Dear Younger Me

Dear Younger Me, You are beautiful but you'll go through school and meet classmates that will try to convince you otherwise.  One day girls will stop trying to pick fights with you and you will understand how much love, support and strength you were born into when your sisters go to bat for you. You won't fit the features of your classmates and cultural contemporaries and you will find love and friendship in other cultures.  Never lose your wonder and curiosity for other people. Your hair is different and you'll hate to brush it, but one day you'll make peace with your hair (but not a curling iron) and you'll grow into confidence to match your beauty and it will be okay.  One day strangers - both men and women - will stop to tell you that you have a beautiful smile and they'll want nothing more than to keep that smile on your face.  The names you were called for your full lips and messy hair will be a painful but distant memory and it's not your fault that you look different.  You are different and different is amazing.

There will be silly boys that will make it seem really likely that they are the only ones that see how amazing you are because they were the only ones brave enough to ask you out.  They will want you to touch them when you just want a hug.  They will make you feel like affection is an obligation, but it's not.  You are in control of your own body and no one is entitled to it but you.  You'll find your day brightened by the random people that go out of their way to say hello because there are really nice people in the world and they know that you usually are one of them too.

 You may never get the concepts of team sports, but you will love the many ways your body proves how amazing it is. Childbirth will empower you in ways that you won't be able to properly verbalize.  You will see the world differently through the act of raising children that came from your body. You will find joy in hiking down and then up a cliffside because it can feel amazing to push the limits of what you thought you were capable of. Wear knee pads during all of your drill team practices because knee pain at 23 is unfair and you will find any excuse to accept the responsibility of your injuries and beat yourself further for it.  Fake it until you feel it and above all, remember there is fun to be had and that feels better than a trophy that needs to be dusted looks.  You'll get more satisfaction from academic achievements anyway. You love the ocean. Don't let anyone steal that freedom from you. Learn to ask for help (this goes for the 38 year old writing this to you as well).  No one is worth the words that need to come out of you.  Never stop writing and never feel bad about loving literature. You can make a game of a stick and a plastic bag and you create worlds out of the thoughts in your mind.  You are amazing in the life that flows through you. Love freely and madly, but love yourself first.  When you take a risk and end up with a broken heart that feels beyond repair, know that pain needs to flow through you so love can take its place.  Muting pain in distractions will only leave a festering wound for later.  You'll heal and the scar tissue makes you stronger in the long run.  You can take as many chances at love as you want, but you must do it in the time that feels right to you.  Any faster or slower and you'll miss out on the beauty that love wants to offer you.  Volcanic ash leads to fertile soils, but the cost is total devastation first.

Never stop singing and dancing.  You don't have to do it well, but you have to do it because it makes you happy.  Sing and dance with your children because your depression will be a burden they will try to carry for you.  You have to break the cycle of depression you were born into and that means learning not how to cope, but redirect your reactions in a way that your children can learn healthy choices from your example.  Remember how much hurt feelings really do hurt and do your best to think of your children's fragile feelings because fixing a mistake is so much harder than being mindful in the first place.

Be yourself.  One day you'll realize you prefer the cute boys that are passionate about things that require more mental acuity than physical agility (because slightly geeky is hot) and think of you as smart.  You'll really hate talking to boys that only see you as a face or a body.  Try not to give them hell or be so vindictive in hurting their feelings. You can't expect better of them than they expect of themselves.  You were not created to fix anyone else's Mommy issues.

You have empathy in you and it is the greatest gift.  You will be blessed by giving it away.  You feel more than most and it gives you deep insight into others.  You see the unseen and when you take a moment to tell them they are seen, it brings you pleasure to gauge their reactions.  This doesn't make you responsible for how others feel and you need to release the burdens of the world.  Don't bother watching the news because you will feel the sorrows of the lives shattered and weep with mothers that have lost children.  You will learn from everyone that touches your life if you allow your heart to remain open.  Your best friend will teach you that you can't be angry at the ignorant, but you can pity them. You will forgive people for the unimaginable but it will give you freedom and peace.  One day you will realize your Uncle was right when he explained we are all children or parents in our relationships and it's a choice.  You will decide you are no longer a child and you will talk to your parents as an adult and that day is when they will start to respect the woman you've become.  You are not a victim to the life you get to lead.

You will gain so much patience from mothering your children and your tolerance will be high, but you don't have to be a doormat because you are patient.  Stand up for yourself because if you don't, others will think you're on the ground for their benefit.  At the end of the day, it's about your perspective and it's important to let it shift from time to time.  You will feel the weight of rejection based on how much you valued the acceptance that you never needed in the first place. You are enough.  Just be. Keep your value in your own hands because only you can appreciate it.

You were born to be more than you have been and I'm giving you back the authority you so carefully handed off to others.  Your life is your own and it's time you wear your glass slippers and straighten that damn tiara.  I'm the grown up and it's time I take care of you. It's time to pick up every fall and check our battered knees. It's time to tell you that I know it hurts, but we can bandage our own injuries and I can help you through the painful parts because it's time for you to release them.

Wild Fire

It's the time of year in Los Angeles where the dry heat is warm until it becomes unbearable in the sun.  The smell of suntan oil conjures memories of sun soaked days as a child before we found out how dangerous the sun really is.  It's also fire season.  It's the time of year when you can often step outside, smell the smoke from a wildfire, and stand in the ash fall that drifts through blowing winds and lands softly after the smolder of embers have exhausted their fuel. As I left work this afternoon, there was a purple cloud far above me and the hint of the fires that created it barely kissed the skies in Burbank from Santa Clarita. I could see more than smell it.

The irony of fire containment and controlling a fire is in the way that fire is controlled.  You have to destroy the fuel that would feed the fire in order to keep it from consuming what it wants to.  Firefighters will actually create a controlled backfire to create a line to herd flames into consuming all they can and dying out. Containment means there is nothing left for the fire to burn. 

I lost control tonight.  Frustration became rage and I was speeding along the 10 freeway under a yellowed moon that seemed too large to escape. My friend tonight is Jose Cuervo and he would tell you I'm sugar coating things but I was driving way too fast and the music filling my car couldn't calm the rage in my head.

Like a wildfire, there was a perfect set of conditions and the spark that set the flames ablaze was small.  It caught me by surprise.  I had set my own fire line ablaze and for the longest time, all of my dried branches were already burned down.  Nothing could touch me because all of my rage was spent. Until tonight. 

Most people that know me feel I'm a calm person.  I generally am.  I don't get angry often and usually keep my perspective geared toward who I want to be.  That requires burning my fuel so no one else can.

Since the 7th grade I've gotten several compliments on the size of my breasts.  What can I say? Grandma's endowment is envious to some.  Today I was complimented on my boobs.  It's a thing.  It happens.  It happened all the time when I was dating online.  Consistently, I deflect it with the realities of mature breasts.  I have been pregnant, and nursed babies.  These food bags have filled with milk and now look like what I imagine a retired stripper's breasts would look like.  It's not a pretty picture, especially when I can still hear the dialogues given to me by the ex.  I deflect the attention because allowing life to spring forth where it was once dead and had been burned down only means it will burn to embers at another date in a later fire season. 

My autistic sons went through extreme sensory integration dysfunction as toddlers.  When they discovered they could create textures to play in and they could pull it out of their diapers, I went through a phase of freaking out.  They would often sit quietly and play in the poop they just made.  Just the other day the kids left and I pulled couches away from the wall.  There were snack sized wrappers for the foods they ask for from the grocery store.  After a few minutes I started laughing.  That part of me was broken and it now looks different because it can.  The fires have burned out on that rage. 

The inability to illicit a reaction on small things is more about the many ways all life around me has burned.  It was controlled. It was consuming. It is all around me and existing during firestorms means I can take the heat and I'm not afraid of the licking flames. There's nothing left to burn. There is beauty and strength in these ashes. 

Early Morning Reflections

Being a light sleeper and living on little sleep is one of my gifts of motherhood.  It's the one without a gift receipt so you never know it's value and you can't take it back. When I say this to people they usually assume I'm super productive because of it, but I'm not.  That may be up for interpretation.  I'm laying it out for you to decide. Often I lay in bed, scrolling through social media on my phone so I can pretend I'm keeping up with friends.  Once my curiosity is satisfied, I will think about the day I had and the day that's coming.  I'm sure I got these questions from a book or something.  I don't remember where but I started doing this at a really painful time in my life when I needed the work each morning to help me get through each moment because pain comes in waves and sometimes riptides.

What am I grateful for today?

Sometimes I'm grateful for a moment to snuggle Kid3.  This morning I thought of the back and forth messages from that friendship that always reminds me that he wants better for me than I do at times.  He makes me feel beautiful and wanted and he's safe because we plan to keep each other into old age.  He's amazing.  You should have one of him, but not him.  He's mine.  Other mornings I'll think of how great it is to get to do the things I once had no control over or things that took an ability I hadn't mastered to do because that was the life I had chosen to accept.  I wake up grateful that my aging body chooses to not remind me of the years I've abused my knees. I'm grateful that avoiding wheat makes me feel like a normal person.

Yesterday was winning because . . .

I think of a concrete example of a moment of joy or excitement or even peace.  Yesterday there was enough work to keep me happy and the challenges stroke my brain in all of the good places.  There was a space of goodness under heavy skies when my night was full of promise and the conversation was interesting.  I couldn't ask for more in that moment. There was hope on my way home.  It got away from me after a few hours, but it consistently sneaks into my dreams throughout the night and I woke up in a good mood.

What was the payout for the risks I took?

I want to take more risks.  That step in bravery despite my fear is where I find amazing payouts.  Last night it was in writing something that isn't likely to be shared.  I posted this story because while it started out interesting to me, I didn't invest totally in the dystopian world I had in mind, and it embodied every single one of my fears about writing that great big novel.  It is my definition of crap. I shared it because if it's out there and being what it is meant to be, I can no longer fear the unknown that is far worse in my mind.

Did I keep the agreements I made?

This part was something new from the MITT class I took. I'm often over committing to things I have no interest in doing because I want to be nice.  But at the point of agreeing, I've broken a commitment to myself to do what makes me happy.  It's a moment where I need to step back and take notice.  I've entered a space of inauthenticity.  What was more important than my honesty? What makes my thoughts, ideas and feelings any less valuable than the person I gave my pseudo existence to? I've also been meaning to watch a movie or television because I haven't been doing that lately, and there's a museum or two I've been wanting to visit.  But there's always tomorrow.  These are promises I've made to myself and I want to follow through on my desires because I matter.

What goals do I want to kick into existence today?

This morning's goals look like a to do list.  I have plenty of things to fill out and file because that is what autism mom duties often look like.  I have housework to get through and I want to write something that washes the remorse of last night and my mild hangover away.  I want to write something that changes me as I process what flows freely and I need pull out the stubborn thoughts that nibble quietly at who I am.

Deep End Love

I'm excited that I get to fall in love again.  I'm not saying I'm there or it's happening as you read these words.  Maybe I'm just not saying.  Maybe you are overthinking my love life. Love comes with variables and accepting the ideals of romantic love means you are willing to accept what you cannot control.  You are willing to take a risk because something may be worth doing in spite of the fear that grips you.  Really, I love lots of things and lots of people.  If I love everything, I can allow that love to flow freely through me and it's not being poured into an abyss that will dissolve love into memories that are ephemeral visions without depth or meaning once my love object morphs into someone I don't recognize or my tastes and desires shift because they will. I'm in this moment, loving each moment for what it is, without adding the weight of possibility and plans because I'm not there yet.  I want something strong that has teeth and those teeth better mark me, or it won't be worth that first bite. I want right now because I'm not living in the past or the future. What I'm finally writing about is the big scary idea of falling madly and deeply in love.  It's big and scary because it's a topic I've been avoiding but my latest muse has my mind turning things over in the way a muse is supposed to inspire deeper thought. Half the time my muse has no clue because I don't share every thought I have, but it's often written all over my face. At least I keep hearing that from those willing to pay attention. It finally seems like something I can look forward to because the dread I felt was washed away when I removed the bandages and discovered I didn't only heal in the last year, but there was growth, and it's not the gangrenous type.

I couldn't honestly say how many times I've fallen in love.  I've lost track.  I think my first love was a blonde football player.  That was obsessive and  really scary.  I was scary.  Fast forward through many others and the last true love experience was with the man I married.  These feelings are almost instinct and familiar and  I don't have to assume every guy I imagine playing with is the one I want to settle down with.  I have talked about wedding bells seriously with 3 men and even received tokens of promise before I actually exchanged rings and vows.  Falling out of love and releasing the future you planned is a process and I'm familiar with each step.  I can embrace them.

I love the feeling of falling in love.  I don't even mean that silly infatuation stage that makes my inner whore want to dance and play and learn every single detail about the man I am so happy to talk to and be around.  I mean deep, resounding love that makes you want to plan for a future together because you can't remember the last time you cared so much about someone. Their desires and needs are important to you because somehow their happiness makes you happy and selfishness doesn't occur to you first where this person is concerned. I fully embrace the idea of being the only one falling in love because as terrifying and risky as that is, the reward is always greater than being closed off.

The big scary part of love is the part where you trust someone else with your fragile parts.  You know how delicate your feelings are and you have to trust that someone else will care as much as you do.  You hope that you are handled carefully and with compassion.  You want to be safe because you know that you are choosing to fall and you want to believe they understand this concept because they are doing the same thing with you.  You aren't jumping or aiming but falling freely and only holding out hope that you will be caught because there are no guarantees in love.

You choose to take a risk. You choose to love. If you're already infatuated it's easy. That heart is already racing at the thought of this person.  Random things will constantly remind you of their smile or something they said. If those initial feelings have faded into the realities of compromise it can be harder. But you choose and feelings follow. You make a decision and that choice helps you follow through.  That's how couples grow old together.  They make a choice on a daily basis. They don't see a life together as being victimized and bound.  It's a choice and there is freedom in it.

It's not love that hurts us.  It's not love that leaves an empty ache that makes breathing painful and silence agony.  Love doesn't make you question who you are.  Love fills you so much that in its absence you feel the ways you were supported and the pain of its loss is what drives so many to protect themselves so carefully.

There is something so beautiful about a woman in love.  When a woman loves and is loved back, she walks with confidence and grace.  Smiles are genuine and given freely.  Laughter comes easily and stress is manageable.  She is attractive and others are drawn to her because they can sense how loved she feels.  She gives what she's received.  I've had the pleasure of really feeling love for myself in the last few months.  I love being able to put myself first.  It feels like freedom.

The love I felt as a Mom was instant.  The moment I knew there was a life separate from mine thriving inside of me, my hand was constantly on my belly, touching my now 14 year old son.  The love was immediate and overwhelming.  I started planning a future and daydreaming our existence together.  I had adjustments.  It was a long time before I was completely at peace with the idea of a parasite leeching off of me and the fact that I was growing a penis was mind blowing for a bit.  But the love was there.  My maturity is subjective. My motherhood looks like choosing to do what is best for my sons.  I want to do what is right, even if it's not the easy thing to do.  This looks like hovering, giving space, fighting for, with and against them, and trying my best every single day to be the mom they deserve, and not the mom I want to be. It means I can't disappear.

Even as a surrogate mother, I was in love with the children I carried. I still love all four of them. I never distanced myself so far emotionally that it was a paycheck or that these children were not mine. Those babies are all in my heart.  I was able to find peace in never seeing them again in the love I have for their parents.  I have so much faith in the women that shared my journey, that I have enough love to let them go and believe they are happy and healthy and loved beyond anything simple words could ever express.  My love was in my release and the faith I have in them to care for their children in the many ways they cared for me. My love is in letting go because that is what is best for the families that I will always love.

In the transitional training I experienced a couple of weeks ago, I was able to fully examine what it must have been like for my mom to find out she was having me.  She was a teenage mom.  She came to the States from Thailand and left her entire family without knowing the culture or language during a time when interracial marriages were shunned in local churches.  The eldest was 10 and the one closest to me had been the baby for 7 years.  My mom was past diapers and chasing toddlers.  During her pregnancy with me, she experienced varicose veins and thyroid issues that my sisters didn't introduce her to.  She opted for sterilization with my birth, but this was 1978 and the doctor wouldn't do it without my Dad's consent.  In all of the bitterness and rage that flowed through me at what I did to her, I never once felt that from my mom. I've only felt unconditional love and experienced what it looks like when you know without a doubt that the person loving you only wants what is best for you. To this day she will sacrifice her needs for mine and I'm a grown ass woman.

I love my sisters.  Growing up there was a large enough gap that I couldn't get in trouble with them.  I was telling on them because of what I saw them do with the boys they brought around.  Later they were telling on me.  When I was younger, they had moments of trying to be the sisters I needed them to be but I was too selfish to appreciate it.  One sister would pick me up for lunch during junior high and we'd sit and chat and she always made me feel so great when I went back to class with a doggy bag full of yum.  Another took me to a house party where she threatened me not to take anything.  It was years before I realized she meant drugs.  Eventually I was acting out in terrifying ways and they stepped in as mother hens, pecking and guiding me in ways I rebelled against.  As a wife, and later a mom, we found a place where our commonalities no longer throw us into a system of dominance, but allow space for connection.  They still have moments where I feel they are shocked at the things I say and do but the overall feeling is that we are so blessed to have each other.  We will defend and guide each other.  We want what is best for each other and that looks like happiness.  Even if we have to tell each other how we think they should do it.

Romantic love is so often written and sung about because we're all excited and confused about it all.  The hard reality of a love that I let consume me is that it often means I'm so happy with what it feels like that I'm willing to accept the bad and even the abusive. With all the bad, it's still a risk I am willing and happy to take.  There is freedom in letting go.  There is joy in the unexpected.  There is love and it's everywhere and I get to pour what I have into someone else and that ability to give love, whether or not I receive it in return is where my joy is because I have learned how to love myself first.  I don't need to be filled and fixed but there is freedom and peace in what I can give.

I'm excited that I get to fall in love again.

Give it to me because I want it.

When I was a little girl, my parents would take us into the heart of Hollywood where we walked along Hollywood Blvd. and read the names on the stars on the sidewalk. We stopped for ice cream in freshly made waffle cones with a maraschino cherry or a ball of bubblegum in the bottom and checked out all of the stores selling souvenirs. On one trip I remember putting a red plastic toy watch in my pocket. I also stole candy that night. They were little individually wrapped hard candies and I shoved them deep into my pocket, hiding them carefully for later. Later never came because as we continued along the street, I pulled out my new watch and got caught.  I couldn't wait for what I wanted and needed to have my immediate gratification. My parents did the responsible thing and made me go back and return it.  Getting caught sucked.

I feel it's normal to want something we don't have.  We go to extremes because we imagine how wonderful it would be to have that thing we want.  My first example for you was stealing.  We might take something if we feel like we can get away with it.  I thought I was in the clear with my little red plastic watch and I was ready to wear it and enjoy it.

We'll diet and exercise for a perfect body . . . Well, you might but I most certainly will not. If it doesn't feel good, you aren't selling it to me.

We save our money and forgo things we like and are comfortable with for something that matters more.

We'll negotiate and plead and beg for what we want.

We'll work hard toward what we want.  Making plans and setting goals is my idea of fun.  It lands me elbows deep in a spreadsheet.

We'll even face repeated rejections if that means there's a possibility we'll get what we want.  (It's always going to be about a boy.)

We'll even eat our vegetables so we can have cheesecake for dessert.  Doesn't it bite when you get through all of your brussels sprouts only to find out someone else ate your cherry pie?

I've been wanting to write a great big novel for years.  Each November 1st I watch Twitter light up with writers participating in NaNoWriMo and I want to be them, but I haven't been them.  Something inside of me shattered under the pressure of what I thought I was supposed to be and do made it really difficult to write.  I couldn't see the end and if I did, it wasn't fun anymore.  I couldn't get myself to set the time aside.  Once upon a time, I had to force myself to stop writing so I could eat or sleep.

The other night I felt the spark of a story that was pulling me along.  It felt amazing to be so involved in what I was writing and it was terrifying at the same time.  I want to write but the weight of the story that was filtering through me was different. It was a compulsion that kept me from the drama of being Mom in the middle of kid fits and it calmed the rage that was building in making me want to disconnect.  (The rebellious side in me ignores life in literature because I grew out of the scary things I used to do.) As much fun as I have blogging, the writing is not as serious or driven by deep need as writing out fiction (my dialog skills suck, so you may never see it).  As much as my blog started from a very broken place, there has been healing and there are no longer itchy scabs begging to be peeled so the wound can flow freely again.  I don't know when that happened but it is a good feeling.

I often see my blog as more frivolous.  I write short (to me) posts that map out something I think or feel or just the way I see the world.  It's silly and each post can stand alone.  It's really just just something to write to get back into the habit of writing.  I want to get back to what writing used to be and blogging is my gateway drug.  But I've been neglecting my blog for bigger, and it's a kid free night and I'm not sure if I want to do anything other than go home and write, and that excites me.

My Dad has always had projects he was working on.  I remember being a little girl and laying in bed wide awake. I purposely didn't cover myself with my blankets because I wanted my Dad to come tuck me in.  He was busy writing and didn't know about this until we talked about it last week.  I need to be intentional about being a Mom and make sure my words don't replace my kids, because my kids aren't imaginary.

Serious writing means I'll have to remember to eat.  I'll have to set aside time to function as a human that does dishes and laundry, but I get to write.  I will have to mother with intention.  I will have to remember to not neglect my blog because it brings me serious joy and I'll need it when I get to the revisions and editing phases that are tedious and frustrating.

A Moment of Gratitude

Last night I was having a hormonal pity party and a friend's perfectly timed messages gave me space to indulge in the feelings and then forced perspective, because I can choose how I want to react to the life I get to live.  It inspired a moment where I wanted to enjoy another post on gratitude. This one won't just be about men though.  It'll mainly be about men.  Isn't it always about a boy?

Thank you for noticing me and telling me you did.  That unexpected compliment was perfectly timed, but then they all are.

Thank you for wanting revenge on my behalf and respecting the higher road I've been dancing on.

Thank you for trusting me with your darkness and fully embracing mine.

Thank you for teaching me new things and being patient with my ability to make a simple problem complex. It's a super power.

Thank you for never making me feel the burden of what I did to your life.  I imagined what it was to find out I was coming and my version looks nothing like what you have always made me feel.  You amaze me.

Thank you for all of the loving pet names you use in our conversations that remind me that I am special to you.

Thank you for the trips down memory lane that we can laugh at now that you are no longer a 15 year old virgin.  Sorry for the power I enjoyed holding over you and the fun I had at your expense.

Thank you for making me feel like one of the guys.  Pizza and beer with a stogie and Monday night football are still happy memories.

Thank you for that amazing summer.  I can't think of Manhattan Beach without remembering our friendship.  I wouldn't want to.

Thank you for accepting that I grew out of my Freakzilla phase, but I want you to know I hold onto what I learned because of our deep conversations and your perspective.

Thank you for teaching me that exercise should always look like play.

Thank you for acknowledging that I had the ability to hurt others and for showing me I didn't have to.

Thank you for trusting that I will fight for you for as long and as hard as it takes because that is who I am.

Thank you for being my wing-man, and understanding that not everyone deserves an introduction while laughing at my insane reasons for rejection.

Thank you for rooting for me.

Thank you for feeling like you need to feed me.  It's sweet.

Thank you for the hug that felt like I was cradled and safe and words weren't necessary.

Thank you for the amazing you handed me without my ever needing to ask.

Thank you for going with my zany thoughts and ideas and never feeling like they needed to be smaller for you.

Thank you for indulging in my food joy moments that made no sense to you until you tasted what I had in mind.

Thank you for your spontaneity and the excitement you gave me when I gave you a yes.

Thank you for gelato when you knew I needed it.

Thank you for making things easy when I could only see obstacles in front of me.

Thank you for listening to me rant, and not trying to offer anything more than an ear.

Thank you for believing in me and putting your money where your trust was.

Thank you for not pushing when you saw me withdraw.

Thank you for showing me how affected you are by me.

Thank you for telling me more than you were comfortable sharing.

Thank you for teaching me how to throw a punch and what part of my foot to use to nail that roundhouse kick.

Thank you for teaching me how to change a tire.  And thank you for paying for my roadside assistance so I didn't have to.

Thank you for picking me up and taking me out to lunch.

Thank you for unexpected flowers and cards.

Thank you for our girl dates and pedicures and letting me tell you the many things you saw before I could.

Thank you for being polite.  And thank you for not being polite.

Thank you for disappearing from the world, but taking me with you.

Thank you for telling me all the things you adore about me.

Thank you for showing me that only the really great ones should end up in the friendzone.

Thank you for telling me that a whore sleeps with everyone, but a bitch sleeps with everyone but you, and accepting that sometimes there is no sleeping with anyone.

Thank you for your many guidelines for dating and laughing as I told you about the rubric for dating I was already using.

Thank you for helping me pick out a skirt, even though you hated shopping for women's clothes as much as I did.

What Used to Fit

The plan was to wear a dress today.  I have a thing I get to do after work and I wanted to dress up a bit.  When I first bought the dress, I loved the way it skimmed my hips and held my curves in front and back.  It hugged me and I wasn't wearing that dress nearly as much as it wore me.  It has large flowers in black and red and white and the red matches my favorite lipstick perfectly.  It's not super short and ends just above the tattoo on my thigh. I felt so sexy and confident in it.  It was perfect for today. I laid it out last night with my favorite black pumps.  After my shower I tried it on. I'm too small for it.  The dress is the same but it doesn't fit anymore.  What felt sexy is now silly with material to pinch instead of my softer marshmallow fluff.  I miss my fluffy bits.  It felt like being a kid in my Mom's shoes, but when I looked in the mirror, I was missing her grace and beauty.  In a panic I reached for my stand by little black dress and it is a size larger than the one I planned to wear.

I'm not dieting.  There is no exercise happening for my body.  It's not intentional at all. It's a shift in how I eat. The idea of my not eating something that tastes good and feels good is insane to me.  My food choices are epicurean in taste as well as sensory satisfaction.  I love food.  I know, it seems like something most people can get behind, but I really sincerely love food.  I love tastes and textures.  I love food combinations and unexpected nuance.  Throw fresh mango in my California Roll.  Add bleu cheese and fresh rosemary to my sweet potato fries.  Under the right conditions, a bite of heaven can sound like it needs an adult rating from me. I've changed.  I'm still changing.

Some changes happen quickly.  It's amazing how a uterus shrinks as soon as it's emptied after pregnancy. In the hours after giving birth, I was able to push a fist through my stomach.  The right and left halves of abdominal muscles split during pregnancy, to give room for that baby bump.  It means there was a huge gap that I had fun poking into where I was squishy and soft and it was immediate.  My body shifted in concert, but not uniformly.

Some changes are more gradual.  I was a larger woman two years ago.  I was probably even growing.  My favorite midnight snack was a can of Campbell's Chunky soup with a fist full of shredded cheddar on top of another fist of French Fried Onions. I eat when I'm hungry now, and skip meals when I'm not. My eating habits have changed.  I don't like being so full I can't do more than sit and digest, and waiting five minutes for more room isn't a habit anymore. The proof is in the shrinking of my body.  It started with jeans that needed a belt to stay up.  I shrunk enough to need new jeans and it's happened again, but now I need to find a new little black dress and bikini and the idea stresses me out.  I hate shopping for clothes.  I know, I don't deserve the breasts I was born with. I've gained confidence where I was only insecure before.  That's a plus, but there is space I wasn't prepared for in the shifting of my body away from clothes that fit and felt terrific before.

I'm in a pair of slacks in a boring color because I wasn't thinking of how sexy feels when I bought the suit a couple of months ago.  It fits but it doesn't make me feel like a lioness on the prowl for a bite and conquest.  It feels like what I felt when I bought it but even my personality has shifted enough that it's not working for me anymore. There is space in shifting who I am and where I belong and while the old was familiar and comfortable, it doesn't fit and makes me look ridiculous.  I can try to put on the past but it falls around me in excess and I'm looking for a way to make things fit when they can't.  It's time to give away the old and look for the new.

Risk Taking

The safe road is the one I've already been on.  It's the road with the memory of before that informs me of my limits.  It tells me where I need to stop so I don't feel pain. It's the road that can't see the future because what is in front of me is from the past.  What if the road itself is a construct that doesn't have to exist? What if a risk could involve flight? What if we never have to land because what is above is stronger than gravity?

Risk itself seems scary.  True fear is the underlying inability to trust what is out of my control. Control is an illusion and I have based so much on a false reality.  I can't control anything.  I can try to align things in a way that they might fall in expected patterns, but really I have no choice in what happens, only how I respond or react to it.  I get to give my fear away to the risks I am willing to take.  I get to see what happens and I get to start controlling how I choose to respond.  I get to live in this moment, at this time, right now.  I won't fear the past because it's already happened and I won't give up my future to what I may never see.

Love

The poets get it wrong.  Love is not painful.  Knowing what love is and then knowing what it feels like when it goes away is where we find the pain that so many write about.  We go from the excitement of finding someone that seems so amazing that there has to be a catch.  We look forward to a smile and try to memorize a voice and when it combines into the sound of their laughter there isn't a sound in the world that can hold more magic.  We long for the scent of their body calling us closer.  We crave the warmth of a hug and tender kisses that melt us into a puddle of carefree abandon in arms strong enough to support us. We like knowing that what we are waiting for is sitting in ourselves for someone else and they are just as excited to see us.

I look for the loose strings that could unravel a blanket and I pull and yank.  When it's still beautiful, I begin to trust that this blanket could keep me warm and comfort insecurities.  I start taking it everywhere, and start wrapping it into shapes that make the blanket into a vessel and I pour all of my hopes, fears, and insecurities into it.  I expect it to still be beautiful even though I've twisted it into something it was never meant to be, and I've given it a heavier burden than it was ever meant to carry.  At some point, the blanket is still a blanket and it will need to be shaken out to rid itself of the positions I've forced it into, dropping the weight of my belongings, and freeing itself of the crumbs I've left from that gluten free cracker binge during the latest novel I read while ignoring the fact that the blanket needed to be more than my blanket and had a beauty of its own to display.  There's a disconnect and a shift and the flat blanket and my strewn belongings leave me lost and in pain and suddenly cold, and I am left picking up my things that may have gotten broken when they landed on the floor.  Maybe I should have put my own things away instead of throwing them on the bed.

Anger

I picked the kids up early on Sunday evening, and they were distraught because as Kid3 put it, "Daddy tried to lie about where you were.  He said you were on a date at the beach." All 3 were angry.  Kid3 was able to express that he felt like his trust was violated.  I reminded the kids that the beach is my special place and while I've taken them to the beach, I haven't taken any dates to the beach. I prefer to go alone.  The last time I was at the beach with my son I saw that photographer that wants what I'm not offering and I waved but didn't stop because my son doesn't need to worry about anyone that I wouldn't want to make into a step dad.  I reminded them that I had a class over the weekend and I told them I wouldn't be available in the week leading up to it.  My kids need to know what is coming. They were prepared.  After that was settled, I told them if they were upset with their parents, it's their responsibility to tell us what we did wrong so we can fix it.  They did good in telling me, but they can talk to their Dad too.

Last night my son asked for an app on the old iPhone I gave him when I upgraded my phone.  It allows you to prank dial people and it was free, and I didn't mind.  Actually, I was in the middle of a very fun venture toward risk in my own love life.  I wasn't concerned.  It's summer and phone shenanigans were my thing at his age too. My son was with his grandmother, my younger siblings and his cousins.  A while later I got an angry call from his Dad because my son's game looked like a car accident with my ex's name and number as the responsible party.  There were calls to his special friend as well and they thought it was my idea to be a 12 year old. To my ex, it looked like I had someone in my family (my mom's number) harassing him and his special friend.  There was ugliness for me to face but I'm a grown up.

It was a moment when I felt pride in my son.  I know, it looks like I was happy that my son would try to annoy his father.  It's not that at all.    Prank calling his Dad was my son's risk in telling him he was angry.  He didn't use words expressing his feelings.  They don't have the rapport we do.  But he expressed his anger and frustration, rather than holding it in.  We'll have to have a talk about his need to defend me.  After all, I'm a grown up when I'm not crushing hard on a hottie.

Writing

This weekend I decided I would take greater risks in my writing.  I'm playing with ideas and outlining that great big terrifying novel I've always wanted to write.  Scrivener will finally get the attention I promised when I paid for it.  My laptop will finally be used for more than a blog post and random searches to satisfy my curiosity.  Or my more sappy lovesick stalking sessions. I will rip open healed wounds and pour myself into my writing in a way that I've always feared because it's time.  I'm ready.  The fear of not being creative enough, or not having time, or coming up with stupid ideas that no one will care about are now unwelcome guests that I never planned to invite to my party.  I've sent them home and changed the locks.

Life

So much of what I do or have done is dictated by the results I've already seen.  True risk involves taking chances based on the dreams you have.  Big or small, a dream is a dream and either it will happen or it won't.  I will not wait until I have what I think I need.  I will not wait until I can do what I think I need to do.  I'm here.  I can be what I want to be, right here and now.

Relationships

I had a conversation with my Mom last night that started after a hug that surprised her.  It was a hug where I held her tight and wrapped my love into her being.  It was after I looked her in the eyes and really told her how much I appreciated her.  There was a moment this weekend when I thought back to the time when she had me.  There was a moment when I saw the situation she faced and considered what I might have felt in her shoes.  I never once felt like she treated me the way I would have felt.  She only gave me love, no matter how many times I pushed or walked all over her.  I told her about the daughter I saw in her when she cared for my grandmother until her last day.  I told her how proud I was of her example. I later saw my step-dad and we talked from our car windows, but it was a moment of telling him that I appreciate the man he is to me and my children.  I told him I loved him.  Both times I was wounded by the surprise I received because I could see how much of my authenticity I was holding away from two people that mean so much to me.  I'm amazed at the beauty I can see in the people around me and I don't want to go back to who I was before I really saw all I did in my parents and myself this past weekend.

The Unknown in Others

So much fear comes from what we don't know or understand.  It looks like what we use to separate us from other people.  Race, sexual orientation, ability, belief . . . They are excuses to strange ourselves as we ostracise others.  Embrace what you don't know.  I don't mean blatant cultural appropriation but a full and meaningful embrace of what is unknown to the point where fear becomes appreciation of the neighbor you at one time didn't understand.  Embrace different.  Take a risk and be rewarded by it.

Perspective Shift

It's the second day I've stepped into my morning shower with a song in my heart and a dance in my steps.  Seriously singing and dancing in the shower like I did in high school.  I never said I'm into personal safety, but I am joyful. I'm not a victim to the life I get to live.

I get to be an autism mom.

I get to be a responsible daughter.

I get to be a reliable sister.

I got to be a stay at home mom and I get to start a career at 38.

I got to be a wife, and now I get to fall in love again.

This weekend I was singing.  It wasn't the typical singing a song while working because I want to forget that I hate what I have to do.  It wasn't singing in church.  I was singing a song to someone.  It was a serenade as an expression of the love I wanted to shower them with.  It was beautiful and I wasn't worried about what my voice sounded like.  It was a hug that came from the deepest parts of my heart.

I get to balance my very own checkbook.

I get to rebuild my life so it is an expression of my choices.

I get to BE and I don't have to wait until I have or do.

I get to make up my own rules and I don't have to feel shame if I decide to break them.

I'm not responsible for the feelings of others.

I'm not tied to the feelings that come with experiences.

I can choose my reactions and the meanings I tie to my life.

I will do my best to honor the example given by the trainer we had in my weekend perspective overhaul.  When you put a rat in a maze, it will learn the quickest route to the reward left at the end of the maze.  Eventually, routine will replace the trial and error of scent that leads the rat to the reward.  If you move the reward, the rat will go on autopilot based on past experience, but the moment it realizes the reward was moved, the rat will sniff out it's new locations.  Humans have a hard time with that idea.  Especially with love.  We will continue to look in the same spot once our love has moved and we'll whine and complain, rather than looking elsewhere.  We'll wait endlessly for its return, complaining about what is missing and should be in the exact spot we left it. Right now I'm finding that love right here, within me.

I get to take myself out and show myself the best of everything I could ever dream to experience.  I get to live by choice. I can be and watch the doing unfold into the here and be surrounded in my bliss.  And I get to show my boys how to do it too.

Don't envy me.  You can have it too.

Transformational Training

The end of this week has been spent in a personal development course.  I had a friend really push me toward the course because it was amazing to her and she saw the potential for it to be amazing to me.  I didn't want to go, but more than that, I didn't want to disappoint this friend.  I started without real expectations and came in with a boatload of skepticism.  The course is called, "Basic" and it's held by Mastery in Transformational Training. An initial online search and sycophantic encouragement from a room full of people at this friend's birthday party had me convinced it was a cult.  I joked about heading off to be brain washed to friends because I was curious, but not convinced it was a wholesome experience.  There were too many red flags for me.  There were definite moments where this was reinforced.  Everything is done with the intention of taking all of your beliefs and restructuring them based on new perspectives.  It's not far from where I had gotten in writing by myself.  I am not the child I was when pain first left it's mark in disappointment.  As an adult, I can honor that pain, but I no longer reside in it.  It is not my reality.

The class has games and directed meditations that will deepen your perspective of the life you lead and your motivations.  There are moments when your classmates will work together to cull the person you want to be out of the heaviness of who you've become.

There was a moment of being called out and it hit me so profoundly.  Part of what I was told was that I am arrogant.  There are other words, but this was the most meaningful, because immediately I found this to be true.  It was a moment that brought shame, but as the thought settled into the fine lines of my identity, I considered where it came from.  I have spent so long feeling like nothing that the idea of being more than I was became a drug and a balm and a protection to me.  I couldn't decide if this arrogance was a bad aspect of my identity.  I still can't.  At the same time, one of the things I deeply want that I don't feel I have is confidence.  My arrogance is a mask and a protection.

The class also showed me that I don't take risks because of the control I need and the underlying fear that stops my development.  I want to take risks. I want to live in bravery despite my fear.  I want to do more and be better. I need to take the unknown road and commit to a bigger gamble.

There are other areas that have shifted and expanded for me . . . areas I didn't know existed.  Through writing, I was fairly certain I had worked through my Mommy and Daddy issues, but there was a deeper layer I had never explored because I didn't realize it existed.  It is a layer that at times makes me give space without realizing the pain it likely causes the people I love. How do we deny ourselves to others? How do we ignore them, and in so doing, what kind of example am I being to my sons? I learned from an Uncle that we are either the parent or the child in our relationships and we can choose what to be.  I've since learned that as an adult, I can be an adult with my parents and it may actually learn their respect. I realized that it breaks my heart that I don't often see my parents profoundly joyful, and it's hard to see them age into the natural order of life when they have always been so strong, secure and independent.

I have sibling issues.  Birth order issues.  I did not know this. I saw it in a game we played and it is an example for the life I lead.  I didn't want to learn the rules of the game.  I wanted to sit on the sidelines and pick a side that had more to do with the shade of lipstick I love.  I wanted to listen and laugh at the snarky opinions I held that labeled the others in my group.  I do this in life and with my family.  Being the baby for as long as I was, my opinions weren't valued.  To this day, I wear a skepticism that negates any possible praise.  My older siblings have moments where there is awe and acceptance for some of the major ideals that I share and this awe feels like condescension that I could come up with valid ideas that are too strong for a baby sister.  I see myself as the baby and have yet to see myself as an adult.  It was something that played out just on Father's Day.  I had an opinion that I negated without trying to be heard and at the end of the day, it was something we did and we all enjoyed.

Mostly the class so far has given me this perspective of authenticity in relationships that is in many ways still a haze of nebulous beauty.  I don't want to feel like my motives are ulterior and I want to give a fully disclosed transparency to others.  I want them to know why I feel they are amazing and why I want their time.  I want to understand what makes me see others as any less than beautiful and what could I do to make the interaction one where I don't feel victimized by a power struggle but empowered by mutual respect and love.

I'm not a crying type but I left last night's training after a day of tears that surprised me.  It wasn't all sorrow.  There was dancing and deep connection and hugs that brought so much joy and sorrow that there were tears and smiles and encouragement.  There was a shift and there was growth.

I headed to the beach because that is where I reboot and decided I would feed a hungry person.  I ran into Patrick with the blue eyes and he remembered me from the last meal I gave him.  We sat for a bit and I listened openly to him tell me about being younger in Arcadia and he now lives near my Mom.  I was in a state of giving because of all I had received.  Today is the last day and then we graduate.  They suggest we surround ourselves with family and friends but I'm choosing not too.  Everything is so fresh and raw and I'm hollowed out in places that I want to heal before I reach out with healing scabs.  I need to process it still.

It's not a cult, but they will scrub your brain.  In a good way.

Gaslighting

I'm not a therapist qualified to explain gaslighting other than the dialogues that I've reexamined in my own life in the past year and a half.  A great starting place is here. A better than I care to write explanation comes from here where I borrowed:

The term “gaslighting” comes from the 1944 film, ‘Gaslight,’ where a young woman named Paula falls madly in love with her suitor, Gregory. After an intense romance that led to marriage, Gregory begins to display pathological narcissistic behavior, leading to Paula’s insanity. In one scene, Gregory tampers with the gas light in the attic, causing the house lights to dim. When Paula mentions hearing footsteps in the attic and the lights dimming, Gregory tells her it’s completely her imagination, making Paula question her judgment. Gaslighting is now the widely used term for when a narcissist truly messes with your head.

My friends didn't approve.  They wanted someone handsome and smart and someone that treated me well and I couldn't see that he wasn't all of this.  I had love in my eyes and I couldn't see.  I had to protect him from their jokes and their mean because I wanted him to be okay and they wouldn't have let me keep him.

There was a time when my opinions were met with defiance.  I saw it was yes and he insisted it was no.  I said it was this way and he thought my eyes were tired, I couldn't see in the lighting we had.  It was no and it was always no, but I saw yes and said it was no to stop fighting. I hate fighting and I'd rather be wrong.

Seasons shifted and friends melted away.  He didn't like who I was with her and she was crass and loud and didn't like how he treated me, but this was normal, right?  Choosing the one that kisses you and letting go of your friends that know you and see the energy shift in you that came from him is what you do when your love is all consuming. This is what it looks like when you feel love . . . Right?

I wanted a night out with friends and we were meeting at a bar, but he insisted he should drive me and wait outside the bar with our kids in the family van until I was done.  I was being selfish and he was trying to protect me from myself.  It wasn't control because he was so upset about having to do it. Even if I didn't want him to.  That's normal, right? It's what a caring husband is supposed to do, isn't it?

Friends told me he was flirting but he was always a flirt.  He got it from his grandfather and I should accept that because that's who he was.  He once got in a fist fight with a complete stranger outside of our apartment building because he got a smile that seemed to say I was doing what he was.  I was covered in puke and running after baby needs and at a loss because I had no idea how to be a mom, but he thought I had energy or desire for anyone other than him because I was so tired, too tired to look at him.  Or anyone.

I started to shift around him afraid of his anger or worse, his sadness. My actions made him happy or sad. I made him do things and say things so I behaved in his way as best I could, chafing at what was right because I felt it was wrong. I stopped questioning if it was right because it didn't matter anymore.

I had errands to run . . . Target and groceries and he was home with kids, but an hour was enough and at that point he would text me for my location and when would I be home because he needed a break to run and go play and be with friends and I needed to be home with the kids because my time to run errands was a freedom he couldn't afford.

I would lose myself in a book or two or three in a day.  I would escape in another world so I wouldn't have to see what was in mine.  I would write until he would look for my words and use them against me.  He took the part of me that felt safety and freedom in crafting worlds of fiction and he made me feel that being a bookish broad took my marriage from me.

Last week was:

"For the record, I really  fucking hate you."

" . . . pussy that reflects badly on you is the open gape between your crusty thighs. I hope you catch something from all the whoring around you do and die so I can be rid of your skanky ass once and for all! Try not to knee yourself in the saggy tits!"

Joke's on him, I have no sex.

"Not the good Christian abandoned wife you pretended to be . . . Glad people finally get to see your true colors."

Yes.  I'm finally writing!

It's been a year of this including text messages from his "special friend." They both think I'm physically unattractive and a bad mother. It's been a dialogue I have no control over and a trust that is so broken that my need to control is fueled by this underlying fear and I'm faced with my inability to take risks.

My internal dialogue is I'm a single mom to autistic kids and that is a bag of rotten tomatoes no one will seriously want to invest in.  If he does, I worry he wants to victimize my kids.  So there is space and distance. And fear and I'm not looking for serious relationship material.  I can't have that right now.  It's not allowed and I won't allow it.

But there has been space.  There has been enough distance to see that my life and who I am has nothing to do with what he told me.  The shades of his lies still color my view and I will always wonder if I'm seen the way he saw me.  I will be insecure until I remember I don't have to be. It creeps out in new conversations and I look like there is a compliment I'm trying to find, but it's really a moment of forgetting who I am.

Dating Advice

I don't have real dating advice.  I'm not sure how seriously I'm taking it.  It's company that feels better than being alone and that hasn't happened yet.  Actually, I spent the weekend taking Kid3 on dates, and even with his tantrums and meltdowns, he's a better date than most of what I found online.  And I paid! I'm still wading through the messiness and I'm just sharing gold nuggets from some of the men in my life that are not interested in me because they know me too well, or their orientation means we share an interest in the same men. I'm out of practice and very impulsive in some ways. The men in my life are straight shooters and when I'm comfortable, you'll get that from me too.  They love me.  They know me.  They don't want me. What am I looking for? So far he's monogamous, physically attractive, well groomed, intelligent, cultured, patient with children (he may be a gay man), and only has eyes for me.

You need someone on your level.

Yes! I'm well read, relatively sharp (how much sleep are we talking?) and I can take care of myself and my boys.  I'm generally happy and I don't need attention as much as I want it.  I'm looking for a match that I won't have to make up for.  Well, looking is a strong word that I keep using for the meandering I actually do.

Some things should only be admired from a distance.

But sometimes they are so pretty and shiny.  I want to touch and obsess and learn every detail.  Then I remind myself I'm not a puppy and I can put the toy down.  But I don't want to. Call it sweet.  It may be a touch stalkerish.

Don't date at work.

You can't shit where you eat.  (Crude, yes, but the exact way it was said to me.) I tend to look for someone doing just as well as I am, or better, and it's hard to shut my eyes when the men parade so innocently past me when they don't know I was looking through my lust colored lenses.

Set your rules and don't break them.

I had stiff rules when I was online dating.  No delivery drivers but that is more about me than anyone else. I have issues.  They end up here where I can be followed and shared and bookmarked. No one younger than me, but that one is flexible in relation to how much drool we're dealing with.  He has to be smart enough that I'm constantly in awe of his huge ideas and observations.  He has to look better than I do.  I'm looking for beautiful but I'm shallow.  I own it.

Don't lead anyone on.

I have this tendency to start flirting when I get comfortable.  That doesn't mean I'm into anyone outside of the reactions I get.  A simple lunch can mean much more to the man in front of me than it will ever mean to me.  I won't do it on purpose.  I go from purely polite and slightly indifferent to lioness on the prowl, looking for a chew toy. It's not good, but it's rarely intentional.

You're such a dude.  Not everyone you conquer needs to be femme.

Gender normative isn't a dirty word in the dating world.  I'm supposed to soften my ability to be dominant in my home and with my sexuality.  I had never seen the men I date as femme, but coming from a gay man, I have to believe there is truth in the way I portray them when I go into juicy detail.

Don't you know spooning leads to forking?

Flirting is never innocent.  Don't do it unless you mean it and are willing to follow through.  Craptastic because that is my way of being.

Walk away and let him come to you. Keep giving signals that you're interested but don't pursue.

This is too twisted.  I don't get it.  I haven't played this game in decades. I was interested and all over it, or not interested and polite with an edge.  I often ended a mean streak with, "I'm just messing with you."  I never said I was nice and the men I dated were never high on emotional intelligence or otherwise.

Baby steps, Ma.

When I am into someone I can get a bit carried away.  I'm not planning a wedding and moving in and puppies together. It's more like I'm free, let's go out. Some boys need to take it slower than that.

Forget to text him on some days. Send generic messages that don't show an interest in his life or that you're expecting conversation.

Have a great weekend! Enjoy your day! Happy 4th of July!

I'm here.  Think of me so we can keep playing this game that really secretly annoys me.

Poop already, because there are other people waiting for the pot.

(I think I was trying to go for being the Shit, but ended up as a toilet. Don't flush!)

You want owners, not the help. If he ain't the highest up on the totem you're not interested. This is no longer high school.

This should matter more because I'm frequently told to think ahead, but I'm not there yet.

A woman with ink is hardcore to a guy without ink. Honey, your level of pain is more than his.  He knows you're a freak and knowing that makes him wonder if he's sexually adequate.

I've given birth.  Many times. All of my ink is meaningful design that hurt less than a crowning child and the contractions that helped me kick 7 babies out.  It was easier than the angry uterus that had no problem with beating up an infant on the way out of my womb.

Where to go: church groups, book readings, events at parks, lounges, community service, the humane society needs volunteers.  Library, museum, coffee houses, cafe's.

For fun: the grocery store produce section.

"Hey, how ripe is that peach? I bet it's juicy."

"Are these melons ripe?"

"How do you pick your papayas?"

Do we really need to go there with bananas?  I think you get it.

Who I am . . .

I am a woman. I've been hurt and used and find a strength within me that I never imagined I could wield.  I've been touched without permission.  My body became what it has without permission and I had to learn to love it and found wonder in everything it's capable of.

I am mixed.

My mother is from Thailand and I have her exotic asian features.  I grew up with Thai food, but it's not what you would find in American Thai restaurants.  It's squatting on the kitchen floor eating fried fish and rice mixed and fed with fingers.  It's spicy and layered with flavor that most people can't handle because it comes with smells you can't stand.  My Dad is from Texas.  He grew up with cowboy boots and chili. My roots run deep in Louisiana politics, education that was fought for and slavery that came on a ship from Africa without willingness.  My Dad marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. and I own a heritage I will never need to experience because the way was paved in blood that runs through my veins.  We don't watch our heart beat but we know it does and it always has.

I am a daughter.

I have a Mom and Dad and Step-Dad.  They love and support me and guide me, even when I want to falter through life.

I have in-law parents that assure me I still belong to them.  But they have a son and the daughter I am believes they need to stop fighting for a marriage I no longer want and be the parents he needs because I get the impression I'm doing really well and he might not be.

I was a granddaughter, but I'm not anymore.

When you lose your parents you become an orphan, but losing my grandparents made me lose time.  I was lost in a void of grief for a while and I still get lost in memories of baking and snuggles and being loved beyond meaningless words.

I am a sister. 

I am a baby sister and an older sister.  I am a step-sister and sister in-law.  I am a sister by birth and a sister through adoption.  I have foster siblings that will always be close to my heart. I am talked to and talked at and loved bravely and defiantly.

I am a mom and giver of life.

I was an egg donor in 1999. I gave birth to my sons in 2001, 2003, and 2006.  I've given babies to other families as a gestational surrogate in 2008, 2010, and 2012. One egg donation cycle. Six pregnancies.  Seven IVF cycles.  Seven babies.  Five boys, two girls. Five families.  One uterus. One body.

I am a welfare mom. 

This is what it looks like. My ex was my full source of support and when he took that away and took me off of his medical insurance, I became a welfare mom. I'm not proud of it.  It's uncomfortable.  But it was necessary.  Even without child support, I have been able to take care of my kids but it comes from my family and social structures of support.  Thank you for your tax dollars.  I'm working now, but not yet as independent as I plan to be.

I am a friend. 

I'm not a good friend.  I don't track people down and insist on time together, but when we are together, I will give you all of my time and focus.   I will give you my honesty and clarity and hugs that are meant to hold you up and together.

I am literate. 

I read to escape and write to be present.  I write much more than I read lately.  I'm here.

I am brave. 

I will do what needs to be done, regardless of my fear or doubt.

I am married but I am not a wife.

I'm in marriage purgatory and it looks like separation but feels like I'm breaking out on my own and yet being pulled back by tar and grease and disgust.  It suffocates me in anger. I'm still his verbal punching bag but this morning I punched back.  I told him what was on my mind and felt empowered in so doing. I was also laughing on my way to work because of it.  The belly laughs were a workout.

I am cisgendered.  

I like boys.  I went through a curious phase in my early 20's, but I don't like kissing girls.  I'm learning that being female means I can do all of the things I needed my ex to do because what I do doesn't have breasts.  I do.  I wear dresses and jeans.  I take care of my family.  I can be a damsel in distress, but women are strong, and taught to strange ourselves into a state of being othered by society's warped standards.  We are taught to be victims because we are told we are the weaker sex, but historically, there are examples of women being the foundation of the home and the workplace and any other place we decide we want to be.  Being female shouldn't be an insult but it often is.

I am Christian.

I grew up in a Foursquare Church and that is where my pentecostal roots are buried.  I was baptized. I pray and go to church and sing worship songs.  I find that my beliefs haven't softened, but they've shifted.  I find ways to do what I see is right, and sometimes I do what is right for me. I don't see value in tearing down someone else for the sake of my religion. I love gay people.  I won't look down on them.  I love muslims.  I love atheists and Jews. I don't often proselytize.  If I can't sway you to want what I have when you see me, I won't try to embarrass others with my way of living by drawing attention to it.  I have specific wishes once I die that my funeral is not made into an alter call.  I used to be that person that was selling my joy to anyone interested.  Right now I'm enjoying the Grace that covers me where I fall short.  I may be jumping short in areas too.

I am a fighter. 

I know when to put up a fight and when to step back.  The goal of most fighters is to avoid an unnecessary fight.  It's not that I need to let others bully me, but I'm aware of my capabilities and I use my anger with intention and will try to avoid burning bridges when I'm in control.  I'm not always in control.

I am an autism mom. 

My ideals are constantly fractured and expanded by my amazing children and the spectrum they dance on.  It wasn't something I ever expected, but the greatest gifts in life rarely are.  They have grown and and learned and given me equal measure in growth and learning.  I'm a better person for what they've given me, and honored at the trust I see in their eyes.

I am a singer.  

I don't get paid to sing, but I sing at every opportunity and it pays me in happy emotions.

I am a blogger. 

I take willing readers on a ride through my heart and lend my glasses so you can see me intimately.  Into me see. I give but never ask to receive.  I can't decide if it's selfish or selfless.

I am a changeling. 

While I don't come from fairies, I was formed in a place far from where I was meant to be and I am ready to reign as Queen on my throne.  I just need a bit of growing and I'm still in transition.

What's My Age Again?

Part of rediscovering who I am means going back to who I was. I hear lists are a thing, so here's my top 10.

1. The roller skates are a great idea.  I just need to take it slow.  I was relying on muscle memory and for now, my muscles want to remind me of all of the times I fell while learning the first time around.  It's funny until it's scary because falling hurts. 
2. Jellies! I went to the Hammer Museum Sunday because I had been meaning to and stopped in American Apparel because I'm all about new things and it wasn't far from where I parked.  I found a pair of jellies to leave an evil impression on my feet that have always been too wide for these.  (Yes, today's post is a special delivery for those with a healthy dose of a foot fetish.) I have memories of running around outside in these and coming home with dust crusted lattice work feet and tan lines.  My BFF since 7th grade used to say they made our feet smell like popcorn.  
3. The guitarist/skater boy.  I dated drummers before.  I dated skaters. I needed to be reminded of why it could never work out and he did so in the most convincing way possible.  I forgot about Beavis and Butthead until he started talking.  It was funny until I realized I was choosing to give him my time. He reminded me a lot of the last skater I dated and they had a lot in common.  It was taking a look at what he would have grown into.  I dodged that bullet twice.
4. Laundry day.  I tried going as long as possible between loads.  Part of it is my dryer is being a problem child until I schedule that repair, but part of it was seeing how long I could go without doing laundry.  I didn't fully regress to my teens.  I finally took care of it all and did it without using laundry day as an excuse to go clothes shopping. "I'm out of underwear.  There's a store for that."
5. Brekkie.  Breakfast for dinner used to mean a huge bowl of cereal.  I'm a grown up though with a different palate.  I'll have breakfast for dinner when I'm alone. I'll whip up poached eggs, hollandaise and ham.  It's not eggs benedict without the muffin but it is full of oozing yum.  Try it. You'll like it.
6. Late night beach trips. When I first got my car,  I was at the beach most nights.  This was before parking on Temescal Canyon Road was restricted after 10.  I used to go and sit on tower 8 at Will Rogers and enjoy the feeling of being surrounded by the waves during high tide. I brought friends there and we would drink and talk and yell at the waves because they were yelling back.  A few friends (with more musical talent than I have) would bring a guitar and we would sing under the stars.
7. Clothes.  Part of the shift backwards is the weight I've lost.  Part of it is deciding I'm alone for half of the time.  I don't have to dress like a mom or a wife when I'm single. According to my niece I also dress like a person who is becoming old. She asked what I used to dress like when I was her age.  "A whore.  I used to dress like a whore." She plans to go shopping with me and exercising veto power on my wardrobe.  At the same time, I'm wearing more skin revealing clothes on weekends.  It's not that I'm ashamed of my body.  I actually love walking around in very little at home because I love the way looking like I do feels.  (Yes, my vapid selfie moments are because I really am vapid.) It's the idea that I'm supposed to dress like a mom and yet I don't have to.
8. My 'rents.  I've always called my parents Mom and Dad, but lately I think of them as Mommy and Daddy.  Especially when they bail me out or I'm being rebellious, because lately I want to do what they've always taught me is a naughty no, no.  My spankings are all life based lately.
9. Name calling. I'm not big on cursing people out.  I find it pointless and lacking creativity.  I have been known to get frustrated and call someone a "hamster penis" or "vulture vomit."  I will even stick my tongue out at a person when they aren't looking.  I'm much more implosive than explosive.
10. Music. My playlists lately are very much what I loved growing up.  Queen, Alanis Morissette, The Cure, Morrissey, The Verve, Radiohead, Paramore, Green Day, Garbage, The Police, Fiona Apple, Everclear, Blink 182, Beastie Boys, Depeche Mode, The Divinyls, Dramarama, Guns N' Roses, Jane's Addiction, 311, Lit, Marcy Playground, Mariah Carey, Metallica, Sublime . . . Throw in current Britney Spears, Taylor Swift, and Meghan Trainor, and you have what I sing and move to.  There's more, but why make a list within a list that much longer? I was in a club Friday and didn't recognize any of the music the cool kids were singing and gyrating to.  I want to be a cool kid that hangs out again and listens to cool stuff.  It just doesn't speak to me when it's sexualized and degrading.  I can do that on my own terms and I don't need someone to tell me how she feels when I know that feeling and it's more empowering than current music would suggest. 

I have moments where my old is showing and she looks like she has much more confidence than I did in my 20's.  She looks like she knows what she wants and she's learning to let go of something that isn't meant for her.  I keep reminding myself that I am not actually a puppy.  I can drop the toy.  I don't need belly rubs and attention. A lioness is also fiercely loyal, and less likely to get kicked for it.

I feel that regressing isn't about trying to be a kid again, but trying to hold onto the security I once held in these things.  I want to hold them and examine them and see how I lost the grip  I held on them, and see where I can learn and grow from them the second time around.  It's looking hard at what I loved, and figuring out what made me let go of them.  Was it a choice? Was it my choice? Am I better off with or without it? You mean I can have it again, and I can pick the color too?

I often point out that I'm being a 12 year old.  I say it in a self deprecating way, but I really can't see that as a bad thing.  I was badass, and the second time around is like cake before dinner.  (Look ma, no pimples!)

Shenanigans, Debauchery and a Desire Review

For months I've been wanting to get out and into something. An unspoken reality of divorce are the friendships that step away to avoid nasty fallouts and sidestep a pool of anger and a dash of messy emotions. My reality is that I am a solitary type a lot of the time and I'm often socially exhausted from being Mom all day. Add these and the math shows I have no one to go out with.  I have friends I sometimes talk to and can always rely on but I rarely see them. The ones that are still close to me are also parents and spouses and my single lifestyle doesn't fit anymore. I don't fit anymore. I spend free my time walking through malls and going to the beach. I find time to pamper myself and doze off while getting a pedicure. This makes me happy.  There has been a shift in recent weeks toward what I want rather than living in the moment and seeing how I can give of myself. I'm feeling the effect of this shift and it doesn't feel good.  It's not right. The last few days I've been in a funk.  I've been experiencing this reaching sorrow that holds me in a place where I can see what I want and I'm hurt at the inability to reach it.  There's powerlessness in unfulfilled desires.

Friday after work I tried filling this void of longing and it looked like:

1. Retail therapy after work.  It looks like pink and white quad rollerskates and a strong dose of hope that muscle memory will keep me from face planting. (I didn't fall, but I looked like a baby giraffe and decided baby steps would start in my livingroom being pulled by hands reaching for walls and furniture.)
2. I went out with family. It was my sister, niece and cousin and our ages ranged from 47 to 23.  We went to a Hookah lounge called Secret in the heart of Hollywood.  I drove past Beso and had a moment of heartsick longing when I remembered an epic night there in January.  It was wanting to smoke even though smoking is disgusting since I quit my 3 pack a day habit for the man I wanted to build a life with.  We went to the Abbey . . . a huge gay bar/club in West Hollywood and right on Santa Monica.
3. It was spending more than I needed to on a manicure, pedicure, eyebrow threading and getting my dye job touch up and trim at my local salon.

It was looking at it all and still feeling emptiness.

I just have to say how amazing my time with my family was.  My beautiful cousin is the most giving man I know.  He took us all out and helped with our make up.  He convinced my niece to join us because he just has this loving light around him that everyone wants to be around, but he's also a fierce gay man that will call you out on where you are going wrong because he's seen and felt enough in being the only family member from Thailand who is gay and has turned the "ka-toy" slur into "Auntie, he's so beautiful." He was strutting down the Blvd. in 8 inch heels, and I didn't feel out of place next to him in my 3 inches.  There was food and laughter and selfie sessions.  We were going to head home around midnight, but it was such a rare night to have me and my niece out with other grown ups that we ended up at the Abbey. There were no Cinderella's this night. As I was dancing, there was a man that stuck his nose in my boobs.  I gave him a gentle but firm push away and a firm finger wag with a smile and he smiled back before moving away.  A straight bar would have probably gotten me aggression from a perceived challenge instead.

Fast forward to Saturday night . . . My timelines shift and I'll help you jump around.

I have a very open face.  It's not hard to see what I'm thinking for the most part.  It's not usually a problem because I'm typically happy and not planning something sinister.  I've learned the value of transparency and I try to offer it where it feels safe to.  At times something will slip and I'll try my best to tuck it back in, but that's usually when my world is shifting and falling apart and I distract myself with transparent lustful thoughts and ideas. Joking about this, my other niece pointed out that I'm like a grown up teenager. 

Tonight, my mind was flooded with too many thoughts and things I want to look different, but have no power over.  Life is great at giving me things without  a receipt.  I don't know the value of what I have and I have no way to return or exchange it.

I was at Target when a woman approached me.  She said she could see I have spiritual blockages and she wanted to give me a reading.  She started to speak about what she believes to be true and for a lot of it she was right.  It's always about a boy, isn't it? And it usually involves drama from women that were in his life before me.  It's about the giving friendliness she felt she could benefit from.  People often see that I'm approachable.  She then wanted to give me a discount chakra clearing.  She wanted me to pay her more than I was willing to.  She then started trying to barter the price by asking me to pay for a few things for her and I did.  I don't want you to think I was scammed.  I wasn't.  As she was talking to me, things shifted just enough, and I needed the shift.

Surviving the pain of the last year has been about shifting my desires.  I've learned that when I focus on what I want, I don't have room for much else and that's bad because desires shift and change and grow.  Desires are often out of our hands.  If I focus only on desires,  the end goal will never be in sight.  Instead I try to focus on giving.  I try to focus on what I need to do for my children.  Sometimes I am giving to myself but it's mainly about seeing how I can help others.  I spoil my kids or buy dinner for a random homeless person. This woman had this plan to have me buy a few items for her and she would call that payment for the reading and chakra clearing she was offering at a discount.  I could see in the things she was buying that she was looking for necessities.  These were toiletries and food.  She wasn't looking for a movie or a purse or even makeup.  I had this moment where I could see that her only desire was to get these things she needed and it became my desire to help her through one night. I bought what she wanted but didn't ask for anything in return.  I won't be in her shop for a reading or clearing.  That's just not where my faith is and I didn't feel the same peace I did when I saw the amazing Gypsy Rogue and wrote about my visit in The Art of Gift Receiving.

So much of the last few months have been about what feels good.  My main goal has been epicurean pursuits in a very hedonistic setting of pleasures that I call shenanigans and debauchery.  Mainly it's shenanigans and very low key, non risky behavior.  I've been doing what I didn't feel I had permission to do before.  It's shopping for things I want, rather than just what I need.  It's the beach.  That sounds nuts because it is.  Okay, maybe going to the beach alone at night should scare me, but I've lived in neighborhoods before they became safe places to walk the block with your kids. I never needed permission to go to the beach, but I had this self enforced idea that beach trips are supposed to last all day and I have to worry about kids.  This means that in the past my play time happened once we got home from the beach and everyone was asleep.  Now a beach trip is an excuse to eat French Fries while watching people play in the ocean. It's the drinking.  I went through out of control(ish) drinking because I've always been a light weight, to feeling like all drinks shouldn't happen.  Especially in front of my kids.  I had a drink with my family Friday night.  It was a Cape Cod because it's usually what I order when I want to drink alcohol, but I was at a Hookah lounge with family.  I had a lightheaded feeling from the Hookah that was stronger than the buzz from the vodka.  The food tempered the effect and when we left, I felt sober and wasn't concerned about driving to the next stop. I didn't drink at the next stop though. I don't drink often because I love the control of being sober, but it was also about feeling like a mom shouldn't drink.  My mom would only have a glass of wine before going to bed and I really never saw my Dad drink.  Drugs were never even joked about.  It wasn't done in my family until we went through experimental rebellion. Even then, I never went past marijuana and that one day I tried huffing.  Not my brightest or proudest moment.

Friday night's drinking, smoking Hookah, then dancing at the Abbey were amazing fun, but it came with a sparkly mirror that showed me where I have placed hang ups on myself. My big desire is to live a life the way I should and sometimes it looks like the way I want it to, but more often it's about what I think others expect of me and when I'm most fulfilled it's in serving someone else. I wanted to dance and watch all of the beautiful men that had no interest in me at all, but part of the joy was about helping my sister feel included.  This was her first time at a club since she became legally blind.  She was really worried about being a burden to everyone else.  Part of the special night was the staff at the Abbey.  They were kind and helped her feel like they wanted her there.  (Honestly, that bouncer was dangerously gorgeous and an obviously used to women falling all over him when he was directing his charm on purpose.) Part of it was having help from my cousin and our niece to guide my sister to the bathrooms and bring her drinks and make sure she had a safe place to stand.

I finally stopped at the Heights Saturday afternoon.  It's a deli and bottle shop that replaced a meat market in my neighborhood because that's what happens when areas are gentrified.  I hated the idea that the carniceria I never went to was gone and my neighborhood is shifting but I walked in to step away from my hang ups and walked out with really good gluten free pasta carbonara and 4 pint sized cans of Glutenberg Beer because I'll try most things that are gluten free. I tried the white first because  it's closest to the MGD I used to drink.  I have 3 more to try out eventually. I'm not trying to get drunk or relive my youth.  It's about not being stuck in what I should be or how I should behave.  I'm home alone and not driving the rest of the night.  I'm old enough to vote and I can buy my own beer, so why not enjoy one?

I'm shifting again.  My perception has widened. I will continue to stretch who I feel I should be.  I will continue to do what I want to, but I will also continue to actively look for ways in which to be of service to others. When interacting with others, I will make my needs secondary and see if I can listen for the needs and desires of others.  It's not that I need to take a back seat and come second.  I need to not forget what being a giver feels like because that always feels better than being a taker.

Writing For Release

Have you ever created a world out of words or breathed life into a person, loved them completely and then put them through hell? You might be a writer. My writing goes online because that’s where I’m choosing to put it.  I like sharing my words because it validates who I am and forces me to stand firm in who I am, taking away any possible hiding places. I choose to not hide because hiding has always meant I’m not enough, but really, there’s more than enough from where I’m standing now.  It’s lovely here. Join me.

When I was working on my undergrad, a typical day meant I would get up at 7 to get the kids out to school.  I would finish last minute edits on my latest assignment before shooting off to class.  I’d sip coffee (and before my wheat sensitivity), enjoy an almond croissant.  I’d sit in class and tease apart ideas that started the night before in my reading.  I’d head toward home to pick up kids from school, get some housework done, hope for a short nap and start dinner.  My ex would come home and I’d run off to my evening classes with instructions on when to take dinner out of the oven.  I’d finish class and head home, hoping there was dinner left for me.  Bedtime routines would happen and I’d lay in bed and read a couple hundred pages while the ex watched t.v. until he fell asleep. I’d get up and bang out a paper or two, get in bed by 4 and start over. I think that's why I enjoy the forced flow of finance.  I thrive in going full on at a higher pace.

In between quarters, I would read a couple of novels a day, and write most of the night after my family was asleep.  I would read the Harry Potter series over and over because I love the way JK Rowling weaves a plot together.  She drops hints and each reading reveals a layer I missed the first 7 or 8 times.  Then I’ll read the Twilight Series because Stephenie Meyer makes me feel like anyone can do it, even me.  She’s great at telling a story and building suspense in a way that makes being too stupid to live sound romantic and having a stalker/jealous boyfriend the end goal that anyone could support.  I’m not going to comment on her prose, but she can sell horrible ideals and that is what makes her amazing.  Personally I’m horrible with suspense.  I’m always into instant gratification.

When my marriage fell apart it really was hard to write.  I couldn’t string together a paragraph for months.  Gaslighting made me believe my writing made me a horrible wife and mother.  I would get so involved that I would forget to eat and my kids would have to remind me that they needed food too.  It took a long time to realize my kids had another parent that was often in bed watching television while I was reading and we were both responsible for our kids. I loved my Kindle because my ex couldn’t keep track of how many books I was reading, and he couldn’t see my start and finish.  I could suspend time when I said, “at the end of this chapter.” There was a rending of a marriage and a lot of that was blamed on being into words more than I was into him.  That has been hard to reconcile.  I write meaningless fluff, that has meant something to the 600 visitors I’ve had since I started writing at the end of February.

I was talking to someone that makes me miss the craziness of writing enough that I finally put Scrivener on my laptop.  He’s great at shifting my perspective enough that I no longer feel shameless in objectifying him.  (I can almost picture you jumping around with me on that one.) He makes me want to write again, and I don’t have to change my vocabulary for him or worry that he needs change for the $5 word I just handed him.

The thing about writing is that it takes a huge imagination.  You create something out of nothing in a way that makes others see what you see.  You have to love it enough for the many edits you’ll need to not bore you and you want to know that you want to read every word because if you are bored of your writing, how can you expect your readers to care? Writers often have to take care of themselves while writing obsessively.  There’s a full work day and overtime in some cases and then we go to our writing den and exorcise our demons. Writing isn’t a job as much as a release to keep us sane.  I need my escape hatch as do most writers.  This is a place where we can recharge and clear our minds because they are going a mile a minute in several directions at all times.  It’s intense and can be overwhelming.  I love nature.  I love my feet sinking in sifting sand.  I like the feel of mud splattering on my legs, as my toes sink in dark brown sludge.  I like the feel of the sun on my bare skin and the sounds of nature reminding me that I am small and nothing is as constant as I think it is. Some writers exercise.  I find my best ideas when I’m talking to others or sweating it out.  I pull weeds. Exercise usually means I don’t have something to jot down ideas and they run away from me when I need them.  Conversations with people will remind me of a head tilt or laugh lines.  I’ll try to remember the tone of their voice or the excitement in their eyes.

I love to watch people.  I notice more details than the average person and it makes me a bit weird but only when I share what I see.  I love to watch artists draw or paint because they have an ability to put what they see on paper with obedient hands.  Personally, I can only do that with words and I’m in awe of anyone that can draw a straight line with a ruler because I really can’t.  Watching people and how they interact and figuring out what drives them is important to a writer.  We want to see if we can catch you lying and what will give you away.  We also want that one person we can trust no matter what because we need a safe place to just be. No outside pressure please. 

Sometimes I need to experience things.  That’s what online dating was about.  I wasn’t looking for something serious and I really only wanted company.  At the end of the day, I looked at the cost and it was cheaper to pay for my own meals.  I was talking to family and close friends and there was a collective sigh of relief because they saw it wasn’t for me, but they also knew me well enough to know I had to experience it in all of its craziness.  I needed to be able to write about it.

The planning in writing is something I would love to be able to shut off in life.  I’m the queen of putting the cart before the horse.  I can plan and plot out an entire relationship before I’ve even said hello.  I can see our life together and how I would fit myself around him and where I would want him to flow through me.  I keep hearing a special friend of mine reminding me, “baby steps, ma.” I’m working on that, and it has its rewards.

What do I need? A keyboard.  I type my words.  I often need music, but not always.  I will also wiggle to the beat in my seat as the words run through me.  I get it out and for the most part I will go back and edit, but with my blog that doesn’t happen often.  I’m afraid of editing out what I originally felt and that would invalidate my honesty.  Food helps too.  It might be tortilla chips and salsa.  Or bacon and eggs over medium.  I write with coffee or lemonade, but read with tea, but that’s typical and not mandatory.  When I’m writing poetry I need pen and paper and the pen usually has a backup in a different color.  Green and blue inks are my favorite.  My poetry usually only comes out when I’m not happy.  Lately I’ve been too happy to write poetry.  Give it some time and I’ll probably start penning longing love poems.  I’m sure I’ll let you know when I do. The relationships in my head are always much more fulfilling than the ones I experience.

I'm Going to Find a Real Boy

Deciding to remove myself from all of the online dating sites was a good choice, but it's been hitting me in different ways as the day progresses.  At first it was this feeling of relief because I had been irritated with every alert on my phone.  I was receiving likes, winks, views and matches that were draining the battery on my phone and they were from people that saw me as a smile or a body and not as a person.  Suddenly my phone was silent.  It was around that time that my work flow slowed down and I was bored.  I didn't miss the attention.  I missed the mental stretch from flirting and running several conversations at once and staying on top of the details they shared that were really boring in themselves, but fun to keep straight. There's confidence in low stakes flirting because you really don't care. Then there were the few text messages from men that I was thinking of seeing or the ones I had seen, but didn't plan to see again.  I kept shaking my head in exasperation or vocalizing frustration because of the things they were saying.  I wondered what I might have said to give them the impression I was okay with being treated as a body.  My pictures weren't sexual or revealing.  I wondered what would make them think I was suddenly in love with them when we had never met in person and I reserved the right to be annoyed by the sound of their voice.  I tend to think anyone that starts professing romantic ideals before meeting me is laying it on thick and can't be trusted.  I started saying "this isn't a good fit and I can't see you." One response was, "if it doesn't work out with this person, let me know," as if I needed to have a replacement to release someone that made me feel like less than I am. There are some that I am going to say goodbye to by text.  We talk almost daily but I don't really care to offer my beach sunsets in exchange for an interview.

There are others that will text me to see if I remember them after a week or two of no contact.  I'm just blocking those numbers.  They have other options to feel out and I'm just part of the herd. I'm on reserve as a back up. They feel like telemarketers to me.

I set up a date for lunch on Monday and I haven't cancelled it because he hasn't made me feel bad about being a woman.  I'm also not attracted to him and I may just cancel because it would be a kindness. He lives in Pointe Dume and I couldn't see myself wanting to go visit him all that often. And yet he's coming to Burbank for me.

It dawned on me that I was setting myself up for constant frustration and allowing others to abuse my self image.  I was allowing it for the idea of company so I wouldn't have to have dinner alone when my kids are gone.  I gave up on finding Mr. Right or Mr. Right Now.  I was looking for company and even then, I was so irritated with it all, and it was the suggestion from Mr. Give Me a Second To Wipe Away the Drool that I don't need to be online to find a date that set off this chain that became cut ties to the abuse I was receiving.  It was aggression and it was abusive.  Sexualizing a conversation without consent was abuse. Even if I never fell for the game being kicked, emotional manipulation for a catfish game is cruel when your prey is genuinely lonely and only looking for a connection.

So why would I accept what I was receiving for the hope of company? That's the greater question. I'm great company and I can continue to enjoy my alone time.

I had lowered my bar to find company because I didn't think I'd find someone worth committing to.  Even with a goal of companionship, I felt happier on nights alone than with the dates I did meet.  That's really sad.  My standards weren't that high.  I wanted company I could talk to and that was it.

My actual dating profile:

You: A pretty face with as much appreciation for your own body as you expect from me. Be able to take care of yourself.

Me: I take care of myself and my boys (50/50 custody). You won't meet them unless you can offer them more than my happiness.  I'm a happy person.  I'm healthy and avoid drama.

Us: I'm looking for company to go out with.  I'm most giving and fulfilled in monogamous relationships.

As for Mr. Right, I would love to meet someone smarter than I am.  That would be incredibly sexy. And yes, I want his body harder than mine is.  I would want to be stunned into silence because his words can monumentally shift everything for me.   I would want him to make me question my confidence.  Not in the way where I wonder what my value is, but in the way where I'm more curious about where I'm placed in his value system.  He should be able to take care of himself and find ways to be happy that aren't reliant on others.

"Loving another person, even several people, will make your life fuller...But it will not make it complete. You have to do that. You must decide what you live for."

Wisdom, Amanda Hocking

I had a moment today that shocked and surprised me.  I was talking and got caught up in a moment of checking out this beautiful body in the same moment when he said something that made me think, "why have I never considered that?"  He has the kind of smile that makes you want to smile and just enjoy being dumbstruck and I had this really stiff smile on my face that was probably all shades of wrong because I was so shocked and uncertain. I haven't had that feeling in decades. The idea that he could be what I stopped looking for hit me so hard my mouth went dry and my usual smile lost it's way.  As much as it scared me, I didn't run from that feeling but I had to really sit with it to understand that the feeling in my belly was sexual arousal because my mind was stroked in so many ways.  Just wow. Then I resorted to hiding behind a keyboard because in that moment I was okay with being 12. It was a just a moment, but it was full of the feels.

So yeah, the real boy thing just means I'm no longer looking online.  I'm following that gut instinct when I get past nerves and shyness.  I'm going by what I feel and think and not looking at pictures and what car he drives or where his career takes him because that didn't matter before I was online and I don't want it to matter now.  There aren't profiles to pick through and I can just enjoy an invite into his world instead of a need to take it apart and look for cracks in the plaster or shifting foundations with outdated electrical and rusting pipes.  I can see and feel and just be.

Until I'm there, I will enjoy the ocean and quiet dinners alone and continue finding the perfect rocks to stick around my pond and set on my porch.  I will consider watching more television and maybe even catch a movie.  I hear it's a thing and I should try it because I might like it.  I'll watch night time skies and see if there are any stars shooting through it and this summer I will catch a grunion run.  I will get lost in a book while my boys are gaming and the sounds of their joy  will filter through the tension I read through.  It's not sad, I promise.

Love Attachments

I’m not immune. I crave attention and desire earth shattering love.  I want to be that first good morning text and the fading memory before sleep steals conscious thoughts.  I want my walk to be the poetry that brightens someone’s day and I want my smile to create one where it didn’t exist before.  I want to be included in outings and tomorrows and be the sure thing in a future of uncertainty because choosing me would be intentional each day as life flows into endless possibilities. I want to share in the pleasures of a physical relationship as much as the next girl, and I want to see how completely I can control someone else’s arousal.  (Kid meet candy store.) I want words.  Long love letters . . .  Epic poetry . . .  Even unexpected post it notes would make me happy.  Yes, I am that girl.  Stick out that pinky so I can curl up around it. I’m travel size.  Take me with you. The thing about this girl is I want meaningful.  I’m big on fantasy and day dream, but I never step away from reality.  I used to fall for quick professions of undying love but I can see that as a fantasy world and the history of my love life has broken that fourth wall.  You can’t suspend my disbelief.  I want a relationship that starts slowly enough by mutual consent that one of us isn’t being taken hostage by one person’s fantasies and desires.  My needs are met and my wants are held in check because I can do that.  It’s a superpower.  I’m not saying I love you should wait for “x” amount of days.  It should wait until you can genuinely say you love this person more than your favorite food or shoes.  If you would sacrifice your comfy jeans for them, then tell them you love them.  Life is too short to hold that in check.

I met a man online about 3 days ago.  His love note was full of unhealthy attachment and I’m not interested.  I’m actually a bit frightened.

“I’ve never been so certain of anything in my life like I am of us.”

I couldn’t even tell you what I wore or ate yesterday. I’m not certain about much at all.

“You make my life complete.”

I make my life complete.  I’m not looking for filler or pillow fluff.  I just want company with kissable lips.

“Today I promise you that I would do anything in my power to make you a great person, outstanding woman and loving wife.”

Spectacular.  Except, you must not see that I’m already a great person, and outstanding woman and truthfully I’m still someone else’s wife and looking for a side piece to be my main attraction.

Honestly I could see this email being the answer that many people seek.  Just not me.  Either he was copying and pasting this email to as many as he could reach in an elaborate catfishing scheme, or he really is disturbed and imagining I said some of the delusional things he wrote.  It started to feel like a catfish situation on day 1.5. He's out. 

Allergy Warnings

My sons have allergies.  We've done the skin test which was pure torture on a four year old autistic child.  The rest of the tests were blood tests and both of my older kids reacted to almost everything that could be tested for.  Some allergies are more severe.  Kid2 reacts to peanuts on a blood test, but loves peanut butter and jelly uncrustables.  Give him soybean oil in his ranch, and he's going to puke.  He is also the kid that spent a summer getting familiar with bees.  He would open a soda can (when I used to buy soda) and set it on the porch and wait for bees.  He would then hold them and watch them.  His little hands were stung about 10 times in a week.  I keep baking soda in my medicine kit so I can make a paste of it with water for those stings. I keep an epipen or two in my purse. I had cat allergies as a kid.  I have a cat now.  She doesn't usually try to kill me, but somedays I curse her out for living.  I'll give her a bath and even though I try not to scare her, she is usually convinced I'm trying to drown her, and will fight me as viciously as she can. The battle scars from a cat battle are why I don't care when she wants to party all night.  She's fixed so I don't have to worry about her getting knocked up by some low life Tom Cat.

My latest allergy is wheat.  I was always a bread eater.  I love it warm and crusty and tender with softened butter or dipped in olive oil.  I love the taste of childhood found in a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or a grilled cheese sandwich with a little garlic salt.  I love almond croissants with the flaky dough and creamy granulated feel of the sweet almond paste inside. I was feeling constantly uncomfortable and I asked my doctor about food allergies.  She tested for celiac disease, which I don't have, but suggested I keep a food journal.  I did.

I wrote down what I ate and how I felt.  I just happened to go a few days on veggies, fruit and meat.  A few butter snap pretzels later and I felt like death was coming for me.  I'm talking diarrhea (I know you wanted to know that), dizziness, nausea, bloating, gas and gas pain.  I started avoiding wheat but wanted to test out the theory with a blueberry muffin and a few other innocent looking treats.

I loved Moscato d'Asti until I had a glass that made my face heat up.  Your booze shouldn't require a dose of Benadryl.  I don't react to margaritas at all.

Just before I graduated high school I had a recurring case of strep throat.  It would come and never really go away each month.  I was given erythromycin repeatedly until I had a reaction.  My chest felt tight and it was hard to breathe.  It only happened once, but why retest?

Allergies are interesting.  You could be fine with something for most of your life, then suddenly it wants to kill you.  People usually have a reaction to bug bites, but sometimes that reaction can get scary.  There are food and pollen allergies.  I've even read about an allergy to the protein in semen.

Mostly I've learned I'm allergic to drama.  I have a lunch date.  I'm just meeting an old friend but I would normally use the excuse to dress up.  Honestly, for a while I would dress up when I knew I was seeing the ex.  Today was a day where I'm meeting someone for lunch and I stopped by the ex to drop something off this morning.  It could have been the perfect excuse to wear something sexy and showcase my legs, but I didn't.  I have plans to hit the beach alone tonight, and my comfort was more important than the drama I would have invited.

Lowlights from the Trenches of Bad Dates

Warning: I'm not always nice, and I'm in a mean mood.

Life as I know it has taken a serious turn into the unfriendly world of single motherhood, and family health issues.  I think it's time for frivolity and what better place to start than to share some of my bad dates.  These are all people I actually met in person on dates.  Not all of them will end up here because some bad dates belong to men with redeeming qualities.  Just not enough for subsequent outings with me. I can use the laugh. Laugh with me.

Mr. Smart, Active, and a bit too Creeptackular

The first date I had was a spontaneous event.  We chatted a bit here and there between his basketball games and we talked about his career which interested me enough to keep the conversation going. He was aware that Wednesday is my first kid free day and I was on my way to Ikea when he reached out for a date that night. I'm not a drinker, but I have no problem with a good meal.

We planned to meet at a bar and grill in Highland Park, between us. Unfortunately, I was having a stressful day that included forgetting to feed myself.  By 6 that evening, I was starving and weak, and while I planned on half a gluten free wrap at Togo's, I devoured the whole shebang, chips and drink in less time than it took to get there once I realized I needed food.  I was in the earlier stages of online dating, where texting 7 men at once was still fun, so arriving early because I'm punctual didn't matter.  I was sitting in my car and lost track of time.  I was almost 5 minutes late.

I walked around the front of the bar and stopped for a minute to flirt with the bouncer.  Old habits die hard.  I had him guess my age because that never fails and always delivers.  He guessed 8 years younger.  My date noticed what I was doing at the door while seated at a table in the back of the bar, and was jealous enough to mention it.

I noticed he had two glasses of water on the table with the gin and tonic he was nursing.  My first thought was I couldn't trust the drink because I didn't know what all was in it.  And I was still full. I sat with him and didn't put one thing in my mouth the whole time.  I was a really cheap date. We chatted and the conversation flowed easily enough.  In hindsight, his boozy goggles probably made it so he needed to focus on my face, but his staring into my eyes, when I was looking everywhere but at him kinda creeped me out.

By 9 I made a lame excuse to head home, and he offered to walk me to my car.  He had been creeping me out for the last hour and a half and I kinda thought I'd be safer walking on my own, but accepted his escort.  When we got to my car he leaned in for a goodnight kiss.  I flinched.  I flinched the second time too, but gave a chaste kiss because I was sure he'd make a third attempt.  He asked about a second date, and I said yes, but we both knew he wouldn't get one.  As I was leaving, my headlights flashed at a woman sitting in her car across from us, laughing hysterically at what she saw.  It is kinda funny.

Mr. Sounds Sexy But Shouldn't Be Talking

I should state here that I'm not a nice person.  This man had such a thick accent that I couldn't understand half of what he said, and maybe that's what he had going for him. I really loved our first date.  The second date showed me more of the anger he had boiling under the surface.  He sees too much of Europe's financial demise coloring our economy in ways that make him predict a financial future that he's trying to leave in his past. He had the sounds and moves of the Italian transplant he is, and just wow.  In a good way.  He's the only one that got a second and third date.  I happened to have his first and third date on the same day as first dates with two other men.  Yes, seeing two men on one day has happened.  I should feel shame about how easily I navigated that, but I don't.  He was a special snowflake, just not special enough for me to want exclusivity.  In the end, an evening with an Adele soundtrack seemed to break him and his sweet emotional side was too soft for me to look at without wanting to laugh at him.   I won't go so far as to call him a little bitch, but I would have in my 20's. I did mention that I'm not nice, right?

Mr. Amazing on Paper, but Hornball by Text

I was flattered at first.  This was a man that was willing to meet me on my lunch break in Burbank from where he was working in Northridge.  We talked about being single parents.  He has owned a few businesses, and we discussed his latest ventures.  He seemed like someone worthy of my time.  The goodbye kiss was great.  He wore my lipstick nicely and didn't mind walking to his car with it smeared all over his mouth.  I loved getting to work and realizing my lipstick was also all over my chin.  Every text after that was about how badly he wanted to screw me on every surface he could find. He justified being rapey because I enjoyed kissing him too much.  Is that a thing?  I'm a grown woman that isn't inexperienced, but he made  desire feel dirty. He was the first person I had to block.

Mr. Old Enough to be My Teenage Dad

I'm not a fan of online dating.  At all.  When I meet a person in person that is willing to take a chance to ask me out, I'm usually game.  I'm big on spontaneity.  He had all of this going for him, so I didn't ask the obvious question that answers itself online: Are you between 38 and 45?  I lean toward 42 as a maximum unless he's beautiful and built.  He was nervous and brave in spite of being afraid of my rejection and I said yes even though I really wasn't interested.

He has a favorite beach and suggested an 80 minute drive through traffic right after I got off of work. I suggested we cut that time in half with my escape hatch at Santa Monica.  He made a few wrong turns and admitted he was nervous although he claimed to know the area, and later admitted to talking about me with a friend.  We were supposed to meet for coffee.  I never once offered to name a puppy together.

I like to ask men what they love about their work.  If there's something they love, they might be in a better mood when I see them than if they hate everything about their job.  At the end of the day, he's not a happy man. He saw a man texting at a light and went on an angry rant, but I didn't point out that it's a bad habit of mine to check alerts when stopped at a light. He made a few different hateful observations that described me pretty closely. He didn't know me well enough to know this.

On our way, I got car sick.  I tend to get boat sick. I used to get sick on the school bus as a kid.  I get carsick on mountain roads and stick shift cars with new drivers.  I don't remember the last time I actually got car sick but it was on the way to Big Bear when my boys were little and I was still getting pregnant for other people.  Before he hit the 405 I wanted to puke.

We ended up playing mini golf which was a win once my stomach settled and he stopped hovering over me like a mom.  On the way back to my car, he chose the streets and prolonged the drive that originally made me sick. I got sick again and passed up on his dinner offer.  I got home and made myself a steak and potato dinner.  Someone should explain to him that it's not a good idea to bring up your ex on a first date, or your date's ex, repeatedly.

For the record: My ex was my soul mate.  He was the bouncer at the pool hall that was my second home.  He would flirt and joke about patting me down for weapons when I barely had room for myself in my mini dresses.  One day I was at the bar and asked the bartender for a Coke, and said he would pay for it.  He said it would cost my number.  A week later I was on a date with someone else and asked why he didn't call me.  We had our first date in April, married that September and lasted for nearly 15 years before he quit.  It's been 16 years since our first date, and we're still legally married.  You can't recreate what was had because it was a combustible flame that consumed us both then was snuffed out in a vacuum.  You can't compete with that.  You have to accept that it was special and it's over and I'm waiting for my life partner.  He set a bar that I've raised to my eye level and I'm especially picky about who I give my time to.  If I've granted you an audience, don't waste it on my past.

Mr. Entrepreneur

This past weekend was planned as a self care weekend.  I needed to take myself out because I know how to treat this lady.  I had a beautiful sunset at the beach followed by a delicious meal by myself.  It was a beautiful night.  I blogged about it.  Cotton Candy Skies Make it Better. The next evening I met a girlfriend at the Grove and we shared laughter over non alcoholic drinks and I had chicken in a white wine reduction with capers, lemon juice and brussels sprouts which gave me a hangover the next morning anyway.  I'm so not a lush. We even joked about having kiddie drinks. As I was leaving, I got a Bumble alert from an OC man that was 2 miles away for work.  I said I was heading home, but probably stopping for coffee first.  His reply was about coffee keeping me up and I mentioned it was also an excuse to meet him if he was game.  I was open to tea. We met at Starbucks, but he suggested tea at the Thai restaurant that was closing.  He said they'd sell tea, but clearly hadn't investigated in the time he was waiting for me at the Starbucks he suggested.  They weren't a tea bar, but I ordered a young coconut.  He watched me pay for mine, then ordered and paid for his.  I don't mind.  It's only $4.

It made me think about a date that bought me breakfast when I took him up on his offer after a couple of messages.  It was a last moment thing and I loved the spontaneity. He said something along the lines of taking the opportunity to prove you aren't a douche on the first date by paying.  This was a terrific date,  but we want different things.

Mr. Entrepreneur and I chatted and had a difference of opinions on many things other than finding each other attractive at first glance and at the end of it we parted ways without so much as a hug and I unmatched him before driving off.  I'm not against going Dutch.  I think the part that bothered me was the way it was done.  I had just had a meal with a girlfriend with separate checks and he made it feel so impersonal in comparison.I think it was about the way it felt like he had a constant sneer about everything I said and felt.  The bonus was driving past LA Ink on La Brea and finally seeing it.

FYI: If you are living someone else's dream, you are not actually an entrepreneur.  If you say you are an entrepreneur and you are an Uber driver, you are no longer stretching the truth, you are abusing language and I'm afraid for words everywhere.  Just no.

My membership on Matched will end in less than a month, and that's when my online dating adventure will end on all sites.  I only extended it the second month because of that really great breakfast date and his encouragement. I'd say it's been fun, but it's really just been an adventure.

Clover: Good for an ego boost.  I have 363 likes from men mainly in their 20's.  The oldest has been 4 years younger than me.  The young ones.

Bumble: Swiping madness can cure boredom.  They will put the pretty ones first. It's an eye candy explosion and I may or may not have had to wipe drool off my lips once or twice. The beautiful ones.

Match: A few good men, but not worth the fee.  I was often matched with people who haven't used the site in over 3 weeks, probably because that's when their membership ended and they couldn't email anyone anymore. The successful bunch that loves travel and has high expectations.

Twoo: The questions and badges were fun. Making me swipe right before I was able to see those that liked me for a free membership when I wasn't interested back made me lose interest.  I don't even want the Premium. Not a pretty bunch, but they were all really nice.

OK Cupid: By far my favorite.  I liked the questions. You answer. The other person answers. I cancelled a date based on how differently we saw the world. He had a tantrum. Messaging is free and you can see your 5 last visitors.  A free boost was in answering questions or updating your profile because you end up in an activity stream and I've often been messaged right after an edit.  You can't see your likes for free but if you've gotten an alert and check your last 5 right away, you can take an educated guess.  It's a mixed bag of candy that you have to carefully choose from.  Some bits are toffees, some are taffies.  If you are lucky you won't bite into a jawbreaker thinking it's a pillow mint.