Insanity or .....

So, someone recently pointed out to me the fairly famous saying, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."

Mmmhmm.
I can agree with that.
And you see, I've been doing a lot of things differently in my life.
In fact, someone came into my life that gave me an opportunity to basically REdo my relationship with an ex-lover who ... well, let's just say our relationship was THE Definition of insanity. We did the same things. Over and over. And kept hoping it would turn out better, but always crashed and burned.
We had good intent, we loved each other, but neither of us could change our ways, our reactions to each others, etc, enough to get a truly different result, until ultimately, we had to cut off contact completely because we WERE DRIVING EACH OTHER FUCKING INSANE.

The past few months have been months of healing and recovery for me from that. Looking back and realizing what was not acceptable, what I could've done differently, what I should do differently if faced with the same situation again. What I wouldn't put up with again. What I should be more kind and forgiving about.

And then ... along came this new guy. I literally probably only knew him for about a month. But that month could've been a near copy of exactly my first month or so with the ex I'm speaking of.
In many ways, I saw exactly what I needed to do differently, and I did it.
Until my worst case scenario happened, and then without even REALIZING it, I immediately reverted back to my old ways. My old reactions. My clinging. My complaining. The blame-placing, the trying to make him see he was wrong, the beating myself up over "being so wrong" and not being able to trust my heart when something seemed SO right.

I'm not going to say I'm totally past that, but I realized over the past.. er... 24 hours... that the universe had given me the opportunity to do things differently. It never promised I wouldn't get the hard parts of this. It never promised I would get the result I imagined.
It just gave me the opportunity to do things differently. Because if I did, there WOULD be a different result. I don't know what. But different.

I'm nowhere near perfect. I preached "living in the now" and "changing behaviours" and "letting go of outcome" and "not having expectations" for a month. I believed it. I tried to apply it to myself but then I found myself hanging on for dear life, crying over disappointments because I expected something I shouldn't have... weeping over a future I imagined and over the past that I am still mourning.

Today, I promise myself to try to do better.
Tomorrow, I will start my day off by promising myself to do better. Again.
And the next day.
And I might fuck up.
But then I'll recover, and promise myself to do better next time.

It's odd because I'm watching the very person who quoted me this.. I'm watching him repeat something in his life that didn't work in the past.
But maybe he's doing it differently. Maybe he'll get a different result, I don't know.

And on the other side of the coin, there are SOME things I do and will continue to do that aren't wrong. I will continue to be kind, even to people who hurt me. I will continue to be forgiving. And giving. Even though it often results in me getting stomped on.
And I don't expect different results.
Sometimes I will hope... but I do not expect...
and I don't think that makes me insane. As long as I realize that other people may never change. They may never grow, or they may have a lot of growing to do to catch up.....
That won't stop me from
Being Honest
Being Kind
Being Loving

and scariest of all, it probably won't stop me from trusting, again.
I do hope that I'm a little more careful with my heart though.
And that others will be, too.

Maybe I'm crazy......
Maybe that's okay.

Right now mainly I could use a hug. I can talk the talk but right now I'm not walking the walk very well....

What Makes Your Life "Worth It"?

And for that matter, what makes YOU worth it?

What makes you "successful"? What ambitions are worth your time, money and devotion?

If you don't have material possessions, or a Ph.D, or a flashy job, was it a waste of your time?


Considering what I'm seeing from ... well, mostly the MEN that I've dated (which is just.. fucking messed up) but even a lot of women that I associate with.. if you haven't gone to college to get a degree for something that will make you a lot of money... if you aren't working at least a 9-5 office job... if you aren't driving a nice car and have a pretty lawn and a boyfriend or a husband.. if you can't put your kids in the best (or any) dance classes, soccer teams, etc...

Well, then what the hell are you doing with your life?  Apparently nothing worthwhile.

According to society.


Which would account, I think, for a LOT of the depression among mothers in the world. For the vast neglect of the needs of the small children of those mothers who are made to feel that caring for and being there for their children is NOT ENOUGH. It's not a good enough example (?!?!). If all you're doing is being a mom, then you are a .. failure.


And what if you're a single parent? I think the pressure is even bigger... to "make something of yourself."

Well, trust me, I have hopes and dreams, but have we become so deluded that we believe that raising children (really raising them, I mean YOU, not a nanny or a babysitter or a daycare) is not worth anything? That you are... "nothing"?

When I found out I was pregnant with my daughter, I was 19 years old, shortly to be 20. I knew as soon as the second line appeared that her father would not be involved or helpful.
I had a choice to make, and I made it. I made the choice to be grateful for her existence. To take joy in the experience. To never let it be known that yes, sometimes, kids are a burden. That being a single parent is fucking difficult and sometimes even soul-crushing.
SHE is worth it, and I was bound and determined to make the decision to show her that.
And I've done my best. You know how? Maybe in a different way than some other mothers, and I'm not here to tell you that if you busted your ass to go to college when you had young kids, or that you worked 3 jobs to get by that you were doing something wrong. We ALL have different situations.
But in my situation and my life, the best way I could be there for my baby was to live with my parents for a while, not go back to work until she was old enough to go for a few hours between breastfeeding sessions, and take a part time job close to home where I could actually go home and feed her on my breaks.

From there, when she was 2 and a half, I got a job waitressing, because the hours were flexible, and the money I could make per hour was far better than any full-time desk job I could find. Really.
I had people telling me I was "too talented" to be "slinging pancakes". That I was doing a job beneath me. That I should get an education and reach my potential.
Meanwhile, I was working 5 hours a day and spending the rest of my time nurturing my relationship with my daughter. To its full potential. Learning how to be the best mom I could be to her.
It was worth it.

I won't go over in tedium all the choices I've made over the past 8 years of my life as a mother, but I will say that all of them (as far as work, living arrangements, etc) were made with the best interest of my children and our family unit in mind. ALL of them.
Is that not worthwhile?
Does that make me lazy, unmotivated, unsuccessful?
Because that's what people are telling me.

Men are telling me, they've worked hard to become successful in their careers, in their lives, they make good money and are good at what they do, and they deserve a woman who is just as ambitious.

I want to say....
so here I am saying:

I have worked hard to become a good mom, and I continue to work hard at it every day. It is and always will be the most important thing in my life. ALWAYS. I have other dreams that I strive to work into my life every day. If an opportunity comes up to chase those dreams that won't interfere greatly with my life with my children, or damage our relationship, I take it.
I nurture my love of music both through work opportunities and by doing little things like taking voice lessons when I can, going to karaoke to keep away the stage fright and strengthen my performance abilities...
I keep music around the house constantly and it is something that binds my family, and has for generations.

I am good at what I do. I'm a good singer, I'm a good pianist. I get good jobs because I am a good pianist. I feel happy when I sing. I use my voice to soothe my children, to sing my babies to sleep. I use my hands to wash dishes and clean house and cook healthy meals and apply ointment and bandaids to scrapes and bruises, I exercise and dance alone when I can, and sometimes I dance at home with my kids. I use my arms to hold my kids when they cry and to cuddle them when we have quiet moments together.
I may not be rich or live in a nice house, but I work hard to keep the house I have in order, safe, and comfortable for me and my kiddos. I may not be the best accountant in the world, but I manage to keep my kids clothed and fed, and when I have surplus, I usually use it to take them to do fun things that will be treasured memories for all of us.

I am ambitious. I am successful. I have beaten many odds, I have fought severe depression, anxiety, PTSD, etc... alone. While raising two kids, alone.
And I have not failed, we are still fighting. We are still together. We are healthy. The kids are happy, smart, safe, and loved.
And as they get older and spend more time out of the nest and out of my care, as older children will do (*sniffle*), I will then spend more time using my hands and my arms and my voice and my body and my ambition and my brain to succeed in other things.

But when I am old and dying and looking back on my life, I know one thing for sure:
I will not regret spending these years being a mom. I will not regret being "unsuccessful" or "not ambitious enough" for the shallow minded men and women of this generation.
I will be glad that I spent the extra hours with my babies while they were babies. I will be glad I saw their first steps, and heard their first words.
I will be glad that even though we struggled financially, constantly, they always knew I was there for them and that somehow, I would find a way to take care of them. No matter what.
I think they will be glad, too. I think they would rather say "my mom was there for me. I have so many good memories with her as a child", than, "my mom had such a great job and a degree, and I only saw her for like an hour a day but she could pay for swimming lessons and dance lessons and soccer camp and expensive clothes and a pretty car".

I think.
I hope.
That is what I believe.

I also believe that in all actuality, a man or woman who doesn't believe that, is not worthy of me, and in fact, is not all that successful in life after all.
I won't be the one with regrets later, even if your comments and insults hurt now....
I will look back and be satisfied that I did the most important job in life that one can do, and did it as well as I possibly could. On my own, no less.
I have screwed up, I do screw up. I make mistakes. I have fallen down and had a helluva time getting up. I have had to ask for help. I still sometimes have no idea what I'm doing, except that I'm doing my BEST.
But any of you out there who haven't screwed up once or twice in your endeavors...? Let me know and I'd love to take a class or two from you.

I am ambitious, I am successful, I am driven. I'm worth it. My kids are worth it.

If It Makes You Happy (then why the hell are you so sad?)

So, sadly but somewhat amusingly, the relationship that I spoke of in my last entry is now over and done with. It was pretty sudden, but everything about that relationship was a clusterfuck of confusion and jumping the gun and being overly impulsive, but.. happy. For a minute.


A friend of mine (big time blogger Dan Pearce at danoah.com) once wrote a blog about how time is a relationship's friend. I will paraphrase it badly, but basically the gist of it was, we get so scared of things not working and WANT this happiness so badly that we force it, we jump too fast, we figure if we can lock things down sooner, then better, because then we're.. um. Trapped.




Yeah, trapped.. doesn't sound so good now, does it?


But the thing I've learned about life is that you're never trapped. If something isn't working, you can either try to fix it or you can let it go. If it isn't fixable you better let it go, or you're gonna be really unhappy.
When you have two people involved in the "will it work?" equation, then both have to be totally on board if you want to try to fix it. Obviously.
Or it should be obvious, but again, I've learned that people (ME) are silly and .. will try for ages to carry a relationship on their hope and love alone, when the other person has a foot or even both feet out the door.


In most of my relationships, one or both of us have had a foot out the door in some way. Maybe we didn't want to admit it to even ourselves, but we did.


I did it with my first long-term relationship.
The one after that, the other guy did it, in a huge way. And got me pregnant, and then had two feet out the door, running. And that was the beginning of me learning how to be dysfunctional in a relationship. How to have a backup plan at all times. How to assume that when a man looked me in the eyes and said he loved me, that was probably lying to get laid.




So, this time, I started the relationship with a foot out the door. And he started it without an ounce of trust. So the damage was done before anything got done... And we both just made it worse, day by day, meanwhile trying so hard to love each other and make it work.


We are both good people. We both really cared about each other. We both really wanted it to work.


But two good people do not a great relationship make, and here we are.


We lied to each other.. he went behind my back. He invaded my privacy, I broke his trust. He did things that put my family's finances in jeopardy, he lied when he told me everything was okay... he broke my trust too. The day I was ready to get my foot out of that door and be all in, he did some things that proved to me that WE would never be okay again.


I was so scared to let that relationship go, even though it was a weight on my shoulders.. always being watched, always being judged, never being good enough. I was scared because for the first time in years I felt like I was LOVED. I felt stronger because of it.. I got more done in that month than I've gotten done in a year. I was motivated and... mostly happy.
But I was sad, too. I cried at night after he fell asleep. We fought because he made me feel inferior, because HE was insecure.
We were the perfect mirrors for each other to see our own ugliness, magnify it in the other person and hurt each other, all in the name of "happiness".


The thing is... I'm not upset.
I'm a little sad, and I will be for a while, but this time, I KNEW when it was time to let go. And I just did it. Cut the ties and walked away and kept walking, and amazingly, instead of walking back into the arms of someone from my past like usual, I'm just walking ahead. Alone. And it's okay.
For the first time, I feel like I can do this. And I don't need to be loved my anyone but me and my kids. And we're okay.


We are okay.


I'm redefining my happiness, and it's kind of cool. I love learning lessons... I love finding out how strong I am. Even when it hurts.


I don't like this sunburn, I could go without that, but at least I won't forget sunscreen again. Like, ever. Ever.


And if there's another relationship in the future, I'm either putting both feet in or none at all, cause that's the only way to do life. All in.




Now if I could just get my house put back together.. I will be sleeping on the couch for a while. :-p

So Scary: Healthy Relationships after Dysfunction...

When unhealthy relationships become so normal, so par for course, that you actually begin to crave certain aspects of them...
well, that can perpetuate years and years of unhappiness.
It begins an addictive cycle like unto that of drug abuse, where the majority of the time, you are fighting withdrawals, pain, emotional and physical trauma, lower and lower self-esteem by the day, and trying ever and always to mold yourself into whatever someone wants you to be so you can get your fix. And you get your fix, and it's this huge, crazy magical high, and then the next morning you wake up alone and it starts all over again.
And you like it, for some fucked up reason. You love it. you can't get enough of it. And a "normal" relationship looks like .. boring. it looks like "settling". It's not psychotically passionate so it's not love, right?

eh, wrong.

Luckily for me (I can't believe I just said that), the main "target" of my dysfunctional affection (and I, the main target of his) was so unwilling to commit that we never got in far enough for it to be an outward, financially, life-habit-changing difference for me when we finally said enough is enough, and went our separate ways. For good. However, it was and has been one of the most painful emotional experiences of my life. I have been in pieces.

This was in March... though I saw it coming for months. And held on like the family of someone who is dying of a terminal disease... hoping and praying for a cure... disbelieving. In complete denial.

And so began a lot of soul-searching. And writing. And traumatic events. And revelations.
And all of it led to me finding that instead of 1 day out 20, it was more like 2 days out of 5, I was waking up and feeling like I could maybe LIVE through that day. Like maybe I could get up and take care of my kids. Maybe I could sit and hold my son on my lap and just bask in the moment instead of my head wandering off to places I should've kept closed and locked. Maybe I could listen to my daughter tell me one of her long "riddles" or stories without wanting to scream "STOP TALKING" just so I could listen to my own dismal voices in my head.

I was getting better.

I still missed him. But I was getting better.

And one night, this random guy I'd talked to a few times on facebook posted that he was having a hard night. His son's mom had effectively kidnapped him and taken him to live 6 hours away without even allowing him a goodbye...
He needed a friend. I didn't have my kids that night, and for once I was in a place where I felt like maybe I could be the one who wasn't falling apart. in fact, maybe this was my chance to finally lift myself up by lifting someone else, again...

That was June 7th.
Last night, we finished moving his stuff into my house.
in the middle of all that, we haven't spent a night apart yet.

I didn't know what was happening. I still missed my ex, every day. I still cried in quiet, lonely moments. I got scared, I had doubts, I talked to other guys, I tried to "keep a few on the line". I told people I didn't think this would last very long and I had jumped in too fast. I sabotaged.
so did he. We were both scared.

But what I KNEW was that in the middle of all the confusion, when I was in his arms, or holding his hand, I felt good. Happy. At peace. I haven't self-harmed for a month now. My drinking has slowed to, generally, a glass of wine or the equivalent (in wine coolers or something) each night before bed, or sometimes no drink at all. On nights out with friends (which are becoming rarer due to work) I will drink, but still not extremely heavily. I don't think I was ever a full-blown alcoholic, but I was using it as a crutch. And I don't need it anymore.

And I found that I was falling asleep easier. Fewer nightmares. I had moments when I was excited about the future.
moments when I would look at this boy and just smile because he was there.
Moments when he would walk in the door and I felt myself heave a sigh of relief, like... he's home...I'm home.


I'm not going to lie, I don't know what's going to happen. When I made the choice to have him move in, it was largely out of a need for a roommate. Yup. Financial convenience. But I also enjoyed his company, knew we got along, trust him with the kids, and we were consistently spending the night at one another's houses anyway. He had to move, so why not here?

Then one night, I passed out at his house, exhausted from the lack of sleep that most "honeymoon phasers" suffer from, and he took me and my phone to bed. My daughter's dad texted me at 2:30 ish am about some things we'd been talking about the night before, and thus, my boyfriend got to read every insecurity and every doubt and every assumption I'd made... he got to hear how much I still miss my ex. He got to read that I was still considering running off to California to be with my daughter's dad.

And the next day we fought and I knew it was over because I learned over the past ... 7 years? That in a relationship, if I screw up, if I piss the guy off, if we fight.. if something cracks, we throw it out. We don't even try to super-glue it before it gets worse, we just throw it out and run. Go find a new version.
And sometimes come back later after we've superglued OURSELVES back together and try again, until the foundation starts to falter again. And then we run. Again.

And then the rain started pouring... my utilities were about to be shut off. My car has been without insurance for months. My front tires were bald and one had a bubble in it. I have to start my community service for my "driving impaired" charge... the A/C in my house died THAT day (it was 98 degrees inside the house and 95 outside, with the week forecasted to be near 110 every day, and it only gets worse in July...). I was inconsoleable.
And I just wanted my boyfriend's calming presence, I wanted him there to tell me it would all be okay, but I had ruined it.

And then he called me, and he told me it was all going to be okay, and that I don't have to do this alone.
And he has told me every day... that I don't have to do this alone. And instead of throwing it away, we talked. We made up. We worked through things, we set boundaries, we compromised, and the cracks disappeared.

All of this is such unfamiliar territory that I feel like a visitor in a foreign country, where I know nobody, I don't speak the language, I don't know the laws or rules or how to act properly and not land my ass in a foreign prison. That's how weird it feels.
But it also feels like seeing something extraordinarily beautiful for the first time and having this weird happiness that I don't really understand, that doesn't come from the satisfaction of groveling and begging and changing who I am externally to please someone and finally getting a few moments of attention from them.. it comes from knowing the person I'm with accepts me exactly as I am. Faults and all, faults that he sees clearly and knows may be a part of me forever. He accepts me.
He works his ass off. He has 10x my energy and understands that and encourages me to reach beyond that but also doesn't cut me down for not being able to keep up some days.

He is a good man. One who's been screwed over, but who didn't let it turn him into someone who uses that as an excuse to treat the women he's with like trash.

For the first time in my life I'm "in it together" with someone. Like, really. Equally.
And at night before we go to sleep, I feel so right it's ridiculous. I wonder if this is what love is supposed to feel like. I wonder if this is the foundations that real, lasting relationships are built on.
I hope.
I don't ever let myself hope, but I hope.

Sometimes I wake up in the morning after he's left for work and look at the empty side of the bed, and memories of my ex fill my head. And it hurts. But most of the pain now is just residual pain, from the ways he tore me down, the ways he squashed my spirit and my soul... It's the pain of wounds almost healed, but that will always leave scars.
It's the pain of knowing how wrong something was for so long and wondering how I could have thought it was right.
It's wishing that he could have loved me back the way I loved him, but in the same breath being grateful that he didn't... because it never would have been like this. I never would have felt completely safe... And I  never would have been able to be me.
Or hope. It would've been a life of fear of the next disappointment.

It still hurts.
But I have someone that's willing to walk with me through the pain, and every day, I find a little more joy than the day before, and a little less pain.
I know that things will come up. We will disagree, we may fight. We may hurt each other's feelings. But we are people who fix things, especially things that are this valuable. You can't just replace a person, and I found one of the best.

It's a good thing. Love. The real kind.

And now I need to go try to get at least a few things done while he's at work. Eek.

Me, Stripped

Where to start, really?

I, without realizing how deep this would go, started a "fun" project a few days ago that has turned into a soul-changing experience.

I have long known and told people that I look like an entirely different (and "ugly") person without my usual "war paint" or fairly heavy makeup that I NEVER leave the house without, and often sleep in (mostly waterproof/smearproof) in case someone comes to the door early in the morning, etc. I don't WANT to be the person under the makeup and I don't want anyone to see her. She's somebody I left behind when I left behind being Awkward. Ugly. Unaccepted. Shy. Friendless. The weird homeschooled girl.

At some point in my life, I turned into the kind of person I can't stand the most now (have we talked about mirrors yet? I'll get to that) -- a chameleon.
I changed to please whomever I wanted to like me. I would be whatever they wanted me to be.
And I hate people like that. But whatever we hate in other people is generally just a mirror of the things we can't accept about ourselves.
OK, pretty much always. Case in point? My whole life.

Ask me how that's translated into my adult life and I'll tell you it's not fucking pretty, and it's caused me a lot of pain.

I'm getting ahead of myself, but if you read my blog you know how I ramble.

I don't think I QUITE realized that there was anything I really hated about my appearance (except freckles, I prayed for God to take them away when I was 8) until I started going to classes at the local middle school. Though we were all homeschooled, my parents encouraged me and my siblings to take extracurricular classes once we hit Jr. High age. Choir, Band, etc.
One day in choir, two girls who were fairly popular and well liked (and pretty) came up to me and said "you know what, you should let us do a makeover on you! It'd be so fun and you'd get to feel PRETTY..."
and they went on and on about how fun it would be to do this wonderful service for me.
At first, I was thrilled that these girls were even talking to me, as an insecure 12 yr old will be.... (and they were JUNIORS)... but...
then I got to thinking.

Why do I need a makeover?
Am I not pretty, and therefore they need to MAKE me pretty? I'd always known that I had what I felt was a very "Different" look from any of my friends (who literally all looked the same, and better than me in my eyes). I never liked it but I never thought of it as something I could change. I grew up wearing thrift store clothes and hand me downs. The day these girls approached me, I was wearing a button-up hawaiian shirt and black stirrup pants with a purple skirt attached. My hair by nature has a strange half/wavy half/curly style with what I call the "plig bangs" (you can only understand if you've lived near Colorado City) in front.
Really, really awkward.
No sense of style. No sense that I should care. .I was raised by people who taught us never to focus on outward appearance, but to judge people by their actions alone.
So I did.
Until then.

It was bad enough that I was shy and had no friends. I felt completely without personality. Because I had nowhere to express myself.
Now I was ugly too.
And didn't know how to dress.

From that moment on, I made it my mission to FIND a way to look better. I bought Cosmo Girl and TEEN magazines, etc, and hid them under my mattress (they were forbidden in my home). I memorized every beauty tip and trick I could find. I looked at the pictures of the models and memorized what "beautiful" meant to the rest of the world. I picked out every part of me that didn't match that ideal, and began hating myself, one body part at a time.
And changing myself, however I could. Or disguising myself.

Straightening my hair... drawing on eyebrows.... wearing mascara... finding the right colors to compliment my features... learning about makeup and concealer and getting my first job at the age of 14 so that I could buy my own peer-acceptable clothing.

I was still awkward, don't get me wrong. I didn't grow into this new me completely probably until I was 18 years old, and even since then my makeup style has evolved immensely.
At first it was about accentuating my good features and hiding flaws (mainly bad complexion, which having children has mostly fixed).
Then I realized one day, I didn't have to look like ME at all anymore, and oh, what a wonderful thing that was.
I could buy a pushup bra that would make me look like I wasn't a 12 yr old boy. I could buy longer shirts to cover the booty that I despised so much (but is my claim to dating fame these days, lol). I could wear short skirts to make my legs look longer, and wear heels all day every day (and yes, I did, until my arches collapsed, and then when the pain went away from that, I started wearing heels again. EVERY. DAY.)

I could pluck and highlight my eyebrows into the perfect (too-perfect) shape, I could use eyeshadows, liners, special mascaras, etc to make my eyes look bigger, wider, brighter. I could use dark lipstick to make my teeth look whiter (ha, what a joke). You get the idea.

Eventually I realized that the day I could look in the mirror and feel beautiful was the day I no longer looked ANYTHING like ..me.


And I just accepted that. I thanked the gods of makeup that I could finally be pretty enough for boys to notice and for girls not to be ashamed to hang out with. People started asking ME for makeup and style tips. People started telling me how amazing and captivating my eyes were, whereas the only physical compliment I'd received before all this, EVER, in my life, was that the color of my hair was beautiful and unique. Just the color.

Someone posted something on twitter the other day that stuck with me, and I think it might have kind of spurred me in this direction. It was (and I can't directly quote it because I can't find it now) "Maybe she's born with it, or maybe she was born ugly as fuck and is covering it with 10 lbs of makeup."

Since the birth of my children I have had to learn to accept some bodily flaws as a part of who I am, and something I CANNOT change.
Stretch marks, for one.
Stomach skin that will never be supple and smooth, ever.
Breasts that are smaller than they were when I was 9 yrs old, and somehow still manage to sag a bit.

And I've had boyfriends who blessedly praised my beauty, even with the lights on, even with all my stretch marks, even with all my flaws that I blushed over and tried to cover for years. They told me every inch of me was gorgeous and I saw that they were telling me the truth. They believed that.

But my face, I still could not accept my face. That's the real representation of me, right? That's the first thing people really notice when they look at a person. Their face. And my face isn't even mine. Not the one that I accept when I look in the mirror. The one that I try to ignore for the minutes until I can get it covered with the appropriate perfected makeup.

(as a strange but connected side note, I recently watched a movie called The Skin I Live In .. it's foreign, has Antonio Banderas in it. Don't watch it if you aren't prepared for a lot of sex and some very raw material, but it was a good movie and has also led me down this strange path of self discovery.)

How we look is a huge, huge part of who we are. If we didn't have our looks, whatever they may be, how would be define ourselves? What would be left? How would anyone know who we were when we came into a room?
(I could go into a whole diatribe about energy, because there's a REAL answer to this, but that's not what this is about. Yet.)

Over the past few years, everything else in my life has been stripped down to nothing. Naked, broken.... something that I cannot put back together as it once was, but a blank canvas, shattered pieces, to be built and painted into something completely new. Because it has to be. Because I'm ready for something better and what I had built was so complex and so unhappy and so fake that ... my soul couldn't stand for it anymore....

I decided to strip the last piece of that away.

And it's been a helluva lot more painful, and a lot more eye-opening, and a lot more of a huge, raw, bleeding wound than I EVER imagined. It has opened pathways of thought that I have closed myself to for most of my life. It has forced me to revisit and explore memories and feelings of complete inadequacy as far as my very being, my very essence.

I don't know who I am. I lost that person long ago. And I have an extraordinarily deep-rooted and terrifying belief that who that person is is not good enough, will never be good enough.

But I have to realize that she is. And I have to get to know her. And I have to let you all get to know her too.

And it starts here.

This is my journey of pictures so far this week. By now most of you know what I look like on a normal day, full war-paint on, hair done... I can be in my pajamas but my face will never be less than picture perfect. Til now.











It started with this picture, and I was just goofing off. Really.


I posted it on Instagram with the caption "do I really look THAT different without makeup?" and followed it with these:




I asked for people's opinions. And I WANTED HONESTY, because I was prepared to hear (and almost wanted to hear) that I looked better with makeup, and should stick with it. Yeah.No.I got zero comments on the makeup picture. An overwhelming response to the other, saying that I was beautiful, adorable, gorgeous, and people were stunned.
Still, I have to take this with a grain of salt, because it's me who has to accept that girl. And it's still very, very hard.But the next day, I took another picture before I did my makeup, and I posted it. Because the more I know people have seen me without makeup, the more I can just accept that they've seen it, good or bad.


^ I don't find that girl attractive.
But I'm getting closer to accepting that some people might.Or that it might not even matter if they do. (WHAT?!)
then I applied makeup, but only about half of what I usually wear, and posted the pic and asked for opinions again, as compared to zero makeup or my usual look:


Again, overwhelming positive comments, with a few comments about using more natural colors, etc, but that people were blown away by my "natural beauty" that I'd been "hiding" all this time.
Yep, still taking it with a grain of salt, and later in the day I did add a little more eyeshadow, mainly because my eyeliner kept bleeding onto my upper eyelid (who knew eyeshadow could help with that?!) Nobody said anything to me at work, but I don't know many people there anyway. I was dressed in workout clothes and old jeans so they probably thought I was just "dressing down" for our last rehearsal. Haaha. However, I DO think the girl in that picture is pretty.
Last night, when I got home, I washed my face. And that's when I really started to think about all of this. And I started crying, and sobbed. For hours. Over how deeply this has affected me, my opinion of myself, other people's opinion of me, my entire LIFE, events in my life, allowing abuse because I wanted always and only to be wanted and loved... that's been my motivation for everything. And through it all I have believed ABSOLUTELY that the real me, whom I had so successfully buried, was NOT anyone that anyone would ever love or want. Is not. Whoever the hell she is.And then I realized that if I ever fall in love again... and if that man falls in love with me... I want to be who I really am.And I want him to love ME. I want him to be okay with me painting my face to look pretty for a night out on the town but I want him to be just as attracted to me if my face is naked. If I'm not wearing a padded bra. If I'm bloated and my stretch marks are showing.If I'm acting like the 8 yr old girl who laughed with her only best friend til she peed her pants.Because that girl, that 8 yr old girl, holds the key to everything for me right now. She is the last remaining piece of the person that I am. She's my soul, and I left her behind.
And oddly I feel the need to apologize to her.To myself.to everyone...Because in believing that just me is not enough I have put something out into the universe that I have been trying to fight out of everyone else I know. But how can I, when I can't even love myself? Or find myself?
I'm so sorry.
I'm trying to fix it.
I admit, today, after only 2 hrs of sleep and a lot of tears, I'm back in full war-paint. I'm not completely ready to step back into that 8 yr old girl and feel that way again and start from scratch building "okay-ness" about the real me. It's the worst, most raw, most heart-rending pain in the world to go this far back and re-live the insecurity, the aloneness, the total rejection of my self. But I gotta go back if I'm going to fix it.
Bear with me. I think this is the start of something amazing. But it's not going to be easy.
How I Feel Today (for lolz):

A Question For the Masses Re: Dreams and Parenthood

ESPECIALLY single parenthood.

I know that a lot of married mothers (especially mormon moms - whom I was raised by and around - as it's soooo discouraged for them to work outside the home) sacrifice their pre-marriage/pre-mommy dreams to devote their life to parenting.
My mom gave up everything for us. She did music here and there but.... I often wonder, if she hadn't had 9 children and stayed home with us, would she be a big-time concert pianist? Probably. But her biggest dream was to be a mom.

When I found out I was pregnant with Sophia, I knew a few things instantly:

• I would vow to myself and her to be grateful for every moment, because she was a gift, even if she wasn't planned. It's not her fault that she was born into a single-parent home.
• Her father would not be any help, and I had to accept that I signed on for that.
• My dreams would be put on hold until she was school-aged and I felt okay about spending more time on "me" stuff.

this worked out fine. 

I worked very part time and lived with my parents until she was 2 and a half, and then I got a full-time job and moved out on my own (which started a series of crazy disasters in my life).

When she was 3 years old I met the man I thought I was going to marry. We moved in together, got engaged, and I was happily thinking that this would be my ticket to a little more room to "grow" into my dreams. 

Less than a month after we got engaged, and a mere few days after he cried "happy tears" at my 7 week ultrasound, (oh yeah, I found out I was pregnant about 2 weeks after we got engaged) he dumped me for his ex-girlfriend, kicking me and my daughter out of his house and back into my parent's house.

OK, sigh, dreams on hold again. I was still only 23 years old. PLENTY of time. Right? We even had to put some of my daughter's stuff on hold.. her dance classes. The trip to Disneyland.

Last year, we finally went to Disneyland. And I worked up my courage and went to voice lessons and got myself pulled together and went to several auditions, all of which tore down the confidence that I'd been building up all this time.

Other things transpired, tragedies occurred, life... just happens. Life keeps life-ing, and I feel that line, "head under water, and you tell me to breathe easy for a while" [sara bareilles] is my life's theme. 

This year, relegated to Keyboard II at a fairly prestigious local theater where I've been in the orchestra for 13 (yes, 13) years, I'm feeling the void in my life. Excruciatingly. 

My son will be 3 in July. I will be 28 in August.

I can't remember the last time I went to a voice lesson, or really worked on my piano skills. My job doesn't challenge me or even excite me. It's been years since they gave me "the good part". I just get to fill in string, percussion, harp, etc so they don't have to hire 12 other musicians. 

It's not that I can't do it...

I think they can see that I've stopped loving it too. And I've become a different (less alive) person over the last 4 years. 

It hasn't been easy. I lost my brother. I fell in love hard, with a few different men (not all at once, jerk), and they all broke my heart and stomped all over it like it was a bug to squish.

It kinda feels like a squished up bug lately.

My son has been a trial that I never, ever expected, after 4 years of raising a brilliant, obedient and sweet, even-tempered girl....

Now I have a brilliant, disobedient, blatantly contrary son with a MAJOR temper that drives him to senseless violence.

He's adorable, and I love his guts. But he takes up every second of my time, and every ounce of my energy + some.
I've had to deal with a car accident that totaled my car, and the physical recovery time plus financial recovery (still recovering), a bogus DUI, lawsuits, court dates, car repossessions, moving around, job hunting.. failures.... mind-numbing depression.

When do I have time to work on me?

People tell me, try to write music.... they say, my foot in the door will be turning my poetry into music and singing it for people. I'd love to.

But you wanna know how long my LONGEST session at piano (besides at work) has been in the past YEAR? 

5 minutes.

And 3 of those were me desperately trying to learn a song by ear while my son banged on the higher register.  

I gave up in tears.

Wanna know how many poems/lyrics I've written in the past SEVEN years?
Probably about seven. Whereas before, I could bust out 7 in a day, on a good day.

Even the little things.. Zumba, Karaoke.. stuff I really enjoy that keeps my body and voice in shape... things that I made sure I was doing because it kept my head slightly above water most days... I have to give up, for the most part, so that I can make a living, and when I'm not making a living, make sure my kids still know I'm here for them.

So, FINALLY.

My question is THIS:

Can a primary parent, particularly a single mom or dad with full custody, be both a good parent, support their family financially AND follow their dreams?

or is it just a selfish wish that I need to put aside?

Is it important enough that I'm truly fulfilled instead of just sometimes okay (if I'm lucky), that I should spend that much less time with my children, focusing on them?

Is it important for them to see me "go for it" and maybe fail sometimes, maybe succeed once or twice, so that they have an example? 

Because god forbid they don't follow their dreams. 

I want nothing more than for them to be happy. But can I do both? Can I follow mine and be enough of a parent to help them achieve theirs, and give them a happy life full of love and beauty?

Digging even further, do I need to... "redefine my happiness" and force myself somehow to be completely fulfilled simply being a mom, even though I think I was BORN with these dreams inside of me? I'm not throwing that one out as a possibility.

but... is it possible within the realm of any reality?!

lately, my brain is telling me no. Big fat fucking no. Hell, one of my dreams is to get married one day, and I can't even get out and date, so....

Right now I'm looking at going to school for women's psychology (if I can get enough grants/loans to mostly live off that and not have to work 2 jobs because that'd defeat the point).

It's sensible. I could get a well-paid job when I'm done.

It's logical. 

I might even love it. I have loved the idea, at times...

But then I think about how much I want to sing.... how much I want to be  able to do the things I see so many other people doing. And my heart sinks.

Please, discuss, comment? Suggestions? Anything... I'm really interested in opinions and ideas.

The "Duh!" Moment That Changed My Life

I had this "duh" moment a while ago. I won't call it an epiphany because it seems too stupid that I didn't have it figured out to begin with.


See, I've had a really, really difficult 4-5 years. It really started in 2007 but didn't really knock me on my ass til Feb/March of 2008. I haven't ever fully gotten back up.


And all along the way I've blamed a lot of people and things, and some of those people, I won't back down on blaming. They were assholes. They sucked. They did bad things to me.
Buuut.. in the end.... (and this is an epiphany I've shared before, so it's not what I'm writing about) how you react to a situation is the only thing you can control. The only thing.
I had to learn that and at this point in my life I know now that my biggest obstacle to happiness is MY OWN DAMN SELF.
Stupid self. IDK why I've been denying my happiness all this time, and I'm still not THERE, but I know kinda how to get there. I'm getting the idea. 


I'm a little slow. Sorry universe. It's hit me over the head with a few bricks to let me know I'm kinda dumb.


The DUH moment actually came somewhere in between this time last year and.. uh.. now. I'm really not sure exactly when it occurred to me, but when it did it really changed a lot of things. Like, I stopped losing friends all the time.
And I wasn't like that dumb angry bitch ANYMORE, whose anger and bitterness was only hurting HER. (Me).


"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned." - Buddha


Buddha was a smart motherfucker.


See I had this problem.


I'm single and I hated married people. Weddings pissed me off. My friends being in happy relationships pissed me off. I didn't want to see it, I didn't want to hear it. I mean, I had some legit reasons (you don't have time for ME anymore, jerks!) buuuut mostly it was just this:


I felt like if I can't have it, nobody else should either. Happiness in any form, but especially anything I really miss in my life or feel a void about. Relationships, money, fun, whatever.


And then I was thinking one day and realized that just because somebody else got something in life that I wanted, doesn't mean that it's taking away from my ability to get it. There isn't some limited quantity of happy relationships allowed in the world at one time. There isn't a limit on how many people can be happy in their job situation. There isn't a limit on how many people can live securely financially.


There isn't a set limit of people who can be fucking HAPPY. 


ummmm... DUH.


So, even though at first it was almost impossible, and I was mostly faking it, when a friend came to me with good news, I smiled and congratulated them. I tried to experience their joy with them instead of begrudging them. Begrudging their happiness certainly wasn't getting me anywhere before, and it hurt me a lot. It hurt other people sometimes. I'm really surprised some of my friends stuck around through me yelling at them about how unfair it was that they got to do _______ and I couldn't and they should find a way to make it work for me. Or that I didn't want to see them because their husband would be there and it would remind me how single I am.


Sometimes I still felt shitty. And mad. Like, why not me?
Sometimes I STILL wonder why not me?


But it's not their fault that it isn't me.


Duh.


And you know what? I'm a lot happier these days. And I find that when a friend shares happy news of an engagement, or a new baby, or a success at work, or an unexpected flow of money, I can actually feel happy for them.
It's a cool feeling, to love someone and be happy that they are happy.


DUH.


jumpropingjesus I'm a slow learner.