Fight For Your Right To Party...Responsibly

Yesterday I posted a funny comment that my son said about my IV site.  I got some shit for it. 

Let me start off by saying, that I agree that children knowing anything about drug abuse is horrifying.  However, the world that we live in today, makes it absolutely necessary.  Especially when, statistically speaking, at least 1/3 of drug and alcohol experimentation starts before high school. 

One third.

And that is just drugs.  I won't get started on sex and alcohol.  Those were my choices.

Wake up.  Do you want your child to be fully educated, or do you want your head to be in the sand while your kid ends up being one of those "If I had only known" scenarios?  As a kid who myself teetered between the two, I'm pushing for education.  I'll be clear, I've never done drugs, but I've been around enough drug abuse to never want to.  I was extremely naive.  Frankly, today as a 34 year old adult, there are many scenarios that I don't know how I made it out alive.  If I was one of those that gave into peer pressure, I would be just another statistic as well, and I know exactly what path I would have taken and where I would be right now. 

It is detrimental to the outcome of your kid's childhood that you make them fully aware of the consequences. 

Adults who provide kids with alcohol are not cool.  Adults who help throw parties and hang out with teenagers are even uncooler.  They failed at their own childhoods and never grew up.  Some do it because they are predators.  I know this first hand.  My mind is destroyed by some of the things that have happened to me.  You're damn right that I am going to do everything I can to prevent that from happening to my children. 

It is up to you to make it clear to them that they should fight for their childhood, and that if they won't then you will.  Education goes a long way in assisting with that.  Also being the kind of parent who is a parent that your kid can talk to rather than just being sent off to play while you do the adult things.  Something I like to refer to as "over parenting".  Acting like the bad things don't exist and sheltering your child from everything so that when the bad things come around they have no idea how to contain themselves around all the new exciting things that "everyone else" is doing.  I was that kid.  Don't be that parent.  You cannot get away with sitting back and hoping.  Education through school and parenting is a hell of a lot safer than experimenting and learning the hard way. 

My only goal as a mother is to raise a child that doesn't have to recover from their childhood. 

Anesthesia Brain

A lot has been going on.  Most of it mundane, every day normal single mom life stuff.  The girl child has had 4 games so far this season for soccer.  The other day I had a procedure that prevented me from being able to make it.  She was fine with it, of course.  She came home very excited because they won 5-4.  Monday they have a home game against the same team. 

By procedure, I mean that I had my 3rd endoscopy and 1st colonoscopy.  My, my.  What a process that prep is.  It made me think of people who regularly do "fasts" and "cleanses" to lose weight.  How the Hell....I didn't lose anything but my dignity.

Forcing myself to drink fluids on an empty stomach was an interesting experience in itself.  Near the end the only think I could think of that resembled the process was this scene from Harry Potter: 

36 hours with no food, and 12 hours pre-procedure with nothing at all.  My body was not a fan.  It is still protesting 2 days later.  I'll spare the Universe the details.  There is so much air in my system that it's excruciating.  My body sounds like a coffee maker.  I'm trying to find some humor in this so that I don't lose my mind over it. 

My friend that did end up bringing me home found it hilarious that I suggested that we go to the Humane Society because I don't have nearly enough dogs. My post anesthesia brain thought I needed to go rescue all of them. Also last night my son looks at my huge bruised IV site and goes "Ewe that looks like one of those heroine things!" Explaining after I was done almost peeing myself from laughing that he remembers seeing track marks on someone in an episode of CSI. That, and he learned the signs of drug use in 5th grade. 

I don't know what I can say about the situation behind who brought me and who took me home.  I'm glad I have people in my life who care about me enough to do things like this for me, but I'm also devastated beyond anything I can describe that the one person that I needed the most to be there just flat out refused because they had "better things to do" - when I've had this appointment for a month.  I thought that we were past the repeatedly going out of our way to hurt each other and treating each other like an afterthought stage.  I guess I can only speak for myself when I say that times have changed. 

And of course, I'm doing my hardest not to lose my shit and as I'm typing this out at work the instrumental version of this song starts playing overhead and I fail and proceed to sob:

Not because the song lyrics resemble anything that I have going on at the moment.  It's just a really sad song.  That and I'm frustrated.  Things are different with this person, not the way that I want them to be and I don't like it.  I realize the mistake that I made.  I want things to be different and I feel like I'm the only one fighting for them to be.  When the before mentioned person talked to me the evening after I got home, they repeatedly said "I'm glad it went well."  No, it didn't go well.  I was sick, I had a really hard time, it was misery, I needed you and you weren't there.  If I can't rely on you when I need it the most and have been able to and have looked forward to having you there when I needed you and then you're not....how am I supposed to feel.  Of course I'm dying.  I also asked myself, would I feel this way if things had gone well.  The answer, I would probably feel less strongly about it than I do, but yes, I would feel the same way.

I'm also freaking out because on the paperwork it lists your medical diagnoses and there are 2 that are terrifying, that someone put there and said nothing to me about.  I am not going to go into details but one of them is life threatening.  I'm hoping that it's just a fluke.  I find it hard to believe that a doctor can just put a diagnosis onto a patients chart and say nothing to them about it.  Of course it's a weekend and there is nobody around who can explain what is going on.

Between working full time, being a soccer mom for my daughter, 8 hours of therapy a week for my son and dealing with all the invariables that I have up in the air right now, I'm not finding much time to find my sanity.  I just keep telling myself that it will all work out in the end.  But will it?

Kiss My Messy House

Why yes, persons who shall be unnamed in this post, my house is a disaster.

It is that way because after working 40 hours a day 30 minutes away from home, spending 8 hours of therapy a week with my son, fighting against a body that feels like it's fighting through a sandpit just to move across a room, keeping my daughter on task with everything, countless hours on the computer back and forth emailing both of my kids teachers to set up meetings and making sure that we aren't having a repeat of last year lying about homework and struggling constantly and fighting with my kids to do, well... anything, I might be a little tired. 

And even then I have to find time to make meals and clean and shower and do laundry and walk and groom my dogs.  Maybe then I have mustered up enough energy to do my eyebrows and trim my nails so that I don't look like a cast member of The Walking Dead.  Manicure?  What's that?  That perfect makeup you see on my face, if I manage to do it at all, took me 3 minutes and I most likely did it in my car in the parking lot after I knew that by some miracle I made it to work on time.  I will cut you if you mention my hot mess other people call hair.

Yes, I routinely have movie time with my kids.  Yes, I could be cleaning or doing household chores while the movie is going, but that would kind of void the idea of the quality time that my kids need from me as their only parent, wouldn't it.  My kids are hilarious.  When they're not screwing around and refusing to pick up a cup and throwing things next to the trash instead of into it, they are pretty great.  Quite frankly, I'm just so elated that we haven't killed each other that by that time comes that we have an hour of quality time, you're damn right I'm going to revel in it. 

Yes, you.  Who has probably never turned on a vacuum in your life and have always had a wife do everything for you and before that it was your mother.  And you, the stay at home mom who has time to do whatever it takes to make your household perfect while you judge me.  Welcome to the world of a single mom who is so good at pretending that everything is fine on the outside that sometimes, just sometimes, everything on the inside turns to crap.  

Besides,

In Dreams

So someone can work a 10 hour shift, go out drinking with friends and then get up at the ass-crack of dawn to do a yard sale, right?

I'm about to find out.

I have weeded out so much stuff in my house.  I guess this stress that I've been under is actually good for something.  It's making me want to put a huge "For Sale" sign on my house and just let people buy whatever they need.  Merging two households together is going to be a bitch if I ever move in with "someone".  Planning for the future is kinda hard to do when you're the kind of person with the attention span that doesn't even remember what you ate for breakfast.

It's even harder to do when there are vixens in the back of your mind that are bitches. 

Mean, mean bitches.

I have had a reoccurring dream.  It keeps popping up every few months and has been going on for about 7 years now:

I come home from work, but my stuff is entirely gone.  I don't even panic;  I just calmly walk around my house looking around like it's all just moved to another room or something.  In front of the fireplace, there is this dog.  It took years for me to see what kind of dog it is, but it's a white french bulldog now, who's name is Greg.  He's wearing a little Argyle sweater and bow tie and little doggy spectacles.  Around its neck there's a note with an address.  I call my kids, who in my dream are little and they're all "It's fine, just come" like they're having the time of their lives, wherever they may be.  I'm not even worried at all.  I show up to the place.  Even though it feels like it took forever to get there, I know exactly where I'm going.  To somewhere I've never been before and I'm totally fine with it.  It's a house that I am in love with.  Like, the house of my dreams and I haven't even been inside yet.  There are no cars.  There's a path with candles leading to the door.  Kind of like that "creepy romantic" vibe that Lifetime movies are made of.  I go into the house, and all of my stuff is there.  Not even in boxes, which amazes me because it was all at my old place when I left that morning but it's all here just the way I would have set it up myself.  More candles everywhere through the house to a back patio.  All of my family is there and suddenly I look down and I'm wearing a white dress with a rainbow petticoat underneath and my hair and makeup are perfectly done in 40's pinup style.  I walk down and everyone is staring up at the sky because there's a meteor shower going on.  Then a man takes my hand, and without even looking at him I know exactly who he is and I am suddenly so happy to be there.  Then he puts a square, blue Lego on my finger and secures it with a rubber band.  I started showing everyone, so happy to have this ring because someone finally understood me enough to know how unconventional a person I am.  Nobody is saying a word, but just like in the silent movie days, you know exactly what everyone is saying and thinking. 

Then I wake up feeling sad.

Last night was the first time that I have ever seen that man's face. 

The mean bitches need to stop.  

Fat Shaming Is Not Cool, Kewl or Kool

As someone who has spent much of my life being overweight due to a magical combination of knee problems, depression, undiagnosed until recently medical problems and ice cream (I mean, have you tried it before?);  I suppose I should be angry about some scrawny "comedian" going off on a tangent about how obese people are all ruining her life.

I watched it.   I kind of giggle snorted.   If it was truly how she feels, and not some comedic rant, then I pray for her and I'm not religious in any way.

How uncomfortable do you have to be with yourself to worry about another person's appearance?  And then on top of it have the gall to outwardly judge them.  Does it make you feel better to be horrible?  I don't get it.

As a kid, I was skinny.  I dressed appropriately.  Sure, I liked boys, but I never did anything inappropriate with them until I was old enough to know what I was doing.  I rarely had a boyfriend and in high school I didn't have one at all.  What little time I had available not being grounded for the reason of the day was spent clinging to what few friendships that I had left.  In school at an alarmingly young age, I was labeled a slut because I took care of myself and had bigger boobs than all the other girls.  I stopped loving myself and got very good at hiding who I really was because it was made clear as often as possible that who I was didn't matter because I was never going to be what they wanted me to be.  At home, my siblings were allowed to call me fat and ugly.  It was OK because my mother did it too.  It wasn't all bad, but that isn't what this is about.  When I was a freshman in high school, I was a size 6.  By the time I was a senior, I was a size 12. 

12. 

That is a size that I would kill to be again. 

As a side note, my relationship with my family is worlds different today than it was when I was a kid, but their memory of my childhood and their current belief systems makes it look like we never grew up in the same house.  Every mention of it makes crossing the border of North Korea look like a breezy day trip.

Frankly, every thing in my life went wrong because I didn't know how to love myself enough to say no.  Single parenthood, duped into eloping, being left pregnant with a toddler, raising both entirely on my own.  I was still so busy raising them that focusing on myself wasn't an option.  I didn't know what else to do and I had no support to show me how to be otherwise.  Surrounded by everyone happy (more than, even) to tell me how I was doing everything wrong but not a single person around willing to show me how to be better.  The past 10 years have been one big roller coaster, but I'm better for it.

Here's the kicker:  Every health issue that I have now is the same trouble that I've spent dealing with since my teens when I was thin.  It is simply not the case that I have these issues because of my weight. 

Therapy is expensive shit, but I owe my life to it.

I have taken the long and curvaceous road down where I am now, but I can actually say that despite my demons I am pretty happy with me.  I like my naked body just as much as I appreciate it clothed and apparently so do the hundreds of people messaging me who have seen my modeling pictures, along with those that I have in my life now. 

HOLY SHIT!   Here's a thought or twelve for the record books: 

Did it ever occur to you that when someone doesn't take care of themselves, just for a second, did stop to think that it may be because they don't know how to? 

If someone is "fat"not just by your standards but medically also, maybe they have a lifestyle in which they were simply not taught how to be any different. 

Maybe they do have medical problems that prevent them from being your same svelte size 4 complete with bitchy attitude. 

Not everyone hates themselves or worries about other people's lives. 

Maybe you should help them.

Maybe you wouldn't be such a bitch if you learned to love yourself in a non-narcissistic, evil queen kind of way.

Body positivity has nothing to do with fat.  It has to do with "WHOLE" acceptance.  Loving who you are on the journey that you're on.

Not in any way does it make someone bad for loving themselves and being comfortable in the skin that they are in and wearing what they want to wear - no matter how inappropriate it is to you.

Every person has fat.  THEY as a person are not fat.  We have hair and fingernails and teeth and feelings, but do we start accusingly calling people those? 
 I can see it now:  "Jeez have some feelings all up in my business.  How freaking dare you be so emotional!?!"

Not everyone who is overweight is a diabetic, has high blood pressure or any other stereotypical "fat person" disease health care professionals are pandemically swearing that everyone that is overweight has like it's the worst thing on the planet that could happen to a person. 

I for one, think that they should be more worried about the bitches who are giving themselves heart attacks over something that has nothing at all to do with them.  Stress is a killer y'all.  Even more so when the stress is a stress that isn't yours.

Is your blood sugar low?  Maybe that's why you're such a bitch.  You know that fat people eat all the time and you're jealous.  Can I make you a sandwich? 

Vent of Randomness

I couldn't think of a different title.  I may change it later.  Who knows.  To warn you ahead of time, this is more of a vent of randomness than anything else.  You probably won't understand it and I apologize to my readers if it doesn't make sense, but frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.

I am not disgusted by a lot.  After all, I am the mother of a special needs child who is fascinated by the most disgusting things imaginable and grew up with a family of hunters.  With that said, don't ever hock a loogie in front of me.  I understand the need to do it, but people, when y'all are in public and people are around listening to it....REALLY?  Manners.  Working at a hospital surrounded by the old and infirm, you'd think I'd be used to it.  Nope.  An hour later after hearing it and I still want to vomit. 

Who needed to eat lunch today?  Apparently not me. 

I'm going to take that as a blessing.  I'm having one of those days where I need all the cheese.  Cause ya know, since I'm never going to get laid again and all why not?

Just kidding about that;  things seem to be on the road to going quite well in that department.  But not about the cheese.  It's a really good thing that I have people in my life that love me just the way I am.  Because cheese.  Who needs to be a size 8 when you have that wonderous stuff?

I've been having a hard time lately.  Part of it is the time of year, the part that threatens to undo whatever progress I've put into being marginally saner.  I know that transitional months and I don't get along much.  I've always wondered if it's ever going to change.  It hasn't yet.  I've done as much as I think I can to will it away. 

I have OCD.   Not the ritualistic kind;  the "Hello, I'm your brain on stress.   Let me hound you with intrusive thoughts until you cry" kind.   Most of the time I am really good at managing it.   Lately, not so much.  Obessive thoughts are incredibly fucked up beings.   The human brain, especially the stressed to the max one, can conjure up some really disturbing things.  It's like my brain doesn't want me to be happy and when I am I don't know what to do about it.   There are days that I am certain that Hell is a place that you carry around with you, not a place that you go to.  I've found that the only way for lack of a better term, to stop the insanity or "feed the beast", is to get a huge rush of adrenaline.  Another reason behind my...how did one person put it..."openness".  With that said; last night was exactly what my beast needed.  Yes, as I grin widely at my desk, I will leave it vaguely at that.
Working out has become second nature to me.  Still feeling better than I was, which is a plus.  The only really bad day was Thursday, in which I got the kids off to school and then commenced to sleep the day away.  It was frustrating because it was my day off and I had so much planned.  Just listening to the ques that I'm given instead of fighting them.  It's been working.  My pain and swelling levels have decreased, I feel better and have a lot more energy than I did last month.  I'm trying really hard not to be disappointed about one frackin' day, but you know how that goes....

Things that were stressing me out beyond recognition have slightly tapered off.  Money is still the root of all evil, but at least it is consistently so.

Some things in my world are happening that I am pretty excited about.  Nothing that I can talk about in depth, because although I am an open person I do also respect other people's privacy.  All I can say, is that it feels pretty good to have some answers.   It is very settling to be told that you are loved because you're a very fun person to be around. 

I am not ready to admit that the life that I want exists only in the same vortex that the Easter Bunny and Santa reside in just yet.