Friday, July 20, 2012

Little Rants

Little rants are ok if they help you to release whatever pent up frustration you may have on your mind. As long as they do not become and consume you. I was happy to get that off my chest and today, I choose to sit with happy music playing and writing about hopes and dreams for my life. 

I am hope and light, I am adventure and excitement, I am love and joy, I am peace and patience, I am ponies and rainbows and butterflies. THAT is who I am. 

So yes, I am done with my rant. I am done (at least momentarily) with reading all the facebook posts that make me unhappy. I am done with people who do not add to my life in any significant way. I don't need that. I need to be with like minded people. Not that I can't get through the difficult times. I just choose to minimize them and let them go. 

When you are in difficult times what do you do to make yourself feel better? I choose to listen to happy music. I choose to go and do something active. I choose to be around friends who make me feel better. I choose to make a plan to better myself rather than wallow in what is wrong - but make a plan for the future ensuring that it will be better tomorrow than today. 

Thursday, July 19, 2012

You're a fucker fuck you!``

  1. I was hurt. I wanted to scream fuck you to anyone who would listen. And most assuredly to you.  I wanted you to understand the depth of how much you hurt me. I wanted you to know that I had wrapped my head around something that I really couldn't have. I wanted you to know how much I saw that we had in common. But you threw me out like I was trash. I don't deserve that. And you don't deserve someone like me. You don't deserve a minute of my thoughts - but I can't make you go away. I am angry. I am mad. You have no idea. Fuck you fucker. Go away. I'm better than you. I deserve to be treated better than that. I am better than you give me credit for . You have moved on. I can't. I dont know how you did this to me. I am a strong girl and you somehow have me by some crazy-ass noose. NO. I don't go down like that fucker. FUCK YOU! How did you occupy my thoughts for a minute let alone the amount of time I have given to you. YOU said it yourself - I deserve more than you. Damn right Fucker. I am more. I am better. I am leaving you in my dust. G'bye. Adios. Never again will you cross my mind. You want me to take you down. I could. I have listened like a good girl. Yep. I hear every word, person and number you told me....I have enough to DESTORY you. But I won't. I'm not that girl. I'm not like that. I don't seek to destroy you. I really had hoped that happy included me - it doesn't so Fuck you and your whole mess. Fuck you and your thoughts. Fuck you and wherever you are going with this self professed happiness.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

We are all broken

We are all broken. We all bring into our spot in life some dream or hope that is somehow dashed by someone else, bad timing, or simply wishful thinking. 

But the question remains for me - do I fix the broken or do I take that to new heights and grow from that? Remain consistent with who I am and what I believe. I believe that most people are pretty complicated - but I am not. I choose to live by my true North star. 

The hope is that we can figure out in our lifetime what that North Star is. The star is not wrapped up in anyone else. The star is your own personal hopes and dreams. What you can do on your own. The people you choose to keep in your life. The people who you can be friends with. The people who make you smile. The people that make you cry. They all contribute to making you the person that you are. The person that you can grow to be. Offer only what you can give. Give with no strings. Give with your heart.  

Saturday, May 26, 2012

I wear the medal

When I first got divorced and I was navigating the waters of old friends with new relationships (That one friend that said she could be friends with both of us, that other friend that didn't say it in so many words - but was clearly on "his side"...).I had one or two friends that had already been divorced who said they would be there for me and help me through it. While I was thankful for their said assistance, I was really not sure how they would help me through this. Or what I really needed help with. But as my friend said - it is like when you get divorced you are marked and other people will ask for your help, they will ask your opinion and they will ask you what happened to you. Like the war stories of having a child, they would ask your divorce story.

For those of us who are parents, we know that each birth story is different for each CHILD not just each person. Divorce stories are like those of a parent. They are different for each couple. What may look similar to what you are experiencing my be very different based on the people that are involved in the situation.

I used to wear the divorce on me like Hester Prynne wore The Scarlet Letter. Like it was something to be ashamed of. Like something that had to bear my decision to be separated from my husband. That marked me as a single mom. There was even a new box to mark on my demographic forms.  I still don't really understand why it can't just be Single or Married - why an extra one that says divorced? It was like I was to serve a penance to society for not being what the world expected of me (especially in the Stepford Wives area I live in).

I have been able to help a few others navigate getting to a new normal. A new space that daily life looks a little different. But we manage together. We get through it with new friends. We get to a new place where we are stronger for the decision we made once and the one we made at another time. Yes, it changes you. Divorce is never fun. It is difficult. It makes you question who you are and where you are headed. It brings fear and depression. It springs forth a new hope. It gives me faith that if I can just learn to lean on my friends I could be better. Those that REALLY care about me will be there for me. My friends don't really know what to do to help me - any more than I would know what or how to ask. But they are there to listen. To dream. To remind me that there is a future - mine to define and choose.

But now, I see it in a better light. I see it in a way that I am able to help others. I see it that I am no longer wearing a scarlet letter that marks me as something not whole. But rather a medal - a little like a war hero. Yes, I have been through war. I have had to make choices I had never hoped to make.

I have a hope for my future. I may look different than the one that I had envisioned for myself. It is different from the one my parents have and the one that my sister is leading. But that I who I am. I have been changed - but in a way that I am proud to display my medal that says, "I'm a divorcee." I will keep helping those that need me - just as those before me did for me.


Perspective

I need perspective. Sometimes when I feel bad that I have nothing it really takes some time for me to get some perspective. I needed to just see the life the way things

I go back to the time that I  sat with someone at Ameristar Casino where she told me that the person she was dating was making "bank." I didn't know what that really meant. When i delved a bit further she said taht her honey that made bank was making $30,000 a year. I thought to myself that is not really bank. That I knew some people that were making move like $100,000! (but not me!) But then it was a total lesson for me on perspective. Where some people are struggling with money and others are not - is because their perspective. They spend within their means. They know what they can afford and don't spend over that.

I think about people who have much bigger problems in their life. Like where is their next meal coming from? Where are they going? They don't have the people to help them. They are not momentarily in a bad spot - but they are sort of there permanently.

I just wonder what kind of person I am? When all I want to do is crawl into my hole - when in reality. I have a lot going for me. I have an education (although I'm still paying for it), I have very little debt. I have a car and a house over my head - as well as places to go.

I have what I need with my kids. I have what I need with my friends and family. I have what I need because I believe that I have what I need. When I think that I don't have who and what I need around me is when I feel weak.The problem for me is to make you believe that you have what you need because you are strong. That you have what you need if you ask. You have what you need when you believe that you have all you need. I wonder where you are.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

I'm no GONNA girl.

I will not win any parenting awards for this one. I had a fun weekend get away planned to take my kids to Glenwood Springs, Colorado. There we stayed at a nice hotel and enjoyed the hot springs pool. The next day, I wanted to take my kids on a hike to Hanging Lake.

I had attempted the hike several years back, when I was still married to their dad and they had not been born yet. He had encouraged me about half-way up the mountain to stop and go back down. I think he said he was tired, or bored...or something. This was not something that (I would later find out) was not an unusual claim when he was hitting the "I just don't wanna" or how I eventually nicknamed him as a "gonna guy." He was always gonna do this or gonna do that or gonna say this or that or whatever the occasion might be but he was just always gonna. I have been determined since the time of being divorced not to rule my world by a bunch of gonnas - but rather teach my kids the importance of actually doing what you say you are gonna do. They are slowly getting  used to that (among other things that have changed since the divorce).

So the inital part of the hike is as simple as walking a bike-path along a river. It is simple and easy. But then the hike takes a turn and there are signs everywhere that say "be careful" and "strenuous hike ahead" and "Be prepared." I tried to divert the attention of my kids thinking that a twelve and ten year old child can certainly bound up a 1.2 mile hike no problem (I had seen them run in circles many times before and knew that the distance would not be a problem).  I made sure that we all had water bottles (and my daughter even got to wear the water backpack).  I had packed snacks. After all, I am a prepared mom!

At the first bridge, my son said he was tired. He is a mini-me of his father. I would not let him quit!  Football is his life and in particular, Michigan Football (another product of his dad's brainwashing I believe). He happened to have on his Michigan jersey at the time. When he started complaining... (and I'm not PROUD of this) I had had it. I informed him that the University of Michigan would not be proud of a quitter wearing their colors or jersey. And I told him that furthermore, a football player no matter where he went to school would not be the quitting type. They would work hard and do what their coach told them.

Apparently, my word hit the mark because he go up enough to go to the next bridge (bridges were for breaks I told them). At the next bridge he complained again this time louder and with more intensity. Like he wanted to go home. I had had it with him. I sat him down and said a few things to him... I told him that the last time I came I didn't get to the top to see the beautiful lake. That I had promised myself that if I had the opportunity to come back I would see it. That I expected more from him. He is just a kid with lots of energy. I told him that he had two choices: He could either sit there an wallow in sadness as his sister and I went tot he top (and it would take about an hour) and hope that a mountain lion didn't drag his carcass off or two - he come along. But he could not so and sit in the car. I wouldn't give the keys to a 12 year old. And Glenwood Springs was too far away for his dad to come and rescue him (it is about two and a half hours from Denver). Then I turned on my heels and said to his sister, "C'mon, Let's go!" She was torn does she sit with her brother? or does she leave him alone?

She chose to come with me. The other half mile up to the lake. She was awed and amazed at it. She thought it was so beautiful .We took pictured and enjoyed a cookie from the backpack. Then we figured that we should not take too long at the top. That we should find our way to my son.

Just as we were beginning the descent back down the mountain. We came around a corner, to see my son ambling his was toward the top. My daughter was so excited to see him she nearly knocked him over. I was proud that he had the gumption to actually get going and not wait for the mountain lion (ok, so it was a bit of a farce as a mountain lion would not likely come on a VERY busy trail like that - but I knew it would scare him).

The funny part about it is that he said there was on sentence that had kept him going. He repeated it under his breath the whole way up. "I hate you mom." I told him. I don't love it. But whatever it takes to get it done!

I heard him tell his dad the story of how he climbed up the mountain - no problem when he got out of the car as I dropped him off to his dad's house after the weekend.

Yeah, I'm no gonna girl. I will not leave my gonnas out there undone. I believe that I am a DO IT girl. I hope that I can teach my kids to be DO IT kids too. That even if they have to mutter things under their breath that I don't love - that they don't leave things out there undone in the abyss of Gonna Land. 

Thursday, December 29, 2011

When your kids don't love what you do

I have tried so hard to expose my kids to snowboarding and skiing over the past few weeks. Peyton liked the idea of it before she went, but now she does not want anything to do with it at all. I am not sure what has turned her off to it. Was it something her dad said to her? Was it something her brother mentioned?

It saddens me that something I have so learned to love. I wanted to share it with my kids hoping this would be a fun thing for us to do together. Something that we could do together. I honestly wonder if there is any way that I can get her to like it? I don't think I liked it at that age then either. I don't think I learned to love it until this last year. So how do I get her to see how fun it can be? How do I re-introduce it to her so she does not feel like she will be lost?