I give so much of me up
To those who don’t deserve it
(So much kindness to ones
Who end up selfish and shitty)
Knowing that they won’t change.
Yet I continue breaking off little bits of myself,
Handing off the smallest slivers,
Trying to fix their problems,
Agonizing over things I cannot control,
Hoping that one day
Someone will appreciate me
Instead of using me up.
–08/14/2018
I’m that unconventional kind of pretty, I suppose
If one were to try to define one’s features and retain modesty.
Sometimes I think I’m cute, other times I hate my reflection
I constantly feel too big for such a small person
A walking contradiction
Unsteady yet confident,
The girl who doubts herself in a room full of women
Who feels most like herself in jeans and a tee shirt,
At her best with just lip balm, mascara, and a smile.
I stumble over nothing when I walk,
Clumsy but certain.
Athletic grace has not once entertained me
Just look at my ankles as proof.
I stay up all night and wake up early,
Partly because life is so damn short
But mostly because I’m afraid to miss all the things the Muses have to offer.
I wear my hair up almost at all times
Because life has to be lived and I don’t need hair in my eyes.
I say things over and over in my head,
Because I worry that I’ll trip them up once I say them aloud
And I usually do,
Words have a way of getting stuck in my teeth like caramel popcorn.
I suck at guys, and am perpetually single.
The real world Liz Lemon.
I chew on the edges of my nails when I’m worried,
I make jokes to cover up my nervousness and thin skin
Because I’m a tough girl on the outside,
Who will never let them see how deep they cut her
And who keeps her insecurities inside.
She is braver than she realizes
And stronger than she believes.
Lazy but a dreamer
I’m a mom and a person,
A badass and a debutante,
Indie but mainstream,
Naive but jaded.
I might stumble but I’m never completely down
My glass is eternally half full.
–“autobiographie”, 07/01/2016
I turn 30 tomorrow.
I don’t exactly know how I feel about this. I keep wondering where the past ten years have gone, and I simultaneously feel as if I haven’t grown at all and like I am an old woman trapped inside the body of a 29 year old. My twenties were tumultuous to say the least–I became a single mother at 20, I had my heart shattered twice, lost friends who I thought would be around forever, gained new friends who are like family, changed jobs a few times, moved out on my own, struggled with an eating disorder, and am now somewhat content with where I am currently at. I like to think the first decade of your adult life really isn’t even about being an adult. How can you possibly be an adult when you don’t even really know what you want yet in life? I remember when I was in high school, thinking that I had my life all figured out–I wanted to move to NYC, live in a chic itty bitty apartment, bartend at night and go to NYU during the day and major in journalism…write witty and vaguely acerbic fiction based loosely upon my life in the Big Apple, and then somehow make it big as a writer and then singer. Naturally I hadn’t quite learned yet that life typically does not follow the timeline and plans that we create. I got pregnant literally right after prom (I always joke that I got knocked up during prom weekend), became a mom at 19. I tried college, but my head wasn’t in the right place and I didn’t take it seriously. I screwed up my grades and when I tried to go back at 20/21, I couldn’t afford to pay out of pocket and kept changing my mind about my major. Being a glamorous and clever New Yorker went out the window once I had my son. I suddenly was expected to be an adult when I wasn’t even sure I was an adult yet.
But I think being confused and realizing that you can’t live up to all the crazy expectations that we made as kids is a pretty common feeling when you are in your mid-twenties. I still don’t feel like I’ve got my shit together. I’m not good with money. I hate domestic house shit. I don’t fold laundry and put it away. I wash dishes with a clear sense of loathing. I make questionable school lunches. BUT I have a 401(k). Whenever shit goes south, I remind people that hey, I have a 401(k) so I must be adulting at an acceptable level. (It’s not even at the default 3% either, it’s at like 9% so suck it haters.) I’ve only ever had three jobs, which is either a sign that I’m reliable or something, or it’s a sign that I develop Stockholm syndrome pretty quickly. I kind of pay some of my bills on time and I do an okay job at grocery shopping. I buy yogurt that is trendy and hip and very low in sugar but high in protein. I read The New York Times and The Washington Post and talk about current events. I go to the gym and pretend that I like to run, but I really hate it and prefer the stationary bike so that I can watch Amy Schumer and pretend to ride majestically over tall mountain peaks. I sometimes post witty things on Twitter, even though I’m still not completely sure what Twitter is all about. I have a LinkedIn page that I never use but made because I heard it was an adult thing to do.
I wear sweatpants a lot and don’t wear makeup when I’m not at work because I’m not 19-24 anymore and don’t feel like the world is going to end because I did not put mascara on before going to CVS. I pretty much only wear eyeshadow when I make plans to go get drunk–which basically means that I go out with my friends, nurse one or two drinks all night long, and then proceed to make sure none of them kill anyone else or end up in jail. I’m so over hangovers and spending half the day slumped over the toilet bowl or puking in my shower. I’ve developed a general disdain for people that I’m not friends with because I have learned over the past ten years that you don’t have to like everybody, so I limit the list of people I like down to the ones who like me already. Making new friends is exhausting and I like to limit the activities that wear me out physically, emotionally, or mentally. I don’t pretend to like things that I don’t like anymore. I don’t hide my dislike of anything “lite”, “light”, “diet”, or “fat/sugar free”. I like food and I’m going to eat it in all its fatty, sugary, caloric laden glory. I drink whole milk because I like it. I still live for the sprinkled up sugar cookie madness that is the McDonald’s holiday pie every December.
I’m super single and I’m okay with that. I get my needs taken care of, but I’m not actively searching for a gentleman lover (haha I love using that phrase because it just sounds like something an old lady named Edna would use in describing her love life) to fill the void in my empty and meaningless life. I do feel a bit of a twinge of something when I scroll through my Facebook news feed and see photos of engagement rings and weddings and new babies…but then I remember that I have a 10 year old who is pretty awesome and I don’t ever want to get married, so I drink some wine and go watch a Vine about thug cats. Seriously though, I have learned that men are no longer a priority in my life. I have been single for a good chunk of my twenties, and for the first part of the decade, I remember feeling trapped and panicked and hopeless and lonely because I was alone and all my friends were getting engaged and then married. I felt like maybe I was a failure because I hadn’t met my Prince Charming who would sweep me off my feet and give me my happily ever after. I learned that no one can give you your happily ever after but yourself. I can make myself happy, I don’t need a man to make that emotion possible. I have been unlucky in love, but I have learned some pretty amazing things about myself along the way. I have learned that I am strong, that I have standards for myself, that I am not desperate, and that I have both self-respect and know the value of my self-worth. I have learned that even the most beautiful of men can be pigs, and that people will say and do anything to get what they want from another human being. I have learned that life goes on, you do meet someone else, and you fall in love again–it’s a guaranteed part of life that stays on repeat. I’m in no rush to settle down, I don’t plan on getting married, and I am proud of my independence. If I want that brand new Kate Spade purse, I can go out and buy that new Kate Spade purse. I don’t need to rely on anyone but myself and it’s an amazing feeling.
I feel prettier now than I did ten years ago. I remember reading an article saying that women are at their most beautiful between the ages of like 34-36 or something (it was an old Allure article) and so I’m looking forward to seeing if that’s true. I finally grew into my face, and thanks to me learning about skin care, I finally got this acne nonsense under control. I am more comfortable with my body and it’s curves and my face that is quite the mix of ethnicities. I still have those days though where I look in the mirror and wish that I was exceptionally gorgeous, that my face was a little slimmer, a little more soft, a little more delicate, a little more feminine, that my skin was clear and less oily, that my eyebrows were more fuller and didn‘t betray the over plucked trend that we all followed in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I wish that my nose was more slender when I smiled, that I didn’t have my mother’s strong and vaguely masculine facial structure, that I was the kind of girl that people stopped and stared at because she was that beautiful. But I have also learned that I shouldn’t care, because beauty is overrated. Mixed race kids are beautiful in their own ways because we are a fabulous blending of nationalities–my face is like the goddamn U.N. And the oily skin that I hate so much is actually helping to slow the ravages of time, so I guess I can learn to hate it less.
All in all, I keep hearing from my old ass friends (love you guys) who have already turned 30 that it’s actually not that bad. They say that their thirties were their best decade so far and that there is less pressure from society for you to be a productive adult because they already assume that either you are good at being a grown up or you’re a lost cause. You become more comfortable in your own skin because you realize that there are people who are going to like you and people who just aren’t, and there’s honestly nothing you can do to change their opinion of you. I’m down with a decade of giving zero fucks after this emotional hot mess of the last ten years! I’m actually pretty happy with who I am and where I’m at, and I can only assume that there’s some room for self-improvement. I don’t need to be sad about not being that super trendy and funny New Yorker who drinks Starbucks in Central Park and writes super successful witty and vaguely acerbic fiction based loosely upon my life in the Big Apple, because I can be that writer from Cleveland who drinks Starbucks at Edgewater Park and writes super successful witty and vaguely acerbic fiction based loosely upon my life in the Big Plum (a nickname I still don’t fully understand). I just need to get off my ass and stop procrastinating.
So…bring it on, 30. I have a 401(k) and I’m ready.
(Me at 20 and at 29–literally taken today.)
I think I do a pretty good job of balancing the funny and the serious here on this blog. In fact, I try to write more about the good than the bad because I feel like people don’t want to read about downbeat things…because no one likes a Debbie Downer. No one. Don’t lie and say “yeah they do” because no one really likes a liar either.
Don’t be that guy.
So anyway…I don’t think I have ever really posted about my son outside of cute anecdotes. I was so hesitant for a long time about even writing about him at all…but I felt like when I eventually did after not doing it for like four years, it would be the Internet version of being that girl who hid being pregnant by wearing hoodies for nine months and then showed up with a ten year old. It would be like “whoa, where did that kid come from?” and this is a blog, not Maury. I was even on the fence about using his real name. One of my favorite blogs, Diary of a Mom, uses two pseudonyms for her daughters. I considered using the name Noah for him, but fuck it…it felt weird to use a different name for him, so Nick it is. If he gets embarrassed about me blogging about him, I’ll just tell him that all moms embarrass their kids and it builds character. I’m all about telling him that the things he doesn’t like build character. It’s my mom thing.
Nick and I. He’s pretty cool.
So Nick has ADHD. He was diagnosed with it at the end of third grade. I went to a therapist and we screened him and sure enough, he had it. It explained all the things about him that drove me crazy–easily distracted, forgetting things (his homework, stuff for school, things he was told to do), jumping from task to task without finishing, not being able to focus, not finishing classwork, not listening when he was being spoken to, daydreaming, not following instructions…talking nonstop, constantly moving (some part of him would always be moving, even if he was sitting down), fidgeting, impatience, showing his emotions without restraint, interrupting conversations, and being unable to wait for things. Apparently Nick was the textbook definition of a child with ADHD. In fact, he was so good at ADHD that he wasn’t the predominantly hyperactive-impulsive subtype or the predominately inattentive subtype–he was the combined hyperactive-impulsive and inattentive subtype. He was also diagnosed with an aggressive behavior disorder too, because why the hell not? It explained his crazy tantrums and temper.
My son is a brilliant, funny, and sweet child. But he has a hard time functioning with his severe ADHD. So I decided to try both the medication and therapy routes. I love his therapist, Bekah. She is an angel. He looks forward to meeting with her and he says he likes to talk to her. I am grateful for her. Our family physician at the time of diagnosis until this past July (the clinic we go to uses residents, so we have a doctor for three years at a time) was amazing. She truly cared about Nick and his situation. We put him on Adderall, starting at the 5 mg dosage and then working up to 10 mg.
Anyone who has a child on Adderall or who takes Adderall themselves knows that appetite loss is a huge side effect. Nick was functioning well on the 10 mg, but his appetite was non-existent. Due to weight loss and the fact that he is 10 and a half and can’t afford to lose weight since he is bound to have a growth spurt soon, we had to lower the dosage to 5 mg for the summer. And of course, we lost our amazing physician in July. (Thank you, Dr. Kolp–you were such a great doctor. I truly appreciate everything you did for us.) I decided that we needed a permanent physician with all the things going on with Nick. We have an appointment with her at the end of the month, which seemed like an okay thing but I think I have to try to get a hold of her much sooner than that.
Nick has anxiety, and it first really manifested in the beginning of June with his first visible panic attack. We were referred to a child psychologist for it, because ADHD has a way of bringing their friends into the mix–in our case, it’s the aggressive behavior disorder and the anxiety. We are on the waiting list to go in and see the child psychologist. He doesn’t do well with crowds and this summer was hard on him. He is still taking the 5 mg of Adderall, and school started two and a half weeks ago. It hasn’t been a good start to the school year…the 5 mg is like him being off the medication entirely, and he is acting out in ways that are making me upset.
He has been losing his temper much more than usual, and has taken to punctuating his tantrums with swearing. I know that kids swear. I did it, we all did it, but you don’t swear at your mother or your grandparents. He got in trouble in school yesterday for not paying attention and for not finishing his work, and got a written warning for it. Naturally he forgot it at school (he has also forgotten his homework twice since the school year started) and decided to not tell me about it…and proceeded to forge my signature pretty badly. He then lied to his teacher and principal and got a phone call home and a detention to serve next week after school. I’m very disappointed in him because he should know better, yet it’s hard to be completely mad at him because I know that a lot of it has to do with his medication. I didn’t tell his teacher about his ADHD because I assumed she knows about it since he has an IEP–I’m guessing that was a rookie mistake. I will be writing her a letter tonight explaining his situation to her.
The next few days with be filled with phone calls to the new doctor, his therapist, and trying to secure a higher dosage of his medication. He is currently grounded until further notice. I am starting to feel the way I did back in the days before he was diagnosed–stressed, with a constant headache and upset stomach. It’s very hard to watch your child and know that he wants to behave but he has a hard time trying to keep it together. It’s hard being the parent of a child with ADHD sometimes not because of your child, but because of the community around you. I hate when people tell me that ADHD isn’t real and Nick is just being a typical 10 year old boy. No…he definitely is not. I want to put these people in a room with him when he hasn’t taken his pills for days and then have them tell me that his behavior is normal. I constantly have “Facebook physicians” telling me that I shouldn’t medicate him because he doesn’t need medication. That’s like saying we shouldn’t vaccinate our children against dangerous and infectious diseases. Cutting sugar and washing our clothes in plant based detergent (which is very expensive, by the way) and embracing a crunchy granola mom lifestyle isn’t going to magically make my son better. My siblings all have it to a degree, and I think that I probably have a touch of it myself. The best thing that I can do is help him to learn strategies for certain things in his life that are difficult for him to control, and help him embrace his strengths and work on his weaknesses.
And, of course, love him. I don’t let his ADHD define him or let him use it as an excuse. I tell him that he just happens to have ADHD, but it makes him more awesome than he already is.
I hope I didn’t sound whiny or dull. I really just needed to vent after this long, frustrating day. Thanks…XO.
My high school reunion is on Friday. Like…this Friday. I still can’t believe I’ve been out of high school for ten years–it’s mind boggling. I certainly don’t feel like it’s been ten years.
Well…that’s a lie. High school feels like a lifetime and a half ago.
I’m sure that everyone feels that way when they are in their late twenties. My glory days weren’t in high school–I’m not really sure what their start date actually will be, but I am trying to make the steps to ensure that they do happen. I feel sorry for the people who shone brilliantly in high school, like a comet that streaked through the sky, only to have never reached that level of brilliance ever again after senior year.
I was not that person.
(I was the girl who had a kid at 19, the girl who grew up infinitely faster than all my friends who beer ponged and keg standed the rest of their teenage years away. I have no regrets though, and even if I did, those days have long since passed. I’m probably much more awesome now than I was as a snarky, bitchy, witty teenager.)
I graduated in 2004.
2004.
Jude Law was named Sexiest Man Alive by People, Britney Spears wasn’t crazy yet, my jeans were low rise and were slightly flared instead of skinny. We were all watching the last season of Friends and everyone was shakin’ it like a Polaroid picture to “Hey Ya!” by Outkast. I attended Saint Joseph Academy, the only all-girl Catholic high school in the city. I spent my days in green and blue plaid skirts and white polos. It was a simpler time. Only a few of my friends had cell phones, and they were clunky and awkward looking compared to today’s smartphones–I remember they were only allowed to use them during the day for emergencies(eww minutes!), and we could call if we wanted after 7 pm, when it was unlimited free talk. No one texted at the level we do now. If you wanted to listen to music you used a Sony DiscMan, not an iPod. Those weren’t around yet!
I can’t believe I was 18 ten years ago.
I mean, I still pretty much look the same, but…man. Ten years!
I suppose high school reunions aren’t the same for my generation like they were for my mom and dad. Thanks to Facebook we can creep our fellow former classmates on the daily. We see posts of the stuff they have accomplished, pictures of their kids, updates about their lives–we don’t have to wait ten years to find out the dirt on everyone.
It should still be fun though :).
Two friends of mine got married today. I didn’t go to the wedding because I had to work, but also because weddings give me anxiety.
I know, I’m an asshole.
I’ve always been averse to marriage. I guess I just rebelled against the idea that good little girls grew up and got married and had babies and were good wives and mothers and that’s all that society wanted from them. I was always the girl who was the nonconformist, the one who marched to the beat of her own drum. I wanted to be respected and to be known for more than being just some guy’s wife. Mrs. So-And-So, like my own name didn’t matter anymore. The idea of being a Mr. and Mrs. Blahblahblah and losing the ability to be identified by my own last name freaked me out.
Disney, however, gave me the inner confliction of being someone’s happily-ever-after and so in a way I wanted all that marriage crap. I wanted to be loved and have someone who wanted to spend the rest of their life with me. In fact, all the way up until I was 20 I thought that I would fall hopelessly in love with the first guy I fell in love with and he would be The One and I would get married and BAM, happily ever after achieved. End level, character power up and max score bonus. Easy peasy, right?
WRONG.
Got my heart broken by my first “love”. Got knocked up and left to be a single mom. Got up after a few years of inner healing and got back in the game. I’ve never been a huge dater and can count my boyfriends on a single hand. Dating and all the shit that comes with it just never appealed to me. I guess I’m not the average girl. I don’t know. But I do know that I hadn’t found anyone that I wanted to spend the rest of my time on this planet with–and that I wasn’t buying into society’s shit about finding “The One” because it seemed like they thought they found The One and it turned out that they were The One Right Now But Not Really. You married someone and then got divorced and got married again and repeated the cycle as many times as you fell in love, thought you found your soul mate, fucked up, and started again. It seemed like a very expensive and painful way to date. Like a really unnecessary iOS.
And for some reason, I’ve always tended to gravitate towards older guys. Maybe it’s because my mom and dad are twenty years apart and made it work for the past thirty. Maybe it’s because I thought perhaps older guys had their shit together. I’m starting to think that maybe I’m wrong and maybe they’re as impossibly fucked up as the 28 and 29 year old guys that surround me on a daily basis. Maybe the older guys I dated are just out of the norm and are fucked up–like a defected version of an adult…or maybe as I’m getting older I’m seeing that we never leave behind our younger selves with all our quirks and fucked up-ness and immaturity. Maybe. I mean, I dated a guy fifteen years older than me and he’s as fucked up as my friend who just turned 29 last month. Maybe.
Weddings make me sad because they make me realize that I can’t keep it together in the way that society expects me to. I can’t keep a boyfriend, and the last guy I dated had me over the moon and completely and totally head-over-heels…like I finally saw myself maybe marrying someone. And what happens? Oh, you know…he just goes back to the ex-wife he was never really over who really really resembles me–and she lives a state away and he lives eight streets from me. I make them want someone six hundred miles away. Just the typical, usual, fucked up shit that happens in my life. If it wasn’t so comical, I think I would be really sad a lot of the time. Weddings make me think that maybe I’m just not capable of finding someone who wants to be with me and doesn’t use me as a pale imitation of The One that they never fully let go of. I think I make them want to go back to the The One They Never Fully Let Go Of. And then they put a ring on it again and spend the rest of their lives with that stupid person, while I sit around pretending I’m okay even though I’m secretly, quietly wondering what the hell is wrong with me. Le sigh.
I had a player at the casino today say, “You’re so nice. Why don’t you have a ring on your finger?” Well, Random Nice Player Guy, I am nice. I’m pretty damn awesome. But being nice and being awesome doesn’t mean that I need to enter into an expensive and potentially lifetime agreement with a guy, you know? I don’t think a band of precious metal and a rock measures my worth as a human being. I’d like to have a guy come up to me and be like, “You are pretty and funny and smart and awesome and wonderful and quirky and you are perfect just the way you are and I would be honored if you would like to share your awesome life with me.” Just. Like. That. No crazy baggage or brokenness or hangups or issues or fucked up-ness. Just a great awesome guy who is hot and funny and smart and isn’t hung up on their last girlfriend or ex-wife or someone they dated ten years ago. Maybe that guy doesn’t exist. He sounds a lot like a unicorn. Covered in hot pink glitter.
Yup.
Congrats to my two friends. I wish them many years of happiness and that this is the only marriage they participate in. Have tons of kids and cookies and anniversaries and grow old together and all that sappy wonderful jazz that they talk about a lot in greeting cards. Good luck!
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I made a list of things that I wanted to accomplish as a single lady. A badass single lady.
But nowhere near as badass as this.
But anyway, the first thing I decided to tackle (mainly because it seemed quite possibly the easiest thing to get accomplished) was #4 on the list.
4. Be moderately successful or even slightly successful at this online dating stuff.
Exactly.
Anyway, I have always felt that online dating (such as Match and eHarmony and Plenty of Fish) is for life losers. I personally do not think that I am a life loser, but hell, those people in those commercials look so happy and what the hell, I should get to be happy. Right? Right.
So I decided to try this online dating shit back in November because I obviously suck something terrible at the normal route of dating. I made a profile on Match and on eHarmony, and I learned something about myself right off the bat.
I am incredibly shallow. Yes, my last boyfriend was overweight, but he carried it well and had a good looking face. That offset the chubbiness. But you can’t have a jacked up face or be plain or be fat or awkward looking or any/all of that in various possible combinations/at the same time. I can’t be having any of that. I mean, I think I’m pretty.
That face.
I totally deserve a hot guy who is almost as awesome as me. And that man has to exist somewhere in the annals of online dating.
Or so I thought.
Well…optimistically talked myself into thinking. Because I am a bit of a realist and I think that online dating is just strange. But whatever. My friends told me that it’s not weird anymore and that people do it because they have hectic schedules and life is all digital and interconnected in the fucking global village and all that technobabble. I decided to keep an open mind and try to talk to some guys who seemed cute. So I tried the free shit first, but you can’t read messages or look at people’s pictures when it’s free, and as I brought up in the previous paragraphs, I am pretty fucking shallow. So I paid the stupid but cheapest possible fee that I could. Match offers a month to month option for like $36 (or something–I don’t feel like looking it up) and that’s kind of less desperate feeling than eHarmony, who only lets you get a full year for different payment options. That made me feel lame in all sorts of ways. Paying to look at people who probably either felt as awkward and lame as I did or were actually excited and optimistic about online dating because they had exhausted every other possible option. Ugh.
I should have listened to you, Lemon.
But I kept an open mind. Even through all the weird messages from the socially awkward creeper sorts who looked like they were socially awkward creepers in high school and the weird guys who “liked” my pictures and the icebreaker things that consist of random questions and stuff. I was kind of desperate to find someone wonderful to get my mind off my ex, who I still missed terribly. So I kept an open mind and told myself that I would find someone. Someone worthwhile. Someone hot and funny and not a weird creeper.
I kept up with this for two months. (I stopped the first time in December because it was a complete failure in my opinion. I started up again in January because I thought it was maybe worth another try.)
And then I found this guy on Match who was possibly the Holy Grail of online dating. He was hot. He was funny. He didn’t seem like a weirdo creeper. So I messaged him and we talked and then he said something that struck me as somewhat odd, but it was a legit question: Did I want something serious or just something casual? I chose to say that I wasn’t sure and that you couldn’t really know what you wanted until you met that person and could gauge the potential chemistry. Boom. Solid answer. Get me ready for The Bachelor now.
Actually…no. Fuck that shit. That’s like every single shitty dating site wrapped into one douchebag guy. No grazie.
He was all like “yeah that’s right, you can’t know until you meet someone” and I was like hmm…maybe this guy is legit? So I traded numbers with him and we texted and then…I get this little textular bomb: I’m just looking for a hookup.
Of course he was. Because of course. That would have tied in nicely with The Single Chick Bucket List #3: Have a random hookup/one night stand. But for some reason, that felt wrong. I didn’t want a stupid hookup situation. I very politely told him that I was past that phase of my life (because I am) and I wished him the best and that was that. I deleted his number and I stopped talking to him. I’m sure I could have kept slogging through the endless profiles and photos until I found “The One”, but shit. It’s not worth it. I don’t have the time for that and I couldn’t shake the inherent feeling that I have that it’s not really for me. It’s not. I hate dating, but I think I hate online dating even more.
So I deactivated my Match profile and cancelled my membership. I took that as a sign. I also took it as a sign that The Guy had the same name as my ex but spelled differently and he turned out to be a cretin. Shocker. I can’t delete my eHarmony one until November, so I just don’t go on it and I have all the emails from Match and eHarmony directed into my trash. I guess I will suffer through the stupid traditional way of dating…but not right now. This online dating thing reminded me that maybe I’m not ready to jump into the pool of quicksand that is dating and relationships and heartbreak. I have way too much going on for a boyfriend. I have a list of life things to get through and a dad who is super sick with cancer and a wonderfully fabulous nine year old and a brand new shift at work and a fledgling social life and I just don’t want that boyfriend aspect. I still somewhat want that boyfriend aspect with my ex, who has pretty much become less than a stranger to me and as sad and as pathetic as that seems…it’s true. And it’s not fair to anyone for me to pursue a relationship when I’m still kind of broken up over him. I will have my Netflix and my son and my family and friends and that’s fine for now.
I would much rather watch Mad Men in my sweats than deal with the awkwardness of pimping myself out per se to awkward men online.
And I had to pay for it!!!
So…
4. Be moderately successful or even slightly successful at this online dating stuff.
Man, it’s been a while. Like two months. I feel like we went out on a really bad date and then I decided that things were too awkward for me to like your statuses on Facebook, favorite your Tweets, or call/text you back.
My bad.
Fret not, kiddos. I’m back.
That’s right.
Shit got a little real after that last post I wrote about the Single Chick Bucket List (which I have been trying to get done and will start to blog about in the near future). Six days after that post was published, my dad was rushed to the hospital for severe swelling and leakage in his neck. He received emergency surgery the next day, and on Valentine’s Day (because nothing good ever happens on that fucking day) he was diagnosed with advanced stage throat cancer. So needless to say things have been quite the rollercoaster since then–with the exception of a week and a half at the end of February, he has been an inpatient at the Cleveland Clinic and its sister hospitals. Three weeks ago he had to have his larynx, lymph nodes, both thyroid glands, and a major vein removed from his neck–he has a trach and hopefully in a few weeks he can begin to try to learn to talk again with speech therapy. Once things settle down and he gains the weight he lost (he was admitted to the hospital at 115 pounds; he is 6’4″), he will start radiation. He is supposed to have a lung and bone biopsy in the upcoming days, and hopefully things slow down a little and the results come back good.
My dad has taught me a lot about strength in the past two months. The things I worried about in January seem so damn trivial compared to what we are dealing with now. My dad being sick really made me get over my ex–seeing him still sucks ass in ways that I can’t eloquently describe, but I changed shifts in the shift rebid we had at work and I won’t have to worry about seeing him except for an hour or two depending on my schedule. For some reason I thought that maybe my ex would come up to me and ask me how I was doing or how my dad was doing–his younger sister has stage IV cancer and I love her like the sister I never had, so I thought maybe he would show a shred of compassion. Yeah…I was wrong. He acts like I am invisible. So I had to suck that up and tell myself right then and there that his lack of being a nice person just shows that there was no point in being brokenhearted over him. I have learned to appreciate my friends and I love them all so incredibly much. The texts, hugs, kind words, and phone calls have all meant more than you would think.
But strength. My father has faced every step of this bullshit with a positive attitude. He smiles and cracks jokes and just holds it together for our family. I think maybe he always knew that this was a possible consequence of being a smoker for nearly 60 years. I did, but I never really thought it would happen. It has made us stronger as a family, it has made me stronger in the fact that I have realized that life isn’t a given. Things change. Moments occur that can shake our every belief and thought to the core. I laugh a lot more and I have decided to become more self-assured and more self-aware then I was before. If I don’t like something, I make it known. If I don’t want to do something, I don’t do it. I decided that you don’t get anywhere in life by shrinking back in the background and not making waves–I’ve always been an extrovert, but I hate confrontation and I hate hurting other people’s feelings. I have also decided that if I know what I want, I should try to figure out how to get it. There are no do-overs, no rewind button (old school VHS reference), no backspace. Everything is constantly moving forward and you have to move forward with it.
It’s like the Modest Mouse lyric, “And we’ll all float on okay”. We need to stop taking everything so goddamn serious and just let it go. Time hurtles on through the great void, with or without us…just stop worrying about the little things and let go.
It’s good to be back. I missed writing, but I figured that I would find my words when I was ready.
Quick Blurb:
I started a new shift last week and I’m adjusting to working during the day like a normal person. No more 8 pm to 4 am…I don’t know what it’s like to be awake during the day and asleep at night. It’s like the world flip-flopped itself on me. I feel more rested and maybe I’ll get more accomplished. And accomplished means more blogging, which is always excellent.
I just have to get used to it. Sunlight? What’s that?
So I got dumped. And fell into a depressive rut.
It’s kind of weird and liberating to see that typed out. Kind of painful too. But anyway, I was dumped by someone who I thought loved me and it made me fall right on my face…and then I decided that I would much rather wallow with my face stuck in the rug of despair than to get up and face the world like the cruel bitch that she totally is. I spent all my time outside of work sleeping to avoid the sharp ache in my chest and lost weight grieving for the relationship that was no more. I was a sad and emotionally lost mess of a person for a while.
I was a sad, depressive mess. I wasn’t even witty or funny like I usually am.
Time heals wounds slowly, and even though I’m still kind of sad and still really hurt, life goes on. I have some amazing friends, and they helped me tremendously. I figure I am one awesome, badass chick and if my ex-boyfriend couldn’t see that and had to go back to his ex, then…that’s his loss. I’m still beautiful and smart and funny. It still sucks for me, though. I’m trying to keep my head above water, and I am getting there, one day at a time. It’s even harder because I have to see him every day, but when life throws you lemons you mix those bitches with vodka and simple syrup and make grownup lemonade. And then proceed to drink a lot of it.
Screw you, shitty life lemons.
But anyway, I was inspired one night while on the dice table (the most random shit comes to me while I’m dealing) to make a list of shit that I can do now that I am single. Sure, I could have done it while I was in a relationship, but it wouldn’t help me heal and feel better about myself–nay, it would have just become more memories for me to cry over at 5 am. So I have jotted down little things in a numbered list (I don’t usually make lists, but when I do, they are either bulleted or numbered) in the Notes app on my handy dandy iPhone. I plan to knock these babies out as an awesomely single lady and make some amazing memories sans dude that I can look back on when I’m an old lady with no regrets.
Get it, girls.
I call it…The Single Chick Bucket List. I plan to blog about each one as I go, and hopefully I can add to the list as I go and cross off as many things as I can.
1. Go to NYC alone.
I went to New York in 2012 with my ex, and I would really like to create some new memories of my own. Plus, I had always dreamed of moving there after high school, but life kind of got in the way. I would like to spend a few days there alone just to indulge in my Girls-meets-Sex and the City fantasy.
2. Learn to drive and then get my license.
Little factoid about me: I don’t know how to drive. My parents sold their car before I started Kindergarten and they never bought a new one. I’m a boss at public transportation, but I have only driven a car two or three times, and I was kind of horrible at it.
3. Have a random hookup/one night stand.
This one makes me nervous. I keep reading that one night stands are the best way to get your mind off a breakup, and that girls should be able to have meaningless and empty sex just like guys can without feeling guilty. This one is a huge step out of my comfort zone, but I missed out on dorm life and parties and I hear that these things went down like whatever in college. And my ex is obviously having sex, so why shouldn’t I?
4. Be moderately successful or even slightly successful at this online dating stuff.
Ugh, yes I am attempting this shit again. If other people can have success with this crap, I should too. I still feel like it’s for life losers, so even if I have just a decent or funny story to come out of Match.com I feel like it won’t be a complete waste of time.
5. Take sexy photos at a professional photography studio.
So since February 2012, I lost roughly around 40 pounds. I went from 162 to about 124. I am at my post baby weight circa 2005. I have always wanted to go get those sexy little pinup boudoir shots done, but I always felt chunky and not sexy enough naked to be immortalized on film. I still catch myself stopping and staring at myself in the mirror when I get dressed because I can’t believe how amazing I look now that I lost all that weight. I feel like now I can get those pictures done and feel proud of myself.
6. Get my passport.
I have always had wanderlust, and I want to do something about it. I want to travel the world and see all kinds of wonderful things. I plan on getting my son his passport too in a few years and we can travel together.
7. Write a novel.
I always start, but I never finish.
8. Record a song in a studio.
I’m a phenomenal singer and I never did anything with it. I would love to record an EP just to have so I can say that I sang in an actual recording studio.
9. Go to Alaska/London/Ireland.
I would love to do all three, but I will definitely settle for Alaska.
10. Learn French or Italian.
I want to feel worldly. Spanish doesn’t make me feel worldly…it makes me feel like I had to learn it to graduate from high school.
11. Go back to college.
I want to get my bachelor’s, even if it takes longer than four years.
12. Be brave.
I’m non-confrontational, and I don’t like to stir up drama. I need to learn to find my voice and use it more often.
13. Learn how to finally play the guitar.
I have owned a guitar for years and never figured out how to play it. I want to sign up for lessons and be able to be that angsty-yet-cute musician girl at the coffee shop by my house.
14. Run a 5K.
I hate running. I’m clumsy and uncoordinated and I feel like I should attempt to run a 5K just so I can say that I can. Plus maybe I might turn out to get better at it and actually enjoy it.
So that is the list for now. I’m sure I will add to it, and hopefully I will achieve success to most of the things I have typed out. I feel like this is a great confidence booster for me and will help me to discover more of myself as a person. And maybe someone who went through a terrible breakup or some other horrible life experience will read this post or one of the others where I accomplish these things and be inspired to do something great too.
That would be wonderful.
Before you read any further, I suggest you click the video below. It will set the tone of this post…plus I really like this song right now and I wanted to share it.
Okay.
As some of you may know, I am 28. I graduated from high school in 2004. For those of you who aren’t mathematical geniuses, that was roughly ten years ago. Recently it seems like I just woke up one day and stepped out of bed and into the plot of my very own teenage drama on The WB (Does anyone remember The WB? It was the big sister of The CW…pretty much the same audience, but it was in the late ’90s and had less supernatural elements and more teenage angst.), complete with heartache and confusion and angst. Stupid angst.
So much teenage angst. Michigan J. was a frog full of drama.
I suddenly care about what people think about me and if I am invited out places and if people like me. I haven’t done that in ages. It’s like I went back in time to 2000 and suddenly I’m 14/15 again and doubting every single thing that I do or say. I feel awkward and like I don’t fit in. I’m starting to question who I’m friends with and if they are really my friends or if we are just friends based on convenience. I worry if people genuinely like me or if I’m just that girl who they invite to certain things because they feel like they have to. I am constantly hyper aware of everything I do and say and think. It’s honestly like I am back at St. Joe’s and it’s my freshman year and I want everyone to like me. I feel like I should be wearing a bunch of black eyeliner, straighten my hair, and pout a lot, a la Avril Lavigne circa “Complicated”/2002.
She looks so misunderstood…but that eyeliner is flawless.
I want no part of it.
High school wasn’t particularly terrible, but I struggled a lot with myself on the inside, as all of us did. I felt like I didn’t fit in, but I think I did a pretty good job of pretending like I did. I was skilled at smiling when acceptable, laughing when necessary, and saying the right thing so that people liked me. I had plenty of friends and was well-adjusted and liked. You would have never guessed that I felt alone a lot of the time and that my thoughts weren’t on the same frequency as everyone else–that I had an AM mind in a FM world. I felt like I thought about stuff that the average teenager didn’t think about and struggled with things that a lot of the girls at my exclusive, all-girl Catholic high school didn’t deal with–I had a lot of anxiety and stress. My dad was still drinking very heavily and gambling heavily and was rapidly becoming more and more physically, emotionally, and verbally abusive by the day. We were also getting poorer by the day–my entire freshman year we didn’t have a home phone and we used the pay phone on the corner to make phone calls (I did a really good job of making light of the situation and cracking jokes about it to try to hide my embarrassment). We didn’t drive. I struggled with an eating disorder all four years of high school. I had to keep everything that was going on at home inside. All of that made me feel like I was older than my peers in a way, that I was more mature than most of them were at our age. I felt like an old woman at times…but I was good at pretending. I cracked jokes and was loud and funny to try to hide the fact that I had incredibly thin skin and was constantly afraid that no one liked me or wanted to be my friend. I worried all the time that there was something wrong with me because I wasn’t preoccupied with makeup or boys or clothes or the latest trends as much as my friends were.
I had my son at 19 and that made me grow up even more. I didn’t go away to college, so I didn’t have the four years of drunken debauchery that most of my peers did. Because of my dad (who has been sober for nearly 8 years), drinking never really appealed to me anyway, and even though I am outgoing, large parties fill me with a kind of social anxiety that I have never understood. The older I got, the more I figured that none of that mattered once you were an adult because you were an adult and left all that childishness behind.
But I have realized that it is actually the opposite. You never leave high school behind because that is where we found ourselves and started to carve out our identities. I read something where it was speculated that we physically grow up, but mentally we are forever intrinsically who we were back in high school. Adults still have cliques and gossip and show off around certain people. The mean girls never leave the cattiness and bitchiness behind. They still have to be the center of attention and brag about how “bad” they are. The claws still come out, they still try to intimidate others and make them doubt themselves. The nerds are still as awkward as they were as teenagers. People like me still feel like they don’t fit in with the world and that perhaps they aren’t supposed to fit in. I have always found it strange that I can be surrounded by groups of people and still feel alone. I’m extroverted but painfully introverted at the same time. My skin is still ridiculously thin. I still struggle with an eating disorder. We all suffer from self-doubt and self-esteem issues and a lack of self-confidence and crushing self-consciousness. We all have a desperate desire to fit in and be accepted by our peers. We like to pretend that it went away after we graduated from high school and became adults because we don’t want to admit that most of us are just physically older versions of our teenage selves, because if we did, does that mean that we never really grew up? That opens a whole can of existential worms. If we never really grew up, does that mean that our parents never really grew up? That they feel the same way we do about life? That they are just physically older versions of their teenage selves who have just gotten really good at hiding their insecurities and fuck ups? Do they worry about the same things we do on a daily basis?
We all miss high school on some level because even though there were cliques and drama and endless teenage bullshit, deep down…we were all equals. We were all kids trying to find ourselves and find our places in the world. And in all honesty…we are still all just kids trying to find ourselves and find our places in the world. And even though going to the bar on my off days and getting drunk doesn’t appeal to me, I just want to know that my friends thought about me enough to want to include me in their plans. I don’t want to feel like I’m an afterthought and that I’m the odd one out. I don’t like feeling like I’m not included because no one wants me to be. I don’t like this do they/don’t they internal struggle. I’m tired of feeling 16 when I just turned 28.
That’s quite enough, Dawson. Can we change the channel?
“Your clothes are soaked and you don’t know where to go / So drop your chin and take yourself back home / And roll out your maps and papers / Find out your hiding places again…”–Lorde, “The Love Club”
Chasing Lala 