you can't call me: late for dinner

recently i asked my friends to use three words to describe me. among the amazing responses were the following:

outgoing, open minded, funny, strong, open to new experiences, the person you want in your corner, well educated, hilarious, one in a million, brilliantly sarcastic, excellent mother, strong woman, witty, creator of fantastically caustic remarks, awesome, reliable/dependable, trustworthy, witty, funny, creative, up for anything, and, most awesomely: bacon, lettuce, tomato.

how YOU doin?

first off: totally humbled by the things people posted. i have some amazing friends and i could say the same things about all of them.

second: let me point out a few things that WEREN'T used to describe me:

tattooed, pierced, punk

what makes me bring up those three things specifically?

well, during the recent boyfriend experiment those were exactly the three things that were used to describe me. to an ex. during a conversation to allow a child stay at my house.

i'll let you guess how that ended up.

to say that it bothered me would be putting it lightly. obviously. it made it to the blog-o-sphere.

do i have tattoos? yeah. do i have piercings? ears and my nose. nothing more. am i a punk? fuck no. not in any way.

i think what bothered me most is it made me feel like a freak. like a show and tell piece. like someTHING instead of someONE.

of all the ways to describe me or introduce me to someone or talk about me- it wasn't about ME. it wasn't about WHO i am.

i've never been ashamed of my tattoos before. I LOVE THEM. i love my little piece of purple hair. it's my little way of not being boring. of not giving up and just being another bland carpool mom. it lets me still be ME in the middle of all the things i'm "supposed" to be. as to my piercings- i had my ears pierced when i was FIVE. and my nose- so what? it's nothing. it's a tiny little jewel that most people don't even notice. i dont have my face pierced up, i don't have dermal anchors or corset piercings or dermal implants or body modifications and SO WHAT if i did? if i chose to do all those things and join a traveling side show and have that as my barker name, THEN you could describe me that way. until then, whose business is it?

for the first time i was ashamed. i questioned my decisions. i felt bad about being different or outside the traditional cookie cutter. i was made to feel like it made me a bad person or a bad mom. there was more to it. there always is. but I HATE THAT. i hate that because one person decided to twist a few things about me it made me pause. i actually took time to think about changing my hair or taking out my nose ring so i would "fit in better" (what does that even mean? fit into what?) i wondered how many people judge me by what they see and how offensive i am and all the CRAP that goes with it.

then i stopped. and i realized: people that judge me that way aren't people i particularly want around anyway. so. there's that.

but i will say: i understand that not everyone appreciates ways i've chosen to express myself. i get it. tattoos aren't for everyone. quite a few people don't understand purple hair. I GET IT. i don't shove it in people's faces. if i'm meeting someone new i tame down and wear long sleeves and make sure my hair is covered. i don't want people to be uncomfortable. most of all: i don't want people to judge me. i probably worry about that more than i should. i just want to be here. i just want to meet people and have them get to know me and know the things my friends know. i don't want to be someTHING. i want to be someONE.

and to the people that matter, i am.

broken pieces

i've had writers block since this summer. i've known exactly what was causing it but haven't wanted to face up to it. i've had the words. i've known what i wanted to say a thousand times over in a thousand different ways, but i just couldn't say it. and when you know there's something you need to say but you're being stubborn about saying it, well, it makes it really hard to say anything else.

i'm ready now.

i'm broken. i have a hard time in relationships so i avoid them. i thought i knew why for a long time but this summer there was a flat, bold face, plain as day answer given to all the things i've thought over the years. it's ugly and it's dark. but i know what it is now. what i don't have is a solution for it or a way to move past it yet. maybe finally saying it will help.

ok. so maybe i'm not ready to say all of it. part of the writing process you can't see: i've typed and deleted several paragraphs trying to decide what to include and what to leave out to get to the main point of this post. readers digest version that i'll get back to at some point when i'm more ready: my mom is married to a pedophile. her husband was inappropriate towards me growing up and i found out after moving away from small town USA that he had also been grooming my youngest son. i told my mom about it at one point when it was just me, and again when i found out it was happening to my son.

i'm sure you can imagine how much more is packed into that one paragraph if it was allowed to unfold itself.

when i told my mom about my experiences she looked at me and said: "well, what do you want me to do about it? it's already happened." when i told my mom about my son she told me that i was just projecting my own experiences on him and there was no way it could have happened.

perhaps now it's making a little more sense to some of you why my mom and i don't have the best relationship.

it's been really hard for me over the last few years to see her stand beside this pedophile at the expense of a relationship with my kids and i. as long as he is anywhere around, we won't be. my older brother has taken her side. he doesn't believe there's a problem and i'm just being the stubborn kid that i've always been for no reason. after losing my dad and my younger brother, it's unspeakably hard to not have any connection to what blood family i have left.

the biggest thing over the last few years: i felt like the one who was wrong. i felt like maybe i was being a little harsh or maybe it was all just in my head. maybe THAT was the reason i was so broken: i made things up and i was unreasonable.

this summer my mom asked me to go to therapy with her. she'd been trying to work out why she and i don't have a relationship and her therapist suggested that maybe i should come in to talk over some things. a mom is a mom and there's countless studies to show that no matter how bad things get, our primal instinct is to call out for our mothers. i want my mother. i do. so i decided to go. maybe we could work it out. maybe she would see my side and understand why i was protecting my kids. maybe she would say she loved me and chose me for once.

we sat in that office. i talked about what it was like growing up. i talked about why i had separated myself from her. i talked about how it felt having her chose a pedophile over me, her daughter. the therapist heard me. she pulled together my pieces with the things my mom had talked about. the therapist, a trained professional looked at the whole picture and i was honestly, truly shocked by what she told me: i wasn't crazy. my experiences were real. my decision to protect my children was the right one. knowing what she had worked on with my mom and then hearing my pieces, it made sense and fit together and i wasn't being the unreasonable terrible daughter i believed i was. the therapist flat out said if she had known the whole story from the beginning her work with my mom would have been totally different. she believed me.

i can't tell you how powerful that moment was. someone validated me. validated the things i knew to be true. feelings and experiences i'd been wanting someone to believe. the things i though made me crazy and broken weren't right. things i've hated about myself since i was a teenager weren't my fault. i didn't ask to be treated the way i was. i didn't cause things that happened to me. it wasn't right that i had been ignored. it wasn't right that i was made to feel bad for protecting my kids. the therapist told me i was reasonable and level headed and the things i was doing were on the right track and i shouldn't waiver or back down. it was so powerful to have someone on my side. there. in the same room as my mom. my mom HAD to hear it. she HAD to know. she HAD to see it and acknowledge it and it would be different.

but just as quickly, i lost that moment. just as quickly my mom looked at the therapist and said i was crazy and heard voices in my head (she literally said exactly that). that i made things up. my own mother said that none of my experiences, none of my memories are real. she was so scared of the truth that she flat denied it and just shattered me. she looked straight at me and said nothing i remember, none of my experiences will ever be right or true. ever.

THAT.

THAT MOMENT. that is the real reason i'm broken. as powerful as the moment before it had been of someone believing me and validating me had been, THAT MOMENT was a thousand times more destructive. my mother doesn't believe me. she doesn't think i'm worth protecting for fighting for. i'm not worth loving. my mother would rather protect a monster than love a daughter. in that moment she threw me away. my own family rejected me. my family thinks i'm broken and damaged and not worth fighting for. i am not loveable. i am not good. i am not worth anything.

and if my own family, my own flesh and blood feels that way, what hope is there of ever finding a partner in life to accept me?

NOW: I KNOW. i know i have friends that love me and accept me. i hope there will eventually be someone on the life partner level that will feel the same way. but there is a whole fucking canyon between hope and belief. and before i can even begin to cross that canyon i have to have even the smallest confidence that it's even possible. and i don't have that. i don't have even a small piece of that confidence. not even a sliver. the feeling of rejection is so ingrained in me that anyone who tells me they love me must lying. it's an instant deal breaker for me. they want something. they're using me. it CAN'T be true. it's not physically possible for it to be true. i wholly believe that. i know. fucked up.

so there it is. my broken pieces: what's left of my family has rejected me. i truly don't believe i'm loveable. i don't believe i will ever find someone that wont go away or let me push them away. i don't believe there will ever be someone to fight for me and with me.

there are my pieces. now. how do i fix them? how do i teach myself that those pieces aren't right? how do i teach myself that i am loveable and that someone will want me? how do i believe what that therapist saw? how do i teach myself not to destroy chances at good things because they're foreign? how do i make pieces that are right and put them all together?

i recently tried my hand at a true, talked about it, put a name on it, give it a shot, relationship. it didn't make it very far. among several of the red flags that i filtered through, the biggest one was that he dropped the love bomb on me. after only a few weeks. and i INSTANTLY shut down. instantly. something must be wrong. it couldn't be true. now, there was more to it. there always is. but i don't know if it was real. i don't know if he really did love me or if it was because we had a small argument and he thought it would make things better. i don't know because i didn't give it a chance. like i said, there was more to it, but i couldn't even look at any of the more because i was DONE. that moment i fully shut down, completely shut off because there was no way it could be true. he must have been lying because no one can love me. people who have know me my whole life can't love me. how could some one that's only known me for a few weeks say that? and so i destroyed it. it's done.

how do i NOT do that? how do i not shut down? how do i not instantly want to call someone a liar? how do i start to unbelieve that bad and really believe the good? i have to start to believe that i'm loveable. i have to. the hard part of that is i don't know where to start. and i don't know if i ever will believe it. i don't like that. i don't like that i'm questioning it before i've even started the process. it's going to be a helluva journey. there's a lot of damage to undo.

bitches on birth control (may contain TMI)

so. everyone is talking about birth control lately and i may as well jump on board.

I HAVE A SERIOUS PROBLEM WITH WOMEN ON BIRTH CONTROL.

see. here's my problem: i have pms. severe pms some months. legally insane enough to get away with murder pms. and i get the whole mess that goes along with it- increased (and sensitive) cup size, bad skin, narcolepsy, rage, uncontrollable cleaning, unhealthy chocolate consumption, flat out, unfiltered BITCH mode. when mother nature delivers my monthly gift she brings a whole fucking gift basket, not just one neatly wrapped gift.

what does this have to do with other women on birth control? THEY FUCK UP THE SYSTEM.

see. mother nature has a certain amount of gifts she has to deliver each month. and you know the bitch doesn't keep a receipt to return the unused ones. and you know she can't go back to the deepest core of hell until all of her gifts are delivered.

mother nature (from the tampax commercials)

so these lucky bitches on birth control, especially the ones who only have the once every four months birth control, don't get their monthly gift and it fucks up the system. mother nature is left with all these extra gift baskets she has to get rid of, and those of us poor suckers who can't take birth control (believe it or not it actually make me crazier) are stuck with the overflow. i get twice the crazy and rage and headaches because some of you were smart enough to find a loop hole in the system!

damn you women who are smarter than me!

you get to laugh as mother nature skips right on past your front porch and leaves TWO of her damn baskets on my porch.

*sigh* i should at least get double the chocolate and caffeine too.

socially awkward

so. i'm old. and it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks. well, some tricks. "those" tricks i pick up pretty easily. social situations- not so much. awkward yet? it gets better.

i've never been a social butterfly. i've never been one that seeks out the center of attention. i'm at my best in a one on one or small group setting. i'm NOT a good dancer. i do NOT take good pictures (EVER). i'm not the girl that can walk into any room and have them all eating out of my hand in minutes. i'm just not. never have been, not on my list of things to be when i grow up.

i have a knack for putting my foot in my mouth. fuck it. BOTH of my feet permanently reside in my mouth. i have a nasty habit of cursing WORSE than a sailor on leave. my sense of humor is an acquired taste and even then can cross the line faster than an ethopian in a marathon race. see what i did there.

 i love my wednesday nights out. i love any night out. i love being away. conversations that don't include nerf or zelda or who pushed whom down the stairs. i love the band that plays. they're good friends of mine and incredibly talented. i do NOT love how old it makes me feel. most of the kids are college age- as in barely 21, forget they can use their REAL id now, talking about finals and class schedules college kids. i'm talking about my teenager and trying desperately to remember what it was like in college. TEN YEARS AGO. jesus mother fuck. TEN YEARS. i've been out of college ten years.

i watch these kids guzzle $5 long islands and $2 pbr's while i sip at my jack and coke or glass of wine. i listen to them talk about how trashed they got and how they can't remember full days while i make sure i'm drinking water to prevent the slightest hint of a hangover after my two drinks (maximum).

and, because i'm so damn old, i lost my train of thought. OFF MY LAWN.

there. now, i do know this isn't what i started out to write. i got distracted. it happens to old people.

what i started out to write is about how i often find myself feeling more than slightly awkward. and i have this uncanny ability to make people i interact with feel the same way. or at least it seems like that. awkward pauses, uncomfortable silences, the whole gambit.

*change perspective*

so. i started writing this quite a while back. since then i've discovered that i'm not as socially awkward as i thought. a friend invited me to dinner while he was in town with two complete strangers. dinner was excellent, there was great conversation, and i guess at the end of the night the other couple actually enjoyed my company. i have since talked to other people that enjoy being around me IN PUBLIC as strange as that may seem.

life is about learning and changing and growing and figuring out how to accept yourself as you are. i am not a social butterfly.  i am NOT good in large groups. i KICK ASS in small groups though. give me one or two people to talk to and i can hold my own like a fucking pro. that is my strength. i'm learned enough random facts over the years to bullshit just about any topic, i can read people pretty well and actually use my edit button (yes, i do have one that i can dust off on occasion) when needed. i won't be the one getting drunk to deal with the situation, i won't be the one in the corner giving everyone the evil eye either.  and you know what? the world needs people like that. it needs large group entertainers and small group entertainers. it need big bold people and maybe not quieter but bold in a different way people.

i'm still awkward in most social situations. i'm still the quiet person at the bar. i'll be the one sitting at the bar alone sipping my drink, enjoying the music, and OCCASIONALLY talking to the person sitting next to me. i don't fit in a big parties, but small dinner parties are fracking awesome. i don't like going to huge concerts, but if there's a group in a small venue count me in! i'll brave an arena full of people for a hockey game and maybe chat with the person in line getting a pretzel (but probably not) but would prefer a night at home with a glass of wine and a good friend.

and you know what? THAT'S OK.