Books and Their Covers...

This happens all of the time:

My long haired boyfriend and I were walking through WalMart the other day when our cart crossed the path of a woman who was probably about our parents age. Rather than say "Excuse me" (after all, we were on the right side of the aisle) she stood, huffed and puffed, as if she expected that we should move without her having to ask for assistance.

My boyfriend, he of the amazing bass abilities, went out of our way to...well, get out of hers. Which is nicer than I was thinking about being. Honestly, I would have made her actually excuse herself, or-and this is a noble concept-go around us. But this is the kind of person Kevin is. He sees the way to make someones life a little easier and will go out of his way to help out. I don't know if it's Karma or how he was raised, or just the inherently good person that he is. . . but I have a feeling it's a mix of all three. This is one of the things I love about him!

What happens all of the time is that people look at him with his long hair and his beard, some of which hides under any one of his collection of funky hats, his leather bomber jacket and cigarette hand and they judge. Harshly. Some people look at him like he's a terrorist and they're trying to remember his description while others visibly scoff at him. It could be a game if it weren't saying something about how we, as people, are terribly judgemental.

They have no idea who they're judging.

Last night, the region I live in experienced a torrential snow storm. Literally, more snow fell in 12 hours than  the entire winter season of last year. My boyfriend, on his way from his gig with his band to the home where he was dog sitting, helped a friend get his car un-stuck. When he was almost to his house sitting place, he saw a car stuck in the opening to the housing track. Once his own car got stuck trying to avoid the original stuck car, he walked down to the bottom of the hill and helped the people get their car out of the snow. Did they offer to help him? No. Did he complain? Not once. After much internal debate, he went to the home he was staying at and figured he'd come back to his car in the morning.

When he returned to his car, there was a sheriff searching it. The people whose home the car had gotten stuck in front of called the police to report it. When Kevin arrived to his car, there was an older man being walked down the driveway with people on either side acting as a crutch. Kevin asked if the man needed help, since that seemed a bit more urgent than his car. Immediately, the people on either side of Kevin began yelling at him and telling him that it was his fault for having his car stuck there.

Because Kevin totally wanted to leave his car, with all of his equipment, on the side of the road overnight. Yep. It was his plan. Nothing makes Kevin, a gigging bassist and former mechanic, happier than abandoning his car and band equipment in a snow pile. Especially with plows coming through. I'm sure he was all like, "Meh," when he decided to get out of the snow himself and take care of the dogs that were waiting for him. Nobody stopped to thank him for digging out two cars that weren't his own before leaving his overnight because he couldn't do it on his own, and he sure as hell was not going to go knocking on doors at 3a.m. asking for help. They'd rather assume the worst and treat him like a criminal because his car got stuck in the worst winter storm we've had in years.

I watch this man and his selfless actions go un-noticed completely the majority of the time. Kevin's the first one who will help you when you're in need and the absolute last person to ask for help when he's struggling. I've watched him deal with things that would make any other person curl up in a ball and cry, and he takes them standing tall and steady, calm, focused, alert and able. He never complains, never barks back, never says he cannot when he truly can't. He absorbs so much of the terrible things, actions and words that get thrown at him and I simply cannot understand how everyone doesn't see past the long hair...which he's growing out to donate for children's wigs, by the way.

Exactly.

But I Already *Have* Friends!

Today in Adventures with Cyd...

I accidentally invited my neighbor over for a play date with our sons! This does not seem like that big of a deal...except it is, because I already *have* friends. I have awesome friends that I have selected carefully! They are wonderful and funny people with good hearts and little to no drama. Seriously. My friends and I can go for weeks without talking, but I know if I need anything or they need anything, we always have each other...even at 3 am. My friends are exceptional people! And good looking, to boot! :D

Also, a good portion (100%) of these friendships were not rushed. We both had to come around to each other. There was no one time meeting and then BOOM! Besties!  Nope. Slow and gradual. Basically, the opposite of my romantic relationships :P

This neighbor is always outside of her apartment. Which means she must not like it inside her apartment. It's getting colder, and she always has her front door open so it's just the screen door, and if she hears you, she pops out to say hi, or ask about your dog, or see how you are. She's a sneak attack neighbor! And it's not like she's older with nothing to do...she's right around my age (late ((shudder)) twenties). She always seems nice, looks frazzled, and talks hurriedly.

I am a hermit. I like living where I live and knowing the people around me, but I get uncomfortable with anything more, like... introducing them to my extended family. Because then they might think they know me. If we're both outside doing outside things, I'll gladly be a neighbor. But I'm not going to invite you in for hot chocolate after building a snowman. I'm going to say, "Wow, that was great! look at the time! Gotta run!" ...and we'll see you next winter. Of course, if my neighbors ever needed anything neighborly, I'd be here for them. Hell, I'm a great neighbor! I take great care of my stuff, pick up after my dog, keep my inner home quiet...and best yet, you'll never see me in your peephole unless I've been invited. Thank you, but I already have friends.

But somehow, when she saw me walking to my car today, she bolted out of her apartment to ask about my kid and see if we could get our kids together sometime. Which makes no sense, since hers is 3 and mine is 7. And then somehow, it came to be that they'll be over around 6 tonight.

And now I'm left pondering if I should concoct some bullcrap excuse for why this shouldn't happen.

In a brief discussion regarding this sensitive issue with my sane boyfriend, he encouraged me to go through with it. His reasoning? It's weird that I don't want friends (disclaimer: it's not). I argued that I might not be the kind of friend she is looking for, or worse yet, she could be the type of "friend" that terrifies me, and he just shook his head (I could hear it through the phone) and told me that in that event, you talk to the person. Which reminded me about that thing called boundaries and how I need to actually finish reading that book about that.

I had tons of friends once. Seriously, couldn't turn around without knocking into one of them-I was never alone. But most of them turned out to be fair weather, or gossipy, or back stabby... they'd try to sleep with my boyfriend or pull other Jerry Springer like antics, and I cleaned house. So...why should I open that back up? My friends now are diehard! I adore them!

Ok, I need to just bite the bullet. I'll go through with tonight. Maybe she's not all that bad, or maybe it wouldn't be a bad thing to get to know other people who might be different. Hell, maybe there will be some shared interests or something. And if there's not, I'm going to start googling "polite ways to get people to leave your home" right after I publish this blog :)


UPDATE: She cancelled on me :) Sweet! Her kid came home sick from school (not sweet) and we decided to try another time (like when hell freezes over) :)

It Takes A Village

The worst thing that Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris did on April 20, 1999 was give so many young minds the idea that when things are going bad, you can make a bigger impact with violence. My peers and I grew up in a time when schools were re-evaluating their safety precautions, their visitor policies and establishing a now necessary emergency plan. One act of terror and violence literally changed the landscape of how entire generations would view their safety while in school. Now I'm a parent dealing with this new and scary reality.

This morning, I was flustered when I had to ring a buzzer and sign a form, wear a badge just to bring my kid his snuggy for reading day. This afternoon, I'm grateful to see him come off the bus. We watched the president choke up on TV and visibly tear while giving a statement that would have gotten caught in every parents throat. For it is our job as parents to protect-but how can we?

To say my heart goes out to the parents, family, friends...community in Connecticut... it doesn't come close to expressing this: I think every parent will grieve with them. Something has to change, people.

We all know how hard it is to ask for help. We all know it's terrifying when you see someone struggling. This, "He was the nicest kid" shit has to stop. Obviously, he wasn't. Someone knew. His mother, now dead... how could she not have known? Can we please, finally, learn that getting someone help or at the very least, alerting the proper resource that someone is violent and that you are afraid...this is not a weakness?!?!? I know that when someone doesn't set right with me, I tell someone, even if it's just to say "This person worries me. What do you think?" Your intuition is there for a reason! There are programs in place for this reason! Things like mental health arrest and restraining orders and simply saying "yes" when your doctor asks if you feel threatened or unsafe at home... the net can only get so big. Is our pride worth this? As long as things like this continue to happen, we as a community-a human community- are not doing our jobs.

And it's not to say that we don't know. How many of us have seen someone posting troubling thoughts, song lyrics on Facebook or Twitter? Maybe not mass-murder thoughts, but thoughts of loneliness and depression, of hurt and despair...do we ask them how they are, truly, when we see them next? Invite them over for coffee? Do we reach out at all? Or do we do what I do so many times, just feel unequipped or too busy?

If we can't do it for fear that we risk ourselves, can we at least recognize that when we fail to acknowledge a severe issue, we are passively inviting the opportunity of a cry of attention that cannot be ignored?

Wrong Parent Houses

Confession time!

Boys and girls, ladies and gents...the coolest chick you know (aka, ME!)...

...listens to talk radio.

Like, a lot.

Which makes little sense, considering my profession! But I digress.

There I was, riding around in Bertha the other day, filling up on talk radio knowledge when something pivotal came blaring through my speakers. A psychologist was being featured on a show and was discussing family structure and what affect it had on children. His main point was that children do better in two parent homes. It didn't matter if the parents were the child's biologicals, foster, grandparents, step-parents...just as long as there were two of them. He made smart people arguments on things like home-life stability affecting test scores in a positive manner, and how homes with two parents had more structure and stability than one parent homes.

Ok, about the only thing I agreed upon was that the financial benefits of having two working adults per household makes things infinitely easier. For instance-I can not cover a thousand dollar mortgage by myself. Just not happening. But add another working adult to split the cost with and it suddenly becomes very doable! Ta-da!

Adding another parent can also teach children the dynamics of relationships! No longer is it just child/parent communicating in the home, the child now learns how to distinguish adult conversations from their own. You know. Because children are dumb like that.

What Mr. Insensitive failed to recognize is that people pick shitty partners all the time! Prince Charming can easily become a booze fueled maniac that squanders rent money on Rum. New Mommy might be so stressed by the step kiddos that she pilfers their ADD meds. Basically, what I am saying is that I was vastly upset by the notion that two parents are better than one. That statement is a naive notion that the adults wandering about are healthy and sound in mind and have figured out how to behave appropriately in a relationship that is combined with children-some of whom may not be their own.

For those of us in the real world, we know that last sentence is the truest thing I've written.

You see, I've been determined to find another person to make my home a two parent home for my child. How did that go? Well, my son's earliest memories are of his dad hitting me, then I married a guy who had a secret life filled with sexual deviancy, and topped it all off with a raging alcoholic. All of these people seemed really awesome at first and only exhibited these terrible behaviors after we moved in together (or got married). Uh...I might be off-base here, but maybe my son is better off with just me?

Because each of those three times, when things were no longer working and were broken down to the point that their not working was affecting my son's home life and performance at school, my son also had to deal with the emotional pain of losing another role model.

Fuck you, Psychologist dude, and everyone else who has ever helped push this theory into popular belief!

My son is thriving now. It's him and I in our two bedroom apartment. We have a dog, heat, a working car and a Wii. We take trips to the library, bowl weekly, have game night with my boyfriend once a week. He reads two full grade levels up from where he is supposed to and has a stellar vocabulary. His manners are constantly praised by family and strangers alike, and he shows a compassion that most adults can't comprehend. The only dad he has is his biological one, whom he sees regularly and routinely. He wants for things on a material level, but who doesn't? His clothes fit properly and are in good condition, his hair is never unkempt. Most importantly, when he lays his head down at night, he sleeps peacefully.

The world has changed. Family structures have changed. People are walking around emotionally damaged without any recognition that they need help. Everyone wants to be loved and in love, but few are actually willing to take the steps necessary to find a deep, fulfilling and healthy love. Running around screaming about how all kids need two people in their homes is like standing on the street corner with a cardboard sign saying "Repent! The End is Near!" Is the end near? Probably. But the only people you're going to get to follow you down to doomsday are the ones you wouldn't necessarily want to follow you, anyway.

Dog Story

This one time, on Craigslist...

So, from time to time, I browse the help wanted section. Ok, I check missed connections too, but only because I like that the guy posting "Blond girl at the gas station on this date at this time-you changed my life!" postings! But I digress..

Someone wanted their dog shaved. They were willing to pay 50 dollars for this task, which my hairdressing butt knew would only take an hour, tops. Since I already had the dog clippers, I emailed the guy and told him he had a deal.

Fifteen minutes later, Francis was dropped off at my apartment.

Francis is...holy shit. Huge. Francis is a dude golden retriever, maybe? All I know is that when I thought "shave my dog", I saw...well, Charlie, my dog. My 12 pound dog. Francis is *not* 12 pounds. Francis is...like, 100 pounds. Probably more. Oh yeah, did I mention I'm allergic to dogs?!?!?!


This is not the most interesting part of the story by any means.

Francis (aka Frank) and I bond for a minute over peanut butter dog treats, and we talk about what is going to go down here. I ask him to cooperate. He shows me that he understands by batting at me with his behemoth dog arm. On the right track.

Off to the shaving, which is going well, except the dog apparently does not like to be touched. Anywhere. By anything. He whimpers and scatters away like you are trying to kill him. No matter. I'm as scrappy as the next chick! We work it out.

Frank's human was supposed to be back in an hour.

Frank's human was not answering his phone at an hour and a half. Mind you, this is after I found the fleas.

These are the scenarios that ran through my mind: Cydney gets a dog she's allergic to! Cydney runs around frantically trying to track down owner! Cydney takes dog to pound before picking her son up from school!

There I sat, middle of my kitchen floor, surrounded by mounds of dog hair, tethered to a giant Lion of a dog with domestic violence issues.

I only cried on the inside.

You see, I am a woman of action! Not much common sense, but definitely a lot of action! I got out the flea shampoo and gave Frank a flea bath. Then I combed him. Then I let him rest while I cleaned up all of the dog hair that had gone...like...everywhere. Frank and I chatted a few more minutes, mostly about his swatting and how that needs to stop, it's just poor form. Frank and I half bonded.

And then the human showed up, 2 hours, 45 minutes after the original pick up time!

And that's how I made 65.00 today.

Frank says, "Hi!"

Too blessed to be stressed...

Tomorrow...is a big day.

About 280 Million Turkeys have been purchased just for tomorrow. I, for one, will be bringing some cheesecake cups in really fancy wrappers to my wonderful boyfriend's parent's home. And, I will also be bringing...

My son!

Hmmm.

Ok. I should state at this point that my boyfriend and son are still kinda figuring each other out. I've been very careful to keep them somewhat segregated. I kinda have to. They get along well enough, but my track record with men has been...well, not so great. I don't want my little guy getting attached to anyone before I know it's safe to.  Plus, boyfriend is not really looking to be anybody's surrogate father right now-which is ok, since my son has an amazing dad...and also, at seven, my son doesn't need another father. We've pretty much left it at the fact that they should be friendly, but not super involved. I think, at five months, that's very fair.

And whoa, do they get along...

But let's face it. The last time my son met a boyfriend's 'rents was...well, my ex husband's. Yeah. Add to the fact that M's father and I have always had a more...well,... liberal (?) way of raising our son? And...well,...Kevin was raised pretty conservatively.

Case in point: my son not only knows swear words, he corrects other kids on their spelling of them.

See where I'm going with this?

Trust me. If there's one thing I have more confidence in than my parenting ability, it's my son's ability to overcome it! He's an amazing person with great manners and a wonderful intuitive part of him that seems to make him adapt to different and new situations better than I do. He will be just fine.

It's me. I will probably have hives by the time we arrive! And I don't know if it's because I feel like I've failed him by raising him to be in situations less formal, or that I wish I could just sit back and go with it. Have faith that between my son and I, we will get through this.

I know this will all be ok. I'm excited to see M interact with the boyfriend's nephews-whom he has so much in common with! I'm excited that the boyfriends family thought to invite my son and I to this very special holiday celebration. I'm grateful for so much, I need to stop worrying about everything else!

But...Just in case... I went out and bought M a new sweater :)  Hey, can't hurt!

Pride

Pride is a funny thing.

If left unattended, it will cost you a lot. Maybe friends, lovers, money...a job...even family.

I think if anger is bad, pride is even worse.

Don't get me wrong, I think that everyone has the right to be pleased with their achievements and accomplishments. I truly believe that if you work really hard for something and earn it with your blood, sweat and tears, you have every right to be proud of it-well, actually maybe proud of your work ethic. That is not a bad kind of pride.

I think the worst kind of pride happens when something falls into your lap and you herald it as a personal triumph. Or maybe when you know you're wrong, but refuse to admit it. I think pride in a boastful manner is definitely a turn off on a karmic level.

My car was a point of pride for me.

I worked for it, paid for it, but struggled to do it. And for what? So many vehicles will get you from point A to point B safely and without incident. But this car? It was *pretty*! It was black and shiny and fast and-gasp-had a moon roof! Oh, how I loved that car! It was the first vehicle I had ever received compliments on! It was sexy, and felt like it fit me!

The things it didn't fit: My credit score. As in, I needed a co-signer to get this car, and I picked a pretty un-savory choice (an ex-boyfriend). It didn't fit my income and goals ratio-I want a house, even if it's a run down fixer upper tinky trailer. But there was no way I could save money driving a car with that high of a car and insurance payment. I was maxed out and stressed out. I knew the car was going to need maintenance things like, tires. I also knew that unless I didn't eat for a month, tires were not happening!

What ended up getting me in the end was the ties to the ex. Was the pride of driving the car worth the payment? Meh. I'd figure something out. But I could definitely not live with having someone who could still control me, and would continue to do so, as long as I was driving around my shiny, awesome, black car.

So! Dad to the rescue! Now I'm driving around Bertha! She's a Buick so large, I've had smaller apartments! And luxurious! And rides like a cloud! And has low miles! And gets around the same gas mileage!

I guess this came to a head when I was getting gas yesterday, and the gas station attendant (at the station I usually use) asked me if I was driving my grandma around. Cute! "Nope, this is my new car." "What happened to the black car?!" "Meh, our time together came to an end." "Accident?" "Nope." "Lease?" "Sort of." "How can it 'sort of' be a least?" "Let's just say...a change in goals."

This is puzzling a lot of people. So I'll spell it out here, once. Pride is a dangerous thing. It influences us to make decisions that can be detrimental and bad for us in the long run. It can mess with our bigger picture, our best life. It can promote entanglements that are toxic or separations that are poorly thought out. The trick is to find out which one it is and then go the other way.

Right now I don't have time for pride. I'm too busy trying to make a life for my son and I. And also, figuring out exactly which Elizabeth Taylor fragrance blows out of Bertha's hot air vents!

Magic

Everything is an adventure, right?

It can be!

Like, the grocery store. Anyone with a child knows how magical that place is. See it from their perspective-aisles upon aisles of food! Edibles! Treats! And you can pick and choose?!??! Holy awesome!

I think grown ups, adults, the people with the jobs and the wallets and the bills, we get all weighed down by...well, the jobs and the wallets and the bills. Our brains automatically focus on the price. Or the calories. Or the dietary restrictions.

But the reality is...it's rows and rows of food! And all we have to do is pick the one we want, put it in our cart and be done with it!

When I was packing (read: going through  things in preparation to pack) and I found a grocery list I made for M when he was three years old. I remember having him sit down with food magazines and telling him to cut out (with child safety scissors) the foods we needed: Milk, bread, eggs. Then he'd glue them onto paper collage style and that would be our grocery list! How wonderful of a mom was I back before the two jobs and the house hunting and the schooling! Thank goodness I saved that paper, so it could remind me four years later to be that mom again.

So, yes. Grocery stores are magical.

House hunting can be, too! You walk into all of these places you've driven by a million times and never noticed, and you try to picture your furniture in them. What a great game for your mind! Take away all of the stress about due dates and out by dates, in by dates...down payments, references... and find the magic in it!

And if you can't find the magic in something (everything), see it through your kids eyes.

Once again, he saves me...

Well, it's not the Beatles...

There's many things you could have done to me that would have been worse. At least that's what I tell myself, because I'm sure it has to be true somehow. Not that it lessens what you did manage to damage in the course of seventeen years, or however long it took me to realize that the label that had been given to you was nothing more than an explanation of how we met rather than a marker of your actual influence on my life. If you're wondering why we don't speak, it's time for you to have a little introspection. Trust me, the reasons shouldn't be that hard to find.

As a mother, it is our job to raise our children to essentially break our hearts. We birth our babies, care for them, feed them, love them, nourish them. We build our children up and give them self-esteem and set reasonable boundaries that encourage their healthy development-mentally, physically, emotionally. We do this without complaint and with a happy heart...until one day, we do all of this so well, our children no longer need us. Sure, we communicate frequently, but the topic matter evolves, and we're free to not only be "mom" but a person with experience as well. We encourage the healthy development of a need for our child to separate themselves from us; for it is essential if our child is to live independently in this big huge world.

I would feel comfortable betting that most of that paragraph you find arguable. I can hear your voice picking apart my thoughts on parenting, trying to disprove my theory individually. But don't you think that children need guidance more than freedom? You told me once that you had children so that you felt wanted and needed. You procreated so that someone could love you as much as you needed to be loved. What you never anticipated was that your daughter would be too independent to fit your mold. How you handled that was how you separated yourself from being my mom.

Rather than encourage and guide, you excommunicated. You manipulated, you cajoled, you guilt-tripped. And when that didn't work, you sent me to my fathers.

The things most women learn from their mothers, I didn't. Grace, manners, social behaviors, maintaining relationships-these are all of the things I've had to learn from other people in my life or self-help books, and even that feels like getting the Cliff's Notes guide to life. I did, however, learn how to fight dirty. I learned to never trust, to be aware of ulterior motives, to believe that men were the enemy, how to flip a switch so I don't care anymore (which is soooo not healthy). I learned how to rely on my intuition to know what was going on inside of someones head so that I knew if I should talk to them or go to my room. I learned about narcissism and hypochondria. These things I understand implicitly. So thank you, because I recognize these behaviors in others and sometimes, myself, and I know that work needs to be done to either get away from the person or make adjustments to myself. Of course, the latter feels like a never ending battle that I should have to be fighting while raising a child of my own.

Which brings me to where I am now. You volunteered to testify in court to have my child placed in the sole custody of the man who routinely hit me in front of him, because you knew that his father would grant you access to your grandchild. Rather than talk to me as an adult, apologize and admit that you knew there were behaviors that you were working on-you know, assuaging my fears as your adult child so that you may have a relationship with both your daughter and your grandson-you went behind my back in the worst form. You were willing to tell a court things you couldn't possibly know about my lifestyle, since we hadn't spoken since before my child was born. You never ever acknowledged your mental health issues or how they affected the upbringing of your own children-why would I give you the opportunity to pass them on to my son? The healthiest decision I made was to not allow you in until you were at least able to admit you had a problem. To do otherwise would be doing nothing more than inviting the same reckless, self-indulgent and harmful behaviors back into a life I built despite them.

I tried to have a relationship with you even after this happened. I forgave you because I had to for my own sake. This was the finality of me believing you were no longer a mom; that you would forever be putting yourself first no matter what the cost and the playing the victim for other people's attention and sympathy. I kept you at an arms length and only met you on my terms. This still wasn't acceptable to you. You'd express anger and resentment that I would not leave my child alone in your care. Let me tell you-it's painful to see you try to relate to him because you have no idea how to do it. He is related to you and yet you can get nothing from him, and it turns you into such an awkward mess that it would be comical to watch if it weren't real life. Your job as a grandmother is to love and nurture, to enjoy the time with him and soak up the rewards of a job well done. These are all foreign concepts to you.

The only thing you've ever acknowledged was that you were surprised I could talk to you after you testified against me as a mother. That you thought your testimony would make me fight harder and you were surprised when we agreed to the custody arrangement we did, and that you were disappointed. This was what you said to me the last time we spoke face to face. No apology, just a gentle disapproval of how I handled one of the most important challenges of my life. It was confirmation that you hadn't changed; that you would forever be playing the game of Judy and that you saw me-even as an adult-as a pawn to be moved however you felt necessary. No matter how much grace I have to extend, this would never change. To open my life up to you would be to welcome your criticism after I made extremely hard, selfless choices. You would never see that I've only wanted your approval and to be told that I'm loved, that I'm the best thing you ever did. That being a mother was your greatest accomplishment and that you are proud of the person I've become. You'd never ever see that while I could stand up to the 300 pound guy whom I had a restraining order against, I could never stand up to you because you taught me from a young age to fear you; to believe that your word was final and that your opinion was all that mattered. You would always believe that you failed as a mother because your child, now a mother herself, didn't fight the way you fought.

That's why I call you my mother, not my mom. Some days I tell people you're no longer with us because I don't feel like looking damaged enough to have a mother that doesn't acknowledge me when she sees me in public. This makes me feel terrible, but a lot less terrible than everything you've managed to do (and not do) to raise children. I imagine that I think of you how adopted kids think of their birth moms...that you gave birth to me, but were ill-equipped to do the whole "raising" part. I give you the credit you deserve-you have not ruined me, not by a long shot. You've given me an example of how not to parent and  the incentive to give my child the best childhood I can. I wake up every day with the goal of being the mom I wished I had. Most days I think I do pretty well, and that's how raising a child has helped me overcome you. Thank you for that!

I don't wish you harm, I wish you well. Literally. I wish you would wake up, see what has happened around you and understand why your children don't talk to you. My wish for you is that you allow yourself to hurt and heal the proper way, that you find some kind of inspiration to be your best self and to stop using your past as a crutch. For your birthday, I wish you could really understand why you're alone and how much you truly do not like it. I wish you healthy responses to the negativity in your life, both inward and outward. I wish you the peace of mind that can only come from living your best life. I wish you all of these things, because we're both still alive, and I don't ever think it will ever be too late for you to redeem yourself. You've outlived many things for a reason-you are not done yet. Grow and change, and when you do, come tell me about it. I'm still your daughter, and I've earned the right to have a mom-even this late in the game.

Enjoy your next trip around the sun.

On My Toes...

This has been an intense twenty four hours.

I keep being reminded of how lucky we are.

Yesterday, I picked up my son from school only to be told that I needed to go visit his teacher. My son the seven year old with amazing articulation skills and a compassionate nature that I find compelling and inexplicable had apparently had what he called a "discussion" with one of his classmates when said classmate stole an eraser. Except what my son called a "discussion", the math teacher called "Rolling around on the floor and shouting at each other". Oops. I am never a fan of walking into a landmine, but this seemed huge to me. What could provoke my sweet and thoughtful M to do such a thing? We talked it out and discussed alternate ways to handle conflict and even came up with a plan to write a letter of apology to the math teacher.

When we returned home, M was walking funny and complaining about his groin area. I figured it was a way to get out of writing the note, but he was enthusiastic about the letter as well, so something didn't jive there. I called his primary doctor to discuss and was told that they wouldn't be able to see M for a week. They advised us to go to urgent care, where-to make a long story short-the doctor did a quick exam and then told us to go straight to the local Children's Hospital post haste...

..Where they didn't think it was what the Urgent Care dr thought it was, but then did more tests and determined that it could possibly be what the UCDr thought it might be, or it could be option B, C or D-which didn't matter because all of these choices still ended with the same kind of surgery.

Talk about sending your head spinning.

 I watched the screen intently, looking for differences, noting that one part of his body looked like a kaleidoscope and the exact same part of his body-on the other side-was clear. However I had to leave for a show before my son was finished with his ultrasound. So, I collected myself and successfully made it outside of the room without crying, even though every fiber of my mommy being desperately wanted to stay. I wandered around for a minute before being asked if I needed help by what looked like a doctor just coming in to do his shift. I shook my head and realized that the water that landed on my hand was coming from my eyes. Shit, I was crying in public.

Made it to my show in one piece. Started unloading my equipment in the rain and thought, take off your crocs and put on a pair of real shoes before you slip. Slipped mid-that-thought. Sat in the puddle for a minute laughing until somebody asked why I was crying. Started wondering why I couldn't feel my facial functions...

Thankfully I'm surrounded by wonderful people who let me go just as I was getting the phone call that my son indeed did need surgery.

Which was done. He's fine. This problem that he's had for weeks and possibly months will never happen again.

And just as I start to feel like I'm tired and worn, like it's showing that I haven't had a shower in a day and a half and starting to wonder what kind of caffeine pills I'm going to have to pop to get through tonight's show, the grandfather of the child in the room with my son comes over and introduces himself, asking with his hand out, "Does your child have cancer as well?"

No, my son does not. Praise the Lord, and Buddha, and that Lotus sitting chick from the Tibetan religion, and the universe and whomever else might be calling the shots from wherever those people sit. My son is healthy and fine, and will be walking by the end of today. He'll be running next week, and I'll have forgotten the imminent fear you feel any time you hold your child's hand as they are undergoing anaesthesia, or the moment I realized forty minutes in that they said the surgery should only take twenty.

Because my kid is not the victim of a mutated cell, but his is. And he has been there by his bedside since I got here without a break. I heard him talking to the doctors all night long as I tried to calm my son down and ease him into restful sleep. My child was hysterical when they put the IV into his hand, but his child is missing a major organ and has only cried out once or twice.

I would be screaming at the sky at that injustice if it were my child, but this man is jovial, smiling and shaking hands. He wished us well. And all I wanted to do was stare at my shoes and be mad at the universe for doing that to his kid. To any kid.

..and now yesterday morning feels like it was a continent away...

What my son saw as he was going under :)

Thinking inside the box...

This is how I pack:
Day one: establish # of boxes. Think thoroughly how to pack each one. Pack three boxes. Reward self with wine.
Day two: establish I have a lot of things, and pull them all out into the open. Look at their shapes. Imagine them going into boxes, tetris style. Pack three boxes. Reward self with wine.
Day three: Wake up and look at the house with all of my belongings displayed. Freak out. It's a mess! Oh my god, how did all of this happen?! I don't have enough boxes for this!!! Gah! I forgot to put a pan in the bakeware box! I can't undo the box now! Sit in the middle of the room, hugging myself while picturing and planning how not to forget more crap. Drink wine so I can sleep.
Day four: Wake up with master plan (because all you dreamt about last night was boxes and your crap). Lay boxes in rows. Start packing room specificly. Try to maintain some type of order. No wine today. You must be focused and strong.
Day five: the dog pees on your bed. You run three loads of empty washing machine laundry because you forgot. Maniacally throw your shit into boxes. You are no longer labeling the boxes with the items in them, just the rooms they go to. If you do label them, you write "hodge podge". Because you like it better than "misc" and also, you've drank so much wine you might be perma-drunk.
Day six: Move. Sweat out that wine!!!!

So, I must be getting older, because moving used to excite me. It doesn't anymore! I'm ready to be done, for sure. However, I'm really excited that it will be over soon and that things will settle down. I will have my son and dog, my quiet little coffee shop day job for silly money, my awesome career as a DJ and a home that I can finally invite my amazing boyfriend to. This little bit of chaos is livable-I can see the light at the end of this tunnel :)

74 pt 2

Well, this will be hard to write.

Suffice to say, the house/trailer/mobile home is not mine. And not really because they turned me down, which is the funny part. After getting the run around for almost three weeks (The "We'll call by end of business with a finite answer"s that never came; the request for the submission of more paper work), I've decided to walk away from it.

On the plus side, I wasn't turned down. I've come to this decision on my own based on my life experiences, intuition and knowledge.

I'm walking away because I'm tired of fighting. Yes, it would be an amazing step for my son and I. Yes, it was the perfect location and size for my family. No, I've never been one to step away from a challenge when I've wanted it this badly. However, everything that's come into my life and been good for me thus far has not required so much effort.

Let me explain: My son? Complete and utter surprise. My job as a DJ? Fluke. And let's not forget about my relationship (that I'm thrilled to be in) with the extraordinary Bass Player. That most certainly wasn't a planned event, either. All of these things benefit/ed me greatly and feel meant to be. Sure, they've come with their fair share of trials and tribulations, but at the end of the day, the troubles were/are never anything that challenges my beliefs in myself on a basic level.

The things that came with a fight that most certainly blew up in my face: well...every major relationship to this point, including my failed marriage. My car with the incredibly high payment. The apartment I'm in now, which I certainly cannot afford alone. And a myriad of other things that I'm just not ready to admit to in a public forum yet. Suffice to say, a lot. I fight for almost everything I get. It's always a pleasant surprise when it works out in my favor! :P

So, let the other couple have it. Obviously, it's not meant to be right now. No hard feelings, because there's something amazing around the corner-this just had to happen for me to get there. :) And yes, I will totally let you all know the *moment* I figure out what it is!

74

Whenever I want something fiercely, I tend to get scared of it. It's a Cydney Truth. Then I come around and take all of the little small steps one by one. Right now, it's been turning in a multitude of paperwork on a place I hope to buy. It's not much, and I won't have bragging rights other than "It's mine"... but I want it so badly I can taste it.

It seems like the demands have been never ending. There was the paper work, the employment verification. I know it's all things that need to be done, and every one of them has given me an opportunity to procrastinate. Because if I don't pursue this, I cannot get turned down, and will not be disappointed. I am still expecting disappointment.

Right now, everything I can do is done. My fate rests in the hands of a guy in an office somewhere who will have a decision for me in one to two days. I can feel an ulcer forming right now specifically for this event. I want to take this guy and tell him what a huge difference this will make for my son and I; how this step is a much needed and necessary for my growth as a person and as a mother of a little boy. I want to tell him what an asset I'll be to his community by taking something that is currently an eyesore and making it a beautiful home. Somehow, I need this person to know that I have taken extra steps to ensure that my future there would be beneficial...

I feel like I will be living a panic attack for the next two days. I don't do well with "wait and see".

Getting it out

When did life get so complicated?

 Of course, I've been walking around with my head in the clouds for the past month or so, but whoa. I came down to take a look around, and now all I want to do is stick my head back up there!

It's time for me to take care of me. There has to be some balance here, because the way things are blowing up is insane.

What's going on in my life: I put an offer in on a mobile home that I will most likely be embarrassed to live in, until I fix it up. Yep. This is my dream place right now since it is close to my sons school, the thruway and will allow me to have my dog for less than I'd be paying in rent. Plus it has a completely functional retro '60's era stove and DOUBLE OVEN! Hello, dream kitchen! Plus a yard, even if it is small. All of the things it needs done I could do myself with little help from the males I know, and-bonus-after I worked out a budget, it's possible to have everything done (including new siding) by June of 2013. And it will be mine :)

As such, I'm looking for a second job to do while my son's in school this year. Only because I dropped the hair job last year in January, and by March I was going bananas trying to figure out something to do. With the extra income I could make from working some menial job during school hours, I could pay my car payment and do one major repair to my mobile home a month. Plus I will have less time to sit around and think about whatever it is I think about (ok, mostly play on the internet) and I will be meeting new people and having interaction... which I need to make me happy. (Inalienable truth about myself, right there. Interacting with people makes me happy.)

Oh yeah, I'd have to pull a down payment out of my butt as well. Good times! So, trying to pick up as many shifts as I can now, basically.

On top of moving, not knowing where I'm going for sure, trying to amass a sum of money bigger than first months rent + security deposit and looking for part time work....

Well, I feel like the ground is moving underneath my feet, for sure. I've always ran with it, but I'm trying to make better decisions for mine and my son's sake. He's watching me and learning behaviors that he will carry on into his life, and I'm trying so hard to make sure that I'm setting a great example. He's been with me for the past 12 days and it's been heaven! We've camped, gone to the water park a billion times, hiked, biked... but I'm also realizing how my new life without a built in babysitter will be so different. So I'm trying to reconcile that, as well.

It feels like everything is so unstable and I just keep trying to hold on to whatever I can get a grip on long enough to think I'm making a difference, or even that I have any say. I'm forgetting that in a lot of these cases, I'm up to someone else's whims and decisions. The mobile home is contingent upon a lot of things, and I've done as much as I could at this time. Job hunting is going fine, but it's hard when you have your kid with you. Most likely, my Wednesday will be dedicated to finding part time work so I can have some fluidity in my budget. And that breaks my heart to say I'm waiting for my son to go to his dads, but I've spent every waking minute (less my 6 hour work shifts) with him making memories and doing things, being fully present. As much as I love it, I'm not taking care of things that I need to take care of so that I can take better care of him. Enter working Mommy guilt, stage left.

When this happens-when all the parts of my life converge to form a tidal wave that feels like I need to be pulled under-I over think the things that are going fine. In my need to try to have a handle on anything, I'll reassess everything. I almost think it's my escape at this point. It's dysfunctional, and my energies would be so much better spent doing other things-like cleaning out my junk, selling what I don't need, donating what can't be sold. I am forever bad at facing my problems head on. I'm also 28. Time to effing learn!

This too shall pass, right?

Wide Awake

One of his old friends warned him about me.

"Hey, are you sure about this girl? I mean, you guys are just starting to get big...are you sure she's not just after you because of that?"

The first time he told me this, I literally laughed out loud. Mostly because this was said before him and I even became a couple, officially. I was still waging the war in my head over whether or not I wanted to be involved with someone who would be away for weeks and months at a time. My relationship style has never been the kind that wanted or even remotely liked the idea of so much time apart, that's for sure.

How I managed to look past it, I have no idea. I think I got caught up in the moments we were spending together (seemed like every free one we had), or maybe I just kept pushing it out of my mind because it wasn't here yet. Maybe my brain chose a "flight" response of just ignoring it altogether.

In any event, the day came when I was being faced with the fact that he was not just my boyfriend who played bass and I needed to turn it around, or else I was going to flounder. He is a bass player who is my boyfriend.

It took about three people all saying the same things to me before the reality of the situation finally sunk in: he was going to be gone, a lot. Sure there would be times I could come with him, or travel to see him-but they will not be often. My bass player is on a fast track to a lifestyle I can't even imagine, but it's a lifestyle he's always dreamed of having. How do you reconcile that?!

Forget the groupies (yeah, I'm not worried) or the partying (he knows his limits, he's a smart chap) or...well, whatever else there would be to worry about. My mind flashes to the fact that we've only known each other for such a short time...can we sustain this? Mostly, can I sustain this?!

I've always imagined that I'd find the guy I was meant to be with and that we'd be perfect together. We'd understand each other on every level, be ok with being together even if we weren't talking. We'd have the same ideas on religion and family and kids and moving... and then I'd roll him up and fit him into my life in just the way that I wanted him to be there! And he'd be perfectly ok with this, by the way. He'd love every minute of it!

For him to live out his dream, I have to abandon a chunk of mine. Not that that's a bad thing, since apparently, the particular chunk kinda involves me totally steam rolling the poor guy!

It kind of feels like being a kid at the candy store and getting told that you have to go home and save up your allowance before you can buy the 87 pound chocolate bicycle. Also-that once you get the chocolate bicycle, you are not going to go home and devour it in one sitting. You're going to have to space that shit out.

Yep. I just made that analogy. You're welcome, honey, for making you an 87 pound chocolate bicycle!

In any event, it's not necessarily a bad thing. It just amplifies a very big flaw that I've always had as far as my perception of relationships go. Just because everything is going fine, I expect that nothing will deviate from my perfect little plan. That is impossible. It might very well be the reason why some of my better relationships have failed. Of course, if the one thing that happens to be an unexpected wrench in the plan is completely unlivable, I feel I have the right to run like hell. However, this "wrench" isn't a wrench at all. It's a part of him. At no point does he ever say that he will achieve great success and leave me in the dirt-it's just the opposite. He talks of the future, about how we would work out the logistics of road time. He actively puts me in his plans (swoon). He tells me things that make me melt, and kinda feel bad-like the fact that when he's gone, he's going to be missing me just as much as I'll be missing him.

In him, I have everything I've ever wanted in a guy. The way he treats me and my son is incredible. He loves me to no end and has no issue expressing it. All I have to do is accept that my chocolate bicycle won't always be here next to me.

So I started a tradition and made him something to take with him when he left to record his album. I listen to his music when I miss him, or wear one of his band tees around. I give away promo CDs to people who ask questions, and tell them what an amazing group this is. We text, we talk. He sends pictures of the awesome things he's seeing, explains the process of recording and does random little things to make me melt, a thousand miles away. I live my life, take my son camping, go turbo on getting some work done. And what do you know, it's surprisingly easy. I become un-opposed to it; I'm learning to appreciate it.

In this way, this relationship is exactly what I need. I know I'm not done growing yet...but I also know I love this person in a way I can't even begin to comprehend sometimes. The more he's away from me equals the more successful he is, professionally speaking. And quite frankly, I am so happy and proud to be the girl holding down the fort for him when he comes back!

Delta

Ooops.

And that's all we can say about that. Except it wasn't really an oops. Don't get me wrong, it definitely wasn't a calculated risk; maybe a calculated indiscretion? Perhaps the best way to put it would be a mildly considered decision?

In any event...

That morning was the best conversation I had ever had in my life with another human being. Things were said that I had never opened up to anyone about, and mostly because he was opening up to me about his experiences, which had been strangely similar. Neither of us could say anything without the other identifying personally with it. We discussed, debated, talked, felt... it was a conversation you'd pay to have, just to connect with someone on every level. He walked me to my car, kissed me goodbye and then watched me as I drove off. I couldn't help feeling strangely elated. My life is so planned, so calculated...from one move to the next, I know where I'm going. This wasn't that. This felt out of my hands, out of my firm grasp on everything. It was illogical, nonsensical to be any type of committed to this person. However, it was completely blasphemous not to be with this person. If there was anything I knew then that I know still, it's that we were meant to cross paths. None of this has ever felt pushed by either one of us. It's like being along for some ride, knowing you have a really great person in the seat next to you. I guess I figured I'd do better to stop trying to figure out what the ride was or where it was going and just be grateful to have a wonderful cart mate.

The deal felt signed, sealed and delivered after we went hiking one day. I took him to the place I had broken my tailbone about three weeks prior and we hiked a gorge. It was his first time experiencing hiking in that form, and we soaked it in together. It thrilled me to be with someone who liked to take his time, slow down and stare at the walls of the gorge in appreciation. We found a 50 foot waterfall and decided to climb it together, except we never considered that when we got to the top, we'd have to get back down again. We opted not to, and hiked our way back to the car. Of course we got lost about a dozen times, but we never stopped talking, agreeing, sharing... I told him I didn't want to get involved with a musician because I was sure once he recorded his album, we'd be over. He encouraged me not to write him off based on that-he wasn't like that. He didn't want to have something disposable, or be something disposable.

That was my first indication that we were really getting into something. Two days later, on my birthday, he asked me to be his girlfriend. Saying "no" wasn't even an option.

I could fast track you through the relationship, but it's ours and I don't like sharing *everything*. There are things meant for him and I, and I'm wise enough to know that our relationship-the ins and outs of it-those are ours. He wins me over every day by the things he does and says.  Or the way that, when I start getting worried about things, he reassures me. I honestly looked at him one day like, what the hell are we doing? His answer, in short: building something. We are definitely building something over here! It's like Fort Knox!

And please, it has not been all easy going and smooth sailing. It never is, and to think we have that would be asinine. It just has never felt like work to keep us together. Again, we're just doing what feels like should be done. Our pace. Our timeline. Now that we are together, being apart doesn't even seem like an option. Thankfully, we're both really ok with that!

Maybe by now you're wondering why I'm writing these. It's my labor of love for the guy whom I've grown so fond of. It's to establish the relationship we have, the ease of it, the feel of it. The names of these posts have been sleep related-Delta is REM sleep, or the deepest sleep you have where your body does it's repairs of the day. If you have a dream during Delta Sleep, you will wake up and remember it.

I dream all the time. My bass player...he doesn't remember them so well.

I feel I need to be responsible in my writing to let you know why the next post feels so devastating to me. I'm working myself up to write down some truths that I am just getting around to accepting, and then share them with the class. I need you, reader, to know that the love we have is intense and real and hard-earned.

The thing about saying you're unbreakable is that it encourages the fates to try harder...

Evensong

I saw him the first night I had a karaoke show there. Someone had put in a song request for a guy with a nickname, and I was left to guess who the guy was. Standing in the dart room with long, curly dark hair, I figured he was the kind of guy who would have a nickname and I approached him.

"Hey! Are you by any chance {nickname}?" I ventured.

"Fuck You, no!" Ok, so obviously I had offended him. I might've raised an eyebrow or two, but I definitely did an about face and headed to my next guess.

From then on, I just kinda ignored him. I was in a relationship and I don't tend to look around when I'm in that situation.

Then he started showing up at the end of my shows. He asked if he could help me carry my equipment to my car, and stated that he was in a band, so he knew how to handle it.

"Everyone's in a fucking band. Please don't touch my shit." These are the first words he remembers hearing out of my mouth. He obviously had every right to come to the conclusion that I was a mega-bitch.

He still showed up, though. He still offered. Sometimes, he tried to insist. "Lemme carry your equipment!" he'd almost beg. I nicknamed him "Lemme" after a group of his friends came to a show one night. Once I saw he had friends and people, he didn't seem so scary.

The relationship I had been in had tanked. Hell, even my rebound had tanked. One night, feeling less than stellar, I decided to get a little extra glammed up. I wore a corset top and a strapless bra, but had one issue: due to weight loss, the bra didn't necessarily fit properly. So I redneck-remedied it with packaging tape. By the way, this method? Not very highly recommended. That crap pulls! And crinkles.

Like usual, Lemme showed up at the end of my show-except this time, I was glad to let him assist! As we were carrying speakers to my car, he heard my chest make a crinkling sound...and I told him why-that I had packaging taped myself inside my bra.

"That is NOT fucking ok," he said, seriously. "Nobody deserves to be taped! Why would you do that to yourself?!"

After we finished getting the equipment loaded, we sat on the bench outside of the bar where I had just finished my show. Lemme had a name. Lemme was a bass player in the house band for the same bar, and his band had just signed a record deal. Lemme said I was beautiful and needed to get comfortable, STAT. Lemme gave me permission to feel ok in my skin and complimented the hell out of me when we had (very G ratedly) gotten the packaging tape off! (Nothing sexual, not even remotely. It was definitely more Judd Apatow than Shakespeare In Love!) We went into the bar and kept talking. The bar closed, and I still didn't want to stop talking with this guy. Of course, it was nothing romantic or sexual-I really thought he could be a great person to know and put him square in the friend zone. Otherwise, I would have never grabbed a Lotto scan tron sheet and written my number on it and handed it to him. I would've worried too much about looking needy, or coming off too strong...

There was nothing about this that screamed at me about him other than: I really enjoyed talking to him.

I had a text before I got home. A couple of messages were exchanged, but nothing serious or even remotely innuendo-filled.

Lemme was going to be a friend, of this I knew. We had a lot of the same ideas and though processes, and we smiled and laughed at the same twisted humor. On the bench, it was nice to finally talk to someone who understood gigs and shows and equipment. There were so many things I could have picked up on. In fact, a mutual friend who was outside for a part of this exchange later told us that he knew that night that we were on to something-that something was happening between us. Me? I knew Lemme was a bass player about to take off. This single mama had just had her heart run through a gamut. Lemme was not a safe bet-he was the wild card, and I'd had enough of them, thank you. Great friend potential- but completely out of the question as far as romance.

Before we left the bench, Lemme did offer that if I was ever not safe to drive home, I was more than welcome to his bed, since he lived two doors down. He promised he'd sleep on the couch or that he'd be the best platonic bed buddy ever. I appreciated the offer, but really never anticipated needing to use it. If I drink two glasses of wine, that's one too many for me! I take precaution and am very responsible... why would I ever need a place to land?

Six days later, so much would change.

I didn't know, how could I know? I always believed you could choose how you felt about someone. Lemme has been my wake-up call that sometimes, there's a bigger plan. I'm grateful I'm a part of his.

Changeling

A year ago, I took stock of my life and my decisions. What I realized what how some of the choices I was making were born of complete indifference to me. This had crept into every single part of my life: from my work to my relationships, I was ignoring my true self and maintaining relationships that existed because I was scared to let them go. Even if they were hurting me, I'd stay-because I was afraid nothing would ever be so good.

Then something happened: I experienced a major change in careers. I ended a long term serious relationship on the grounds that I wanted more. Every time I took a leap, I was greeted by a gentle pat on the back for it. And no, it hasn't been easy, but you better believe it's been worth every damn tear.

Most people wait for New Year's Eve or their birthdays to make these adjustments. I have no idea why mine seem to come around this time of year, but after a solid 28 trips around the sun, I'm starting to question myself less and trust myself more.

Right now, it's got everything to do with attitude.

My strongest argument in Nature vs. Nurture is that I am, when given the opportunity, inherently optimistic. I love life! Want to believe the best of everybody! I have energy to spare and nobody (I mean nobody) dances around the house singing into a hairbrush like I do! However, I was brought up by a very negative person, and sometimes...(I'm not proud of this)... it shows. I get discouraged easily or I run when things get tough. I am a world class closer-offer! That? That's learned, I'm afraid.

So it stands to reason that I can un-learn it, right?

This years goal is to reprogram my way of thinking. For instance: It's not a problem. It's a challenge. And at this juncture, I have encountered enough really interesting things that I'm pretty sure there's a tool in my coping toolbox for....well, anything.

Wouldn't it be nice to be calm and centered? If we made every decision from a well thought out place instead of merely reacting? What if those decisions could come from a place of love and good will, and general peaceful wishes? The world would be a much different place!

I know, it's getting pretty hippie-dippie over here... but I'm tired of feeling depleted constantly. It's time for a change, and the only thing I can truly change is my attitude :)

Hello, Laaaaadddiiieeesssss!

Girls! Girls, girls girls. I've found the secret.

For many moons, I've watched my single friends struggle with this issue. We, as girls, are always waiting for our Prince Charming to come and sweep us off our feet. He is going to be tall, dark and Hawt as all effin' hell, and he's going to see us in our struggle to find completion in another person and ride in on his white horse and whisk you away. He'll be your soul mate! He'll have always wanted the same kind of house, the same number of children in the same gender birth order (boy, girl, boy) and the same kind of dog as us! Or he'll be a cat person, because "cats make you work harder to gain their affection, and I like working hard to make other living things like me". He will be perfect and love you because you're not! He'll think your flaws are adorable little quirks, put there to make you more interesting and intriguing. Oh, and if you ever call yourself fat, he'd tell you, "no, I like my girls to have some curves! Baby, you're perfect!" and you could take him to all the nude beaches in the world and he'd never ogle the playboy bunnies.

And then reality, or maybe "Online Dating" sinks in. And you realize you'd be lucky to get anyone with any freakin' goals at all to like you, let alone love you.

Which usually happens around the time that you are starting to want to get married and have a family. Because up until that point, you're young and you think that the options are endless and that guys are a dime a dozen and when you're ready, you'll find exactly the right guy for you.

Ah. Wouldn't that be nice?

The reality is that we age, we mature and progress and realize that timing can be everything. The guy who's right for you might be bugged by everything you do. Or married to someone else.

If there were a flow chart option here, you'd recognize that we do one of two things: We settle, or-much more interesting and challenging-we learn to play "the game".

I am here to tell you that, if Marriage and babies are your goal, you can achieve them quite simply. All you have to do is vehemently advocate that you are anti-marriage and anti-babies. Hand to God. Because men are hunters by nature, which means they freakin' love the challenge of a good game. They want to outsmart you and convince you to succumb, even if they never really wanted the same things at all! Just tell them you break out into hives at the very sound of the "wedding marche" and they will start picking out your engagement ring.

Now, you must do this convincingly. For instance, I-already married and divorced-honestly once broke out into a cold sweat when a guy I was seeing wanted me to meet his mother. Why? Because that meant that it must be quasi-serious. In fact, most serious things make me freak right the hell out, and thankfully, I've landed a guy who gets that. The idea of forever absolutely terrifies me!! I've explained it, so I won't keep going there. But you must believe that you don't want to be married. Otherwise, you're being manipulative, and guys can smell that from a mile away.

Maybe you've been trying to "The Secret" your way into happily ever after. Good news! The Universe doesn't understand negatives. So even if you put out there that you Don't want to get married, the Universe is going to cross out the Don't. So you Want to get married. See? Win-win!

By the way, nothing is more off-putting than need. And yes, when you want something so bad it hurts, it becomes a need.

In the end, I don't think game playing is the way to go any more that I think you should get married to get married, or because you feel like he's the only guy who will love you. I truly believe that the pieces will fall into place when the timing is right, and that whomever you're meant to be with? Well, they're coming to you as fast as they can. We all have a list of things to accomplish (whether we know it or not) before we meet our person.

But if you do meet 'em? Feel free to tell them you're never getting married. I swear, this will work.

Ode to The Bass Player

My boyfriend is a Saint.

We've been together for a short time now, and I've developed this stupid infection in my leg. It's super painful and kinda gross. For the first time in my life yesterday, someone other than a parent came with me to the doctors. He laughed when I couldn't stop laughing (It's my nervous tick) and asked valid questions about what was going on within me. And most importantly, he demanded that I go and take care of this, held my hand and dealt with me takling excessively and let me pick my nail polish off when he knew my nerves were shot.

This is the guy who's been monitoring the death leg with me; who asks me if I remembered my antibiotics and wouldn't let me get up after sitting down because he knew I was hurting. When I feel like a wimp he tells me I'm a champ and that my pain threshold must be really high, because my leg looks insanely painful. And he brought me a slice of graham cracker cake while encouraging me to let the pain meds do what little they do for me (make me pass the eff out).

I come from a family of people who help. We don't ask for it. Somewhere around 2:30 am, I learned to let go and let Kevin. I've since been trying to identify exactly what is so terrifying about letting someone care for you-and I think I've got it.

If I admit I am not all-powerful, I let a little bit of the strong wall down. My defense shield has to be weakened for anyone to come in. This is absolutely mortifying because I'm admitting I can't do it on my own, that I want to have someone near me to help me through something. What happens if that person changes their mind? What happens if the hole I drill in my protective shell collapses the whole thing and I just become needy and reliant on someone to help me through some thing? Other than a ride home from a hospital, I've never wanted anyone to hold my hand. My response to pain is to push everyone out and deal with it alone. I don't want anyone to see me cry or admit that something is out of my control. I'm too type A for that!

Last night, it felt so nice. Just to have someone empathize with me, talk over what the doctor said, make a plan of action if this gets worse. Some people are put in your life to help you grow. When you have someone you can trust fully, letting your guard down to them is natural. I have no doubt that this man would hold my hand through hell and back, and I'm so very blessed.

So I'll find a happy medium, with the understanding that he's a helper, too. And I'll keep it in check and not become needy, nor focus on the negative. I will be appreciative and thankful that such an amazing person has entered my life and I will vow that when the time comes, I will return the favor. I'm choosing to get out of my own damn way and let myself be fully loved by an incredible person. What an awesome feeling that is!

(And, if I haven't said it enough, Love-Thank You. Grace.)

by the way...he's also an amazingly talented bass player and a part time Ninja <3

AIR IS NOT A LIQUID!!!!!!

           I am not gloating.

           Ok, I might be gloating a little bit.

          But if I am, it’s only because I encounter this one scenario quite frequently: People around me assume that because I’m a DJ of the karaoke variety with no college education to speak of, I do not know “smart people” things. And you know what? Sometimes, they’re damn right. I figure I’m way too busy trying to pay my bills, keep a puppy, plant and seven year old alive that I just don’t have the time (a lot of the time) to try and conquer the bigger questions in the universe. Conversely I don’t over think “smart people” things either. That’s why we have google and Wikipedia. Just sayin’.

            In any event, one thing has presented itself from both my sister and my boyfriend, at different times, over the past three weeks and it has blown my mind. Both of these educated, intelligent and super awesome people have made a claim that makes abso-effin-lutely no sense:

AIR IS A LIQUID.

            Right? Unless I have secret gills, my un-educated brain knows this cannot be true. Which leads us to establishing that this is what we call a “smart people” problem. Damn smart people have actually thunk themselves into believing something that simple minded people know cannot be true. If air is a liquid, I’m not walking-I’m swimming. And water and air would have no definitive separation point. AND I’D NEED GILLS TO BREATHE. Just wanna get that one out there.

            Sure it can be reasoned that air has some liquid in it. That I can wrap my brain around. And a large part of me wants to believe these two super intelligent awesome people, so I’ve let the sleeping dog lie for a little bit. That is until today, when I was bored on the interwebs and actually googled it. And you know what? It turns out I’m not half wrong on this one. I’m like, three quarters of the way right, actually. So here it is, my smart loves. Because as much as I don’t mind sounding like an idiot, I get sad when the smarter people in my life make statements that make me feel dumb, then make me believe them (because I love them and want to think they’re right and super awesomely smart) and then make me realize they were only kinda right.  See where I feel misled here?

            But I digress. Get ready, this karaoke DJ is gonna drop some serious effin’ knowledge on yo’ asses right herrrrrr.

            There are seven states of matter: Solid, Liquid and Gas (there's your three freebies that like, everyone knows); If you're having a smart day, you'll recognize that Plasma is also a type of matter. And unless you've gone through some kind of college course or higher physics, the last three will mean nothing-but here they are anyway: Bose-Einstein condensates, fermionic condensates and something called quark-gluon plasma.

             At any rate, lets focus on the three that we know- Solid, Liquid, and Gas. We can all agree that air is not solid, right? So, now we have liquid and gas.

             Air is most definitely a gas. One of my smart people said that since air is a gas and gasses are liquids, air must be a liquid.

             To put it simply, both liquids and gasses are fluids. In Physics, fluids are substances that will change form when stress is applied. Some smart ass people have figured this crap out and put mathematical equations to it, and I'm sure if you want to know more about that you'll have to pay someone to teach you it. I think the rest of the misunderstanding is based in our understanding of the English language, since most people have transcribed the word "Fluid" to mean liquid-like when you're doctor says to increase your fluid intake. That means you should drink water. While your doctor would probably also like you to breathe, (s)he is not advocating that you breathe more or more deeply when making that recommendation.

             So, to review. Air is a Gas, which can also be called a fluid, but it is NOT a liquid.

             Congrats. You've just been DJ'ed. Which is kinda like being lawyered, only with more usage of internets and louder music playing, and a hell of a lot less student loan money owed. :)

So Blessed...

I am a "signs" girl. Always have been. Chalk it up to my good ol' Italian roots or my faith that the universe is very inter-connected, either way I acknowledge what others might deem coincedental as divine guidance.

This year started out pretty rough. I had an ear infection that blew out my eardrum and made me half deaf for a very long time. Then I got some other crazy infection that blew up my system and colonized in my leg, requiring emergency surgery and a bit of a weird type of recovery. Both of these things I associated with a major portion of my life not being right. Low and behold, I fixed those issues, and things have gotten progressively better. Signs.

It seems I have gotten to the sweet part of my year. I've made some great choices and eliminated some toxins from my life, and little things have pointed me in the right direction. Hearing a line up of songs on a jukebox as I walked into a bar to set up my equipment, for instance. Having someone in my life whom I can feel, miles away-who can feel me, and always sends a text at the right moment. Signs.

When you're a "signs" person, the random and un-explained can be especially baffeling. For if everything in your world relates to you in some way, surely you cannot be a spectator in someone else's "sign", right?

I choose to believe I'm blessed because a tractor trailer that backed up into my car tonight didn't run over it. I choose to believe I'm blessed because the worst damage came from their bumper hooking the front of my car and ripping it to shreds. I choose to believe that I am blessed because this accident happened at night, since it pushed my car into a busy intersection that would have put my son in the direct line of traffic should it have been at a time where many people were travelling. I choose to believe I'm blessed because I encountered a police officer who understood that I was stressed and panicked at the thought of something horrific happening to my child, who was in the back seat.

I chose to ignore the voice inside my head that told me to use the other entrance tonight. The whole thing could have been  avoided.

Instead, I'll believe that this had to have happened. That somehow, the universe wanted to show me something, or needed to show the truck driver something. Because I cannot fathom how something like this, that had such a deep psychological impact on me and my son, could be a fluke. I refuse.

So tonight, I count my blessings. I'm thankful for the tires not going over my hood. I'm thankful for a bumper that, while entangled, pushed my car backwards. I'm thankful that I spent tonight in great company with people who I've just recently gotten to know, who are enriching my life in ways I never knew possible. I'm thankful for the phone conversations after the incident; one with my father-my rock. And one with someone who's been a recent addition-who has blessed my life in so many ways. I am thankful that my son is fine. I am thankful for old and new friends who reached out after reading a facebook status. I am thankful that my car is out of commission durring a week that I don't have my son, and will be out of town for the majority of. I'm thankful, so thankful, for the way my life is going right now and the direction it is headed, the people who are in it and the ones with whom I'll be meeting soon, the relationships both old and new. I. Am. Blessed.

You're Welcome, Son!

On my travels through the interwebs the other day, I stumbled across a very interesting article about children of single mothers who grew up to be inspirational people and great leaders. The list named Bill Clinton, Bill Cosby, Tom Cruise, Maya Angelou and Barack Obama-identifying these people as individuals who "overcame" the inherent disadvantages of growing up in a single parent household and managed to become great people of influence.

Not gonna lie, I was encouraged. A decision that I struggled with for most of my adult (and mothering) life has been if I am doing my son any disservice by not being with his father or, at the very least, married and committed. As he's getting older, I'm realizing that I no longer have much of a choice in the matter. Even if I were to marry the man of my son's dreams *today*, it's doubtful that my son would be willing to accept someone as a father figure, or that I'd want him to. As strange as it sounds, I've accepted that by the time I am ready to make a serious commitment to a man my son will most likely be too old to want to pretend.

In fact, since I've started dating someone whom my son feels is a serious contender, he has gotten a little bit more possessive of me. He's expressed his fear that a man in my life will take away some of the attention that I could dedicate solely to him, or that in some ways a boyfriend would interfere in mine and my son's relationship. Of course none of this would ever be allowed to happen and I've done my best to assuage his worries, but it made me think...

I get so busy patting myself on the back for having a great child that I miss the real issues. Reading that article struck a chord in me: are these children of single mothers primed by the virtues of nurturing to become leaders, or are they shaped into leaders out of necessity?

Especially having a son, I feel as though sometimes his fears regarding a relationship I might have with a man might be more centered around a fear that he might lose his position in our home structure. Right now, it's almost as if he sees himself as the man of the house. He constantly tries to help me and make my life easier by carrying grocery bags and being incredibly understanding about my work. In many ways he has taken the initiative to help out-so much so that it is extremely hard to determine a chore list for him, since he does so much already. I'm wondering if these survival skills that he's acquired out of necessity or if they were traits that were already present and have been brought to the surface by our current situation?

In truth, there's no way to conduct a study about the performance of one child based on their family structure because it would be impossible to have two of the exact same children (the control) and put them into different family arrangements (variables), then measure the outcome. I'd like to think that it's a little bit of having a child who is born capable of greatness and a parent who encourages and nurtures that potential into the child's personal growth.

I don't think I'd be half of the Mom I am now if I weren't single. For one, he has my full attention while he's with me. Besides work, there is not one activity him and I do that's not meant to be enriching or insanely fun to him. Sometimes it seems like so much is riding on me to make my child's life the best and to downplay the potential for disaster, but other times I am proud that he has been with me through my own experiences, and I'm hopeful that he has taken lessons from them that he will apply in his own future.

As the President of the United States. Who's studied both Law and Medicine as a double major. In Harvard. And who's also an inspirational writer. Just sayin'.... ;)

Be Here Now

I keep reminding myself that the future has not happened yet and that some of the best things in my life, some of the most wonderful people I've met, have been the most happiest of accidents. Some are even borne of the most terrible decisions.

I keep reminding myself that the present is where it's at. That the here and now is to be savored and relished, enjoyed moment to moment. I must be here, in the present, both in mind and body, to enjoy it; for without the present, there can be no future.

I keep reminding myself that the past is done. That as a thinking person, I've learned what I could from my experiences. And as a person with great faith in something much bigger than herself, every lesson I've learned has prepared me for something great.

From now until I don't need to, my mantra will be: Be here, now. Be grateful. Be present.

Take Your Damn Meds!

My life with ADD.

First, we start the day with a to-do list. Here! This is mine for today:

·         Clean room

·         Do laundry

·         Vacuum Room

·         Steam clean carpet

·         Call Boss

·         Plug in corrupted file hard drive. Figure out if really corrupted or user knowledge issue.

·         Make master hard drive the actual master hard drive. Prepare for DJ.

·         Find cords for all computer work.

·         Maybe move my bed to clean under it.

·         Locate missing sports bra. STAT.

Simple enough, right?

         Then we re-prioritize. I’m going to take the sheets off the bed and start them in the laundry. Then I’m going to look under my bed for the sports bra. While I’m doing this, I can chit chat with the boss man. Also, pick up my room simultaneously. When done, I can plug in two hard drives and start transferring files. By then, I’ll have to change the laundry and start a load of whites. While those are being done, I can steam clean my bedroom. Change laundry again, put whites in dryer, start darks, then fold sheets and put away. Plug in corrupted (?) hard drive while towels are drying and figure that out. Check over the master hard drive and make sure files transferred properly. Fold and put away whites.  Take shower, get self and child ready and meet boyfriend for night of awesome at the Jazz Fest J

           

            See? That’s not that hard.

           

            So, now we’re going to add our ADD to the mix. And this is how my day is going:

            Get hard drives out. Put on counter. Have computers set up. Go to find cables. Search night stand, find divorce papers. Read them again, because you blogged about your divorce this morning. Feel sad. Feel better, because it’s over, and you feel like you've given the subject enough weight for now. Congratulate yourself on moving on with life and dealing with this issue. Put papers away, but in a different drawer because that makes more sense. Except now you just found an issue of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition in your nightstand and you don’t remember putting it there. Did you? Why? Oh  look, it’s with the Victoria’s Secret catalogue from eight months ago. Why are there so many naked chicks in my nightstand?! I wish my boobs looked like those. Oh wait! Sports Bra! Let’s look under the bed. Holy shit, the dog has a veritable smorgasbord of my clothing under there! Explains the lighter laundry load. Oh, crap! Laundry! Ok, well I need the tongs from the kitchen so I can pull the clothes out from under the bed, then I can at least start the washer running. Retrieve tongs. Put on counter next to hard drives (CABLES!). Go into laundry room, put in detergents, press start. While waiting for tub to fill, grab tongs and go into bed room to retrieve under bed items. OMG! MY DOG ATE SIX PAIRS OF UNDERWEAR!!!! Dog is watching me, cowering. I’m not mad. Upset, but concerned. Can’t be good for dog. Oh, he’s so cute!!! I need to get my phone and take a video. Grab phone, take video of me talking to the dog about the perils of panty-eating. Dog is embarrassed (look at his face!).  Try to upload video to email. Can’t do. Need to take out memory card, but it’s a micro and I need to find the adapter. (CABLES!) Start back to the nightstand. Find USB to mini adapter, and feel happy. Locate hard drive cables. Put on bed. Think to self, what am I forgetting? Grab cables and adapter, head to living space. (LAUNDRY!) set cables on counter, run to washer, which has already started it’s washing cycle. Decide “It’s ok!” to throw my clothes in now, anyhow. Do that.  Do happy dance! Feel sense of accomplishment, since usually I run at least one empty load every time I do laundry, and I have averted this normality for now. Create and sing Pride Song to commemorate this occasion. Go to counter, pull up a chair. Hook up cables to hard drives, plug in power. Realize that you have totally forgotten which hard drive is which, except for the master because it is empty. Also, the master is the only one that looks different as it is a completely different brand. Stare at the two identical hard drives, hoping to feel a pull of energy towards the one that’s in perfect working condition. Blank. Hit head on counter to punish stupidity.

            Yeah. So now I have an hour to do all of that, two more loads of laundry, clean my room which is now more of a mess because I was pulling crap out of my nightstand and from under my bed, vacuum and steam clean.

            I can totally *do* this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

            Tomorrow, I’m just going to circumvent this whole experience and take my Ritalin when I wake up.