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'.... ;)