Hey YOU!

A fool knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Franklin & Bash

So Very True...

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. ~Thomas Edison

Divorce, the Devil and a dying idea.

I've been thinking a lot lately about marriage, and commitment. Perhaps it is because of the number of broken relationships I see around me. Friends who are stuck in loveless marriages, friends who are on the verge of separation, friends who have found out their spouses have been having long standing affairs. A once solid, and eternal idea is now becoming temporary.

And this makes me wonder, why? If people lie, and cheat, and break hearts what is the purpose of entering into something permanent like a marriage? Why enter into a relationship with someone, and willing stay in the relationship with them if it's not where you want to be? Married or not. I see it in my friends who are just dating. The same idea, I can't leave... I can't move on... it was good once it can be good again.

I understand the importance of stability. I hear a lot, "I can't leave because of the kids," but don't you think that watching your parents indulge in affairs, and fight, and harbor resentment and disdain for each other is equally detrimental to their development as growing up in a broken home.

I was thrilled when my parents divorced, not because I didn't want them together but because for the first time in years my parents were happy. My mother met and entered into a relationship with the man who she still calls the love of her life, 4 years after his death.

I guess my point is I don't understand why it's so hard to just be happy? If a relationship isn't working... then it's not working. As cliched as it may be, it's called a break up because it's broken. It's a cheesy self-help book, but the title is accurate.



And I realize I might get some backlash for this. Marriage is a sanctity. Marriage is suppose to be forever. Divorce is the Devil. Yeah, it is. I would completely agree with that. But too many people enter into relationships, and marriages lightly. To many times people get married for the wrong reasons (trust me, I could write a book on the subject). Why stay in it if it's broken. Life is too short to be anything less than happy.


So be happy. It really is just.that.simple.

Clarity

The date is fast approaching. I found a piggy bank, painted it red white and blue and named him Clarity. Once he reaches $300 I'll officially file for my divorce against Rick. The ghost of the past relationship has been left behind to linger in the floor boards of other homes. My heart has let go. My heart has moved on. I realized I was completely over it the day I finally got rid of my engagement ring. That was my stepping stone, that moment of no return. And I must say, I'm happy.

I love living on my own, just Evelyn and me. I love watching her grow and learn. How she cackles and runs and plays. The child is so goofy. It's hard to not be completely mesmerized by her. And that is all that I am left with when it comes to Rick. Sadness that he is choosing to miss out on her. His loss. Pity because he's never going to be more than he is, because he chooses not to be. I've fought my way here... and he won't take that from me.

He refused me my one request. The truth. Closure. So I got the facts, and I saw him for the kind of man he really is, I set him straight, and I stole my own closure. And now I'm done. And that is one of the most refreshing feelings in the world.

And not a moment to late. Because I know what I want. Because I know what I deserve. And I've already seen the possibilities that lay before me...

Needless to say. I'm a happy girl. I'm a whole girl. And all the things he told me: he'd break me, he'd make me hate him, he'd make me regret everything that ever happened between us: he was wrong.

I'm not that kind of girl, who clings to the past and braces it to myself like a shield, an excuse to avoid the good things in life. I'm not the kind of person to hold grudges.

And so, I make this my official last Rick Scotton related entry. Maybe more so for his benefit than mine (since he cyber stalks my blog). I don't wish bad on him, I don't wish anything at all.

Like the song goes, "I'm not sorry I met you, I'm not sorry it's over, I'm not sorry there's nothing to say."

Shuffling Ghosts

This past weekend marked a milestone in my young adult life. I moved into my own place. No roommate. No sibling. No parent. No spouse. Just walls, hardwood floors, my daughter, and myself.

The house I moved into, a two-story home around my grandmother’s age originally had strange wallpaper and handmade shelves all throughout the house. Now, I have a retro green kitchen, and a pretty pink princess room for Evie, purple plastered against the four walls of my bedroom, and a chocolate brown living-room that is warm and inviting. It wasn’t easy turning a home that was built by someone else and lived in for years into mine… but it’s already almost there.

And that took me painting over the wallpaper, and removing the nick-knacks from the shelves, and painting over the growth chart of the two little girls on my bedroom’s door-frame. It made me sad, to pack up “Janice” as April lovingly refers to her and stack her in boxes in the upstairs loft, and was yet another reminder of how everything in life is temporary. I keep getting reminded of that every day.

While Janice was being transferred out of the new home, I took great care to make sure I left other ghosts behind me. Traces of Rick still linger through out the walls of my old place, traces of hurtful conversations and broken promises and moments of weakness that now linger in the pit of my stomach making me sick. 

This house is more than a milestone. It’s a new start. And it’s a new start Evelyn and I both need.

Broken

In the 10 years I've dated, and the countless relationships I've had I've never once experience what it feels like to be broken. I've been hurt... but I've never been broken. The notion always amused me... broken as if I were some kind of an expensive china doll.

That lousy SOB broke me.

Why has it taken me a year to realize this?

A Jewel

If I could tell the world just one thing
It would be that we're all OK
And not to worry 'cause worry is wasteful
And useless in times like these
I won't be made useless
I won't be idle with despair
I will gather myself around my faith
For light does the darkness most fear

Challenges 2011

I've been reading a lot about people entering "challenges" today.

The 365 day challenge, a blog challenge which is exactly as it sounds.
The book a week challenge, which is also a challenge that is exactly as it sounds.
The morning pages challenge, a challenge in which a writer will partake in a routine of writing three pages every morning, as soon as you wake up.

These challenges all seem nice. These challenges all seem fun. These challenges appear to be gateways of avoidance.

I have to many other challenges to deal with right now.
The challenge of single parenthood.
The challenge of taking the final steps in my divorce.
The challenge of self-restraint (and trust me, it is DIFFICULT).

Oh the challenges we face. I'd love to let my muse take over the challenges for a bit.

Right on Schedule...

It's been 4 months. I have been waiting for it to all kick back into place. His mood swings are like clock work, but oh so predictable.

I keep trying to, but I realize I will never understand what would really possess a man to WILLINGLY walk away from their child. And for what? What is the price of missing out on a life you created?

It makes me sad.
And it makes me feel sorry for them... the men who really don't care.
And it makes me worry for the children who are getting tormented by it.

Luckily for me, Evelyn isn't old enough to know any better yet.

Just What My Morning Needed.... a little poetry

"You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
call to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things."
— Mary Oliver

::Sigh::

Breathe into my hands or cup them like a glass to drink from.
Are you still, still breathing?

2005 Feminist Manifesto

Going through old files of things I have written today I came across an assigment from May 2005. A Feminist Manifesto. I wanted to share it.

    
      I am a woman. I am a feminist. Do you expect me to apologize? There is no “but” at the end of my statements. I am not defending my mentality, or my ways of thinking. I’m not making excuses for what lies between my legs.

          Why does a man’s honor lie between a woman’s legs? At what pivotal moment did the standard of masculinity shift from a man’s ability to acquire land to his ability to take a woman and her virginity? We are not trophies.

          Why do we still say, “take a woman’s virginity”? Intelligent, well-spoken women even today make this reference when they are discussing their first sexual experiences. It is always “the man who TOOK my virginity,” but never the “man whose virginity I took.” In that case we say, “I was his first.” As far as I am concerned a thief did not steal my virginity from me. My “maiden-head” was not lost or tricked out of me by the cunning manipulation of the opposite sex. It was not TAKEN from me. I make a point to say “my first” now.

          A Salem Junior who lives on my hall told me a story about her father. She tells me how he always encouraged her to do great things, and be what ever she wanted to be when she grew up: a doctor, a pilot, or even a soldier. However, when they would go to the store and buy her erasers for school he would always make her put back the blue eraser and buy a pink one instead. As children we do not notice the influential things that affect our mindsets. As adults it is difficult for us to look back and recognize the mistakes in our paths. Would you understand the difference between the blue and pink eraser?

          Why, despite the fact that woman can handle more pain then man, (i.e. child birth) and are still described and determined as the “weaker” and “fairer” sex?

          We need to get out of the mindset of male/female separation. In school, from the very beginning of our education, we are taught that “He was the first to” or “He discover” something significant. Where as we also learn that “She was the first WOMAN to” or “She was the WOMAN who discovered” as if her sex alone creates more significance in her incapability to discover and do otherwise.

          Do not dismiss woman’s emotional distress and anger on her present state of health. Just because she may be pregnant or having her monthly menstrual cycle does not give a man or a woman right to dismiss the emotions which are expressed. These states do not unjustify a woman’s feelings.

          Woman must not submit to male normality.

          Woman must not accept, and embrace the separate standards set for men and woman by family or society; domestic, educational and sexual standards that are conditioned into small children. There are young girls who are forced to play house during kindergarten instead of being allowed playing with the boys in the sandbox. This not only creates segregation among children as young as five years old but it encourages the belief that woman MUST marry, must have children, must keep house while men work with their hands. A son and a daughter are exposed to different expectations of them from their parents. If the daughter gets a C it is unacceptable but if the boy gets a C it is the best he can do. These experiences condition females to strive for perfection in fear of being ostracized while as the man can slide by and be accepted as a social norm. A woman is not allowed to be sexual or explore her sexuality because it is unacceptable.

          Women are not whores. I have not been with many men, however it takes one to attach such a derogatory term to my name. My sexuality does not decrease my intelligence; it does not make me inadequate or injury my ability to function, work, or live. All it does is cause people to give me looks on the side of the street despite not knowing my name. Women must kill in themselves the desire to be accepted, the desire to fit in socially. “Women must kill in themselves the desire to be loved,” stated Mina Loy in her feminist manifesto. Once women stop defining themselves by what they are not they will begin to associate and discover who they are.

          Why do men desire a virgin as a wife, yet do not want to save themselves for marriage? They want purity, yet in the dating world expect their girlfriends to “put out”. This encourages woman being considered whores for their sexual endeavors and men heroes in their sexual conquests. Women must stop living by hypocritical standards.

       

       

Can't Live With 'Em...

Conversation with a good friend of mine:

Me: (after he propositioned me jokingly) of course you would. you're a man. and i'm like a new power tool... everyone wants it but thinks it's a little too expensive so they want to wait till their neighbor buys one and borrow it.

Him: you're not a power tool, if so, you're like the one on the top shelf you can't reach

awww... I love it when people turn my self deprecation into a good thing.

Funky McFunkerson

It happens to all of us.

We go to bed, maybe a little irritated or perhaps just slightly more exhausted then normal. We snuggle into the comfort of our 250 thread count sheets and close our eyes and wait. We steady our breathing. We hold as still as our body physically can. We stretch our neck, flex our toes. And then we roll over. Repeat. And then we roll over again. We continue to toss, turn, keep our eyes closed in hopes that eventually the Sand Man from our childhood bedtime stories comes and shows his mercy on us. You think, "I've been a good girl. If Santa will bring me a Coach Bag for Christmas as a reward for being a good girl surely the Sand Man can give me one freaking night of peaceful sleep."

Still. Black. Silence.

And it's always the same. It's never one night, or even two. No. It's days upon days upon days. And that's when it leads into a period of "funk".

You know the one. Coffee doesn't taste as good, but you drink twice as much of it. The front temples in your head throb without any cause or remedy. You lack the energy to bathe (but still remind yourself to do it daily). Simple activites like brushing your hair, putting on makeup, feeding yourself suddely become chores.

Look around the office. See the girl who's hair is up in a messy pony-tail, body slinking down into the desk chair, head slightly tilted to the side as she stares blankly at her computer screen. Funk.

The guy who's shirt is slightly more wrinkled than normal, laying his head in his hands as he props his arm up on the desk. Funk.

It has happened to the best of us. And although these periods literally feel like they are going to last forever it is a well known fact that NOTHING in this world last forever. Even our mortality reminds us, everything is temporary.
My point? I'm in a funk. I'm bathed and I even managed to put on a tiny bit of eye liner this morning but I am still in a funk. And this one, it's a bad one. It's probrably one of the worst since my separation and pending divorce.
And this is not a time when I wanna be in a funk. Evelyn is walking and talking and growing so much I just want to take her to the park or the Zoo or the beach and witness and she sees things for the first time. She's such an adventrous child and it brings out the best in me.

I want to strive and study and excell in my new job because it is nothing like I have ever done before and I love it. I want to be excited about it and eager.

I want to be enthusastic about moving into a new place, a more stable home, a home that (may or may not) be just my daughter and me. It has never been just the two of us before and the thought is thrilling. I've never lived alone.
I want to be hopeful and excited about the free fiction workshop I'm doing this month and being around writers and artists in my area. A chance to reconnect with my Kindred. A chance to reintroduce myself to my muse. A chance to meet new people.

I want to be excited about the (possible) pending purchase of a new camera. FINALLY! I can indulge in my inner creativety and start photographing again.

But I can't. I can't because of this stupid idiot funk that is lingering in my bones. It's seeping through my eyes and causing my already restless nights to become completely sleep deprived.

I want out of this funk. I want to enjoy the summer time. But the things that normally drag me out of them; friends, shopping, extreme physical changes... even they fail to excite me.

Reminding myself that it's only temporary is getting old. And in the mean time, trying to force myself to enjoy these lovely moments it's exhausting me further. It can't last much longer.

Can it?