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When I hug both of my boys at the same time I get this overwhelming feeling that I am holding the entire world in my arms… like I’m holding pure, raw love as if it were a tangible, touchable thing…and I never want to let go. Even with simple moments like hugging them goodbye in their preschool classroom…. or if I’m stepping out to run a few errands, I never leave the house without hugging and kissing them and telling them I love them. Never…
…because they are my entire world. They are tangible, touchable love.
(This is what has been playing over and over in my head for days now… so I wrote it down )
Here’s a newsflash: I guess I’m a giant failure at this month’s NaBloPoMo. And here is an even bigger news flash: I don’t give a shit. I tried, but then life got in the way.
I have been getting up each day and actually doing chores, instead of sitting in front of my computer. I have been doing dishes and laundry and vacuuming before 4pm! I have been remembering things, running errands and actually being productive. It’s like living in a paradoxal universe. And I like it.
In my new paradoxal universe I’m even listening to NPR as I write this post. This comes as part of my new and insatiable desire to learn anything and everything I can about today’s current society and the government that the United States is lucky to have. I cannot get enough. I want to know everything. I want to pull my head from the sand and pay attention to the country that I’m blessed to live in. All my life I have just skated by with a basic and essential knowledge that left me unable to enjoy intelligent debates with people or formulate my own real opinions.
I have also come to realize that I have lived my life with the notion that I’m afraid to be wrong. I have played up my Libra diplomacy to it’s fullest and have always seen both sides of an argument. That may be noble to some people but to me it has just been exhausting straddling the fences all these years. I have come to idolize the strong, opinionated people much more than I have the fair and diplomatic people in recent years. To me, it shows that they have strength and stand up for what they believe in and whether it be wrong or right didn’t matter. They had an opinion and expressed it in a society that allows for that. I see this as power and it’s something I admire greatly now.
I want to be that strong and opinionated person. I feel like I have wasted years upon years of just taking the information fed to me and accepting it. I have formulated my opinions based on the fear that I might be wrong and always allowed myself an escape in case I was wrong. I have been a doormat for everyone and in every aspect of my life. I have not been able to really dissect things. I would just listen to or read something and move on. But now that’s changing. I want to scrutinize everything and try to learn it, understand it and take it all in.
This is an age of political history that we are so lucky to be a part of. 9/11 changed the world and the way we live life in America. This year, we innaugurated an historical figure as our president who has ignited the passion in Democrats and the disdain in Republicans. Controversy and hatred for him are everywhere as well as the love and hope invested in him. His canidacy and subsequent presidency has inspired me to open my eyes and my mind. I just wish I could have learned this lesson years ago. But, as they say, it’s never too late…
I can easily place myself in an earlier life… one set in the 1960’s, full of passion and knowledge and protests. I would have loved to have lived in the 60’s and protested against the war and yelled out my prayers for civil rights. Maybe I did that. Only God knows….
I can wish I was that passionate and stubborn person all I want but that won’t change anything up to this point. Now, at 33 I’m seeing a new woman emerge from within myself. This woman wants to be remembered for her strength and not her cowardice straddling of fences. If I were to leave this Earth tomorrow what would be said about me? Probably things like, “she was fair, she saw the good in everyone…” blah blah blah. Well, you know what I really want said about me? I want people to say, “She stood up for herself and for what she believed in, right or wrong. She loved with passion, she learned with passion and she died with passion.”
I know that is morbid, but I am a morbid thinker. I have kids to think about and a legacy that I want left behind. I don’t want to just live this life and leave no footprints… well, I don’t want to leave non-eco-friendly footprints. I don’t want to stop evolving and learning. Ever. I will still see the good in people before I see the bad. But I don’t want that to blind me like it may have in the past. This is incredibly self-centered but that goes along with who I am.
In the Christian sector, of which I reside, pride is frowned upon. It’s a deadly sin in fact. It’s one I break daily. But, would God really want me to leave this Earth without leaving a proper legacy for my children to live by, one that will make them better people? I don’t need to entombed in a bronze monument and I don’t need to be immortalized in stone. I simply want my family to know a few simple things… (1) care for the environment the best way you can but understand we aren’t perfect and it isn’t always easy. (2) take a stand, take a side and have a real opinion, not just what someone else thinks. (3) live with passion for everything. And finally, (4) love. Just love… but allow yourself to make mistakes.
I’m going to try to live my own life this way and set that example for my kids. Their future lives are more important to me than anything and I want them to be everything I was not. I don’t want them to wake up at 35 one day with regrets and wishes that they were different people, like I do.
In recent weeks I have often thought of writing each of my boys a letter… a long letter. One that would be held for them and given to them when they are older and the time is right, or, God forbid, if something happened to me. I want them to know how I feel about them and the dreams I have for them. Many parents do this for their kids and I want to make sure mine have that same gift. I hope to have this done by the summer. I will give them to my husband for safe keeping. I dream of giving them these letters when they are teenagers as we are conflicting and at odds as parent and teen. Time will tell…
This is a heavy post… I know. It’s just a conglameration of thoughts that I have had for quite a while now… Life is incredibly crazy right now. Historically and personally. We are living in a time that we will be telling our grandkids about. If I can’t wake up and take notice now then I’m doomed. I’m just sorry it took a pattern of events like this to make that stand.
Day three.
Good lord we have been so busy since we got home last Friday! It feels like it’s been a non-stop race. We took on a home project that has consumed us for 4 days now. It’s still in progress, too, but we are coming along nicely. Once our mattresses arrive this Friday we will be able to really finish everything up.
Tomorrow I have so many things to do that I need to catch up on. My to do list is overwhelming. But, the worst part about tomorrow is that I give up my husband. He took last Friday off and this past Monday/Tuesday, in order to spend time with the boys and I. But, tomorrow, we officially resume normal functions and he goes back to work. I love having him home with us. He comes with me to take the boys to school which he loves to do. While they are at school we go to lunch, alone. That’s rare… and so wonderful.
While the boys and I were away the hubs bought a Wii. I didn’t know so, when I got home it was a wonderful surprise! I hooked it up on Saturday and we have been playing ever since, in between the major rearranging project we undertook, of course. I have kicked his butt several times at bowling, billiards and even GOLF! The best part about that is that he is the golfer, not me. I have never played and yet, I won 99% of the games. That means he won one, single, little game. And I made sure to let him know by doing happy dances and talking serious smack to him. That’s always fun.
“OOOH! That’s gotta hurt!” I would yell.
“I’m in your head now brah! You can’t get me out of your head!”
I eagled! I eagled!! Damn dude… I eagled and you got a triple bogey! That’s such a shame. Do you want to just give up? Do you want to quit? I could spot you a few strokes if you want. Really.” I said, in such a sore winner’s tone.
Good times.
But tomorrow, we go back to his 10 hour days and me taking on the boys, alone. I wish he could work from home. I wish I could just have him around all day. It’s nice. Then again… maybe we would kill each other if it were like that every single day. That’s a strong possibility.
Right now, though, I’m sitting across from hubs at the dining room table. Each of the boys is perched up on the table in front of him while we all listen to his new favorite band. Hubs is repeating the words to this song like “without you all my days are Mondays…” and staring straight at me with love in his eyes. These are rare moments because his emotional range is very shallow 90% of the time. So this is when I soak it all in and savor it and hold onto it to carry me through the days. The song we are listening to goes on to say something about “a strong love”. That’s what we have. It’s not always pretty… in fact it got down right ugly many times last year. We had serious rough patches but we rose above and I can’t imagine being without him now. What matters though is what is directly across the table from me…. my three loves… my three boys… my entire life. It is so damn good to be back home and getting back into our family routine again.
This routine, however, means that he goes back to work tomorrow and I have to give up my best friend for most of the day now, again. As silly as it sounds, I still can’t wait for him to come home each night. Sometimes it is just for the relief but other times it is just because I miss him… my best friend.
Ah, good times. Right now, my three men are playing bowling on the Wii and waiting for me to join them. Dramaboy is playing against Monster and soon it will be time for me to play hubs… and beat him, again.
I am not sure why reality and I don’t mesh well. I’m not sure why we can’t get along. I push reality aside so much and its feelings get hurt. We try to work things out but in the end I always end up screwing it up. Well, this time I am going to make sure we stay friends and learn to live well with each other.
When I discovered the internet, then instant messageing, then blogging and then Facebook I became entranced in it all. What started out as nothing grew into something much larger and more distracting. Subsequently, everything real in my life took a back seat. I never wanted to admit it and tried hard to believe that I was balancing both worlds just fine. I tried convincing the blog world and myself that I was still living in reality and everything was completely normal.
Sure I was living in reality. I mean, I was raising babies, changing diapers, cooking (heh, sometimes), shopping, going out with friends, attending family functions, etc. It’s not like I was curled up in a ball 24/7 simply communicating with everyone electronically. However, I did communicate with people electronically most of the time.
I grew to expect all of my family and friends to just read about my life on the internet. That way I didn’t have to make phone calls or talk to anyone. I could purge my thoughts onto a screen and then be done with them. Writing things out was 100 times easier for me that talking about them, and 9 times out of 10 I could resolve it myself or simply just feel better. So, it became my method of coping, overcoming boredome or hiding.
It turns out that it hurt people. It hurt the people I love. And, only one of them had the nerve enough to tell me. I know the rest of them felt or feel the same way, but no one could tell me and that’s ok, because I already knew. I already knew, I just didn’t change it.
Don’t misunderstand this for some depressing post and just assume I’m in a deep funk again. Also, please don’t assume something terrible happened to make me realize this. Nothing happened and I’m not depressed. What did happen is that I realized I am a bad sister, a bad daughter, a bad step-sister and a bad friend because I let the computer take over my life. You could probably also add bad mother to that list. That isn’t another self-hate list either. I don’t want pity and I don’t need anyone to tell me that I am a good sister or friend. I know the truth here and I know that I am only referring to the fact that I have disconnected myself from the lives of the people I care about. Aside from that, I’m ok with things.
It’s funny how the internet, which brings the world closer and reconnects people with long lost friends and family, can also keep you from the real relationships in your life…. if you let it, like I did. There were times my husband even felt neglected. I guess now is the time to actually do something about it. I’m not going to disconnect completely because that would be silly. It would also be cold turkey and that just doesn’t work for me. Remember my attempts at quitting Dr. Pepper? Heh. So, I’m scaling back. My blog has already suffered from my lack of creativity. I’m going to take that as a sign that I need to let it go. I’m not going to close it or shut it down. I will just reserve it for really interesting things, if they come along, and only after I have made connections with my reality. This blog is no longer going to be a place where I spill my guts before my friends or family hear about it. It will be a place I will spill my guts after I have talked it out with the people I love.
I will keep Facebook around though. It has brought a lot of old friends back into my life and I want to stay connected with them. In all honesty, maybe reality is a poor choice of words when discussing this issue. I mean, my Facebook and blogging friends are real friends. Some I know from in person, some I know just from the internet. That doesn’t make them any less real just because I communicate electronically. However, when the close friends and family in my life have to learn about me through Facebook or my blog instead of me picking up the phone or sending them an email first, well, that’s when the reality becomes fuzzy and hurts those I love.
I hope this makes sense to you. I’m trying hard not to be misconstrued. So many of you have read this thing each week and laughed with me or made fun of me or maybe even cried. I treasure all of you for that. I have poured my heart out to strangers and exposed myself completey, many times. The problem is, my dearest friends and family aren’t even privvy to that kind of vulnerability and they feel jipped… and I can’t blame them. Don’t you feel honored and special when a loved one comes to you for advice or just to vent their feelings? You feel special and important don’t you? Well, I have made the blogosphere feel more special and more loved than the people closest to me in my real life.
I let my computer take over my life. Well, it stops, here and now. This blog may still exist but it won’t be in the same capacity you once knew. As long as I can communicate with my real life better and then let the blog world know after, I will keep the blog around. I could never delete the whole thing… that would be a good 2 years of my life, in writing, that I wasted so I won’t do that. It would cheapen everything I said and be a horrible way to treat those of you who invested yourselves in my life.
For now, the blog stays. Hopefully I will get some of my creativity back and actually be able to write interesting posts again. In the meantime, it’s time to shift priorities and remind those people in my life that I do care about them and haven’t forgotten that they exist.
It is a pretty safe bet that everyone has blogged about today’s inauguration in some form or another. But, I haven’t looked around or read anything. So, if what I am about to post is redundant, forgive me. I’m only speaking from my own experience.
TODAY WAS LIKE THE BEST FUGGIN’ DAY EVER!!!!!!
The end.
(Need I really say more?)
(Well, you know me… there is always more I can say…)
Not only was today one of the biggest days in American history but it was also the same exact day that I was going to share it with a friend of mine from high school that I have not seen in 16 years. We haven’t spoken to or seen each other in over 16 years and today we were set to meet to watch the inauguration together.
She is the girl who finally found me on Facebook and we started reconnecting a couple of weeks ago. We discovered a mutual love for everything Barack Obama and decided that we had to meet on the day of the inauguration. She drove out to my sister’s house and we watched the most incredible day in our own history, together. Our kids were playing in another room while we watched Joe Biden get sworn in and then watched Barack Obama begin his oath, fumbling his words a bit, but still full of grace and pride.
This day was so symbolic and beautiful and full of hope that it’s almost impossible to contain. It’s impossible for me to put into decent words that truly convey how I feel. I will leave that to the other and much better bloggers, I’m sure their words are much more prolific than my own.
But no matter how generic my words are, I will never forget this day. I was alive to see our first black president become sworn in and I was able to share this day with my children and a long lost friend. The beauty and poetry of today will resonate for a long time.
I did notice Barack looking somewhat smug at times, but I believe he was just holding his head high knowing the immense hurdles that had to be jumped for this country, for the black race and for Americans alike to get to where we are today. I pray for his family, for his safety, for his guidance and for his leadership so that this country will be able to once again raise our heads high and be proud of being American.
_________________________________________________
So there it is… a day late and a dollar short… as always.
There are plenty of days when my kids annoy me to no end and I consider running away to a quiet beach in Mexico. But, it’s the days when they make me smile, giggle and belly laugh that keep me here in my own little paradise. That’s right… paradise, right here underneath my roof with all the dog hair, crazy kids and the goofy husband. Some days I lay my head down on my pillow at night and realize that I have everything I ever wanted; the wild boys, the happy family, the cozy little house and the ubiquitous SUV. Other days, I lay my head down on my pillow and just pass out from the exhaustion and stress, thankful that my kids are finally asleep because I was close to hanging myself. But even then I don’t think I would ever be able to trade it for all the gold and silver in the world.
This weekend has brought me an abundant supply of those giddy, happy moments. My kids have been so cute at times that I wanted to pause and keep rewinding them over and over until I got my fill of the cute-ocity. Just yesterday, Monster was watching television with us and a commercial came on for something related to Star Wars. Well, Monster was telling me what he was seeing on tv and said, “Mama, it’s Star Wars the Clone Wars on DVD and BHS.” Monster was saying this as a matter-of-factly as he could and as he got to the “clone wars” part of the title his voice trailed off slightly as it does on tv when the announcers say it. He said it all together as if “on DVD and VHS” were part of the entire title. My heart melted and I actually squeezed his cheeks and kissed his face because he was so damn cute at that very moment.
Last night, as I was tucking DramaBoy into bed he was sobbing from exhaustion and not wanting me to leave him. I told him that it was bedtime and I was going to go back downstairs, goodnight and sweet dreams. What he said next stopped me dead in my tracks and brought tears to my eyes. “But mama, when you go downstairs it breaks my heart.” I immediately laid down next to him and stroked his hair. I was well aware that he was probably playing me and that this could lead to him saying this every night in order to tug my heart strings, but at that moment, I didn’t care. He seemed so genuine and sad and I am his mother, I had to comply. Then, a few minutes later, as I laid next to him, he said, “Mama, when you stay with me you make my heart get back together.” Dear lord I thought my own heart would explode from love.
Today, the boys were eating Popeye’s chicken for lunch. Well, one of them was. Monster wasn’t really eating. He was asking to be excused from the table. I replied with, “NO! You haven’t even touched your chicken!” A few minutes later I was sitting in the living room and Monster says, “Mama, I’m touching my chicken now!” as he looks at me while simply placing his fingers on his chicken and holding them there. Hubs and I burst out laughing of course. Oh kids and their literal interpretations.
My kids aren’t the only ones to make my heart leap and my belly rumble with laughter. Hubs has that affect on me too… like when he made me homemade donut holes covered in cinnamon and sugar or when he brought home wine from my favorite Illinois Winery (August Hill Winery - yes, Illinois has their own wineries, about 70 in fact. August Hill just happens to be one we stumbled upon and fell in love with. Their labels are all made by a local artist. They are beautiful and the wine is incredible) and we shared the bottles with each other after the kids were in bed.
Good wine, good company, peaceful evenings… it makes my heart swell and I forget about all the things that get under my skin or haunt my thoughts. My mind quiets and instead of hearing all the static of life I hear nothing except my heart beating and my husband smiling. Sure, maybe that is just the alcohol, but I choose to believe it is the tranquility of the moment that surrounds me in a placid blanket. I can actually talk to hubs without interruption and this is a very big deal considering the fact that we cannot possibly carry on a conversation while the children are awake.
The big red cherry on top of my proverbial weekend sundae was finding a friend that I have been looking for for almost as long as we have been apart. She and I were best buds in my first high school in Yuma. She and I were arrested together (on a bogus charge) and ended up on probation together; we were unable to even be near each other in school during that time. I moved away from there in 1992 and we lost touch fast. I have been Googling and searching MySpace and Facebook for years. Before technology offered assistance I tried the old grapevine method and only heard she was living in Tucson.
Today, I got a message on Facebook from her. I thought I was going to float right off the ground. Apparently we had both been looking for each other all this time. We chatted online for over an hour and both of us were so giddy that our fingers were typing faster than our brains could function. We learned that our lives have been quite parallel all this time. In fact, it turns out she even lived in the Chicago area from 2004-2006, 45 minutes away from me and we never knew it! She has three children and two of them are my boys ages… 4 and 3. Her little ones are 14 months apart and mine are 16 months apart. We both became stay at home moms in May of 2004 when our kids were born and we both had another baby less than two years later. Then, she told me that she comes up here every summer for about 5-6 weeks (she moved back to Arizona) and I told her how I go down there every winter for about 5-6 weeks! This means we have the potential to see each other a lot during these visits. She and I even have very similar haircuts, apparently. It’s ironic, unbelievable and joyous all at the same time.
There is so much to catch up on; so much of my life to tell her about and I have so much to learn about her. We have 16 years of life that we went on living without each other. In her case, she looks the same as she did at 16. She looks beautiful and happy and full of life, just like she did back then. I feel worn and weathered and jaded but in talking to her it’s like a piece of me from those days is starting to come back. A piece of my soul from all those years ago has been re-lit and it feels good. The memories of those years don’t feel so dark and gloomy anymore. I’m realizing that I may have had things all wrong back then… I feel alive, more than I have in a long long time. I feel genuine, euphoric, exulted.
I even changed my little quote section on my Facebook page… I’m no longer the surly and sarcastic SAHM. Well, ok I still am… but I’m a lot happier about it.
And in 3 days I will be back in Arizona… I will be meeting a few friends from high school over the next several weeks and joining my past with my present. It just doesn’t seem real… is it real? Pinch me, please.
Relax, you are still on the drama queen’s blog. You have not been transferred to another site. I have not been abducted by aliens and replaced with a happier look-alike and I am not on drugs, well, not illegal ones anyway.
I’m about to shoot rainbows out of my ass, which, if you have been around long enough, you know is a rare occurrence. Sarcasm and surliness seem to be my ruling planets these days. But that doesn’t mean I’m not a happy girl. Cuz I am. I do smile. I do hug my children, a lot. I even laugh!
But, lately, I have been doing all of the above a helluva lot more! I am content. I am happy. I am settled. And, it has nothing to do with the holidays, either.
So, shall I go on? OK!
First of all, the snow on the ground makes me happy. If I am going to live in the Midwest and put up with the cold then I better damn well get snow out of the deal, and lots of it. I know you are probably thinking I’m crazy for that… but it’s like the whole “when in Rome” thing, you know? If it’s gonna be this cold then I want it to look good and be worth it. So, for 2008 we are getting a solid white Christmas and this makes me very happy. It will also make me enjoy Arizona that much more, when I get there next month… in 22 days, 7 hours and 54 minutes.
Know what else makes happy? Watching my boys make their OWN lunches! They are 3 and 4 years old and want to do things themselves. DramaBoy has decided he wants to make his own jelly sandwiches every day. So he goes into the kitchen, gets out the bread, puts it in the toaster, gets a butter knife and then the jelly and then spreads it on his toast and puts the other piece of toast on top. Then he gets a cup and pours himself some water, or milk, if the gallon is empty enough. Monster also likes to make his own hot dogs. He wraps it in a paper towel like I always do, puts it in the microwave and pushs 1-0-0-start and waits for it to be done, all by himself. I have been teaching them numbers for awhile now by telling them what numbers to push on the microwave whenever we use it. The lessons have paid off.
I also get a great big smile on my face when I hear Monster, who is 3, count to 30 (minus a few errors in the 20’s). They both counted to 30 in the backseat of the car the other day as hubs and I were driving. Then they counted in Spanish, but only to 10. Heh. They also enjoy acting out scenes from their favorite movie, Polar Express. Monster can recite entire monologues from that movie. They do this upstairs while playing with their trains. It’s so fun so stand at the bottom of the stairs and listen to them act out the “emergency brake” scene. It’s actually amazing to me.
Want me to keep going? Well, I am anyway. The other night I was putting the boys to bed and DramaBoy brought me a teddy bear to sleep with. Then, he went back to his room to get one for his brother to sleep with. Then, he brought another one downstairs for daddy to sleep with. Sometimes the sweetness just oozes out of that kid’s pores! And sometimes, he just makes me laugh… like when he messes something up and says, “Oh tarter sauce!”, just like SpongeBob.
Between their knowledge, their vocabulary and their independence, I am never left without amazement. Monster and DramaBoy both use fairly big words for their age and it always makes me smile. Maybe I actually did something right? Is that possible?
You know what else makes me smile? When I go to upload pictures to my computer from my digital camera and I find that the boys have taken the camera on a picture-taking binge and there are shots of them doing incriminating things like playing with my lipgloss and rifling through my purse. That’s pure entertainment.
You know what else is entertaining? Hearing Monster say, “Mama, I will put this bottle in the recycling” and then he does it only to realize there was a smidgen of juice left in the giant bottle and he opens it up and proceeds to guzzle the last few drops in it before placing it back into the recycling bag. Awesome.
All of these things make me happy… they make me smile. The New Year’s card (we didn’t do Christmas cards this year) that I’m sending out to everyone will have a picture of my boys, making a funny face, with an inscription that says, “Find the Joy in Your Life”. Hopefully that will inspire others to do the same and smile through the rough times we are all facing.
And lastly…the proverbial cherry on top of my uber-sweet sundae is realizing your husband is everything you want him to be and that the two of you are finally happy after a very rough year. Really happy. We are a couple again. We have found each other again. We have broken down the barriers and the walls between us and we are mending and meshing so well. It’s like the weight of the world has been lifted from my shoulders and I can see all the other things I was missing for so long.
Maybe that is why there are rainbows shooting out of my ass. But, whatever the reason I don’t care… I just want to keep feeling this contentment that I feel right now…
I have a t-shirt that says Dr. Pepper. What I should have is a t-shirt that says, “Dr. Pepper Unites!” Because it does.
Dr. Pepper lovers share a bond. They share a soul. They share a passion that only other Dr. Pepper lovers know.
So I’m thinking that Dr. Pepper could create world peace. There are DP lovers all over the world and if we all became friends on Facebook maybe we could actually solve the world’s problems. I mean, we all know Facebook can cure Diabetes, stop domestic violence and is the soul reason that Barack Obama got elected, right? So, if I started a DP fan club on Facebook maybe I could single-handedly abolish all religious and political tensions throughout the planet, all because of our common love of Dr. Pepper.
If leaders like Mahmoud Amahdinejad drank a Dr. Pepper then maybe that giant stick up his ass would mysteriously disappear and he would, oh, I don’t know, learn to love the gays and recognize Jews? Anything is possible with Dr. Pepper. I mean those 23 flavors in DP would probably immediately start working on rewiring his brain and he might actually become tolerable…. and human. It’s worth a shot!
Coke and Pepsi may tout unity and peace in their ads but they are full of shit. Really. They don’t have that wonderful sweetness that Dr. Pepper has. THEY don’t have those 23 flavors and pretty maroon cans with Dr. Pepper written in that great 96-pt font. I don’t see people becoming friends because they share a love of Coke or Pepsi (also referred to as battery acid or “that vial substance that can clean out pipes”). Ok, to be fair here, Coke is great with the polar bears, I will give them that. But, the polar bear community has just been horribly brainwashed. We all know they would be much better off with Dr. Pepper. They would be so much happier with the sweet, fizzy goodness of DP and in turn they would probably start procreating like rabbits and wouldn’t be in danger of extinction anymore.
Alright, wait, Dr. Pepper does have it’s limitations though. It probably could not have helped our very own egotistical and arrogant governor Blagojevich. That fucker probably drinks Coke religiously and loves watching King of the Hill. See, Dr. Pepper may have uniting capabilities but it cannot help anyone in Illinois government because these people seem to reside on different planets. And DP can only help those located on Earth. That is the disclaimer that should be put on the can.
I’m starting to think that we have been going about trying to find Bin Laden all wrong. We are using the wrong military tactics and intel. Instead, what if just put a case of Dr. Pepper in the Afghan desert and attached a string to it? Then sometime during the night when creatures like him emerge from the underground depths, he would come out sniffing. He would spot the case of DP and slowly start making his way for it. But, unbeknownst to him, there would be a soldier at the other end of that string pulling it. Soon enough, Bin Laden would be surrounded and captured using the old “carrot on a string” routine, only it would become known as the old “DP on a string routine”. Then, in one final act of good old American “GOTCHA!”, he wouldn’t be allowed to drink one, because that is the worst kind of torture there is. And then all the soldiers, American and the like, would sit around their campfires drinking that wonderful, fizzy, goodness of their first cold DP and lay back with their collective, orgasmic, “ahhhhhh”. And world peace would begin.
So, I call for Dr. Pepper to be made the official drink of the polar bear nation and the global community.
Drink up.
(yes, I’m still on my medication and no I have not gone off the deep end. I promise)
I became a stay-at-home mom in August of 2004. Dramaboy was 3 months old. I had gone back to work for a day or two after my 12-week maternity leave and I hated every second of it. The job sucked before I had Dramaboy and it sucked worse after. I was put on probation for something, probably too much personal time on the computer as usual and I told them, you know what, I quit anyway. Have fun. Bye.
Of course I had discussed this with hubs before quitting, just to make sure he would be ok going to one little old income for the family. I guess the rest is history. The past 4 years have been a blur. I have a hard time recalling the boys as babies, other than the fits they gave me. I feel like I have wasted almost every second of those 4 years because I didn’t use my time wisely. I didn’t scrapbook. I didn’t play with them more. I didn’t give them the best mom that they deserved.
I hate myself for that and nothing anyone can say will change my mind. I hate the mother I gave to my boys because they deserved better. I hate that I need anti-depressants just to funtion normally. I hate that I have a temper and yell or bark at them. I hate that I’m impatient with them. I hate it all.
Lately, as if you couldn’t tell, I have been on a deep, introspective trip. I’m living in the past. I’m regretting the things I did or didn’t do. I’m feeling guilty. I’m hating myself for not making the most of my free time with the boys and without. I’m the cliche for regrets and realizng things too late.
You have seen my post things about my wicked ways before. And, you have seen me post things about self-love and accepting who I am. My about me page talks about my epiphany that “I am who I am” and I’m ok with that now. But what it doesn’t say is that I’m only ok with who I am 50% of the time. This is a never-ending journey I guess. Just when I think I’ve got it all figured out and can accept myself, I fall off the deep end again.
Living in the past sucks. I know better; I know I should look forward and just keep going… keep trying to do the right thing. But that is easier said than done. I want to blame my dad for everything. I want to blame him for making me so screwed up. I want to blame him for moving us around so much that now I’m a restless soul. I want to blame him for my intense NEED for change…. not a DESIRE for change, a NEED! I can’t stay happy. I can’t be satisified. Just when I think I have gotten everything I want, I get restless again. I get jealous of everyone else because I think they have what I want.
When I get like this I forget the good parts of me. I feel like the bad negates anything good that is within me. I’m selfish and self-centered. I am uber forgetful and therefore constantly let people down. I’m not a good mother…. not every day anyway. I’m flaky. I’m impatient and restless. With traits like that how am I supposed to feel like a good person? And, even when I am having a good day I feel like it’s just a facade; like I’m being phony because I know the real me…. the ugly me. I feel like it is just a matter of time before I start letting people down again.
My heart isn’t fake. That much I know. I have a big, giant and loving heart and I wear it proudly on my sleeve. But dammit if I don’t keep letting people down…
I know I have a blessed life. But if I have all these amazing gifts, like my children, my husband, the roof over my head and even the damn loveable but uber-psychotic dog, why am I so dissatisfied? Why is the grass always greener? Why do I want something different? Is it just because moving and change has been engrained in me since birth? Do I just need a change of scenery?
That’s fine if I do, but I have a family now and I will DAMNED if I do to my kids what my father did to us! I want them to have stability in their lives so that they do not grow up and become adults and end up with my issues. I am greatful that I’m so adaptable and can deal with change… I love that about myself, but at the same time it created this constant NEED for change; this constant feeling of restlessness.
Whenever I hear about someone living in the same house for 50 years or working the same job for 30 years my eyeballs roll back into my head! All I can think is, “OMG! I WOULD GO NUTSO!”
When I begin to go down this dark road in my head, everything else gets affected too. Today, I realized that the inevitable has happened to me. I have lost my identity.
I have been a SAHM for 4 years and I’m going through what many at-home moms go through. Everything I am is wrapped up in my kids and my husband. My children cannot go 5 minutes without saying “mama!” in a way that means they need something. I’m not kidding. I hear that maybe in excess of 150 times a day. It is to the point where I wither away inside at that sound of “mama” because I can’t take it anymore. I feel like they are going to need me forever; like they are never going to be independent.
I used to look at families with babies and just smile and oogle and think, “oh how sweet! They must be so happy!”
You know what I think now? I think, “Heh! SUCKERS! Just wait till the little shit starts walking and talking! HAVE FUN!”
When did I become so friggin’ jaded?
I look at families now with older kids, 7, 8, 10… whatever, and I think, “OH I CANNOT WAIT FOR THAT! The boys will be more self-sufficient and I might actually have me-time!”
WTF? A few years ago I could not imagine my babies getting any older and I wanted to keep them young and helpless forever! Now I’m thinking, when do they leave for college?
Everyone who knows me knows that my boys are my life. I would die for them and I would die without them. That doesn’t even need to be said, but undoubtably someone might read this and think, “Shit, you don’t deserve to be a mother…” If anyone is reading this and thinking that then either A) you are not a mother yourself and couldn’t possibly understand or B) you are just a fucking idiot and way to pious to be reading this blog.
Now, with that little disclaimer out of the way, lets get back to my self-hate trip…
Hubs seems to think that I do have a lot of freedom even though I feel like I don’t. It’s all about perception I guess.
He seems to think that my once-monthly girl’s night out is enough to keep me happy.
He seems to think my 2 hours of freedom Monday through Friday should be enough to keep me happy.
He seems to think that being a student is enough to keep me from losing my mind.
Hm, right. Once a month… once every 31 days (give or take) I get to go out and have fun, adult converstation with my friends. It IS amazing and I cherish that one night every single month. So yes, I will give him that. However, it does NOT make up for the other 30 days of being strapped to my children for 24 hours a day.
The 2 hours of freedom daily? Right… those are spend doing homework or running errands. Not exactly fun me-time. However, I do revel in those 2 hours of peace without hearing “mama” 800 times.
The student thing? Heh. That doesn’t even desever a retort. Just a good old F/U will work.
I am not trying to be greedy here. I’m not asking for a GNO once a week or more time during the day to myself. I’m not asking for money to go shopping each month to buy the latest fashions (even though I do hate my current waredrobe). I’m not asking for anything. Number one, we don’t have the money for me to take a yoga class or a pottery class like I would love to do. Number two, I can sympathize with my husband because he gets up at 5:45am every day to go to a job that he HATES. Our entire survival hinges on his income. He has the weight of the world on his shoulders so why should I be asking for anything?
We can’t do everything we want to do because we each have 2-ton weights on our shoulders. He doesn’t get me and I don’t get him. But, I try to get him. I do empathize with him. I listen to him. I support him. What do I get in return? I get sarcasm. I get retorts that make me feel like my gripes aren’t worth anything. I get guilt trips. Thankyouverymuch.
Somehow I need to find me again. I need to find inner peace.
Now it’s time to pick up the boys from school and resume the chaos.
My grandmother died in 1986. She was 54 years old. I was 11.
She was my mother’s mother and I was the oldest grandchild. We lived about 30 minutes from my grandparents so we saw them often. She and I had a special connection and I loved her like nobody else. I still miss her to this day. I can almost remember what she smelled like and can still see her red lipstick.
I remember that I used to go into her dresser drawer and get sticks of Juicy Fruit gum. She used to sew in the basement and I would sit by and watch her or play with some toys while talking to her. She knitted me sweaters, made me special Barbie clothes and I treasured every single thing she ever gave me. To me, anything that came from her was the pinnacle and I would never let it go.
One day, she came over to our house and gave my parents the news that she had cancer. Ovarian cancer. I’m not sure what happened that day, what I was doing or how I felt. I just remember seeing a large bulge in her abdomen and hearing the word “cancer”.
Everything is a blur from that time. I do remember caring for all my cousins while my aunts, uncles and parents would visit her in the hospital. I was 10 at the time and responsible for 6 other little kids. I was a very mature little girl so this task was something I was proud to do, and did it well. I was helping out my family in a difficult time.
When the dust would settle and everyone would leave that’s when I took my opportunities to go see her in the hospital. It was only about 5 blocks from my house so I could walk there anytime I wanted to. We had a huge lilac bush in our backyard. I remember getting dressed up, grabbing a big plastic and totally tacky cup and go out to that bush and fill it up with lilacs for her. Then I would walk down to the hospital to give them to her. My mother later told me that this was one of her most favorite things… my visits, with the flowers… just her and me. Even now, 22 years later, I still tear up and get a lump in my throat thinking about this.
I don’t recall much but these visits had to have been a few weeks before she died. Lilacs only bloom in May and she died on May 24. She survived through operations and 13 months of chemo. So my visits to her in the hospital were near the end, when the cancer had reached her liver and when all her hair was gone and when we were used to seeing her wearing a scarf on her head.
I want her back. I want her to hug me and tell me I’m not a failure. I want her to answer questions about my father and why my family fell apart after she left us… why did my dad do it? What was his story? Did she really know? I want her to tell me about her life, her childhood, our family generations. I want her to see my kids grow up and hold them and kiss them. I want her back.
Her mother, my great-grandmother had to bury her daughter. No mother should have to bury a child, even at 54 years old. Her mother was spunky and fun and we loved her dearly. She outlived her only daughter and her husband. She was also a victim of my father and was pushed away. We lost touch with her in the early 1990’s.
Through a lengthy series of events that I don’t want to explain now, I regained touch with an aunt of mine in 1997. We didn’t keep in touch closely but I was able to keep tabs on my family a couple times of year through emails or the family grapevine. I knew that my great grandmother was spunky and spry as ever and doing just fine.
A few months ago, however, I heard she was nearing her end. She was 98 and had lived a very full life and was being well taken care of by my aunt. That was the last I had heard…
Last Monday, I awoke from a vivid dream. In that dream my estranged family was all gathering together to say our goodbyes to my great grandma. We knew her time was coming so we wanted to all be near. Then, all of a sudden, I saw my grandmother. I didn’t even consider the fact that she wasn’t with us anymore. She WAS there, and I ran to her, through my arms around her and cried. I cried as if a waterfall of tears had been turned on. I never let go of her. Not once. Then I woke up…
It was a dream that resonates… I still felt her. I still had the lump in my throat. I knew she had come to me. Then, I remembered, her mother. She came to me because she was telling me that it was her mother’s time… she was coming to get her.
That morning I contacted my cousin on MySpace, the only way I have to get in touch with her. I asked her how our great-grandmother was doing because I hadn’t heard anything in awhile. I briefly mentioned my dream but gave no details. She replied that she was doing fine, no change, but still talking strangely and mentioning how she is going to dance with her husband soon.
I was glad to hear she was still with us, but I knew it wasn’t going to be for long. I knew…
The next day, my cousin sent me another message… her first line read: “I now know why you had a dream about her…”
She apologized for telling me through a message like that but that our great-grandmother passed away that morning, peacefully in her sleep. I wasn’t surprised. In fact, I smiled. I smiled because she was 99. I smiled because she went peacefully, without pain. And I smiled because my grandmother came to me to tell me she was bringing her home. My grandmother came to me …. I got to see her again briefly, in a dream, but I touched her, hugged her. It’s selfish, yes. But she chose me and I didn’t even have contact with her mother.
She and I still have that connection, even after 22 years of being without each other. I see her face every time I see Juicy Fruit gum. I see her face every time my lilac bush blooms in the Spring. I see her face everyday.
Now, she and her mother are back together. And, in some cosmic way, I was a part of that. No one can tell me that there is no afterlife. There is. There surely is.
A few years ago, almost exactly, we put one of our dogs to sleep. He had an aggressive tumor on his face. We waited until the day after Thanksgiving to let him go. Then, Christmas-time came and my mother was visiting. Monster was only 3 months old and in the throws of colic. I was exhausted and still mourning the loss of Bodie. That night, my sweet baby girl Lexi, a shepherd mix, was restless. Her claws kept clicking on the wall and I was frustrated because I couldn’t sleep. I yelled at her and told her to go downstairs. That was December 28th. When I finally fell back asleep I had a dream… Bodie had come back. I was confused but hugged him. I was so happy to see him.
A few hours later I was woken up by my husband with a deep look of grim on his face. I was confused and still very tired. Then, in what seemed like minutes passing, he found a way to tell me that Lexi had passed away. I freaked and jumped out of bed and ran downstairs. I found my baby girl in our mudroom, laying there, peacefully. I buried my face in her fur and cried forever. I couldn’t let go of her. Once again, there is a lump in my throat as I type this.
I got Lexi as a puppy. She had been through two husbands, two states and a few different residences with me. She was my furry twin. She was territorial like me. She was spunky and bossy like me. She was sweet and cuddly like me but still liked her space, like me. She could piss me off like no one else and she could make me laugh like no one else. And, she left me… my last words to her were “get downstairs!” My heart is still broken and I will never forgive myself for not being able to say goodbye to her or that I loved her.
Bodie, who passed a month before her, came to me to tell me he was taking her. Two dogs, gone, in a month. Each passing at a holiday. I still don’t know what took Lexi. She may have been sick and I didn’t know it. She was never right after Bodie passed though…
My grandmother and my dog Lexi are the two beings I expect to be waiting for me when my time comes… I’m sure my dad will be there as will my grandfather and my great-grandparents, but I know that my Grandma and Lexi will be the ones to greet me, first thing.
