Teh Awesome

I read the most amazing post yesterday by Redneck Mommy. Here go read it first. It’s maybe not a post that everyone will say changes you in some way. But it was great in a different way. I’m not sure I can explain what I’m trying to say. Shocking, I know. Ahem. I know I love it though.

We all share things every day.  Different people share different things. For instance: Tanis, will tell the world anything. One of the many reasons I adore her. Stacey, talks about her crazy day, but does it in such a way, that you feel like you are having coffee with her. A coffee date that you don’t ever want to end. Jenna is sweet and honest and tells it exactly like it is. It’s one of the things that makes her such an amazing friend. That ability to cut out the bullshit and get to the dam point, to be real. She will be sweet and caring when I need it and will kick my dam ass from here to next week when I need it. (In fact, I have two people who do that for me. Aren’t I lucky? Don’t answer that. Ha.) Marinka is possibly one of the funniest writers on the Internet. I keep waiting for someone to offer her a huge movie or book deal. (At which point, I will remind the world that I met her once.) Each of these women are so different, yet so awesome. Each writes in a completely different way, about completely different things, but they’re some of my favorite people to read.

Me? I write from my heart. Not everyone can. Not everyone should. Heck, some would say, I shouldn’t. But I do it anyway. It’s the only way, I know to write. It helps me. It’s why I keep doing it, even when I want to curl up an disappear. Because I know it helps me.  Because I love it.

Where was I going with this? No clue. Oh wait, Tanis’s post from the other day. Yes, I remember now. She wrote a post for her kids. Her teens. To show them, to tell them that it’s okay to be who you are. Then she listed some of her very awesome quirks. Things that make her, her. To show them that it’s okay to celebrate your differences. Our differences are make us who we are, after all.

I’m nothing if not a great idea thief, so I thought I’d try to do the same thing. You all know a lot about me. You know the big things that make me hurt, the big things I love, the people I love. But the smaller things? The things that make me, me? Some of those you may not know. I am in a sharing mood. Hey, it’s kind of like a sleepover. You get to see the weirdness that is me. But? I get to sleep in my own bed and my bra won’t end up in the freezer. Score!

I have the weirdest collection of music. For instance, the last ten songs that played on shuffle on my iTunes? Put your record on, Corrine Bailey Ray; Sitting on the dock of the bay, Otis Redding; Kiss me, Shelly Fairchild; I got love if you want it, Slim Harpo; Home, Blake Shelton; Once in a lifetime, Billy Vera and the Beaters; Sober, Pink; Have a little faith, Michael Franti; Your song, Elton John, Rocksteady, Marc Broussard. I adore music. I have music on all day long. I can’t stand screaming music and I can’t handle much rap. Anything else? I’m game. I’m also completely obsessive about songs.  I can listen to the same song over and over for days if I’m in that mood. I make a new play-list a month with my current favorite songs; some new, some old, whatever is floating my boat at the time. I am the girl who Googles lyrics to a song I hear in a movie theater and then downloads it the second I find it.

I adore country music. There, I said it. LOVE. The end.

The only TV show that I’ve ever loved enough to stay home to watch is, Charmed. I own all eight seasons on DVD. Cheesy? Completely. But I adore it. I follow almost no celebrities on Twitter, because I truly could care less, but I follow both Alyssa Milano and Rose McGowan. I probably would have stayed home to watch Alias each week, but I didn’t start watching it until season 4. I own all five seasons of that as well. I also love crime dramas, medical dramas and cooking challenge shows.

I hate peas, eggplant and mushrooms. But I adore the taste of mushrooms in things. Just not the pieces of it. I hated tomatoes until I was 26 years old and then suddenly realized I adored them.

I buy expensive silk flowers and put them in vases around my house. I am allergic to most real flowers.

I am a Mac girl all the way. I have a Mac desktop and laptop and I’ve had iPods for years and years. Come July, I will have an iPhone as well.

I love chick flicks. The sillier, the better. I also love action flicks. And super hero movies. And kid movies. I won’t watch drama movies hardly ever, because hi, I need no more drama in my life. I won’t watch horror flicks, because even the commercials give me nightmares.

I am blind as a bat. I’ll never wear contacts. I actually love wearing glasses. I think it adds character.

I’m a big girl. It’s genetic. I was an average kid. But once I hit puberty, I put on weight. I cared a lot as a teen, but no amount of diet or exercise did a thing for me. The person  who cared most was my step-mother. She was horrible about it. Still is. God forbid, everyone shouldn’t be skinny. I? Am happy with the way I look. I don’t diet. I am very healthy. I just wish doctors would act so shocked about that every time they see me.

I really truly don’t think celebrities are fascinating at all. Maybe because I grew up around a ton of them. However? I do care what they name their babies.

Naming is a sickness for me. I have a ton of name lists. I rename people’s kids in my head, when I don’t think the name fits them. If I could figure out how to market this skill, how to help people make a good decision, I’d do it.

I love Christmas movies.

I hate musicals. Except Mary Poppins and Fame for some strange reason.

I adore watching gymnastics. I wanted to be a gymnast when I was a kid.

I have absolutely no athletic ability whatsoever. In fact, I am completely clumsy.

I won’t discuss politics or religion.

I once told my daughters that I’d support them in almost anything, except cheerleading. If they choose to be cheerleaders, they could possibly end up disowned.

I hate shoes. I hate having my feet confined. I hate socks. I’d wear flip-flops year round if I could.  This is what happens when you grow up in southern California.

I played the piano from five until thirteen years old. I quit because I couldn’t get out of a big performance in front of a large group of people. One of the biggest regrets in my life is quitting. Because I adored it.

I tried to fail 7th grade on purpose. I wanted my parents to notice I was having a hard time. It was my way of rebelling. Dang teachers wouldn’t fail me though. Gave me D’s, all of them.

I’m scared of heights. I am the woman who held her kids back by their shirts, 35 feet away from the railing at the Grand Canyon. It’s the only time ever, that I wished for kid leashes. I don’t like mountain driving. Weirdly, I adore roller coasters and don’t really mind flying. Unless its bumpy then I’m convinced I’m gonna die.

I don’t know to this day how I got on that stage at BlogHer last year and read my post. Part of me still believes it was a dream.

I am a professional worrier and apologizer.

I am completely neurotic about my kitchen being clean. But the rest of the house can be trashed and I can easily ignore it.

I haven’t had a drink since Christmas, when I realized I was drinking way too much and thinking about drinking all the time and yep, I may not drink for a long time.

There you have it. Me. The real me.

Say you meet a great guy in high school. He quickly becomes one of your best friends and your boyfriend, all at once. You have fun together, you can tell him anything. A few years go by. Mostly fun times, some crappy ones. But your constant is each other. Always, you have each other. You get engaged and get married all in your first year of college. You lose a friend to suicide, gain a spouse and a condo, all in one very crazy year.

A few years after that, you have your first baby; a ridiculously adorable little girl. You work your ass off. Nine, ten, sometimes twelve or fourteen hour days. To make a better life for your family. You finish college, go on vacations. You celebrate holidays, watch your baby girl grow. You do this together.

Everything is better because you have that person. The person you joke with in tense times. The person who makes you happy. The person who lets you cry and stress out. You have inside jokes, you play air hockey, you stay up after your daughter goes to bed, just laughing and watching TV. You start to plan farther ahead in life. You dream out your life together.

One day, a couple years later, you have another, ridiculously adorable little girl. You’re happy; happy with your life, happy with your spouse, happy with your crazy baby girls. You upgrade your life a bit: sell your condo and buy a house, buy new cars. Nothing you can’t handle. None of that really matters though. What matters are that man and little girls you come home too every night. Everything you do, is to make a better life for them.

You start to get burned out on the hours of work. You see your husband and girls very little and you literally can watch them age before your eyes. You miss out on the small things. Things like your baby’s first steps. The first time your oldest rides a tricycle without training wheels. The first time your four year old uses crap correctly in a sentence. The time your baby “warshes” your camera in the toilet. (What? It’s not all good stuff.) You start to live for your vacation time.

One day, your husband comes to you and says that he has a dream of something better. A better life. A great career for him, less of one for you. A move halfway across the country. You look at this man, this man you adore, your best friend and you say hell no. You see the hurt in his eyes. You look around and you think about the life you are living. The crazy schedules, the hours spent in an office of a high rise, the outrageous amount of money you are about to plop down for private kindergarten, what you are missing out on and you say yes. Let’s do it. You move.

Then life gets a little tricky. Bad things happen. Loss, depression, crappy times. You tell yourself it will get better. You will get better. Things will be okay, because you have him, your love, your best friend, your constant. You get a unexpected surprise in the form an amazing baby boy. Unexpected, but none the less, adored. You start to think, hey maybe somehow this will work; this move, this dream, this new life.

One day you wake up to find that you lost everything while you weren’t looking. That you are loosing your husband and it’s too late to change it. That you maybe lost him years ago, even though he’s been next to you that whole time. Somehow you blinked and missed it. The sad part is, you are not just loosing a spouse. You are loosing your very best friend in this world. You have lost that life you thought you had. The happy home, the happy family, the dream. In one fell swoop, your life, the one you helped build? Is gone. Pieces of it are still there, but it’s different. Broken. Shattered even. You then start to pick up the pieces, because in reality, life moves on. It’s the only thing that can be done.

But inside? You are still shattered. You’ve lost. The promise of forever is gone. The dreams of one more baby, watching your kids grow together, vacations around the world, renewing vows at twenty years, buying an RV and traveling the US after the kids go to college? Dreams that no longer exist.

That life is gone. What’s left now is heartache. Pain. Shattered dreams. Unknowing. And three little kids who still have to be raised.

On March 3rd, 11 years ago, we said forever. We stood together in front of our friends and family and together, we promised forever. 11 years. That was our forever.

Forever? I suppose it’s just something that people say. Just a word we throw out there. Something we think we mean, until we don’t.

Forever.

any more relaxed and she’d be dead, he says to me the other night. My brother called me a few nights ago to ask if he was hearing what he thought he was hearing, that my step-mother was kicking him out of the house. She’d said she couldn’t relax with him and the dog there. Mostly she blamed it on the dog. The dog she claims she is uncomfortable around. It’s a four month old puppy. She just can’t stand the noise it makes when it walks. (Which is funny, since her dog clicks on the hardwood floors every time she walks, because they never cut her nails.) She can’t relax. Blah, blah, blah, bullshit.

Mostly, she just doesn’t want him living there anymore. Six months or so ago, when his company started doing poorly, they cut his pay and hours in half. They fired 60% of their staff, so my brother was just happy to still have a job. He had to give up his apartment though and move in with my dad and step-mother. First time he’s lived with them in twelve years, since he was sixteen years old. It wasn’t like he was living their for free, he was paying rent. More than I knew even. Anyway, now he has found some buddies to live with and he’ll be moving out this weekend. The house he’ll be moving into is a mile from his job instead of a 40 minute drive. His company has picked up, he is working tons of hours again. This will be better for him.

I’m livid. Not because of just this. Because of everything. Because it’s just another thing added to the long list of things that suck about them. I’m livid, because they did this to him. I am used to being a low class citizen in their world. I learned at a very, very young age, that my place in the family, came after the fish. I could give you a million examples, but it pains me to write any of them down. They have moments of treating him like that too, but mostly he ranks right above the dog. This is just too much. My dad probably knew this was coming and didn’t even bother to warn him. To give him a heads up. To say, hey son, you may want to start looking for a new place to live. Nope, he wasn’t even home with this conversation happened. She cornered my brother a few days ago. My dad is the biggest freaking wussy in the world. I doubt the man takes a crap without her approving it.

I’m used to being called a bitch, she said to him. He didn’t even call her one. You know what? The word fits. It is her. She’s used to being called one, because she is one. He didn’t even say the Valium and wine line, although it cracked me up when he told me about it. It’s true. She’s an alcoholic. She drinks a bottle of wine a night. At least. She’s a verbally abusive drunk. Then she passes out. It’s what she does.

I’m angry. I’m so freaking angry. Nothing I could do or say would change anything. They’ve already written me off. I am too much like my mother according to my step-mom. Truly, that’s BS. I am much more like my dad, than my mom. Really she doesn’t like me, because I’m a girl. Because I was the oldest and I’m a girl, so I’m a threat. Doesn’t matter that I was a week over six years old when we met. She’s never liked me. Treated me like crap ever since then, while acting all fake and caring in front of other people.

They don’t care what happens in my life. I only talk to my dad once every say six weeks. He only calls me from work. He NEVER calls me from home. The only exception to that is Christmas. I am normally worth one call a year from home. They don’t know my kids. They’ve only met Harrison once. Hell last year, I took my kids to see them, the day after I’d had a miscarriage. They were fine when I was there. When I got home, neither of them called me for three months. Didn’t call to see that we’d made it home okay. Not to say, hey we had fun with the kids. Not even to check on me. I normally call my dad after 6 weeks or so if he hasn’t called me. That time I didn’t. I was depressed and I truly just wanted to see how long it would take him to call me. It took three months.

Even though I technically have a father, he doen’t really exist for me. He is alive and lives in Northern California. But I don’t really have a dad. I have grown used to this. I hate it, but I am used to it. This was just another blow for my brother though, one more thing to show him, that he sadly doesn’t either.

This is rough and I’m sure it makes no sense. I’m not even going to edit it. Today, I am make no sense and I’m a bit rough around the edges. I’m angry. Mostly though, I’m sad for my little brother. He’s only getting shit right now and he deserves better. He deserves the world. I’d give it to him if I could, but I can’t. And that makes me angry.

I want to write a book. I’ll call it, Divorce for Dummies. I’ve tried to find something like it, but it doesn’t seem to exist, which means, I can write it. I think there is a need. There is a need for those of us who never thought we’d be in this situation, to know what to do next.

Maybe since the, For Dummies thing has been done by others, I’ll need to call it something else. Divorce 101? Divorce, the baby steps? Title needs work, but I’m not kidding on the book.

It’s the big things that people think about. The big huge emotional crap. The, how the hell did I get here and what did I do wrong? The, oh shit this is really my life now? Those are the big things that I think….okay obsessively think about. Because this isn’t easy. None of this is easy. I have no idea what I’m doing. The big stuff, I won’t write about. Because heck if I have any advice. I’ll leave that for shrinks and Dr. Phil. I’m just happy if I make it to the end of the day.

No, I won’t be writing about that. I’m talking about the small things. The things you wish someone would tell you. The things you have to figure out the hard way. The things you wouldn’t even think about. This is going to be a work in progress, because well I’m only five weeks into this shit. I’m not exactly the poster child for a successful divorce story yet. What I can do is share with you what I’ve learned so far.

1. ALWAYS and I do mean ALWAYS, check to make sure you have toilet paper before you go to the bathroom at night. In the day time, you may be able to scream for a kid. A kid who will make fun of you, but whatever, they’ll still bring you toilet paper. But it’s hard to scream at your children at 9pm for toilet paper, when they’ve been asleep for an hour. (Or when they are sleeping at their dad’s house.) Don’t think I didn’t consider it, because I did. Just trust me, check the toilet paper.

2. Sleep in the middle of the bed. Take up all the pillows. Enjoy all the blankies. Flop around. Kick your legs. Stretch your arms out. If you want, buy pretty girly sheets. Know why? Because you can. If you were used to the sound of light snoring and can’t seem to sleep, buy a noise machine, fall asleep to quiet music, something. Know that it takes a while to feel okay in the middle of the bed, but you’ll get there. It’s cozy there.

3. The remote is now yours. You can now DVR or watch whatever you want, whenever you want. Well unless you have an eight year old like mine…in which case, I KNOW YOUR PAIN. Ahem. It was really funny to me when I was talking to my bff one night and realized I hadn’t been watching CSI NY for years because Logan has issues with Gary Sinese. I’ve now been watching it for the past few weeks.

4. It’s okay. It’s all okay. It’s okay to cry for weeks. It’s okay to not cry. It’s okay to feed your kids cereal and grilled cheese for weeks. It’s okay to eat out, often. It’s okay to suddenly let your five year old into bed with you every single night if you want. It’s okay to not know what to do. It’s okay. Don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise.

5. You will find yourself correcting your words all the time. You will think you need to say, I, me or my, instead of we all of the time. Yes, eventually you do. But not at first. I’ve been with Logan 16 years. Nearly 11 years of marriage. If it takes me a year to learn to say me, instead of we….well it’s just the way it is.

The small things. You don’t realized the small silly things you don’t do, don’t say, don’t watch because of the other person. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with it, when you are in a relationship. It’s the way it should be. Both parties tend to give up certain things, because it makes the other crazy. However, now I am single. Now, I can do those things. I’ll keep sharing as I come up with more.

You can see the first version HERE if you’d like.

1. Why I continue to buy bananas when no one will eat them, since they seemingly turn brown on the way home from the store?

2. Why someone would be shocked to be fired as a bookkeeper when all they did was screw everything up?

3. Why my five year old suddenly believes she needs help to pick up the Littlest Pet Shop Death Traps in her bedroom? I am positive that I do not remember playing with them, nor taking every single one out of the toy box.

4. How I lived 29.8 years without knowing the amazing-ness that is Nutella?

5. Why my son acts like I’m puling out his eyeballs, every single time I cut his fingernails? It’s not like I haven’t done the same thing once a week since he was born, over 16 months ago. Also why he doesn’t seem to mind having his toenails cut.

6. Why people continue to get so grouchy on Twitter when everyone discusses TV shows/Awards Shows or anything, as it is on. If it isn’t on in your time zone at the same time as everyone else, stay off Twitter. That can’t be that hard to figure out. But the same people complain about it over and over and over again.

7. What in the world the coins are for in the new Bejeweled?

8. Why my brownies always end up mushy, no matter how long I cook them, nor if I follow the high altitude directions?