Looking at Myself

Yesterday, I was forced to take a long, hard look at myself. To see myself the way that other people might see me and let's just say that I didn't like what I saw.

I have spent the last few months closing myself off from the world. In an attempt to avoid getting hurt by others, I have in fact hurt people who care about me. By building walls around my heart, I not only protected myself from getting hurt, but I have hurt myself by not letting other people in. I have not only been unable, or unwilling to reach out to friends and loved ones, but I have pushed them away. I have ignored phone calls and e-mails and not returned any attempts to contact me unless I had no other choice.

God what a selfish bitch I am. I have been so caught up in my own life that I have become less of the person I thought I was and more like a person I NEVER want to be, ever. I have been self-indulgent and I have boo-hooed and moped around like I am the only person to ever have had bad things happen to me. Instead of getting back to the person I should be, I have become a sad shell of my former self.

This is not to say that there haven't been reasons for my recent behavior. I am going through a lot right now and some of this has been caused by the medication and the sadness that comes from feeling like my 32-year old body has somehow betrayed me. I think if all of my doctors did a test, they would find that I am more like a sexagenarian than someone in the prime of their life and that has made me sad. (I did however fit sex into this paragraph, so perhaps all is not lost.)

But now I say nay, nay. No more. It is still within my reach to be me. To be a better friend and sister and daughter and especially, a better mother. I have help. I have friends. I have people who want to help take care of me if only I would let them. I am sick of being afraid of getting hurt and burned. SEE: ex-egg donor, ex-men, ex-friends, etc.

This is not to say that I am going to let people use me. My dad has this famous saying - "you deserve what you tolerate." So while I refuse to tolerate, or have in my life, people who don't care for me, I also have a responsibility to care for the good people that I do have and to show them how much I love them in return.

By opening up your heart, you risk getting hurt. But by not opening up your heart, you will never truly feel anything.

Someone very special to me sent this quote a while back and I was at first offended. Why? Because it was forcing me to look at myself in a light that I didn't want to see. But now, I understand it. I get it. And I certainly don't want a heart that is irredeemable.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.” C.S.Lewis

Fight for This Love

I just can't get enough of this song.

It's been in my head and my heart for weeks now.

It makes me sad that people just give up. They give up hope and they give up on each other. It's easier to give up than it is to stand your ground and fight for what you believe in. It's easier to pretend in your head that the past never existed or that you were a different person when you play the scenes backwards in your head. It's easier to run from yourself and everyone you ever cared about and lie and hurt than it is to be a good person and take responsibilities for your actions.

I wish we could all live in that world. But instead, most of us live in this world. The one where you are supposed to honor your promises and stand by someone's side instead of sucking up everything that they have to give - like a leech - and giving nothing real and true of yourself in return.

If you think this post is about you, it probably isn't. The person that this post was specifically aimed at is long gone out of my life and wouldn't know how to be a better person if it hit them in the face with brass knuckles. It is just amazing that time doesn't heal all wounds. Some of them are just beneath the surface.

Of course a little bit of this post could be about you. Because it is targeted at the loss of a friendship. And Lord knows I have had enough shit people in my life that I have mistaken for being true friends, when they were only friends of convenience.

And I don't care if no one likes this song. I do. And it makes me feel better and worse at the same time. So suck it.

Broken

I am broken now

Only time will tell

What it takes to ease this soul

Your company

Such misery

No sympathy

The road that leads to perfidy

My eyes close

I view the abyss

The spiral staircase ends in mist

No sight

No sound

Just emptiness

Charon waits

Afloat on the River Styx

Do I turn to him

Embrace the nothingness

To ease the troubled suffering

Or do I trade my shields in

For stronger Mail

And protect anew

My every cell

I am broken now

Only time will tell

Spring Cleaning

To be done in bullet points, because I love them so.....

• Get rid of as much negativity in my life as possible. People who hurt you and constantly bring you down are not good for your soul.
• Organize my clothing and shoes. My goal is to delete at least half of both my wardrobe AND my shoe collection. Shock and Awe people, SHOCK AND AWE.
• Focus on my health. Both physical and mental.
• Physical Health - I have recently started a new regimen of medication for a disorder that I have and it is kind of kicking my ass. But I have accepted that this is something that there is no cure for and that I have to buckle down and do something about it now before it gets out of hand.
• Mental Health - I started seeing a new therapist recently. She is half Jewish and half Catholic and knows all about guilt. I like her sense of humor and raspy voice.
• More Physical Health - I am in love with Yoga. I am making a concerted effort to take three classes a week for the next two months. This will help me in so many ways and my doctors have all said that it is something that is both safe and beneficial for me to do.
• Go see my family in the next two months. I haven't seen them since last summer and I feel like I need their support more than ever now.
• Get better. Be better. A better mother, a better friend, a better writer, a better member of the human race.
• Work....... - work is difficult to say the least. I will be taking a short leave of absence from my job due to the medication that I am on, but I hope that when I get back to fighting shape that I will be better than ever.
• Focus on family. My children are the two most important people in my life and they always will be. My priority is that they are both happy, well-adjusted children who wake up every day knowing how much I love and cherish them.
• Find Inner Strength and Peace - not an easy task. Like Ru Paul says "If you can't love yourself, how in the hell are you going to love anybody else? Can I get an amen?" Love her!!!!
• Remember who I am and who I want to be - those two things are very difficult. I have changed and evolved so much over the last couple of years that I think my true self has fallen by the wayside. I remember the days of yore when I felt creative and funny and witty and sarcastic. Now I struggle to get through each day. It is difficult enough to be going through this medical thing alone, but because of the person I am now, I no longer have a strong support system behind me. I let people I care about drift out of my life and I have embraced my loneliness. I am more like a hermit now than the fun loving, carefree girl of the past. I want to get back some of myself.
• Have fun with life again - I realize now that I no longer need to prove myself to anyone but me. I think recognizing that and working through those issues in therapy will allow me to enjoy living once again without the ups and downs and drama that has plagued me.
• Learn to forgive - I will never forget the hurtful things that others have done to me, but I am working on forgiveness. I don't want to grow old and bitter.

I think that's enough for now. I will be lucky to get a few of these things checked off of my list. My heart, mind and soul are very heavy right now. I can't help but think about the past 30 plus years and wonder how it all went by so quickly and what will be in store for me in the future. It's so uncertain right now. The only truth I know is that my life needs to evolve into something more than it is right now. Even if that means getting dressed in more than track pants and tennis shoes. (Have I mentioned that lately I have taken to only wearing drawstring track pants and tennis shoes/flip flops and T-shirts for the last 3 weeks?) I have a dear, dear friend's wedding coming up soon and I need to at least get these roots seen to, don't I?

All of my love to you and yours.

The Other "F" Word

If anyone out there still reads this blog, then you know that I am not shy when it comes to the spewing forth of swear words. I bandy them about like condoms in a sex-ed class. In fact, I have even taught you all how to swear in multiple foreign languages and I have created some words that people still use on a daily basis.

That being said, there is something that I have never, ever done. Neither on this blog or in real life. What's that you ask? I know, it seems almost impossible, or at least highly improbably, that there is anything that I would think crosses the line, but even I have my limits and one of those limits is the use of slurs. I think that if you don't like someone, there are better ways of letting your dislike known. For example, I once called my neighbor a cum-guzzling twatmonger and I still stand by those words. Adam and I have insulted each other numerous times over the years and we LIKE one another. But I choose to be more creative with my insults. Instead of disparaging someone's race or creed or sexual orientation, I like to be a little more inventive and a lot less trite and tired with my insults.

Most of the time, when I do this, I mean no harm. There are others out there who do though and it seems that they have passed this little affliction down to their children.

The reason I am bringing this up is because while having dinner with my children this evening, my daughter was telling me about a boy that she has been having problems with in school all year. He has harassed her and bullied her, but she fights back and I am usually one to let kids be kids and not get involved unless something crosses the line.

I am seriously considering getting involved now.

Why?

Because the kid called my daughter the "F" word. No, not fucker or fuckhead or fucking bitch as I originally thought, but "faggot". Whether or not he knew better is irrelevant. At thirteen years old, there are things that you KNOW not to do. If she was black, I don't think he would have dared to call her the "N" word. But these kids throw words around without thinking about the consequences. At their age, labels and words hurt. It is difficult enough being a teenaged kid, but to have other children out there shooting off insults without thinking that they could be doing serious harm disturbs me.

And it isn't SD that I am worried about. She can take care of herself and while I won't say in detail what she did, I do believe that the boy will think very hard before he tries to insult her again in any way. I am proud of her for standing up for herself. It has nothing to do with sexual orientation and everything to do with being a better person. I have several people that I am very close to and whom have gotten me through extremely difficult times that I am PRIVILEGED to call my friends, who happen to be gay. It means nothing to me. I could care less if they were fucking eunuchs or leprechauns or had tails growing out of their ears. The only thing I care about is who they are as people.

Why oh why am I rambling on about this subject? Because it matters. Because there are people out there who are constantly being subjected to cruel and vicious statements and actions just because of who they are. And also? I am saddened by what I heard today. I don't want my children to be around ignorant and intolerant people, but there is no way to keep that from happening, so I try to teach them how to be good people.

And if they were to judge others, it would hopefully be on their woeful lack of fashion skills and ugly shoes as opposed to things that they themselves can not help.

But that's just me.

As for the rest, I think I am going to start by sending an e-mail to the school principal. I don't believe that these kids even realize how badly their words could hurt if said to the wrong person.

What do you think internet? Should I just let this go as an episode of kids being kids, or should I say something about it? I don't want to blow anything out of proportion, but it just doesn't seem right to me........

For K

I rolled over this morning and looked into a pair of shining brown eyes. His grin was infectious as we cuddled and all I could think about was how happy he makes me every day of my life.

We don't spend nearly as much time together as we used to now, but we try to make the most of the time we have. Some days we go out to dinner and a movie, some days we just hang out. We talk about all sorts of things, big and small. The past, the present and the future. Sometimes he gets mad at me and some days I get irritated, but every day I wake up and thank God for his presence in my life and the blessings that he has brought to me.

On bad days, when I feel like a total failure, he can cheer me up with a sunny smile or a silly joke.

He has a quick wit and great sense of humor. He also has a quick temper. He is sweet and funny and one of my favorite people in the whole wide world.

I know that one day he won't want to cuddle with me anymore. One day he will grow up and start spending more time with his friends than he does with me. One day he will go off to college. One day he might marry a girl who will never, ever be good enough for him. One day he might have children of his own. One day he might move far away from me and I will be heartbroken.

But every single day of his life, he will always be my son. I love him with every breath I take and I would do anything for him. He is a light in my life. He is my Little Bear and no matter how big he gets I will always see my sunny little boy.

The Doctor

I have to go to the doctor today.

I am thinking about canceling my appointment.

Doctors scare me and this one in particular scares me mightily.

I am afraid of what I might hear. I am also afraid of what I might not hear. It's unnerving to say the least.

I have been the biggest procrastinator my entire life and never more so than recently. I am stuck in a quagmire and I know I am sinking, but I just can't seem to find the reason to pull myself out of it anymore. The world keeps spinning on its axis and rotating around the sun, but I keep sinking lower and lower into the pit and the sun seems too far away to ever reach now.

I don't feel funny anymore. My inspiration comes from my dreams and they are not what I would deem pleasant. Not nightmares, but a hash reality of life vividly brought forth by my desperation and imagination. Where am I going? What am I doing? How will I get there? Do I even care anymore?

Sinking, sinking, sinking. Ever slowly down into the abyss.

Where are you when I need you? My inner self and most inspired and trusted confidant?

I don't even talk to myself anymore.