It's my birthday

Masquerade!
Paper faces on parade.
Masquerade!
Hide your face so the world will never find you.
Masquerade!
Every face a different shade.
Masquerade!
Look around, there's another mask behind you.

Birthdays and other such nonsense

September 10, 2015

At work again, lunch break.  This seems to be the only time I can carve out to write.  I was off yesterday, home with my little monster all day.  Didn’t get much done, didn’t even really get to nap because I was focused on him all day.  Well him and TV but I can usually get stuff done while I watch television but not while I’m holding him.  I have aMoby wrap which I actually like but the AC is still broken so going around with him strapped to me with all that fabric is not an option because the house is just too damn hot.  I managed to straighten up a little here and there, threw in a load of laundry but for the most part I sat on the catch with little man all day watching whatever.  I had intended to be out and about for at least the first part of the day.  I needed to go to my job because I left my debit card in my lab coat and from there I was headed to my Momma’s house to get her BJs card so I could get some formula and other essentials. Problem was I didn’t have any gas, definitely not enough to get all the way to my job and then to the gas station.  I was reluctant to transfer money to the joint account that I do have a debit card for.  I ended up doing that anyway several hours later.  Not sure why I waited to so long.  Around 5pm I gathered little man and myself up, picked up the girl and finally went to run my errands.

Tomorrow is my birthday.  I’ll be 37 years old.  Not quite sure how I feel about that.  I’ve always loved my birthday but I’m at a point that I’m kind of indifferent.  Maybe I’ll care when I turn 40.  I am painfully aware of my age.  The number of years I’ve been on this earth troubles me only in light of how little I feel I’ve accomplished.  I have 3 awesome children whom I love with all my heart but their existence was really more good fortune than an actual accomplishment.  True, my oldest is in college and doing well by most accounts, still I don’t feel I can take credit for that.  His success in life is more of a blessing from God than a human achievement, at least from my perspective.  I know I made more than enough mistakes raising him to have ruined him completely.  It has been God’s grace and mercy keeping both of us. 

So I’m scheduled to work on my birthday, even though it falls on a Friday.  I’m working the next day too.  Eh, I just didn’t feel it required any time off.  The husband is planning to taking me to NYC at the beginning of October for a weekend getaway in honor of my birthday.  We just need to find someone to watch our kids for 3 days.  Easier said than done, but my beloved doesn’t think about that sort of thing.  Of course he’s used to having someone else be responsible for his children.  He’s a good Dad to the children he has with me, but he is gone a lot because of his job and even when he's home he's often still working.  He’s only had physical custody of his oldest son for the last 3 years; he has 2 other children that don’t live with him; one he only sees every other weekend and the other he’s never even met.  I suppose that is harsh, but I can’t take it back, it’s true.  He’s been a part time dad most of his life and even though he tries his best, he has a disturbing ability to be separated from his children for long periods of time, leaving them in the care of others without feeling bad?  I’m not sure how to describe it.  It just seems to me that most full time parents of small children have an instinct to be present with their kids as much as possible and if too much time goes by it’s a problem.  It’s not like that for my husband.  He’s totally fine leaving his kids for extended periods with other people while he pursues his own interests.  And he totally expects that other people will just be okay caring for them while he's off doing whatever.  Not that he doesn’t miss them or want to be with them, he’s just not as affected by being absent.  He only had to be a weekend dad for so long, and he had the freedom to dip off for weeks at a time and it was fine because his "baby's mother" was doing all the heavy lifting.  As a dad as long as he came around on a somewhat regular basis and paid child support he was a "good dad". It's like that for a guy. The mom does most of the work, makes all the sacrifices and deals with the everyday, monotonous routine that is parenting, but parttime dads get to show up when it's convenient for them, spend a few hours every other weekend playing the role and everyone is impressed. Smdh.

Baby Boy

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

At work, my little 30 minute lunch break.  Don’t remember what time I clocked out or how long I’ve been clocked out.  I’ll probably be late clocking back in, sadly I don’t care.  At least not as much as I should.  It’s not that I don’t like my job, I guess I do, there are aspects of it that are kind of cool.  I like my coworkers most days.  I got unofficially demoted while I was on maternity leave in a rather shady fashion but if I’m honest I don’t really want the responsibilities of being the lab manager anyway.  Bryan is a nice guy and he has a lot more experience than I do, I can learn from him.  I didn’t get a reduction in pay and I’m still getting full time hours so I guess it worked out pretty sweet.  The only reason I’m looking to leave is because of the hours.  I’ve been working retail for 4 years now and frankly I want my nights and weekends back.  My husband’s job is so demanding, one of us needs to have a standard routine schedule.  We have 2 little kids and one obnoxious teenager living in our house, so organization is essential to making this work.

I drove my oldest baby up to college this past weekend.  I cried a little, but I’m mostly happy.  I know how much he wanted to get away, especially after all the drama of the last year.  He really moved away at the end of May, the last day of school he packed up everything he could into my mother’s car and hauled ass out of my home. It wasn’t me he was running away from but rather the drama that had taken over my home as a result of my husband actions.  My house had become downright insufferable for my son, he toughed out those last couple months but I knew that when I let my husband move back home I had inadvertently accelerated my son’s departure.  So fast-forward to this past weekend, I had already cried so much over these last months I guess there wasn’t much left.  I got a little misty a couple times but at this point I guess I was feeling the same sense of relief that he was.  Not relief that he was gone, I will always want my baby boy near me, rather relief that he had finally gotten enough distance from a situation that had caused him so much pain.

At this point I just pray that he is successful.  I’m trying to determine how much I should contact him.  I want him to know I care and that I’m thinking about him but I don’t want to be a bug.  He’s very independent, not a mushy kind of kid.  He and I have good communication but we’re not really touchy feely if you know what I mean.  We can talk and joke but don’t get into feelings a lot.  I do tell him I love him sometimes.  Occasionally he’ll say it back.  My hana hoona apple dumpling pie head.  The first time I ever remember loving anyone so much that nothing else mattered.  

Love

Love.  People like to write songs about it. It's one of those things that sounds like a great idea, sounds like fun, like a grand adventure. We wish for it, hope for it, pray for it. We think that if we're good and patient like little kids waiting for Christmas that love will show up like presents from Santa Claus under the tree.

I think I'm drunk. Double shot of Jack and 3 Heinekens. Lightweight, I know. I'm laid out on the lawn of the Courtyard Marriott. It's chilly but I don't want to go inside. I really wanted to smoke some weed but the job I'm trying to get is going to drug test me so I have to stay clean for at least the next couple weeks.

I'm not gonna cry. I could cry. If I allowed it I could find myself sprawled out on this lawn sobbing like my dog just died, but I won't. Instead I will hide behind giggles and mindless chatter because that is what you do when your heart has been ripped out, broken, shattered, stomped, lit on fire and buried under a pile of shit and there's nothing you can do about it. You still have to go on living because there are people counting on you. People who rely on you, so you put on the face and you hold it together.

Write It Down Stupid Girl

The other day I had a thought, the beginning of a thought.  Like a moment of inspiration that probably could have led to something interesting.  I said to myself inside my head, "Dumb bitch, take a minute and write that down.  Grab the laptop or at least a notebook and record this shit before you forget it."  But I didn't because I am a stupid girl, so now I can't remember it.  Something about Sade and Adele.  Their music so goddamn sad and sultry.  Their music is the melodic equivalent of what was once my best writings.  Not to assert that I match either of their talents, not even close, at least not yet.  But the way that music makes me feel, miserable, alone, desperate, longing, that in your bones ache that can only be filled by the one you lost.  Or the one you can never have.


Proving to the gods of love that I'm worthy.  Proving to gods of love that I'm up for it, that I'm equal to the challenge.  Preparing to be the Rhonda Rousey of love.  Knocked down. Hard.
But.
Not.
Out.

Getting up kicking and swinging, fixing to fuck somebody up.

Somewhat Less Angry, No Less Wounded

So, I may have given the impression lo' these last few posts that my husband is an irredeemable hopeless asshole, devoid of virtue or conscious.  While it's true there have been moments in the not too distant past that I did feel that way, wholeheartedly, the regrettable truth is that I love him.  In my naive heart I believe that behind all the terrible decisions driven by stupidity, selfishness, insecurity and a fragile ego, he is... a good man.  I hate that.  Almost every day, sometimes multiple times throughout the day I feel hostility towards him rising up in me like acid reflux and I have to beat in down so I can function.  I have to battle against the undeniable urge to call him a liar or a piece of shit, punch him in the face and/or push him down a flight of stairs.  I have to force myself to let him touch me and will myself to enjoy it on some level, even though all the while in my head I am subjected to imaginations of him touching her.  When he whispers his pillow talk I get flashes of him saying those same things to her.  It's like in Clockwork Orange when the guy has eyes wired open and is forced to view horrible scenes of violence and human misery.  That's what my brain does to me.  Except instead of torture and murder, by mind shows me scenes of my husband romancing and fucking other women.  I see his twisted smile, I hear their moans of ecstasy.  I have dreams.  The sames dreams I had a year ago.  The same dreams I've had almost the entire time I've been married to him.  Vivid, heart-wrenching dreams of him saying the cruelest things to me.  I dreamed of his betrayal many times over.  I knew how it would feel long before I ever felt it because something inside me sensed it coming.  I spent countless nights in unconscious despair, sobbing over shadows of future aching.  Sleeping next to the person who loved me to my face while sharpening the knife behind my back.  "Cruel tongue tear souls like steel tipped whips..."

I know we say that no one is perfect and to truly you love someone you have to accept their good and their bad.  Marriage as an institution aggressively tests that theory.  It's one thing to love and support a child that is a piece of shit.  They are apart of you, your DNA runs through them, you've loved them from even before they were born so you have a special ability to bear with all their bullshit.  Your child can break your heart 100 times over and you'll still be there believing the best about them.  That's a parent's love.  But can it be that way for spouses?  And if so, at what point is it just foolish and ill-advised?  When is it faith and when is just foolishness?

Love is patient, love is kind, love keeps no record of wrongs, love takes no pleasure in bad things but rejoices in virtuous things.  Love hopes all things, believes all things, endures all things.  Love never fails.  That's my simplified translation of I Corinthians chapter 13 verses 4 through 7.  Sounds awesome, right?  Everyone loves that definition of love because we each imagine ourselves on the receiving end of it.  We want someone who will love us unconditionally, through all the challenges and hurts, someone who will forgive us when we fall short, someone who will gloss over our mistakes as effortlessly as we do and focus only on our attempts and good intentions, rather than on all the times that we majorly fuck up.  However, I realize that in order for this model of love to work, really work in real time I have to be willing to give that love.  I have to bear with his faults.  I have to be patient.  I can't keep a record of his wrongdoings.  I have to believe the best about him.  If I claim to love him, I have to love him.  I think what is implied by that beautiful scripture is that love is HARD.  Love hurts and love will break your heart.  But if we want the beauty we have to embrace the beast.

It's a cheap cheat to post lyrics to a song written by someone else in my blog, but I love this song and it expresses exactly what I'm feeling.

They say it's a river that circles the earth
A beam of light shining to the edge of the universe
It conquers all, it changes everything

They say it's a blessing, they say it's a gift
They say it's a miracle and I believe that it is
It conquers all but it's a mystery

Love breaks your heart
Love takes no less than everything
Love makes it hard
And it fades away so easily

In this world we've created, in this place that we live
In the blink of an eye babe, the darkness slips in
Love lights the world, unites the lovers for eternity

Love breaks the chains
Love aches for everyone of us
Love takes the tears and the pain
And it turns it in to the beauty that remains

Look at this place
It was paradise but now it's dying
I'll pray for love
I'll take my chances that it's not too late

Love breaks your heart
Love takes no less than everything
Love makes it hard
And it fades away so easily, oh, oh, oh

Love breaks the chains
Love aches for everyone of us
Love takes the tears and the pain
And it turns it in to the beauty that remains

Vanessa Williams - Love Is Lyrics | MetroLyrics

Wife in the City

In DC visiting the husband while he is in town for work.  2 and a half hour drive so of course I'm at the bar.  Apparently you can't get Yuengling Lager south of the Delaware border so I'm enjoying a Cape Town Heineken with my double shot of Jack.  Not trying to get drunk, just want to get nice.  I get to spend at least the next 24 hours with no kids so I'm hoping to spend most of it in that happy warm place achieved through alcohol.  Or weed.  But I don't have any weed.  I need to get a dealer.
Can I be honest with you internet?  I recently find myself thinking about having an affair.  There isn't anyone in particular in mind, as a matter of fact there's no one that has managed to catch my attention in quite some time, but still, in the back of my mind I quietly find myself wishing I would come across someone who would give me the tingles enough to be tempted.  I haven't had that new sex feeling in 6 years, 2009 was the last time I introduced a new dick to my JJ and I kind of miss it.  Actually, the hubby wasn't even new dick at that point, he was a repeat from the past.  The last authentically "new" dick was... wow, not even sure.  Either way, I find myself craving the thrill of that first encounter.  The flirting, the chasing, the innuendo. Extended eye contact, being playful, feeling sexy, wondering when "it" was going to happen.  How long would you tease and dance around the inevitable?  When you could just be two people wrapped up in each other, living the moment to the fullest.  No kids, no bills, no cockblocking reality ruining the moment.  That's why he cheated on me.  He wanted something new, something exciting, something fun and easy.  Light.  Real life is so fucking heavy some days.  Adult life is so goddamn boring.  Sometimes you just want that Phil Collins "In the Air" moment.  You know that fucking song.  There's that moment towards the end of the song about 3:15 minutes in when the drums come in and it's like "Oh shit, it's about to go down."  You don't even really listen to the first part of the song, it's like background elevator music; something about letting somebody drown?  But then the music gets all dramatic and then BAM!  DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA... I CAN FEEL IT COMING IN THE AIR TONIGHT OH LORD!  And you're like all shit, it just got real, and your panties just like slide down your legs. lol
But alas, I don't think I'd actually do it.  Lord knows I would be justified in having a little fling.  That rat bastard started a whole relationship and made a fucking baby with his side piece.  I should be allowed to get even with tryst without feeling guilty.  His stupid bitch is going to be in our lives for at least the next 18 muther fucking goddamn 18 years FUCK MY LIFE.  Did I mention that I hate her?  I hate her kid too.  There, I said it internet.  Now judge me.  Fuck you.  I hate the kid my husband made with his whore.  Judge me.