What is it about a new shirt, a pretty necklace or a new pair of shoes that can make me feel so good? Is it the rush of something new? Is it the vision of new possibilities that are more intriguing than those shoved in my closet? Is it the spending of money? Perhaps it is for the feelings of acceptance and approval that come with "oh I L-O-V-E your dress!!! Where did you get it????" Or is it that I just want to look good?
I'm not sure of the answer but I do know that shopping makes me feel good.
Shopping itself is therapeutic, try something on - you don't like it, try something new. If you don't like the color or size or cut, chances are there will be someone there running to get you the color or size you want. And the girls in the changing room, they are great for the self-esteem. "OMG you look great!!! you have to get that!!!" Yes I know it's their job, but how easy is it to get wrapped up in the moment and buy that top?
Enough with the reflection, how do I look good in this dress, it's new?
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
There is no crying in baseball...
A week ago, I was walking into school to pick up my kids. Everything was going fine. I've got a smile on my face and a skip in my step. I can handle this. I am good with "the breakup". I am good with the house in foreclosure.I am good being a single mom.
All is good.
And then everything stops. A friend, a colleague really, says hey how are you? Just one of those rhetorical questions that the asker doesn't expect an answer...much less one that involves tears! I paused before I answered, thinking to myself "how am I REALLY?" and then the tears started. There I was in the hallway at school stifling back the tears wondering (as I said earlier..How did I get here?).
Arms went around my back and the floodgates were opened...tears that had been pent up for weeks, maybe months came rushing out. And as I was crying, I was told "there is no crying in baseball"...but this isn't baseball I thought. This is a game with much more complex rules...fouls are allowed, stealing expected and you never know what pitch is coming up next and hearts not bats get broken. The tears continued through the hug and when I was let go..the tears stopped. I went ahead and picked up my children and we set off together with the phrase "there's no crying in baseball echoing in my ears".
But this is real life and there are tears. But for now my tears have subsided and I am good. Really. I am.
All is good.
And then everything stops. A friend, a colleague really, says hey how are you? Just one of those rhetorical questions that the asker doesn't expect an answer...much less one that involves tears! I paused before I answered, thinking to myself "how am I REALLY?" and then the tears started. There I was in the hallway at school stifling back the tears wondering (as I said earlier..How did I get here?).
Arms went around my back and the floodgates were opened...tears that had been pent up for weeks, maybe months came rushing out. And as I was crying, I was told "there is no crying in baseball"...but this isn't baseball I thought. This is a game with much more complex rules...fouls are allowed, stealing expected and you never know what pitch is coming up next and hearts not bats get broken. The tears continued through the hug and when I was let go..the tears stopped. I went ahead and picked up my children and we set off together with the phrase "there's no crying in baseball echoing in my ears".
But this is real life and there are tears. But for now my tears have subsided and I am good. Really. I am.
And you may ask yourself-well...how did I get here?
The talking heads said it best...how did I get here? and I ask myself How DID I get here?! This is not my beautiful house. Where is that large automobile?
Minutes turn to days, and days into years and one day we wake up from the fog and ask ourselves "how did we get here?" Sometimes the answer is as simple as, "I must have been asleep at the wheel" or "well it wasn't that bad" or "things could always change" or "it hasn't been that long". But one thing I've learned, and although it has taken me a long time to learn it...the more things change...the more they stay the same.
People don't change. We are who we are. Our idiosyncrasies, our pet peeves, the way we fold our t-shirts and towels, these things don't change. Our parenting techniques, whether we say to-ma-to or tah-ma-to these stay the same. In essence the reasons some relationships just don't work out will remain the same reasons, regardless of effort. The reasons to break up the first time remain the same reasons to break up a second and a third time and so on and so on until your head spins and wonders "how did I get here?"
I guess as much as we say it's all about progress, at the root of us we remain the same. I am the same girl who competed in science fairs, who thought her father was amazing, that played the french horn for oh so many years and never mastered it. I am me. I am lazy (a bit) I am giving (too much) I am loving (with all my heart) I am expressive (my heart is on my sleeve I am competitive (sports, grades, promotions). I am as Meyer Briggs expressed an extrovert, intuitive feeling perceptive personality. I was that in high school, college, first job and even now. We remain the same unless challenged in extraordinary and unpredicted ways. If the status quo works, why change...I think I need to change (a bit)
To think back about the energy I spent trying to make a past relationship work, I sigh and truly wonder why, why did I work so hard? I knew what the eventual outcome would be and yet, for all that I tried, the neuroses remained, the inflexibility and unwillingness to adapt to new situations remained regardless of his pleas and promises of change. The writing is and has been on the wall for almost a year now and despite a series of renewed and invigorated attempts to "make it work" to "try harder" we remain well...to quote the talking heads again...same as it ever was.
I've moved on. He says too fast. I say I've been expecting the shoe to drop for months that he was already gone. He calls and cries. He apologizes and says he can change but I've heard it before and I don't want to wake up another year from now asking myself "My God, what have I done".
I've put him behind me. I am not only asking myself how did I get here but where do I go from here? The fear of being alone and attempting life by myself is gone. I know that there are adventures waiting for me and just knowing that they exist will help me find my way.
So ask yourself "How did I get here?" and hopefully, if things are going right, you be able to say because this is where I want to be.
Minutes turn to days, and days into years and one day we wake up from the fog and ask ourselves "how did we get here?" Sometimes the answer is as simple as, "I must have been asleep at the wheel" or "well it wasn't that bad" or "things could always change" or "it hasn't been that long". But one thing I've learned, and although it has taken me a long time to learn it...the more things change...the more they stay the same.
People don't change. We are who we are. Our idiosyncrasies, our pet peeves, the way we fold our t-shirts and towels, these things don't change. Our parenting techniques, whether we say to-ma-to or tah-ma-to these stay the same. In essence the reasons some relationships just don't work out will remain the same reasons, regardless of effort. The reasons to break up the first time remain the same reasons to break up a second and a third time and so on and so on until your head spins and wonders "how did I get here?"
I guess as much as we say it's all about progress, at the root of us we remain the same. I am the same girl who competed in science fairs, who thought her father was amazing, that played the french horn for oh so many years and never mastered it. I am me. I am lazy (a bit) I am giving (too much) I am loving (with all my heart) I am expressive (my heart is on my sleeve I am competitive (sports, grades, promotions). I am as Meyer Briggs expressed an extrovert, intuitive feeling perceptive personality. I was that in high school, college, first job and even now. We remain the same unless challenged in extraordinary and unpredicted ways. If the status quo works, why change...I think I need to change (a bit)
To think back about the energy I spent trying to make a past relationship work, I sigh and truly wonder why, why did I work so hard? I knew what the eventual outcome would be and yet, for all that I tried, the neuroses remained, the inflexibility and unwillingness to adapt to new situations remained regardless of his pleas and promises of change. The writing is and has been on the wall for almost a year now and despite a series of renewed and invigorated attempts to "make it work" to "try harder" we remain well...to quote the talking heads again...same as it ever was.
I've moved on. He says too fast. I say I've been expecting the shoe to drop for months that he was already gone. He calls and cries. He apologizes and says he can change but I've heard it before and I don't want to wake up another year from now asking myself "My God, what have I done".
I've put him behind me. I am not only asking myself how did I get here but where do I go from here? The fear of being alone and attempting life by myself is gone. I know that there are adventures waiting for me and just knowing that they exist will help me find my way.
So ask yourself "How did I get here?" and hopefully, if things are going right, you be able to say because this is where I want to be.
Friday, May 29, 2009
anger....
How is it that my 7 year old son has more anger in him than I do? I mean I'm the one who is 35 (almost 36), single, starting over, basically single mother of 2, NOT getting child support, back to work and broke...
I thought I'd done my best to protect him from the whole situation. The break up. The divorce. All the changes....I did my best to make the changes as small and as non-disruptive as possible. But here we are 1.5 years after the split and he still cowers before men...even my father who would not hurt a fly and he is still scared of my dad...
He loses complete control when things don't go exactly as planned and tells me "I don't know why I get so angry but when I do, ...I can't stop it.."
What do you do with that?
We're doing counseling. Family therapy (sans dad b/c he feels the whole thing is bull-shit (his words not mine). He told me (and I quote) "any problems with the boy can be solved in about 20 minutes with a serious beating". My thoughts. Not. Going. To Happen.
What next? What should I do? His therapist is recommending removing all custodial rights from his father. Is that the right thing? I use to love his dad, I use to think he was a good man...and now...I don't know. I'm not sure about anything other than I'll do anything to keep my kids safe and try to make them happy...
I thought I'd done my best to protect him from the whole situation. The break up. The divorce. All the changes....I did my best to make the changes as small and as non-disruptive as possible. But here we are 1.5 years after the split and he still cowers before men...even my father who would not hurt a fly and he is still scared of my dad...
He loses complete control when things don't go exactly as planned and tells me "I don't know why I get so angry but when I do, ...I can't stop it.."
What do you do with that?
We're doing counseling. Family therapy (sans dad b/c he feels the whole thing is bull-shit (his words not mine). He told me (and I quote) "any problems with the boy can be solved in about 20 minutes with a serious beating". My thoughts. Not. Going. To Happen.
What next? What should I do? His therapist is recommending removing all custodial rights from his father. Is that the right thing? I use to love his dad, I use to think he was a good man...and now...I don't know. I'm not sure about anything other than I'll do anything to keep my kids safe and try to make them happy...
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Tuesday....the cleaning lady comes...
The other day my boyfriend (yes, I call him that now!) went into the garage to get a soda out of the icebox. He came back in and said I was living in squalor. SQUALOR!! Now not that I'm sensitive or anything, or feel overwhelmed just in the everyday nuances of feeding, bathing, and dressing 2 children,working full-time, taking care of house, dealing with a foreclosure, etc, but I started crying. Ok, not big fat alligator tears, more like, oh my, is this my life, tears.
So...there might be a bit of truth in his statement; but the truth hurts. I haven't unpacked all the boxes in the garage from my move since the "split with the ex- husband". Well, maybe that's not exactly true, I've unpacked them a little, bringing the stuff I needed into the house and leaving the rest strewn about the garage. OK point in case, my daughter just came into the office (I am not making this up!) with a pyrex measuring cup, a coffee cup, a box of tile grout, a random key, one quarter, two rolls of Christmas wrapping paper and the tassel from my high school graduation. I am not kidding, this really, really did just happen. Again, the truth hurts.
On a similar note, it was probably just a week or so ago that I finally brought in my engagement ring and wedding ring from the garage (they were sitting in a box of un-needed bathroom supplies!)
So more about the squalor of the garage..maybe the cats did poop in the garage AND maybe I hadn't quite had a chance to clean it up before he went into the garage. AND maybe there was a bag or two of trash and recyclables that had not quite made to the street YET. But I wouldn't quite say squalor.
Maybe, now in retrospect, squalor might be an accurate adjective....Mind you I said maybe!
A discussion of my inability to accept help ensued. He had offered me several weeks ago to hire a cleaning lady to come and do a solid cleaning of the house. I never called the woman. It's just weird. I don't know, I feel weird about him paying for someone to clean my house. He says its the least he can do. He says he knows I'm overwhelmed with so many other things, let him do this for me...and still I don't call. WHAT is wrong with me!??!?!? So after his journey into the garage, he made the call and she is coming Tuesday at 9 am. Oh shit, I'm going to have start cleaning soon so the house is not a total embarrassment when she shows up! I let you know how operation clean house goes.
So...there might be a bit of truth in his statement; but the truth hurts. I haven't unpacked all the boxes in the garage from my move since the "split with the ex- husband". Well, maybe that's not exactly true, I've unpacked them a little, bringing the stuff I needed into the house and leaving the rest strewn about the garage. OK point in case, my daughter just came into the office (I am not making this up!) with a pyrex measuring cup, a coffee cup, a box of tile grout, a random key, one quarter, two rolls of Christmas wrapping paper and the tassel from my high school graduation. I am not kidding, this really, really did just happen. Again, the truth hurts.
On a similar note, it was probably just a week or so ago that I finally brought in my engagement ring and wedding ring from the garage (they were sitting in a box of un-needed bathroom supplies!)
So more about the squalor of the garage..maybe the cats did poop in the garage AND maybe I hadn't quite had a chance to clean it up before he went into the garage. AND maybe there was a bag or two of trash and recyclables that had not quite made to the street YET. But I wouldn't quite say squalor.
Maybe, now in retrospect, squalor might be an accurate adjective....Mind you I said maybe!
A discussion of my inability to accept help ensued. He had offered me several weeks ago to hire a cleaning lady to come and do a solid cleaning of the house. I never called the woman. It's just weird. I don't know, I feel weird about him paying for someone to clean my house. He says its the least he can do. He says he knows I'm overwhelmed with so many other things, let him do this for me...and still I don't call. WHAT is wrong with me!??!?!? So after his journey into the garage, he made the call and she is coming Tuesday at 9 am. Oh shit, I'm going to have start cleaning soon so the house is not a total embarrassment when she shows up! I let you know how operation clean house goes.
Friday, April 24, 2009
BFF...
Best friends forever...what a concept. what a beautiful thought...in high school I remember I ended almost all of my secretly passed notes with a BFF or a LYLS (love ya like a sister) closing. But for how many people does this hold true? A friend forever? Through thick and thin? For better or worse? Through sickness and health?
In marriage I didn't find this. But in five people from my past, I have it.
What makes some friends the type that you can go days, weeks, months, even years without talking and the moment you are together or on the phone or chatting on-line the days melt away and it seems as if you were never apart? Those are the best type of friends. You pick up where you left off, never missing a beat; somehow although you both grew; you didn't grow apart, your friendship stayed strong, solid, and dependable.
My question to myself is why do we let those friendships stay idle? Is it because we know now matter what they are safe? Or are we afraid if we try to cultivate them that the thing that makes them special may die? I don't know but I think I"m going to try harder to maintain and sow those friendships...
BFF
Susan
In marriage I didn't find this. But in five people from my past, I have it.
What makes some friends the type that you can go days, weeks, months, even years without talking and the moment you are together or on the phone or chatting on-line the days melt away and it seems as if you were never apart? Those are the best type of friends. You pick up where you left off, never missing a beat; somehow although you both grew; you didn't grow apart, your friendship stayed strong, solid, and dependable.
My question to myself is why do we let those friendships stay idle? Is it because we know now matter what they are safe? Or are we afraid if we try to cultivate them that the thing that makes them special may die? I don't know but I think I"m going to try harder to maintain and sow those friendships...
BFF
Susan
Friday, April 10, 2009
E-Harm-o-who?
In the whole on-line dating scheme, I imagined that the men would be smart, well educated, choose appropriate and flattering profile pictures and be able to communicate their wants and needs with ease and precision. Yeah...not so much.
In the quest for the perfect man, (hee-hee) I signed up for e-harmony. So far I have found men pictured with Santa, the Easter bunny, a big fluffy bischon-frise, their mothers, their fathers, and the best of all Mickey Mouse. Actually the most interesting was the one of the man kissing a dolphin (no, I am not making any of these up). So...I'm left thinking "Really, out of all the photos you have of yourself, this is the one you pick to entice the women?? Really?"
I see misspellings galore, i.e., I am an inteligent man..I am looking for a descent woman...I love cabernat wine...looking for a serius relationship...and so on and so on.... Maybe I expect too much, maybe I want too much , so for now these guys are not in the running for the love of my life... I guess the devil I know is better than the devil I don't....
(actually things are going quite well :) )
In the quest for the perfect man, (hee-hee) I signed up for e-harmony. So far I have found men pictured with Santa, the Easter bunny, a big fluffy bischon-frise, their mothers, their fathers, and the best of all Mickey Mouse. Actually the most interesting was the one of the man kissing a dolphin (no, I am not making any of these up). So...I'm left thinking "Really, out of all the photos you have of yourself, this is the one you pick to entice the women?? Really?"
I see misspellings galore, i.e., I am an inteligent man..I am looking for a descent woman...I love cabernat wine...looking for a serius relationship...and so on and so on.... Maybe I expect too much, maybe I want too much , so for now these guys are not in the running for the love of my life... I guess the devil I know is better than the devil I don't....
(actually things are going quite well :) )
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