Life on Repeat... (Aka a Dark Lore Drop)

 I, am a damn good hair stylist. Cutting, dying, perming, it is one of my five skills I can talk confidentially about, knowing what I can do, and when I can do better or not than someone else. I've never gone to cosmetology school, never been licensed - and I never plan to do either. I recently did the coolest dye job of my life, and then almost immediately had another hole placed in another one of my walls, so in honor of the occasions, a lore drop. 

Growing up, I had long hair. Brushed stick straight when wet, dried a frizzy mess, and always tangled. In second grade I had it cut, instantly regretted it, and immediately went back to growing long hair, this time always in a ponytail. I don't remember the first time I woke with a giant chunk of hair missing from the back of my head, but I was still in elementary school. Hair almost to my waist, except for a 2in chunk cut above my shoulders, on a school day... I grabbed scissors and hacked away the rest of my hair before heading off to school, then used the following days to fix stragglers wherever I saw them. It was messy and it wasn't straight, but I would end up having plenty of time to get better.

Shortly after realizing that anytime my hair grew past my shoulders I would wake up with a chunk of hair missing, I started using Sun-In to lighten my hair, and eventually graduated to other colors. My self consolation prize of sorts. Being my own hair salon led to being my own piercer, as well as doing both for neighbors and friends as my skills improved. While in junior high, I had a safety pin in my eyebrow, that I would take out every day before I went home so it wouldn't get ripped out of my face, and I can still see where the hole used to be when the... pastiness? glow in the dark skin? I dunno, in the right angle, when i'm not at all tanned you can see it. 

Am I dancing around the violent part of this story while I try to figure out exactly what I want to say about it? Abso-freaking-lutely. 

One of my sisters has a chromosome disorder, which leads to a laundry list of mental and cognitive disorders, which leads to lots of experimental medication, which leads to a pretty good way to get away with almost anything. Screaming, yelling, kicking, hitting over the smallest things, raging around not satisfied without letting out every piece of anger and venom, onto another human. At least, during the daytime hours. Apparently, the night time version translated to getting chunks of hair chopped off. 

In her paltry defense: she was swimming in a cocktail of meds trying to keep her sane and you know, alive, her dad was only in her life if she visited him behind bars, and I'm the family villain, so what else was she to do except take it out on me? I didn't just take it though, I learned safety holds, and learned myself a temper. I wish I could say I never responded in anger to it, but I would be lying. all the way through elementary school to the end of high school, this continued. For chunks of time I would just leave my hair short, but I have always wanted long hair past my waist so more often than not I would grow out my hair and see how long I could get it before waking up needing a drastic pre-school chop. 

Junior year, I am woken up in the middle of the night by a two-handed drop punch to my stomach and a pair of scissors next to me. I left my mom's and stayed at a friend's as long as her parents would allow while I attempted the only ultimatum I have ever issued: She leaves and gets professional help or I leave. My mom never got her the help my sister needed, and less than a year later I had moved out permanently. I promised myself I would never live in that house again. 

Fast forward to today. My mom and the three kids she adopted from her youngest living in my home with my son and I bc my childhood home is not safe for humans to live. Middle child was exposed to all sorts of unknown drugs and behaviors while in the womb, so guess what! He has uncontrollably anger issues, exactly like my sister growing up did. Once again I am stepping up on the regular to both be the shield for the others in the house. Except when I'm not home. Then my son steps in. It's not ok. 

It wasn't ok when I was a child, and it's not ok that it's happening again. It's especially not ok that my son is involved. I've asked him to stay out of it, but if I'm not around he can't sit idly by and not do something. I'm both proud of him, and heartbroken at my failure as his parent. 

 I am at a loss. I personally can't do anything that I haven't already done/will continue to do, but something HAS to change. I can't live through another generation of violence, and this new batch of kiddos don't deserve it either. I wish I had some sort of uplifting reassurance for you, my dear anonymous eyes. Some sort of mantra reminding us that the hardships we endure end up being worth it in the end.

But you see, my dear eyes, I'm tired, and things feel pretty depressing, for lack of a better word. I'm still stubborn as hell, so that's still going for me, at least. And that's the best I can muster after such a draining lore drop and existence. I'll work on coming back here soon(ish) with a non-lore drop update that as long as you ignore my living situation, is actually mostly good. ;)

Hasta luego.

Not A Hag, Apparently, Just a Little Witchy, But in a Good Way…

 It took (40) years of existence for someone to give me a nickname, and in the year it happened, I received more than one! The pet names I earned and then lost from my brief attempt at leaving dating retirement (don’t worry, I’m back on my shelf where I belong), my son has now started calling me “Shorty” on the regular, and a handful of people have started calling me Captain due to my nonprofit work. One of my newest friends out of the blue started calling me Captain without knowing other people call me that, but when I tried to explain my grinchiness vibes as hag like, I got that killer modification above from them and I don’t want to forget the odd compliment so it’s today’s title!

So, today is an interesting day. It is the second day of Unemployment Version 2025, AND the 10 year anniversary of my divorce being finalized. Which isn’t a date I normally keep track of, but I filled out a passport application back in October and I had to dig through my digital footprint to find the damn date, so it hasn’t quite filtered itself out yet. 

It’s also the day after I realized an important relationship lesson I wish I would have learned a long time ago… 

SO. Yesterday, I spent about (4) hours decorating for Christmas/Hanukkah. I hear your brain wheels screech in confusion, with my very loud disdain of such a commercialized spend money to show off how much you love your family holiday that endcaps my three months of fighting the brain gremlins born out of my own family disfunction. And, that’s actually part of WHY I spent so many hours doing it. These poor kiddos are about to experience their first Christmas away from the home they’ve lived in for their entire life. They have had their entire lives flipped upside down and are experiencing more growth in this half year than they have in years. Putting in the work to undo their deep seated trauma. 

And, uh, apparently they love Christmas. A lot. Loudly. Passionately. Materialistically. The very core reason behind my “why” in life is that I don’t want anyone else to ever hurt the way I have been hurt. I don’t want anyone to feel the deeply buried sadness that is always present in my life. I am painfully aware that my bright smile is usually hiding /something/ and I cannot in good conscience do anything to make more people like me in the world. So, I threw up wrapping paper on the wall, dug out small tree from a couple years back, and decorated like it’s my favorite day of the year. I even put out stockings for each of the kiddos that I’m going to sew their names onto.

Yes, it is painful AF to be surrounded by people showing each other how important they are to each other while having next to no gestures being pointed my direction, but I’m an adult, I’m used to it, and I have the tools to cope with it. These children should never have to say any of those things. They should have the freedom to express and receive all the love in their life. 

BUUUUT, that’s not even the lesson I learned, that’s the backstory of why I did something that makes my heart squeeze in looming disappointment I try to hide every time I walk by. 

My mom was home while I was working. Sleeping. She got up a couple times to go to the restroom, but even when I was juggling and fighting the wrapping paper and I asked her to take my dogs out back she didn’t move and I had to untangle myself to get them outside on time. I finished with about an hour before I had to leave for the next part of my day, so I sat down to read a bit before I went to wash my hair.

Within minutes of me cleaning up my mess and sitting down to relax, she climbed out of bed for the day. She got some coffee and started to chit chat with me, and I could feel it grow in my chest. Resentment. 

I spent my morning working on something nice for her kids while she slept, and now that the work was done she was ready to start her day. Today, I had grand plans of more work to do, but when she said she was going to go back to sleep for a bit, I retreated to my room and switched to my digital to-do list.

Back in my living with paramours days, I clearly remember having my house cleaning days scheduled for when I would be home alone, and looking back, I understand why. When I would clean or work on things with them around, I would get frustrated when they wouldn’t do anything to assist, and so it was easier to just share the relax time and do it when I was alone. 

And if there was never time alone to clean? Then it would build up and then I would end up getting the brunt of the blame bc I apparently love me some emotional neanderthals who rely heavily on their mothers to take care of them long into adulthood. (I’m not being mean, my last serious beaux’s mom actually apologized to me many times about never giving him the tools to be more self sufficient bc she had needed to feel needed and important to her children and she had a front row seat watching it erode our relationship)

This sort of resentment WILL destroy any relationship, familial, romantic or otherwise, if you let it. Resentment from having someone working around you while you’re trying to relax after XYZ and feeling guilty if you don’t help but like you’re being robbed of your downtime if you get up. Resentment about “doing all the work” and “never getting the help you need” because your work time overlaps with their relax time or you just do it when you’re alone.

Sitting where I’m sitting right now, it feels easy to say with a little communication and schedule adjustments, it would be a relatively simple solution to implement. As well as some GAF from both directions to want to make things better and work. Please note I said “simple” not “easy”. 

Maybe that’s Lesson 2.0: Not everyone wants to put in the work. 

And when you’re in that scenario, the name of the game is survival, with the rules being much more self protecting and less relationship preservation. 

Was any of my past relationships worth preservation? 

Prolly not since when I stopped trying they had stopped already/as well. (Also, um, was I worth trying for back then is a SUPER valid question I don’t really want to know the answer to)

Do I want to preserve the relationship with my mom? 

Oooof. That’s a big ole “Yes, but”. 

And frankly, I think those “buts” are too late in the game for me to have fulfilled. BUT, if she keeps on her current path, her new batch of kids are going to have amazing relationships with their mom. (A but to my but, the most complicated and nuanced asterixis in family dynamics)

Oh yeah, I dropped a little lore at the beginning of this post, and the details of my unemployment don’t actually matter this time around. I was miserable there, underpaid and stuck in a stupid dress code. I was waiting out a referral bonus they never paid out before accepting any new positions and they robbed me of my joy of quitting there. BUT the joy I have of never having to go back there DEFINITELY outweighs my pouting over not being able to give them the professional middle finger. ;) 

Not quite sure what direction I’m heading in this time, but I’m gonna sort of float like a leaf on the wind at least through the end of the year and see where I get taken. 

Half a Year Later..

 I’ve mentally written this about (7) different times at least, and I keep being scared to actually type the words. Which is stupid since this way too many people in my house is actually going better than I think anyone could have imagined. 

The kids are thriving at their new schools and are starting to get used to having a steady routine for things, my mom is relearning how to be a parent and doing her best to make the right choices not the easy choices. They’re all actually doing really really good. I am immensely proud of the progress they’ve made and continue to make. 

It hasn’t been all roses though. It was really hard at the very beginning, and I still have had less than (10) times alone in my house since they moved in. The worst was actually when I had to call the police to my home in the middle of the night. 

The details of WHY aren’t important, but me standing in my pjs while (3) police officers recorded talking to me with both their body cameras and personal phone cameras, while wandering around my home and commenting their judgments on it will be burned in my brain. Having to beg them not to bring an ambulance to my house bc I legit was fine, was humiliating. Me making a joke about being a “my little pony” because of a scar on my neck looking like a heart will only ever be funny to me, and I get that.

I also um, you know, don’t trust the police, at all. And willing to have them come to my home TWICE in two weeks should give you an idea of how far things have come since then. 

It actually breaks my heart a little. They were all stuck in a nasty cycle of pain begetting more pain, and all it took was physically moving them a few (ha) miles away and it’s like they’re completely different people. 

Oh yeah. And my baby sister has been cut out of their lives completely. Of all the things I’ve been right about, this is the one thing I wish I would’ve been proven wrong about. Being right about the harm she was doing brings me zero joy. From what I understand, she’s lost the new batch of kids too. Which means my being a “cold bitch” keeping my distance from getting attached to them was also the right move since hopefully they’ll be given a fresh start somewhere healthy. 

This year has been a doozy, and I have spent more time trying to keep my overstimulated self from losing it, but, strangely enough, I feel like the quiet good I’ve experienced this year has soothed so much of the bad to the point where the negative has already blurred into the background. 

So uh, yeah, good job life? 

The worst day of the year is coming up soon, and bc I’m still a giant ass coward when it comes to most things, I’m legit flying across the country to hide in a funny sounding city I’ve never been before, with a whole bunch of maybe plans (and a solid no from a friend I was hoping to have an excuse to see, but whatev). 

I actually am fully expecting all of my maybe plans to fall through and to spend the day of avoidance completely alone, even though the reason I’m staying in a silly named town is bc I’m about (2) hours away each direction from my maybes and I was told I couldn’t go be alone on the actual day. That and New York (my original plan) is hella expensive and even cashing in miles and points I couldn’t afford to do anything except sleep and eat there. When I make it to New York for reals, Imma at least gonna afford some art museums n ferry tours. 

My phone just made my current favorite alert, so I’m gonna go respond to that now, until next time! 

Je N’aime pas ça - Je n’ai Même pas de Paroles Pour ça…

 Huh. I looked at the date of my last post, and little did I know when writing it, but my life was about to completely flip upside down just a handful of hours later. 

And what sort of thing could I possibly mean in such a dramatically vague way? Don’t worry, I’ll tell you!

At 4-something on May 2nd, I got a phone call informing me that my mom’s house has been deemed a “health and safety hazard” and I was asked if the (3) kids born my nieces and nephew turned sisters and brother due to an adoption could come stay at my house. I said yes, and mentally started figuring out what exactly I would have to give up to take them in. On the drive home from work, because why wouldn’t I have been given this sort of news while sitting at my desk at work; I was informed that it wasn’t just the kids, but my mom too. 

I cried so hard and often for the following (5) days my depression meds were pushed out of my system and I had to essentially start over with building them up in my system. Even sitting here now, after coming to terms with this, just acknowledging that this is a real thing in this way is making me start to tear up again.

Growing up, I existed only for the needs of others, a tool more than a person for the majority of my life and the only emotion I really knew how to express was my anger. I theatrically sword fight nowadays, but when I was younger, I was really good at physically hurting people. Constantly in little scraps or big fights, I can’t think of one fight I’ve been in where I lost. I had absolutely no control of my temper and my rage took me to some really dark places. 

It took the majority of my late teens and twenties to win the fight that actually matters, the one against my temper and chill the eff out. Heck, I’ve chilled out so much that now, months away from 40, people assume I’m soft AF. Well, maybe not /soft/ since my mouth is as foul as ever, but they def don’t worry about pissing me off since it’s such a rare sight to see. 

The first apartment lease I signed was illegal bc I wasn’t 18 yet. My roommate was 19 or 20, but I was still 17. I was sent off to little BFE towns and camps whenever my mom got sick of me as a teen. I legit was tortured as a child. When I moved out of her house, I promised myself I would never live there again. Before we gave up on it (because divorce was 100% the right call for a million reasons), I stopped visiting in attempts to save my marriage since every time we went there we would leave angry - at ourselves, each other, and/or the people living there.

I love my family. If I didn’t love them I wouldn’t have spent my entire life dropping everything at a moment’s notice to take care of whatever messed up situation they got themselves in. I wouldn’t have raised my mom’s other daughters when she gave up when I was in 6th grade, or bought a house with extra bedrooms so the newest batch of kiddos have room with me. 

I love my family to the point it hurts me. Constantly and consistently. The only time I’m not being hurt by them is when I’m not around them. After my divorce I actually went no contact for about (4) years, until DCS became involved with the kids my mom ended up adopting. In those years I was able to finally remind myself of who I am as a stand alone person, not the forgotten family member only brought out to be used as a weapon against the “bad guys”, and then used as the villain to bond over the rest of the time.

The handful of people who know about this new living situation keep trying to tell me how great of a person I am bc of this, and their eyes get all big and doe-eyes sad for me, which I hate more than words can describe. Doing right by your family isn’t done for kudos, it’s done because it’s the right thing to do. 

There’s absolutely no part of this that is easy, for me or for them. My son moved into the detached room in the backyard, the girls moved into his old room, the boy into what used to be my guest room, and my mom is on a mattress in the living room between a couch and my piano. My mom is having to confront her hoarding and slowly tear apart and then rebuild her house while I instill rules and structure into her and the kids lives. They’re doing good. And all working towards improving themselves, and I hope once they can move back into their house the lessons being taught will stay with them.

This is the absolute best possible outcome for them. It is also the absolute worst possible situation for me. 

Once again, my wants and needs are having to be completely back-burnered for the foreseeable future. No traveling outside of con-work this summer while my son goes on a bunch of amazing vacations with his dad, no quiet moments alone in my house before 10p. And my friends, as amazing as they all have been in helping me setup my house in one day, and sending me groceries to help with the extra mouthes. They’re all giving me space right now. 

And I know it’s bc what I’m going through is A LOT, and either they can’t deal with it in addition to their own lives or they’re trying not to add to my burden, I get that. But I am living my worst nightmare come to life, and so many times I just want to bury my head into a chest or lap and just have someone tell me I’ll get through this with my sanity and calmness intact. It’s selfish, I know. My friends provided me furniture, food, clothes and physical assistance for housing my family. I shouldn’t be asking for more than what they’ve already done for me. 

I’m just so exhausted having to be The Adult for so many people all on my own, and I really wish I had someone who had time to BE with me in all of this. You know, someone to lock eyes with across the room and make big eyes at something ridiculous that’s happened. Or to drag me out of my house before I lose my cool and have to run away into the desert without cell service for 4+ hours just to calm down. (Yup. I ran away from home last weekend. It was a thing)

I know I’ll make it to the end of this, I always do, and funnily enough this isn’t even the hardest thing I’ve had to face. I just feel like the stakes this time around are higher for me individually, and I’m afraid of what unknowns I’ll be losing because of this time in my life. And I’m worried about how bruised and broken what’s left of my heart is going to be after once again sharing a roof with the person who raised me in a way where my worth has always been determined by my usefulness. Sharing a roof with the person who has forgotten more of my birthdays in my life than she’s remembered, who has excuses and reasons why anyone else can fail, but then holds me to impossible standards. 

There is no leeway for me, I can never show my weaknesses around them. I can only be the strong, stiff spined version of myself that is fearless and friendly and kind no matter the situation. Charming and witty, with just a splash of self deprecation so everyone is comfortable around me. 

I will cry alone, I will tell myself it will all be ok, and hopefully I have built up enough self confidence to not hate myself when they leave. 

Cross your fingers for me? And maybe your eyes and toes as well? I’m gonna need all the luck available this time around.

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. 

Passing as a Washing Machine Setting

 You know, "normal". I am neuro-atypical, but am very lucky in the way that unless you are paying attention, you won't notice. At least, nowadays this is the case, for a lot of my life I was constantly struggling with the fact that I was noticeably different from the majority of people around me, and not in a fun way. In a very problematic way. I remember being told may times not to worry about it, because "Normal isn't a real thing, except on a washing machine", and I like my weirdness, mostly, so being normal was not ever the goal, blending in was, and eventually, I learned how to do that.

Today was a day where I spent the entire day with other neuro-atypical brains which means for the first time in a long time, I was able to fully relax without worrying about my  brain doing something "wrong" and "offensive" to the other people because our brains fire differently than most, and than each other, but we know what it looks and feel like so there's no judgment, just love.

So, in that vein of thought, sort of, things aren't real to me, unless I've written them down. Plans, ideas, feelings, they all are jumbled vague things in my brain until I (ideally) put pen to paper, or (less ideal) type them out. To myself, to one of million group chats, social media even, unless it's written down it's not a thing. 

It comes off as stubborn, but that I'm pretty sure I'm just also that. 

For years, I have written no less than 15 drafts in attempt to write a fictionalized version of the dramatization also known as my childhood.  BUT thanks to the amazingly talented brain of my BFF, I'm back on it. Instead of telling a story in a typical start to end format, I'm writing each individual story as a stand alone "short story" and once I have them all accounted for, organize them in some semblance of chronicle order.

Bonus is I don't have to stumble on the parts that I usually get stuck on, and since I'm writing from the narration point of view, the me shaped hole ideally will be clear without the magnifying glass on me. I hate the magnifying glass on myself, it's my least favorite part about trying to become a better person all the time. ;)

 

SO. Now I've "said" it. It's a thing, and I have to finish this draft version before giving up on it.  It's a real thing. /shrug/   :)

My Mother’s Daughters

 Are 3 very different versions of train wrecks. 

Her oldest is a divorced single mom who keeps finding men who want to be taken care of instead of doing the taking care of and ends up bleeding herself dry trying to take care of everyone around her, even at the cost of her own well-being. She doesn’t know how to take a break, mainly because every time she relaxes another thing falls apart and she has to race around and exhaust herself to keep everything in some semblance of order. 

Her middle is a self centered, cruel person who has spent her entire life using her many disabilities as excuses and crutches for being plain awful to people. She is completely dependent on her mother, and multiple different agencies, always talking about how independent she is, while never once having actually been independent in her entire life.

Her youngest is a single mother of 4, also divorced, but not to either fathers of her children. Mostly raised by the oldest sister, her experiences of the world were very discolored and slanted. All she has ever wanted is a happy home with someone to build a family with. She also finds herself in relationships with people who want to be taken care of, but unlike the oldest, she has enough hope in the world to believe their pretty lies. 

And how did we all become such flawed humans? Was it the various forms of abuse and torture we went through as children? Or the fact that our mother cared more about making sure she looked good to outside forces than about our actual wellbeing? Or how about the fact that she straight up gave up on us for most of our childhoods?

I don’t really know why, and at this point, I’m not even really sure I care anymore. All I know is that I am sick and tired of constantly being dragged into my past and expected to clean up the mess other people are making. I have done all the things you’re supposed to do to not have your past define your future, but here I am again, buried neck deep in the mistakes of the people I love, working to unbury us all.

It’s what I do. We all have roles to play in each other’s lives, and mine is the fixer. Minus the cool mob outfits. With as often as I have a headache, I should def get cool outfits. Or at least, the apocalypse of 2020 (now 2021) should end so I can take a real vacation. Mhm. That’s what I need. One where no catastrophes are waiting for me when I get back.

Please and thank you?

Life as a Cautionary Tale

 Every time I come here to write something, I check the visitor stats. And every time I question them. There’s always new views, sometimes a small handful, sometimes a ridiculous number that screams bots. But it’s never the same. Which is something. I wonder who actually comes here, is it people who stumbled across one of the many articles I’ve written over the years about a lot of nothing (and the one about a lot of everything)? Is it old friends who remember about this existing every so often? Or is it some unknown variable I can’t guess? My money is on the bots though. ;) 

But that’s also what I tell myself on purpose. I write under a lazy pen name for a reason, and that reason is to ease the stress of censoring my thoughts out of consideration of the people I love. Vague nicknames and broad strokes to talk about the people who make my life the adventure it always seems to be.

And with that GIANT disclaimer, I happily write: someone close to me is pregnant, and I am over the moon about it!! We spent like 3 hours on the phone this last weekend, laughing and giggling and having her ask me questions about being pregnant. At one point, I said something along the lines of “You’ll be glad to hear all these stories when you’re 7 months pregnant, your husband falls asleep with his foot touching you, and he’s breathing too loud and the only thing keeping you from smothering him with a pillow is you knowing just how lucky you are to have him with you during this”

Because my pregnancy was terrible. Uncontrollable health issues aside, being pregnant was one of the most alone times of my life. Which seems silly, since I was married at the time, but it’s really not at all silly. Actually, I take it back, my uncontrollable health issues made my loneliness multiply into something that forever changed the shape of my heart.

BUT, it makes for a good cautionary tale. 

Beware of picking the wrong person to attempt to build a life with or you’ll end up having to start from scratch and claw your way back to stable for many years after your entire life comes crashing down. 

Beware of starting your own business if all you have is your student supplies, a ridiculous amount of stubbornness and an unhealthy caffeine addiction.

Beware of having people that depend on you and need you at the drop of a hat because your other relationships will suffer, and you’ll likely not find someone who understands that while number one is already taken, second or third most important is still pretty damn special.

And I’m not complaining! Please realize, I have come to understand, what’s the point of being halfway clever with your words if you can’t turn the stories you live through into lessons for other people to try to learn from. I’m not gonna lie to you either though, sometimes it’s exhausting feeling like your existence is just so others can make less mistakes. 

And I really look forward to some stories of mine where no one is learning anything except the difference between my laughing out of acceptance and my laughing out of pure enjoyment. 

Time keeps moving forward...

 I’m moving. Again. Once again deciding what parts of my life to keep, and which to toss. I am so very excited. Big changes are happening, just by moving, all the pieces are adjusting, and shifting to make a different shaped life.

I am so excited, I feel like my heart is going to BURST.

I am so terrified, I feel like my heart is going to burst.

The older I get, the more responsibilities I take on by myself. The last times I’ve moved I’ve had friends/lovers/people who owed me favors show up and help me. 

I don’t think anyone owes me any favors anymore, and my oldest friends either live far away or are slowly being replaced with people who fit better, so I’m sort of in a weird spot. I have people I’m comfortable theoretically asking for their help, but not anyone I think would say yes, or would actually show up, OR if they did show up, that I wouldn’t feel totally awkward and like I’m imposing. 

There’s a lot of stairs in my future. And I have a lot of furniture. Movers? Is that how solo anti-social/awkward adults do things? Pay strangers to haul their shiz? 

Cool. Now to see if I can get my kid to actually help pack this time around....

“Life is Pain Princess” – Westley, The Princess Bride

There is some people, that when they think of me, they think their angriest, darkest thoughts, who wish only bad things to happen to me because of the way I wronged them in the past. There are people that when they think of me, think of me as this blessing in their life, who cannot see past the good I‘ve done to see me as a flawed human worth criticism, and I can do no wrong in their eyes.  No matter what I say or do, to those two groups of people, their opinions of the type of person I am is cemented into their heads.

Which, kinda sucks. We all are terrible people at some point in our lives, as well as amazing people, but most of the time, we’re all just okay-ish people trying to make the best of what lives we’re living. Most of us, most of the time, are completely average. And that’s ok. Mainly because if you do it right, you have other average people in your life that makes your life feel unique and special and decidedly NOT average.

Last year my best friend got married to “The Love of Her Life”, not in quotations sarcastically, like you might be expecting from me, more like as a title. They knew early on that they were done looking and they almost immediately started planning their future together. The way they adore each other, and have stood by each other, right off the bat from day one, ready to stand up to any challenge life throws either of their directions is sincerely a sight to behold. The way they love each other is enough for my cynical ass to have some sliver of hope to one day have that sort of confidence for another person, and have it returned. It is disgusting, and true goals.

Recently, some of his ugly came out. And it rippled through her life quickly and messily. The shock waves will be felt by his actions for a long time to come. He is remorseful, and in the middle of what I imagine to be one of the hardest lessons of his adult life. My best friend is torn apart having to find the balance between standing by her partner and expressing the amount of betrayal she now feels.

But, how does that work exactly? What’s that /thing/ that makes people so sure that outside of extremes that aren’t even worth listing in their obviousness, that they have a person worth fighting through thick and thin with? I was married, and was so committed to our relationship that I tattooed his wedding band pattern onto my ring finger. Even with that level of commitment, one of the first words out of my mouth to my friend who tagged along with me was “Well, if this doesn’t work out, I guess I’ll deserve the pain of laser removal.”  Apparently my lame psychic power is guessing crappy things that are going to happen in the future. And yes, laser tattoo removal is horrible.

Now, I can only speculate. Call it soulmates, the right person, both people learning from their past relationships to be at a point where they know how to fight for a relationship instead of ending it…  I don’t know, because I haven’t experienced it yet, so I don’t know what to call it, or how one gets it. I just know it’s not something I’ve found yet. But, I think it’s something I’d like to experience. Which is sort of a new concept for me. I’ve always assumed I’d float through life myself, my kid and my friends.  Honestly, I’ve spent so long building a full life in other areas, it’s never been a priority.

There’s something about the way my best friend looks at her husband though.  Even when she was angry and hurt, I could still clearly see the love and determination in her eyes. Even knowing that they have an uphill battle ahead of them, knowing that it will take months if not longer to rebuild their trust, their love is still clear as day. And that sort of magic is worth holding onto, if ever given the chance.

 

"One Day Can Bend Your Life" - Mitch Albom

Recently, my grandfather passed away, and it gutted me. Like, even though I'm now able to successfully hide it in front of people, a part of me died when he died and I will not be okay for a long time because of it.

I'm not good at talking about my emotions, and in all honesty, I hate that they exist. I legit wish I was a robot so I wouldn't have to deal with the whole lot of them. Happy, sad, anger, hatred, love... They all are incredibly hard for me to express, and in turn it's hard for me to deal with their intensity. A lot of my anxiety stems from how I feel and my inability to express them. Soooooo. The best person in the world is no longer in it, and I still am. I am not ok. But I also know that the world won't stop turning just because I'm sad so I attempted to purge the intense feelings of loss and despair out of my body as fast as humanly possible.

I exercised way too hard, gave myself an asthma attack and felt it in my body for days afterwards. (On purpose, multiple times) I got a couple of "extreme" piercings hoping for some intense pain, and attempted to go dancing right after to trigger the pain some more. (They didn't hurt, and where we went ended up having a drag show NOT dancing that night, we had a blast, but it was not the night I thought I was getting). I accidentally didn't eat for a couple of days, aside from the jerky a friend physically handed me. I looked up, and ultimately decided not to contact some people from my past who while would have distracted me, would have re-opened the kind of wounds I'm trying to keep closed, especially while already grieving.

While I was at the piercer, I had him look at my ears. I've wanted to gauge them for a long time, but it's never seemed like "the right time", and all of the sudden it did. Unfortunately, due to the decisions of Megan Past, my ears aren't gauge-able. Too much scar tissue. I was able to make 2 (out of something like 12) holes in my lobes usable. Ok, not me, the piercer was able to give me 2 usable holes in my lobes and re-open my two cartilage piercings. 8 opened/re-opened holes in 6 days felt really good, and it ended up making me one step closer to fully liking what I see when I look in the mirror. Unexpected bonus!

Which brings me to my thoughts. If I would have known that getting DIY or cheap piercings when I was younger would have prevented me from getting gauges, would I still have done it? Would I have chosen fulfilling the reasons for them existing then, knowingly forfeiting a future want, hoping that future me wouldn't want it, or would I have made a different choice?

When I was a senior in high school I fell in love with the biggest mistake of my life to date, and I was so busy trying to hang onto that toxicity, I didn't register for college. No Pepperdine, even though that was always my ticket back home to Cali. I earned a full scholarship to a local university that I didn't have to apply for, just accept, and because of my stubbornness over it's reputation I turned it down. By the time I had removed my head out of my ass, the only thing available to me was community college, but because I couldn't stand living at home anymore I very quickly had to chose between school and work. Work won.

Even now, I don't know for sure that if I was told what would happen if I didn't apply for the college I dreamt of AND turned down a full ride scholarship to a different university, I don't know that I would make a different choice.

My life is a forever mess, constantly changing in the ways it's messy, but it's my mess and I love it. And yeah, I've made choices that forever close doors for me in the future, a lot of the time, doors are shut that I don't even know about, but that just means even if they look exactly like what I think I want or need, obviously I don't. Or maybe, I'll still want them, even though I know I'll never get them. I'm allowed to want things I can't have, at least while I'm walking by them on my way to the doors I do get to open.

I'm starting to think that no matter how old I get, life never settles. Great job doesn't equal settled. Amazing friends turned family and family that are friends doesn't mean settled. A comfortable home doesn't mean settled. Finding a person who fits into my life like a puzzle piece won't mean settled. All those physical and heart comforts just make it easier to handle the things that shake life up. Settled is a lie. Happy and at peace is the goal. But settled? Never.

Hello Again, Old Friend...

I mentally wrote about 50 posts here since I last opened this page on my browser, and some of them were hands down the best set of words I've ever formed. But they never made it out of my brain, and are gone forever. ;)

A lot of life has happened since I was last here - including a /real/ bout with cervical cancer (but not bad enough for chemo), and a career-ending injury that I probably will always have a permanent physical reminder of; that led to me having to close down my business. And those giant sad moments were a part of why I stopped typing. I don't want to just write when I'm sad or have bad things to process. And for a long time, that seemed to be the only way I could write, and that seemed like a waste of words.

My life right now, is not perfect, but brings me more joy than it has in a lifetime. I have a well paying job that allows me to only need to work there. My bad workaholic habits from being self-employed are slowing getting broken, and I'm not working every second of the time my son isn't with me, which is GREAT! I'm still working at having actual weekends off when my kiddo isn't with me, but I have made a lot of progress! I'm working out on a regular basis and even though I am no where near as strong as I was when I worked freight, I'm averaging a 10-12 minute mile on the machines at the gym which is kinda awesome!

I'm trying to buy a home, so my son and I can stop moving around all the time, but apparently having the right credit score is only part of the puzzle, and I'm having trouble finding a person to tell me the other pieces...

And I'm volunteering a lot. So much I'm the current president of a state wide non-profit. And I'm part of a community that makes my heart /so/ happy, even if I do have to dress up on a way too regular of a basis.

The weird thing is, I'm glad for all the crap thrown my way the last couple of years. For so long, I'd been thrown challenges through the people around me, and all it did was teach me how to build a wall around my heart and how to think the worst of people. But these /things/ that happened to me, that were completely out of my control made it so I had to re-learn how to trust people.

I'm still terrible at it, and my default setting is still set to auto-distrust, but I /know/ that's where I automatically go, so I can actively work on that when I meet people who don't deserve my walls. And I've learned how to ask for help when I need it. I won't beg, but I can say what I need and ask for it and then the rest is up to the people around me.

My life is still a total work in progress, and probably will be for a /very/ long time, but that's ok. I'm happier than I have been in a long time, and that can't be a bad thing. :)

My Glasses

When I was in 3rd grade, we were told there was going to be an eclipse while we in school, so we all worked on our pin hole shadow papers so we could safely see this scientific wonder. All the while this one fact was repeated multiples time while preparing for the event: Do Not Look Directly at the Sun - You'll Ruin Your Eyesight.

The problem was, that I wanted to ruin my eyesight. I wanted to wear glasses and my eye exams always said my vision was fine. So, when the eclipse came, at first I followed directions and saw the eclipse's shadow on my slice of paper, but then, I peeked. Just for a quick moment, and I remember it taking more than normal to adjust back to normal vision and that was that. 

Pretty soon it was time for my eye exam and sure enough, I needed glasses. And THEN? I refused to wear them. I always got a new prescription when needed, but shortly after getting them I stopped wearing them, until about junior high. I'm pretty sure my reasoning for wanting to to tell blobs apart from each other was purely hormonal, but it got me seeing, which I think is universally a good thing. ;)

I have never been comfortable picking out my own glasses. Pick too small of a frame and the lenses turn out like large circles making me look like one of the Chipettes from Alvin and the Chipmunks, pick the thicker frame and I look like Every Unique Person Ever. When I was old enough I made the switch to contacts, and to this day, I much prefer the face looking back at me without frames, but the framed face has become much more familiar, and accessible, as one pair of glasses can go YEARS longer than a set of contacts. 

So. There's my little fable for you, only days too late for the 2017 eclipse of course, because what good is sound advice you can actually use?

I'm sure there's a deeper meaning there about my horrible decision making process and echoes of it through my life, but the surface point is pretty solid too. And I'm too tired from another hell-ishly long summer to dive any deeper.

If you are repeatedly told that doing a specific action gains a specific response: believe it. 

I was told if I looked at the sun, it was damage my eye sight and it did. Sure I'm not blind, but at this point in my life I can only see about 6 inches in front of me without assistance, and I can't imagine how much worse it will get as even more time passes. 

Luckily, glasses exist. ;)

When Home Doesn't Exist Anymore

I was born and raised in Southern California, a city you've never heard of unless you're from SoCal is on my birth certificate; Downtown LA is where "who" I am started forming.

One of my sisters, Bug/Buggy, was born during the 1992 Riots. By the next school grade, we had moved to Arizona. I never really felt like I belonged here, until my senior year, when I was introduced to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. But this isn't about how I found my place here, this is about where my heart calls home.

If you were to take me to the middle of Downtown LA, and drop me off on a corner, I would take you to the apartment I grew up in. I can google to tell you the exact crossroads, but my feet and heart doesn't keep directions like that. When I was 14 and visiting for the summer, I actually managed to walk from my old home to the home of my former best friend's house and chit chat with her parents (she wasn't home), and ended up being in constant letter writing contact until the end of high school.

If I shut my eyes, I can still vividly see the white office building with the HUGE warm air vent that my homeless friend Jack stayed in at night to stay warm. Jack was a wonderful man who was always kind and friendly and cheerful. I was a sack lunch kid, and everyday my lunch bag had a second sandwich for him. Until he disappeared. I remember my mom saying that she was praying he was staying warm that night, and me asking why she wasn't praying he had a forever home. I remember him being gone long enough that I stopped bringing sandwiches. And then, one day, walking home from school, there he was on the sidewalk! Standing next to a shiny white car, freshly dressed and showered, waiting for ME. He was worried that I might have been worried about him, and he wanted to tell me that he had a home again, and that I didn't have to make him sandwiches anymore. I will never forget Jack, my first real friend.

I took the bus to school, and had a pretty nice walk to and from the bus stop everyday and the sounds of downtown were musical. At any given point, you would see people talking and interacting with each other, peaceful and frantic all at once. Once, I saw a man in a 3-piece suit on his way to work (I'd imagine) having a friendly chat with a punk teen, complete with big, long liberty spikes.

And then, the riots hit. My sister Boo, and I were whisked out of the city to where her dad's parents lived where we stayed until our mom gave birth to Bug. We missed at least a week of school, but we were young enough not to understand exactly what was happening and just enjoy it. Our mom went back into the city to give birth to Bug, and shortly after we started the visits to Az to pick a home.

But something broke. The noise was the same, the frantic to and fro was still happening, but it was like someone took a paint brush and painted big, thick lines around everyone and divided us into these guarded teams against each other. Like I said, it wasn't too much time after the riots before we moved, and when we moved to Az, my biggest problem was all the division. Looking back, I can speculate that everywhere was like that after the riots, but at the time, I felt like I had been ripped away from this fantastic city and forced into this horribly judgemental place.

My home, doesn't exist anymore. Sure, I can go to the physical buildings, and take these wonderful walks down memory lane in my head, but the environment, the  friendships, the not only acceptance of differences, but the expectation of differences, all gone. The exposure to all these things dramatically molded me into the person I am. And now, I have a son. And he's just a little younger than I was when I moved here. But Arizona is his home, not California. He lives less than 20
 minutes from the hospital he was born in. Sure, he enjoys visiting California, but because he likes going out of town, because he's a child. :)

I hope when my son grows up, he thinks of fondly of his roots as I do.