Why the MIA?

As you can clearly see I have been MIA for some time now. And yes, the absence of technology at home does slightly hinder my voice (though the high-pitched squeals in my head simply refuse to cease…). Sorry. For both. Keep reading and you’ll understand why an apology is in order.

HOWEVER, I did stumble across another blogger last week who was celebrating the 4^th (?) anniversary of her site and I was greatly encouraged by her own admittance at the lack of content in it’s early days. There really IS hope?! (I don’t know whether to declare that a statement or a question.)

Thing is, I’m continually coming up with ideas and stories and “a-ha!”s that seem funny or poignant or apropos. And I remind myself that I MUST write about it cause, well, what the hell else am I hear for, right? Duhhhhhh. And then I make excuses for not doing it! And then time really does get away from me (like I think it is right now although I have nothing to do and nowhere to go) and then I finally and foolishly, yet vehemently declare that I’ll get around to it tomorrow!!! Promise. Cross my heart and hope to die! (BTW, can you say the word procrastinator?) Cause I’ll still know what I want to “talk” about and I sure as shit will have more time tomorrow and my thoughts will be slower and clearer because the voices in my head will be on their best behavior and the sun might be shining just a little bit brighter and the Heathens on my street (all 8 of ‘em) will most definitely be banished to the burrows of HELLLLLL leaving me free to travel the street at warp speed without fear of hitting one of the little bastards riding their goddamn skateboards in the middle of the road without any regard whatsoever for a fucking motorized vehicle!!!!!!!!!! DAMNIT. MAN. But I digress………….obviously.

And yes, I KNOW BETTER THAN THIS! Know better than to think tomorrow will be any fucking different than today. And you know why I know this. Seriously………read the title of my blog again folks. SICK CYCLE CAROUSEL!!!!! Over and over. Round and round.

I will have completely forgotten what I had on tap for discussion and instead will be tossing around 50 new ones. The voices in my head will continue to converse as loudly as ever (shut the fuck up already!). The sun will have taken a sick day, and YUP! you guessed it. The Heathens? Well, let’s just say I’m contemplating a live reality version of the long ago, highly popular game of Frogger! Video and all. I promise to share.

Then I go through this whole rigamarole of chastising myself for not following through and feeling guilty for depriving both myself and my readers (is it too early to think I have any?). Why do I find it so difficult to JUST. DO. IT? Over and over. Round and round. Now repeat after me….Instant….Gratification. Good. Good. You got it.

I’ve addressed these problems before (39 years and counting!) and it obviously hasn’t gotten any easier to wrap my hands around, never mind the brain. But I Promise (cross my heart and hope to die)! that I’ll get better at it and do it more often. Cause clearly the voices in my head are going to continue screaming obscenities at me, Mother Nature has a sick sense of humor and likes to mock me every now and again, and the Heathen’s don’t yet have a For Sale sign in their yard. DAMNIT. MAN.

Monumental Confession…

There was a monumental confession from an older girlfriend of mine the other night as she came clean about having been brutally raped when she was 21 and has NEVER told either her parents or her current husband!! It came out as we were discussing her fears about wanting to leave him. She’s known him since she was 15 and although she loved him, she was never really “in love” with him. They are polar opposites yet he seems to love her madly, although I don’t honestly know him all that well. She married him not long after the rape because she was admittedly (and rightly so) terrified of men. She felt safe being with him. And now, 27 +/- years and two kids later she’s wondering how she would ever be able to find someone new, much less date…period. Mind you she is 49 years old with the body of a 20-something and a personality larger than life! From my vantage point she doesn’t have to be concerned…at all! She’s very interested in other men and has been known to flirt just a little, but I have always noticed that the moment anybody steps too close or pushes too hard she’s quick to jump in with the whole “I’m married and have 2 kids, so back off but continue to let me flirt with you while you flirt back but please do so from a distance cause you scare me”. Now I understand why. That’s HUGE! But she’s trapped between wanting more and being terrified to seek it out. She’s no wallflower so it’s hard to imagine her not being able to step up to the plate and hit a home run the first time at bat. I didn’t know what to say. I was speechless. “I’ll be there if you ever want to talk”. “You can always come and stay at my house”. “Let’s get drunk and forget about it”. Somehow it all seemed so lame. I felt like she was looking to me…the “single girl” with no complications and relatively no baggage in her life…for some answers about “how to?” or “what do I do?”. I looked back with my own pleading eyes and gaping mouth. I didn’t have any valid answers to give.  

THANK THE GOOD LORD ABOVE (with every ounce of my being) that neither I, nor anyone I know, has ever been raped and had to go through the emotional and physical torture of it all. I hear the stories on the news. I read the details in the paper. I never can imagine the possibility of it happening. So, while the actual telling of her story was neither detailed nor long, it had a HUGE impact on me the rest of the night and still today (obviously ‘cause I’m writing about it).

Looking back, there have been soooooooooooooooo many times in my life when I know I felt that whatever hardship I was currently going through was sure to do me in and I’d never recover. Whoa is me. It’s soooooo hard. I can’t do it. It hurts so much. Sure, I’ve been hurt and had my heart broken. I’ve had depression. Family and friends have disappointed me and let me down. I always struggle financially. My career hasn’t flourished the way I envisioned. There have been deaths and divorce in the family. But all of that was temporary and recoverable (okay, except for the death part).

But NOTHING I have EVER been through could ever compare to what V was telling me she had been through and continues to struggle with to this day.

I felt so unappreciative at that particular moment. For complaining ALL those times and realizing that someone, somewhere, must have been enduring more than I could fathom while I may have simply been shedding a tear and throwing my very own pity party. My struggles and hardships were always temporary. I came away from every one relatively unscathed, sans a few emotional walls and smaller bank accounts. I’ve had no debilitating diseases amongst friends and family. No scandalous outbreaks. No financial collapses. No sleeping in the streets and/or having to beg for food. No loss of limbs.

That particular evening after I parted with V, I drove home in silence. As awful as her confession was I didn’t want it to leave my mind. I didn’t want to drown it out with noise. I wanted it to stay in the forefront of my thoughts to remind me of ALL that I should be, and AM, truly grateful for in my life. My life has not been “charmed” by any stretch of the imagination, but that night I felt like maybe I just hadn’t been looking at it from the right angle all these years.

I’ve always, as I believe most people do, looked at my life in terms of what I DON’T have and translated that into some sort of shortcoming. My name isn’t Mrs. Jones and nobody’s looking to keep up with me. I don’t have a new car. I don’t have cable or the internet. I don’t have a big corporate job. I don’t have the big screen TV or the blackberry. I have a no-name MP3 player instead of the IPod. I don’t have lots of money and always have to rob Peter to pay Paul. I don’t have a beautifully furnished home. I don’t have jewelry to insure. I don’t have a plethora of friends spread all over the globe. I don’t get to travel the world and party like a rockstar.

 

But what I DO have is tenfold.

 

I have family close by. Both parents and my older brother are still with me. I have the world’s greatest niece’s and nephew that love to give their auntie hugs and kisses. They let me pick them up from school and chaperone them on field trips and take them to the movies. I have great friends who are there when needed and know when to listen when I just need to talk and they never pass judgment. I have the world’s greatest bosses. I have a JOB that allows me to pay my bills! I have a great network of friends that I volunteer with throughout the year. And yes, I do have a nice house in a nice neighborhood. I do have a TV that lets me while away the hours unnecessarily. I have a phone that lets me stay connected. I have my health. I have my faith. I have my eyesight. And my hearing. I have my courage and my independence. And most of the time I have my sanity. But the most important “things” or “stuff” that I have, and for which I say a prayer for EVERY night are…..Food. Clothing. And shelter. I can close my eyes at night and sleep soundly knowing that I’m safe.

This alone makes me the envy of millions. Me? Me. Even with all my nothingness.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my material possessions but I’m not materialistic. I don’t need all that “stuff” and “fluff” to get by on a daily basis. Do I want them? Sure. I sometimes feel a jealous twang run through me when I see friends flaunting their newest fashion find. But they are most definitely, just “things”.  I honestly have everything I need. It’s not always the best, or most up-to-date. It’s certainly not the most expensive and many times it’s in need of repair. But next week that new shirt will look just like any other hanging in my closet and my phone dials my family and friends the same as the latest technologically advanced phone my BFF insists she OMG, HAS TO HAVE!!

So V’s monumental confession came as an in-the-face reminder of all that I DO have and how much she doesn’t and how many others may not. And even though none of these comparisons pertain to materialistic possessions of any kind, I now can honestly look at my life and say with utmost certainty, that I am indeed, RICH!

Truth Be Told…

I’m scared. I read others’ blogs and enjoy them immensely. I’ve been a lurker for quite some time and have always thought, “hey, I can do that”. But alas, I never have. I like the thought of writing and have witty conversations with myself ALL the time. But actually putting it on “paper” for all to read. Weeeeeeel. Not so much. That and the fact that I’ve never done it before. I’ve always thought I’d be a MUCH better editor than writer. Twisting someone else’s words around rather than creating my own. Yup. Much easier for me. Cause, what can I say, we’re all our own worst critics, right? And worse than me criticizing myself is the thought of someone else taking an opportunity to do it for me. Or at least I always feel like that’s what people are doing. Or thinking. Or saying. When in all actuality it’s probably NOT the case at all. So……….. 

Thanks to Big Smash and Tortious, my first commentors, I felt like I now had somewhat of an obligation to actually compose a little something and not just skirt around the obvious void that is my blog. You see, I actually set up the site just after the first of the year thinking it would serve as a kind of New Year’s Resolution. So I set it up and tinkered with it. And for anybody that may have taken a peak into it’s outer banks you’ll notice that I did, in fact, START. But I kept avoiding the obvious. It scared me, remember? I figured nobody was visiting (and I certainly didn’t TELL anybody) so I could take my time and get everything else set up all nice and orderly first so that when someone actually DID eventually drop by I had something to share. And now someone HAS, in fact, come a-calling. 

Another big hurdle I admittedly have to deal with is the fact that access to my blog, and the internet in general, is limited. See I DO NOT have the internet at home (by choice…yes you read that correctly). My main source of contact with the web is whilst at work. I am logged on all day but I am, in fact, working (albeit not hard at all), making it difficult to spend any length of time writing or tinkering. Easy to lurk. Not so easy to write. So to get any quality time clanking my nails on the keyboard, I do, in fact, have to either skip lunch or stay after work (and if you’ve wondered onto my “100 Things” page and read #17 you’ll understand that skipping lunch usually ain’t gonna happen). I do have access to my mother’s computer and, of course, the library (when they are open) but, eh. Sometimes more trouble than it’s worth. I have a computer at home it’s just not hooked up to the WWW. So I could feasibly write an entry and save it to a disk and bring it to work to upload but again, eh. I have a million other things I COULD be doing (read…doesn’t mean I do) around the house. Anyway… 

I’m not sure where this new seedling will take me or whether it will eventually blossom at all but I’m hoping it actually does. In some way, shape or form. On a GRAND scale (why not?). I know for sure it will start off with no real direction and for all I know it may continue down that path from now until forever. But I do know that my mind is constantly operating at warp speed and I need someway to ssslllooowww it down. Like now!! So many thoughts and topics are racing through my mind. One thought or word spurs another…then another…then another. And in two seconds flat I’ve got a bajillion “things” I want to say or talk about or explain. Then after I blink (blink, blink) I realize I have to reel my train of thought back to what’s right in front of me and finish. (IT’S HAPPENING TO ME NOW!!!) Then I sighhhhhhhhh and feel frustrated ‘cause I can’t do all of it NOWWWWWW!! I also like instant gratification, ya see. So I throw my hands up in the air and say “screw it”, time to throw this in my fuckit bucket, move on to something else and come back to this later when I’ve had time to slow down and think. Which more times than not, dudn’t happen, because I remember how frustrating it was the FIRST time I tried/worked with/did it. Unfortunately this pertains to ALL aspects of my life damnit! 

Which is why…………………I’m scared. Scared I’ll start and not continue. Put forth and get naught in return. Give up. Never finish. THIS is the reason I was choosing NOT to start in the first place. Skirt around the obvious…ok. Fill in the blanks…sure. Insert fluff…easy. But never commence to the actual meat-and-potatoes of it all cause then I’ll never have a chance to fail. If I never start. 

But I’ve been pushed over the edge by others whom I look upon with desire. 

This pretty much sums it up for me:  “The root issue you are dealing with is fear. The physical symptom is control. And when you cannot control, you get angry because of unmet expectations.” 

Did I mention I have issues? Thanks for listening. Hope to see you soon.