gratitude

I sat in the middle of my bedroom floor and cried tonight. Not because I was sad (I know, RARE for me, right?!) but because I was overwhelmed with love. Remember love? I know we haven't talk about it much on this blog have we? Well pull up a chair folks cause tonight is love-night.

So many Amazon boxes have arrived over the past week or so that I decided to consolidate and hide the treasures away until closer to Christmas. One or two boxes is a fun way to torture a nine-year-old...but a small fort of boxes is enough to cause his brain to explode.

When I saw the gifts for my son, sent all the way to Tallahassee, from hearts all around the globe, I couldn't help but get teary. When people come together and grab hold - shouting out "Hey we've got your back!", well that's just the very best part of what the world has to offer.

I have had a bit of a checkered past as far as Christmas goes...well not just Christmas I guess. Take this past turkey day for example...as my family gathered together in various venues - no one - not my mother, my sisters, NO ONE invited me to join them. And even though I am certainly used to being treated this way - it still feels like a kick in the gut. And that's just Thanksgiving where the expectations aren't very high. Perhaps you can imagine the litany of failed Christmas' that live in my mind. Topped off when my father died on Christmas eve years ago when J man was just a toddler.

How is it possible then, that this holiday season, even though I have NO JOB and a huge fear of the future, I am filled with gratitude? How can it be that the one year I can't spend $20 on my son there are boxes of surprises whipping him into a frenzy?

Well the answer is YOU. You all have reached into my heart and reminded me that I am loved and protected and part of something so much bigger. It's really the story of Santa come true :)

I can see how easy it would have been to fall into the pity trap. My mind was ready with evil mantras like "oh I have no money" and "just another yucky Christmas" or "poor little unemployed welfare momma". I could have definitely gone there and I don't blame people who do. But somehow the idea came to me to reach out and just ask for what I needed. Ask. Maybe if I asked for help my little man could have a decent Christmas.

When the first package arrived I smiled a giant face-bursting smile. And as the fourth and fifth boxes arrived...well, I can't even think of how to describe it. I don't shy away from the melodramatic, ya'll know that by now. But at the risk of being way over the top for even me I have to say that this experience is re-filling my bruised soul with some damn hope again. Hope for Christmas of course, but that's the least of it! The hope is erasing the bad memories of Christmas' gone by, and pushing out the fear of a new year approaching. But even that doesn't describe it. The hope is SO BIG that I can remember how humans are a decent group of folks if you give them a chance. Hell maybe we can even solve GLOBAL WARMING!

I always kind of knew Santa was real. I just had no idea his little elves were all over Facebook :) I am wrapping up the world with a ribbon of gratitude - THANK YOU ALL!

Best friends ever...

OK so the whole conversation with my 78 year old mother about how lucky I am to be celibate has really stuck with me.

You don't want your mom even saying words like "orgy" or "celibate" - much less when referring to you - and super duper less when talking about incurring the wrath of the almighty.

But now I have a theory that there are so many great southern writers because southern parents are mentally ill and subject their children to torture. Which then leads to great stories :) People keep telling me my blogs are hilarious or well-written - but all I am doing is presenting the facts! Nothing special about me 'cept for the crazy family.

As a follow-up to the horrific conversation with my mom I would like to present the comments of friends...friends who keep me smiling through the shitstorms.

L: "Celibate?! How the hell does she know?! You go out there and show her she is wrong!!!!"

C: "How long of a window do you have before you are loved by god again? Like can you have a night on the town and be hated, and then in the morning it's all good cause you aren't having sex that second? If you are celibate for your lunch hour does that count for something?"

R: "Your real family loves you even when you sleep around"

S: "OK I am not trying to be funny, do you think there is some dementia here? Stop laughing! I am serious!"

lock down

Want to know what happens during a recession when you miss just ONE credit card payment cycle??!?

They shut down all your cards.

Dang.

how can a person

How could a person hate gay people so much that they would quit their own church and start a new one just because the folks were getting too "complacent" about the issue?

Imagine hating a group so much you would leave a place you had formerly considered your family...

And imagine me sitting in that person's living room.

Today I had to drive my 78 year old, self-centered mother to her friend's house. Her friend (whom she met in bible study) was going to watch Baby, her equally self-centered dog while my mother went up to Atlanta. My mother, who can find the newest boutique in town to buy a $40 scarf, was terrified she would get lost trying to find her friend's house.

So I drove her out to drop off her dog. There we are making chit chat with this seemingly nice enough woman when he husband comes home. He has all the priest type garb on and he breezes through the room, stopping to pet the dog. His wife tells us he is the pastor of a small anglican church up the road - and goes on to explain that they are a new congregation that recently split with the episcopal church where he had worked for years. "Oh really?" I said, behaving as if I didn't know that this anglican flight was occurring all over the US. Parishes were splitting apart and aligning themselves with a group of African anglicans who promised to never ever accept the gays. "What happened?"

She wouldn't say - just mumbled about how they loved the people but the "higher ups" were ruining everything with new ideas and radical changes.

Well neat. Sitting on a queer-haters couch. With my mom. Fun.

On the ride home I told my mom her friends hated gays. She got mad of course and said I was looking for trouble. That the bible clearly states that god mainly hates orgies and gay sex - so since I was celibate I should be OK.

"MOM STOP TALKING TO ME RIGHT NOW" I screamed.

She pushed it a bit more (thankfully J was NOT in the car). God only hates gay people having sex all the time, she continued.

I picked up the phone and called a friend, talking about anything just to drown out my mom. I hung up the phone and told her she was 2 steps away from not seeing me until the new year. "Don't say one more word about this to me ever again. Not today, not ever."

So then she went back to her favorite car past time of reading out loud every sign she sees.

"Twenty five percent off pizza every Tuesday"

"Logan Avenue"

"Jo Jo Baby-sitting"

Ugh. How did I spawn from that woman.

swirling flushing toilet

for those of you not familiar with PostSecret, it is an amazing website that I have loved for years.

But today a friend forwarded me a new post sent in by another person laid off from my same company.

Please check it out (third one down)

So every piece of my severance agreement, every stupid, mean, horrible piece of legal termination packet was embossed with a swirling flushing TOILET!

heehee.