The Letter I know I Shouldn't Write, but I've got to get it off my chest

Yes, I called you Stalker.  Yes I was serious.

I could go look up the definition of stalker, but there are so many and they are so vague.  But Merriam-Webster defines it as to pursue obsessively and to the point of harassment  And that’s where you were.  I felt it was harassment.

You told me that Chris Coleman, the man who KILLED his wife and two sons for his girlfriend had the right idea.  You left comments here bashing your wife.  I told you I would contact you when I wanted to talk to you.  The fact that I didn’t should have told you I had no desire to have any contact with you.  You continued to text me, and leave comments here.

The final straw?  Showing up at my work.  Sitting downstairs, where I would be forced to face you and acknowledge you should I ever go downstairs.  So, for hours I stayed upstairs in my office feeling like a prisoner in my place of employment.

I told you as nicely as I could that I didn’t want to talk to you.  I told you point-blank that your treatment of your wife was deplorable, despicable, and unacceptable to me.  The way you talked about her make me sick and made me hate you.

I know that writing this now if pointless.  I know that now that you have ‘deleted my text number from your phone” chances are good that I won’t hear from you again.  But I can’t take chances.  I have taken all possible actions to guarantee my safety.  I don’t care how offended/hurt/upset you are.  This isn’t about you, your wants, your fantasies, this about my life, my safety.

Rigteously Indignant, yup, that's me.

It's the only picture I could find besides a book I didn't want to promote.

Wikipedia defines Righteous Indignation as follows: Righteous indignation is typically a reactive emotion of anger over perceived mistreatment, insult, or malice.

Last night, I swear Rod Serling was writing the screenplay of my life.  I mean, let’s be honest here.  My life has had more than it’s fair share of the bizzaro. (please hover over that link so you can see what I’m talking about if you’re not going to click it and go read it.)

People, some of my best writing is in the notes when you hover over a link.  Please, to get the maximum enjoyment from my blog, hover over the links. (and if it doesn’t work.. let me know. I’ll cut a bitch.)

So, last night.

I was supposed to go to The Lake after dropping the girls off with their dad for the week.  Ok, I *did* go to The Lake after dropping the girls off for the week.

And when I got there, I stepped out of my car and smack dab in the middle of Bizzaro World.

I’m not going to throw anyone under the bus here.  There is a whole lot of stuff going on that I don’t even know. (Like basically everything).  In a sentence, due to everything going on, I was told I had to leave.  Whether it was or was not my fault hasn’t been determined to my satisfaction.  Ok. It’s not my FAULT, but the drama centered around me, and I don’t know why or how, or what started it, or what the hell is going on.  I just know, that everything I thought I knew going into the weekend came into question last night.

Ok.

This morning, I get up (after driving home at midnight last night) and I’m pissed.  Not at anyone specifically, just at the situation in general.  And at not having any clear cut answers.  Which is the very definition of irony coming from me.  So, I send a few text messages, trying to figure out what is going on, where things stand, blah blah blah.

And basically getting my panties in a wad.

Righteously indignant.

I set about writing a blog post screaming at the top of my lungs (ok, posting in a very loud voice) how effing fabulous I am, and how I am awesome with eleventy billion sides of awesome sauce (inflated ego much?  I know, I can barely walk into my own house.) I was all like, Look dude, I got plans, I got dreams, I got a life I want to live, and I ain’t got time to wait around for you to get your shit together and notice how fucking fabulous I am.  (ok, maybe it was a smidge nicer than that, but clearly not much.  Once I get all wadded panties and shit, I go way over the top.  Yes, really.  Have you met me?)

And just as I’m about to hit publish, and just after I sent him a text that said “Your reservation in my life expires at midnight, either confirm it or lose me forever.”

He texts.

And I feel like a total asshat.

 

Best. Picture. Ever.

So, I saved the blog post to my drafts folder.  I scrambled like eggs to look like less of an ass via text message.  In other words, his simple text took me down a few necessary notches.

Sure I’m fucking Fabulous, and all kinds of awesome, but you know what?  I’m not the end all be all of someone else’s life.  Everyone else is busy living their life, dealing with their drama, their issues, their problems.  It’s not all about me.  While I’m on my soapbox preaching “I’ve got dreams! I’ve got plans!  I’ve got a life and I don’t have time for you to figure out if you want to be in it!” he’s living his life, dealing with his drama, navigating the potholes in the road of his own damn fucking journey.

I had to sit down and think about that long and hard… not all about me.  Since fucking when?

I took a step back and looked at this whole thing and thought “Who the fuck do I think I am?” and if I had gotten that text message from him? I’d have said  ci vediamo più tardi  (Italian for see ya later)  or even baciare il mio culo (kiss my ass).

 

Let’s be honest, I suck at relationships.  I’m the perfect girlfriend… on paper.  It’s that real life face to face shit that gets me all jacked up.  On paper, behind a computer screen, I’m awesome.  I can also hide the crazy.  In real life?  not so much.

I have no real ending for this blog post.  Yes, I know, I suck at endings anyway.  Basically there is no ending because there are no answers yet.  It’s just “it’s up to you.  You know what’s going on there, I don’t.  I’ll wait to hear from you.” kind of thing.

 

Comfort Zones: Who needs em?

This weekend?  Full of all kinds of lessons.

Britt wrote on her blog Friday about being ready and able to say “Yes” when opportunities arise.  Being able to grab the opportunity, being open to accepting it.  While she’s talking about herself being able and ready and open to accepting the invitation to go to Paris for a month, or travel the country for a year, I’m taking much smaller baby steps. But to me? Are just as profound.

For the past four years my life has been the same.  Live at my house Sunday night through Thursday night.  Go to work, send girls to school, dinner, homework, laundry, whatever during the week.  Friday night through Sunday evening?  Stay at Brian’s house. I never accepting invitations to plans with any of my friends from work on the weekends, because my weekends were spent at Brian’s house.  I never accepted invitations to anywhere with anyone because Brian is such a homebody that when he gets home from work, he doesn’t want to go out anywhere.  And going without him? Just wasn’t something I would have done. He would have gone with me if I had insisted, or he would have said I could go without him, but, well, I just never did.  That’s just the way our life was.  Homebodies.

Now, though, I don’t have anyone to answer to.  On the weekends the girls are at their dad’s, I have nobody else to consider but myself. I can go out with my friends if I want, I don’t have to turn down opportunities, or invitations.  I am free to go and do as I please.  And learning to step outside my comfort zone, (and my house) is taking some getting used to.

Take for example, last week.  I get a text from my friend Hateful Bitch, whom I haven’t seen since I moved to The Lou, and haven’t talked to nearly as much or as often as I should.  I will admit to neglecting our friendship.  So, her reaching out to me, makes her a way better friend than I am. Anyway, she texts she’s going to be down here in The Lou Friday night, maybe we could get together, hang out?  Turns out I’m taking the girls to their dad’s that night, and won’t be back until 9:00.  Ok, breakfast or lunch the next day?

Sure.

Come Friday, plans start to change.  And here’s where I have to step outside of my comfort zone.  Instead of meeting Saturday for breakfast, she asks if she can just come crash at my place.

Sure.

My house? Very simple. No cable/satellite TV, no internet, (and as of this past week.. no DVD player. We’re down to VHS here people. OLD VHS.  Like my television is almost never on now.) I live in a little hole in the wall town, and? I need to go grocery shopping.  I have almost no food in the house.  Coffee? Yes.  Food? Not so much.  Seriously.

All kinds of inviting and house guest ready I am.

Instead, she asks “If I get a hotel room downtown would you drive downtown and hang out with me there?”  Uh, let’s see… hotel, cable, internet, a bar…

HELL YES!

And that’s stepping outside my comfort zone.  Instead of going home after dropping the girls off, I plugged the address of the hotel into the GPS and drove downtown.  Something you should know about me?  I HATE driving downtown, but I will. During. The. Day. when I can see.  I HATE with a passion driving downtown at night.  Especially when I have no idea where I am going.  Add to that the fact that the hotel was three blocks away from the hockey game that just ended when I got downtown, and traffic was a clusterfuck.  I was way the hell outside my comfort zone. (I was wishing I had Brian because he always drove downtown at night. But if there was Brian, I wouldn’t have been at the Union Station Marriott, I’d be at his house sleeping in his bed instead of hanging out with my girlfriend)

And I did it all for Hateful Bitch.

Also? Other lesson learned? No matter how young and hot the guy offering to buy you a shot of Petron is… the shot? Won’t be worth it.  Petron will kick your ass. Hard. Especially when the bartender has a heavy hand and the shot? Is like three fingers.  Never shooting tequila again. Never.  (and nothing happened with young hot Petron shot buying dude. Nothing.)

One more lesson learned?  The Marriott at Union Station?  Charges you a fuckton of money for their rooms and valet parking and being right there at Union Station.  AND? Apparently internet.  It’s a fucking NICE hotel. And they can’t give you free WiFi.  WTF?

Aiming Low Does Good Spotlight: Mental Illness. This is My Story

The ladies (and Gent) over at Aiming Low are spotlighting mental Illness in their Aiming Low Does Good series. According to Britt, they have had an overwhelming response to their spotlight this month, and have decided to post links to other blog posts about personal experience with mental illness.

The truth is, mental illness still has a stigma attached to it, and due to that stigma, many people go untreated.  There is no shame in having a disease.  And mental illness is just that, a disease.

This is my story.

Back in May 2007, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.  My then boyfriend and I were having a huge fight.  Let me rephrase that.  I was having a huge fight.  He was sitting there listening to me say these horrible, ugly, mean, vile things to him, about him, and he never fought back.  He never said anything ugly to me, he never raised his voice, he never got mad.  It had all started because I had seen a message from a girl I didn’t know to him, on his MySpace page. (Don’t judge, nobody knew about Facebook back then).  And as quickly and unexpectedly as it started, I stopped. (The fight. Not the MySpace page. He kept that? Far longer than he should have.)  I literally sat on the floor, knees drawn up to my chin, and couldn’t say another word.  Not wouldn’t.  I couldn’t.

The next day I called a therapist and made an appointment to get help.  I sat in the doctor’s office that afternoon telling her “I distinctly remember hearing all these vile, horrible, hateful words coming out of my mouth, crying inside, and my head screaming SHUT UP! But I couldn’t. And then? That was ALL I could do.”  It made no sense to me.  I didn’t want to say those things,and yet, I couldn’t stop them.

Bipolar disorder is a chemical imbalance in my brain, and means some of the things in my brain don’t fire just right. But because it is a chemical imbalance that means that there isn’t a set course of treatment. Medicating bipolar disorder is a guessing game.  What works for me for 4 months, may stop working.  The dosage may have to be changed. Often.  I can be on as many as 5 different medications at a time, or as few as 2.  My brother says it’s like riding the roller coasters at Six Flags without the price of admission.  Also? He’s jealous I get to experiment with so many different kinds of drugs.  (None of them the “good” kind).

The problem with bipolar disorder is I never know exactly what is going to trigger a mood swing.  I can cycle from manic (very hyper, very active, agitated, easily distracted, full of energy) to depressed and back to manic again in as little as a couple of hours, or as long as months.  When I’m manic? I can clean a house, I *love* to shop (and my girls? Love to beg me to go to Target.  It doesn’t take much begging) and I can write a novel (albeit not a very good novel because it very seldom makes any sense. My thoughts are all over the place.  It’s like ADHD on crack.) If I am too far on the manic end of the spectrum, I am bitchy, cranky, ready to rip people’s heads off for looking at me wrong.  When I swing to the depression end of things… I want nothing more than to sit around in my sweats and watch movies and avoid the rest of the world.  Unfortunately for me, neither of those options work for me as a single parent.  I have to function, no matter where I am on the bipolar spectrum.

Bipolar disorder is hard to diagnose.  The depression mood swings are easy to see, easy to diagnose, easy to treat the symptoms.  Most people and doctors can easily recognize the depression signs.  It when you start to move out of the depression into a manic phase things get tricky.  See, manic?  It always fun and exciting and better than depression.  So when I start to go manic it’s like the depression is lifting.  I don’t realize there’s a problem, that I’ve gone too far, until I am very manic and that means not sleeping, and talking all the time, and can’t focus, and snapping at people.

What can you do if someone you love is bipolar? When someone hasn’t slept in days, or hasn’t been able to get out of bed for weeks, they aren’t in any place to be able to help themselves.  Encourage them to get help, offer to call their doctor, go with them to their appointments, help them be aware of their behavior and their mood swings.  Learn all that you can about the disorder.  Knowledge is power, and the more you know, the more you can understand and the more you can help.

I'm a guest blogger!

Back in January, Sassy Scorp posted she was looking for people to write guest posts for her blog.

I’m a self proclaimed attention whore, and relish the opportunity to meet new people so I jumped all over that.

Today? I’m over at Sassy’s Place, Single Mama in LA.  She’s a single mom like me.  We’re not ‘mommy bloggers’, and we both wish there was more of a single mom blogger niche out there for us.

In the meantime?  We’ll create our own.

So go read about my insecurities about getting naked with someone new.  Nothing like going to ‘visit’ a new bloggers place and getting naked all over their blog.

I’m klassy like that.

Bankrupt

Yesterday I hit my brick wall.  Yesterday it took everything I had to get up and face the world and the people in it.

For weeks now, it seems, everyone in my life, personal, professional, everyone I had contact with wanted/needed something from me.  There was a long line standing in front of me with their hands outstretched, laundry lists in hands of wants and needs they had that they expected me to meet. Not a one of them had anything to give me in return.

My emotional, physical, financial bank accounts?  Empty.  There just was nothing left of me to give.  I couldn’t muster up the energy to give a damn about anyone else’s needs or wants.  I’d spent far too long meeting theirs and ignoring mine and I was bankrupt.

Every request was met with my mind screaming FUCK YOU! even though I did my best to function and meet their needs YET AGAIN knowing there would be nothing given back in return.  Not a thank you. Not a smile, not a pat on the back, not a break, not an option.

Last night I splurged (to ease my guilt) and bought dinner for the girls. Took it home, asked them to clean up their mess when they were done, and I went and crawled into bed and shut out the world.  I had nothing left.  at 7:30 I was in bed and as far as I was concerned the world ended at the edge of my bed.  I pulled the covers up to my chin and drifted away to where nobody wanted anything from me.  That I could do.  That I could give.

Today is better.  Today I can find the words to say “Enough is enough. I can’t do/give that right now.”  Today I have the words to say ‘I need this from you.”  Words I had forgotten/refused to use in the past, I am finding I have to use today.

It will take a few more days to get back to my usual self but I’ll get there.  I will do what I can for you, I will give what I can, but understand it won’t be everything.  I just can’t do that any more.

Jail Chronicles, Chapter 3

Deputy Sourpuss walks me downstairs. At least he didn’t cuff me. The whole time I’m telling him it’s their mistake and I’m being punished for their incompetence. Yes, I realize I was winning brownie points with him hand over fist with this argument. I’m sure he’d heard every excuse in the book. It’s never the ‘criminal’s’ fault. They are always innocent. I was nobody special to him. And from his demeanor, that fact was loud and clear. I could have been tap dancing naked in front of him and I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have noticed.

He walks me into booking at the Warren Co. Jail. I’m pissed and shocked. I’m ready to scream, and I’m calling everyone around me a fucking liar. For the first time in my entire life I feel betrayed by “the Man”. As far as I’m concerned, it is all *their* fault I’m in booking. If only I had remembered to bring the paperwork I had at home showing my court date to be May 6^th 2008, none of this would be happening to me. I was very calm and polite when I explained the confusion and mix-up to Brandon as they booked me in.

I had learned in the past, that if you’re polite and calm and talk to the officers, making them see you as a person and not a ‘criminal’ then they are more likely to relax some of the regulations. I needed them to do just that, relax the regulations. I knew I needed my cell phone as a life line out of that place and sucking up to all the officers on duty in booking that morning would get that for me. Also, in sucking up to them, it made them see me as a person, and it helped to calm the anxiety I was feeling and hold off the panic attack. It was a win win win situation for me.

As they booked me in, taking mug shots, finger prints I asked them about their family? Kids? Wife? Husband? Pet? Anything to make them more human to me, and me more human with feelings to the. It worked. I was never handcuffed. I was never searched. I was never patted down. Aside from fingerprinting I was never touched. They even shared their Pepsi with me. I was allowed to keep my clothes and my shoes and my cell phone with me the entire time. I was free to walk around the booking area and we all talked and joked around while we waited for the money to arrive to cover my bail.

It was a court day (just not *MY* court date) so all day long there were groups of inmates coming though booking to be taken to court. That meant being brought down from the pods, and shackled for transportation. Shackled for them meant wrist cuffs, chained to their waists, and ankle cuffs. Not pretty. When they would bring a group of inmates down for court, I was put into a visitation room or a holding cell for safety. Sometimes I was allowed to stay in booking and talk with the inmates on their way to court.

It fascinated me to listen to their stories. How they ended up in jail, for how long. They are so matter-of-fact about their life, their jail time, their prison sentence, it’s like they are going to school. Some of these people grew up in the court system. It’s the only life they have ever known. They’re mom and dad are in jail or prison. It’s like they can see no other option. Jail is just a fact of life for them. In all honesty, they know the jail and prison system better than any lawyer out there. They know what they can expect, how long they will be there. And they just patiently do their time, knowing it’s the price they have to pay for the life they live on the outside.

Around noon my bail shows up. I’ll end up missing a whole day of work over this, but at least I’ll be out and at home tonight and the girls won’t know anything more than Mom took off work early. The CO’s do the out-processing paperwork. Sign here, and they call for a ’29’ which checks for any other outstanding warrants anywhere.

All of a sudden I can sense the wall of ice going up between me and the Co’s who, just an hour before, had shared their soda and their pizza. The smiles fade, the laugher dies, and all of a sudden I’m no longer one of them, or even a ‘just waiting for bail’. I’m Them. The pseudo friendship I had struck up with the 3 CO’s on duty that day was no longer valid. Four warrants out of Lincoln County appear out of nowhere. I am blindsided by them. Freedom, which was just a signature away is suddenly out of my reach. My fate is sealed.

The charges? Minor. The Bail? UInreasonable. All unchangeable. I’m not going home any time soon.