secrets

All afternoon my little man was right by my side. He didn't want to play with friends...didn't want to submerge into the depths of the electronic world, didn't want to read.

I knew he was luring me into interaction because he was playing Taylor Swift ;)

But I had an agenda for the day. I had bills to pay, dishes to wash, laundry, etc, etc

The easy thing about parenting is that your kid doesn't always want you to entertain him with a puppet show...they just want you. 

So we washed the dishes together, singing silly pop songs and making bubbles with the dish soap. We changed the sheets and I even taught him how to balance a checkbook.

We had a blast together, just doing the routine things grown ups do on a mildly hung over Friday. Giggling through the mundane. If you can enjoy washing up the dinner dishes and folding a week's worth of laundry - then you can consider your day just about perfect. Anyone can have fun at Disney...but a family that can have fun paying the power bill?? Well that may just be the secret to have a pretty fucking awesome "now".

My mind did wander of course......and negativity pounced on me every few minutes. Clouding my brain with thoughts like "why in the ever loving hell would a creeper read my blog if they don't even want to talk to me?!?!?!"  or "holymotherofgod why is the doctor making me repeat my blood work without telling me why?!?" Speaking of which, I also realized that my hand wound has oozed so much over the last month that my mattress pad is LITERALLY stained. How gross is that?!?!?!?! Man I need some of these stressors to go away.

And so I practiced over and over pushing those yucky bits aside with a love list.

Things I Love:   oBvIoUsLy NOT in any order

-time with my kid

-warm breezes

-Fridays

-clean sheet day

-ruthie

-whoops.....she sneaks in there...but on a good day the best I can do is pretend her cell phone exploded but she still totally loves me...so let's just leave her on this list

-the feeling of hardwood floors under my bare feet

-mr waffles cuddle time

-chaco weather

-frozen margaritas
-gma/gpa

-my new haircut

-yoga
-epinephrine

Tomorrow my son wants to wash my car and build his own whistle from a piece of wood. He is an interesting little man.

Happy Friday y'all. And be careful...you get better at anything you practice...so choose carefully.

best of everything....

It is incredible to me that I have the same friends that I have had since I was in my teens.

That is staggering to think about.

Not saying it is easy...you have to forgive, hold on, adjust...

But holy shit I've got a great circle of love :)

And I have new friends too. Equally as amazing to me, that as a cranky, overly dramatic forty-something I can still find souls that I connect with in an instant. I have the predictable liberals, but also republican friends, even a few libertarians, straight, gay, young and old. Hell's bells - I gave my heart to a creationist.

I am grateful every day for my village. To be loved when you are fun is easy...but to be circled and held when you are sad, scared and wounded...well that is real. True Blue. And I know that stressful times bring the real love out. True Blue isn't scared by bumps.

Tonight I sat surrounded by a great group of women...laughing and drinking and sharing tales of woe. Best medicine evah, lemme tell ya.

Being driven home (like a good mom) I remembered a time way before my little man was born....

Back then I was in a relationship with "A". She and I were out with some friends, sharing drinks and signing at an open mike night. She had been in a horrible car accident the year before and was a touch off from that...used a wheelchair most of the time, but was still able to drive. She drove everywhere...and being the most sober of the group...was going to drive us home.

The owner of the bar had parked (illegally) very very close to her truck - which was in a handicapped space. It was a tight squeeze getting into her truck, especially with the wheelchair. As she started to back out of the space we all heard a god awful sound...SCREEEEEEEEEEECH!!!!!!!!

But "A"s truck was older than me and made all kinds of horrible noises...so we paid no mind. But the more she backed up....the louder it got.  SCREEEEEECCCCH!!!!!!!!

"It's just your damn 30 year old brakes!!!" I yelled. "I've got to pee so let's get MOVING" GO SCREECH GO SCREEEEECH GOOOOOOOOEEEEEEEEEECCCCCCCCH.

"A", being the dutiful girlfriend, exited the parking space, only to find she had torn UP the side of the bar owner's Lexus SUV. Apparently her truck had these hooks that stuck out from the bed for cinching rope or some hee haw type function. And now the bar owner had ripped metal along the side of his fancy car. Whoopsie.

"Oh I guess it wasn't your brakes" I said "but fuck him. He now has learned not to park illegally".

We laughed ourselves all the way home.

Nowadays, as more of a mature woman, that story isn't quite so funny. Though as someone who has gotten a person with a wheelchair in and out of cars 3000 times, I can promise you that I don't feel remorse. It is NOT COOL to park in those blue lines next to handicap spaces. They are there for a REASON! And a drunk handicapped person? Well maybe they should close the streets down for that one.

I called "A" tonight and retold that story. We laughed and laughed and then simmered down and acted like grown-ups again....all the while praying the our own kids will make better choices than we ever did
 ;)

Seriously?!

From my google feed this morning:

GIANT SNAILS INVADE FLORIDA!!

Not funny guys.

Help. Thanks. Wow.

I suck at praying.

It's hard to find God in this world when you are raised in rural Georgia by stereotypical disingenuous Christians.

We were taught to go to church...and we did. Every Sunday the sermon preached the virtues of Jesus, forgiveness, love, helping those in need...and then we wouldn't even make it out of the parking lot before my mother would be bad mouthing the people at church "putting on airs" or "flashing their gawdy jewelry". My mother considers herself a devout woman - but she is an old testament kind of gal...she prefers the wrathful God who smites the rich, the outcasts, the heathens.

Once I told my mother the the Jewish faith doesn't scare it's people with talk of Hell and punishments and eternal damnation....she cut me off mid-sentence and said "That's because they are all going to Hell". Catholics? Hell. And don't even get her started on that cult called Unitarians.

From an early age I prayed to God to help me be more like Jesus. The find love and peace and forgiveness in my heart. I could lay in my bed at night and feel like Jesus was in the room with me, smiling and holding my hand. But my family's lessons were contrary to that path...they preached hate, judgement, and fear. By middle school my faith was eroding. And once I knew I was a lesbian??? Well that cinched it. For sure God didn't love me. I was a sinner. Condemned. The faith flame had been doused.

In my early adulthood I tried lots of different religions...Buddhism, Judaism, Native American teachings...though at best it was much like trying to keep myself warm in an Alaskan winter with just a small fire made of twigs. Sure my hands stayed warm...but not much else.

I ordered a few books last week...my goal is to instill in my son the sense of faith I had when I was his age...back then I was sure Jesus loved me. My faith was strong, even as confusing as a Southern sermon was to a 12 year old's mind I felt the words ring true and knew that the Holy Spirit was the greatest bestest friend a girl could ever have.

As a parent your job is to teach your child to function without you. To raise them to become independent, happy, young adults. So though I have failed and failed over the past twenty years in my attempt to reignite my faith and reattach my heart to my higher power, I know that I have to try again. And I can do the impossible for my son. I can move mountains. Even mountains built from self doubt and organized hatred. I can do for my son what I can't do for myself...I can reconnect with God.

Sometimes I think the hardest part of being an adult is just remembering how simple things used to be. My child's soul was completely connected to my faith. It was only once the words of the flawed adults permeated that perfection that it started to fall apart.

My first prayer will start simply: "Help". One word says it all.

Help me be a better mom. Help me learn to feel whole without my lover's sweet touch. Help me endure the stresses of life. Help me find friends that will stay. Help me learn to eat vegetables or at least for gods sake take my damn vitamins. God forgives cussing ;) God just wants honesty. Truth.

Help.

Maybe I'll add "please"

assassin snail...

Imagine that your enemy hired an assassin to hunt you down and kill you.

This evil predator would stalk you endlessly, and when he found you, he would end your life with a laser gun. A teeny tiny high powered laser gun. Why teeny?

Well what if that assassin was a snail? A regular sized gastropod who had spent 12 years in the mountains of Tibet learning how to use a laser gun with pinpoint accuracy.

After talking with my doctor today that is how I picture my hand problem.

Sure, I have an assassin on my trail, but he is in Colorado right now...and I am pretty sure I can see him coming way before he reaches me.

Some cancerous assassins are lions, or sharks or tsunamis. From that perspective,  I am pretty damn lucky to have gotten a mollusk. 

So they dug it out, gave me some cream to use, and sent me home. You KNOW I would grace you with a photo if it weren't all kinds of covered up.

It hurts like a royal mofo. And in all my hysteria to keep picturing a squished snail I didn't ask for owie medicine. But I do have a small pharmacy of anxiolytics for emergencies. Which I think can be used off-label to treat snail attacks.

Next item on the agenda: allergy testing for the little man.

I can only handle one giant ass stress ball at a time...

The one good thing is that the little man has offered to do the dishes until I can get my hand wet! And that, my friends, is what unconditional love looks like. Even a 12 year old knows how to pick up the slack when the slime trail is found outside your house!




Please note that none of my anthropomorphizing intends to offend the noble snail/lion/shark. I am sure they turned to evil vocations in order to better fund such wonderful endeavors as the Sierra Club and WWF  ;)

Mandatory evacuation

I used the "cartoon" filter to snap a pic of my pre-surgical hand... Check out that giant cartoon boo boo!!!!

Partly I wanted to spare you want it looks like in person. You can tell it isn't normal. But I wanted to take a going away picture that didn't turn anyone's stomach. But even a cartoon version of a neoplasm isn't cute. Unless maybe I added some little bug eyes and a smile. But it's too too late in the evening (or early in the morning) for all that nonsense. 

It's crazy to have watched what I thought was a little scab, or a wart, or whatever it was slowly turning into this freakish thing that doesn't even look like human tissue...it is continually weeping and super painful and the sterotype of "a sore that never heals".

As you can see I have a few lucky bracelets working for me...and am ready to get this thing over with and start moving into spring! 

Here's wishing all of y'all a bountiful season filled with growth and...wait a minute...let me be more specific...how about "non malignant" growth...HAHAHAHAHA. HA. Ha.   ha.    h  a   h     a

Today was a day it was hard to find find gratitude. 

But four hours from now I'll have a big chunk of my hand...and a huge source of worry...out of my life! So I am grateful to be a few hours away from making this yuckiness part of my history.

And I am grateful eternally for those precious souls who hold on tight and stay. I would rather have one true blue sitting by my side tomorrow than 100 nights of amazing sex. Truth.

At this point I probably should even try to sleep!!!! BRING ON THE DAWN!

GRATiTUDE

You can practice anything...

Basketball, chess, cooking, being mean, Spanish, being generous, the guitar...

Whatever you practice you will get better at :)

I am trying my goddammedest to practice gratitude.

I am grateful for my kiddo. Every day with him is a gift. He can make me smile, enjoy a trip to the grocery store, and remember to take a walk to the park :)

I am grateful for my friends, too many to even keep in regular touch with, surrounding me with love and prayer and positive thoughts. True blue.

I am grateful for today. Today I am OK. Today I am healthy. Today I have enough money, enough time, enough food, and a car that runs.

(last week I was without a car...but I am trying not to be so negative, so I'll save that story for later)

I am grateful for my chosen family, they have cinched me to their hearts and won't let go no matter how far I wander.

Practicing gratitude is not easy. As your mind steers towards sadness, loss, fear, mistrust...you have to take the reins and forcibly pull back. I am using what I am calling my "saviour memories" to guide me back to positive thoughts, to get just the hint of a smile on my face - and I am using them over and over these days.

I remember being in college...my little sister was pregnant with her first child, she herself still a baby. She had married the baby-daddy, and was doing her best at setting up house in a single-wide that sat squarely in the middle of a drug dealing part of town. No high school diploma, no role models, and a pot head sister who would call and "check in" as if that did ANY GOOD. But still.

She seemed so together to me at the time. I didn't see the single-wide trailer, I saw a home-owner. I didn't see the redneck, ill-tempered baby-daddy, I saw a husband. I didn't see a path heading for failure...I saw her beginning. Grace was easier for me as a young pup.

So I called each week and checked in.

One day she shared a dream she had the night before. She was ready to pop out that baby and filled with hormones. In the dream she had gone into labor. She pushed and pushed and pushed. The dream room was filled was screams and cheers as she labored hard. The baby was born and the room fell quiet. The doctor solemnly looked at my sister, and with tears in his eyes he said three simple words:

"I'm so sorry".

My dream sister was filled with terror - why had the doctor apologized?! What had happened to her precious newborn?! Then the doctor handed her the newly born, tightly swaddled baby goat that she had just delivered.

She woke up screaming and inconsolable.

The story was...and still is...fucking HILARIOUS. I laughed until I cried when she told me. And she found laughter too.

Her daughter was born the next week. And I am sure I stopped on the way to the hospital to smoke a bowl before I met my niece. Because I was special like that.

So rather than blog about how sad I am, how heartbroken I feel, and how I will never ever sleep next to my true love again...I am going to share my saviour stories :)

Stay tuned! Stay safe! Stay Grateful!

:)