white that looked like chest hair.  Cuddles was a husky and she was a whiny little bitch. We had a chihuahua named Naughty List.  You can't be a homeless dog at Christmas without being on the Naughty List.  Honestly, I don't remember all of the animals I've had.

The cats I remember were Sugar who was white with a orange litter mate named Tang. Our sitter's neighborhood cat died, leaving her kittens homeless and I wanted to rescue them.  Arwen was my cuddly cat.  She would lay on me at night.  I would shift positions or roll over and she would walk on me as I rolled and ended up on top of me as smoothly as if I had never moved.  She was the mothering cat that took in and loved all kittens.  We adopted her from the pound after her abortion.  She's been gone a little over a year. Milk was a kitten I got from my sister.  His mother was a Savannah that my sister bought on sale which means she still spent more than I would have. He was my first tiny kitten and I had no idea cow's milk could be fatal.   A large vet bill later, and I named him Milk. My ex brought home a pit bull for long enough to break in a window that Milk jumped out of.  Milk died by dog when the pit decided it was play time.  The pit went away after that.  I've fostered a couple of kittens long enough to know round the clock feedings with a wet cotton ball were not worth the cute.

We also had reptiles.  For a while, the ex wanted to run a reptile rescue.  I never volunteered to be his mother, so I went with it as long as my involvement was as minimal as I wanted. The kids preferred sleeping on the couches, so he commandeered their room to house over 30 different reptiles.  I had a few I liked.  I had two sulcata tortoises I named Slow and Poke.  I had a couple of baby albino corn snakes I named Clio and Calliope.  We had a tegu that I fed raw ground turkey mixed with raw eggs and calcium powder.  We just called him Tegs. He had a dog like temperament, and would follow me around in the little play pen we put up for him.  The cats would watch from outside, super curious and more cautious.  We had a mali uromastyx named Chubby that I grew collard greens for.  He was sweet and loved so much by Kid2. I hated the iguana and that temperamental tail whip of a beast hated me too. One Father's Day one of the red tailed boa constrictors gave live birth, then smashed some of it's babies because snakes are awful mothers.  We had ball pythons and bearded dragons that were always in the mood for love. We had turtles and frogs, and chameleons.  There were live rodents and frozen rodents, live crickets and freeze dried crickets.  I chopped fresh produce and was grateful that someone in the house was willing to eat a salad.

When I was a kid I had a hamster named Goober.  My uncle found him and his habitat with food and everything else he needed left with the trash collection in 90210. He was a sweet little food hoarder.  We brought home a rat and didn't feed the snakes right away.  She gave birth and I pardoned her.  That is how we started breeding rats for a while.  They don't mind incest and we had several rat litters going for a while.  They are amazing mothers, willing  to steal babies from other mothers to raise and care for.  Feeding them is important because once food becomes scarce (even by a couple of hours), they will turn into cannibals and eat each other.  I couldn't keep doing it because, ew.

I fully recognize I've done more than most would, and it's quite enough. I like other people's animals, but this newly designed life I'm choosing isn't going to keep including animals.  I may keep a cat because I prefer an invited cat that is okay staying outdoors to uninvited rodents, but once Nature dies I'm not getting a replacement dog.  I plan to run away on weekends and I can't do that without worrying about the beasts.  In the last decade or so, animals that can't reproduce were a first choice.  We'd have pets and ask someone to check on them when we wanted to skip town, but now I love the idea of an empty house and no obligations because I know the kids are fine with their Dad when he has them and I love the idea of skipping town to play in towns I've always wanted to see. Is it horrible that the last guy that asked for my number while walking his dog was rejected because of the dog I was petting? Really, the question of whether I'm dating comes down to who's asking and so far I haven't been asked by anyone I'd be willing to change my dating status for. Dog or no dog, I probably would've found another reason to reject him.

Laughter and Flirting Over the Pacific on Easter

I can't complain about my Easter away from my kids.  I was with family.  There was lots of laughter and joy.  Maybe a little Jim Beam Apple Whiskey, straight up. Very little.  Like a taste, but not enough to call it a shot, and I gave my Mom's orange tree a taste too, because it looked thirsty.  I'm so not a drinker but there are enough in my family that my weak contributions are made up for.

My brother had an idea for my cover up tattoo.  I haven't nailed down ideas yet for covering up the ex's name.  He offered a mock up with a sharpie. It was somewhere along the lines of a craigslist ad.  I declined his offer.  All of us laughed for a little too long over that, and it was a moment of my family joining in on what they've spent a year respectfully giving space to.  My nephews and even my baby brother suggested different dating sites and apps.  They want to see me move on and they believe in my ability to find happiness.  They saw what years with the ex meant for me, and they want better.  I have no idea what better looks like, but they believe he's out there for me. They encouraged me to jump in and go after what I want. They made me laugh and they made me smile and these days my smiles come so much easier than they used to. I wanted to laugh and smile and I was happy to take their suggestions. I needed that push.  It was a good push.

I came home for long enough to get a few things done, then I drove to the beach.  There's something about the ocean that makes me happy. I walked along Will Rogers for long enough to be slightly creeped out at being completely alone except for the few men going through the trash cans with flashlights.  I was approached with a friendly request for a joint.  I haven't touched one in decades. I decided a more populated beach might be a wise decision and drove to Santa Monica.  I walked along the sand for a while, then decided to walk the pier and see if fish were biting for the anglers up there.  I was surprised by a text, and ended up flirting shamelessly for a while before heading home.

I've decided the moment my husband changed into my ex, was when I was ready to consider a next.  The men in my family encouraged me enough to take a chance and the reward on my gamble was huge.  There's been laughter tonight.  Lots of laughter and silly giggles.  There is so much healing in silly giggles and belly laughs. The flirting was completely one sided.  It was entirely on my side, with spaced out polite responses from the other side.  The huge take away was that I loved the way flirting made me feel. Even a polite lack of interest is something to celebrate.

Angry Diatribes and Self Inflicted Injuries

The husband is on his way to pick the kids up for Easter.  We haven't really talked since my birthday and that was before I started blogging.  I can't stop the million and four mean things I should have said that run through my mind.  I start an internal chant of, "I forgive him," but the rage pushes through because I can't forget how he burned that bridge with me still on it.

I love my boys.  I love their hugs.  I love their silliness.  I see their fear and the uncertainty they live in.  My son spilled his drink while pouring it.  Sugar free fruit punch splattered, then pooled on the countertop and he began to attack himself over the accident.  He vocalized his frustration with himself.  He started to hit his head.  I stopped him.  I hugged him.  I told him it was a little spill and when was the last time I freaked out on a little spill?  On the other hand, actively making messes while I am actively cleaning up will piss me off.  He smiled at that and hugged me back, then I cleaned up the mess because it took two seconds and a flowing motion from what I was already in the middle of. It's the next morning and I feel I need to be gentle with myself for nurturing the responsibility of the mess away from him.

There was a chance I wanted to take that I didn't, and those thoughts still haunt me.  I know the timing is wrong because I am still angry with my husband that I am still legally married to.  I believe there are chapters in my life on hold, waiting to be woven into the narrative. I know that in time everything falls into place in the best possible way.

Today I will be gentle with myself.  I will love my quirky ideals and accept my anger as a valid feeling before I release it.  I will play with my hair and spackle on makeup because I owe myself the focus and I may meet my next adventure later tonight. Then I'm putting on jeans because that adventure usually lies along Pacific Coast Highway. I hear good things about Zuma Beach and I haven't been there yet.

Scent Memories and Lingering Ghosts

There's something so primal about a memory tied to scent. Infants at birth will use their sense of smell to know where food is coming from.  They are familiar with the sound of mom's voice but her scent is instinctual. There's an entire science of pheromones and secretions from sexual organs that call to sexual partners.  It's really fascinating and gets me excited in all my geeky places.  Scents can flood your mind with memories, help your memory and brain function, boost your mood . . . Your nose is amazing.  Mine tends to spread across my face a bit like peanut butter. It's adorable on my kids though. I was part of the last minute hordes on an egg run at the grocery store this morning. Reaching for a dozen eggs, my nose started sniffing in the opposite direction from where I was reaching and looking.  A man walked past me and his scent hit me in the memories of 8th grade.  I don't remember what he looked like.  It didn't even matter.  He reminded me of a boy in a semester length typing class.  I loved walking past him because he smelled like his black leather jacket and Drakkar Noir.  I didn't have a crush on him.  I just loved smelling him.

Dial antibacterial hand soap reminds me of a particular summer.  I once bought a ginormous refill bottle that lasted the entire summer.  There was a blonde skater who was in the middle of renovating his house.  He used the same soap in his bathroom, and that scent always reminds me of him. One whiff reminds me of him, but it only took two dates to decide he wasn't worth my time or the free drinks.

Old Spice reminds me of a frat boy with a gift for a single handed bra removal, and a love of binge drinking. He was an engineering major, and dorky enough to be cute. He didn't always wear it, but the one time he did left a memory that revives itself when I smell the original after shave. He loved how tall I was and had the silkiest black hair.  At the end of the day, commitment was never meant to be part of our relationship.

Sun tan oil reminds me of a season in skate shops and sandalwood scented sex wax.  That was a spring filled with Boone's Farm, sage smudge sticks and nicotine kisses. It was a time when I could expect a hand picked bouquet of some neighbor's flowers each day.

Lately my scent memory reminds me I have a history before marriage and I will have a future after this one.  There will probably be a next husband once I get past the fear of being open to the first date.  I wonder what that will smell like.

Why Confidence is More Than Body Image

I was bathing suit shopping with a friend who told me she wished she had my confidence.  If I can accept the lower aspects of the people I love, then I have to accept the lower parts of who I am, and be willing to grow from where I am to where I intend to be. I've loved large men, even the morbidly obese. I've loved drug addicts.  I've loved narcissistic men who cared more about how I made them look, than how I felt.  I've loved materialistic men, and men with less attractive features. I didn't let bad hygiene keep me from love.  If I can love in spite of a less than ideal partner, what makes me any less loveable? I tell my autistic sons that Superman has super sensory abilities, but we would never call him disabled.  If he's not disabled, they're superheroes too.  If they're superheroes, and I am the curator of their future, what makes me any less than amazing?

I spend a decent amount of time each morning in my bra and panties, standing in front of a full body mirror like Linda Carter did when I used to watch Wonder Woman.  Hands on hips, proud of my . . . well, I like the way a good bra fits. From this angle, I can see all of me, and I refuse to look for imperfections.  That would be like watching the sun during a sunset, but ignoring the shifting colors in the sky and clouds.

I never take off the class ring my Dad bought me.  I refused a ring in high school because I always knew I'd eventually get my college ring.  It took 17 years for a 4 year degree, but I earned it without cheating or taking short cuts.  I did it with a young family, and through surrogacies, and I usually had to fight for and justify my plans to my husband because being a student meant I had less to offer him and the kids.  I still had to do all of the cooking and cleaning and studying, and coming to bed because he was tired of waiting up for me, even though I'd sneak out of the bedroom once he was asleep and bang out a paper into the early morning hours for class the next day.  For a while, kid2's greatest goal when he grows up was to be a graduate.  More than what I accomplished in school was what it looked like to my kids.

On any given day, if I pay attention, I can spot at least one person checking me out. He will usually be fully aware that it would be a waste of time to approach me, but he's looking and for a moment, he sees something he wants.  Ignoring these looks is part of survival as a female in a larger city.  No matter what you look like, people will look, and for a moment, you become a living centerfold.  Teenaged boys could have a breeze make them happy.  It doesn't take much to spark male imaginations. You can wilt at the blatant objectification, or let it empower you as you decide what that look means or doesn't mean to you. Keep your head held high, and consider your attraction a public service as you've probably brightened someone's day.

Wear the short skirt or low cut blouse.  Stuff yourself into those jeggings because feeling like stuffed sausage looks hot. (I actually don't own a pair of jeggings.) Sway your hips with each step you take, one foot directly in front of the other, shoulders back.  Choose the bikini.  Wear the heels that make your calves rock solid and lift your butt just enough. Always throw on your confidence.  No one can manufacture it or make it fit, except for you.

A Princess Poem

Another fall back Friday poem from before 2005. A Princess

I am a princess

I don’t hide it

Every one knows

Though they see me differently

That man,

Over there drowned in his

Hip-hop style

That street-talking-no-class-having boy

“What’s up?” he says

I smile

He sees me as some ghettofied Nubian Princess

My waiter

The waiter that has claimed me while I dine here

That dickies-wearing-gang-style boy

Attempting an honest living

He sees me as a puta

When I refuse the tap water he places in front of me

A puta

To some men, even princesses are putas

As the customer

I own him

As a princess

I pardon him

That girl

The one who can’t control her dirty looks

The one with the cheap perfume and

Butterfly wing eyelashes

The one who tries to cover her foul insides with that

Elaborate

Covering.  She tries

So hard and doesn’t know

That she too can be a princess

I smile her way

And I don’t care what she thinks

Of me

I know I am a princess

Glendale College Parking

This is a fall back Friday poetry offering from some time before 2005. Glendale College Parking

It’s a dance, really

Driving in circles

Watching, coveting the person

Walking to their car

They tease you seductively

Knowing they’re being watched

Your pulse races

Foreplay

The car is moved

And it returns to the sea of other cars

Somewhere on the floor – in the backdrop of your mind

Before your spot is stolen

You plunge forward

Backing slowly

Then forward and in again

It’s become an art now

Easing the friction

Sliding in and out until

Your surroundings are

Equidistant with the slickness of space

You’re surrounded

Held almost

That spot is yours

You shift the gear into park position

And the hum of the engine is calm

It sits in it’s spot

Idle and content

You turn off the engine

And your car is at rest

You lock up and head off to class

And you forget – that space was raped

And will be again

Once you pull out

And are discarded

And forgotten

My Apologies for Objectifying A Beautiful Man

I can see how shameless my crush watch on Mr. Hot (and so out of reach) was. This revision comes with perspective because time is generous that way.  Also, it seemed important to give this apology a special place. What started out as silly with That’s cute. became out of control with my Obsessive Observations.  It's faded into the delight of what my crush became to me, even though he offered nothing more than smiles and someone to daydream about that wasn't my ex. It was a series of firsts that I wrote about in Crushing and Laughter  and I was able to share my gratitude about some of them in Thank you. which was about many men in my life. It was nice to imagine someone else in writing Haunted and Your name. What is most shameful is my blatant objectification of a man who probably has strong feelings and I so obviously wasn't interested in them.  I wrote about his body, and in keeping what I saw when I looked in his eyes to myself, I completely made him a thing. What kind of human being does that? It might have been a partial attempt to keep certain things private and only mine, but in so doing, I've violated him in the way so many women are violated and objectified.  I used him for my lusty purposes and a part of my audience, with opinions I actually care about know I'm not all sugar and spice and hiding in a closet somewhere there might be leather and lace and we won't discuss restraint, because clearly I have very little.  I've taken off my mask unintentionally and while I was received in love, it wasn't planned and there was shock. Whether or not this is or one day will be publicly tied to me, I feel I owe him a sincere apology.  For nearly a year I was determined to be a wife, accepting all my husband dished out to me, and in a few sentences he changed my mind.  I met that with fear and reacted by objectifying him to avoid how deeply he affected me.  It was a cop out and I really am sorry that I was so afraid of the light he exposed into my darkness. This light grew into a confidence that helped me remove my wedding band and decide it was time to let go. People we both worked with have been given access to details about my lustful infatuation and I really feel bad if it's caused him any embarrassment.  It is a responsibility that falls solidly on my shoulders and my apologies to him are weighted with a debt of gratitude.

Being Drained by Emotional Vampires

Lately when my phone rings I'm pretty sure it's going to be someone that needs a zap of my sunshine because staying positive is a thing I do.  Most interviews and follow ups come in as emails. I answer all calls and return the calls I miss because I believe a call (or text) means someone has something important to say to me.  Even pocket dials are taken as an opportunity for serendipity. Most of the time, these calls from a small handful of people leave me exhausted.  Opening with a hello often opens the door to the many ways their frustrations and stresses and depressions weigh on their souls.  They unload, and I don't avoid it because there is a trust in being the keeper of secrets.  There is an undeniable honesty in the heaviness unburdened on me.  The phrase "emotional vampire" comes to mind, but I dismiss it because it seems harsh. Every call ends with their heaviness weighing on me.  It usually takes a moment to shake it off.  Sometimes it takes effort.  Sometimes it takes a minute in the sun.  Sometimes it just requires clothing optional lounging.  The best escape and recharge is when I get lost in nostalgia and remember the times and the men that made me smile.  It's playing with my dogs or my cat taking hostage of my arm (when she's kind enough to retract those claws). Those calls end and I'm putting on music to sing and dance to.  I'm shaking off the lingering energy that is heavy and sticky.  Sometimes those calls force me outdoors.  Today  I was content in the powerlessness of being stuck in traffic.  Wow.  Does that mean I prefer traffic to the voice I heard right before it?  I'm not sure.

Free Hugs From a Hug Addict

I'm back to that person that loves hugs.  I really love hugs.  Have you ever had a hug that lingers? It's a moment of "let me hold onto you because I'm lost outside of your arms."  Or when your world is falling apart and you get one of those hugs that seem to hold you together?  Those are golden.  I don't hug everyone.  If I can't hug you like I mean it, I have no business hugging you.  If I hug someone, I want my warmth to fill every part of them.  If I'm the one that needs a refill, I find the calm of another heart beating against mine to be an amazing feeling.  Kid3 always requests a bear hug.  He likes it when I hold him so tightly he can hear his spine complain, and I lift him off the ground and nuzzle into his neck. He likes those more than I do.  I like kneeling and wrapping my arms around him, and breathing in his hair.  Kid2 likes a snuggle in bed where he fits his shoulder in my armpit and his head rests on my chest.   They all know when I give them the look that used to put fear in them, it now means I have gone far too long without a hug and I'm in need of one.  Kid1 walks over to me and puts his head on my shoulder and I wrap my arms around him, but he very rarely hugs back, and that's okay too.   I miss man hugs.  Those are special on their own.  I will never again take for granted the safety and protection a man hug can give.

Silver Linings for a Jilted Wife

Being a jilted wife hasn't been without its blessings. In the beginning, I needed some form of hope to cling to, and it was consistently provided. My greatest hope was for a reconciliation.

I had a friend tell me about her parents separating and reconciling after 8 years.  Another friend's parents did the same after 3 years.  My sister's brother in law divorced, then remarried his wife.  I was doing a bathroom and kitchen remodel and the guy doing the construction work told me about the 3 years he had left his wife and that they had just reconciled and with all of them, it was better the second time.  With all of these stories, the leaving husband was going through the same script that detailed the happiness he deserved.

There were times when I needed a financial miracle and with perfect timing, one would fall in my lap. I had a bunch of returns and purchases to make one day, and I accidentally dipped into the red in my primary checking account.  The exact amount of cash I had from the returns was able to get my account positive by pennies.  I anticipated a debit for my car insurance and when it wasn't deducted, I called and was told my account was current and not due for another month.  I still don't know how that happened. Some of the women who had told me their stories of being left for some nebulous idea of deserved happiness offered money for gas or money for frivolous Christmas gifts for the kids. I was replacing a missing toilet auger at Home Depot when I ran into my Mom and she bought the auger and a Christmas tree when I had no idea how a tree was going to happen. I've had people I didn't expect to help me buy me groceries.  My sister had my cousin bring her a pair of Uggs from his trip to Australia, and when they didn't fit her, she gave them to me.  My parents have been unceasingly generous, helping me in the most unexpected ways.

I've spent nearly 16 years being a stay at home mom and sometimes student.  My wardrobe reflected that. As a wife, I very rarely went shopping for myself. I love designer purses, but all of them have been gifts from other women or hand me downs.  I wore everything until I was forced to throw it away.  When my husband left, I was forced to look much more seriously for work, and I chose to look for something that would challenge and inspire me. I had wardrobe donations from a cousin I had met twice, and a friend of my mother's that I still have never seen.  Everything they gave me fit perfectly and I was able to be picky about what I wanted to keep.

The biggest miracles seemed to involve my car.   For most of 2015 I was driving a 1989 Ford Contour. Paying for a used car in full is what we usually did.  We'd run it into scrap, and buy another used car.  It was almost an income tax time tradition. It had problems. Lots of problems.  For most of the problems, I lucked out in having a cousin in school to become a mechanic.  They're always looking for cars to work on and it usually just cost me parts.  My Dad helped with the rest.

The night before Christmas Eve I was driving to my sister's house, 20 miles away.  After I got off of the freeway, my car started to sound funny.  Just as I was pulling into a parking space on the street near her house, the power steering went out.  I went inside and we made tamales.  When it was time to leave, I was able to drive to the gas station about two blocks from her.  I pulled into a space and added power steering fluid.  When I tried to start the car, I heard the clicking that tells you your battery is dead.  I was safely parked in a space, and my sister called to check on me.  She was walking toward me when I was talking to my roadside assistance.  They covered 10 miles. Because Dad's AAA covers 200 miles, I spent the night at my sister's house.  She had a house guest for a few months that happened to be out that night. I had a comfortable bed to sleep in.  She gave me a pair of polar fleece pajamas.  She doesn't wear contact lenses but her husband does, so I had a contact lens case and solution.  And a fresh toothbrush because she practically stockpiles those. I felt so protected and so grateful that this didn't happen on the freeway.  Facebook and the tow truck driver helped me troubleshoot.  It was the serpentine belt pulley system.  My cousin fixed it, but the problem came up again in January.  He repaired the pulley for me, but it was time to replace it. I recognized what was happening and was able to safely pull over to park on the street and have it towed.  He didn't have a way to fix it quickly this time. My Mom would normally let me borrow her car, but her axle was broken from a car accident her car had just been in. My niece gave me a ride to a dealership and I walked in with a prayer and a smile.  I drove home in a 2016 Toyota Camry.  I'm sure it helped that I decided separate checking accounts meant I could improve my credit without permission. The license plate came on my birthday in mid February and the down payment was made later that week.  Yesterday my niece passed her driving test and registered the Ford Contour I just gave her.  She's driving her first car the day she got her license.

Right now I'm stressed.  I'm joyful, but not peaceful.  There is a heaviness in deciding to end a marriage.  My husband left, but the decision to divorce him has been left to me, as he hasn't started by filing yet.  The weight of that is heavy.  At the same time, I feel a freedom I didn't expect.  There is a lightness in being able to do what I want when the mood strikes. I'm excited about hitting the beach and getting lost in ocean waves this summer. It's been years since I've done so because being Mom means I was more worried about my kids than anything and I didn't want to get in the water where I could lose a child.  I was the one hoping to restore our family, and our kids will see me differently when I destroy that hope.  There is a burden in that. I'm more worried about my kids than a life of dreams I have released.  Job hunting has become a job.  I wake up and it occupies my every thought, and most of my actions.  So there's stress.  Today I needed to remember the miracles I walked through and refocus on new goals because the old ones have shifted and getting a divorce isn't a goal. It's a thing you do when you decide to close the book.

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Stress Induced Hospital Visits and a Hot Doctor as Treatment

My kids came home from their Dad's house on Monday.  Early Tuesday I started feeling mild chest pain, with leg cramps.  I had a feeling it was just stress. It seemed to get worse with every tantrum and meltdown I was forced to moderate.  At one point I almost called my husband to come get the kids so I could go to the hospital, but I decided against it because I didn't really want to give him anything to hold against me. He's already threatened me about the last two hours of respite I asked for.  And again, I wasn't sure it wasn't all just in my head.

He had kid1 text me they were on their way, and I started packing for a possible hospital stay.  I grabbed devices and chargers.  I threw in clean underwear, a hairbrush, toothbrush and toothpaste.  These are things I used to have him run and grab for me, but I wasn't even telling him.  And I haven't replaced him as my go to person yet, so I plan more closely than I used to.

He picked up kid3 and I got in my car.  I returned my niece's call that I missed while kid3 was on my phone.  He ignores people, and I could really learn from him, or start using him as an excuse.  I let her know what I was up to because it seemed responsible to let someone know where I was headed.  Then I spent almost 6 hours in the ER.

Having a history of pulmonary embolisms and current chest pain makes things move quickly, but you still have to wait for results to be read.  I had an EKG and bloodwork done.  Then there was a CT scan.  Then I waited. There was a lot of waiting as other patients were starting to wait on gurneys and wheelchairs in the halls, waiting for a room.  I'm not the only one willing to wait for the right time to make sure I'm not dancing with death.

My potassium was very low, but that happens when you forget to eat. I don't eat when I'm stressed, but I prefer that to eating everything I can see.  That happens when I'm depressed.  That's what caused the cramping that made me wonder if I had blood clots forming.  The rest was stress, so it really is all in my head. The chest pain felt just like it did when I had pulmonary embolisms.

The stress I'm feeling is so great that my body is trying to make me think I'm sick, or in mortal danger so that I'm forced to take care of myself.  I need to start imagining a baby duck again.  That visual was my focus when I was hospitalized for a month during my last surrogate pregnancy.  They are so adorable when they're learning to swim and so focused on swimming that the water slides off their backs, and they're persistent with the joys of learning.  I don't think about adult ducks.  They can be insanely aggressive and much more fearful.

I'm on Facebook more than I'd like to admit, but I don't ignore people when I get a ping.  I might wait a bit on responding to emails because most of it is junk mail or spammy forwards.  Last night a friend was asking about a sales pitch she wants me to attend.  I get the health benefits of what she's pushing.  I'm just having a hard time eating regular meals right now.  I'm not in a place to buy it, and I'm not interested in selling it either. I answered her questions because they weren't really about me.  I also got a message from a high school friend.  He's one of those football players I used to hang out with.  Always just a friend.  He knows how to make me smile, and in chatting with him, my chest pain went away.  I'm only sharing a small part of the conversation that happened after we were joking about running and how I want to do it, but he knows me well enough to know I really don't.

Him: Yeah i know...ur a princess.

Me:  Well, thank you.

Him:  I haven't forgotten! Lmao

Me:  I did. I forgot how to be royalty.

Him:  Well...time for u to get it back...

And this is one of the main reasons why I'll answer his pings in a heartbeat.  Great friends are great to keep around.  He's one of the few that checks on me without needing anything in return.  I appreciate that.

The doctor was beautiful.  He had yellowish brown hair that was probably a dark gold in the sun, he kept it fairly long and as I saw him throughout the night, it was in various stages of being combed neatly, and falling wildly over his ears, like running his hands through it was soothing a stressful day.  His hair looked soft, and I wanted to sample a feel.  He was tall and clearly took his workouts seriously.  He had soft brown eyes and a slight Italian accent to match his name.  And yes, I did repeat his name a few times. There's something so sensual about Italian names. I didn't even look to see if there was a wedding band.  I don't plan to go back or ever see his smile again.  At the end of the night, this handsome man that crafts miracles for a living looked me in the eyes and told me to take better care of myself and stay away from caffeine.  That was the best medicine.

I stopped at the grocery store for bananas, avocados, coconut water and dinner.  Potassium is happening because leg cramps suck. I walked around a bit before deciding that yes, hard salami and havarti are acceptable for dinner.  Salami for dinner is a perk for being a grown up without kids for the night or a husband to cook for.

 

Releasing: A Poem for a Failed Marriage

Facebook's "On This Day" button is one I click on every single day.  My husband said he wanted out of the marriage on March 11, and every day so far, I've been checking, wondering how I broke my silence.  There's a lot my mind protects me from in forgetfulness.  I had a community that wouldn't get involved and suggested I keep quiet about our separation. I felt this burden of shame because he wanted to quit.  I wanted to move forward and he was so stubbornly stuck on the past and I had no way of going back to repair damages. So I wrote a poem and left it on my Facebook wall.  I didn't give it a title.  Some emotions are too raw to be tamed with a name.  Then I forgot about it until today.

I willed her survival as I tried to pull her along. Feet stalled and failed until I saw she was lost in her prison of despair. The door swung open on failing hinges and she shut her eyes. How she couldn't hear the grinding and reigning rust is beyond me. She held the bars that gave blisters when I offered honeyed balm.

She died this night and my body swayed and rocked with dried tears and tired sobs. He came and watched me pull her. His hands were tied in before.

She left with all my insides. Her gift was too much pain. My dear so sweet you thrilled me and I must learn to live once more.

My Suicide Attempt Survival Story

This post has been brewing in my mind for a bit, and it's time.  It's not that I'm suicidal or even depressed right now.  I've decided today will be a great day and I'm expecting something good is on it's way.  I believe in choosing my moods and the feelings usually follow. After that serendipity and the universe conspire to surprise me.

Yesterday I started clicking through an article on Facebook.  It was one of those "21 celebs that took their own lives" type of stories that make you click through each and every one so you get the full exposure to all of their partners and sponsors or ads.  This was a horrible set up, as it allowed the author to repeatedly rephrase their sentiment, nullifying the tragedy of a life unfulfilled into statistics and cliche.

I'm writing to make it clear that I will never call suicide a coward's way out.

My first suicide attempt was a couple of months into the 7th grade.  I'm 38 now.

I don't remember wanting to die.  I felt overwhelmed.  I had my first crush and it turned obsessive and it was the first of many unhealthy infatuations.  My great grandfather had just died and the family was planning on driving out to Houston and I didn't want to go.  We had visited often enough, every few years.  All of my memories were of him being bedridden with a colostomy bag attached to the bed in varying degrees of fullness.  I would have to climb on the bed to give him a hug and a kiss where his lips couldn't quite pucker, and it was warm and wet.  I couldn't understand his slurred speech. I'd wander through his immaculate house full of mirrors and fiber optic lamps, and crystal vases filled with bright silk flowers in unnatural colors.  I didn't feel an attachment to him, and I didn't want to have to pack up during the school year to head out on a trip to Texas for a funeral.  I felt lost, and uncared for.

That night I snuck out of the house around 10 to go for a walk.  Late night strolls are how I will always self medicate. I snuck back in, and didn't get caught.  I grabbed a bottle of Advil and a bottle of Tylenol and started swallowing pills, one at a time and one bottle at a time.  In the morning when I woke up vomiting, it still didn't occur to me that I might die at that point.  I told my Dad I had taken pills.  I don't even remember which parent or if both of them were with me in the Kaiser emergency room.  I was so far from understanding the gravity of the situation.  I was almost nonchalant, in between puking.

Advil would've given me a stomachache.  Tylenol needed to be flushed out of my system because my liver couldn't process it.  I had my stomach pumped and was in intensive care for a few days, drinking medicine mixed with apple juice to make it more palatable.  It was years before I could smell apple juice without wanting to vomit.  It finally hit me when I was next to a mother with her anorexic baby.  When I saw her reaction to what I was there for, I saw the stigma attached to suicide in a way that I couldn't grasp before.  I had months of therapy, and never saw that it made a difference. I still don't know that I was depressed enough to kill myself, or if I was just bored and lonely.  To this day, I only take medication when absolutely necessary and I am really happy that I'm not on any medications.

Years later, during and right after high school, I made attempts.  The most dangerous attempt wasn't a fully formed thought of wanting death.  The attempts that came later were an absolute contemplation.  I will not deny that I was so depressed, I felt dying would be better than living. They were so long ago, I can't remember a sequence, and I'm not sure it would matter.

I was drinking.  It wasn't like the dream I had last night at a bar with friends and a sweating MGD in my hands.  I was drinking alone with a knife in my hands.  I always had knives around me when I was younger.  I had a knife and I was making superficial slices along my wrists.  They were tiny scratches that didn't draw blood. I was depressed and I wanted that feeling to end, but I was more afraid of killing myself.

Another time I was sober and crying, and held a knife over my stomach.  In a rage, I had stabbed a bible multiple times because I couldn't find comfort in faith and I was ready to turn that knife on my gut.  I wanted to cut out the ache and hollow feeling in my chest.  Again, I was more afraid of the pain.

I had a bottle of vicodin once.  I held it and considered taking them, one after another as I did when I was younger.  I called someone to talk to.  She told me she didn't feel qualified and I should call someone else.  That depression was quickly replaced with rage, and I put the pills down.

I won't say that feeling is forever gone.  I know that sometimes depression will visit.  It's always a slow and gradual feeling that creeps up and if I don't take time to reflect on how I'm doing, it'll sneak up on me until it is all I can see.  When my husband told me he was leaving me, I was very aware of all I felt, and I was determined to not go on anti-depressants again because of how terrible withdrawals felt.  I had rage.  I was lost.  I was broken.  I was angry.  But I refused to be depressed and those moments came, but I fought hard to push them away.  During that time, I can say I was never a danger to myself or anyone else.  Having a mom willing to fund a 100 pound heavy bag and hand wraps really helped.

My most recent bout of severe depression was two years ago.  It was a time when I was dealing with my husband's late uncle, and a suicidal kid2, and a husband that wanted more of my attention than I was capable of giving to him, while trying not to destroy the eggshells I walked on by going against his wishes in making final arrangements for his uncle.  His mood on that was fickle and one moment he approved and was grateful.  The next he was angry at me for doing it.  A lot of our marriage, I ended up doing what meant the most to me whether or not I was given permission, and  I have a degree because of that.  Our son was being bullied and teased and I felt so powerless.  I was so busy worrying about how everyone else was doing that I didn't see my own feelings taking a dive.  One day I was on the freeway and I was surprised by an errant thought of crashing into the center divider.  It wasn't something I wanted to do, but it was a thought that crossed my mind. I got home and called my doctor for an appointment and anti-depressants.  They helped.  It took a while to kick in, but once they started working, I was able to take the hits, and not feel like I needed to do something drastic and scary.  It gave me an ability to get through what I needed to.  Now drastic and scary looks like cutting my hair into something so short my curls make me resemble a peppy poodle.

I never saw suicide as an easy out.  It seemed like an only out. It was difficult and terrifying. I can't say killing myself would've been brave.  I know when I've thought about it, I never worried about how my family would react.  I have a sister that beat cancer.  I've imagined losing her, and the thought of what her loss would do to me has backed me off of the ledge a few times.  I won't say I think of how it would hurt her if I were to die.  At my lowest I'm too selfish for that.  It takes my self focus into another person I love and my perspective shifts just enough to step back and remember a person I love, and get lost in nostalgia of her teaching me to throw a football or the red Minnie Mouse watch she bought me. I remember the first house party she took me to and her looking me in the eye with a pointed finger and threatening me about taking something and having it hit me years later that she meant taking drugs.

Being suicidal is selfish.  I can say that.  It's not selfish in the way where I would ever bash someone with it as a sharp accusation. It's selfish because the times I have been there, I didn't feel like anyone else had my concerns as their priority.  I felt I was doing what was best for me.  It wasn't about cowardice in facing a difficult life.  I didn't think that far ahead.  I didn't think farther than how I felt in that exact moment.  It's not that I didn't care about anyone.  I was just so consumed, it didn't occur to me that other people would exist in the bubble of hell I was in.

Suicide isn't the easy way out.  It's a more difficult decision than trying to get through another day of despair.  Depression that visits in cycles is something you can get used to.  Deciding you've had enough is stepping out into something new and terrifying.  I'm not advocating suicide. Clearly, I'm still alive and kicking through adversity.  I'm such a believer in life, I've given birth to three of my children and four that belong to other people. I'm just saying it's not okay to negate a life based on a choice you have never been faced with, or choose to not remember.  It's not okay to call a person's existence a cliche and ignore the devastation they've left in their wake because you don't agree with their choice.  Or because you are too afraid to try to understand it. They left behind a family marked by stigma.  That family has a lot to reconcile, but sometimes saying you don't know what to say, and offering a hug or practical help around the house is enough.  You don't have to replace their loss, or feel it fully, but let them know they are not alone and not forgotten.

Comparing Battle Scars and Posttraumatic Survival

He thought it was wonderful that his darkness didn't affect us. He had to retract that statement because he could see the darkness in my oldest two sisters.  But it didn't affect me. Not from the bubbly personality he can see. He has a way of saying whatever is on his mind, then bracing for the price and always assuming he could never bounce a word check.  His insecurities are fleeting. He's Dad and children are meant to be seen and not heard.

I often tell my kids I will screw up and I won't even see it.  I need their tender sorrows to point out my wrongs because in the flow of caregiving, I can lose the gentle care they need.  I didn't mean to inject venom in my reply, but it was a sore subject, written out with every destructive jab at this chrysalis.

"You have no idea about the darkness I fought in my early 20's.  Being able to hide it well doesn't mean it wasn't there." At that point I bit my tongue and felt the sting because I needed a physical reminder of the pain I could inflict.

He pauses before he points out I had never had segregated bathrooms.  I have never been through war. I felt like I was lacking a penis to measure and the fact that it came from my Dad who I always wanted to be more than he's capable of stung and the pain throbbed in my heart which was swollen with poison.

I took a breath.  I can't fault him for his ignorance or hubris.  He was never capable of looking beyond himself, and it makes sense I would fall for men just like him.

"Your grandson suffers from PTSD.  His tormentors in 1st grade and the systematic denial of his concerns by school staff are as fresh as if it happened yesterday.  Trauma is subjective. I will not compare battle scars."

He agrees that I'm right, and in that moment I again denied him the opportunity to deepen our relationship because I can't handle the weight of making him feel better about the choices I've made and the lashings I let others scar me with. I denied him the knowledge of others controlling my will and my body, and in many ways my freedom.  I allowed what he taught me to accept. He will always be fragile enough that I wouldn't want to hurt him with that information and in my silence there is both denied access and protection. He looked at me in surprise because every so often, it occurs to him I'm an adult with unique thoughts from his own.

Every so often, the depth of my perception startles my family because I see things they don't and I string words together that they couldn't imagine coming out of me.  It's the curse of being a younger child or sibling.  Family will always expect you to need their permission to mature. Being less social left me to an imagination that doesn't require clearance or acceptance from others.

I can see where denying Dad that step into my valley of demons is also denying me human contact and acceptance.  I made a lateral leap. Today I made a choice to reach out to someone I have been wanting to talk to. It's an insignificant step, but it was my step.The only thing that needs to come out of it is that I stepped out of my comfort zone and into a healthy risk.  It's healthy to reach out in vulnerability.  It was a choice to step out of my past and the hang ups I carry and move into the light of possibility.  It was small and innocuous, but it was a choice I wasn't forced or goaded into.

Setting Goals and Conquering Mountains

When I was in my late teens I didn't have major goals.  I think my only goal was to have enough disposable income to have someone come to my house and clean up after me. We married and had two kids and I said if he wanted another child I wanted another bedroom in our home and a dishwasher. All three of our kids were surprises, or we were being really irresponsible. I got the bedroom.  Not the dishwasher.  I would love a dishwasher, they look like saved time and fewer broken nails.

My goals are shifting.

I still want to hire a housekeeper and get a dishwasher.  Some dreams will never die.

I also want to travel.  I had imagined it, but never thought of it as practical or worth it for my kids. My boys don't like long trips and usually prefer to stay in a hotel room. We used to spend long summers in a tent along the river.  We loved Camp James in Kernville because they offered electricity. My husband has all of our camping things, and as long as it took me to pick out all of the things I wanted, I don't see myself wanting to start over any time soon.  At the end of the day, vacationing as a travelling mom required a vacation from my vacation.  Now I have days long stretches of being alone and I would love to travel.  I'm even applying for jobs and saying I'd be willing to travel because travelling alone sounds amazing.

I have more practical goals as well.  I want to buy pre-need memorial policies for my children.  My Mom did it for all of us.  When my husband's uncle passed away 2 years ago, I was looking into making arrangements for him.  He didn't have anyone else willing to make the calls and finalize his existence.  There were plenty of friends to go through his things. Once I had brought his things out of his home, there were family members that were indifferent yet curious. His remains were left to his family, and he ended up in the care of his nephew's wife who had interacted with him a handful of times in the first few months of our marriage around the year 2000.

In going over my Mom's pre-need policies, I could see that she originally covered every single possibility when she bought it all through Rose Hills.  She had four plots for her four daughters. She transferred everything except the plots to Forest Lawn as our family grew.  She is from Thailand and through legal channels, brought most of my relatives here, starting in 1984 with my grandmother.  She took years to petition and prove that she could financially support new immigrants.  Then she adopted six of my siblings. I get it from my Momma and she is one woman to be proud of. When I was going over her contracts, I could see that a lot of goods and services didn't transfer.  It was over a year of visits, letters, and calls, but in the end I was able to get her policies transferred back to Rose Hills without penalties from Forest Lawn and they're willing to honor the original contracts.  Forest Lawn didn't penalize her because I pointed out the areas their insurance agent willfully ignored his fiduciary duties to his client. This was after meeting with a couple of insurance agents, their records clerk, and even the President at Forest Lawn.  I admired her.  With the amount of policies my Mom had and the services she would have had to purchase again, I saved her over $10,000.  The insane part is how much you save when you purchase your policies early.  The longer you wait, the more funeral costs climb. I believe they share the same trajectory as college tuition. Doing this for my children is important to me.

Once I build my savings into a comfortable place where I have a 6 month emergency fund, I want to invest.  I hear good things about stock mutual funds.  I want to focus on index funds, but experiment in international funds.  It's all still terrifying, but I like the idea of a challenge and doing something new.

Then there's the house.  I love my little house, which is really my Mom's house, but I want to move one day.  I love the little winding roads and city views, but I don't love living on a tiny one way street with only street parking.  I want a place to grow things because I love to grow things.  I want space for a pond, because the little koi that could is coming with me, and I want space for my kids to slam a door that is just their door.  And a dishwasher, which means I will also have a garbage disposal.  I miss that.

Once I buy my house, I want to set up a power of attorney and living trust.  Without major assets, it doesn't seem important, but I'll also have to set up a will for my smaller trinkets and emotional belongings.  Then there's figuring out what happens with the kids should something also happen to the husband.  It seems far less likely we'll die together if we consistently choose to not be around each other.

My last goal is more about me.  I want to be okay. I can recognize that a divorce that hasn't started and unstable employment are a lot to handle.  I understand that sometimes a surprise can shift my day because I had spent it on a tightrope anyway.  I want to not be thrown by it.  I can see that light at the end of the tunnel. I'm getting better. Last night my son called me to ask a question, and my response to hearing my husband's girlfriend playing house with my kids and hers was to answer his question and excuse myself from the call.  I didn't lose it.  I'm not bashing her.  I didn't stay up all night, but for about an hour, I let that situation bother me.

The day I had wasn't an excuse for that lost hour.  Every day presents challenges.  Every moment is a chosen reaction. I was blessed with a late birthday breakfast, pedicure, and shopping date with a woman who has always had my back, even when I stabbed hers.  We talked about life and she helped point out some of the ways my husband was controlling me.  She saw more than I could, but she's right. He manipulated me into avoiding her friendship because he didn't like her.  He wanted me to go to bed at the same time as him, even if I couldn't sleep.  That was about control and even if he wasn't violent, walking on eggshells because I was afraid of my actions affecting his mood wasn't okay. We joked about how blessed we were to live as we did in our 20's without a pregnancy scare or STI.  We're also grateful we grew out of that.  She helped me see that I got bored of dating when I felt men were easy because of the men I was making myself available to.  She also pointed out that I could raise my standards and it would change things.  Then she told me that online dating was a waste for her as well.  She married a man with patience, fire, and a large brain.  He is everything perfect for her as she gives what she gets and they respond in love. We talked pre-nuptials.  I've never been asked to sign one.  I think it puts doubt into a relationship, but at the end of the day, I'm not necessarily against shacking up either. I'm not against it, but I'm also not thinking that far ahead. I'm trying to take care of my heart and healing, and I haven't considered finding someone to take care of me. My values as a wife are so solid in my mind. What I did as a single person was so different and I'm not sure how I want to address that now that I have a second chance to be single, and not a trollop.  That may change. I'm still figuring it all out. I did a lot I never dreamed I would as a wife. I accepted more than I thought I could in the name of being a good wife.  Who knows what will happen next time, or when next time will happen.  I still haven't started looking for my next husband or even a first date. I love visiting with her, because her perspective leaves me joyful and optimistic.  The past with her is lighter than it is in my memories.

I returned my Dad's call and had family emergencies that required about an hour of my time and frustration enough that my silence was to try to remember the happy place I had just been in.  I got home feeling chills and was hit with a fever.  I was thankful that I could be sick without being Mom too. This morning I told him I'm staying in bed and being sick, so he invited himself over.  I told him I wasn't up to it, and now I think I have to put clothes on just in case he pops over anyway. Boundaries!

I slept for a few hours before hearing from the husband then kid3.  He's contacted me twice in three days, and I preferred the radio silence. I miss my kids but for now I'm okay not hearing their voices if I have to hear their pseudo mom too.  I'm not calling her a stepmom yet. She still has her husband and she gets what she needs from hers and mine. One day my husband will be my ex.  I'm not sure if that'll happen once I file, or once it's final.  A couple of loved ones want me to let him file, and remain single for the rest of my life.  That doesn't appeal to me. I want to hire an attorney and it's not to get all he's worth, but I want someone else to do the heavy lifting so I can do the emotional healing. When he becomes my ex husband, I'll have his name covered on my arm, and I already have a best friend planning to be with me when I do.

Beach Days and Bombed Job Interviews

It's a bad sign when you go to a job interview with more excitement about the beach day you plan afterward. I knew it was too far.  I knew it wouldn't allow the home/work balance that is so important to me.  I didn't know that parking would come at the student rate, without a discount.  I didn't know the main part of the job is to be a gatekeeper for the more antisocial folks.  That was probably the worst part. I have antisocial moments sometimes.  Sometimes I can be snarky and a little mean.  But to make it clear that it was an office that doesn't like people . . . I couldn't see it as a good fit.  I interviewed badly.  I don't think it was on purpose.  I think I was being myself, and for some people that's the last thing they want to be around. So I drove to Manhattan Beach.  It wasn't a mental breakdown moment.  It was a mental health day. It was a moment of being in the moment and spontaneous. If I had prepared, I would have brought warm clothes and stayed much longer. I think the idea of walking along the shops was my original plan.  I checked the weather. I wasn't planning on walking in the sand or touching icy water. I wanted to check out the cute shops and restaurants I used to love.

The clouds kept filtering above.  I felt warmth and freezing cold, with the constant coastal breeze.  I keep a waterproof blanket in the car, but I didn't really plan anything, so my beach trip was in my suit jacket and skirt.  I didn't mind.  I did notice an esoteric coincidence.

The left one was at Manhattan Beach.  The one on the right was at Will Rogers state beach.  I noticed in both shots I was leading with my left.  It wasn't on purpose, but again, I tend to look for meanings where there might not be any.  I came across something I had read before saying that Egyptians and Greeks often created art with a leading left foot because it is believed the left side is the side ruled by the heart. It's about leading with the heart and emotions.  It's about life and new beginnings.  Whether or not it's an unrealistic stretch, it seemed significant, and relevant.

I took the streets north, and drove along Dockweiler State Beach.  I continued as the road I was on headed inland through Marina Del Rey.  I remembered a date taking me to the jetty where he held my hand as we walked on jagged rocks, and he laughed when I flinched at the scurrying rodents.  I remember wanting him to kiss me so badly and I remembered that he never did. I wasn't following a map.  I was just driving, so I saw Venice and turned left.  A few blocks from the ocean I decided I wasn't in the mood for crazy.  I ended up in traffic on Pacific Coast Highway and turned left on Temescal Canyon Road.  It's the first time I've ever been to the beach during daylight hours.  I loved the many rocks I was able to pick through.  Every time I go to a body of water, I look for rocks.  I love igneous rocks, and will pick through interesting colors and shapes.  One day my youngest niece handed me a rock.  I was so deeply moved.  I don't think she understood how much her rock meant to me.  But it was huge.

I walked along the shoreline, stepping through waves and picking up rocks.  I sat on boulders and felt the sun warm my skin where the breeze chilled it.  It was so clear at Will Rogers with the sun warming my skin and not even a little cloud cover. Manhattan Beach was freezing in comparison. I watched the sunset and with the descending sun the chilled ocean air blew right through my jacket. With frozen hands and feet that were pretty numb, I walked to my car and drove home.

I took the streets home.  I drove up Temescal Canyon Road to Sunset. I love the curves on the winding roads of Sunset Blvd. near UCLA. I took Sunset until it changed to Cesar Chavez and turned left on Broadway.  I drove through Chinatown and then home to Lincoln Heights. I love that it's literally 3 street names to my favorite beach.  The name change doesn't count.  Not really.

All job hunting misadventures should end up like today.

The Connection Between Dreaming and Creative Writing

 

In my early 20's I had vivid dreams every night.  I would wake up and scribble every detail in a spiral one subject notebook. Sometimes they made no sense whatsoever.  Other times, I'd wake with clarity and my problems became puzzle pieces that fell into place. When they really had me guessing, I'd usually turn to the internet for a search and answers. These searches would tease out deeper meaning hidden in my psyche.

When I was pregnant my vivid dreams usually involved lesbian sex.  I learned to just laugh at those and enjoy them for what they were.  While I'm not a fan of girl kisses, my sleeping mind wasn't against them at all. I carried so many boys in my Momma belly, it might have been their hormones.  The girls I carried shared enough of their hormones to give me pimples and horrible morning sickness.

I will carry the DNA of every child I carried in my womb for the rest of my life, circulating in my bloodstream.  For this reason, if you've ever carried a boy, don't bother taking a gender identity test that isolates male DNA.  It'll give you a false positive. Wait for a torpedo in the ultrasound when you go for the organ survey around 20 weeks.

For the last several years, I couldn't remember dreaming at all.  There's a definite correlation between my ability to write and my ability to be aware of any dreams.  I couldn't write for a long time.  At one point, I couldn't line up a paragraph and in frustration I would scrap it in tears.

There were many times that I'd start a journal and my husband would find it and read it and be hurt and depressed by it.  I hid them in the bottom of drawers and under mattresses. I taped them along the wall in our closet. Writing was a way to dump my anger, doubts and frustrations without lashing out at others.  He would later read my vitriol and internalize it.  Sometimes we'd talk.  Sometimes what I wrote would come back as a weapon against me in an argument at a later date.  Other times, it came out as anger or frustration that I would focus so intently on reading or writing that I wasn't able to give him or the kids my full attention.

In one of my many bids to win him back, I destroyed journals I had poured myself into that spanned more than two decades. I'm not upset about that.  There was a lot of anger in them, and destroying them changed how I write.  Changing how I write was able to shift my perspective, and I'm happier for it. Although, in my early journaling days, I was full of male bashing jokes.  Bad male bashing jokes.  I miss the laugh. I would write the word, "platypus," and giggle for a few minutes.  My favorite insults were "hamster penis," "vulture vomit," "penis dribble," and "chicken weenie." And no, chickens don't have weenies. I love it that most days I can slip back into that teenaged me, and be silly and make people think I'm a decade younger than I am.  I can dance through a song while focusing on work because I can find that joy and silliness.  It's never far from me.  My anger is.  I have most of the poems I've written throughout my life. The darkness that filled every moment is far from me.  I like who I am now, and I love that I'm not far from the silliness I used to live in, but it's been a long while since I've told someone they were being a hamster penis.

Part of loving being a student majoring in English was that I had an excuse to have to read and write.  A grade depended on that and my performance would later be monetized. In theory.  Still waiting on that one.  I am not a fan of most literature taught in college courses.  It was typically dry and boring.  It took 4 valiant attempts to get through Moby Dick and I was proud of getting through it, but didn't feel like I would ever want to read it again.  Children's literature with the undercurrent of moral teaching and sexual perversion was more interesting than I anticipated.  You should read Little Red Riding Hood with me.  It will scar you in your childhood dreams.

The other side of being a student and using school as an excuse for my bookish fix is that there wasn't room for creativity.  I would read countless dull literary masterpieces during the quarter, and on breaks go through several young adult paranormal romances because my brain needed the downtime, but I couldn't plot and plan a story.  I'm more of a pantser anyway, and there are major plot holes when I don't outline.  I tend to see them around the 40,000 word mark and scrap my manuscript and start over.  When I do plan, the writing bores me to the point that I hate revision, and if I don't want reread what I've written, it's ballsy to expect anyone to want to read it the first time through. This has happened at least six times. For some reason every time I read Twilight, I feel like I can be a writer.  I can do what she did there.  Then I read Harry Potter and know I'm not ready to create worlds, and "kill my darlings," as Stephen King has said or written.

So now I'm writing.  Most of what I'm writing is getting published in these blog posts.  Some of it stays private.  I haven't started on a book yet, because I can accept I'm just not there yet.  My prose isn't achingly beautiful.  My thoughts are still chaotic.  But I'm writing, and with the words, dreams are teasing my resting mind, and lingering each morning.  It's as if by writing, I've given myself permission to access the forbidden ideas held in check by fear of hurting my husband's feelings.  It's as if I have permission to work through issues and grow emotionally.  And I have.  You might not see it, but I do.

The best part is the way my mind can trail in opposite directions.  I woke up one morning on the tail end of a sexual dream.  It was tender and beautiful and not about my husband.  As the ephemeral tail of a lingering touch lost its substance, words filtered through my mind, with venom and angst about the wife I was and the many ways he took my giving heart for granted.  I was angry that I did it at my expense in the names of love and obedience, and his exit was about finding the happiness he deserved. They were such opposite thoughts, and they overlapped and still made sense.  As overwhelming as all of those emotions were, I didn't feel overwhelmed in the least.  I could evaluate both what my mind saw, and the words filtering through my mind with my eyes still closed.  It was epic.

I've started lucid dreaming where in the middle of a vivid dream, I know I'm dreaming.  I'm aware that what is occurring is happening in my sleep.  Or sometimes I'm on the verge of drifting off and I'll feel a dream trying to pull me in and I haven't fallen asleep yet. Most recently, I was drifting off and a gentle hand on my shoulder was pulling me back for a kiss, and it was so real and not real that it woke me up.  It was awesome.