Namastay Outta Mah Face

In service of myself, I have to start saying a few of the things that pop into my head but I don’t let escape my lips.

When lab manager felt the need to touch me on my side to show me where his mother in law’s ribs had been broken, I didn’t say anything. Partly from shock and partly because I’m that girl that doesn’t make a big deal out of anything for fear of being perceived as difficult. 

Considering even having anyone in my bubble that isn’t in my tribe makes me nauseated, the touching thing is strictly verboten.

I should have said, “Don’t touch me, please. That makes me uncomfortable.” I was so shocked however, and he just kept talking and the panic that had momentarily sparked through my entire body had abated just as quickly as it came, so I didn’t say shit, as usual.

At my other job, I have a nemesis as well but we all sort of dislike her together. She steals sales from us and she lies and is generally just a shit head. She’s been in that department a hot minute longer than me but tries to tell me what to do constantly and dismissively. Not to mention, she’s young enough to be my child. I was headed toward a ringing phone once and she said, “No, I’ll get it. It’s for me.” So, I kept walking. 

Another co-worker asked if the phone was for HER and I said, “I don’t know. N said it was for her so I let her get it.”

THIS coworker said, “Oh, you gonna let her tell you what to do? N’s your boss now?”

Consequently, I find myself stuck between starting shit with the annoying coworker every time she tries to tell me something to do because the others are making fun of me for being amenable, OR telling the others that I’m a little too mature to start warring with someone over every little thing, which is actually how I feel.  I have confronted her when she’s stolen a sale because that’s money out of my pocket but when N throws a pile of shoes on the counter, she’s just priced and says, “Put these out on the tables.” I just grab them and do it because I know it has to be done. I don’t see why I need to start Bitchfest 2015 to appease everyone else’s need for drama.

Thus, the plight of the emotionally battered.  You are raised to be a wimp and a doormat, a people pleaser.  You don’t necessarily enjoy it, but oh my, are you good at it. You seek out those who will flatter and praise you for being their lapdog.

Once you realize what your life is becoming, you try to work hard to shed all those things and people who drag you down into such stellar subservience. You may eventually gain somewhat of a voice but it never quite surfaces in that moment when you need it.  You end up being a clown for everyone’s amusement but never daring to completely be the bitch you know you can and should be for fear that someone won’t like you, for fear of being viewed as a hysterical female.

While we’re at it, speaking your mind as a woman makes you a bitch, period. I’m going to just start owning that even though I’m still a people pleaser inside, I’m going to reserve that for people who deserve it.

I just have to find a way to walk the line, I suppose. I cannot keep popping a Klonopin every time Lab Manager makes me want to clear my desk and fling poo at him.  I’m sure there’s a way to calmly deliver my opinion even if it’s going to be an unpopular one. Maybe, it’s all in the delivery.  Zen bitchy.  I’m going to start that movement now.  Let’s get some T-shirts made and have a retreat. 

Zen Bitchy – How to tell people to go fuck themselves while remaining calm and centered.

Good Morning Beautiful

Good Morning Beautiful,

On this day, please remember that you have survived pure hell and you’ve survived it admirably. Whatever you didn’t finish yesterday or forgot to do, you can finish up today or tomorrow and if you don’t, who will really care? Take time today, take ten minutes…you have them, don’t tell yourself that you don’t…and meditate. Sit and breathe and center your soul.

 Find something wonderful and appreciate it, even if it’s just your first sip of coffee or your favorite pillow. Those moments of appreciation are the only true gifts we have to give ourselves. They make your day better and better days mean a life full of gratitude.  A life full of gratitude is a grand life indeed.

Dude, for the love of everything holy, do not beat yourself up if you didn’t get to the gym.  It’s okay. Eat that piece of cake that someone brought you. Cook a beautiful meal and enjoy it. Fuck that cellulite on your thighs. Put on a swimsuit or some shorts and go to the goddamned lake with a great book and a ridiculous hat.

Don’t give up on people and the world. Yes, the assholes are all out there and staying in bed and in the house with Netflix can be great but go.  Go and take a salsa dancing class. Go to a sporting event. Rent a lane and bowl some frames. Go to dinner, even if you have to do it all alone.  You are the best company there is.

Spend your money on experiences but obviously shoes and perfume are always a must. Learn to be spontaneous. Give of yourself without expectation of return and you will never go wrong. Forgive yourself because being human means being perfectly imperfect. Guilt and fear are useless emotions that will choke the life out of your life.

Remember always...

Image credit: brittanygarnerdesign.com

You are a beautiful soul. Don’t forget to nurture yourself. This is going to be a great day.

Love,

Me. 

No Man's Land

No....Just, so much, no.

I have been concentrating on not concentrating on dating.  It’s going fairly well except I feel as if I’m still pining a little bit for DJ. This whole falling in love thing sounds terrifying and always has to me.  Falling at all is an awful thing and so if there’s any more love to be had, I believe I’ll jump in or parachute or round house karate kick it in the face or something.

I’m still getting emails from TBone once a month on the regs.  I got a Merry Christmas text from DJ which I did not answer because the last time I let myself engage in any shape or form with him, I ended up sleeping with him and believing all his my baby talk and all the shit that made me crazy the first two times and then almost going on another drunken crying jag when he didn’t return my last text.

There is, however, a man in my office building that we must name, so ima call him Roberto or Bob for my own various reasons.  Many months ago, he began stopping by my office on his daily building rounds that he is required to do.  He began to tell me of his ex-wife and their horrifying divorce after 28 years of marriage.  One day, after he’d been doing this for a few weeks, he stopped and was chit chatting and out of nowhere began to sob….standing there in my office.  Uncontrollable sobbing. Full on, snot and tears. Anyone who knows anything about me knows that unless we are close, ima be standing there like….

So I said nothing.  I just sat, watching him cry.  He finally stopped and apologized and I assured him it would all be fine and it’s going to take a while to get over this and blah blah blah, pithy platitude, etc., etc.  He said thank you and invited me over to watch the game that weekend…other people are coming, it’ll be fun yadda yadda.

I said, “Sure, we can all use a friend and if you need someone to hang out with or go get a beer and I’m free, then I’m your gal. Sure I’ll be your friend, I’ve been where you are, let me sing you the song of my people and we can commiserate and be best pals and shit!!”

Always remember - No good deed goes unpunished. 

Showed up at his house for the game and surprise, surprise, no one else could make it.  I could see what was up by how nervous he was and I then began my counter attack.  I sat on the floor, ate a jillion wings and two jillion fries and bread and drank 4 beers like a linebacker. I shunned any attempt at being cute.  I burped, I was covered in wing sauce, I did everything but hold his head under a couch cushion while I farted into it. 

Bob, however, was not dissuaded from his woefully inadequate version of wooing. He was drinking two beers to my one as he told me every awful thing his ex-wife had ever done, showed me every text message of what was apparently a horrible divorce, told me he’d been ever faithful even though that meant he’d been celibate for the last ten years. He had become increasingly grabby and tried to hold my hand. No matter where I sat, he sat RIGHT NEXT TO ME.  I finally got up and “warmed” myself by the fire and then said…

“Bob, you sound like you’ve had it rough.  I know that you feel betrayed and heartbroken right now, but you don’t need a girlfriend right now.  You need a booty call, a hit and quit it type situation and this,” I said motioning to my own fabulosity, “is not it.”

He sat on the couch looking up at me…Did I mention that he’s shoulder high to me even standing up? I’m not a heightist and I don’t care if a dude is a couple inches shorter than me but I don’t want to feel like reverse Shaq and Laticia.

I digress…he sat looking up at me, weaving slightly from the 8 or so Keystones he’d guzzled. I continued to impart wisdom that I hoped sounded bruh-like, “You need to go out find a little sum sum and go on about putting the rest of your life back together. You’re not ready for a relationship and I’m not ready to nurse someone back to health as anything other than a friend.”

He answered in an affirmative manner as if he understood completely and wobbled his way back to the kitchen for another cold one.  He came back and started asking me about bathroom accessories.  In all his life, he’d never had to buy anything like that and omg what should he do?

I said, “Uh, go to the store and pick some shit out in a color you like, throw it in there and admire your handiwork.”

He laughed as if I were a comedy genius and I knew he was too drunk to reason with.  I asked for the direction of the bathroom which he handsily directed me toward; hands all over to direct me the 15 feet to the direction of the bathroom. I thought, This is it, he’s not getting it and I need to get the fuck out of here.

I texted the Gurl Child and told her to call me with a dire emergency in 5 minutes.  She did and the screaming that came from the phone was Oscar worthy. 

I was impressed as I tried my best to convey my worry to her and hung up and told him I had to go, right then.  He said….omg…he said, “Can you come back?”

“No, she’s pretty upset, I need to stay with her but I’ll catch up with you next week.”

He was “walking” me to the door and trying to hold my hand and grab my waist and rub my back in a ridiculous manner. I shrugged into my coat and grabbed the handle and that little fucker said, “Do you want to spend the night?”

I laughed…in his face, “No, not tonight, not any night. We are friends, we are not dating.” He then stood on his tip toes and tried to kiss me and I turned my cheek. He wagged his finger at me like, hahaha, nice move. He was too drunk to get that I was not going to fuck him much less even kiss him. I raced out into the rain and home.

Bob has not let up on his campaign.  I have repeatedly eaten like a stevedore in front of him, refused to let him pay for my meals…the one and only time we went to the movies, I rushed to get there ahead of him. I bought the tickets and made him get the popcorn and then sat in a Wednesday evening showing of Focus and sat next to him while he too loudly uttered….”SHIT!!!”  then, “OH SHITTT!!!” and, “Ohmygod, DID YOU SEE THAT?” only to be topped off by seeing Margot Robbie enter the frame looking flawless in a teeny bikini and hearing…”DAMMIT, BOBBY!” from my right.

I shrank into my seat and when the movie was over I didn’t even give him an obligatory hug, I just peaced out as fast as humanly possible.

He still texts.  He still comes by my office. He still breaks down occasionally. He’s still calling his ex-wife, the “bitch”.  I continue to tell him he’s not ready for dating and that we are only friends and he continues to try and be suave and debonair. 

This has been the only man in my life for the past few months and I’m quite content. The middle of the bed rocks.  I watch whatever I want on as many TVs as I want.  I haven’t shaved my legs in, well, I don’t remember when.  I come home from the gym in sweaty, awful clothes and take a nap in those clothes. If I want rolled up lunch meat and cottage cheese with a glass of wine for dinner, that’s what I have.  It’s great.

 No Man’s Land is hospitable for visitors but we don’t have any vacancies at the moment. 

A Minor Tremor

When I was a kid I was a consummate, fantastical liar.  We moved every year until my brother and I got to high school and I remember at about 9 years old telling someone that what a disappointment it was to move to this new berg.  I continued in a tone of complete bullshittery as I told them how distressing it was to leave behind my uneven bars in the back yard we’d had because I was really good on those things.  I’m sure I had watched an episode of Wide World of Sports on a Saturday after cartoons were finished that included some gymnastics and decided that I was going to the Olympics.  My fantasy life was rich and full as a child because reality was often just too shitty to reside full time there.  I learned as I got older you have to eventually start backing your bullshit up.  I quit lying on the outside.  I just continued to fantasize constantly about being a singer, a secret agent, a business woman, a race car driver but mostly I dreamed of being normal, someone who didn’t have to constantly make up an imaginary life to lie about, someone who wasn’t slapped, beaten, yelled at, belittled constantly, someone who didn’t have to make strategies at 9 years old to avoid being noticed.

In any case, I learned to be a person that internalizes and doesn’t say what she means or thinks or verbalize how she feels.  I learned to be the person I still am.  I am so much stronger, so much wiser, and so much calmer now.  I don’t cry at the drop of a hat anymore and that used to be one of those things that disgusted my mother and by proxy disgusted me about myself. Everything she hated about me, I hated about myself because she told me I should.  Too sensitive, too weepy, too fidgety, too stupid, too expressive.  I still, however, stay quiet and take heaping piles of shit and mostly from men because I was raised to do so.

I am visiting all of this because the experiences that you have pile up like strata, like a cross section of earth you find in a diagram in a geology chapter.  They layer on and build up and make you into the person you are and sometimes the layers make you stronger and sometimes those fuckers shift. The fight between all the good shit that you struggle to pile on against the bad shit that’s stacked up will make a fault line that will cause earthquakes. Those quakes can come and go, they can settle and serve to settle you in and they can also have aftershocks that last a lifetime. 

I signed up for OkCupid and Tinder.  Lemme just tell you, Tinder went down in flames real fuckin fast.  They all just want sex. They’re not shy about telling you that and what's more, they are stunned that you don’t already know that.  I met one good looking, tall, charismatic dude who took me out to breakfast and kissed my face off when he left me at my office and then he just got weird and then sexy and then weird again and I just couldn’t shake the feeling that something there wasn’t right and I quit answering his calls and texts.  I don’t know except that I have learned that those red flags are flagging for a reason, so I started paying attention to them.

Killed the Tinder after that and met (and by met I mean we did the message exchange on the site then did the number exchange a few days later) a beautiful bald, mustachioed gentleman who’s grammar and spelling and complete sentences whilst texting had me like Scarlett on a fainting couch.  His turn of phrase, his wit and charm and the fact that he didn’t devolve to sex talk made me giddy.  We talked for weeks.  He is law enforcement and had odd shifts but texted and we got to know each other’s schedules.  He got all my jokes and made me laugh and we talked late at night with sleepy voices and through yawns, under covers, giggling at each other and chit chatting about nothing and everything. I even gave him his own ringtone and notification sound.  I was getting fucking serious, yo.  The only hiccup in any of it was that he was 3 hours away.  We discussed that right off the top but we seemed drawn to each other and it didn’t matter.  We exchanged pictures and not naughty ones either.  He didn’t smile in any of his and they were all pics that had been taken by someone else and he said selfies were for girls and he didn’t do them. 

Then came the day he sent me a selfie, smiling, from work in his uniform.  More swooning and no flags.  I really liked him.  After almost 3 weeks, we did it one night … talking and then saucy talking and pictures and I’m not a fan of the phone sex. At all…but…it was fun.  It was racy and exciting.  Shortly after that though, I noticed the texts were fewer and further between that had anything of substance in them.  The talk at night was instantly rushed by him to talking about my ladybits and what he was going to do and blah, blah, blah, blah.  I found myself wondering if there was one man on this planet that wanted both things and then I thought I was just being too hard on him. I was yet again making excuses and second guessing my own feelings and motives because I had been taught that most of what I felt was wrong. I manned up and pushed the issue of us meeting to see what would happen. I broached the subject only to be answered with a long and windy text that said he really, really liked me and thought I was funny and sexy and brilliant but if we met in person we would not be having “relations” or a relationship beyond what was going on.  

Stunned does not begin to cover how I felt. Dumbfounded is more like it.  I sent a text that simply said, “Then what the fuck are we doing this for?”

Also...Fun Bobby

He didn’t answer for hours.  Stupid washed over me and I sat with leaky eyes reading and re-reading our conversation.  I felt duped and foolish.  This man now had pictures of my everything and dude, I mean everything.  Not that I put my face in that shit but still, I felt so fucking foolish like Romy waiting for Billy Christiansen after the prom. 

When he finally answered he made an excuse about having his kids on his off days and not having time for a relationship beyond what we were doing with his work and side work and crazy hours. I told him that I DID want that stuff and I thought that’s what we were working toward all along and he’d intimated those things to me and he knew it. I told him this just wasn’t going to work for me any longer and I didn’t answer another text or call from him. 

A week later, home alone doing chores and shit on a Saturday, I heard that ringtone I’d assigned…Don Juan taught me not to delete numbers out of my phone.  You end up in conversations you don’t want to have that way.  When the Caller ID warns you not to pick it up, it’s worth not having to say, “Who is this?”,  and then be drawn into a conversation that leads to you getting your heart broken, AGAIN.  (Read all about that HERE if you haven’t already.)

I looked at my phone dubiously and read, I miss your sexy ass.

“That’s all you miss.” I said out loud to an empty room but, dumbass that I am, I answered it.

I was just thinking of you earlier and wondering how you were doing, which shift you were on.

I get off at 3 today, what are you doing?

Just housework and watching TV. Nothing exciting.

Damn, I just knew you were gonna say, Getting naked and calling you at 3:30.

And that was that.  I was right the first time, ass was all he DID miss.  I never, never, never answered him again and he did continue to text until he realized I was over it.

Anyway…I reactivated my account and thought, ‘There’s one out there, I know there is.’

Let me just boil it all down for you. There’s not. I literally had a man sweet talk me and call me Princess and send me good night texts EVERY NIGHT within a week of our starting to talk only to have him quit texting and disappear completely for over a week.  Then he sent a text that said, Hey stranger and proceed to try to talk me into driving an hour and a half to meet him and spend the night at his house. When I told him I had my daughter home and I don’t want to be that far from her overnight in case she needed me, he said, Well, I have wheels dear. So I further made clear that there will be no having of the sex if he DOES drive in, he IMMEDIATELY quit texting. I didn’t hear another fucking word until a week later …. That motherfucker was looking for pussy and pussy only even after he’d been very clear to tell me he was looking for a monogamous relationship, a girlfriend, a companion. I, of course, have taken most of what he's said with a grain of salt but it still irritates the fuck out of me.  I’m sure he found some local strange in the week he had quit working me over.  I never answered another one of that asshole’s messages again either. I was not emotionally invested in anyone after the Popo man but I still had this tiny speck of expectation.  

It was handily snuffed however as I had a very similar experience with more than one of these dicks.  I don’t want a husband. I just want someone to share time and more than just sex with.  A shoulder to lean on, a soft place to land, once in a while.  The last few days and the big, black dark that I’ve been fighting showed me a couple things though. I’m not over Don Juan.  It’s not so much him as what I truly thought was there for us.  Lying in bed and not showering, hoping that sleep will overtake me at every turn, it became clear that all of this was just a distraction. 

It never fails to disappoint me though.  It never fails to make me so sad that they treat me the same way over and over and I somehow have a beacon that calls them to me, the cads and the scoundrels.  I have this hope that there’s a sweet soul that will appreciate me and what’s inside and will be just as eager to know my favorite book as he is to get my panties off.  I keep saying that I’m not going to worry about that and just do what I gotta do and then, well, then I get bored.  I decide the only thing missing in my life is some testosterone.  Of course I’m missing it but, why? Simply because it’s been a constant and not a good one most times?  I have to stop piling the bad side of the strata on.  I have to just build up the good side and hope the aftershocks are more like a massage chair than a 14 story implosion because the fallout leads me to the dark place, the place where I simply cannot move. It leads me to the place where I’m not going to the gym, I’m not meditating, I’m not doing the daily chores that keep me on track.

It leads me to the place where I hear the alarm and reach out from under the blankets to silence it over and over until my daughter is standing over me telling me it’s 7:20, asking me if I’m going to work.  I am still fully dressed in sweats and socks and shirt and bra from the night before and have neglected to set the coffee pot. I barely make it from the couch to the bed at 3AM.  I tell her I’m going to go in late because I’m still feeling sick.  She knows and I know that she knows but she says nothing and kisses me goodbye.  I send texts to work and roll back under the covers.  Wakefulness is painful a few hours later. I stumble from the bed to the bathroom, let the animals out and stand in front of the refrigerator and slug Coke Zero from the two liter bottle.  I let the animals back in and we all pile back in my bed. I am still in those same clothes from the day before.  I find something on the television, check my phone for fires and floods and hope for more sleep. Messages to friends checking on me with the where are yous? and the what’s wrongs? I say I’m not stellar but it’s fine. It’s all fine.  More sleep.  I wake hours later to repeat the cycle, bathroom, animals, refrigerator, phone, sleep.  When I wake up close to 5, I check emails that are pissing me off and finally I begin to feel something enough to get up.  I brush my teeth and get the laptop.  I fix all the problems and my daughter comes home to see me, in the same clothes, in my bed with my laptop.  I am so ashamed that it almost sends me back until she piles into bed with me and hugs me and asks do I want her to get supper. I hold back the tears and nod and she races off to get a pizza and some chocolate because she knows.  She comes and brings me chocolate and pizza and more of my precious Coke Zero right to my bed. She asks if I’m feeling better now and I answer that I am.

I am not but I must get up and make plans for a better day. A minor tremor derailed me for a day but I got my feet back under me. What will I do when she’s not here any longer? Who will drag me up from the big black dark? I am the only one that will.  I won’t have a choice, lest I leave it to swallow me whole.