Look Around.

Saturday, November 27, 2010

People On My TV I Can't Goddamn Stand (In No Particular Order):

1. Giada Whatsherfaci, on the Food Network. Have you ever noticed how she's in a permanent fake smile grimace? All the time? But it's like she's baring her teeth at the camera, not like she's happy. It comes off as a threat, is what I'm saying. PUT YOUR GIANT HORSE TEETH AWAY, GIADA. Also, stop over-Italianizing your speech. I know people who are Italian, and they don't say 'Spey-gey-ti' when they're talking about something to be served with meatballs. Ass.

2. SPENCER PRATT. If you don't know who this guy is, don't google him. His flesh-colored chin fuzz will ruin your day. And he's a giant prick.

3. Geraldo. Are you still alive, Geraldo? Stop it.

4. Kanye West. Every single thing this guy does is steeped in douchiness. He shouldn't have access to cameras or phones, or doors that lead to the outside of his house.

5. Elizabeth Hasslesomething on The View. I don't watch The View because I don't need to watch psuedofamous people gossip about news and pop culture. More than that, I don't watch The View because I don't like being reminded that Elizabeth hasn't fallen off the face of the Earth yet. STOP WHINING, ELIZABETH. Also: You're wrong about everything ever. All of the things that exist in the universe, you're wrong about.

6. Nancy Grace. Because she's Nancy Grace, every time she opens her mouth an angel gets kicked in the face by an ostrich.

7. Kate Gosslin. Look, I get what she's trying to do. It started out as a way to support her eleventy billion kids, and then she started to like the attention and sort of forgot that there are legitimate ways to support your family that maybe DON'T screw up their precious little psyches. Now she doesn't really know what else to do, so she does... whatever the hell it is she's doing. But let me clue you in to something: When two of your SIX YEAR-OLD children are EXPELLED for violence and anger issues, you need to take a long, hard look at your life and assess the situation for problems. (Hint: Cameras in their faces all the time breeding an over exaggerated sense of their own importance. And your douchey ex husband doesn't help things, nor does your long, drawn out divorce being televised. The divorce that never included therapy or assistance for your children, who are now turning into tiny little ax murderers.) Shut off the cameras, for the love of God.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Day 06.

Day 06—Something you hope you never have to do.

The first thing that pops into my head is "move out of my house," but I'm pretty sure that's because I'm super lazy and when we moved into this house I was five months pregnant so I have Nam flashbacks when anyone mentions doing something you hate, because holy crap, did I hate that. Charlie doesn't have anything on moving while you're gestating and it's 113 degrees outside. Eff that. (Even though I didn't really do much, because I was under orders not to lift heavy things or push things around, so I did a lot of pointing while complaining about the heat flouncing about prettily.)

That seems too superficial to count as an answer, though, so I take it back. Although, for real, it was like the seventh level of hell up in this piece. I kept getting all paranoid that I was leaking amniotic fluid out of every pore in my body because surely, no one could produce that much sweat. No one except a pregnant lady when it's hot as balls outside and you're making her move boxes and boxes full of sweaters GOD WHO HAS THAT MANY SWEATERS!?

I certainly COULD do it again, though. I mean, I wouldn't volunteer, but it's not something I really don't ever want to do.

A serious answer? To borrow the thought from a blogger I read:

I never want to bury anyone else that I love.

That's probably very near the top of my list of rational fears. In the last five-ish years I've buried both parents, the uncle that helped raise me, my grandma and two of my mom's lovely brothers... It breaks my heart to think about it, and to think about doing it again. So I hope I never have to.

That's probably unrealistic given the fact that most people are pretty mortal, though, so... Very, very specifically, I hope I never have to bury a child. Any child in my family, extended or immediate.

I can't even imagine the horror. My grandpa has buried three of his sons. They were all grown- middle aged, even, and I still can't imagine how he made it through. How his heart didn't just quit beating from the utter, bone crushing sadness.

Can't imagine. Don't want to do it, not ever. I'd rather move a million times, from one house to another, while pregnant with octuplets and standing on the surface of the sun. No thank you, sir. Good day to you.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Day 05

Day 05 – Something you hope to do in your life.




I’d like to write a book.



I know, everyone wants to write a book. Everyone thinks they need to be heard.



I don't even know what I'd write about... It’s what I want, though. What I’m too afraid to try to do. I hope to get it done someday.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Day 04

Day 04 – Something you have to forgive someone for.




As much as it might seem otherwise, I’m not really a grudge holder. When I feel like I’ve been wronged somehow, my anger burns white hot and incredibly fast, like a magnesium flare. It’s blinding and painful, but over in an instant.



When the anger is over, I don’t have the energy to care anymore about whatever it was that got me all revved up. I don’t care what you did or what I did, I just want everyone to shut up and be happy. Sometimes I’m like a dog with a bone trying to get to the bottom of the situation, but I don’t hold a grudge once it’s figured out. I just want it to be over – REALLY OVER – no awkwardness, no lip service, no lingering issues. Just let it go. You don’t have to cling to things, using them as an excuse to make people miserable or manipulate them. So don’t.



For me, holding onto things anymore requires a serious degree of concentration. I have to keep my anger stoked so high that I can’t possibly forget why I’m upset. I certainly can’t maintain such a hysterical level of rage for any serious length of time; I don’t know where I’d get the energy or the motivation. Most importantly, I don’t think it’s my place to judge other people or their motives. Even if I’m angry or hurt, someone else has their reasons for doing whatever they’ve done. They have their own feelings and ideas about it, and I’m not their mother or the cricket on their shoulder in charge of shaping their choices. So where do I get off maintaining some kind of grudge over it?



It isn’t my place. I try not to do the whole forgiveness thing. What makes me so special that someone should seek my forgiveness? Even as I type this, I can’t think of anything I have to forgive anyone for.


 What was, was. What will be, will be. Move on or don’t, but stay away from me with the drama.



So I guess I don’t have anything to forgive someone for. I know this seems like bullshit, but I can’t think of anything.



I’m super proud of being able to say that, you guys. It makes me kind of grinny. I used to be quite the clinger in my early years. Turns out, when you lose so many people that you love in a very short period of time, it sort of manages to age you right past all of the immaturity, I guess. Not the way I’d recommend going about maturing, but certainly effective.

Now For Something COMPLETELY Different:

Let's get rich and give everybody nice sweaters.

That other post was on the top of my page for MORE THAN long enough. I want more than anything to be honest in and to really get the most out of this 30 Days thing, but I'm not okay with lingering melancholy, so... Let's be happy, okay?

Please?

Related to the link: When Cole's and my (Cole's and mine? Mine and Cole's?) son was in my belly, he would kick to this song. He loves him some Ingrid to this day, but any music at all gets him shaking his head and doing the Can I Get A Witness jazz hands.

Remembering the crazy butterflies, the over-the-hill-on-a-roller coaster feeling of him tumbling and kickboxing in my belly for the first time when he heard this song makes me happy all the way down to the bottoms of my toes.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Day 03

Day 03- Something you have to forgive yourself for…




Wow, so.. This is harder than I thought it would be. I’ve got a feeling I’m going to be using some language, so… if it bothers you, feel free to skip this one. This is going to be hard enough without censoring myself. Also, I’m at work, writing this to stay awake, and I will be interrupted often so the narrative will probably be kind of hard to follow. Once it’s written, I’m not going back to change anything because, like I said: suck. I'll post it later, when it fits into the 30 Days meme.


This is ...bad. I kind of just thought this whole thing would be an exercise in writing, something to get the ol’ blog going. Something to force me to write. But, man. You know how there are certain things you build a wall around in your mind to keep from climbing a clock tower? Yeah. There is some demented shit behind that wall, y’all.



But Jesus hates a coward, right? So fuck it. In for a penny, in for a pound. Get it out and get on with it, isn't that part of the point of this whole rodeo for me? Get it out of my head, and maybe it'll all get better. Alright. So in I go.



Like.. um. Six years ago, almost… Five and a half I guess? I was with a guy. We’d been together for 7 years by then. Long, stupid, terrible story. Everyone’s heard it. Everyone has one of their own, even, so everyone knows the way it goes. Ours was a little more dysfunctional than some, so I think it serves the rambling narrative to mention that we were pretty much shit out of luck from the beginning. I was emotionally all messed up from a kind of (read: completely, totally) fucked up relationship with my mother (at the time - it got better when we learned how to love each other better) and her husband, and having some resulting complexes about being inferior or whatever, and he… Well. He was a sociopath. Still is, where ever he is now, because that’s not something that just goes away. I say that because it’s true, not to paint him as a villain. He had then and still has now no ability to care for other people. The people around him convince themselves otherwise because it goes against human nature to believe that absolute disregard for human life is possible. This is how sociopaths exist without being tarred and feathered - they rely on the goodness of those around them. They prey on it. And he did. And I let him. So, on we go.



He came back from 3 years in the Navy (we were together for like two years before he left, I think, it’s all a blur now) where he was stationed overseas. Three years, I might add, during which I was a teenager, holding up a totally miserable relationship from the middle of fucking nowhere, when he was off in Japan partying like a rock star. I romanticized it and he slept his way across Asia, which he freely admitted and I let happen because I was stupid. It was a pretty great example of the BS in our little situation. If you asked him today, he’d still tell you he was sure I was cheating on him the whole time with my best friend (I was not. I’ve never cheated on anyone. This is all about truth, after all, and I have no reason to lie a decade after the fact of his deployment) but it was just one of the many ways he justified his own promiscuity to himself and everyone that would listen. I knew what he was doing and I stayed with him, so I was as much to blame for the situation as he was. If you allow something to happen, you become responsible for it, right?



Uh, so. I moved back to our home town right before he was discharged (I didn’t think about it then, but it was a time of war. Why were they discharging someone when they needed bodies like mad? This is what we like to call foreshadowing.) and stayed with my mom. He got back and we moved in with his sister for a while. The whole time, I was looking for a job and he was not. I found one, as one is wont to do when they are looking for something. For a year, he refused to even so much as look. We squatted at his sister’s for a while (with her husband and two children,) and then moved in with his parents, which… Yeah. Awkward. He continued refusing to get a job, while I continued working.



During this time, my mom was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.



It was bad, man. All of it was bad. It was just fucking terrible. Even writing this, I can’t really go back there in my head… I can’t really look at it. I keep seeing flashbacks in my mind and slapping them away like a gypsy baby. I don’t want to go back there. It was… I don’t even have the words. The only things I remember were at night, because night was the worst… The fights were worse, the feelings were worse. The voices from back then, our voices, literally echo when I remember them. There was no light. I see no light in my mind when I look through this wall. It’s cold and dark and I fucking hate it behind this wall I’ve built, back there in those months…



Somewhere in there, between all of the natural stress of the situation –of which there was plenty, let me tell you—and the added psychological bullshit that our relationship just naturally carried with it, I became aware that very bad things were happening. Our relationship was getting worse, more dangerous for both of us. It seemed… I don’t know. I observed it, but didn’t do anything to get out of it. I had nowhere to go.



I just needed so badly for someone to care for me… He didn’t, obviously, ever, but I needed to believe someone did. I needed to be held, even if I had to beg for it, because my world was falling down around me. My mother was dying very quickly, and I felt like if I left my relationship, I would have nothing left after she was gone. I needed to stick it out.



I found out I was pregnant a month after my mom was diagnosed. Which I was oddly surprised by I even thought, hey, maybe this is something good, something to look forward to. Losing my mom, gaining a baby, give and take, balance in the universe… Whatever. I don’t know. I was so deluded.



Relationship got worse. Things became more volatile. My mother died. My sisters and I very literally watched her die four months after she had been diagnosed, and I… I can’t remember that, either. Not now. Jesus, it’s like bumping around in a dark house of mirrors in my head right now, you know? Keep running smack into things I can’t get through, bouncing off and hitting something else, almost seeing my own haunted face staring wide-eyed and horrified back at me from the murk.



So. Maybe two weeks after my mom died, but I think closer to a week and a half, I was crying… I was talking to the boyfriend, trying to get him to listen to me, and he wouldn’t stop playing his video game. Wouldn’t even look at me, or pause it, or pretend to give a shit, as I’m trying to tell him I need some kind of help because I can’t deal with what’s going on. I was literally begging him to PRETEND to care, sobbing, just… It was humiliating. I’m ashamed, when I think back, it makes me… God, it was just…



Um. So he got mad, he got up to leave the house (still his mother’s house. His parents were pretending to be asleep downstairs as we fought) because he didn’t want to listen to me. He told me my mom was dead, I needed to just stop thinking about it because people die and the world doesn’t end, or something very close to that. Said I was weak for crying and being so broken over it. Called me names. I didn’t let him leave, I stood in his way, begged him to just hold me, so he shoved me. I should have known better than to stand there, but I didn’t. I wasn’t thinking clearly… I don’t know that I’d ever thought clearly the entire time we were together…



So he shoved me into the corner of the wall, which hit me right along the spine. I have scoliosis, so there was a pretty fair amount of pain. It knocked the wind out of me, knocked me to the ground. He walked past me, went outside to smoke.



I was four months pregnant. The cramping started then, low… dark. I was so stupid. I think there was even part of me that thought he would care now, he had to care now, because look what he’d done. I was so stupid.



When he came back inside, I was sobbing on the floor, unable to get up. He didn’t even look at me, walked past to go sit on the couch and continue playing his game. I asked him if this was how it was going to be now, if he was just going to drop the act and be this way all the time now. He said in the coldest, most matter of fact voice, that yes, it was. If I stood in his way and refused to give him what he wanted, he would force me to move and he would take it. That wasn’t anything new, but hearing it… Something inside me broke. I cried so hard, I couldn’t breathe. The cramping got worse. After a long time there, on the floor, not really able to get up first because of the pain in my back, then because of the pain in my belly, I told him my stomach hurt.



He said he didn’t care. I said, no, you don’t understand. MY STOMACH HURTS. I think something’s wrong with the baby. He said to go to bed, I said I couldn’t. He became more alarmed then, I think realizing that after what he’d just done I wasn’t stupid enough to ask him for help if I didn’t need it. He got up, tried to help me up, and when I couldn’t stand he carried me to the bedroom.



Not to the car. Not to the hospital. To the bedroom.



The cramps were terrible. I sat there on our bed, terrified and weeping and broken, and he sat behind me trying to get me to calm down, to breathe… Do it for the baby, Amanda, think of the baby. You need to calm down for the baby. I couldn’t. It took so long to stop sobbing… Everything was broken. I was terrified. Absolutely, soul-searingly terrified.



I didn’t ask to go to the hospital. I was so ashamed. I was so alone. My mother was dead, just barely in the ground, and I had no one. His parents, who I’d always thought of as family, had been downstairs and heard everything. They didn’t come up to help me. I was alone, with him. He was all I had, I thought. I didn’t know. I was so stupid. I just wanted it all to stop, to get better. I thought if I could calm down, everything would be okay. I could still fix it. I could still fix everything if I could just calm down.



I was only 20, weeks away from being 21. I didn’t know any better. I was so fucked in the head, and I didn’t know any better. I thought if I calmed down, it would be okay, that the baby would be okay. I don’t know how I convinced myself of that – I’m an educated person, a smart girl, how did I think it would be okay? I just wanted so badly for something, anything, to be okay. I was sick, then- my mind wasn’t right. I was sick with grief and I didn’t know...



We went to my regular appointment a week later. There was no heartbeat… The baby had stopped growing that night, the measurements said. She’d died that night. I had to have a D&C (which, as it turns out, is the wrong procedure when you’re 15.5 weeks along. Who knew? Not me. I was just a kid…) and he went to the hospital with me for it. The procedure didn’t take long, but I was in recovery for 7 or 8 hours… They couldn’t get my BP up, I was bleeding too much. The entire time – every single minute – that we were in the tiny, cold recovery room, he was angry. He wanted to go home, he didn’t know why I couldn’t just suck it up and go home. (I tried to walk twice. Both times, I blacked out completely before I could take a step. I’ve never fainted apart from that in my LIFE.) I told him to leave, but he stayed. I continued to shiver and bleed and cry. He continued to stay, watch the tiny TV, sulk.



The better to badger you with, my dear.



I didn’t leave him then, even though I knew I should. I was so alone… I just… I was stupid, is what it comes down to. We stayed together for a long time after that, I guess six months or so, but that seems too short. It was probably longer. I don’t know. Like I said, it’s all a blur.



Interestingly, if you were to ask him now, I don’t know that he would appear to care at all about what happened in those months or the years leading up to them. He’s convinced himself it was all a dream, maybe; I don’t know. Maybe if he was being honest with himself, if you caught him in a lucid moment, he’d tell you. It has to exist inside him somewhere. At least that’s what I tell myself. He has to be human somewhere in there, he has to know. I think if I’m being realistic, I know that he can’t possibly care. His psyche is built on avoidance of emotion and responsibility – he’ll never understand or concern himself with what he did. He'll never be honest with anyone about it, and that's what I hate the most. He's leaving me to be the only one to carry the memory of that time. To carry the memory of our daughter.



This is all a lot of back story to tell you what I need to forgive myself for. I need to forgive myself for not leaving, for staying with him when I should have left. I should have left a thousand times in those 7 years, but if I had been smarter and stronger, I would have left him when he was discharged from the military. I would have left. I should have left, but I didn’t. I remember literally crying myself to sleep next to him more nights than not, I remember the things he said, the things he did… And I didn’t leave.



Because I didn’t leave, my baby died. He killed her. And I let him.



I need to forgive myself for that. It’s been more than five years. I’ll never, ever manage it. Ever. I need to forgive myself, because not being able to let it go ties me to it, and the sickness from then snakes its way up and along that cord, and into my heart. I’ll never heal, and I know that. There will always be a dark, poisoned part of myself that lingers from then. A ghost of the baby that died and the girl who let it all happen and the man that made it all possible.



My grief lingers. My shame, my humiliation, my horror at what took place during those months. I sharpen it all, use it as a dagger to impale myself on, aiming for that rotten bit on the dark side of my heart. I don’t know if I’m trying to excise it or reopen the old wound. I don’t know if there’s a difference anymore.



I need to forgive myself. But I won’t.

This just happened.

*ring ring*

Cole: Hello?

Me: Don't be mad.

Cole: I'm already mad at someone else, I can't be mad at you, too.

Me: Good, because you shouldn't be mad at me, and you shouldn't yell because it makes me sad.

Cole: I'm not going to yell, why would I-

Me: STOP YELLING AT ME!

Cole: I'm not yelling at you?

Me: Okay. Well, don't be angry.

Cole: ...What did you do?

Me: Why do you have to be so mad all the time?

Cole: I'm not, I'm happy. Whee! We're happy! Now... What happened?

Me: Promise you won't get mad.

Cole: I promise.

Me: And you won't yell?

Cole: Amanda, I-

Me: STOP YELLING!

Cole: I-

Me: YOU'RE YELLING! YOU SAID YOU WOULDN'T YELL!

Cole: I'm not, you-

Me: Don't get mad, either.

Cole: I won't get-

Me: I forgive you. Let's never fight again.

Cole: Do you want to tell me what you did or not?

Me: No...?

Cole: Tell me.

Me: Okay, well, you know that kitty that lives in our neighborhood?

Cole: ...

Me: You know the one? He's white and black and orange and he's so skinny?

Cole: ...Yeah...

Me: DON'T YELL AT ME!

Cole: I-

Me: IT MAKES ME SAD WHEN YOU YELL!

Cole: I'mnotyellingwillyoupleasejust-

Me: I fed him.

Cole: What?

Me: I fed him food. He was so hungry.

Cole: You fed the stray cat?

Me: Uh huh.

Cole: But he's never going to leave now! We already have one cat and we agreed, no more cats! (That last part was implied. We do have one cat, and he's 17 pounds of piss-on-what-I-want, but-specifically-all-of-the-carpet fury. We have agreed: no more.)

Me: I know. I'm not sorry. He ate Gray's food so fast! I've never seen a starving cat eat that fast.

Cole: You gave him Gray's food?

Me: Yes. I was in the den and I looked up and his wee little kitty face was in the window and so I went and I got Gray's bowl, and he came in and was all 'meow, meow, feed me, meow,' and I was like "GET OUT OF HERE YOU FATASS! YOU CAN SHARE! THERE ARE STARVING KITTENS IN CHINA!" and then I took his bowl outside.

Cole: You-

Me: So his food is outside. Which isn't specifically China, although China is also outside. Just farther away. But I don't think he knows the difference.

Cole: I'm not mad.

Me: Good, because remember that one time you said you wouldn't be?

Cole: I'm not.

Me: Okay. I named him Harold.

Cole: Who?

Me: The KITTY. His name is Harold.

Cole: O... kay?

Me: I think he's a lady. I'll probably feed him again tomorrow.

Cole: Perfect.

Fin.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Day 02

Day 02- Something you love about yourself.




I’m a good mom. No, scratch that. I’m a GREAT mom. This is the only good thing I can say about myself and honestly believe it.


 My son comes first over everything else in the world, and he always will. I do everything in my power to see that he’s the healthiest, happiest, most successful little person that he has the ability to be.



I’m patient with him. I am happy for him and about him. I am constantly and endlessly proud and pleased by him. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t hear myself say out loud to his dad, “We have the best baby in the world. We’re so lucky.” I hear a note of awe in my own voice, and recognize the validity of it. It's true: He is the best. And we ARE so lucky. Awe is appropriate.



Y'all, I know it's some kind of second degree vanity, but I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that my son is THE VERY BEST BABY in the WHOLE WORLD, and I would give anything in my power to be able to spend every single moment of every day with him. He’s smart and funny and sweet. He’s incredible. He’s a great baby, and he makes me a great mom.



I find myself alternately able to watch him crawl up the stairs with immense pride and little fear of injury, and incredibly protective over him when it comes to people that would hurt him. I will never let anyone hurt him, and if someone ever tried… I can’t even imagine what I would do. I suppose I would hurt them until there was no more pain in the world left to feel. I’m not sure I would be able to stop myself. This isn’t only because he’s mine and I love him and have an instinct to protect him, but also because he is so sweet and happy, and has never known intentional, cruel pain. He is so confident right now in the goodness of the people around him and if someone took that security away from him, I would pull the fury of Hell down on their head.



He gives me the strength to stand up for him. He makes me brave in the face of authority and adversity. Where I cannot always find my voice to help myself, I can easily scream in automatic, instant, fearless defense of him.



He makes me a good mom. I love that I'm a good mom, and that I trust my instincts with him. I love him, and by extention I love myself a little, too.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Day 01.

Day 01- Something you hate about yourself.




That’s heavy. These meme people don't screw around, huh?


I don’t like the word ‘hate.’ It requires so much passion and intent and thought, and it implies that there’s been some dwelling. It implies that there's no going back. It seems so damn permanent. I guess there are things I hate in life, and I’m sure there are things I hate about myself, but it squeebs me out to think about what that says about me.



You don’t want to think there's something about yourself that you spend time loathing and dwelling on, but not correcting. You know? I’d rather see myself as a person that's more logical than that. Or at least more level headed. It seems so… self important?



There certainly are things, despite my lofty ideas about being above such insecurities and self absorption, that I hate about myself. My biggest problem, I think, is my inability to feel safe. Not from burglars or disease or madmen or guns or rabid dogs or monsters or tornadoes (Although I am afraid of falling into a volcano. And sharks. And FLOUR.) I can't feel safe from the emotional ruin I think is lurking around every corner. Fear of that ruin makes me do all kinds of ridiculous things. It causes rifts and fissures to open up inside my head, and doubt to sink in and poison things.



For instance: I have a great relationship. I have no idea at all where it’s going in the future, and that --I think maybe understandably?-- scares the hell out of me. But I can't just leave it at being vaguely uncomfortable, I have to take it farther than that. Not knowing the status of things to come makes me feel like I have no stability, no safety, and it makes me edgy. I get moody and snappy and take out the resulting frustration on my boyfriend, which makes him feel bad and actually MAKES our relationship unstable. I’m causing it, from that aspect, you know? All because I can’t feel safe. I can’t just feel safe in this relationship, whatever it is or becomes, and be happy with it as it is and whatever it will be.



I mean, I’m happy. I am. I just… You wouldn’t know it sometimes. Sometimes I let the neurosis get the better of me, and I panic, and it just turns everything to shit. I know why this is, but knowing doesn’t help me change it.



I'm pretty sure this particular CRAZY goes back to the fact that I never saw my parents in the same room together. Ever. Not once, that I can remember, were they ever inside a house, in the same room, together. I'm sure this can't be true - I'm sure they must have at least wandered into the same room once by accident, but I honestly can't remember having seen it.



My mom and dad were divorced practically before I was born, so I never knew them as a couple. I only knew that they hated each other with a passion that I couldn’t understand and was afraid of. My mother remarried a man that hated children (Thanks, mom. Good choice when you have three kids, two of whom still live at home. NICE ONE.) and didn’t like her very much, either, or people in general as far as I could usually tell. They fought every. Single. Day. Of my life. Every day, I heard different degrees of, “Pack your shit and get out,” and, “I don’t need you or your BS,”… Every day, to the point that it never even occurred to me to think that some people might not live like that, that some people might not be afraid all the time about where they would end up when things went to hell, as they were absolutely going to do any minute.



I never felt safe. Nothing was ever secure. The other shoe was always just about to drop.



Now things are good. Things ARE secure. (I think. (SEE!?)) Our life is rock solid most of the time, but I can’t let myself believe that. I can’t lean in and put any weight on anything because somewhere inside myself, I just know that as soon as I do, everything will fall down around me. That's how it works. I've got a lifetime of examples, why don't we pop some corn and crack open a few beers, and I'll regale you with the memories from my childhood that I wish I could scratch out of my brain with a fork?



This stuff causes all kinds of trouble. All manner of disquiet and unrest, and... Man, I’d really like to be happy. The kind of happy where you aren’t afraid all the time of what could happen. The kind of happy where you can relax and trust and breathe easily.



Because, yaknow, I’m happy… I’m just not WHEE, HAPPY! And I hate it.

30 Days- Agenda

Alright, here's the agenda. I'm not saying I'll be able to do this consecutively, but I'm going to do my best to keep up. Regardless, I'm going to write about every topic given, and try not to wish too much harm on whomever came up with this thing. Here are the days:

Day 01 → Something you hate about yourself.


Day 02 → Something you love about yourself.

Day 03 → Something you have to forgive yourself for.

Day 04 → Something you have to forgive someone for.

Day 05 → Something you hope to do in your life.

Day 06 → Something you hope you never have to do.

Day 07 → Someone who has made your life worth living for.

Day 08 → Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit.

Day 09 → Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.

Day 10 → Someone you need to let go, or wish you didn’t know.

Day 11 → Something people seem to compliment you the most on.

Day 12 → Something you never get compliments on.

Day 13 → A band or artist that has gotten you through some tough ass days. (write a letter.)

Day 14 → A hero that has let you down. (letter)

Day 15 → Something or someone you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it.

Day 16 → Someone or something you definitely could live without.

Day 17 → A book you’ve read that changed your views on something.

Day 18 → Your views on gay marriage.

Day 19 → What do you think of religion? Or what do you think of politics?

Day 20 → Your views on drugs and alcohol.

Day 21 → (scenario) Your best friend is in a car accident and you two got into a fight an hour before. What do you do?

Day 22 → Something you wish you hadn’t done in your life.

Day 23 → Something you wish you had done in your life.

Day 24 → Make a playlist to someone, and explain why you chose all the songs. (Just post the titles and artists and letter)

Day 25 → The reason you believe you’re still alive today.

Day 26 → Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why?

Day 27 → What’s the best thing going for you right now?

Day 28 → What if you were pregnant or got someone pregnant, what would you do?

Day 29 → Something you hope to change about yourself. And why.

Day 30 → A letter to yourself, tell yourself EVERYTHING you love about yourself

Friday, November 5, 2010

That's a lot of truth.

All over the Internet, blogs are lighting up with this... what? A meme of sorts, I guess. It's kind of gone viral in its own way. You can't throw a piss without hitting a blogger that's telling 30 different kind of truth 30 different ways, and most if not all of them are better writers than I am.

I write because I have to, not because I have anything in particular to say. And what I do have to say, I don't usually say well. I'm too scattered, too random. I start out with a point in mind but I get sidetracked because my attention span is a pile of crap and did you know there are twenty-eight plates of armor on an armadillo's back?- but I want to get better. I want to be better. There are a lot of things I need to purge out of myself in order to be better, things I've been holding onto out of fear or selfishness or laziness. This meme, though, it's an exercise. It's a challenge we're making to ourselves to stop being lazy or afraid or selfish.

Write, we're saying. Write about things that might be hard to look at. Write about things you might not otherwise, things that make you uncomfortable and squirmy, because only through challenge can a person grow. Write because it's what you have to do.

I want to grow. I want to be a better writer. So I'm going to jump on the bandwagon, even though it's already left and lapped the station a few times. I've never been what you'd call a 'joiner,' so I suppose it makes sense that when I do join something, I'm a day late and a dollar short.

But hell if I'm not going to do it anyway. I don't mind being late to a party if it's a good party to be at, even if I am just standing around jazz-handing boozily to the 80's classics while I people watch in a corner by myself.

Also, I really need something to kick my ass into writing. I think about writing almost constantly, and then I just don't. Life gets in the way (that's such a cop out) and I just don't write. I need to commit to doing something, to put it out there, so the fear of looking like a lying jackass will keep me on task.

Come along with me.