If You’re Going to be Different, You Have to be Strong - Redux

 During 2015-2017 I was writing articles for tiny sites on different subjects as they came up. None of those sites exist anymore, which sort of blows, but my articles still exist in my personal files so there’s that at least. 

One of the articles I was most proud of was titled “If You’re Going to be Different, You Have to be Strong” and if you can’t guess, it was about wanting to be your authentic self when the world doesn’t agree with it. Damn, that hits harder today with us living in the bad timeline… o.O

But, I actually want to discuss the flip side of what I focused on the first time around… 

My son is going to an incredible high school, filled with intelligent students, small classes and teachers who regularly go above and beyond. I started going to the Parent Organization Meetings bc I was invited, and one of the first conversations I witnessed was the ladies discussing how to handle some of the used uniforms. The conversation was them questioning how much they should care about the needy students at the school, then stopping and genuinely questioning if there was a needy population at the school. Not mean or malicious, legitimately curious if it was a real concern for them to focus on.

I was gobsmacked to say the least. But I also was in my stuffy work clothes so I blended in I guess. I guess I also blended in enough that they have invited me to be on their board for the remainder of my son’s education there. 

Which means, in order for him to benefit from the nepotism the position will grant him, I have to.. hide? Parts of me. At his last snooty school I didn’t bother and just forced them to deal with my non-conformity bc I knew I was doing things they could not. I still ended up being ostracized and the last year of his time there was harder for him than it should’ve been. 

So. This is high school. The stakes are higher, the prestige is light years more impressive and these years matter. I can soften my language, dress in my stupid work clothes for every thing I do with/for the school and pretend like the life my son lives half the week with his dad is his always. 

I also can use my new position to fight for the invisible needy community bc something tells me there’s a whole group of them (us?) hiding within the walls of the school.

So, I guess, what I'm saying is that it takes a different sort of strength to know when to double down and be loudly your most authentic version and when you blend in to fight for the things that matter from the inside. 

Also. Just want to say again, I cannot believe that we are living in the worst time line possible. Ugh.  

We’re No Exception to the Rule

For my 18th birthday, I got myself a tattoo and a promotion at work. All my previous management team left a little before and once they heard I had gotten promoted the person who shaped my management style came in and told me that I was supposed to have turned it down so I could follow them. Eventually, I did, but not before being “the boss” of my social peers for a little bit. 

During that time, one of my freight workers caught my eye. I was freight manager, but he was a couple years older than me, tattoos all over his arms and chest, dark hair and these intense eyes that I got stuck in every time we made eye contact. All of us gals at work thought he was dreamy, and when he asked me out I was thrilled. 

Until our date consisted of me bringing over some of my stash to smoke, his giant and scary roommates insisting on me “sharing” with all of them and then them getting into a fist fight in the living room with me darting out without calling attention to myself and leaving behind my smoke. 

Next day at work one of my “peers” asked me about it and I told her and said something flippant like “it was NOT a good time, I don’t recommend it, but I guess if you want to take a crack at it, he’s all yours” 

And then I quickly found out about why managers don’t socialize with their staff, much less try to date them. It was messy and ugly, and within a month he no longer worked there. 

Same time frame, but how I was actually making money; I had inherited a lucrative pot business from one of my friends who moved away and had inherited the business from her (ex) fiancé who she was supposed to run it while he entered the military. They broke up, he had a buddy come and collect his personal belongings, she moved back home to her mom, and I inherited customers, contacts and for lack of a better term, bodyguards. 

Now, I’ve never put a lot of value into my own personal appearance, and more often than not I would hide my assets, but I was in my late teens-early 20’s, lifting and moving boxes as my “real job” and had access to the best reggies in the state at the time. I was, a commodity. 

Every so often a customer would try to shoot their shot, but my “bodyguards” kept me safe and not one of them protecting me ever attempted to lay a hand on me. Which sort of sucked for me because oh man, they were yummy. BUT there was rules to follow, and it kept us efficient, and no harm ever came to me in that line of work. Also I accidentally lied, because one of them ended up being the guy I later married and divorced. 

When I started my own business, my employees were: a guy I had casually dated as a teen, my wasband’s boss’ daughter and a mutual friend of the ex and the wasband. Working with them played a bigger part of my success than my own stubbornness, I see that clearly the more time passes. Most of “my” success was actually to their credit and I love them for it. 

I went from married to divorced in that time, and I ended up dating my Office Manager for almost (5) years after my divorce was finalized. It was fun and exciting to work together at first, but when we went from casual to actually dating and eventually living together, it caused a lot of friction for each side of our relationship and so he ended up quitting and finding a different job.

When I started working again as an employee I was very much friendly but not friends to everyone, refusing to socialize at any place I was working until a couple of them ended up having the same gym routine as me and we accidentally became friends. Which then left my heart wide open to end up befriending the whole freaking service department. 

Those five years were the gold standard of my career, and even though it comes with a side of toxic, I really felt like I was surrounded by family, and it was really nice to have such a large group of people willing to sock the jabronies who tried to “hurt” me, and feel the same towards them.

 It’s been a little over a year since we were all together, and most of them have been spread out between (3) different companies so I don’t know if we’ll all ever be together in the same place for any amount of time again, but I love them all dearly, and know that they love me too. 

Back when my Umpa died, I had a new board member for my volunteer job and I was trying to hold together my passion project AND my sanity while losing my favorite person ever and he forced me to talk to him about it. And made me talk to him for reals, like an equal, not a co-worker, and ended up becoming one of my best friends. To this day, if one of us needs advice on something hard, we know we got each other. 

So, have you figured out the “rule” yet? 

Duel Relationships. I learned the hard way as a young, dumb manager, and even had an entire ethics class about it when I was in school to be a LMT, duel relationships are the BIGGEST no-no in the professional world. (Even the underground not so legal professional world). 

“Be friendly, not friends” to protect yourself and your reputation is the go to line. If you work with friends, it’s hard to stay professional is another argument. I’ve heard it all, and they are ABSOLUTELY correct. Most of the time, blurring those lines between professional and friends (and more) makes things messy and complicated. And a lot of the time, it’s not worth the mess, and I am totally team follow the rules. 

BUT. Occasionally. Someone saunters into your life (or you into theirs) and the rules say to keep your distance, but you know that your life will be more full if you don’t. So, what will you do? 

Play it safe? Follow the rules and know that you’re doing the “correct” thing? OR. Do you do the right thing and bring some color to your life, risking that backlash if it ends the way of the stories that justify the rules? 

I don’t actually have an answer here of my own, and while this is about all forms of relationships, I can’t help but think of that god awful romcom (that I sort of love, shh), “He’s Just not Into You”. You know, where they spend time ranting about how people need to stop acting like they’re the exception to rules and realize that they’re just a normal person THE ENTIRE MOVIE. And then at the end chick face throws his words about the exact thing in dude’s face and he’s all goopy when he said “but you’re my exception”. 

Which you know, completely counteracts the entire point of the GD movie, but you know, romcom. And I guess that’s also the point I’m trying to make? 

Most of the time, those rules were 100% the right choice to follow, and when I’ve broken them, it’s backfired horrifically sometimes and blossomed other times. 

Ok, it took me a while to get here, and I apologize if  I went in a couple loops to make it, but here’s where I’m landing: 

1) rules exist for a reason, and you should probably have some sort of loose guidelines you follow, but you can’t let your life be controlled by unmovable guidelines written for a stark black and white world 

2) the rules that matter still have exceptions, but they’re rare

3) if you’re not willing or able to live with the worst case scenario of breaking the rules, stay in the lines

4) I think I want to break a rule lol 

It’s Something Unpredictable, But in The End is Right…

 Hello there my lovely anonymous eyes, how has it been since the last time? Yeah, me too, which is why I stopped writing completely for a long time.

Even now, I have a huge hesitation to say anything, even though my chest is filled with words wanting to come out. 

You would think, that with a life like mine, where the lows are consistently more present than the highs, that’s there’s nothing left to faze me. But this year has proven me wrong over and over again. I have lost so much this year, my career, my vehicle, my savings, relationships that I thought would last forever, all gone in a snap. Hell, even my long hair is currently gone. Next to my career, my hair is probably the most scarring thing I lost, but it’s almost long enough to lay flat without sticking straight up, so I’ll be back to a ponytail soon enough. 

So, yes, I lost A LOT this year, but I also have gained some pretty monumental things as well. Last year in the last quarter of the year, I had realized how overworked I was, and how miserable I had become, so I decided that this current year, I would do (1) new thing a month. I wasn’t expecting January’s thing to be “Get Laid off and Sign a NDA”, but that day, which was one of the hardest days of the year ended up being the start of time I will always cherish - losing my career gave me back an average of SEVEN hours a day with my son. SEVEN. That’s ridiculous, and I’m ashamed of much my old work took over my life. 

I also got to go to Hawaii for one of my favorite human’s wedding, which is hands down the coolest vacation I’ve ever been on, and I hope I can visit again for longer one day. And, of course, I have a new job. The people are good people, the pay is adequate, and I’m good at what I’m doing. I don’t have the deep connection with anyone like I did at the last place, and I honestly hate the dress code, but last Thursday was our holiday team building event and I had a realization. Zooming around in a race cart of all places, lol. 

I have chased after my dream job, and I achieved it. It was work though, building a dream, and when I injured myself, I was very lucky to land on my feet and fall into something I love surrounded by people I love. But you know, trauma-bonding at work due to stress has its own downsides. 

Now, I have a boring, “casual Friday where I can wear jeans” is the highlight of my work week job, with my name on a card next to the door of my office, but there’s no personal fulfillment happening there. Where it IS happening though, is at my nonprofit events, and in my living room with my son, doing crafts with my hands again, and at the dinner tables with friends. Tonight before bed, my son asked me what my dream job is, and I started listing off perks I want. 

He interrupted, asking me what I wanted to be doing, and I told him what I realized going around the course last week, I don’t care about what I’m doing for work anymore, what I care about is what I can do outside of work because if it. I don’t have a “dream job” anymore, I have a “dream life” that I am working very hard to make a reality. My kid will be going off to college in 3.5 years and then it’s just me and the dogs, I don’t want to only have work to fall into. 

While losing relationships this year, most of them for the better, and the one that I hope is temporary while they heal; I had to step out of my comfort zone and ask for what I want in building new relationships. A lot of my friendships have existed most of my life, which on the one hand is reassuring, but on the other, I never really know if they like me or feel like they’re stuck with me (which turns into massive spirals of doom when they collectively decide that my messed up existence is the perfect place to turn their anger on so they can maintain the relationships that seem to matter more to them).

 SO becoming good friends with someone I socially knew before this year hit but not on any sort of real level hits differently. It’s also super weird having someone in my life who doesn’t know anything about me that’s from longer than the last couple of years and having to try to figure out how to TL,DR back stories. Which, if you look around here… not my strongest suit. lol 

Another win, but one that started last year, then I lost with my job and had to restart, is getting my mental health in check, for reals. All diagnosis’s, none being ignored, all being closely monitored for changes good AND bad, and taking my meds, even when I don’t want to. Still an insomniac though, and the meds I’m supposed to take to lull me to sleep gives me sleeping dreams, and I am NOT a fan of that so we’re still looking into a solution. (Or I stay an insomniac and use it as my superpower)

I guess, all of this is to say that despite everything, my cheerful stubbornness is still intact, and a few bruises aren’t going to keep me down. I’m choosing to believe that the intense grief I have experienced is just so I am that more grateful for the joy when it hits. I have a few different cliches I repeat as my mop bucket deep pearls of wisdom, and roller coasters is my go to for life. The past year has been lots of loop de loops and stomach drops, so it’s about time for some smooth passes with pretty scenery. Maybe even with someone holding my hand. (Now that I’ve said that part I’ve instantly cursed it and nothing good will happen with it, oh well, it’s sort of my MO anyways)

I guess this is all I have for now, with no promises on when the next time will be, except that there will be a next time.

A Little Blasphemy as a Literal (and Figurative) Sign of Progress

 Hello there, it’s been a while, and in true returning from ghosting fashion, I am here to either share something vapid and meaningless, or something raw and deeply personal to justify my lazy pen name.  (Honestly, I think this will be a weird combination of the two, so let’s roll back the way back machine and go for it!)

When I was 2, my mom married the man who became the father of her other children. His disgusting behavior combined with her weak spirit is actually why they got married, but that’s actually a side note in today’s tale. This horrid man was absolutely evil, and from the age of 2 until I was about 11 or 12, he abused and tortured me in every way imaginable and unimaginable (unless you’re also a monster then, kudos I guess?): physically, emotionally, psychologically, and even yes, sexually.

 I legitimately had no childhood to speak of, because when he was done stripping me of my innocence, and finally sent to prison for - you guessed it - being a monster; not only did my mom stay married to him for a while to preserve her reputation, she paraded me around telling anyone who would listen to the horrible things that happened to me (while she stayed clueless) and how helpless and needy she was without her husband. That is of course, when she wasn’t laying in bed feeling sorry for herself and leaving my damaged self to take care of her other children. It’s actually a wonder we don’t all have serious criminal records, thinking about it, so, gold star us.

This monster my mother married, was a special sort of monster by the way. He was a Good Christian Man who believed in the bible and all its teachings. He was a true man who was the head of his household, and his word was law. His wife’s role was to submit to him, because The Bible Said. Never-mind that he was unemployed more than not, he was a man, so he was in charge. And to make sure everyone who came to the prison cell he called his house knew, he painted a large sign the went across the entire top of the garage saying “As For Me and My House, We Will Serve the Lord” 

Even after he was in prison, and I had finally convinced my mom to divorce him, the sign stayed. Staring at me, mocking my pain every time I left and entered the house. It was totally irrelevant that there was only one or two safe places in the building that didn’t scream with the memories of the life he forced upon me, the sign stayed. Years after the divorce I begged her to go through with, I finally was able to convince her to take down the sign, and years after that, long after I moved away, she eventually painted the entire house a brand new color and changed the front porch. 

Fast forward to today, and there is still a couple people in life from my childhood that 1) know me from my disaster child/teen era 2) know the broad strokes of why I was such a train wreck for so long, but for the most part people only know me as the cynically cheerful weirdo I have grown into being. My first ever roommate is one of them, and lives just a few mins away from me so we see each other regularly. She is also one of like 5 people allowed to acknowledge my birthday, but because she loves me, she finds loopholes to make me not cringe. 

A couple of weeks ago she found a kitchen decor sign that she gifted for me, and it is perfect. So perfect and she doesn’t even know exactly how much, since she met me post-sign at my mom’s.This sign reads, and now hangs above my double doors leadings out into my backyard “As for me and my house, we will serve tacos. Salsa 24:7”

The monster is long out of prison, I have a lifetime restraining order against him, and last I heard he’s dying of cancer in a local hospital, so he can no longer hurt anyone else in this lifetime. That doesn’t mean it didn’t take a lot of therapy, drug use, bad decisions and then more therapy to heal from the scars, but he didn’t win. His disgusting religion doesn’t have a chokehold on me, and my child is one of the finest examples of good person you will ever meet, without the fear of damnation for making mistakes or not following the code some dead dudes decided on forever ago. 

So, for me and my house, we’ll serve tacos. ;) 

Another turning point…

 It’s done! The movers have long come and gone, and aside from 2 boxes and an old laundry hamper of /stuff/ I need to figure out what I’m doing with, I’m unpacked. In my home. 

Sure, I now have a dry erase board filled with my “new home to-do list” and I’ll slowly be adding/replacing furniture for the foreseeable future, and throwing up my art, but I’m here. 

The other night I was going to my room for the night, turned around and looked down the hall into my living room, straight through without any boxes in my way, and I just… giggled. 

I moved from my home in elementary school to a house I was stuck in until I was 17 when I moved out on my own. I have moved almost 20 times since then, embracing the hippy gypsy blood in my veins at first, and then eventually getting increasingly tired the more I moved. My son has none of my wandering soul and for the last 8 years every time we’ve had to move I’ve felt increasingly like a failure to him.

There is a lightness in my chest that I have never felt before. I’m grounded, and have found my place to make roots. I’m excited to go into my bathroom cabinets in 5 years and find something I forgot I had. I bought rose bushes yesterday I’m planting in honor of my Umpa that passed a couple years ago. There’s a strip of fencing in my backyard not covered with trees I’m going to plant sunflowers in, and there’s a newer tree that I hope one day I’ll have grandkids climbing when they visit. 

I’m home. 

Pinch Me....

 It's finally happening. 

I'm in escrow. I'm buying a house, a forever home for my son. Which means we're apparently getting a dog as well. A boy and his dog, who am I to deny him his childhood fantasy of playing with his dog in his yard?

It feels like it took forever to get here, and I had some mental hurdles to get over while making this a reality. I have looked at home buying many times over the last handful of years, and one of the last times I was looking I had a boyfriend. It was strange because /I/ was looking to buy a home for my son and I, and the boyfriend was living with us, but it was very clear that it wasn't his home as well. Because he was living with us his input was valued, and having another adult to bounce decisions off of was nice, but we had multiple conversations about how he would pay rent but when/if we broke up there would be no question on who was leaving. 

Obviously, I ended up staying in rentals and he is long gone, and it's not that he wasn't a decent guy, it really boiled down to if we stayed together my dreams would never have a chance to come true since he was hyper focused on his own dreams at the cost of those around him. And I mean, who can blame him? He had a taste of fame, and who would want to stop chasing that level of high from that success and become a math teacher instead? Not many people, that's who. 

So this time around, it was just me and The Monk, going from house to house. Putting in offer after offer, finding a home and then minutes away from sending off my earnest payment that it wasn't eligible for the loan I have, then having to start the process ALL OVER AGAIN. I have put in so many offers I have lost count, but the place I'm buying gave me zings so I'm over the moon. 

When I was waffling over whether or not to try the home buying thing again, I was talking to a couple of my friends about how buying a home alone feels like a nail in the coffin of my romantic life. I've been jokingly calling myself "retired" for the majority of the year, just because I needed a break from the disappointment my dating life has been the last couple of years, but I wasn't really expecting it to be  forever break, just a long enough break to not feel obligated to say yes to every guy who asks. One of my friends took strong offense to calling myself retired and told me I'm not allowed to call myself that unless I really and truly am forever done with dating. 

My other friend pointed out that just because right now I'm not dating anyone that doesn't mean that someday I might find someone who is worth making a change for. Her husband bought a home before they met and after they married they ended up selling it and getting a home together. The Monk is 11. He has 6 years left until he's a high school graduate. That's a lot of life to live, and who knows what'll happen in that time. She seems to think me living my life as it is doesn't shut any doors for the future, and so I'm going to try to hold onto her optimism.

 

My heart is floating, my son is making weird noises of excitement and we're moving into what really feels like my dream home. It's really hard to feel like something is missing when my heart is this full.

 

Ok, so that's a lie. Movers are missing. Just a year ago I moved into my 3 story condo and there is no way in hell I'm doing all these stairs again. Well labeled boxes moved by pros is 100% what I need. 

 

Wish me luck?

Becoming a Lifer

 You know how whenever things seem to be going absolutely terrible and then something small, but amazingly joyful happens and it takes some of the sharp away from all the bad? (Or you know, the exact opposite) 

The fortune cookie response is that how someone handles themself in these moments of extreme distress or blessing shows you just the sort of person someone is. And, I guess that’s true. I mean, it /feels/ true, at least when talking about anyone who isn’t yourself.

Two weekends ago was my best friend’s baby shower in a different state and within 50 miles of being back in town, my car decided that it was done running. Forever. 

I was at work when I found out, and I had 4 coworkers poke and yell at my car with me for almost an hour before a 5th one took me home. The next day, one of the original 4 picked me up for work, and within an hour of my workday, one of my bosses offered me her car for the weekend. 

Of course, while I had her car the tire tread ripped itself to shreds and I had to buy her a new one, but whatev. Stupid Megan luck can’t overshadow her kindness. 

The same day my boss loaned me her car, my other boss (who I refer to as my Big Boss since he could fire me if I sneezed wrong) came to me and started talking to me about a car in his possession that needs to be driven. Presented in a way like /I/ would be doing /him/ a favor by using it while I figure out my long term car plans.

Of course, this conversation happened literal hours after I signed the forms to take a loan out of my 401k so I could put some extra money down towards a new car, but that just means I’m now deciding if I’m paying it off immediately, or I dunno, paying off some bills early or maybe even buying a new kitchen table (my old one was too big so I’ve been sans table since the move). 

I interrupted myself, sorry self.

But that’s 7 people, plus the 2 others who helped me when the tire went stupid on me and I didn’t know what to do at first. Who have absolutely no reason whatsoever to do anything for me except be polite and friendly to me while we’re on the clock, who went out of their way to help me. Like, a ridiculous amount out of their way for a couple of them.

Why? When this all went down I couldn’t get my mom on the phone for a total of 5 minutes over the course of a week, and she kept leaving my text/voice messages unanswered for uncomfortable stretches of time when dealing with someone who can anxiety spiral. 

But, I guess, because of the people I work with, I was never given a chance to stress out, or give the anxiety a chance to show itself. What should have been a major obstacle has been nothing more than a blip. While the miracle vehicle has gone to the shop to get repairs I'm not at liberty to ask about, I’ve been thrown in loaner trucks from the fleet, so, with the exception of the very first night, I have had no issues getting myself and my son around. 

I still don’t understand. Lucky doesn’t begin to describe how I feel. If someone told me that losing my dream business and going to work for someone else would have led me to living a life filled to the brim with this sort of peace, I would have laughed. Hard. 

But here I am. Just over 2 years into this new, career, I guess. Naw. That’s wrong. My job title and responsibilities have morphed so much since I started, and I fully expect that to continue. And I’m gonna keep growing and morphing with it. Because when you land somewhere filled with people who give actual shits, you stay and care right back.