#journal

Fabulous Fair Friends…

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   I never really look forward to birthdays anymore. When I was turning 37 it just didn’t really seem like something to celebrate. When you’re small it’s really great turning 5 and then 10 because it’s finally DOUBLE DIGITS! Then you have the mile stone birthdays…Sweet 16, 18, 21…even 30 it’s like you’re finally an established adult. Then you go through a period (at least I did) which is often called ‘middle-aged’ in which it’s just another year older, another year closer to being old.That’s the period I’m in now. I figure once you get to about 70 birthdays become a reason to celebrate again because you MADE it this far. Being 80, 90, 100 is such an accomplishment and people are really excited the bigger the number gets. Just like with Powerball. I had a couple of years from 37 to 39 that I refused to celebrate and I was miserable and my dear friends allowed me to be. All I wanted to do was wallow in my age related depression LOL. My friends and family got tired of that bullshit that would last from the end of January until March so they reached down into my self made abyss and jerked me out with silly string and parties and love…and birthday cards reading “WE’RE NOT GETTING OLDER WE’RE GETTING BETTER” and then when I open it “NOW YOU SAY IT TO ME” . Even when I was depressed about my age getting into to my forties I knew it was cliche and I HATE being cliche but I couldn’t help it. It’s cliche for a reason. It effects a LOT of people. I am glad that I had such a FUN group of friends and my sons to celebrate my “special” day with. They really made me feel special last year and then this year they took me to the fair all day with unlimited ride bands 😀image

Triple birthday party at the fair…such a fun group of people

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The three birthday ladies

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Not a care in the world and in this moment age truly IS Just a number….really it’s not even a number. The concept of age doesn’t even exist for a brief time

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I LOVE rides 🙂

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Daytime view from the ferris wheel

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The one ride that I wouldn’t get on…too high and chains are really thin! Totally nuts but my crazy teenagers got on it

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There they are

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Birthday balloons

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Sunset at the fair…now everything gets pretty

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This Fireball ride is soooo fun during the day and FABULOUS at night

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Weeee

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Nighttime view from the top of the ferris wheel

Nighttime view from the top of the ferris wheel

Life is beautiful…

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My eldest child made it home despite the storm. My youngest helped me get my new elliptical into the apartment. We all ate dinner together as we watched Saint Vincent. I used my elliptical for half an hour (“thinking I’m BACK baby!” but we’ll see)…I don’t have to get up early to take my oldest to church for the 1st time in YEARS and tomorrow we’re all going to the fair with friends and my boy’s girlfriend. The fairgrounds are soggy due to the flash flood today but I’m still excited. I’m going to the fair as part of my birthday celebration and I couldn’t be happier right now. I love spending time with my sons more than anything else I get to do. We’re staying up late tonight and hopefully sleeping in tomorrow. Life is beautiful right now and right now is all any of us have. (Except tomorrow we have the fair 🙂 )

My favorite people…

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People who are the favorite person of their favorite person are my favorite people. They’re just SO RIDICULOUSLY HAPPY that it’s hard not to love them. It must be amazing to live that way. I’ve had fleeting phases like that in my life and I think it would be fabulous to have that all of the time. To have a friend or relative that you’re just so close to that you know exactly what they’re thinking or what they’re about to do and they know you just as well. To have your person be the same person through decades and to experience lifes ups and downs and changes and tragedies with that true friend always a part of you has got to be the absolute best way to live. To have someone be your person through successes and failures and all the mundane shit in between is a privilege that not everyone has. I think it would be nice to be able to call or text one person no matter the time of day or night and just KNOW that you wouldn’t be disturbing them….and to find out that in fact they were just about to call or text you. Seems impossible beyond middle school to become someone’s person that doesn’t already have a person. Not that I am a jealous person but if wishes could come true just by wanting them to then I would have a lifelong bff of my own. I would do anything for them even if it meant driving off of a cliff together in a red convertible. I am very loyal and understanding and non judgemental and just know that someone somewhere must be missing out on the best possible friend that has EVER existed because they’re not friends with me.  I’m not being all sad and melodramatic like my birthdays of the recent past but I do notice that tomorrow I will be so far beyond middle school and still have no deep meaningful relationships other than with my children. I really don’t think that at my age I can expect ever to have a friend that truly knows me. Even if I met someone today they wouldn’t know me through my single phase, my married phase, my pregnant phase, my mommy phase, my chubby phase, my extremely fit yoga instructor phase, my divorcing phase, my single parent phase….they would just know me in my slightly chubby, end of middle age and beyond phase.The always exhausted phase is not fun to be around. In turn, I will have missed all of their phases that led their path to cross mine. My sense of humour has always drawn a few people to hang out with me for a couple of years but even that has been dimmed by my current daily schedule. For some reason I will never be anyone’s favorite person. Seems juvenile to even mention such a thing but it’s just a thought. Oh well, I might as well enjoy the last few hours of my youth without becoming morose. Cheers from me and my long time friend Jack Daniels!

Stupidest thing ever…

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Imagine, just for a moment, being a miracle,sure
A miracle that’s just just waiting to occur.
Overflowing with the essence of thee
manifestation that was meant to be.
The unfulfilled extraordinary
event that was pure destiny.
How wonder-us-ly imagined
yet a miracle unenlivened
Why imagine it yo
do you not know
that it
is so
?
***********************************************
And I DON’T CARE for rhyming poetry mostly
unless it’s a tight rap. I can’t decide if rhyming is super simple and lame orrrr ultra challenging & genius to find words to express your meaning but also happen to rhyme.

Behind my mask

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Behind my mask of normality writhe the plump juicy maggots of insanity.

The seething growing mass of larvae crack the mask to reveal a fleeting glimpse of my mother’s substitute babies.

Mindless of my convincing facade they greedily consume the inner core that is my being.

Now snug in cocoons built of my disintegrated self, biding their time, nursing on my sanity – gorging themselves on my freewill, growing fuller and fuller

until they merge into me and we are rejoined as one.

BURSTING!

Shattering the outer mask to reveal a raving lunatic caught in a gossamer web…..

where reality is non-existent

New language of symbols…

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   The language of symbols has changed so much in my lifetime. It’s fun to think about re reading an article, book, closed-captioning, maps, calculators even older emails and blogs and using our current translations for the symbols. OR reading something written this year and read it with our translation of language symbols from 20 years ago.

   Not everyone knows this # as a number symbol or pound symbol. Some people that are alive only know it as hash tag. (which even has it’s own gang sign….or hand jive… I don’t remember having a hand gesture for the symbol before it was hashtag…which I would’ve called sign language)    Parentheses make my science report from 1988 look like there all sorts of results that made me happy or frowny winky. Then there are the emoticons in my old vcr manual that have no mouths to clue me in on the emotion being expressed so I don’t know if a direction is being smart or smug or winking with an embarrassed or happy or sad face. The @ symbol sure gets a lot more play than when I was a kid. There’s been a dip recently after social media changed the need for this @janedoe to just ‘jane doe’ which then could be modified to just this: ‘jane’. Anyway doesn’t a colon look like a staring emoticon?  I noticed a couple of days ago while I was texting my kid and now I see the emoticons even with just one symbol. This is a winky ; not a semi colon. ^ is an arched eyebrow. Even without the eyes / is an embarrassed face and somehow & has become a kid scootin’ across the floor on his booty. See:  ‘ & ‘

   Children reading older literature might think “man that Poe was a cheeky cheerful fella” or that the bible was being sarcastic or mischievous….They could see Ethan Frome as cheerful ..I got lots more to write including something I just forgot but my hand’s asleep…I will pause here and maybe continue this later…I have a whole list of things I need to finish but keep forgetting because I start something else. Like when I started this….so I might not ever make it back. Right now I can cross “Start Long-Ass Pointless Post” off my list. One less thing…but meantime :

Sometimes I think about…

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    Sometimes I think about all the undelivered messages that people didn’t get that would have completely changed their lives. Like when a mail plane (how can you tell if it’s a mail plane? Check between the landing gears) crashes or a mailbox(look underneath) gets destroyed or when someone loses their cellphone before they read their texts or listen to a voicemail.

   How many declarations of love or hate and unanswered questions are floating around us? What about a message from a birth mother to her baby that she had given up for adoption which reads “I’ll understand if you don’t want to talk to me so if I don’t hear from you I’ll never call you again”?

   Even an  embarrassing or hateful call that never gets heard. And when the hater has a change of heart and wishes they didn’t send it and they’re puzzled by never getting a reaction from the recipient and they just get over it and let stuff go. How many lives could have been better or worse?  Or over

Darkness…

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 Darkness
I’ve been filled with it before
and knew I couldn’t take much more
The blackness filled me to overflowing
yet I managed to keep on
going

I waited it out
I made it through
Forgot about the shadow
when your light shone through

I never knew darkness could get deeper
So far beyond fear of
The Reaper

I knew that there were worse things than death
Just not that it could be the next breath

Blackness
caught me unaware
After allowing me to care
I thought that I had made
it free
but it was just toying
with me

Such a sick joke
evil smile while I choke
Don’t know if I can make it past
But when I’m gone
darkness will last
and last

I’m just sayin…

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At first I was afraid.
I was petrified.
I kept thinking I could never live
Without you by my side.
But then I spent so many nights
Just thinking how you’d done me wrong.
I grew strong.
I learned how to get along…

    14 months after ‘D’ day and I’m ever exhausted but definitely crying less and growing more into me. I am adapting to being in the workforce after 17.5 years of being a stay at home mom. At this exact moment I am lying in bed after midnight anticipating a busy Sunday. Tired just thinking about everything I’m to do tomorrow but reminding myself that it’s better than being at work all day. Trying to focus on the fact that I GET to do so many things tomorrow because it’s my day off instead of thinking of them as things I HAVE to do.
Laying here reflecting back on the month that has just been put to rest less than an hour ago. Instead of counting sheep I am counting the accomplishments that I have had so far in 2015.        They may seem like a pile of crap to many people but to me they are worth noting and I am kind of proud (without being arrogant) of the things that I have been able to accomplish post-divorce without any financial support from anyone else. I work at a blue color job long hours 24 days a month so that I can provide food & shelter for my two teenage sons and to be honest I would work Sundays too if I had to. Thank Unis that I do NOT have to!
I’m mentally ticking off my small & large accomplishments for the month of January.
1.Paid every bill on time and some of them early
2. Bought groceries every week and never ran out of shampoo, deodorant, detergent etc.
3. Finally bought windsheild wipers for my car
4. Finally got an oil change
5. Bought my extremely talented youngest son a new Fender electric acoustic guitar with a really cool case with backpack type straps.
6. Bought myself some MUCH needed tires for my car. I commute and then play mom’s taxi most days after work and my tires have been worn down to the slick
7. Paid off my car
8. Nobody that knows me would ever believe it would happen but I decided that if my oldest boy is going to be able to start college classes and start preparing for his life he’s going to need a car and besides he needs to start driving himself to church on my one day off….so I bought him a used car, and insurance and a ridiculously overpriced tag. Now he will have his operators license and my youngest is about to get his learners permit and if they are injured in a car accident it will be entirely my fault. I didn’t let them get bikes until they were about 7 and 9 and then it was against my will. I am over protective. I always planned on driving them anywhere they ever needed to go but then I became a single mom and I can’t work and drive them everywhere they need to go. It’s super scary but I have been letting him drive me (even on the interstate at night!) so he can have experience and be a safe driver.
9. Paid February rent while it was still January.
And last but certainly not least
10.Turned down FIVE propositions for illicit affairs with married men. I wasn’t even slightly tempted even though they are PERSISTANT. Seriously wth? Are men not getting any satisfaction at ALL? I don’t get why any man not on a desert island would choose an aged, exhausted, wrinkled used up old bag to desecrate their honorable vows for the first time with. I am not flirty, sexy, touchy feely etc. I am polite. Polite is not a come on goddammit. I have bags under my eyes and I wear big black chunky Dr. Scholls 12 hours a day 6 days a week.
BONUS 11:  Only had ONE delicious dream about somebody that I used to know. It was three nights ago and I only think about it about once a day…and then that’s all I do – think about it then move on.
I know that I still have plenty of growing to do and lots of work to get done. In the month of February I am going to TRY not to get depressed about turning 42. Middle-aged divorcee will not be part of my vocabulary this year. (Fingers crossed).     Just like in any long distance race I like to look at how far I have come rather than how much further I have to go. Especially nowadays since the finish line just keeps getting closer & closer lol…okay enough of that.

Unis’s gauntlet…

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    Sometimes the universe throws a gauntlet down right in front of me. I can turn around, go around or accept the challenge. Today I say

        ” Yo Unis, let’s do this”

    If you have any doubt the universe is female let me point out that anything so intricately organized yet totally random and ultra nourishing but can squash you in a wink must be female.

        “Hey Unis, next time you got me jumpin through hoops let’s do it on roller skates!”

Sometimes they come back…

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   I can tell someone that they will end up regretting their decision. I can tell them that one day soon they are going to realize the magnitude of what they’re doing. I can tell them they will one day fully comprehend the pricelessness of the beautiful thing they are trampling on and abandoning. I can tell someone that I know them and know that they will be devastated if they leave. I can tell someone that if they leave they better know for a fact that it will be permanent. I can tell someone that they are wrong when they tell me that they believe that they are making the best decision for everyone. I can point out that I supported them through good times and really really bad times and that they may never find anyone else that would do practically anything for them. Sometimes knowing that you are right is the worst thing that can ever happen to you.

    It just doesn’t feel good being proven right when someone comes back begging and sobbing. When someone tells me that I was so right and that the last 8 months have been a horrible mistake and they plead for me to pretend that it never happened it rips my heart out. When they fall apart sobbing that they never stopped loving me and that they know that they can never live without me it is beyond horrible. Telling someone that I can’t ever take them back hurts almost as bad as when they walked out on me. It doesn’t feel great to tell someone that when I was begging and sobbing and more hurt than I ever thought it was possible to be and I kept saying to them that I couldn’t live without them that they left anyway. It’s heartbreaking to tearfully remind someone that you told them if they left it would be irreversible. It doesn’t make me feel vindicated or like I’ve won anything. It makes me feel a lot of sadness and crappiness but it also makes me feel something of magnitude.

    I’m not exactly sure how to describe all of the feelings that I felt but I can say that I am glad that at least I honoured my vows. I not only honoured my wedding vows but also the vow that I made to myself to stand by my word. I was struggling daily after being left by someone that was a part of me for 20 years and I was afraid that if given the choice I might buckle and take him back. I didn’t actually want that tragic scene anymore than I wanted to be left in the first place but’s it’s nice to not have to wonder what I would do. I wavered a little on the inside but stayed strong on the outside as I explained to the broken man before me that we would never be able to go back. One can’t wave a magic wand and make the betrayal of being abandoned go away. I know that I would be resentful if I let him just waltz back into his old life as if nothing happened and I could never trust his promises of forever. I can never fully give my heart and trust in forever again. My love is unconditional which actually makes the pain everlasting too and I am not brave enough or strong enough to risk getting into a situation similar to the one that seriously almost put an end to me. I am changed for the rest of my life and I truly wish there were a magic wand or a time machine but there isn’t.  

   It has now been 18 months since my world fell apart and I have survived with the support of some pretty terrific friends and some beyond amazing sons. I have survived working myself to exhaustion and crying with my broken heart as I drove to my new third shift job. I survived working nights so that I could continue to teach my morning and evening yoga classes. I survived giving up teaching yoga and even survived losing my own practice to work long hours 6 days a week when I found a better paying job with daytime hours. I survived the days that my heart hurt so much that I felt like I was suffocating and my insides felt like they were literally being ripped apart. The pain isn’t all-consuming anymore and it didn’t kill me. I survived.

    It’s nice to see that I am actually doing what I said I would do no matter what and that I’m capable of doing so many things that seemed impossible. I can live as a working single mom even though the financial struggle is a daily one and still stay true to myself. Not bragging not looking for cheerleaders or high fives or even likes or shares. Just reporting bits from the tragomedy. Life is beautiful and life goes on. I is kind. I is smart. I is important

When I write in my Random Thoughts journal…

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   When I write in my Random Thoughts journal I write it like I am writing to someone else. Sometimes I write as if I am writing to Unis (the Universe) or another human being. Whether I am describing something that happened or my feelings or giving my opinion I write as if I am telling them a story or trying to help them understand their feelings or reactions or giving them my take on profound ideas like the point of life or the depths of the universe or multiverse. Sometimes I am just talking to Journal but often I am writing as if I were writing to someone I know. I write to someone that I feel safe telling almost anything. I have a couple of people that I share with in real life but it wouldn’t be fair to them to share my every crazy or profound thought so I just write as if I am writing to them. Sometimes I end up sharing excerpts from my writing with the real people in my life that I feel comfortable sharing my true self with.

   Hours or days or years later when I go back and read entries that I have written I read them as if someone else wrote them specifically to me. It’s like I have my own personal best friend, pen pal, psychiatrist, comedian and a god that I have access to all of the time. When I read what I wrote earlier it’s like someone I know and trust is sharing with me. Sometimes I write something that I end up reading over and over again. Even when I am not in a situation in which writing is convenient I just write in my head. I have an internal running conversation that sometimes makes me laugh or cry for apparently no reason at all. It’s nice to have someone there to talk to and someone to listen to whether it’s Unis or just myself